Independent Councillor Terry O’Flaherty has expressed her disappointment at the response of city officials to her call for a pedestrian crossing to be provided on the Dublin Road near the ATU Galway campus.
She had tabled a motion to the Galway City Council calling for the immediate provision of a crossing, to facilitate, in particular, students and other bus users alighting at stops on either side of the Dublin Road and having to cross an extremely busy road to get to the ATU campus or the North West Regional Garda HQ on the other side
“While the proposed BusConnects Scheme includes the provision of dedicated pedestrian and cyclist crossings in the area, this will take some time and, in the meantime, many hundreds of people are taking their lives in their hands every week at this location to cross the road, which has an almost constant flow of traffic with no safe pedestrian crossing option,” Cllr O’Flaherty’s motion added.
However, in a reply from the Acting Director of Infrastructure, Development and Planning with the City Council he said that the Council’s Active Travel Team – which was progressing the development of the BusConnects Galway Dublin Road Scheme and including the provision of dedicated pedestrian and cyclist crossings – had no plan to instal temporary facilities.
“It is important to note that a crossing is proposed as part of committed planning for ATU, between the main campus to the north of the Dublin Road and the sports campus site to the south (Gaelscoil Dara Access Road ). However, this is to be progressed as part of the ATU development,” he added.
The Acting Director pointed out that the Active Travel Team had received more than 50 separate requests for new pedestrian crossings to be installed at locations throughout the city.
Councillor O’Flaherty said she was disappointed with the reply:
“As I said in my notice of motion, people are taking their lives in their hands at the moment trying to cross this extremely busy road – anyone who has driven along here will doubtless have at some stage seen someone running across and only making it by the skin of their teeth.
“There is an urgent need for some kind of safe crossing facility to be installed at this point before someone is seriously injured or worse,” she added.
