Limerick Transport

Why exactly are they up in arms? I find it funny that they are up in arms about this but yet wanna build over a thousand homes between Mungret and Coonagh. I'm assuming there will be houses built in this plan by UL close to the uni right? Let them develop that and focus on making the city centre more liveable with efficient bus links to the UL from the city.

pigtown wrote: »

The whole idea for the proposed Northern Distributor Route is to facilitate the car-centric development of the area. I generally try to be optimistic about the council and they have a lot of success in areas but it's very clear that they do not have any interest in following best practice and trying to move people away from needing their car.

Fixing transport issues must have multiple solutions, in order to work.

Personally, I think the stretch from Grove Island to Westbury is brutal for pedestrians and cyclists. It would be great if it could somehow be realigned and improved per DMURS, but I just don't see how it can be with all the traffic on it.

Doesn't taking Corbally - Castletroy/Raheen (via motorway) off the narrow, congested Corbally Rd, open the road up to more cycle/pedestrian friendly infrastructure as well as help improve 301 bus reliability?

I'm pro the NDR as realistically, we're never going to get everyone cycling to work/school on a bicycle so we'll always have cars. But at least with the NDR we should see a reduction of traffic on the Corbally Rd, to open it more cycle/pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Which in turn would encourage more walking and cycling?

As a Corbally resident, I would be interested in how people from outside the area, propose on improving its transport access dilema, without building the NDR.

For the record, I'm a cyclist/motorcyclist and work in Raheen area, commuting daily.

73hdkgo wrote: »

Fixing transport issues must have multiple solutions, in order to work.

Personally, I think the stretch from Grove Island to Westbury is brutal for pedestrians and cyclists. It would be great if it could somehow be realigned and improved per DMURS, but I just don't see how it can be with all the traffic on it.

Doesn't taking Corbally - Castletroy/Raheen (via motorway) off the narrow, congested Corbally Rd, open the road up to more cycle/pedestrian friendly infrastructure as well as help improve 301 bus reliability?

I'm pro the NDR as realistically, we're never going to get everyone cycling to work/school on a bicycle so we'll always have cars. But at least with the NDR we should see a reduction of traffic on the Corbally Rd, to open it more cycle/pedestrian friendly infrastructure. Which in turn would encourage more walking and cycling?

As a Corbally resident, I would be interested in how people from outside the area, propose on improving its transport access dilema, without building the NDR.

For the record, I'm a cyclist/motorcyclist and work in Raheen area, commuting daily.

Undoubtedly if the NDR is built it will improve the traffic issues around Corbally. I'm not from there and not overly familiar with the specific black spots but I do know that the reason for the traffic is a lack of forward planning. Hundreds of houses were built in the area and no provisions for transport were made. Cycling, walking, and bus facilities weren't built or even land set aside for them to be built in the future so naturally residents have to rely on their cars to get around.

My issue with the NDR is we are just repeating the same mistake. It will make it more attractive to live in Corbally and drive to your work in Raheen, Castletroy, Shannon etc. It will also open up huge areas of land next to the proposed junctions for housing development. Inevitably the new residents will also chose to drive to work far from their homes, again facilitating the car as king.

In a housing crisis one can argue that we don't have the luxury of making the construction of new homes more difficult, and that any new housing is a good thing, and of course right now it is. But people need to start thinking long-term.

Should all these new housing developments go ahead then we will be back here in 30 years time complaining about the terrible traffic on the NDR and giving out that the officials haven't planned a decent public transport system. We will scoff at the thought of cycling or walking to work or school as we will be living too far away. The bus system will have to contend with low density sprawl and so won't be able to provide a reliable, fast service. We will again hear how there is no alternative to the car and we need more roads to relieve the traffic.

LeoD wrote: »

With a little creativity, you could fit in adequately safe bike lanes but you would have to remove on-street parking which seems to be a red line issue for the council and residents alike. You can take our freedom but you'll never take our free on-street private property storage space!

As for the bridges, the council have just this week given the go ahead to build a pedestrian bridge next to the traffic bridge heading into Kilmallock. There's nothing to stop them doing something similar - a pedestrian & bike bridge - for a major urban area.



Just looking at the Athlunkard Bridge on Google streetview gives an indication of how dangerous it is.

Dont think there's any on street parking from Westbury to Grove Island, across the road from Hook and Ladder alright you'll often see someone park up but it's not an official parking space it's just the road is wide enough for some one to park up and still adequate room for traffic.

Do you know how much traffic crosses that bridge in the mornings, doing that would cause chaos. Could do what Leo proposed in making pedestrian walkways either side of the bridge and still leave two lanes of traffic. It's done quite successfully on the other bridges which haven't got much traffic compared to it.

zulutango wrote: »

Yep, I'm aware. This is the kind of hard decision we'll have to make though. A lot of those people who currently drive will opt for cycling if good cycling infrastructure is put in place. Others will choose an alternate route in their cars. People coming from the likes of Scariff and O'Brien's Bridge will be encouraged to use the motorway.

