Welcome to the Hotel Gleann Dara

Doc Ruby

You can drive in any time you like
but you can never leave...

Yeah I was just driving out of Gleann Dara in Rahoon where I was visiting someone and I noticed the council had managed to put the traffic light sensor under a yellow box in front of the lights.

So you can't stop in a yellow box, and the lights won't change unless you drive over the sensor. So basically the residents of that estate are unable to legally drive out of their area. This is the second time in three weeks I've been sat behind some lad through two changes of lights.

I'd just like to congratulate Galway City Council and whoever was doing the roadworks in the area on yet another fine job in a long series of fine jobs, stretching back to when they gave half the city intestinal parasites through the water supply and even before that again, all with taxpayers money and moreso now with the new property taxes and water rates.

Also I'd like to float the concept of a citizens' group dedicated to suing the council every time something like this goes wrong, not to get money from them but to make sure whoever is responsible gets fired. The coffers are just magic numbers that come and go, dropped off by the fairy taxman, but until someone gets the sack this is not going to stop.

Love the faded and ragged "turtle outpacing the hare" posters in the same area though, they look great in a deluge of rain.

antoobrien

Doc Ruby wrote: »

Also I'd like to float the concept of a citizens' group dedicated to suing the council every time something like this goes wrong, not to get money from them but to make sure whoever is responsible gets fired.

That would require the recognition of the fact that incompetence justifies dismissal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9OAvqyjn0

How do I nominate this for post of the day.

snubbleste

No point venting it here
Send a card of congratulations to Roads, City Hall, Galway.

antoobrien

snubbleste wrote: »

No point venting it here
Send a card of congratulations to Roads, City Hall, Galway.

I think we should submit the o.p. for post of the day.

_Whimsical_

snubbleste wrote: »

No point venting it here
Send a card of congratulations to Roads, City Hall, Galway.

Where it'll be promptly binned.

People always say there's no point in posting here but really where else can you air a view point and get a reasonable swathe of the public to read it and think about it. One person sending a complaint to the council gets no where. A few people doing the same might be heard. If everyone interested acted even to send an email on these topics we could effect some change. Lets not underestimate ourselves Galway boards. Lets start doing something with the ire even if its just to copy and paste what you write in a post into an email and stick a "dear X" and "From Y" at the top and bottom and send it off. Posting on these issues and creating awareness and informing opinion on them is a start though.

snubbleste

Actually if you do complain to City Hall about something they have responsibility for, they are obliged to investigate it.
They can't just choose to ignore it. They have a statutory obligation towards the citizen, believe it or not.
If they don't receive one single complaint, then they can always say they never got a complaint!

Fey!

snubbleste wrote: »

Actually if you do complain to City Hall about something they have responsibility for, they are obliged to investigate it.
They can't just choose to ignore it. They have a statutory obligation towards the citizen, believe it or not.
If they don't receive one single complaint, then they can always say they never got a complaint!

Unfortunately it has been my experience that ignoring complaints is what they do best!

OP; love your Spooks reference!

Lapin

snubbleste wrote: »

Actually if you do complain to City Hall about something they have responsibility for, they are obliged to investigate it.
They can't just choose to ignore it. They have a statutory obligation towards the citizen, believe it or not.
If they don't receive one single complaint, then they can always say they never got a complaint!

Best laugh I've had all day !

Cheers.

Mrs OBumble

Back on topic ... is anyone crying over a lack of Glenn Daruvians in the city ATM?

buzz11

Doc Ruby wrote: »

I noticed the council had managed to put the traffic light sensor under a yellow box in front of the lights.

I've just walked passed there and you are half mistaken. There are two traffic sensors at the junction, one is painted over but there is another before it, on plain black tarmac located exactly where car's would stop. They are about 3-4 feet apart.

But that aside, the idiocy of the timing of the lights is plain to see for any regular user (bikes and cars alike) the combined parade of lights almost never gives a green in sequence leading to several stop starts for everybody (imagine to cost of this in pollution alone)

Doc Ruby

buzz11 wrote: »

I've just walked passed there and you are half mistaken. There are two traffic sensors at the junction, one is painted over but there is another before it, on plain black tarmac located exactly where car's would stop. They are about 3-4 feet apart.

I don't know what that does but it doesn't trigger the lights. Or if it does it's broken. As I said I've twice been stuck behind cars while the lights merrily cycled away.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Back on topic ... is anyone crying over a lack of Glenn Daruvians in the city ATM?

What?

Iwannahurl

Doc Ruby wrote: »

I was just driving out of Gleann Dara in Rahoon where I was visiting someone and I noticed the council had managed to put the traffic light sensor under a yellow box in front of the lights.

