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

gbee

Lutecia wrote: »

it has become a motorway. Cars are going too fast here now. Linked to the next point: and I genuinely wonder if that could be the actual reason to make that City-to-Mahon axis faster.

Going back at least twenty years, 'the plan' was to straighten the road by crab lane [but acquiring the farm ran into legal difficulties] and a 'flyover' was to proceed over the quarry [which ran into technical and engineering difficulties] and the road was to through the Convent grounds [now Aldi] and fly out the link road past Mahon Point [which was never supposed to be where is

Edited

pwurple

goldie fish wrote: »

My colleague in the car wondered what the point of the change was. Same hold up at the supermarket as always.

Sounds like your collegue has his head screwed on right at least. We all wondered the same thing. I don't suppose you remember back to when the supermarket was freeflowing... It used to be, before the traffic lights.

goldie fish

pwurple wrote: »

Sounds like your collegue has his head screwed on right at least. We all wondered the same thing. I don't suppose you remember back to when the supermarket was freeflowing... It used to be, before the traffic lights.

I do, but it wasn't as big a supermarket then as it is now either. They layout of parking in the supermarket made a roundabout pointless. Old Biddies sitting in their fiesta on the roundabout waiting for a car to reverse out of a space nearest the door while the whole of Mahon waits behind her.

cork_south

It might be too late, but a resident from Silverdale grove was calling around to houses last night gathering signatures to reverse the decision to remove the roundabout.
I don't think it will have any sway with our overlords but at least its a start.

Owen

goldie fish wrote: »

I do, but it wasn't as big a supermarket then as it is now either. They layout of parking in the supermarket made a roundabout pointless. Old Biddies sitting in their fiesta on the roundabout waiting for a car to reverse out of a space nearest the door while the whole of Mahon waits behind her.

No offense, but your memory musn't be great. Scallys hasn't changed size in about 10 years, the car park is a bit larger now, that's all. In the days of the roundabout, it was a lot more free flowing than it is now.

Currently, if you're trying to turn right from the douglas direction into Scallys it's a nightmare. Someone will stop just as they enter Scallys coming in from Mahon and look for a free space, and anyone who's tried to turn from the douglas side will be stranded in the middle of the junction. The traffic lights have made things progressively worse.

The junction which this thread is discussing is just gone stupid now. I was waiting approx 200 metres back from the lights last night. Night time. Not day time when it's busy. It took 3 changes of lights for me to get to turn left. When the roundabout was there it never took more than 30 seconds. We've gone from a free flowing junction with little or no accidents as long as I'm living in Blackrock (33 years) to a situation where someone's going to get hurt, and everything's blocked up.

kub

Owen wrote: »

.

The junction which this thread is discussing is just gone stupid now. I was waiting approx 200 metres back from the lights last night. Night time. Not day time when it's busy. It took 3 changes of lights for me to get to turn left. When the roundabout was there it never took more than 30 seconds. We've gone from a free flowing junction with little or no accidents as long as I'm living in Blackrock (33 years) to a situation where someone's going to get hurt, and everything's blocked up.

Now just consider the little bit more in revenue which you have to pay the government while you sat at those red lights with your engine running.

pwurple

kub wrote: »

Now just consider the little bit more in revenue which you have to pay the government while you sat at those red lights with your engine running.

Yup... and the bit more pollution to go with it as well.

Nevermind the more annoyed motorists who are concentrating on the damned lights instead of their surroundings.

The deed is done though, no chance of reversal at this stage. Money wasted, resident's lives made just that little bit worse.

I drop off my daughter in blackrock on my way to work, and pick her up again in the evenings on my way home on churchyard lane. I'm stuck in it three times a day now. I'm a half an hour later home every day, so it has robbed me of an additional half an hour of time with her each day.

So just like the supervalu junction, and the douglas junction, and the one in mahon point we have to put up with hellishly annoying automatic SCOOT traffic system.

