Call for traffic calming measures

THE members of the Monaghan Municipal District passed a motion on Monday seeking to expand the funding available to address road safety concerns in the villages and rural settlements of north Monaghan.

Cllr Pauric Clerkin proposed that Minister for Transport, Darragh O’Brien, and his Department substantially increase Monaghan County Council’s funding under the Low-Cost Safety Improvement Scheme.

Cllr Clerkin said increased funding will recognise the significant number of towns, villages and settlements in the county where additional traffic calming and road safety measures are required.

“Monaghan has a large number of villages and smaller settlements located along regional and local roads,” he noted, “with many experiencing significant through-traffic and pedestrian movements but without adequate traffic calming infrastructure.”

He thought more funding from the scheme will give the local authority greater capacity to implement small-scale but high-impact road safety measures.

“The only way to slow people down is speed ramps,” Cllr Clerkin argued. “We have traffic calming measures in our villages but they aren’t adequate to reduce speed.”

Seconding the motion, Cllr Raymond Aughey (FF), who chairs Monaghan County Council’s Strategic Policy Committee on Transport and its Speed Limit Committee, referred to a survey conducted in the Roslea Road area of the village of Scotstown. It showed that the average speed of motorists was 77km/h in what is a 50 zone. The highest speed recorded was 120km/h in an area where there were two housing estates.

“When motorists disregard their safety like this, we have to protect the safety of others, particularly schoolchildren,” Cllr Aughey stated.

Earlier in the meeting, Cllr Aughey advocated the introduction of raised pedestrian crossings in a number of village locations as a method of curbing speeding, stating that these have worked effectively in other areas.

Cllr Clerkin’s motion was unanimously agreed.