€1.7m for lower speed limits in residential areas across Ireland

Funding of €1.7 million is to be given to Irish urban and county councils to implement lower speed limits in residential areas.
The funding is part of the €298 million for spend on regional and local roads. 

A number of councils are already in the process of lowering the speed limits in some estates and residential streets under last year’s funding which covered new 30km/h limits, while the new funding may also include 20km/h which is expected to be introduced as part an updated Road Traffic Act.

Transport minister Paschal Donohoe said: “Building on the initiative in 2015 to reduce speeds in housing estates, my Department will allocate €1.7 million to Local Authorities in 2016 for speed limit and associated signage.”

He added: “In addition, funding is being provided to three Local Authorities for pilot engineering traffic calming measures. This will provide an opportunity to press ahead with the signage programme and related checking of before/after speeds while also testing the efficacy of possible engineering measures.”

Details of where the funding will be spent has yet to be announced.

According to the Department of Transport the overall package of spending includes work on 4,000km of roads and bridges.

This includes €148m for maintenance, improvement and strengthening works; €41m for surface dressing; €63m for maintenance and strengthening works for which Local Authorities have discretion in the selection of roads; €10.1m for Specific and Strategic Regional and Local Roads Projects; €7.8m for bridge rehabilitation works; €5.9m for Safety Improvement Works; and €18.1m of miscellaneous grants including, bridge inspections, training, map road and road safety measures.

2 comments

  1. I want to raise the issue here of funding streams identified for particular purposes to improve road safety and comfort for cyclists actually reaching and being spent on the jobs that are earmarked for it.
    Can we be sure that discretionary income like this into a road authority is not in fact diverted into other spending areas like emergency housing provision or flood relief?
    Who checks that is spent totally on what was proposed?

    Reply

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