Traffic Lights for Caherdavin Lawn and Park entrances

Widescreen

Noticed in the attached newsletter that traffic lights are to be put up outside entrances to the places mentioned in thread title adjacent to the Greenhills hotel. Would have thought that might lead to significant delays.Anyone agree?

http://www.mylocalnews.ie/articles/542/4/christ-the-king-parish-caherdavin-1805/christ-the-king-caherdavin-newsletter-36813/

Kess73

Guess People might be better off using the tunnel then. Now that could never be the intention of planners could it? :rolleyes:

Traffic keeps getting squeezed towards the tunnel that bypasses the city and makes it easier to shop outside the city, and the various brains on the city council keep whinging that it must be the fault of the out of town shopping centres.

Limerick Dude

Might make it easier to turn right coming out of Caherdavin Lawn, its a bloody nightmare so it is, dangerous too!

manna452121

I opened a post on this over a week ago;Roadworks On Ennis Rd: maybe you missed it. " Site notice put up by Limk Corp to carry out major changes at the junction of Caherdavin Lawn and the Greenhills entrance.Nothing on the web site,details can only be viewed at the planning office."

Widescreen

I think safety is paramount, however, unless they are very clever with this work these traffic lights could cause unsustainable traffic jams. Most people going this way,inbound at least, would not be interested in the tunnel option anyway so I don't think that comes into it significantly.

TNIE

I think it only depends on the programming of those new lights.

firemansammie

All they had to do was put up a no right turn sign, there is a round about 200m up the road....seriously traffic lights, im now convinced that the road/traffic light planners do not drive.

Kess73

Widescreen wrote: »

I think safety is paramount, however, unless they are very clever with this work these traffic lights could cause unsustainable traffic jams. Most people going this way,inbound at least, would not be interested in the tunnel option anyway so I don't think that comes into it significantly.

There was an article in either the Times or the Independent on how the Limerick Tunnel is flopping badly in terms of the money it is making and how the shortfall is being subsidised with tax payers money. In that article there was a quote or confirmation that the local authorities and planners in Limerick would be trying to force/encourage motorists to use the tunnel through the use of new traffic lights/road set ups etc.

Red Neck Hughie

Kess73 wrote: »

There was an article in either the Times or the Independent on how the Limerick Tunnel is flopping badly in terms of the money it is making and how the shortfall is being subsidised with tax payers money. In that article there was a quote or confirmation that the local authorities and planners in Limerick would be trying to force/encourage motorists to use the tunnel through the use of new traffic lights/road set ups etc.

Yer bang on there.
I think there are at least 5 modifications to the route between Thomond and the Dublin Road in the last year, the only half decent one was the lights at Clare St. All the others seem designed to slow the main flow of traffic. The new lights at Annacotty give equal time to the side rd as they give to the Dublin Rd!

Goofy

The council is trying to make the city more cyclist and pedestrian friendly. Have you tried to cross the ennis road during rush hour? Its crazy. The council has been trying to do this for years but the NRA owned the roads so they could do nothing. Now that the tunnel is there these, roads are no longer national primary routes and fall under the remit of the local council.

Amazotheamazing

Goofy wrote: »

The council is trying to make the city more cyclist and pedestrian friendly. Have you tried to cross the ennis road during rush hour? Its crazy. The council has been trying to do this for years but the NRA owned the roads so they could do nothing. Now that the tunnel is there these, roads are no longer national primary routes and fall under the remit of the local council.

Exactly, the Ennis road should be a residental road now. It's been bypassed twice (condell road and tunnel). People in caherdavin have had to suffer the traffic volumes for too long, imo.

Kess73

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

Exactly, the Ennis road should be a residental road now. It's been bypassed twice (condell road and tunnel). People in caherdavin have had to suffer the traffic volumes for too long, imo.

Well if the city council want to make routes into the city less motorist friendly, then they can stop whinging when more and more people shop elsewhere or go elsewhere for services.

A city needs to strike a balance between being motorist friendly and non motorist friendly, but the Limerick approach is to swing totally one way or another with no thought of the impact it will have.

Amazotheamazing

Kess73 wrote: »

Well if the city council want to make routes into the city less motorist friendly, then they can stop whinging when more and more people shop elsewhere or go elsewhere for services.

A city needs to strike a balance between being motorist friendly and non motorist friendly, but the Limerick approach is to swing totally one way or another with no thought of the impact it will have.

