Farronshoneen Roundabout

I have said this hear before, returning the Quays to four lanes will not fix the issue.

I remember as a delivery driver around Waterford in the 90s and early 00s traffic was often backed up from the bridge back past SETU Cork road campus.

From the bridge up Summer hill back as far as Norris's and up the yellow road back as far as Heffernans car sales..

The by pass was built and the outer ring road and it reduced the traffic massively, but here we are again as waterford and it's surrounds population increases.

The quay never actually had four lanes the whole length, and the stretch that had four lanes never really functioned as four lanes, especially west bound on the Quay.

As the Quay never worked as four lanes, is the current layout the solution, no, but does it make it safer for other road users and pedestrians, I would think so.

If you did have proper cycling infrastructure, it's not going to make everyone switch to bikes but it should begin to change the next generates attitude to alternative transport.

Take the park road, newtown, dls and waterpark, three schools in a few 100 meters, the mornings is crammed with cars dropping kids off, imagine proper cycling infrastructure there and a large percentage of the kids actually cycled to school. Traffic would reduce dramatically.

You say we are not the Netherlands and you are correct, but Waterford is a small city and is very accessible via a bike, but how do we do it. Not token gestures for a start, proper financial funding is key.

Take farronsoheen roundabout, with proper funding the pedestrian crossings could be under the road.

The Dunmore road, could be designed in a way where you remove a footpath from one side and have a bi directional cycle lane on that side with the road in the middle.

If you think, on the left, footpath, road in the middle and on the right segregated bi directional cycle lane, plenty of zebra crossings to allow pedestrians/cycles to cross to the side they need to travel on, or if funding was no issue, a cycle alone all along the river sure like a bilberry with plenty access points to the dunmore road.

Inside active travel is about placing white paint on the ground which is not effective.

Cars will always be the way for our generation but that can change for future generations if proper infrastructure is in place.

Arguments like, "stick to your bike, I'll stick to my car" certainly won't resolve the issue, if we do all stick to our cars that hour trip you take will become 90 minutes.

Wow. There you go. A well thought out and structured point of view. Said everything a reasonable person would. All anyone wants is to get from A to B in a reasonable amount of time. Going to work, school, doing shopping & visiting people. Being stuck in traffic gridlock for long periods is utterly frustrating. And it's not practical either. How does a family of do a weekly shop without a car? Is it safe to let your child cycle to/from school? Would you want them walking home in dark at this time of year? Do you want all the people who travel to Waterford to work/college to use a bus, cycle, use an out of town park n ride? Not gonna happen. Ever.

If someone wants to cycle so be it. But commuting cyclists are in the minority here in Waterford. The overwhelming majority of people drive. They should be able to go about their business in a reasonable time. The concept of 'Active Travel' is just another PR fad. And our WCCC wants to be the good boy. Box ticking. Adhering to best practice. Yadda yadda.

I'm someone who both cycles and drives and feel I can honestly answer this.

1. No

2. No

3. No

As for revenue loss of people suddenly stopped using cars, I wouldn't worry about that, they'll get it out of us another way.

I for one are not asking people to give up the car. I'm not someone who cycles 24/7, I probably do more driving than cycling, and you are right not everyone can cycle and other reasons can prevent them from cycle.

I always take schools as an example. I'm 1.2km away from the kids school. We walk pretty much every day.

I see people living 600m - 1km from the school drive their kids practically to the door while sitting in traffic for 10 minutes and then have to sit in traffic on the way back for another solid 10 minutes.

Monkey see, monkey do, what will those kids do when they are older probably the same. If safe infrastructure existed we could see an increase of kids cycling to school and something they might continue to do into their adulthood, and not out of being forced to do it but because they might want to do it rather than sitting in traffic, it's a culture change and shift.

Over half a century ago they knew the population was increasing but they didn't bother to plan ahead. 20 plus years Collins avenue was built and they keep building out that way but not upgrading the transport network properly. When they build the link road between the hospital and Williamstown they didn't think ahead again. Whoever thought it was a great idea to have housing estate entrances onto a ring road that requires people to have to go down to an already heavily congested roundabout to be able to turn around to get out to the industrial estates needs their head examined. Knightswood, Deer Park and any other estate they put in that area exiting onto an already badly designed traffic flow is going to put people off moving to Waterford and the surrounding area. Who in their right mind would move out there if they work in the industrial estate on the cork road or the other business on the Cork side.

The link between the hospital and Farronshoneen could have been done with 3 lanes. An extra one on the hospital end to allow more traffic to turn left towards town and the third to allow left to ballygunner from Tesco Ardkeen roundabout. This with plenty to spare for footpaths and cycle lanes. When I was on the Dunmore road I used to avoid that whole area in the mornings. My rat run was right out towards Dunmore East, then up to Ballygunner and straight through towards the Airport road via narrow windy back roads onto the bypass, get off at the Tramore road. Up the Ash road towards Paddy Browns and then take another rat run through Skibbereen Road. As long as I got out before 8:10 I got into work in about 30 to 45 mins. Where I worked taking a bus was not an option.

A big game changer would be more school buses and make parents use them. If a parent is not near a bus stop and that's their excuse to drive their kids to school then have designated drop off points that are also bus stops. Area's where there is a large carpark so they won't be blocking the roads. This will make the area's around schools safer as well. We all see the difference in the mornings when they schools are off.

