Sir, - Ray Lund (July 6th), follows a similar public statement very recently from the chief executive of the BMW motor company in confirming that the traffic calming scheme in Mount Merrion is finally beginning to bite effectively, even before it is fully completed. I take issue with Mr Lund on several counts.
Firstly, the Mount Merrion scheme is not being imposed by "the authorities" as he infers. It is a long overdue response to a 20-year campaign by the Mount Merrion Residents' Association, representing 1,500 households, to get action from D·n Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council (and its predecessor, the former Dublin County Council), on the hazards caused by rat-running traffic speeding through this formerly quiet residential area.
Prior to the commencement of this phased scheme almost three years ago, there had been several fatalities and countless other traffic accidents on the internal roads of this estate, which were never designed to take the escalating volume of through-traffic to which they have been subjected over the past 15 to 20 years.
My association is particularly encouraged by the effectiveness of the latest traffic features installed on North Avenue and Upper South Avenue, to which Mr Lund takes exception. The need for those features, right in the centre of this community area, is underlined by the fact that the stretch of road in question is immediately adjacent to the local church, primary school, community centre and shopping area.
Pedestrian activity in that locality every day involves a high proportion of this community's young children and elderly residents.
The triangular build-outs, with yield signs on alternate sides of the road, and the new pedestrian islands (to be strengthened shortly by pedestrian-operated traffic lights), have changed the status of this half mile of roadway from being a Mondello or Monte Carlo style race track to a pace more consistent with the 30 mph legal speed limit. (We propose to have a 20 mph limit within Mount Merrion as soon as road traffic legislation is updated to enforce this).
While we have used the speed bumps to which Mr Lund refers elsewhere in the estate, they are not an effective option on North-South Avenue, which is a bus route, due to an aversion by Dublin Bus personnel to traversing them.
Mr Lund's concern about the wider south Dublin suburban traffic gridlock is perfectly legitimate. The ultimate solution involves further improvement in public transport - on which the DART and the excellent N11 QBC are a good start - and, yes, much less use of high-powered passenger-less pollutomobiles on the twice-daily crawl between the suburbs and the city centre!
Meanwhile, the message to all of our unwanted rat-running habituΘs is that Mount Merrion's residential roads no longer provide an open invitation to put your dream machine through its paces, at risk of life and limb - especially our lives and limbs. Go and fume on the N 11 or other main roads instead! - Yours, etc.,
John Murphy, President, Mount Merrion Residents' Association