Cork City / County and roundabout vilification (Shannon Park roundabout - N28)

AugustusMinimus

Looks like those clowns in County Hall have done it again. What a bunch of clowns.

http://www.deirdreforde.ie/posts/proposed-signalisation-of-shannon-park-roundabout/

This is absolutely crazy stuff. I have never seen this roundabout cause any sort of congestion. Never once. The simple fact is that it never causes congestion.

In all my time driving through that roundabout, I don't think I've once seen a pedestrian walking through it either.


All of this raises a bigger question though. In a time of economic hardship and a big squeeze on the public purse, why is Cork City / County wasting the countries money on constant projects to remove roundabouts and replace them with signalised junctions. We are going in one direction when the rest of the world seems to be going the other way.

At this stage, we have seen numerous roundabouts removed and replaced by signalised junctions.

1. Roundabout outside of Scallys in Blackrock
2. Roundabout at the end of the Well Road
3. Dean Rock Roundabout in Togher (this caused so much chaos, they put the lights on flash amber and returned the roundabout again to the cost of over €500,000 :eek:

I have absolutely no doubt there are more planned. There is a plan to also remove the Wilton Roundabout and replace it with a signalised junction. It goes further than just replacing roundabouts though. If there's a unsignalised T junction with lights, lights are suddenly appearing, costing the state thousands.

Ballincollig clearly plays into this Mantra with 17 sets of traffic lights between one end of the town and the other. Everyone in the town is complaining about them. In rush hour, it can take 40 minutes :eek: to get from one end to the other. Ballincollig Business Association are crying out trying to get most of them on flashing amber. One day when the system went down, traffic flowed a hell of a lot better through the town.

This all leads to the question. Why is all of this happening ? There's an oft repeated urban legend that an extra zero was added to traffic light order by Cork City or County Council. I didn't believe this at first. However, if you apply Occams Razor to what is happening, it inevitably leads to the conclusion that this is the only valid solution to what is happening.

corkgsxr

It'd be alot better if they just fixed the roads. Shameful condition alot of them

Valetta

Spending unused budget allocations, to ensure they get the same level of funding next year.

ianobrien

I travelled through that junction every day for 4 years while working in Ringaskiddy. In the morning, I never experienced any delay at the roundabout (Carr's hill was another thing where people simply couldn't handle two lanes merging into one and stopping for no good reason -stopping to give way when you have right of way is not a good reason).

In the evening, there was usually a small delay, 3 minutes at the worst (sometimes it seemed like more but I started to time it)

They are also talking about taking away Shanbally roundabout (ya, the one at the church) that generally doesn't has any delays. What the hell are they on talking about and what are they smoking?

If Cork Co Co have some road improvement budget that they "need" to use, take a look at the main street in Buttavent (the back road to Beirut is better), the Riverstick to Belgooley road or a million and one other potholed tracks that pass for local roads.....

dantastic

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Ballincollig clearly plays into this Mantra with 17 sets of traffic lights between one end of the town and the other. Everyone in the town is complaining about them. In rush hour, it can take 40 minutes :eek: to get from one end to the other. Ballincollig Business Association are crying out trying to get most of them on flashing amber. One day when the system went down, traffic flowed a hell of a lot better through the town.

The work they did in Ballincollig is nothing short of being criminal. There was a congestion problem alright but it is many times worse now.

corktina

I hate traffic lights and much prefer roundabouts.

However, if the lights fail the traffic flows better, but pity the poor pedestrian trying to cross.