Active travel schemes for Douglas approved by city councillors

TWO active travel schemes for the Douglas area were approved at a meeting of Cork City Council this week.

Councillors approved proposed works on Frankfield Road primarily aimed at providing safe, accessible and convenient pedestrian and cycle facilities that will link housing estates in the area to existing cycling facilities at the Kinsale Road Roundabout.

Works will include the installation of kerbs and verges to segregate cycle facilities from traffic lanes on Frankfield Road; the widening of footpaths on the western side of the road and the installation of signalised crossings and raised tables at junctions and entrances along the scheme.

The scheme went to public consultation last September and received a total of six submissions.

In a report issued to councillors, the council’s director of infrastructure development, Gerry O’Beirne, said that all submissions were “duly considered” with a number of amendments incorporated into the proposal before council.

Fine Gael councillor Shane O’Callaghan said one proposed amendment was particularly welcome.

“The cycle lane is very welcome but as welcome, if not more welcome in my view, is something that wasn’t in the original plan.

“The original plan included a proposal to narrow the road from the Circle K service station back to the entrance to Alderbrook and at the time I intervened and I told council officials that if the road from the Circle K station back to the end of Alderbrook was narrowed, the unofficial second lane of traffic would disappear and the result would be a disaster for the area and would lead to traffic gridlock in the area every morning,”

he said.

Mr O’Callaghan said instead of narrowing this section of road, it is now proposed to widen it and create a second official traffic lane from the junction at the Kinsale Road Roundabout all the way back to the entrance to Alderbrook, something he said residents in the area are “enormously enthusiastic” about.

Lord Mayor of Cork, Cllr Deirdre Forde, also welcomed this as a “solid, practical decision”.

At Monday’s meeting of Cork City Council, councillors also approved active travel improvement works running from Maryborough Woods to Berkeley in Douglas.

The scheme will provide a shared pedestrian and cycle facility on the western side of the distributor road within Berkeley to provide cycle connectivity and improve pedestrian links to the distributor road within Maryborough Woods.