Public representatives attending a meeting in Letterkenny to discuss the town’s traffic congestion heard that roads funding has decreased by 50% since 2008.
The meeting on Monday came thirty years after the late Cllr. Bernard McGlinchey proposed a solution to the problem with a plan for an extensive outer ring road that was original and offered a new infrastructure plan to eliminate future gridlock.
The Tirconail Tribune reports that one councillor at Monday’s two hour meeting said: “I got no sense of any blueprint for a traffic solution in Letterkenny within official road planning that might provide an end to the crisis.’
And according to Cllrs. there was little evidence of any urgency to provide the essential monies for Donegal’s crumbling infrastructure.
Surprise has also been expressed that Donegal’s only Government Minister was not in attendance.
“The scrapping of town council status for Letterkenny has been a huge negative factor in funding with the loss of a substantial block grant of €400,000 per year for roads,” said one Cllr.
One source said afterwards that they are no closer to the Bonagee Link being funded, not alone completed than they were three to four years ago.
There has been criticism as to why this meeting was not held in a public forum to allow road users express their views on the infrastructure and roads planning and to question development decisions that have continued to pile housing estates. Government buildings and all traffic into one small hub around Letterkenny.
A deputation from Donegal is now to seek a meeting with Transport Minister, Shane Ross to push for a share of extra capital funding.
Thirty years after the late Cllr. Bernard McGlinchey proposed an outer relief road for Letterkenny that project lies in ruins due to a lack of money and despite delegations from Donegal going to Dublin annually seeking increases in roads funding very little progress has been achieved.
McGlinchey was a leading businessman in town and had witnessed the traffic problems all his life on the Port Road and predicted the situation would get much worse before getting any better.
He proposed a bridge across the Swilly onto a new road taking traffic out along the Swilly towards Cashelshanaghan: through Booragh and up across the Mountain Top: above Glencar to descend down near the Conwall graveyard: back into the outer edges of town close to where Kelly’s Hardware store and back up over a realigned Leck Road to link up with the new bridge on the Swilly.
He suggested a number of feeder routes of the main link road to service every part of the town and its environs… as ever lack of Government funding was put forward for the lack of progress.
Monday’s meeting was told that a new blueprint to highlight the problem will be prepared by Council staff in the coming weeks to bring to the Transport Minister for his consideration.
“At the earliest, I do not expect any real progress on the Bonagee Link in the coming five to eight years and that’s completely ignoring all the other bottlenecks leading into the town,’ said one of the elected representatives present
Those at the meeting included, Leas Ceann Comhairle. Pat the Cope Gallagher: Deputies Charlie McConalogue and Thomas Pringle, Senator Padraig MacLochlainn along with Cllrs. Ciaran Brogan, Jimmy Kavanagh, Liam Blaney, James Pat McDaid, Gerry McMonagle and Ian McGarvey. The Council was represented by Seamus Neely CE: Gary Martin, John McLaughlin and Liam Ward.
All the while, traffic gridlock on all routes into Letterkenny are causing havoc with major delays at the Dry Arch: Dunne’s Corner: the Ramelton Road back beyond Magherenna and at the Calhame junction with traffic sometimes backing up towards Illistrin school at rush hour.
No official funding costs have been put forward in the public domain for the Bonagee link to the Ramelton road but one Cllr. said the cost would be at least over €30 million with a minimum of €5 million needed to get the project to construction stage including land purchase and design costs.
The meeting came about as a result of a recent Letterkenny Municipal District debate on roads funding in the area amid mounting concerns that traffic gridlock is set to worsen as summer approaches.
While a number of politicians on Monday evening expressed serious concerns over the lack of progress with the Bonagee Link, the meeting was reminded that this is only part of the problem and nobody can ignore the reality that it is taking half an hour to travel one mile many mornings to get to work… and the situation is getting worse with every passing week.
A number of speakers at the meeting in the Council’s office on the Neil T. Blaney Road said they were disappointed that no solutions were available or proposed, not only for the gridlock in Letterkenny Town…but for the poor infrastructure across the entire Milford area.
The cost of the new Bonagee Link road and bridge was estimated to be in the region of around €20 million when it was discussed at length at a meeting many years ago at the now defunct Letterkenny Town Council.
And it has become a fact of political life that no money for the new bridge or link road is provided in the latest national plans for major road projects.
A series of proposals indicated by a report from the Letterkenny Integrated Land Use and Transportation Study (LUTS) remain gathering dust on officials shelves some nine years after it was compiled.
The LUTS report was welcomed as great news for Letterkenny: there were proposals for a new transport hub, beside the Port Bridge, feeder bus services, parking for taxis and for those taking coach trips to Dublin and elsewhere
The report noted that the Council along with along with other partners submitted an application for funding to the gateway innovation fund for the implementation of the new hub. The cost was estimated at €19.8million. LUTS forecast that vehicular traffic would increase by 150% by 2018 and 256% by 2023 from the base year of 2008.
Gridlock was a major issue back then…. It still is but the never ending political discourse has not been matched with Government funding and Monday’s meeting was acutely aware of this reality as all those present sang off the same hymn sheet.
“That was about the only real progress I saw on the issue,” said one Cllr.
