New traffic lights planned on Skehard Road. Still time to object!

two wheels good

I received the following email from a friend who objected to the proposed traffic lights.

"Got a letter of acknowledgment yesterday so I rang the Council to see if I could find out how many objections/submissions were received. Spoke to the Senior Executive Engineer (who signed the letter). Very helpful guy. Gave me as much time as I wanted on the phone.
They received about 100 submissions. I asked him if that would be considered a lot. He said it was substantial alright. (my emphasis)


Procedure now is they go through the submissions, summarise them, make recommendations and prepare a presentation to be given to the Councillors. They then approve or scrap the project or request modifications. It doesn't go back to the public for their input.

If approved, it will then be assessed along with other projects and decided if it will be included in next year's budgeted work. So it doesn't have funding as yet.

In terms of timing, it will be late summer before Councillors will be presented to. It will be earliest, early next year before work would begin. Obviously this also depends on whether modifications are required and if it gets into the list of work for next year."

I was feeling righteous for writing a letter and posting on this forum. She wrote the letter AND knocked on doors!
Thanks to everyone who felt moved to object. Let's do it more often - and hope it will have some influence!

sammalone

I'm also appalled at the number of traffic lights popping up everywhere - even where there doesn't seem to be any need for them! Do we the residents of Cork have any say in all of this? Fair play to you for spotting this plan two wheels good!!!
Maybe we could organise a little protest from here to raise awareness among the general population of this plan? Any ideas? Even if we got as many people as we could from here to stop traffic intermittantly from each direction (just as traffic lights would) fro an hour - now this is just a random idea - we could give out details of where to lodge objection of start a petition to people in cars while stopped.

kub

Apparently in the City Hall, the staff have to fill out pages and pages everyday of expenese and costs incured by the City council.
All for some crowd called the IMF............lads seriously, they haven't even started on the civil / public service as yet. But will.

So don't worry about the traffic lights, they won't have the money. Don't worry about the road, it won't be a road for much longer, what with all the pot holes which they won't have the money to repair.

parsi

From The Echo it appears that the councillors have voted to go ahead with this plan.

charlemont

parsi wrote: »

From The Echo it appears that the councillors have voted to go ahead with this plan.

Nothing surprises me with traffic lights in Cork , They are like mushrooms, sprouting up everywhere, Im sure all the councillors get great perks from the companies involved.

Kazbah

pa990 wrote: »

they also fúckéd up the road markings.. took them a month or so to make some half arsed effort to rectify it

Now they are resurfacing the whole road - didn't think the Blackrock road was that bad.

Padraig Mor

Padraig Mor wrote: »

There's no problems at that r'bout AFAIK! Sounds like the junction of Togher Road and Tramore Road (by Abbeyville Vet hospital). There was a roundabout there for years with very few (if any) traffic problems. Some fool in the council thought it would be a great idea to stick in a bunch of traffic lights at no doubt exorbitant cost. Result: instant gridlock spreading to Clashduv Road at peak times. After a few weeks, the lights were put on flashing orange and have remained that way ever since (approx 3 years) and a 'close your eyes, go, and hope for the best' approach is required from some directions. No doubt the council idiot has picked up his yearly increments since then, despite demonstrated incompetence.....

Developments on this in yesterday's paper. The council have belatedly decided to replace the useless traffic lights with..........a roundabout! Yip, exactly like the one that was there in the first place! And have apparently spent many thousands on 'consultants' to tell them this (they should have just asked me!). Funnily enough, there was no mention in the article of disciplinary action against the Council muppets who signed off on the junction in the first place. Guess the journo must have been stuck for space or something.......

Owen

The traffic lights in Ballincollig are now being recognised as a disaster. The town council are switching off 2 sets as a 'trial' to see if they can improve traffic flow in the town. Wonder if that's helped with the decision on Skehard Road.

cork_south

Laura McGonigle (@LauraMcGonigle)
08/05/2012 19:07
Skehard Road realignment works due to start Monday next, May 14th. #fb

goldie fish

Owen wrote: »

Whoever's selling the lights must be giving some backhander to City Hall. Ballincollig got 17 sets of lights from one end to the other. It turned what was a free flowing town, into gridlocked mayhem.

