Snail’s pace at rush hour traffic woes

It takes 36 minutes to travel less than one kilometre along the city’s traffic-choked roads in the western suburbs at peak morning hours.

The new snail’s pace ‘record’ slow journey along Western Distributor Road was revealed at last week’s City Council meeting amid accusations the city’s transport office is ‘dysfunctional’ since the departure of its traffic tsar last month.

Fianna Fáil City Councillor, Peter Keane, said he left the Bóthar Stiofán roundabout at 8.30am one day last week, and didn’t reach the traffic lights at the Kingston/Taylors Hill/Threadneedle Road junction until 9.06am.

“It’s absolute madness. It is happening every day of the week. It’s unreal – 36 minutes to travel less than a kilometre,” he fumed.

Cllr Keane this week reiterated that the ban on right-hand turns at that junction is working, but he wants the sequencing of lights to be changed. The ban on right-hand turns has altered traffic patterns and the lights at the Kingston junction should be re-sequenced to facilitate that, he said.

Independent City Councillor Declan McDonnell also raged about traffic congestion. “We have a transport department and for the past three months it hasn’t been functioning,” said Cllr McDonnell, referring to the departure of the head of the transport section, Brian Burke, senior engineer.

Traffic would get worse over the Christmas, he added.

“The traffic is getting worse. It’s everyday now. Not just in peak times. It’s happening at 7pm and 2pm. It’s not acceptable . . . It is a complete disaster, the transport section is not functioning at all.”

This charge was rejected as ‘unfair’ by Director of Services, Joe O’Neill.

“It is not accurate at all to say that the transport department isn’t functioning,” he said.

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway CIty Tribune