Hints of hope over traffic bottleneck

For the first time since the roundabout at McDonald’s was removed, Cllr Andrew Duncan and Cllr Ken Glynn – the two councillors most vocal in their condemnation of the traffic delays that have ensued – have admitted to a sense of hope that a real solution to the logjams may be in sight.

At the September meeting of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad, both councillors had agenda items relating to the issue, and to both, an undertaking was given stating that the council transportation section will bring forward alternative proposals for junction improvements at Castle Street.

Cllr Duncan, speaking on the congestion problem between Mount Street and McDonald’s, said the cynic in him believed the council want to make traffic unwelcome in the town centre, especially given the content of the Mullingar Traffic Plan outlined at the same meeting (see pages 6 and 7).

“By… having bottlenecks, you’re making [motorists] unwelcome because you’re causing people to be held up in traffic. We can fix this, and I want to fix it, and Ken wants to fix it – I think everybody that I spoke to over that whole [election] campaign wanted it fixed,” he said, adding that he didn’t want “a watery answer – I want to see some sort of concrete action. This has gone on an awful long time. Any proposals that we’re talking about, I’d like to see them time-framed. Let’s just see what exactly we’re talking about,” he said.

Cllr Glynn said in his case, it was, he believed, his 14th time to raise the bottleneck for discussion, but he believed this was the first time he had received what he was seeing as a positive response.

“Cllr Duncan is correct. It was one of the largest issues in the local election campaign – and for me, going to doors, it wasn’t a difficult subject to talk about, because I’m talking about it the whole time, and people are talking to me about it all the time,” he said.

He went on to say he hoped the executive could come up with a solution this side of Christmas, so the message could go out saying ‘Come to Mullingar: we are open for business!’.

Cllr Aoife Davitt said she too was keen to see a solution, adding that she has been alerted to the build up of traffic on the Delvin Road each morning as motorists are unable to get through the town, and of others following ‘rat run’ routes through narrow streets that weren’t built to take large volumes of cars.

Cllr Duncan said that like Cllr Glynn, he felt, for the first time ever, that progress was set to be made on the issue: “I spoke to the county manager about a month ago directly. And I felt – coming away from that meeting – that, yes, at last, we’re getting somewhere,” he said.

Director of services, Deirdre Reilly, said she proposed they hold an in-committee meeting in the next six weeks in relation to the potential solutions.

However, she thought it would be a bit ambitious to hope that they would have a solution implemented before Christmas, as there might be some structural changes required.