Traffic in Lucan Village?

sapper

Hi - I am buying a property in Laraghcon, right beside Lucan Village. Does anyone know what the traffic is like coming out of the estate in the morning? The exit to the estate is on a busy junction where cars enter/leave Lucan coming to/from the Strawberry Beds.

I've heard it's pretty bad - that it takes ages to get out of the estate in the mornings in your car - but is it bad enough not to go through with buying a house there?

murphaph

Where are you commuting to?

sapper

Actually - it's my wife, she'll be commuting to Neilstown/Clondalkin for the forseeable future....

Beruthiel

up until a month ago I used to get the 67 bus home to celbridge, it goes through lucan.
The bus would turn into lucan at woodies and would take anywhere from 30mins to 45 (on a friday) to get to the traffic lights in lucan village - head melter!

murphaph

sapper wrote:

Actually - it's my wife, she'll be commuting to Neilstown/Clondalkin for the forseeable future....

She could perhaps cycle that. Basically Laraghcon should never have been granted PP but Fingal CC don't really care because they don't have to worry about the congestion it causes/adds to as the estate entrance is literally 15m from South County Dublin.

I would not buy there. The place will probably never have adequate public transport given the narrow streets through Lucan prevent buslanes being marked out etc. It is possibly even more car dependent than some of the sprawling estates around south Lucan/Ballyowen area.

Sorry it's all bad news but the estate never made any sense to me. Maybe for retired people who don't have to leave for work at 8am it's ok.

Traffic can be chronic at that bridge. Remember that it's the only bridge for most of Clonee/Clonsilla/Blanchardstown too, so they all come down the R121 to cross it to get to south Dublin.

How would your wife feel about a scooter?

sapper

I'm going to pedal into town anyway, but the wife needs the car for work.

The estate itself is really nice and we'd put up with a bit of hardship to live there...Do you reckon if she left the house at 8am, she would be in Clondalkin for 9?

We are also considering another place in Lucan village, but it's much closer to the N4 (Esker/Beech Park estate). Someone told me that going for the Laraghcon house would add another hour to the journey....It can't be that bad surely!

ciarsd

Unfortunately all that has been typed is true.

Concerning lucan traffic as a whole - it is a shambles. But my main gripe is the liffey crossing and the entrance to Laraghcon (probably because it is the route I have to use most in Lucan, a close 2nd is getting from the Adamstown/Superquinn side of the N4 to the village side!).

I've got some friends living in the estate. 2 couples are quite happy living there (it is a lovely estate), the other is not. So much so that he is talking of selling up. Guess which one works the regular 9-5ish type hours!

If you don't get out of Laraghcon by 650am or so, you can expect to be sitting on the hill out of the estate for quite a time. The green light usually gets 25 cars through before it turns red.
Remember however, that this road serves the residents of Laraghcon as well as commuters coming from leixlip/clonee/clonsilla and even further afield by folks trying to miss the whole M50 chaos. There is a girl in work who lives over near Santry and uses a series of backroads to get to clonee and then uses this laraghcon route to get across the N4.

In the evenings traffic begins to build from anywhere between 330pm-430pm right up to the thick of things at 5-630pm and easing by about 7pm or so. This varies greatly however depending on schools on Chapel Hill, and if it is raining or not (yes, raining!)

sapper

I see....you don't know what time the morning traffic thins out do you? It my be an option for my wife to get into work in Clondalkin a bit later ie. 09.30...So maybe the traffic at the Laraghcon entrance is better around 9?

No?

Capt'n Midnight

murphaph wrote:

Traffic can be chronic at that bridge. Remember that it's the only bridge for most of Clonee/Clonsilla/Blanchardstown too, so they all come down the R121 to cross it to get to south Dublin.

Next bridge downstream is the short term car park that is the M50 , then there is the Chapelizod bridge, but they are making Martin's row one way, so traffic would have to go to the Phoenix Park gate and beyond the church and then head back west into Chapelizod, and they can only do that when someone presses the button on the pedestrian lights :rolleyes:
Then the next bridge is Islandbridge which has been advertiesed as "15 minute walk from O'Connell St. ". So there is a lot traffic that might consider Lucan Bridge even if it's slow.

