Council to tender for design of €12m Liffey bridge

Bids to design a €12 million pedestrian and cycle bridge over the river Liffey are to be sought by Dublin City Council in the coming weeks.

The bridge will be less than 250m from the Calatrava-designed Samuel Beckett Bridge. However, it will provide a more direct pedestrian link from the northside to the Grand Canal Docks and will relieve pressure on the Beckett bridge, Deirdre Scully, senior planner with the council's docklands office, said.

Extremely busy

“The Samuel Beckett Bridge is extremely busy, particularly at rush hour times, and this new bridge will stop it from moving into over-capacity. It will also improve the flow to Grand Canal Square across the river, which will be particularly important if the Dart interconnector gets the go-ahead.”

The new bridge will connect the old London and North Western Railway Company station on North Wall Quay to Forbes Street on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay on the south of the river and will be funded from levies collected through construction in the Dublin Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ).

The Victorian train station is the planned location of the proposed Dart Underground station. The Government has a month before planning permission expires on the underground line to decide whether it will go ahead.

At €12 million, the bridge will be only €1.5 million cheaper than the most recently built bridge across the river, the Rosie Hackett Bridge, which opened last year.

However, the Rosie Hackett Bridge carries buses and will, from 2017, carry Luas trams, while the new bridge will be for walkers and cyclists only.

A large part of the cost is due to the requirement for the bridge to open to allow boats to travel up the river, Ms Scully said.

Second-greatest span

The bridge will also have the second-greatest span across the river at 125m, five metres more than the Samuel Beckett Bridge. The widest bridge is the East Link, which spans the river at its widest point (150m).

Tenders for the design of the bridge, which will be advertised in the coming weeks, will be for a less dramatic look than the Samuel Beckett Bridge, Ms Scully said. The bridge is due to open in about three years.

A second footbridge is proposed for further down the river, linking Sir John Rogerson’s Quay on the south side with Castleforbes Road on the north side. However there is no timeframe for the development of this bridge.