D'Agger

Owen wrote: »

Currently, if you're trying to turn right from the douglas direction into Scallys it's a nightmare. Someone will stop just as they enter Scallys coming in from Mahon and look for a free space, and anyone who's tried to turn from the douglas side will be stranded in the middle of the junction. The traffic lights have made things progressively worse.

+ A Billion to this.

Motorists going into Scallys constantly stop and look for a space - I never park there, always head around the back but the slowness with which people go into first gear and barely move is mind numbing-ly annoying!!

The junction which this thread is discussing is just gone stupid now. I was waiting approx 200 metres back from the lights last night. Night time. Not day time when it's busy. It took 3 changes of lights for me to get to turn left. When the roundabout was there it never took more than 30 seconds. We've gone from a free flowing junction with little or no accidents as long as I'm living in Blackrock (33 years) to a situation where someone's going to get hurt, and everything's blocked up.

It's on both sides - 7pm last night I was trying to leave my neighborhood and had to wait for somebody stuck in the traffic to leave me out - it's backlogged so badly - it's utterly ridiculous!

beer enigma

Just noticed that the churchyard lane 'slip road' from the well road onto churchyard lane has been coned off - you can still turn left, but not using the slip ( not sure if I'm explaining that very well, but you can sweep off of the well road into the churchyard road junction normally ) I'm presuming it's the start of the traffic calming - ie humps that the 4x4 crew smile at as they go over them at full speed

pwurple

Andip, that's hopefully not the start of the speed bumps. That squaring off of the junction was requested by the residents to slow the traffic whizzing around the corner slightly. I think a couple of them phoned every counciller every single day for a couple of weeks to get those temp bollards put in. They seem to be working so far. Traffic volume is the same since the lights, but speed has dropped as they have to slow to get around the corner now.

I came home this evening by going up silverdale with the rest of that stream of traffic, across to churchyard lane by the small road in front of the silver key. Avoided waiting at 5 changes of lights, which was great. Passed a lot of kids hiding behind parked cars at that time of evening is the only thing.

pwurple

Cork City Councils final meeting before the summer recess takes place next Monday, 9th July @ 5:30pm at Cork City Hall. Anyone opposed to the removal of the Skehard road roundabout is urged to attend this via the visitor’s gallery.

A good turnout is vital to show Cork City Council that the residents feel strongly about this. Please Please come along. The more of us the better!

The number 210 bus goes at 16:40 and 17:10 to the city.

Joanieb

I will definitely go to that!

beer enigma

Count me in too !

OneWayBet

cork_south wrote: »

Laura McGonigle ‏@LauraMcGonigle
Skehard Road Realignment scheme:http://bit.ly/MzRqSJ
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Thanks for this, I really needed to vent!

pwurple

She doesn't post the comments.

OneWayBet

It seemed to show up after I posted it, guess she deleted it?

*EDIT* Just checked this again and it shows up in your session but when I opened a new browser my comment was not visible.
It's about time we overhauled our outdated planning and consultation process, who has time to read newspapers every day looking out for council notices about things like this?

pwurple

Cripes, yes to that! The notice for those works was an A4 page at the top of an 12 ft pole in the center of the roundabout. Printed in size 12 font. We had to bring a ladder over there and climb up the pole to read it. Not my idea of ideal public consultation.

beer enigma

Just seen the Evening Echo has a piece on 'resident planning to occupy the gallery" this evening

http://www.eveningecho.ie/2012/07/05/skehard-roundabout-rage-sends-residents-to-council/

charlemont

I'd love to attend the meeting but I'v an exam tonight. There is a few places around the city that should be worried because if they get away with installing the lights below they will start looking at other roundabouts to remove.
The lights planned at Wilton will be chaotic.

Nash Bridges

Any update from the council meeting?

Was not able to attend but would have liked to express my disgust at the waste of money destroying a previously well functioning junction.

pwurple

Just back from council meeting. Great turnout, between 70 and 100 people I'd guess... No seats left in any of the public galleries, and some people standing.

