€300,000 spent on road in Tipperary but speeding problem still persists

The District Mayor in Clonmel believes he has a better chance of running a marathon in less than two hours than having speed ramps installed on the town’s roads.

Cllr Michael Murphy made his remarks at the monthly meeting of Clonmel Borough District.

He said that upwards of €300,000 had been spent on measures to slow speeding traffic on the Coleville Road, where 80 percent of vehicles exceeded the speed limit.

However, since the work was carried out, 80 percent of vehicles were still exceeding the speed limit on the road.

Those significant steps that had been taken on the Coleville Road hadn’t worked and he feared that somebody would be injured there.

He said there had been three accidents related to speed at St Nicholas Terrace in the Old Bridge and a speed survey was needed at that location.

He said that ramps or vertical deflections were needed in many locations around the town.

Cllr Pat English said that the funding for speed ramps had already been committed for certain areas including Old Bridge, Ard Fatima, Summerhill Drive and Heywood Road, but they hadn’t been installed.

Ramps were the most effective way to reduce speeding in estates.

Cllr Siobhán Ambrose said they could have chicanes and build-outs on roads but ramps were the only thing that stopped speeding.

She said that developers should include them as part of the design when they were building new housing estates.

Cllr Ambrose said it was very difficult to look at other areas such as Waterford and Limerick, where there didn’t seem to be any issue with speed ramps.

Cllr Richie Molloy said that people like delivery van drivers who weren’t from an area drove into housing estates “like rockets”.
A mini roundabout had been installed at the Coleville Road but motorists were just driving through it.

A lot of the older estates wouldn’t be able to instal the measures that the District Engineer was talking about and in his view ramps were the only solution.

District Engineer James Murray said that speed ramps or vertical deflections weren’t ruled out, but the council also had to enforce low speed environments.

“The education piece has to come with the engineering piece,” he stated.

He said it wouldn’t be appropriate to instal ramps without changing the road environment, and ramps alone wouldn’t be appropriate at a transition point in a road.

Mr Murray said there would be a strong conversation about speed limits in the next six to nine months, with the speed limit review that would be undertaken.

He said that the reduction in speed limits that would be proposed for the urban area might change the picture in some locations.

The engineer acknowledged that speeding was at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and they were anxious to do everything they could to help reduce it.

Pedestrians made up a fair cohort of people killed on the roads but the council had to be guided by design and policy, he added.