I disagree tbh, there's still far, far too many cars driving through the city centre to get somewhere else. The immediate city centre should be utterly car-unfriendly, like the centre of Dublin, Cork and Galway.

Kess73

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

I disagree tbh, there's still far, far too many cars driving through the city centre to get somewhere else. The immediate city centre should be utterly car-unfriendly, like the centre of Dublin, Cork and Galway.

Whatever about Galway, how are the centres of Cork and Dublin car unfriendly? I find Cork in particular very easy to drive around in, with Patrick street/ Grand Parade etc having a nice mix of wide footpaths, and enough road space for vehicles to move along in.

If anything Cork city centre shows that a balance can be met that benefits the city centre in the long term.

If you make Limerick city centre car unfriendly then you kill the city outright. It is fading badly already as it is, make it harder for people to drive to and people won't come from the county and park on the outskirts and bus in, they will simply come from the county and shop in the outskirts or go to another town or city.

A small city/town like Limerick, especially a small city with such a poor selection of central retail outlets and other services/attractions (especially after 18:00), would become a ghost town if it was made car unfriendly atm. There just simply is not enough to attract people into the city centre as is, so alienating those that do drive in and spend money now would be stupid.

Without the right shops, services, attractions etc, the city centre is a dying duck. Stopping one set of spenders from going in just helps it die faster.

Just look at today's announcement of how over €213m is about to be invested into the city centre over the next two years by the council. A whole €6m over two years is what they are putting into the Opera centre. Which for me pretty much spells out that the Opera centre will be the non entity many think it will be. €6m builds and develops very little, yet this is all that has been earmarked from the €213m for the project that Long and others have been shouting about as if it will save the city.

Over €100m of the €213m is earmarked again for regeneration, now bear in mind something like €116m has already been spent on regeneration but the project still does not have the houses or anywhere near what they expected for that money done. So that is another huge chunk of money gone.

The city's creative quarter has only €200k of that money earmrked for it over the next two years. Hell the street bins have €150k earmarked so they seem to be getting almost as much as the creative quarter.

A massive chunk will be going to upgrade Childers road, but no money at all has been earmarked for the next two years for a new city centre libary or playground areas for kids.

So when one reads how the money is to be allocated it is hard to see how the city will be in anything other than a worse state in two years time, yet you think it would be a good idea to make such a city motorist unfriendly and risk forcing people to go elsewhere to spend money.

Amazotheamazing

Kess73 wrote: »

Whatever about Galway, how are the centres of Cork and Dublin car unfriendly? I find Cork in particular very easy to drive around in, with Patrick street/ Grand Parade etc having a nice mix of wide footpaths, and enough road space for vehicles to move along in.

If anything Cork city centre shows that a balance can be met that benefits the city centre in the long term.

If you make Limerick city centre car unfriendly then you kill the city outright. It is fading badly already as it is, make it harder for people to drive to and people won't come from the county and park on the outskirts and bus in, they will simply come from the county and shop in the outskirts or go to another town or city.

A small city/town like Limerick, especially a small city with such a poor selection of central retail outlets and other services/attractions (especially after 18:00), would become a ghost town if it was made car unfriendly atm. There just simply is not enough to attract people into the city centre as is, so alienating those that do drive in and spend money now would be stupid.

The city centre is in trouble for a few reasons, one of which is the volume of cars cutting right through the centre of it. It's very hard to make a city centre attractive and also route a national road through it. There is still essentially a dual carriageway running down O'Connell street and that makes the city (even more) dirty, noisy and polluted. It also cuts across the "social space" that any city centre should be because there is little or no interaction between the drivers and the pedestrians, they are cross purposes.

Patrick street in cork has nothing like the volume of traffic O'Connell street has. Dublin city centre is massively car unfriendly, and is going to be even more so, with further restrictions around college green etc. Dublin city council have been reducing the traffic through the city centre for years now by making it a difficult place to drive around, expensive on street parking, stopping private cars from using O'Connell st. etc. Anyone who lives there will tell you it's not worth driving into and more importantly, not worth driving through.

The future of Limerick city isn't making it easier to get through in a car, it's making the centre more pleasant to walk around and to enjoy. Make people feel comfortable there in the same manner they do on Shop street etc. I'm not saying we need ban cars, but rather make sure motorists who shouldn't be in the city centre aren't there.

Amazotheamazing

Kess73 wrote: »

Just look at today's announcement of how over €213m is about to be invested into the city centre over the next two years by the council. A whole €6m over two years is what they are putting into the Opera centre. Which for me pretty much spells out that the Opera centre will be the non entity many think it will be. €6m builds and develops very little, yet this is all that has been earmarked from the €213m for the project that Long and others have been shouting about as if it will save the city.

