ONE-way streets could soon be a thing of the past in parts of a city centre that doesn’t seem to know whether it is coming or going at the best of times.
Inspired by the bright lights of Amerikay, the local authority is thinking big when it comes to the highways, byways, freeways, and expressways of downtown Limerick.
And just when you’ve gotten used to busses getting wedged between silver bollards and illegally parked automobiles, with angle grinders a go-go, the Council is now looking at turning things on their head once more.
You have to admire their style, a “little bit werrrr, a little bit weyyyyy”, and they sure like to keep us guessing.
Just in case you are thinking of coming into the city centre to stock up on vapes, or to grab an auld macchiato, anytime soon, you better first check that the roads haven’t been taken in.
New plans are afoot to turn the clocks back to the good old days. You know, when you could double park down on Bedford Row to dash in and buy a loaf of bread in Mullany’s or pop in for a quick snifter in the Pink Elephant.
Influenced by our well-to-do cousins across the pond, the ones with more tariffs than sense, there’s now talk of trialling two-way traffic on certain city routes, which the Council is expecting to slow down your station wagons and, at the same time, create more flexibility.
American cities that also have Limerick’s grid system is where their transient imagination has taken our beloved Council. More like Toy Town, if you ask me, but what would I know?
Shooting from the hip on Newstalk Breakfast last week, Mayor John Moran revealed that this is just one of a number of changes the Council is hankering after to revitalise the city centre.
His Lordship took the view that one-way streets with multiple lanes are more intimidating for pedestrians.
Why? Well, because Limerick road hogs often behave like they can do whatever they want and just speed on through. True for him.
“In the old days, when you were driving from Dublin down to Kerry, you went straight through the city centre of Limerick,” he told Newstalk.
“This transport strategy is to properly revisit changes that were made probably 30 years ago or so… that made our wide streets into streets essentially like New York, where all the traffic goes in the same direction to try and get it through faster and not have the city snarled up with congestion.”
Pedestrianising streets is also on the cards. “Everything’s on the table,” the Mayor told Newstalk.
“We know that we need to do things differently and in many ways, back when I was elected, that was the exact point – most people wanted some radical change.”
And we’re not talking just a lick of paint either. Oh, wait.
“I think, with a couple of cans of paint, like they did in New York, you can try out different things, and then when you’re absolutely sure that they work and people get used to them, you can bring in the engineers,” Moran mused.
A visionary, who is passionate about Limerick, Moran also believes the approach to the calamitous O’Connell Street Revitalisation Project was the wrong one.
In our directly-elected Mayor’s view, a two-way system would create more flexibility, while also giving the option to temporarily pedestrianise streets for festivals and events.
Who doesn’t love New York in the fall? But wait until you experience the ever-rotating boulevards of the Treaty City that shilly-shally all over topsy-turvy place, no matter the season. Fun times ahead.
