NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK NEWSLETTER June 2021 |
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PROPOSAL Build the bridge and get Ireland's first Cycle Expressway FREE! |
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It is almost 18 months into the life of the New Decade New Approach agreement, the document which finally awakened the Stormont Assembly from its three and a half year coma. We can be sure that, come the autumn, or maybe sooner given the continuing political fragility, the political parties will be in "Grab a Vote" mode ahead of the May 2022 elections. We will be reminded once again that what we have been campaigning for for years is much needed, long overdue, and a top priority for them. If we are lucky and the NI Assembly remains standing, we will all be on the merry-go-round again. New decade certainly - new approach hardly! As the world prepares for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, climate scientists warn us that this New Decade may provide the world with the last opportunity to avoid the worst horrors of Climate Change. |
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If creating an opportunity to unite communities around the lough, open up the persistently economically underperforming South Down area to the growing interest in sustainable and active tourism of cycling and walking, hasn't managed to shake the politicians from their inexplicable inertia regarding the Narrow Water Bridge perhaps the Climate Emergency will! |
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On the 27 April 21 the German Government used the occasion of the Seventh Annual Cycling Conference to launch its National Traffic Plan 'Cycling Nation Germany 2030.' With astounding thoroughness, even for the Germans, the country that invented the internal combustion engine and the motorway is moving to sustainable travel which will have a radical impact on all aspects of German society. |
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In the country's most populous state of North-Rhine-Westphalia, for example, a number of Cycle Super Highways are under construction. Among the recently completed was the 101 km Duisburg to Hamm Super Highway! The ideal cycling topography and current road layout in and around Narrow Water provides the people of this area with a unique opportunity to take a small but potentially planet-saving leaf out of Germany's cycling playbook - but only if we build the Narrow Water Bridge! |
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By creating a nexus at Narrow Water we enable fast flowing vehicular traffic from the County Louth side to access the A2 dual carriageway on the County Down side and the slow flowing traffic i.e. cyclists, to access the much slower B79/R173 Newry-Omeath Road on the County Louth side. This is absolutely critical if we are serious about facilitating emission-reducing active travel in the area - in this instance between Newry and Warrenpoint, its largest dormitory town! This proposal will solve a significant number of practical issues on the ground and create a number of benefits PLUS provide a considerable saving for the public purse! |
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Pictured is the A2 dual carriageway from Newry to Warrenpoint. The fading red of the cycle lane tarmac is in stark contrast to the still vivid red of the sign - a plea on behalf of the brave local cyclists to motorised traffic, often heavy, thundering by at speeds of up to 70mph not to run them down. This clearly has no place in any Active Travel scenario. The NWBCN Proposal offers a solution! |
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Plans to build a greenway, mooted a number of years ago, on the old railway track, visible on the raised area left of the fencing, must be urgently revisited. Implementing the NWBCN proposal offers an immediate solution avoiding a typically long-drawn-out and expensive greenway which, according to estimates a number of years ago, were in the region of some £4.5m! |
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There are currently about ten dwelling houses, a quarry, a commercial vehicle repair and lock-up on the stretch of the Omeath Road from the Dromalane Road corner in Newry and the site of the proposed Narrow Water Bridge. It is in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty with Natura 2000 Status in parts and is an ideal candidate for Ireland's first Cycle Expressway! |
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The Newry Greenway, which runs along the Middle Bank between the Newry Canal and the Newry River from the Albert Basin to Victoria Lock, is also not viable in the context of Active Travel if Newry Mourne & Down District Council and the NI Department for Infrastructure are serious about promoting commuter and tourist cycling. Passing between two hazardous watercourses, the path, which appears prone to subsidence in parts, requires regular, and no doubt expensive, safety-critical maintenance to fencing, as well as servicing or replacing life-saving apparatus. The NWBCN proposal of a Cycle Expressway will substantially lower the impact on the Greenway thereby reducing the high maintenance costs for the ratepayer! NWBCN understands that the Newry Greenway will be closed throughout June for essential maintenance. |
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The B79/R173 Newry to Omeath Road is notoriously narrow and dangerous! The signs just visible in the picture are fishing stands installed for the World Coarse Fishing Championships held on the Newry Canal in the 1980s and virtually abandoned ever since. |
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The angling community clearly preferring to catch fish rather than be caught by a passing juggernaut, will welcome this proposal! Our proposal allows for safe access to one of the best coarse fishing sites in Ireland. |
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A summary of the benefits of the NWBCN proposal is as follows: - It will avoid the need for an expensive cycleway parallel to the A2 dual carriageway
- It will create, quickly and inexpensively, a real boost to Active Travel access from Warrenpoint to Newry
- It will decommission one of the most dangerous roads in the area - the Omeath Road- by enabling access to vehicular traffic from the Cooley area to the A2 dual carriageway
- It will reduce the public safety risk and wear & tear on the current high-maintenance Newry Greenway allowing for consideration of a low-impact eco-trail from the proposed Albert Basin Park
- It will provide a welcome stimulus in the development of coarse fishing along the Newry Canal
This list is by no means exhaustive. For example the proposal will facilitate the development of imaginative and innovative e-bike trails along the ultra-low-traffic roads around the Flagstaff. |
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Building the Narrow Water Bridge will bring many benefits. We at the NWBCN have been highlighting them for years. A total integration of the Bridge in the Active Travel Plans currently being drawn up by the the Newry Mourne & Down Council is both vital and urgent! |
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On the subject of lists, in a recent article in the Irish Times, Diarmaid Ferriter, columnist and Professor of Modern Irish History at UCD provided readers with an interesting list of aims, targets and promises down the decades which "moved, were missed or ignored altogether." Some of the more dramatic examples cited, included Northern Ireland Prime Minister Terence O'Neill's promise in 1963 to "literally transform Ulster". Within a decade Ulster was certainly a different place but not quite what the Old Etonian had in mind. In 1921 trade unionist, James Larkin, exclaimed "A Workers' Republic or death!" Not surprisingly little became of that idea. However Big Jim did manage to survive until 1947. We can only fervently hope that in any update to the list that Professor Ferriter may be planning, he will not be tempted to add the following: - the commitment to 'turbo-charging' infrastructural projects such the Narrow Water Bridge contained in the New Decade New Approach Agreement of January 2020 and
- the Taoiseach Micheál Martin's promise, a number of months later, to ring-fence funding for the Narrow Water Bridge ‘for delivery without undue delay.’
With rumours circulating that the NI Department for Infrastructure is proposing to proceed with a fixed bridge over the Newry Canal as part of the Southern Relief Road scheme, effectively cutting off access for ocean-going vessels to the Albert Basin forever, we at the NWBCN are worried - very worried! |
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Adrian O'Hare Secretary NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK |
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