‘This plan is lunacy’

Active Travel proposal a bridge too far for councillors

Westmeath County Council will have to go back to the drawing board if they want the people of Mullingar to approve their €7m Active Travel Plan for the Dublin Road.

That’s according to Mullingar councillors, Andrew Duncan and Ken Glynn, who are united in their criticism of the council’s plan to remove all of the filter lanes at the Dublin Bridge junction, which they say will exacerbate traffic congestion in the centre of Mullingar and discourage people from coming in to the town centre.

Still at the preliminary design stage, the €7m Dublin road project, includes plans for a three-metre -wide protected cycle track and upgrade of existing footpaths along the 2.5km from the Dublin Bridge to roundabout at the Mullingar Park Hotel; as well as the installation of new pedestrian crossings at the Delvin Road, Ardmore Road and Glenmore Wood junctions; of new stops and upgrades of existing stops for the forthcoming town bus service; plus the introduction of traffic calming measures.

The most controversial feature of the new plan is the removal of the three filter lanes at the Dublin Bridge Junction.

Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner this week, Cllr Duncan accused the council of trying to “discourage people from entering the town in a car… by stealth”.

“They’re trying to push the idea of this modal shift from cars to bicycles and doing it by stealth. To try and create gridlock, to discourage people from entering the town in a car, is absolutely wrong, and it’s something that I absolutely won’t accept.

“We haven’t even solved the problem at McDonald’s Junction yet, and now we’re going to try and create a bigger bottleneck at the top end of town. These are sort of ill-conceived green ideas may work in some countries that have a climate that’s appropriate for it. The notion that people in Ireland are going to all hop on bikes coming in from the country is a lot of nonsense, really.

“I think there is a need to slow traffic down on towns. I would be very much in favour of slowing traffic, but I’m not in favour of gridlocks by creating bottlenecks, and that’s what I see this as. It’s just an attempt to design a system that will discourage people from driving into town.”

Cllr Duncan said that while he is in favour of the installation of a new cycle path along the Dublin Road, the Active Travel plan goes too far.