Pre-boom traffic levels testing Cork City road capacity
Several major traffic snarl-ups last week sparked a lengthy debate in City Hall on Monday. Councillors suspended standing orders to demand an explanation for the congestion at peak hours.
There were complaints that journeys between neighbouring suburbs took up to an hour. Road works, and bus and bike lanes, were blamed for reducing capacity on key roads.
The council’s head of roads and transportation, Gerry O’Beirne, said last week’s problems were caused by a series of simultaneous road-traffic accidents on key routes, combined with upgrade works to traffic signals at Horgan’s Quay and Penrose Quay (work which is now complete). Also, gardaí confirmed that a traffic-signalling fault caused a cascade effect on other junctions. The fault has been resolved.
Mr O’Beirne said the resultant congestion was worse because there were more cars on the roads than four or five years ago.
Daily traffic in the city centre island area peaked at 113,000 in 2006, and dropped to 93,000 in 2008. But, as the economy recovered, traffic volumes had risen to 110,000 per day by the end of last year. Mr O’Beirne said data due in December will likely show another increase.
Traffic counts from 25 locations on an outer cordon show a similar increase — from 193,000 daily traffic movements in 2008 to 253,000 daily in 2015.
“The city centre’s roads have limited capacity, and road-traffic accidents and restrictions for road works are likely to cause difficulties that weren’t experienced two or three years ago,” said Mr O’Beirne.
However, he said there has been significant investment in bus lanes, and in Bus Éireann’s fleet and network, to make the services faster and more reliable. The investment increased city bus service use by 6% in 2014, and by 8% last year, with predictions of a 10% increase this year, to 13m bus-passenger trips a year.
Cllr Joe Kavanagh (FG) called for a high-level meeting of traffic engineers and gardaí to devise a plan to solve the city’s traffic problems. Cllr Chris O’Leary (SF) called for a halt to road works to minimise disruption to motorists in the run-up to Christmas.
Cllr Mary Shields (FF) said congestion in the western suburbs is horrendous, while FF Cllr Tim Brosnan said the congestion highlights the need for a northern ring road.
Mr O’Beirne said his officials and gardaí meet weekly to coordinate road works. He said all road works in the city will be suspended from the end of November to facilitate the free movement of traffic at Christmas. Gardaí will mount Operation Freeflow to keep traffic moving.