But of an eyeopener seeing how much of a farce the whole thing is. Kieran mccarthy had been given the pack of another 420 signatures to add the to previous 240 residents looking for the roundabout to be put back. Laura mcgonigle sitting there playing with her phone and her hair, had no idea what was going on as usual. Didn't know where the signatures came from. she said the new lights were going to be the 'most intelligent' lights ever. How the FOOK would she know?

A few councillors spoke out against the traffic lights.

Sean martin said it was all the green parties fault, aka political sniping.
Sme other councillor said he voted for it but didn't realise the roundabout was going. Another few said that to get the money for the cycle lanes, the roundabout had to go.

There was not much heckling from the crowd, but eventually, I think after being the crowd were being patronised yet another time by someone saying that there would be a consultation process with locals AFTER the works, a huge bunch stood up and left angrily.

Red fm and 96 fm were outside, and some papers I think, taking interviews.

ShamoBuc

Some of them really haven't a clue. Consultation after the event - Jesus wept!

beer enigma

pwurple wrote: »

" she said the new lights were going to be the 'most intelligent' lights ever

Let's hope they are more intelligent than some of the councillors

I thought it was a great turnout & plenty of people made very good points to the radio crews - the 'walkout' I think genuinely surprised the council chamber.

cork_south

Alan Healy ‏@alanhealy
Residents have stormed out of City Council public gallery incensed over removal of Skehard Road Roundabout.
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1h Peter Horgan ‏@horganp
#LMCork issues warning to members of the public gallery to remain silent as debate over the Skehard RD begins http://corkindependent.com/stories/item/10282/2012-27/'Absolute-mayhem'
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3h Alan Healy ‏@alanhealy
More than 50 members of public in City Hall for Council meeting. Most here protesting at removal of Skehard Road Roundabout. #cork


http://corkindependent.com/stories/item/10282/2012-27/'Absolute-mayhem

Joanieb

If more people actually went in there and realised what they were voting for they would get a fright. They are an absolute disgrace, the lot of them.

two wheels good

A few points I noted from councillors' statements:

The funding for the project would only be available if the project included the removal of the roundabout.

When the councillors were told by engineers that the national policy was to replace roundabouts with traffic lights the engineers did not have a copy of the policy to refer to. Instead their explanation of the policy was based on the engineers' interpretation (and their recollection of the text I would assume.)

Regarding the funding, Councillors were told "to use it or lose it"

It was acknowledged that the removal of the roundabout on Tramore Road was a mistake and a waste of funds. Also how its replacement was now contravening this national policy. (How ironic)

Ms McGonigle thinks that "squaring off" the WEll Rd - Churchyard Lane junction will help prevent Churchyard Lane becoming a rat run.

Many councillors observed from their personal experience the Skehard Rd roundabout "worked well" handling the traffic.

Frankly, I got the impression that the councillors were ill-advised and acted in good faith in approving the project.

Joanieb

Ignorance is no defence!!!!!

two wheels good

Joanieb wrote: »

Ignorance is no defence!!!!!

They certainly weren't ignorant. I think someone mentioned the council discussed it six times over 18 months - plus a ward meeting with engineers.

I'd like to know is why so many local residents weren't notified of this in April 2011 when I first got notification. The public liaison on this matter was wholly inadequate - obviously!

beer enigma

two wheels good wrote: »

They certainly weren't ignorant. I think someone mentioned the council discussed it six times over 18 months - plus a ward meeting with engineers.

I'd like to know is why so many local residents weren't notified of this in April 2011 when I first got notification. The public liaison on this matter was wholly inadequate - obviously!

My thoughts exacty - it was made very clear that the councillors knew fully about this well in advance.

I thought Cllr Corr's comment that the only objections came from the Skehard Road side of the junction and that there were no objections from the Well Road area showed just how little he knew of the situation especially given that Kieran McCarthy sat yards away from him with a wadge of signatures !

Joanieb

Cllr Corr was a total disgrace tonight. It's clear to me that he is either telling lies or he hasnt a clue whatss going on