Problems with traffic and parking on South Circular Road

I wish to register my concerns about some of the problems which I believe will be caused by the new South Circular Road Active Travel Scheme. There are 260 homes on the South Circular Road from its junction with Ballinacurra to Lifford Avenue, 2 Creches, 2 Businesses, a proposed Nursing Home. There are 50 plus houses on Lifford Avenue, and a further 20 houses on Ballinacurra access the rear of their houses from Lifford Avenue. There is also Planning Permission for a further 32 Houses in the old Greenpark Racecoursw accessing Greenpark Avenue.

A lot of traffic use the South Circular Road daily coming from Mungret, Raheen, Dooradoyle & Ballykeefe. This happens mainly because there is no set of traffic lights from St. Paul’s Nursing Home to the Mallow Street Junction so it is a straight run into the City. Local traffic on the South Circular Road also benefit from this straight run. This causes congestion, particularly at rush hours, and School opening & closing times and is best described as inconvenient.

Some of this inconvenience is caused by failure to enforce the relevant traffic laws. People park too close to corners – limiting visibility for motorists & cyclists. People park illegally near the Redemptorist Church while waiting to collect Students from the 3 Schools – Laurel Hill, the Colaiste, & St. Clements. People also park illegally and double park on S. C. Rd at the junction with New Street while waiting to collect children from Scoil Mathair De. If Gardai & Council do not enforce the current parking regulations why should we believe that things will be any better in the new layout? There will be limited parking on South Circular Road in the new design. This has potential to make matters worse if parents continue to park as at present. Will there be a commitment to enforce parking regulations in the new design? If so, why not start now, and enforce current traffic regulations? 

As mentioned previously, I live on Greenpark Avenue along with 13 other houses. There is also Planning Permission in place for an additional 32 Houses in the old Greenpark Racecourse.  A minimum of 22 cars use this Avenue daily, in addition to carers calling to houses on the Avenue. 10 other houses on the South Circular Road have rear accesses to their homes on Greenpark Avenue, and there is a Creche at the top of the road, accessed from the Avenue. All the Avenue cars will have the option to turn left and go to Lifford Avenue or turn right and go down to the South Circular Road/Ballinacurra junction. Lifford Avenue is presently under pressure with cars parked on both sides at the top & bottom, and cars parked on the left hand side daily. A lot of the Residents at the top of the Avenue, have family and carers calling daily. Some of the Avenue Residents get fuel & grocery deliveries, and obviosly there are Bin Collections on the Avenue. Now there will be the additional South Circular Road, Greenpark Avenue & Boithrin na Tobair traffic routed through Lifford Avenue. One motorist at the end of the Avenue trying to turn right onto Ballinacurra could cause a monumental traffic jam while trying to cross a Bus Lane and a traffic lane to merge into the outgoing traffic! Add to this a Resident trying to turn into Lifford Avenue, and there is a potential for gridlock!

The proposed plan for the Boithrin na Tobar/Lifford Avenue junction is badly designed. The 20 Houses in Boithrin na Tobar need to be able to access out and in. It should be a straight cross junction. The proposed plan indicates no right turn out of Lifford Avenue, but they have to turn right at the Roundabout to get into Boithrin na Tobar. In the event of an accident would this have implications for a Motorists Insurance? The proposed planting to enhance the area could be landscaping on a modified triangle, and the tree left in place.

Staying on the South Circular Road, most of the residents from Boithrin na Tobar to New Street have off street parking, and that fact plus the fact that it is the widest section of the road is ideal for Cycle lanes. If this stretch was made a shared surface, cyclists & motorists should be able to use the road safely, and local traffic could continue to the New Street Junction and then turn left to Ashbourne/Courtbrack Avenue, or New Street. This would relieve the pressure on the problem which is Lifford Avenue.

My alternate route out of Greenpark Avenue is along the South Circular Road to the Ballinacurra Junction. I will have to cross a Bus Lane to merge with the traffic going into the City. If going out of Town, I will have to cross the Bus Lane and a Traffic lane to merge with the outgoing traffic. Ballinacurra is currently quite busy. With the previously mentioned suburban traffic now accessing the City on Ballinacurra, and no through traffic along the South Circular Road, it will be even busier, which will make my  merging out of town impossible. There will have to be a designated set of Traffic Lights and not just a Pedestrian Crossing at the South Circular Road Ballinacurra Junction.

There will be a serious impact on the lives of residents from Fennessy's as far as Alphonsus Street / Gerard Street. Here, many of the residents are elderly and those on the right hand side have no space to take their cars off the road. The area allocated for 10 cars at the Laurel Hill Avenue junction is very tight, and any bad parking could render it incapable of catering for 10 cars. It is not feasible to ask elderly people to park in communal parking spaces at some distance from their homes and walk along a badly lit road, particularly on a wet and windy winter night. Many of them may not be sufficiently mobile and cold be quite slow. Another safety issue would be the condition of the footpaths in the Autumn/Winter with leaves falling. The whole issue of the flooding gullies – a problem for over 30 years, will have to be considered in this Scheme in the interest of the safety of these Residents. Also there is a safety problem, especially after dark. There is antisocial behaviour on the South Circular Road and if the authorities are not prepared to clamp down on that at present, how can we have confidence that they will do so in the future?

Some people point to the summer of 2020, when access to the road was closed at the Ballinacurra / SCR junction. They claim that this proposal would see a return to those days which were indeed very pleasant. I don’t believe that this is correct for a number of reasons:

Firstly it has to be born in mind that that was summertime, when the schools / colleges were all closed.

Secondly, there were restrictions on the distances that people could travel for some of this period, which further reduced traffic on the road.

Thirdly, because a lot of people were working from home, there were less commuters travelling to work on a daily basis.

Enhancing facilities for pedestrians, cyclists & motorists is to be welcomed. Active Travel is a way of doing this. We must remember that there is very wide band of ages using the Roads and the environment. They all have varying levels of mobility and all have to be respected and facilitated.