So you can't stop in a yellow box, and the lights won't change unless you drive over the sensor. So basically the residents of that estate are unable to legally drive out of their area.

This is the second time in three weeks I've been sat behind some lad through two changes of lights.

buzz11 wrote: »

I've just walked passed there and you are half mistaken. There are two traffic sensors at the junction, one is painted over but there is another before it, on plain black tarmac located exactly where car's would stop. They are about 3-4 feet apart.

So now you know how cyclists feel. There are numerous locations in this city where (a) cyclists cannot legally complete normal commonsense cycling movements and (b) cyclists depend on the kindness of strangers in motorised vehicles to drive over the induction coil to trigger the lights.

With regard to the specific subject of this thread, I am not familiar with the junction in question, not having driven out of Gleann Dara since the SQR modifications were completed.

However, it is permissible to enter a yellow box if you are turning right (terms and conditions apply).

Does that have any relevance to the situation you describe?

yaledo

I suspect there's a similar balls-up when turning from Glenina on to the Dublin Road - but it's a bicycles-only area that you have to drive into, rather than a yellow-box.

Doc Ruby

Iwannahurl wrote: »

With regard to the specific subject of this thread, I am not familiar with the junction in question, not having driven out of Gleann Dara since the SQR modifications were completed.

However, it is permissible to enter a yellow box if you are turning right (terms and conditions apply).

Does that have any relevance to the situation you describe?

Just to describe it fully, as you're coming out of the estate there are cars coming from both left and right, one or two lanes depending if anyone is using the bus lanes, and cars coming towards you from across the road, left right or straight forward.

When the lights cycle to let the cars in front of you turn towards Threadneedle, straight after that the Gleann Dara lights should turn, letting you go left, right, or forwards out of the estate. If you aren't sitting on the yellow box, those lights don't go green, and traffic resumes along the main road from your right. That's it really.

The only places I've ever seen a yellow box are to allow egress for traffic from side roads, houses and so on. There is no place for any traffic to join just in front of the lights, and no imaginable reason to put a yellow box there. People are getting out of their cars to tell drivers in front to move over the yellow box, is what's going on.

galwaycyclist

Iwannahurl wrote: »

So now you know how cyclists feel. There are numerous locations in this city where (a) cyclists cannot legally complete normal commonsense cycling movements and (b) cyclists depend on the kindness of strangers in motorised vehicles to drive over the induction coil to trigger the lights.

With regard to the specific subject of this thread, I am not familiar with the junction in question, not having driven out of Gleann Dara since the SQR modifications were completed.

However, it is permissible to enter a yellow box if you are turning right (terms and conditions apply).

Does that have any relevance to the situation you describe?

This recently got some discussion elsewhere - this from a cycling forum thread on getting traffic light detectors to detect cyclists.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Uh no technically there is no challenge. As I understand it all that has to happen is that the guy tuning the induction loops has to remember to bring a crushed coke can with him and make sure it will trigger the loop.

There is an issue with some bikes that have less metal - but thats not a general problem.

This issue came up recently because most of the new "cycle lanes" on the reconstructed Seamus Quirke Rd (SQR) in Galway don't have any induction loops. The induction loops on the main traffic lanes also appear unresponsive - as someone else has suggested - you need to beckon following cars to come forward into the loop to get the lights to change.

There was an exchange of views about it recently at the City Council Transport Committee, and if I understand his position correctly, the senior council engineer is concerned about having induction loops that can be can be triggered by anyone passing with a coke can who feels like walking out onto the road, kneeling down, and waving the can through the loop.

Funnily enough some of the "go left to turn right boxes" on the SQR do have induction loops - but they also have pushbuttons. If I understand it correctly, the cyclist has to push a button to request a green - but if they move off in the meantime the loop detects it and cancels the green request.

The junction at Fr Griffin Rd and the Crescent now also appears to have been fitted with induction loops that do not respond to cyclists.

One of the problems with attacking cyclists who run red lights is that we have generations of traffic engineers who have been "training" generations of cyclists to ignore traffic lights.

Iwannahurl

There was an exchange of views about it recently at the City Council Transport Committee, and if I understand his position correctly, the senior council engineer is concerned about having induction loops that can be can be triggered by anyone passing with a coke can who feels like walking out onto the road, kneeling down, and waving the can through the loop.

We can't have such outrageous behaviour in this city, can we?

Whatever would those gurriers do next, once they tire of kneeling on the road waving their drinks can around? Push the buttons on a traffic light and expect not to have to wait less than a minute and a half, perhaps?