Planning per sae is about preparing for the future whilst respecting the current and iin the case of the fr russell rd cycle scheme it seems that planning is lacking in both regards.There is a lot going on along fr russell rd that its never been designed for and which current intentions by limerick city and county council to facilitate a small user group eg cyclists will make matters worse.

The road is residential in nature and yet is increasingly utilised for access both ways between the motorway,the increasingly large regional hospital,expanding crescent shopping centre,limerick city centre with additional load of the intensified bus route all of which appear to have brought the current transport difficulties on fr russell rd to a head-its a busy road with over 10000 vehicles per day minimum that is getting busier as a road that was initially designed for housing access and not as a through route or rabbit run access to limerick city which it has become.Planning requires infrastructure to cope with increasing demands on this road and yet in this instance planning seems to be lacking.

Taking the helicopter view,the planning solution would appear to be to construct a by-pass to facilitate the through traffic and then to downgrade to just local access cycle way and bus route with appropriate traffic calming and not endeavour to intensify present incapable infrastructure by putting down cycle lanes on fr russell rd which will actually increase the dangers to the health,safety security and comfort of cyclists pedestrians,motorists and residents of the road as such segregated cycle lanes will encourage cyclists on the steep decline stetching over th 1km of cycle lanes to reach speeds of upto 50km per hour and risk serious injury or death between cyclists and cars emerging from the 39 houses that have entrances and driveways directly onto these cycle lanes.You also have 11 direct entrances from gouldavoher,abbeycourt,at the appartment block,oakfield,racefield,side of the creche,mount russell, ballinvoher, abbeycourt,blackberry lane and russell court.This in total poses 50 possible collision points between cyclists and motorists.

The lack of an intersection off the N18 to the R256 has been the principal driver of the problems on fr russell rd.

Simply constructing a new link road to the North to compensate for the lack could allviate all the issues for fr russell rd residents which relate ro the volume of vehicles, the too high speed limit of 50km per hour that should be reduced to 30 km per hour,the erection of retractable steel speed bumps like on the continent or in Ameica.The policing of the 3 tonne weigh restriction signs that are on fr russell rd which are totally ignored.30 trucks/vans over this weight illegally use this road every hour needs to be addressed

Its a simple matter of planning for the future, not intensifying past mistakes or by making future mistakes by just building cycle lanes in the hope that they will come (cyclists) while ignoring the main problems of fr russell rd. Ironically the law of unintended consequences will apply if LCCC construct these cycle lanes (a person could write pages on their design flaws which i will submit to LCCC) and possibly result in serious injury or death of a cyclist

regards

tony fitzgibbon

Part VIII - Fr Russell Road Cycle Scheme Phase 1 - Submissions

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