I don't know if it's feasible but maybe a survey like the census asking what people driving/travel habits are, also add in their shopping habits to see why people don't want to go into the main town now to shop. Ask the people who live here how they live, what would make Waterford more attractive to people and businesses alike and what would make their lives that little bit easier.

Reality is people are going to keep driving and the Council, bike and active travel people need to understand how other people live. We have an aging population who are not going to rely on bikes and public transport to get around and the rest who have their own reasons are going to continue to use their cars. In our house we drive because of age and health issues. We do our shopping once a week in Tesco ardkeen and aldi even though it is not near us because there is a better selection of items. We don't buy small mince we buy large so it makes 2 meal which in turn means less plastic and general waste. We all have arthritis, mum has it in all her joints, my father in his spine and neck and I have it in my neck. Neck pain that causes shooting pains and numbness in arms does not allow for hauling shopping bags about and anyone who tells me to use public transport for shopping can go f*ck themselves. W are not going to go out every few days to get items which would mean having to buy smaller packs to fit into shopping bags and that means more plastic waste and time wasted.

Less cars on the road also means less revenue from car tax, fuel, NCT's and the tax from items bought for cars. They are going to try and get that money back from other means so you might start seeing your pay cheques getting smaller and the carbon tax on heating going up.

It's pretty simple, if they want to get people out of cars, increase the bus route frequency to every 10 (peak) or 15 minutes (off peak). A bus every 30 minutes (when they actually turn up) isn't convenient for anyone. Yes, there might be a lot of redundancy and inefficiency at the start, but it needs to be put in place first if they expect to change behaviours and have local bus travel viewed as a reliable and viable alternative by the public.

For the argument that the buses are still going to get stuck in traffic, they can have contraflow bus lanes and green only bus traffic lights, the same as they have in many places in Dublin, which also has ancient roadways that people have to contend with. It won't fix the problem, but again, if the use of these can allow the buses to get to where they need to go, say twice as fast as being in a private car, then it will encourage people to move to buses. I do appreciate that private car travel is still required by lots of people for lots of reasons, but there are also a lot of journeys that could be bus journeys if there was a frequent, reliable, convenient service.

The problem is there's no will to do this. Bus Eireann operate a token local bus service that ticks the boxes but which passengers can't really rely on. It suits Bus Eireann but do you ever hear any passengers every singing it's praises?

There should already be a bus route from the hospital out to the Industrial Estate/SETU. I, like many people went to the trouble to highlight this in the BusConnects consultation about a year ago. Anyone with half a brain cell could see that would be a good idea, and it would be able to link in with the other existing W services, a lot of which cross the Outer Ring Road. But is that in the new plan? Of course it **** isn't: https://waterfordnewnetwork.s3.amazonaws.com/index.html

Again, just token gestures, no real appetite to change anything.

W5 bus from Clock Tower to UHW (described as Waterford Hospital" on the TFI map) is a great success. I cant understand why the W1 to Ballybeg, which I use on occasions, has destination as An Che (The Quay) as it travels outwards, nor can I understand why it doesnt go to Whitfield UPMC Hospital or at least indicate that destination on its literature.

Its not helpful to have JJ Kavanagh operate a city bus service IMHO. A single operator would be much better.

We need some proper bus lanes.

Some councillors seem to forgot active travel is not just about public transport and cyclists, its aim is to also improve safety for pedestrians by slowing car speed.

In a week Waterford has had one cyclist and pedestrian killed on our roads. No matter how safe we all are accidents happened and a car, bus, lorry will always win over a pedestrian/cyclist.

Other road users seem to have been completly forgotten about in this debate.

Visually impaired and wheelchair users. Ask either and they will take a pedestrian crossing over a zebra crossing any day.

I have a niece who is in a wheel chair and I would encourage anyone to borrow a wheelchair, sit in it and try to navigate around town, you will easily see, a pedestrian crossing and narrow junctions is a god send.

Also close your eyes at either a pedestrian crossing, zebra crossing, narrow junction, wide junction and attempt to cross the road, and see which you would find safer. I bet pedestrian crossings and narrow junction win every time.

Why? Right/narrow junction mean cars have to slow to turn, rather than just wizzing in. Pedestrian crossings hearing the green man and knowing the light is red gives more confidence in crossing.

I think the removal of the inside lane is definitely causing an issue. As the inside was used as a filter lane, which allowed cars to progress I feel.

They could have left the two lanes present and just moved the zebra crossing back a bit, and they still could have achieved the same outcome with safety etc.

For the life of me all the work that went on there and can't believe they left the pedestrian crossing on the Williamstown side right on the roundabout, I'd say that goes against all kind of safety crossings.

I think that's dangerous to all road users, motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.

Driver behaviour at this roundabout not helping either. Cars knowingly coming in outside lane off the ring road even though they're not taking 3rd exit. Also when traffic backs up from solas red light drivers like to block up the roundabout for fear that a car might get out in front of them 😏

While there would of been busy traffic at times at the roundabout, there was never bottle necks like there is now since the imposition of a single lane traffic system at the roundabout. Like they say a photo paints many words, what you see in this screenshot is a direct consequence of the Council's decision and the tiny minority that support it .

Tbf that ambulance stuck in traffic is at O'Sullians/The Reg where there was only ever one lane.

The day Tiernan recorded that video, a car broke down on Rice bridge outbound reducing the bridge to one lane which as we can imagine caused absolute havock.

The solution for emergency services is an easy one, reduce the width of the central median, that way you still have single lane carriageway and vehicles have room to move aside if required.

That problem no government funding would cover that works unfortunately.