Limerick City Council / traffic

JD Dublin

Anyone else read the article in the Indo yesterday 21st Feb? I was in a coffee shop reading the shop's paper so I dont have it in front of me.

Anyway the story was about the government ( through the National Roads Authority ) paying these toll-road operators millions to operate the new toll in Limerick ( and I think the N4 - can't be sure ). The toll road operators get these payments from the NRA because the motorists are not driving through the tolls in enough numbers.

At the very end of the article the reporter said that Limerick City Council has made a comittment to manage the traffic in the city centre to force more drivers to use the toll bridge.

FFS - that means they are going to make sure the city centre is so snarled on a regular basis, we'll all say 'lets pay the toll-road shams their 1.80 or whatever'.

Talk about sneaky.

gaf1983

That's a disgrace. It's bad enough that we're bailing out bondholders that took a punt on a private venture, to bail out toll operators who also took a gamble is just taking the mick.

By the way, was this the article you read?

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/state-pays-120000-a-week-to-subsidise-road-toll-operators-3024587.html

JD Dublin

By the way, was this the article you read?

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/state-pays-120000-a-week-to-subsidise-road-toll-operators-3024587.html[/QUOTE]
Thats the one.

Jofspring

Even more lights gone up in town now at the junction of William Street and Wickham Street. What new traffic lights have been added over the past 5 or 6 years:

Lights at Wickham Street Junction
Lights at the Horse and Hound
Lights at Thomas Street/O'Connell Street Junction
Lights replace the roundabout at the Absolute Hotel
Lights further down at the Junction that would bring you up to St.Johns Hospital.
Lights at the Junction of the Condell Road and North Circular Road
Lights in Thomond Gate outside the Treaty Vet
More Lights at the junctions of Roches Street, Gerald Griffin Street and Sexton Street
New Lights and road system outside Sexton CBS
New Lights on the Dublin Road at the turning for Murroe, Cappamore etc....
Lights at on the Dock Road at the O'Curry Street Junction, after Centra leading up to Mary I/Scotts and Lights outside enterprise cars heading up to the back of Scotts/Alandale.
Have I missed anymore?

I know some lights where needed for pedesterians etc... but that seems excessive given most towns are trying to cut down on the amount of lights.

JD Dublin

Jofspring wrote: »

I know some lights where needed for pedesterians etc... but that seems excessive given most towns are trying to cut down on the amount of lights.

The point of this is that Limerick City Council have given a comittment to get more trafic to use the ring road - and how they are delivering on this is to put in trafic lights, pedestrianise O'Connell St etc.

What impact will this have ( apart from higher profits for the toll-road people )?

And who else knew they up to this i.e. that this is one of the motivations ( to help the toll-road people make more money ) when they decided to get more traffic out of the city centre?

Kess73

Ahh Limerick city council. Commited to putting systems in place that discourage motorists from driving into the city centre so that a city centre bypass can make money, and then they whinge in the papers that it is out of town shopping centres doing all the damage.


Do they really expect people who get discouraged from driving into the city centre to not shop in places outside the city?

Cookiemunster

The bit about the top ups from the NRA to the toll companies is hardly newsworthy seeing as Paul Melia himself printed almost the exact same story last June http://www.independent.ie/national-news/state-paying-111000-a-week-to-toll-road-operators-2672986.html and the leader reported it last April http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/business/taxpayer_to_foot_hefty_bill_of_660m_limerick_tunnel_1_2578115

As for LCC, they've been saying for years that they were waiting for the tunnel to open so the could create the orbital routes and pedestrianise O'Connell St. Whether or not its a good idea is another story, but its something that has been known about for years and hardly qualifies as news.

Amazotheamazing

I was walking through town at about 8-ish last friday evening, O'Connell street was busy with cars, both lanes.

Limerick will never have a proper city centre until the dual carriageway running through the heart of it is removed.

gaf1983

Cookiemunster wrote: »

The bit about the top ups from the NRA to the toll companies is hardly newsworthy seeing as Paul Melia himself printed almost the exact same story last June http://www.independent.ie/national-news/state-paying-111000-a-week-to-toll-road-operators-2672986.html and the leader reported it last April http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/business/taxpayer_to_foot_hefty_bill_of_660m_limerick_tunnel_1_2578115

As for LCC, they've been saying for years that they were waiting for the tunnel to open so the could create the orbital routes and pedestrianise O'Connell St. Whether or not its a good idea is another story, but its something that has been known about for years and hardly qualifies as news.

