Dodder Greenway – constructive debate

Sir, – Further to your article “Finding a greenway through Dublin’s southside” (News, June 8th), on proposals to link the Dodder linear parks of Milltown and Dartry, the route proposed by Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan at a recent meeting outlined two main alternative routes. One, currently favoured by Dublin City Council planners, would run over the Packhorse Bridge, onto Milltown Road and down the hill to Dartry Park; the other, through the practice green of Milltown Golf Club and across the existing bridge at the old dyeworks, would be much less precipitous and therefore more navigable for our less able-bodied citizens.

This is the route which the community volunteer group Dodder Action identified as the best at least six years ago.

Contrary to your report, there are no plans to restrict either pedestrians or cyclists to one or the other side of the river; rather there are plans that cyclists would be more facilitated on one side, not the other, between Classon’s Bridge and Clonskeagh Bridge.

That there is a plan for a Dodder Greenway is hardly news. The stretch in south Co Dublin has largely been built, while the Donnybrook to Ballsbridge route is under construction. Connecting the Milltown riverside walk and Dodder Park at Dartry at the “pinch point” above the Dropping Well, where currently pedestrians and cyclists have to leave the riverside, mount a steep hill and descend another, has the support of most river users. The route is still up for constructive rather than “heated” discussion. – Yours, etc,