Within the next month, Westmeath County Council’s just under 40 km stretch of ‘greenway’ for cyclists, along the route of the now disused Mullingar-Athlone railway line, is due to be officially opened, as far as Garrycastle, with a planning decision due in November on the short 7km stretch between Athlone and Garrycastle.
The overall cost of the work, which began last year, is €7 million, from Mullingar to Athlone, and Topic learned this week from Michael Kelly, the engineer who drew up the plans for the scheme, and has seen it advanced thus far, that the reason why the cost rose from the original figure was that the specifications for the Mullingar-Athlone stretch of the new national (Galway to Dublin) cycleway had been revised upwards, and this was accepted.
“The surface has been finished to a high standard and it is due to be opened on 18 October next,” Mr. Kelly explained. “It is to an improved specification.”
Mr. Kelly said that there has been a great deal of interest in the new route, and already, hundreds of people had been unofficially using it at weekends, he admitted, both cyclists and walkers.
He expressed the hope that once the planning permission has been dealt with in the coming few months, they can go ahead on the additional 7 km (less than 4 miles) stretch of cycleway, which is needed to take cyclists from Garrycastle to central Athlone.
The finished tarmacdamed area of cycleway to Garrycastle has been put in place alongside the existing railway line along most of the existing 37 km route. There was a double rail line between Mullingar and Athlone up to 1926, and the new cycleway is along this disused area beside the existing line. However, at the narrow bridges along the route, there was not sufficient space to do this, unless a new platform for cyclists was attached to all the bridges, so the cyclepath paving has been put in place along the existing railway line, at overhead bridges.
