Dundalk councillor's motion calls for Lordship ramps to be reinstated

Dundalk-Carlingford's Cllr Andrea McKevitt put forward a motion at the Dundalk Municipal District's September meeting, calling for the three continuous ramps at Lordship to be reinstated to how they initially were, prior to the road's recent resurfacing.

Cllr McKevitt's motion stated: "To have the 3 ramps at Rampark school on the Lordship straight fully re-instated to 3 continuous ramps immediately, as was the case prior to the resurfacing works taking place. This is being requested as a matter of safety for all road users.

Replying to Cllr McKevitt's request however, Acting Director of Services, Placemaking & Physical Development, Willie Walsh, said that: "The 'vertical deflections' are still in place at all three locations on newly resurfaced road at Lordship; at two locations there are now non-continuous ramps; the mid location has the same continuous ramp."

Mr Walsh continued, "In relation to the specification for the use of non-continuous ramps, the road management office (RMO) design paper states that: 'Speed cushions' are narrow versions of ramps that wider vehicles can straddle (or partially straddle), thereby reducing some of the potential drawbacks of traffic calming on Ambulances, buses, and fire engines.

"These are the widest form of cushion at 1.9m wide and research has shown that the mean speed will be 16mph and the 85 percentile speed will be 20mph which is well below the 50km/h posted in Lordship. Therefore safety is not being compromised.

"Bus Éireann confirmed that the large number of bus passes using this road through Lordship; speed cushions are appropriate for use on regional roads used by buses. He added "enforcement of speed limits is a matter for An Garda Síochána."

Cllr McKevitt told the meeting that she was disappointed in the response from the council and added that she would request that a speed count be done on the stretch of road to guage what impact the speed cushions are having on traffic. 

Cllr John Reilly told the meeting that he supported Cllr McKevitt's motion, adding that he had assumed that when the road was resurfaced, what was there before the works took place would have bee restored.