Councillor McDonnell highlights critical problems with Galway City’s traffic system

In the City Council meeting held on Monday, Councillor Declan McDonnell critiqued the city’s lack of optimisation in its traffic light system.

He also highlighted a lack of staffing in the traffic unit in the city hall.

“My issue with the traffic lights is that we don’t have a full-time person at the unit even during peak hours,” Cllr McDonnell said, in reference to the issue he addressed in the City Council meeting earlier this week.

“If we do not have a person at the unit from half-seven to half-nine in the morning and from four to six in the evening, we are not solving the issue,” he added.

Importance of a full-time person in the unit

Cllr McDonnell proposed hiring a full-time employee at the traffic unit in the city hall. He said it would alleviate the peak-hour traffic that the city witnesses daily.

“Having a person there, he would be responsible to go down and check. What I’m asking for is that we get someone to sit four hours every day as a part of their duty,” said Cllr McDonnell.

When asked about the issues highlighted by Cllr McDonnell, Councillor Alan Cheevers also agreed to the suggestions put forth by Cllr McDonnell.

He said, “We need to seek someone from the traffic unit to sit there during the peak hours daily. I think that’s vital, as we have a huge traffic issue in Galway City.”

“I think what we need to do now is, we need to work on what we can do to control it the best,” he added.

Another setback highlighted at the Council Meeting

While highlighting the lack of a full-time employee deployed at the traffic unit situated at the city hall, Cllr McDonnell also touched upon another crucial step that needs to be taken.

“The problem is, half the traffic lights are connected to the city hall, connected to the system, and the other half is not,” he said.

“So, until we get that job fully done, it will be difficult to operate it anyway. However, the ones that are linked, we could have someone monitoring them,” added Cllr McDonnell.

Cllr Cheevers also agreed with Cllr McDonnell’s statement and mentioned that they need to work on connecting the city’s traffic lights to the system to optimise the city’s traffic better.

“There are numerous junctions, especially in the west of the city, that are not linked to the traffic control system,” said Councillor John Connolly. “I think it would be very important that any junction that is not on the traffic control system is linked to it,” he added.