Council makes clear cars are last in hierarchy of road users
Cars come last in terms of the hierarchy of town centre users, councillors learned at the November meeting of the Municipal District of Mullingar Kinnegad.
Director of services Deirdre O’Reilly stated it clearly for members: “As you know, government policy is town centre first, Active Travel, pedestrians, people with disabilities – ahead of bikes, ahead of cars and other forms of transport.”
Ms O’Reilly said that government policy was also about using public transport; using car parks and walking to town centre destinations.
“And that is fully supported by the executive.”
Ms O’Reilly was responding to a plea from Cllr Ken Glynn that a door-to-door survey be carried out among the business community in Mullingar to ascertain their views on the impact the traffic system introduced three years ago has had on the town.
Ms O’Reilly said that as part of the area-based transportation study for Mullingar that is under way, an assessment is to take place into how the traffic lights are currently working and how they will work in the future.
“As part of that study, site surveys, key stakeholder engagement, public consultation and draft baseline reports are completed and traffic surveys are completed,” she stated.
Ms O’Reilly went on to say that while there wouldn’t have been door to door surveys – as requested by Cllr Glynn, “each person or each business here in Mullingar had an opportunity to put their thoughts forward”.
Arising out of the study to date, she continued, the study team has now got a long list of options for walking, cycling, public transportation, and other vehicular traffic.
"These will be workshopped in December of this year, and they’ll be screened against national, regional and local policies and then they’ll be further analysed."
Ms O’Reilly made clear the direction the study was leading: "It won’t recommend – that I would see anyway – that we’re going to be increasing vehicular activity within the town centre, and it won’t suggest turning off the lights for a certain amount of time because there would be a huge health and safety risk with that.
"People need to be able to walk around our town centre here and I think it’s a good sign that most of the time the town works well.
"And I appreciate that there are going to be rainy Thursday afternoons or people moving on a Friday evening and there is going to be congestion there. But I think it is going to be a matter of education and promoting Active Travel."