But you can put good cycling infrastructure at the bridge without reducing lanes of traffic, why do it when you don't need to do it. I'm all for great cycling infrastructure, I don't cycle and probably won't cause I commute to nenagh and I'm all for making the city centre pedestrian/cycle friendly and reducing car space there because makes a better place to be but there's no need to do it at that bridge when you can already put in good cycling infrastructure without reducing road space. Plus people in O'Briens bridge will probably already be using the motorway.

You wanna make that bridge one lane then build the NDR road so any traffic from the bridge out towards Westbury, Clonlara, Ardnacrusha etc will use that to avoid the city.

zulutango wrote: »

Athlunkard Bridge is wide enough to have a footpath and a 2-way cycleway and still leave a lane for vehicles. They could put traffic lights at either end of the bridge and allow cars to cross in alternate directions with each change of the lights. This is done quite successfully nearby on the bridge over the tail race at Parteen. It's also done on the bridge over the Park Canal, which is also quite nearby.

I thought that the park canal was all one way traffic now ? if thats the one ur talking of by musgraves??

Athlunkard bridge and park canal bridge are by now way comparable traffic wise or other.

As posted above the bridge near irish estates is a death trap. the road is too busy to put in an alternating light system unless you build the ring road to take traffic away !,i've said it before that putting a walkway/ cycleway ,on the bridge section ,like what we have down by the the treaty stone would be great for there and open it up to cyclists. is it going to happen ,probably not as who will pay for it ?
That whole road in general though needs a lot of work before its acceptable for cyclists , paths are too high at parts as well and 1 / 2 parts of the road narrow briefly that make it awkward for cycling. I've cycled it and with kids at times and it was not enjoyable in the slightest.

do the above changes and bring the bike scheme to near westbury or irish estates and it would be great !

i've edited as i always though athlunkard was the hump back bridge by grove island !

geotrig wrote: »

do the above changes and bring the bike scheme to near westbury or irish estates and it would be great !

I would love if they extended the shannon fields cycling lane to westbury, and cleaned up/resurfaced the red path down the mill road and put public bike stations along both those locations. That would be brilliant!

I think ye've been had - hook, line and sinker

What do people here think of the bus lane on Ballinacurra Road? I've heard people complain about it but I'd like to know what the issues are (I don't use buses).

LeoD wrote: »

In Limerick city and suburbs, private cars have around 65% modal share of transport. Buses are around 5% and bikes less than 3%. The National Development Plan aims to grow the population of Limerick city by 50,000 over the next 20 years. We cannot sustain those transport figures with a population that size and expect to have a competitive city for businesses to invest in or an attractive city for people to live in. So for those that use cars and don't want to be inconvenienced any more than they are today by ceding existing carriageway space to alternative, more efficient, more economical, more sustainable modes of transport, what do you suggest? The most common suggestion seems to be to build more roads/carriageways around the city to alleviate inner city traffic but this 'solution' has failed in every city and country around the world it has been tried in for the reasons outlined in previous posts. And don't think that this time it will be different. So apart from ring roads, does anyone have an alternative viable suggestion?

But when you can make Athlunkard Bridge more pedestrian/cyclist friendly and not reduce the lane of traffic with lights then what's the point, in the hopes you might p*ss some people off that they'll maybe consider cycling? As one poster suggested about being great if they could extend the Shannon fields cycle way to Westbury and if you could build a new cycle way at the bridge that can connect with Shannon fields it allows people to cycle all the way to the city centre without having to use the corbally road or the university.

zulutango wrote: »

Cost would be the main argument. You're talking a few million euro versus less than 100k for that intervention alone.

Isn't it better than spending 100+million on a NDR, promotes cycling and improves a great area like Shannon fields and park canal?

The Specialist wrote: »

It's also an accident waiting to happen at the junction near Lidl. Traffic going for town has to enter it to continue on, but the queue to go down near Lidl can often block access to it.

Do you think a lot of that traffic is heading to Lidl? The council have given the go ahead for Lidl to build a bigger and better store so expect more traffic turning right soon!

johnnyryan89 wrote: »

But when you can make Athlunkard Bridge more pedestrian/cyclist friendly and not reduce the lane of traffic with lights then what's the point, in the hopes you might p*ss some people off that they'll maybe consider cycling? As one poster suggested about being great if they could extend the Shannon fields cycle way to Westbury and if you could build a new cycle way at the bridge that can connect with Shannon fields it allows people to cycle all the way to the city centre without having to use the corbally road or the university.

Access from Corbally is no doubt problematic and if there are possibilities to reroute bikes away from motor traffic but still offer direct access to the city then those options should be pursued by the council. But those bridges coming from Corbally are particularly restrictive pinch points. We could do so much more around the city to make other modes of transport attractive without the need for major infrastructure investment by deciding to de-prioritise car traffic - the space is there to do it but we've surrendered it all to cars until now.