Residents seek help from councillors as Dublin’s Richmond Road still suffering from rat running and “aggressive” driving

— Councillors support a motion for a liveable street, more greenery, and the “possibility of temporary filtered permeability from Grace Park Road to Drumcondra Road”.

Dublin City councillors and officials have agreed to meet with residents of Dublin’s Richmond Road after they highlighted ongoing heavy traffic unsuited to the street and “aggressive” driving.

Local area councillors have agreed to a motion from councillors Donna Cooney (Green Party), Alison Field (Labour) and Barry Heneghan (independent) for meeting with the residents of Richmond Road to look at traffic issues and look at the possibility of temporary filtered permeability from Grace Park Road to Drumcondra Road.

Residents previously staged a protest to highlight rat-running motorists using footpaths to drive faster along the road.

Cllr Cooney said at a recent meeting of residents attended by the councillors outlined how residents had recorded speeding, aggressive driving and traffic which is too heavy for the road.

Deputy Lord Mayor, Cllr Cooney, said she was happy with the council manager’s agreement about having a meeting with residents, but she added that she wasn’t happy with the engineer’s response, which she said amounted to that “they’ve done something, and that’s it”.

“I mean clearly those local councillors that were at the meeting held by residents on that part of Richmond Road saw exactly what they’re putting up with — they’ve made a video the speeding the aggressive driving, she said.

Cllr Cooney said: “In fact, now that [motorists] are not parking on the pavement, the traffic speed has increased… something is needed in relation to traffic camming and making this street livable.”

She said that residents had “gone to great trouble in terms of doing the work and the research themselves”, and there’s support within the local community for action.

Cllr Cooney said: “We’d like to see the manager and traffic engineers to see [the resident’s] plan and how they want to make this a livable street. It wasn’t designed for the amount of traffic that’s on it.”

She added that motorists were “moving planters in order to drive up on the pavement again” and one resident said a motorist was shouting at him while he was bringing his 2-year-old home because he was in the way of cars driving up on the footpath.

Cllr Alison Field said: “Myself and Barry were there that night at that meeting, and it was it was really bad, I mean, the video was just disgraceful, and if that’s at 9 o’clock in the morning, when you’re trying to get your kid out to school, you’d be nearly having a nervous breakdown. The stress of the street.”

She said residents have recorded speeding motorists “going 70km/h down that road, and they really should be going 30-35km/h, so maybe if we got extra speed signs to begin with just initially for the safety end of things, that’ll be fantastic.”

Cllr Barry Heneghan said: “We were at that meeting — the video was horrific seeing what residents are going through. It is an area that really needs work done, and I hope this [motion] gets passed.”

Will Mangan, a senior executive engineer with Dublin City Council, said: “We’ll look into that, and we’ll assess that… We’ll look at if there are any additional traffic calming measures that can be implemented. That’s no problem.”

The motion in the name of councillors Donna Cooney (Green Party), Alison Field (Labour) and Barry Heneghan (independent) said: “That North Central Area Committee requests an onsite meeting with the residents of Richmond Road (from Grace Park Road to Drumcondra Road), with the North Central Area management, public domain, parks, traffic engineers, active travel team and local councillors, as we support their request for a liveable street, safer, quieter, more greenery, including placemaking designs options with social spaces, rainscapes, climate-resilient, newly designation as a local road, rather than arterial route, reduce the traffic, the speed, look at the possibility of temporary filtered permeability from Grace Park Road to Drumcondra Road and connected biodiversity corridors from the local parks and Tolka River.”

The motion was agreed.

In a written response, Catalin Rosca, local area engineer for the north central area of Dublin City Council, said: “The Transport Advisory Group produced a report on the Health and Safety concerns at the Western End of Richmond Road. This report was circulated to members (Elected Members, Area Office, Residents), and a subsequent meeting was held at the Coolock Area Office, Bunratty Road to discuss.”

Rosca added: “Following the above, the Transport Advisory Group has proposed and installed a Pay & Display/Permit Parking (P&D/PP) scheme on Richmond Road, between Drumcondra Road and Grace Park Road, in order to mitigate traffic and safety issues. Considering the above, the Transport Advisory Group have no other plans for works in this area and will continue to assess the area.”

However, an additional reply from the local area manager, Mick Carroll, said: “A site meeting will be arranged in the coming weeks with the Area Office initially to gain an understanding of the wishes of local residents.”