Changes to Traffic Lights sequence at Summerland Square
Waterford City & County Council are planning to make changes to the traffic lights at Summerland Square in Waterford city.
This junction has 5 roads leading into it and has 6 phases in the traffic lights.
The changes we are making will ban traffic from Upper Yellow Road from turning right to Morrisons Road, ban traffic from lower yellow road from turning right to Military Road or Ozanam St, and all traffic exiting Ozanam St will have to turn left onto Military Road.
From traffic movements which are being eliminated represent a small minority of traffic movements at the junction, and eliminating these movements allows phases to run together reducing the current number of phases from 6 to 4, which will reduce the delays at the junction to the majority of the users of the junction.
More details can be seen in the attached document :
The changes come into effect from November 1st, and advance warning signs will be going up today (26th October).
This is an absolute joke! There is not a problem with the lights now! Why are you changing? Obviously you don’t use it? Pack of uneducated eegits! Ruining the city altogether! Joke!!
Thank you for your comment Louise. The proposed changes are being introduced to improve traffic flow at the junction and reduce delays. The movements that are going to be prohibited represents less than 10% of vehicles going through the junction, and those affected will only have to suffer a minor detour.
The lights working more efficiently and reducing the queues of traffic on the other arms should serve to reduce the frustration of the 90% of drivers who will benefit from the changes, and this should serve to reduce incidents of people jumping the lights etc.
How is it better for people exiting Ozanam St to only turn left when to simply drive straight on to Lower Yellow Road would be more efficient?
It would be more in your line to put cameras on said junction and catch all the articulated lorries that are still using the upper yellow road as a rat run during the night and early morning there is meant to be a tonnage restiction on hgvs but as with most laws in ireland there there to be broken.I live on the road and it takes me 5 to 10 minutes to reach my house some days with the traffic so if this new lay out improves the flow im all for it but im very doubtful it will most people using the road are turning left anyway if they weren’t they would turn across leamy street as alot already do in order to avoid said lights your just adding pressure now to the Morrison’s road lights.the mind boggles u really know how to piss people off!!!
This is disgraceful how come the people in the area have not been informed. Where is all the traffic going to go that would come up Ozman street there going to come up gracdieu and over cathal brugha st bringing more speeding cars over that street. It’s bad enough as is. There will be some traffic jams as your bringing all the traffic in one direction.Not happy people up here
This will push more traffic onto Dominics place and grace dieu. And more traffic onto other residental streets. What happened to the proposed roundabout for that junction?
Hope the brain behind this change is not same as the one who made changes to quay. It take ages to cross rice bridge from tower hotel. It used to be much better before the layout changes. Total waste of public money. Have you people ever realised how difficult it is now to access vital facilities like UHW. Don’t try to justify with complex statistics of data. People who use quay or dunmore road inmorning or evening knows the hell they go through everyday. I wish we had some competent people to run this beautiful city.
It makes sense overall but coming from lower yellow road to Ozanam street, people who live there will have to divert to morrisons road coming from town “lower yellow road” or from ballybricken will have to go up gracedieu for Ozanam street area or up upper yellow road then right at the light to congress place “takes time to go that way” then right so you get to Ozanam street, wow Think some may need a route planner to get home. Also that cant be right about 1.5% to 1.7% from Ozanam street to lower yellow road as many more go that way especially school runs so your forcing all school traffic onto military road which is already congested at peak times and school times. So Ozanam street will be a nightmare to and from.
Why not make the lights at the top of the upper yellow road, junction cleaboy road,upper and congress place have a lane change. Coming from the cleaboy road make the lane left for only left and the right lane for only straight to go down the upper yellow road, that will allow more traffic to flow better allowing time to add a small segment green light to turn right for people coming up the hill “upper yellow road” to turn right for congress place. Go try come up the hill and go right to congress place during peak times and see if you can go right in a timely manner
I hope you do realise what people will do to get on ozanam street from lower yellow road the will turn right into the small side road where the chipper and shops are and as traffic will be going both ways this will cause a jam
A minor detour?
So traffic coming up Lower Yellow Road turning right toward Military Road will have a minor detour? What detour? Using Philip Street and the Glen to get to the bridge? This is going to cause accidents at the Morgan Street junctions and on Bridge Street.
Please stop coming up with these ridiculous traffic systems. The Council wrecked the Quay, causing more congestion than ever AND making it impossible for Emergency vehicles to navigate. This change at Summerland is just another badly thought-out plan that will end in more problems than it solves.
I don’t support this plan.
Can I ask for the exact dates and times of when the traffic surveys took place to come to the figures which you have quoted? I can only assume they were taken at varying times, weekdays, weekends, school drop off and collection times?
Also the fact that you use the term “minor detour” frustrates me, as a resident of Ozanam Street. I will have to a make changes to the routes I take every single time I leave or return to my house and this will amount to much more than a “minor detour”. Once is a “minor detour”, every single day is a “major inconvenience”. Case in point, I will no longer be able to simply go straight through the traffic lights and travel down Lower Yellow Road in the direction of my workplace! Yes there are other options open to me, all of which I will now have to negotiate school traffic, which will now be worse than ever due to the traffic flow restrictions! And once all those other “one way systems” come into play around the City, it will amount to “major detours” and “major inconveniences” everyday of the week. I can only hope this is on a trial basis, like the roundabout fiasco by Tesco Ardkeen?
