3rd river crossing for city?
A TFI bus stuck on a junction on Parnell Street/ The Mall, last week.
Residents and road users in Waterford City are feeling the stress of gridlock and traffic delays.
At the latest Metropolitan meeting, multiple councillors decried various schemes and roadworks throughout the city.
Cllr Jason Murphy (Fianna Fáil) asked Council to conduct an analysis on incoming and outgoing traffic into the city to aid the Waterford Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy (WMATS). He said: "Particularly from the Cork direction to ascertain how much of that traffic actually stops in the city and carries on over Rice Bridge, down to the N25 and on to the N9 and uses the city as a bypass itself."
He said that such information could be used to define "our traffic strategy going forward".
Senior Resident Engineer Paul Johnston said: "We have taken steps to undertake the traffic count details throughout the city. There has been a substantial increase in traffic recently in Waterford, we can all see it. In some ways we are victims of our own success with the amount of people coming into our city."
Sinn Féin's Cllr Jim Griffin asked for a workshop on Active Travel to be held before the Christmas break. He said: "I don't think we should wait until Christmas and I don't think those three projects should be lumped in together. We need to have a good chat about Active Travel."
Senior Architect Michael Murphy raised the possibility of installing a third bridge over the Suir to help ease the gridlock.
He said: "We physically cannot get anymore traffic through those junctions. There's only so much that can be done.
"One thing that is becoming increasingly clear is we need to progress a third river crossing. We need to start looking at options in that regard and we may bring it to Council separately but that will be part of the WMATS programme, and we need to accelerate that, Mayor, if our city is to thrive."
