Residents of county Limerick community still waiting for safety measures at dangerous junction

THE delay in addressing road safety issues at Ward’s Cross, outside Abbeyfeale, has incensed  local Fine Gael councillor Liam Galvin. 

“Either someone isn’t doing their job or it is down to funding,” he said this week. He was responding to a report from the Mid-West Road Design Office which stated that consultants were still trying “to finalise the design and prepare the Preliminary Design Report”. 

“A small job like that should not take three years to start, never mind finish,” Cllr Galvin said. 

The dangers of junctions along the N21 from Barnagh to the Kerry border have been raised regularly over the years at the Newcastle West Municipal District and a deputation of councillors raised its concerns with Transport Infrastructure Ireland. 

The matter came to a head in September, 2017 when two local men were injured when the car they were travelling in was rear-ended as they waited to turn right at Wards Cross. At the time, Cllr Galvin warned that “somebody will have blood on their hands” unless action was taken to mitigate the dangers. Following the accident, locals also got together to voice their fears. 

At subsequent meetings of the Newcastle West Municipal District and a special meeting of Limerick City and County Council, it emerged that just seven junctions  between Newcastle West and the Kerry border had turning lanes. But there were 17 others, including Wards, with no turning or stacking lanes and the people using them were at daily risk. 

At that time, Cllr Galvin argued for a  rolling programme to be drawn up which would address safety issues at one or two junctions each year. 

In January 2018,  a list of six junctions out of the 17 was drawn up and sent forward to the TII with a request for  funding to carry out a detailed survey and design for the introduction of right hand turning lanes at all six junctions. 

But the TII responded, saying that only one junction, Ward’s Cross, merited further investigation based on their most recent analysis of collisions.

In March last year, Cllr Galvin was told that consultants were being sought for the Ward’s Cross design. 

Then last week, he was told that a number of design issues had been encountered by the technical consultants. And they listed topography, the location of property in the vicinity of the junction and retrofitting a right lane into a existing road. 

“Many of these issues do not conform to current road design parameters and will require a departure from standards from TII,” the report said. The consultants had worked to reduce the number of any such departures from standards, Cllr Galvin was told but a number of issues remain. “We are endeavouring to finalise the design and prepare the Preliminary Design Report and submit the departure application as soon as possible,” the report ended. 

Cllr Galvin pledged this week to “get to the bottom of this” and is demanding more urgency on the matter. 

Meanwhile, there has been some progress on a new design for the Devon Cross. Consultants have come up with three options to improve road safety at this crossroads. One option would be to install  traffic calming measures (like those at Croagh) while a second option would be to stagger the junction and realing the local road L7059 which starts at Buckleys Shop. A third option would be to introduce a roundabout and realign the regional road R515 which goes to Tournafulla and on to Dromcollogher. 

The options  have been reviewed by staff at the Mid-West Road Design Office and a draft report sent to the TII.