Cork City Council received 150 requests for pedestrian crossings in five years

Cork City Council has received more than 150 requests for pedestrian crossings in the last five years, but each crossing costs between €70,000 and €120,000.

Noel Murtagh, the council’s acting director of local area development and operations, explained at the recent council meeting: “In the last five years, over 150 requests for pedestrian crossings have been received by Traffic Operations. These requests came from elected members, in addition to a range of external stakeholders including but not limited to schools, resident associations and citizens.”

Far fewer pedestrian crossings than this have been completed during this time frame.

“Costings are not carried out for each request and are instead costed on a project by project basis once funding is secured, typically by external funding partners and under schemes such as SRTS, Road Safety Improvement Schemes and NTA Active Travel funding,” he said, but added that the cost of a pedestrian crossing, whether it be a zebra (Type A, B or C), pelican or toucan can range from €70,000-€120,000.

This is dependent on the location, the type of crossing appropriate for each particular location, the level of civil works associated with the installation and the level of electrical works required.

Mr Murtagh added: “Not every location is suitable for a pedestrian crossing. Assessment criteria governed under the various schemes are applied against individual projects in assessing the priority status afforded to each project.

“For example, Safe Routes to School (SRTS) schemes prioritise front of school safety and safety of routes to schools, Active Travel Schemes prioritise missing active travel links and Road Safety Improvement Schemes prioritise locations with high accident rates.”

The information was provided to Labour’s Peter Horgan, who asked for a list of the requests and locations for pedestrian crossings, both controlled and uncontrolled, in each ward with the projected costs associated with each and the priority rating it currently has.

At this week’s council meeting, he expressed disappointment that such a list had not been provided, and was told that the council’s executive would endeavour to get it to him soon.

Mr Horgan told The Echo: “The sheer number of pedestrian crossing requests received by council over last five years shows the desire from residents of our city, out whole city, for safer roads and pedestrian safety priority.

“We are too slow in rolling out the ones we have in the pipeline and we must ramp up investment for maintaining the ones already installed. Bodies like the Department of Transport and the NTA need to devolve the funding and decision making in full down to locally elected members to invest in safety for our citizens.”