No support for Boxer's call to turn off Athlone traffic lights

A call from Kevin 'Boxer' Moran to temporarily switch off a set of new traffic lights in Athlone in order to help ease the town's traffic woes failed to attract the support of his fellow councillors on Monday.

In his first Athlone Moate Municipal District meeting since his resounding election to the council chamber, 'Boxer' proposed that the traffic lights at Carey's pub, at the junction between Gleeson Street and Mardyke Street, be turned off.

He said these lights shouldn't be used again until after the Main Drainage Project works in the vicinity of Northgate Street were completed.

"That light at Carey's pub has to go. I don't care what you have to do, but I won't support it," said 'Boxer'.

He said councillors had been told years ago that a one-way traffic system in Athlone would not work in the absence of the long-delayed Railway Field Road project, but the one-way system was then brought in anyway.

"When the lights broke at (St Vincent's hospital) last week, it proved to me that taking the lights out of action works," he said.

"If we keep going the way we're going, Athlone is going to end up like Galway. They took out every roundabout in Galway, and now they're fighting for ring-roads and bypasses. We'll be the same.

"If we want people to come with us, we need to work with the people. It's not about the pedestrians or the motorists, it's about everybody.

"Most of all, it's about the people who open their shop doors on a Monday morning, and they need footfall," said 'Boxer'.

"While the (Athlone streetscape) work is beautiful, and lovely to look at, the traffic management of Athlone has failed. And we are to blame for that - I'm not, but the previous councils are to blame for it."

His proposal to temporarily turn off the lights at Carey's pub was not seconded by any of the other councillors - and therefore was not carried.

It came during a lengthy discussion about the new traffic lights at the St Mary's Square, Pump Lane and Mardyke Street junction.

Cllr Aengus O'Rourke said he believed "a little more time for experimentation" with the new lights should be allowed, but that the traffic situation must be seen to improve before the schools return.

"As soon as the schools come back, we need to have a decision made on those lights," said Cllr O'Rourke.

"I'd be saying that if we don't have those lights sorted by the end of August, we'll need a change at that junction."

Cllr Paul Hogan agreed that "the traffic light system at Mardyke Street is now seen as the pinch point," while Cllr Frankie Keena spoke about the need to advance proposed link roads in Athlone to ease the traffic gridlock.

District Manager Willie Ryan said a number of changes to traffic light sequencing had been introduced in recent weeks, in an effort to improve the situation.

These included the addition on Monday of an extra ten seconds to the green light phase for motorists coming from Golden Island and travelling up John Broderick Street, towards Gleeson Street.

"In my experience, where we have made (traffic) changes as impactful as this, it's all people talk about for a while, but there will be a rebalancing of traffic in time," he commented.

Mr Ryan said that when the traffic lights went out, at St Vincent's Hospital and the Crescent junction last week, traffic had been more "free-flowing" but the situation had been "lethal" from the perspective of pedestrians in those areas.