Clip highlights ambulance rushing by traffic using Limerick bus lane that traders wanted closed

A video clip posted to social media today highlights how ambulances and other emergency services are able to rush past traffic by using a Limerick bus lane that had been proposed to be full of cars.

As reported on Friday, Limerick’s directly elected Mayor, John Moran, has said that, given the feedback received and policies in place, he “cannot justify the pilot requested” to close the bus lane on the city’s O’Connell Street “at this time”.

The clip posted to X (formally Twitter) by Limerick resident Dr Paul O’Brien today shows an ambulance using the bus lane to rush past a line of cars in the lane beside the bus lane on the one-way street.

O’Brien said: “If the councillors pushing to sacrifice the O’Connell Street bus lane had been successful in their attempt, then this ambulance would have faced a very difficult situation. I really hope the person in the ambulance is doing well.”

A group of traders recently made a presentation to councillors at a Limerick metropolitan area council meeting and requested that the bus lane be closed so that motorists can use it in the run-up to Christmas.  Cllr Sarah Kiely (FG) and seconded by Cllr Daniel Butler (FG) put forward a motion to that effect for outside of peak times.

After the decision was made by Mayor Moran on Friday, Cllr Butler said: “[The] decision has been made today by the Mayor & Council executive to not trial this. The votes clearly indicated a desire to retain it as a bus lane for 24hrs.”

Limerick City and County Council said that as part of a public consultation process, an online poll had “unique votes” totalling 1,097 (28.5%) yes responses and 2,747 (71.5%) no responses to the idea of weakening bus priority. Email submissions included 43 (28.9%) yes and 106 (71.1%) no responses, the council said.

The council was criticised for using an open online poll, but it said in another statement that it was using means to only count “unique votes”.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.