There is also a new set of lights in midleton, covered, with no obvious reason for them being there. Provided by a company called "Peek".

parsi

cork_south wrote: »

Laura McGonigle (@LauraMcGonigle)
08/05/2012 19:07
Skehard Road realignment works due to start Monday next, May 14th. #fb

Typical. We don't need any changes there but muppet councillors think it's a great idea.

The work on Boreenmanna Road seems to have stalled after 5 months . They've left serious potholes near the Crab Lane junction.

Owen

I'm wondering what realignment is happening? The only thing I can think of is the old wall on the left before Scallys, I hope that isn't being knocked, it's one of the few original walls left in the area.

babo9

I'd love to see the council's "research" that indicates to them that things like lights at roundabouts with no congestion and insane amount of traffic lights in Ballincollig are a good idea.

And then you have narrow bendy boreens in which you can drive at 80km/hr past some old ladies front door that opens onto the road, joke!!

parsi

Owen wrote: »

I'm wondering what realignment is happening? The only thing I can think of is the old wall on the left before Scallys, I hope that isn't being knocked, it's one of the few original walls left in the area.

I think most of the work will be at the Well Road end - replacing a working roundabout with traffic lights, adding another set down near the crèche etc.

bladebrew

I hope its not all the work they were on about a year ago, its removing the roundabout at the top of the well road and replacing it with traffic lights, then moving the entire road over into the green area at the top of skehard road and adding traffic lights for pedestrians and a bus lane i believe,
it will work fine at 2pm in the afternoon but at peak hours it will cause mayhem,
and judging by how long they have been working at crab lane it may take years to finish:)

cork_south

bladebrew wrote: »

I hope its not all the work they were on about a year ago, its removing the roundabout at the top of the well road and replacing it with traffic lights, then moving the entire road over into the green area at the top of skehard road and adding traffic lights for pedestrians and a bus lane i believe,
it will work fine at 2pm in the afternoon but at peak hours it will cause mayhem,
and judging by how long they have been working at crab lane it may take years to finish:)

I can envisage tailbacks from town well past the Silver Key bar and up towards Con during rush hour here. Most people will start driving through Silverdale\Ashleigh\Firmount to avoid the tailbacks.

Nice move councilors, bringing unnecessary traffic off of the main road and through residential areas. :mad:

Owen

Yup, going to be insane. Not to mention the additional carbon footprint of demolishing the roundabout, installing the lights and having the permenant electricity drain of the lights being on/vehicles burning fuel at a standstill. And if the Scallys junction is anything to go by, the area where the roundabout was will forever be a sinking piece of potholed tarmac.

parsi

Yet again a solution is imposed on a non-existent problem by councillors who don't live in the ward.

bladebrew

My lord after swearing at my scanner for a while i decided to take a photo of the plans for skehard road, i cant embed it because because the image is gigantic!, buildtime of 5 months!, day 2 and they have put up a sign and a fence yah!

Hogzy

^^^
What an absolutely unnecessary waste of money. Considering all the potholes around the place you would think the council would have their priorities elsewhere.

What makes that plan even worse is the fact that the majority of traffic actually goes from the Well Road onto the Boreenmanna Road and vice versa.

The fact that the road MASSIVELY benefits traffic going from Skehard Rd to Boreenmanna Rd means that there will be tailbacks Turning right from Cork Con when going to Douglas.

The whole thing is stupid.

parsi

Hogzy wrote: »

^^^
What an absolutely unnecessary waste of money. Considering all the potholes around the place you would think the council would have their priorities elsewhere.

What makes that plan even worse is the fact that the majority of traffic actually goes from the Well Road onto the Boreenmanna Road and vice versa.

The fact that the road MASSIVELY benefits traffic going from Skehard Rd to Boreenmanna Rd means that there will be tailbacks Turning right from Cork Con when going to Douglas.

The whole thing is stupid.

Another dopey plan agreed by our councillors. Two extra sets of lights to impede traffic. A stupid bus lane for the two buses an hour.

A shocking waste of money.

cork_south

As someone said in the roads forum, they are replacing this roundabout as it is too efficient.
Spot on.

minidazzler

Wait, do we elect these people or are they given the jobs? I can't even work out how someone so incompetent could get a job designing this!

I can see they think it will help alleviate traffic on the well road into douglas, it won't, but I can see they think it will.

This is a case of "something has to be done, this is something, lets go." Absolute shower of wasters.