Over €100m of the €213m is earmarked again for regeneration, now bear in mind something like €116m has already been spent on regeneration but the project still does not have the houses or anywhere near what they expected for that money done. So that is another huge chunk of money gone.

The city's creative quarter has only €200k of that money earmrked for it over the next two years. Hell the street bins have €150k earmarked so they seem to be getting almost as much as the creative quarter.

A massive chunk will be going to upgrade Childers road, but no money at all has been earmarked for the next two years for a new city centre libary or playground areas for kids.

So when one reads how the money is to be allocated it is hard to see how the city will be in anything other than a worse state in two years time, yet you think it would be a good idea to make such a city motorist unfriendly and risk forcing people to go elsewhere to spend money.

(I've divided your post because there's two clearly different issues in it)

But what should the council do with Patrick street? It's not their remit to become property developers and landlords for a retail centre, the best they can do is help create the environment for private interests to do so. That's true across the entire city, the council can cut rates and work with businesses but it certainly can't (and shouldn't) run them.

The regeneration is a massive problem for Limerick, as are the council estates in general. They are financial black holes to some extent. So much of the city's resources are spent battling against the wilful distruction of these estates by some of the residents, and this will have to continue for the foreseeable future. Afaik, the population of the Island is down something like 44% since the regeneration started and in a way that's a massive chance to make it into an altogether different area.

I don't have the breakdown for the figure for the street bins, does that include wages for those who empty them etc?

manna452121

Widescreen wrote: »

Noticed in the attached newsletter that traffic lights are to be put up outside entrances to the places mentioned in thread title adjacent to the Greenhills hotel. Would have thought that might lead to significant delays.Anyone agree?

http://www.mylocalnews.ie/articles/542/4/christ-the-king-parish-caherdavin-1805/christ-the-king-caherdavin-newsletter-36813/

It looks like Mr Cormac Hurley has got the go ahead for this http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/business/local-business/traffic-lights-to-be-installed-at-busy-limerick-junction-1-4737510 Maurice Quinlivan posted a flyer over 2 weeks ago saying that work would start in April,he must know some unemployed builder who is ready to start the job for cash.

Mc Love

MORE traffic lights - its bloody scandalous

naughtysmurf

Limerick Dude wrote: »

Might make it easier to turn right coming out of Caherdavin Lawn, its a bloody nightmare so it is, dangerous too!

Don't be out that way too often but a lad I know was involved in a tip there a couple of days ago, young lad trying to turn right & didn't make it, no injuries thankfully

CrazyChick18

Probably will be a nightmare with traffic lights there but if I was living there I would be happy as I say it's crazy trying to get outta of there.

gambithh

CrazyChick18 wrote: »

Probably will be a nightmare with traffic lights there but if I was living there I would be happy as I say it's crazy trying to get outta of there.

what ever happen to the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few?
so the people commuting from ennis,shannon ,sixmilebridge will be slowed down further because the good residence of caherdavin lawn drive dangerously.

And whats the alternative? we have five miles of the smoothest ,almost perfectly straight tarmacadam ,hard shouldered most of it if on the Condel rd.Yet on the way home from work every evening to get stuck behind a sweet old dear in her 997cc Auris cause the entire god damn road is 50kmph,:mad:

for the relativly small amount of traffic passing through limerick city it has shocking bad road planning.

Comhrá

gambithh wrote: »

what ever happen to the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few?
so the people commuting from ennis,shannon ,sixmilebridge will be slowed down further because the good residence of caherdavin lawn drive dangerously.

And whats the alternative? we have five miles of the smoothest ,almost perfectly straight tarmacadam ,hard shouldered most of it if on the Condel rd.Yet on the way home from work every evening to get stuck behind a sweet old dear in her 997cc Auris cause the entire god damn road is 50kmph,:mad:

for the relativly small amount of traffic passing through limerick city it has shocking bad road planning.

Don't blame the "sweet old dears". About 90% of traffic on the Condell Road also drives at 50 kph, inappropriate as it may be. I use it most days and I believe 50kph is too slow for that road but I still keep within the speed limits. I fail to see how you can blame "sweet old dears" when Bus Eireann drivers, most truckers and car-drivers male and female alike - of all ages - do likewise.

