TRANSPORT
Traffic going to the airport, or heavy duty lorries going to Poppintree Industrial Estate pass through Ballymun on Ballymun Road. BRL predicts that traffic passing into Ballymun will contribute to socio-economic regeneration.
BUT
BRL plans to introduce 'Traffic Calming' measures to reduce speed on the new Main Street (Ballymun Road). BRL must do this if the Main Street is to 'work' as a 'boulevard' as designed
HOWEVER
Traffic will avoid Ballymun if it cannot get to the Industrial Estate or the Airport quickly. The traffic claming measures will ensure that this actually happens, unless there is somewhere else for the traffic to go.
WHERE ELSE CAN THE TRAFFIC GO?
Traffic may end up passing through the Housing Estate. But BRL plans to introduce more Traffic Calming measures on the Link Roads outside housing.
This, according to BRL will allow children to play safely!
(see Playgrounds)
But again, the traffic calming measures will make traffic avoid the area.
So the plans to have traffic contribute to socio-economic regeneration is nonsense.
BRL must revise it's transport strategy on the basis of this alone.
BUT IT GETS WORSE
BRL state that the LUAS should go through the Main Street. This in itself will reduce the amount of traffic that passes through the Main Street.
STILL
It is VITALLY important that the LUAS Route passes through Ballymun. The benefits to people are huge. And as important, the route would guarantee the success of the New Main Street.
BUT
BRL have no control over where the LUAS goes. The North City part of Luas isn;t even designed yet.
So Ballymun people must lobby the Government, Department of Environment, Dublin Transportation Initiative, and the Corporation to ensure that Ballymun is laced securely on the LUAS route.
WHY?
Because there are alternative local routes outside Ballymun that the LUAS could take and no doubt residents and commercial interests in those areas will be keen to see the route pass through their neighbourhood.
However Ballymun needs the route more than any other area adjacent to Ballymun. Plus, it is the logical connection between the city and the airport. Provision can be made now, when designing the Main Street, to ensure there is enough road space for the LUAS. No other road close enough to the airport is as suitable as the Main Street.
Spot the Missing Luas!
The Luas, according to BRL, will go up and down the Main Street. Yet in a recent architectural plan and in its accompanying planning application (Gateway Housing Scheme for the Main Street - 0293/00), BRL appears to have neglected to tell the architects about the Luas.
It doesn't seem to be in the planning application. And it doesn't appear on the published artists impression of this development as published in the tender notice in newspapers.
Where has the Luas gone?.
More later....
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