The news angle was the amount of money being spent a week. News articles typically back up the main news item with background information. I think given the progress being made on the Northern Relief Road and local opposition to it in the news in recent weeks, that this story does qualify as news.

Cookiemunster

gaf1983 wrote: »

The news angle was the amount of money being spent a week. News articles typically back up the main news item with background information. I think given the progress being made on the Northern Relief Road and local opposition to it in the news in recent weeks, that this story does qualify as news.

The Northern relief road (which is county not city anyway) isn't mentioned in the article and isn't relevant to my point. If that road is built there will be a toll free northern bypass of the city putting less traffic through the tunnel.

Anyways back to the article. Last year it was stated that not enough cars were using the tunnel and the M3 costing the state €110,000 a week, then on Monday the same reporter stated that not enough cars were using the tunnel and the M3 costing the state €120,000 a week. Its basically the same story, whether he added the bit about LCCs well known traffic plans or not.

JD Dublin

Cookiemunster wrote: »

The Northern relief road (which is county not city anyway) isn't mentioned in the article and isn't relevant to my point. If that road is built there will be a toll free northern bypass of the city putting less traffic through the tunnel.

Anyways back to the article. Last year it was stated that not enough cars were using the tunnel and the M3 costing the state €110,000 a week, then on Monday the same reporter stated that not enough cars were using the tunnel and the M3 costing the state €120,000 a week. Its basically the same story, whether he added the bit about LCCs well known traffic plans or not.

It just goes to show you, it was news to me, but you are right this is news recycling at its best.

Clareman

saffy27 wrote: »

Does anyone know if its true that a couple of years ago only, a senior employee of Limerick City Council was arrested for fraud. Seemingly he had been stealing a large amount of money from Limerick City Council over his long career. If this is true, does anyone know why this wasn't made public? Or if it is true why he didn't go to jail? I am just wondering about this as I would like to know.

Hi,

Feel free to use google and any of the national papers websites to see if you can find anything, boards.ie can't speculate on topics like this without "proof" from recgonised sources, anyone speculating on anything like this will be banned and have their posts deleted.

saffy27

It's not in any of the papers I already checked. And I wasn't speculating, I was asking if anyone knew anything about it! So why would I be banned from this board? Am I not entitled to enquire in a open board about a topic that relates to civic matter? It may well be the case that there is no substance to this story, but either way I'd like to know if it is or isn't true, and if so what were the circumstances!

Clareman

saffy27 wrote: »

It's not in any of the papers I already checked. And I wasn't speculating, I was asking if anyone knew anything about it! So why would I be banned from this board? Am I not entitled to enquire in a open board about a topic that relates to civic matter? It may well be the case that there is no substance to this story, but either way I'd like to know if it is or isn't true, and if so what were the circumstances!

Speculation into something that hasn't been proven in a court of law can be libellous and subject the publisher of the speculation to legal proceedings, this means that boards.ie would be in danger so it has to protect itself from these situations, if this means dealing out punishments to posters then so be it.

saffy27

Then please let me explain, as you seem to have gotten the wrong end of the stick. To answer your last post, from what I was told but I do not know for sure, this was proven in court and legal proceedings did take place, I was told that this was reported in a local paper but that there was not much details given.I have not been able to find this article and if anyone knows where I could locate it I would be grateful. I do not see how my enquiry into this could be seen as libellous as 1. I have not mentioned the name of the person, and 2. I asked if anyone knew if the story was true or not, as I myself could not find this out. I clearly stated that I did not know if this story was true and particularly asked if it was true or not. If no one does know then that's absolutely fine, or if someone can confirm that this story is not true then I would be very grateful. Now, having explained myself as well as I can, for asking my original question, if this and any of my other posts are shall we say wrong then I will of course immediately delete them.

saffy27

I have deleted my original post, as I have received my answer from some very kind person on this thread. Thank you. And as there seems to be some truth to this story it would seems I wasn't doing anything libellous after all.