THE introduction of new pedestrian lights on Clare Street, together with the removal of the Abbey Bridge roundabout, are aimed at making both areas safer for pedestrians and not an attempt to drive motorists to Limerick Tunnel.
So says Rory McDermott, Limerick City Council traffic engineer
“Despite what people may think, it’s not a cunning exercise to put people into the tunnel. “Limerick tunnel is a project that city and county has waited for a long time. “It has taken a lot of through traffic and particularly heavy goods vehicles out of the city centre”.
The Limerick School of Art and Design, he pointed out, had been campaigning for three years for pedestrian crossings on Clare Street.
“One of the objectives is where we can remove roundabouts and replace them with more effective methods of controlling traffic, including pedestrian traffic.
“As for roundabouts, pedestrians cannot use them… in terms of our accident records, cyclists fare badly”.
Responding to the concerns of motorists that traffic lights increase journey time through the city, he replied: “They do not contribute to greater fields of congestion.
“The perspective of the driver is completely different from the citizen, the perspective of the driver is that his driving time is interrupted.
“The primary purpose of traffic lights is to provide controlled and safe manoeuvres.
“The system that we put in, in the initial stages during validation, people appeared to feel that the journey time had increased and that the cycle times were very long. “At Clare Street, the cycle time on both new junctions is 20 seconds… we aim to get pedestrians across within 60 seconds of a push button”. Clare Street/Abbey Bridge is a notorious bottleneck during major events at Thomond Park and the Gaelic Grounds.
Back to Mr McDermott: “Roundabouts can become excessively imbalanced, one entry leg can be completely dominant.
“Traffic lights are an intelligent system of management, where the cycle systems on the junction operate up and down in response to what we call junction saturation”. The next area to link in to the system will be O’Curry Street/Dock Road, which Limerick City Council plan to commission this week.
It has emerged that traffic flow in Limerick city is down 8% at peak periods in the morning and even more at evening times.