EyeSight

i was living in galway for about a year last year and their council were implementing similar(if not worse) schemes on a lot of major roundabouts. even though there were strong objections. the belief there was that the money was there, allocated for things like this and if they didn't use the money it would be taken from them. absolutely stupid.

the bus lanes thing is a joke. they are not needed. the bus is not frequent. look at how they ruined the douglas road. also they did this to a roundabout in togher and the traffic lights were turned off soon after they started

Owen

Another thing that just came to mind is that people exiting Silverdale by the Silver Key could never turn right with traffic volumes, so they'd turn left, do a full lap of the roundabout and come out. This removes that option, and actually makes life so difficult for residents that in time the council will probably install a third set of lights at that junction, with the pedestrian lights only 30 metres away.

beer enigma

bladebrew wrote: »

My lord after swearing at my scanner for a while i decided to take a photo of the plans for skehard road, i cant embed it because because the image is gigantic!, buildtime of 5 months!, day 2 and they have put up a sign and a fence yah!

Does your copy of the plan extend slightly further down the Well Road - I'm very concerned that people coming up the Well Road will throw a left at Churchyard Lane to cut out the lights & join the Boreenmanna Road by the Silver Key ?

Churchyard Lane is small enough as it is and would become a rat run....

cork_south

I think it is abundantly clear that none of these so called public representatives live in any of the housing estates around the area of the roundabout.
I am struggling to see how there are any advantages to this whatsoever.

GiftGrub100

This has got to be a wind up, there are never any traffic issues at this part of the road 99.9% of the day or night, how could any sane person decide to put in traffic lights are these the same high calibre individuals who designed the traffic light system at the Mahonpoint Shopping Centre / Retail Park junction ?

Hogzy

cork_south wrote: »

I think it is abundantly clear that none of these so called public representatives live in any of the housing estates around the area of the roundabout.
I am struggling to see how there are any advantages to this whatsoever.

Michael Martin used to live VERY close to this junction, he's moved now though

cork_south

Hogzy wrote: »

Michael Martin used to live VERY close to this junction, he's moved now though

True, but he is a TD not a city councillor.

Below are the list of idiots who took it upon themselves and voted in favour of wasting public money and increasing congestion around residential areas.

http://www.corkcity.ie/services/corporateaffairs/minutesofordinarymeetings/Min.s%20Council%20Meeting%20130611.pdf

SKEHARD ROAD IMPROVEMENT SCHEME.
An Chomhairle considered the proposed scheme regarding Skehard Road Improvement Scheme and the report of the Assistant City Manager dated 9th June 2011 thereon.
On the proposal of Comhairleoir C. O‟Leary, seconded by Comhairleoir T. Gould, a vote was called for where there appeared as follows:-

FOR: Comhairleoirí J. Kelleher, J. Kavanagh, P. Gosch, K. O‟Flynn, T. Fitzgerald, J. O‟Callaghan, D. Cahill, L. McGonigle, D. O‟Flynn, T. Shannon, K. McCarthy, J. Corr, S. Martin, J. Buttimer. (14)

AGAINST: Comhairleoirí T. Tynan, T. Gould, C. O‟Leary, M. Finn, M. Ahern, H. Cremin, G. Gibbons. (7)


=====
In the link above, they break it down for us that this roundabout is useless and that in fact a traffic light system will be more effecient.
Have any of these idiots actually travelled through this roundabout at any time of the day including rush hour FFS, its the most effecient piece of infrastructure on the Skehard road.
I just think of what they did to the traffic system at a green field site @ Mahon Point and can imagine what this is going to do when it is actually completed.

Recommendation
Urban Roundabouts are perceived to be free flowing however this is not the case. In fact traffic signalised junctions typically outperform roundabouts at peak traffic hours when demand is at its highest.
In addition roundabouts focus is on vehicles at the expense of facilities for pedestrians and cyclists. The Department of Transport and the Road Safety Authority recommend that where possible this type of roundabout should be phased out for safety reasons hence the proposed signalised junction. The signals will be monitored and controlled using the scoot traffic management system therefore congestion will be minimised.


--> Yeah congestion will be minimized alright, because most of the traffic will be rat running up by Lovetts or through residential areas like Silverdale.


Finally you just have to laugh at this:
The issue of displacement is always a concern when a road alignment is modified as drivers search for faster and more convenient routes. If this problem does arise it will be dealt with.


Sigh...