Ballina town councillor Willie Nolan has claimed that the emergency services are being adversely affected by the new traffic layout in Ballina which has caused a lot of problems in the town since it was implemented last week. “I have been informed by members of the emergency services, especially the fire service, that they are quite concerned about the new traffic layout and how it could affect them,” the Fianna Fáil town councillor told the Mayo Advertiser this week. “You have the situation where members of the fire service are at home and get a call to come to the station to collect the tender to go out on a call. At the moment they are highly likely to come into one of the major traffic backlogs that have built up in the town and it will delay them getting to the tender. Then they also could have to go back through the traffic to get to the call they are going to.”
Cllr Nolan said greater consultation should have been carried out by the council before the plan was put into action. “Each of the major emergency services should have been consulted in advance and asked to send in a written report on their observations about how this new traffic layout would affect them getting about their work. I was also told during the week that an ambulance got stuck in a backlog that had built up during the week, we have to look after health and safety first in these things.”
The new system is causing particular problems at the Market Street area of the town. “The big problem down there is that you have a public car park, Tesco, and they have a car park, you also have a number of markets there during the week. You have a lot of traffic trying to get into one lane and it’s backing the whole place up.”
Yesterday the council announced it would be putting in a mini roundabout at the junction of Market Street, Circular Road, Humbert Street, and Bohernasup. This roundabout is to replace the existing traffic lights that were in operation at the major junction.
Cllr Nolan is not so sure that this new mini roundabout will solve the problem.
“Roundabouts need to be planned, that has always been my opinion. I hope it works out, but this could be a knee-jerk reaction. It may work, it may not, and even if it does work we don’t know that it’s not just going to shift the problem to somewhere else in the town.”
The new traffic plan, which kicked into action last Wednesday at 8am, is the second stage of a plan by the council to change traffic volumes in the town centre. The goal is to direct traffic that has no reason to go through the centre of the town away from the town centre and in turn free it up for people who do want to go in for business and to shop.
