Council declares war on right turns
THE City Council has declared war on ‘right turns’ at a number of bottleneck junctions – starting later this year – with the Raven Terrace/Fr. Griffin Road intersection first for the chop.
Vehicles coming from the direction of the Docks, and currently allowed to turn right at Raven Terrace, have been identified by city road engineers as a major choke on traffic.
In the project – expected to be completed by the end of November – the Raven Terrace vehicular link to Fr. Griffin Road will be closed off.
However, in the new arrangement, traffic coming from Docks direction will be able to turn right onto Fairhill Road on towards Dominick Street.
The Raven Terrace route will then to a large extent become a service road – in the new set-up, traffic travelling from the Dominick Street direction will still be able to turn right onto Fr. Griffin Road.
Work on phase one of this project is due to start in mid-September with the City Council predicting that the project will be complete by the end of November before the busy Christmas shopping period.
In phase two of the project, it is envisaged that the right turn from Claddagh Quay onto Fr. Griffin Road towards Wolfe Tone Bridge will be extinguished.
Motorists travelling from the Claddagh towards the Docks could get there by taking a loop – left along Fr. Griffin Road, right onto Fairhill Road and Dominick Street, right at Raven Terrace and then back onto Fairhill Road and left over the Wolfe Tone Bridge.
A final decision on another ‘right turn bottleneck’ at the Threadneedle-Taylor’s Hill junction will be made later this month aimed at ‘taking out’ the right turn options for traffic travelling east on the Kingston Road and West on the Taylor’s Hill Road.
City Council Director of Services, Ciarán Hayes, said that the changes were being brought in to help alleviate the situation whereby a small number of cars making right turns at key junctions ended up causing major traffic hold-ups.
“Our aim is to improve the traffic flow for the vast majority of motorists – there will be an inconvenience factor for a minority of drivers but we must look at the overall traffic flow situation,” said Ciarán Hayes.
For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune
ed.For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune