€10 million sought for Kilkenny greenway
Local authorities in Kilkenny and Wexford are seeking €10m of a total €53 million from the state’s Greenway strategy 2018-2021.
The funding is being sought for the ‘Kilkenny Greenway’. It will run for 22km from Waterford to New Ross.
If the project goes ahead as planned, it would connect Kilkenny and Wexford to the Waterford Greenway.
The total cost of the project is envisaged at €13.3 million, meaning the sum being sought would cover most of the costs.
As part of the application, drone footage was shot of the entire route, in an apparent bid to emphasis how attractive the route could be.
Aside from the cycling and walking greenway, ancillary facilities feature in the plans. These include picnic areas, trails and planting and screening where required.
The submission, which was led by Wexford County Council, also includes business and marketing plans.
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Kilkenny and Wexford are hoping their project can achieve the kind of success enjoyed by the Waterford greenway, which has really taken off since launch almost two years ago.
Kilkenny County Council economic director of services, Sean McKeown, said the proposed Kilkenny greenway should be less challenging to build than the 44km Waterford greenway.
“Unlike Waterford, where there was an abandoned line, in our case we’re talking about a disused line with very little additional land take required,” he said.
“Nor does it include the crossing of a national primary route. But what we do not have is a settlement on the route, unlike Kilmacthomas in Waterford.
“So the lack of ‘animation’ on the trail is certainly something we’ll be examining and attempting to address in due course.”
The drive is on to try to replicate the Waterford greenway and link up to it because that project has been so successful.
Research conducted by Waterford City and County Council last year revealed almost 250,000 people have visited the Waterford greenway in the first eight months.
And of those, 141,906 have cycled on the greenway in the first eight months. Surprisingly, the cycling visits were much higher than those by walkers.
Some 105,639 walked some or all of the greenway. The average spend per person while on the greenway was €28.50.
In total, the Waterford greenway cost €15 million to develop. It runs on the old Dungarvan to Waterford railway line.
Driving on Belfast cycleway
The folks at Northern Ireland greenways were concerned that a cycleway in Belfast had been poorly planned. And so they decided to shoot a video to prove their point.
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Not alone was there a steady flow of traffic across the cycleway, but one motorist drove up it as the camera was rolling.
The driver then right hooked another vehicle coming from behind, as you can see in the video contained in the second tweet below.
I wanted to capture some sense of the traffic levels crossing the cycleway at Franklin St / Sussex Place (foreground) but then one outcome of @deptinfra's poor implementation made my jaw drop - RT when you see it pic.twitter.com/VMralljwxP
— NI Greenways (@nigreenways) December 13, 2018
Peter Sagan's new Sportful kit
Now content with being one of the best cyclists in the world at present, Peter Sagan is also taking care of business.
Following on from the recent release of his book, he now has a new clothing range; the Peter Sagan Line.
It has been produced by Italian clothing company Sportful, which has worked with Sagan before on other clothing.
The latest batch of new clothing includes two different jerseys and bib shorts. There are also socks, caps and gloves. And Sagan also has a range of new T-shirts.
"Peter is well known for his iconic style,” Sportful said of the newly released range.
“We worked with Peter to create a custom apparel collection that expresses Peter's unique personality and legendary performances on the bike.”
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