Great move. Queues at those lights can be awful. Looking forward to the new regime.
This is absolutely ridiculous leave it the way it is,it will not reduce traffic delays only cause havoc,obviously none of the people involved in this sham live in the vicinity absolute joke.just leave it alone.
A good idea would be to tell the owners of the cars parked near the traffic lights in Lower Yellow Road to park across the road and not near their door as this upsets the traffic flow and can cause road blockage as Buses and trucks have to get around them. Those lights take far too long to change and only 3-5 cars can get through before they change again.
The cars turning left out of Ozanam street can take place while cars are coming up from military road. To allow the traffic to cross to Lower Yellow Road would require all other traffic to be stopped. As a very small percentage of people make this manoeuvre, it doesn’t make sense to hold up the majority to facilitate it.
Ian, enforcing the weight restrictions is a matter for the Gardaí. WCCC do not have any enforcement powers in relation to the weight restrictions.
Traffic currently diverts on Congress Place and Gracedieu Road to avoid these traffic lights when the delays are bad. Improving the throughput of cars at the junction would reduce the delays and mean less traffic would try to avoid the lights.
Some people will have to make minor detours to alter their journeys if they cannot make the prohibited moves.
Changes that you have proposed to the traffic lights at Congress Place would not work, as any car turning right into Ard na Greine would hold up the entire road.
The traffic counts were undertaken over a 24 hour period on December 4 2014 by a firm of professional traffic surveyors.
Why do we have , so called educated people, with DEGREES AS ENGINEERS, to make these cock-up plans ? Give any Joe soap a free run of our city and especially the area of Ozanam Street and they would come up with a plan that makes logical sense. The council have ruined our city, town, streets, roads and the City manager is a waste of space. It is about time he gave up his job and a lot more of them with him, from the council and let new young blood get to work at rearranging OUR town so as they stop wasting our tax money on their hideous planning ideas. The city is a shambles and disgrace to those who are responsible for the lay out of The Quay and the plans for traffic calming in Ozanam St. Gracedieu , Congress Place, Ard na Greine, Lower yellow Road, Military Road. A ROUNDABOUT at Summerland , is the most logical , smartest, obvious solution for the traffic congestion there. Who needs a degree to suss that out. Just go and ask the people of the area who will give you the answers to the traffic problem there, instead of paying large salaries , for the people who make and made the decisions and probably never spent a day in the area . They sit at their desks work on figures, data and plenty of coffee and biscuits. Shame on all of you for turning a once, old and beautiful historic city into a place where only New York is more difficult to get around.
I recently was talking to a German tourist in the city, who showed me his 2016 Travel Guide Book. It said, at all cost avoid Waterford City. It’s noisy, full of traffic, a blue collar town, lot’s of dodgy areas and undescribable ugly architecture. Thank you Waterford City Council, Planners, Architects, draftsmen td’s and those of you who went along with all the recent planning to make our it a laughing stock of the country. You should all go up to KK TO GET SOME LESSONS ON HOW TO MAKE A SUCCESS OF YOUR CITY AND CITY CENTRE. Then they have everything that we should have and should be striving for.
What is baffling me and will also baffle a lot of motorists is why only last weekend the road markings were newly painted as the system is now with arrows in Oznam St showing a left and right turn and straight ahead. Does anyone in Council consult with one another? Repainted in the middle of the night over weekend and then Tues the changed plan was announced and not one person living in the area was notified of a supposed Proposed plan. Surely if it’s proposed people should have been notified well in advance.
the mind boggles at the new traffic plan.
Maybe if you made ozanam street one way , you can only drive down ozanam street but you have the option to turn left and right.
It’s seems mad that you can only turn left existing ozanam street.
One 24 hour period back in 2014 to make such a decision. I’m sure the residents of all the residential areas who will be affected by this decision on a daily basis will be glad that such a vast amount of time was spent on the surveying.
I hope you have spoken to Supervalu and informed them of the influx of traffic that will now be going through their car park to get to town so as to avoid lengthy delays at the traffic lights at the end of Military Road. I only say lengthy delays, as all the school traffic coming down Ozanam Street has only the option of turning left now.
I can only hope that the emergency services will be able to ignore these new changes when trying to get to and from peoples homes in the quickest time possible; which your “minor detour” no longer allows.
Was there a public consultation on this ? Were residents in the area asked about this change or forced upon them ?
No consultation with the residents of the area. As a resident of Ozanam Street, I found out online.
Just spotted a violation of the new traffic lights.. A car coming up Lower Yellow Road and did not fancy taking the “Minor Detour” to get to their destination so they just edged out past the cones and straight up Ozanam Street. Luckily enough missing oncoming traffic as other lights are green at the same time.. Close call this time but near miss all the same.. How many more violators will there be before an accident I wonder?
Unfortunately, we do have drivers who disregard the rules of the road, and any consideration for other road users or their own safety. The Gardaí can prosecute drivers who ignore the rules.
The penalty for failure to comply with mandatory traffic signs at junctions is 2 penalty points and €80 fine