Just sticking up for the "sweet old dears".;)

rainbowdash

Kess73 wrote: »

Guess People might be better off using the tunnel then. Now that could never be the intention of planners could it? :rolleyes:

Traffic keeps getting squeezed towards the tunnel that bypasses the city and makes it easier to shop outside the city, and the various brains on the city council keep whinging that it must be the fault of the out of town shopping centres.

I don't get you point at all, its possible to get from the Coonagh roundabout to a multi storey a city centre carpark with just 1 set of pedestrian lights at Barringtons pier, and they are rarely red.

Other car parks are just a couple of light sets from there. Why would somebody coming in from Ennis for example need to go through Caherdavin to get to Brown Thomas?

Also these extra lights would surely discourage people on the Ennis road for example from getting into their cars and driving to the crescent or skycourt etc. and instead either shop in the Jetland, or walk / drive/ buslane into town?

phog

gambithh wrote: »

And whats the alternative? we have five miles of the smoothest ,almost perfectly straight tarmacadam ,hard shouldered most of it if on the Condel rd.Yet on the way home from work every evening to get stuck behind a sweet old dear in her 997cc Auris cause the entire god damn road is 50kmph,:mad:.

Are you advocating that these sweet old dears should break the law? When I use Condell Rd. I set my cruise control to 50 to avoid going over the limit and pass no apologies for doing so.

manna452121

I have lived in Caherdavin lawn for over 22 years and most of the time if I am going to town I turn left and go in the Condell Rd.When this new system of traffic lights were proposed back in Feb I spoke to the Limk Corp and passed on some ideas which they said they would look at.Over the passed few days I spoke to alot of people from the lawn and not one was happy with the lights,I wonder who did Cormac Hurley and Maurice Quinlavan speak too?

Comhrá

More lights = more congestion. Now if they were turned off after say, 8pm, it mightn't be too bad, but I suspect they'll be like the ones at the LIDL/Jetland junction, running all night.

Nothing annoys me like when I'm driving out from town late at night and these lights turn red and there's no traffic, coming off the other roads. Then, I drive off, only to be stopped immediately by another red light at Ivan's cross - again with little or no traffic from the other direction.

Typical Irish solutions. I believe in Germany, the traffic lights at some minor junctions are switched off in the evenings when traffic gets light.

Chong

Am I the only one in thinking this will mean the end to the garda that sits on his bike outside Topaz drawing in loads of unsuspecting victims coming from the Greenhills.

gambithh

phog wrote: »

Are you advocating that these sweet old dears should break the law? When I use Condell Rd. I set my cruise control to 50 to avoid going over the limit and pass no apologies for doing so.

pc brigade is out in force.


i live up a narrow bendy country road the width of one car with grass growing in the middle of it ,not safe to pass 20 k mph tbh would you pass me an apology if you met me on a bend with your cruise control set to 80 k mph cause its an 80 k mph limit in the eyes of "the law"?

Just because its the law doesn't make it right.The soon the councils review the lunacy of speed limits on secondary road we may hopefully move forward with proper road indfracture in this country

Although i wont hold my breath.

phog

gambithh wrote: »

pc brigade is out in force.


i live up a narrow bendy country road the width of one car with grass growing in the middle of it ,not safe to pass 20 k mph tbh would you pass me an apology if you met me on a bend with your cruise control set to 80 k mph cause its an 80 k mph limit in the eyes of "the law"?

Just because its the law doesn't make it right.The soon the councils review the lunacy of speed limits on secondary road we may hopefully move forward with proper road indfracture in this country

Although i wont hold my breath.

You're seriously missing the point, a speed limit is just that, it's not a target that has to be achieved but I try to drive within the limit and I find cruise control helps me achieve that on roads like Condell road.

manna452121

Chong wrote: »

Am I the only one in thinking this will mean the end to the garda that sits on his bike outside Topaz drawing in loads of unsuspecting victims coming from the Greenhills.

He will still be there but with the lights in place getting up to the incorrect speed will be harder.Part of the plan is to remove the bus lane from the coonagh roundabout to the Greenhills entrance,with it being used only for left turning traffic.

Comhrá

manna452121 wrote: »

Part of the plan is to remove the bus lane from the coonagh roundabout to the Greenhills entrance,with it being used only for left turning traffic.

So the much vaunted bus lane is now being scrapped? I seem to recall a few short years back that they were the way to go (pardon the pun) how they were created at a cost of thousands of Euro per kilometer.

Says a lot about the planners who take it upon themselves to decide what's best for the masses.