Traffic chaos fears as street to close for seven weeks

Date Published: 18-Apr-2011

BY CIARAN TIERNEY

Traffic chaos looms from the middle of next month as Galway City Council intend to close Lower Dominick Street for a period of almost seven weeks to facilitate the extension of the city’s sewerage scheme.

The road, one of the key arteries in the city centre, will be closed from 6am on Tuesday, May 17, to 6pm on Thursday, June 30, due to pipe laying and road construction works.

Although diversions will be in place, and local traffic will be facilitated, the closure of the road – from the junction with Mill Street to the junction with Dominick Street Upper at Monroe’s – is expected to result in significant tailbacks through the western fringe of the city centre.

“It is disruptive and there is never a perfect time to do something like this,” admitted a spokesman for the local authority.

“But for most of that time the secondary schools will be off and we will not yet be into the peak tourist season.”

He said that the main purpose of the scheme was to connect the last remaining pockets of unconnected houses in the city to the main sewerage scheme, capturing discharges of effluent to surface watercourses in the city.

The entire project will include works at Nuns Island, Earls Island, Dominick Street, Claddagh Quay, the Harbour Enterprise Park, Ballyloughnane, and Westside.

The spokesman said that a traffic management plan would be put in place during the seven week road closure, with diversions at Raven Terrace, Fr Griffin Road, and Mill Street.