Families with loved ones buried at a south Dublin cemetery have welcomed the council’s decision to reroute proposed cycling infrastructure, opting against building it through the graveyard and instead using space gained by scrapping on-street parking to install the lane.
The controversial plan, proposed by councillors in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, involved lowering the cemetery wall to make the route visible from the main road for the safety of users and running it through the graveyard. However, the idea was opposed by campaigners who called it “disrespectful and ill-thought-out”.
Writing on a Facebook page created to oppose the proposal, one local commented on the news the council had scrapped its plan: “The graveyard should be respected as a graveyard and not used as a public park.”
Another added: “Our cemetery can stay as it is, peaceful and tranquil for us to visit our loved ones’ resting places.”
RTÉ reports the news has also been welcomed by campaigners for improved active travel infrastructure, with a majority of councillors supporting a plan to use space gained by scrapping on-street parking to install the segregated cycle lane instead.
This latest proposal is the third iteration, the graveyard plan itself following the original idea to reduce the traffic to one-way to make way for the lane, also opposed by locals and traders who said it would lead to diversions and delays.
Chairing Monday’s county council meeting, councillor Mary Hanafin thanked residents for their input to the consultation.
“It was a very very sensitive issue,” she said. “At no stage did anybody seek to cause hurt or dismay or distress to anybody. People [were] doing a job, coming up with a plan and I hope that nobody would feel that in any way people set out to upset you. Naturally cemeteries, by their very nature, are very very sensitive and very important to families.
“Thank you to those of you who contacted us and for sharing your personal stories which is not easy. The positive side is that you succeeded in not getting a cycle lane through the cemetery, which is very important.
“We will now have a two-way cycle lane which completes the active schools project. Three different programmes, 20 kilometres and 65 schools who now have access to safe routes to school.”
12 thoughts on “Controversial plan for cycle route through graveyard scrapped — council opts to remove on-street parking to make way for scheme instead”
Surely the thing to do is to
Surely the thing to do is to make the cemetery into car parking and then run the bikes outside? (Or just add an extra lane for motor vehicles). A car park will generate useful revenue from the land. The residents are unlikely to complain and there’s plenty of stone there for hardstanding. Also the humps that you get in an active cemetery can function as speed bumps to keep speeds down.
If our goal (which it is in the UK at least) is the maximum throughput of motor traffic then surely it’s a sensible step to take. I can’t understand the outrage?
There is a road near me that
There is a road near me that a few years back went straight through a graveyard and to build it they dug the bodies up and moved them somewhere else.
That is what i call disrespectfull, but hey, cars are more important than a loved ones resting place.
yupiteru wrote:
Or did they? Have there been any cases of small children disappearing and talking back through the television?
yupiteru wrote:
In the UK, a grave can only be owned for 100 years (it might be 120 years?).
I believe in the USA ownership is for perpetuity… which will eventually cause some issues.
Apparently the Council
Apparently the Council conducted a survey and found the incumbents were dead against it.
Plan rejected in the face of
Plan rejected in the face of stiff opposition.
Sriracha wrote:
Recumbents, surely?
Sriracha wrote:
The most common response was “Over my dead body!”
I’ve never thought of it as
I’ve never thought of it as particularly disrespectful, but then I’ve never lived anywhere that has so much cycle commuting that there would be a constant stream past the gravesites.
A beautiful cemetery near me was mismanaged, had no funds left for upkeep, and was taken over by the city a couple of decades ago. It has 6.5 miles (10 km) of winding roads, 78,000 people buried, and is on 223 acres. For a while, the main cycling route to our downtown (used by dozens daily!) went through it, but there’s now an easier bypass. It’s not a through route for motor vehicles most of the time (only one gate open.) Several running events are held there every year, and just this past Sunday a group of us did a ride through it that went up and down a lot of its hills. Most of the people we saw were runners and walkers, not people visiting graves. We would have avoided the area around where anyone was being buried if that was happening.
Its worth noting that the
Its worth noting that the cemetery represents one of the biggest chunks of green space in that area, and there’s a fecking football club abbuting it. I’m betting the residents dont Rest In Peace on match days.
Shouldnt cramped, congested cities be for the living?
Secret_squirrel wrote:
Agree with you on this. I don’t know the exact details, but a town where I used to live has a lovely little park, used by many, which is a former cemetery. The gravestones are all lined up around the walls of the park. Am unsure what happened to the bodies, but I understand the site had not been actively used for generations and that by taking such action not only did maintenance costs be reduced but a utility space was provided.
Grahamd wrote:
There are plenty of traditional solutions for this.