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Displaying items by tag: Bypass

#DublinBay - A motorway across Dublin Bay? City councillors are opposed, but State policy may make its construction inevitable, as Louisa McGrath writes in the Dublin Inquirer.

Proposals for a new stretch of high-capacity road running across or under Sandymount have been mooted for decades, with the current iteration put forward by the National Transport Authority (NTA) intended as a completion of the M50 as a ring road for the capital.

But it's prompted a stand-off with Dublin City Council, whose members recently passed nine motions to block any bypass connecting the Port Tunnel to the southern section of the M50.

They have modern civic planning – which prioritises public transport over more roads and congestion – on their side, not to mention the potential impact on South Dublin Bay communities, and the area's Biosphere status.

However, national policy has already been signed off in spite of such concerns, and the removal the bypass from the city development plan may even be in breach of the law.

As Green Party leader Eamon Ryan writes in today's Irish Independent, the situation is a "mess".

The Dublin Inquirer has much more on the story HERE.

Published in Dublin Bay

About Commander Bill King, Solo Circumnavigator

William Donald Aelian King was the last surviving submarine commander in the Second World War - in charge of the British Navy's T-class Telemachus that sank a Japanese sub in the Strait of Malacca, between Malaysia and Sumatra, in 1944.

Decorated many times for his service by the end of the war, King became a trailblazing solo sailor.

At the age of 58, he was the oldest participant in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race sailing Galway Blazer II, a junk-rigged schooner he designed himself.

After a number of abortive attempts, including an incident with "a large sea creature", he finally completed his solo circumnavigation of the globe in 1973.

Beyond his aquatic escapades, King settled with his wife Anita (who died in 1984, aged 70) at Oranmore Castle outside Galway after the war, where he later developed a pioneering organic farm and garden to help tackle his wife's asthma.

The round-the-world sailor and Galway native Bill King died on Friday, 21 September, 2012, aged 102.