Capt'n Midnight

Beruthiel wrote:

up until a month ago I used to get the 67 bus home to celbridge, it goes through lucan.
The bus would turn into lucan at woodies and would take anywhere from 30mins to 45 (on a friday) to get to the traffic lights in lucan village - head melter!

I used to get out and walk. But that was in the days where the next bus would let you on between stops.

ciarsd

sapper wrote:

I see....you don't know what time the morning traffic thins out do you? It my be an option for my wife to get into work in Clondalkin a bit later ie. 09.30...So maybe the traffic at the Laraghcon entrance is better around 9?

No?

Hi sapper, I could not be sure but from my experiences it is usually ok by the time the kids are all in school - so yes about 930. I could ask my friends and get a better indication for you which would be better than my guessing and my limited personal experience at this time of morning.

One other issue to be aware of is the N4 upgrade which I'm sure is going to make things worse before they get better. I hate to sound all doom and gloom, but would not like to see someone stuck and mis-informed

godtabh

Lucan village is a disastor at the best of times. I get a bus just up from the village most mornings. If you get there by 7 traffic is usally grand (till you get to the N4). If your wife was willing to go to work early she would make it in bout 20-30 mins. If she left it later it would take longer.

There is also an on goin issue with entrance to the estate and while a local politican says he has it sorted rumor has it, it could close again and the traffic lights turned off.

Victor

Is that the estate that flooded a few years ago?

ciarsd

Laraghcon? Nah - sure its a good 100Ft above lucan village! I think the estate your referring to is over the other side of lucan, Griffeen?

sapper

I've seen some mention of Laraghcon being flooded but I think that was in the construction phase...

As regards the traffic at the entrance, I think we are going to have to try it ourselves one morning this week and see how painful it is.....

jmkennedyie

Re laraghon flooding, there has indeed been terrible flooding in this area after freak rainstorms, but the laraghon estate itself was not under water (AFAIK). I believe it was construction of Laraghon (especially removing the rock cliff to make way for the new road up to the estate) that (a) removed soakage in the fields and (b) removed rock barrier. Allowed runoff to quickly swamp the terrace of houses below (Wierview). Things were so bad the firebrigade had to demolish bits of the wall fronting the liffey to let the water drain. I'm not sure, but I hope there were remedial actions taken to prevent this happenning in the future.

Seth Brundle

Regarding getting to Newcastle / Clondalkin (Wyeth?), it might be easier to head towards Clonee at the back of Laraghcon and then take the left turn for Leixlip. Then go through Leixlip to Celbridge and to Newcastle. It might be a bit less stressful than trying to get through Lucan.

Idleater

kbannon wrote:

...it might be easier to head towards Clonee at the back of Laraghcon and then take the left turn for Leixlip....

That's not a bad idea. Though the back roads there are getting quite full with the Adamstown problems.

Anyway Sapper, I hail from that neck of the woods and you will find that lucan traffic does not get better it only gets worse coming up to 0930 because of the schoolkids being driven to school in the village. Then it gets bad again at lunch time, and then again at the "early" rush hour (1500 ish) and also at the "normal" rush hour between 1700 - 1900. I think it is quiet ish between 0317 and 0347.

The traffic coming from laraghcon at the moment is I think being "sorted" out. What I think they indend doing is routing the main traffic up through laraghcon rather than down the strawberry beds. They haven't aligned the traffic light sequence to this effect yet, but I think that is the general plan. I think the main opposition to this is from the laraghcon residents who are opposed to this (despite it being in the plans for the development) but anyway you have half a million € worth of tarmac to park your car on.

The other road (tinkers hill) is currently taking a lot of traffic that should be coming through laraghcon.

The 239 bus now goes down that road which would get you as far as liffey valley and then you can get a 210 to clondalkin too if you so desire.

Beach Park is bad traffic wise but in a with different schools. It has slightly better access to the Lucan Dublin busses than laraghcon. And pricewise I think both areas are in similar brackets now. BP being slightly more mature I would say.

Anyway, you will get used to the traffic like everyone else in either case.

L.

bazzer

The 239 bus runs through Laraghcon and would get you to the Balgaddy Road / Fonthill Road junction which is quite near Neilstown. Average journey time about 30 mins.