In Swords, councillors attempt revolt against traffic lights outside supermarkets on Rathbeale Road

As the sun rose on Tuesday morning, the stretch of Rathbeale Road next to JCs Supermarket on the outskirts of Swords was busy. A flow of cars headed east, into town and west, towards Ashbourne.

Seven traffic lights stood around the junction, leading out from supermarket’s car park and on to the Rathbeale Road.

Twenty metres east of these, there were another pair of traffic lights on either side of the road.

To an onlooker, they were just another cluster of lights, commanding traffic, blinking red, green and amber.

But ill-will has been brewing since they were installed by Fingal County Council back in October.

The lights were put in by the council to improve active travel, and to make crossing on foot safer on the busy thoroughfare and at the carpark’s exit.

They were to ease and manage flow of traffic here, said Dee Harte, a local on Monday evening. “The general consensus for anybody in the area was that it was something of a blunt instrument to solve a problem, if any.

It has created a huge bottleneck, causing traffic jams on the Rathbeale Road and that became one of the local issues at the doorstep during the general election, she said.

“I can imagine the canvassers were told homelessness, housing and can you fix those feckin’ lights at JCs?” she said.

The opposition was also highlighted recently by councillors in the Swords area.

This cluster of lights at the junction all within the space of 30 metres have caused a lot of issues for residents around the Rathbeale Road, said Fianna Fáil’s Darragh Butler at the Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords Area Committee on 12 December.

“We’re always told: no, traffic lights don’t work that close together, and yet we have  this situation here where we have the lights like that,” he said.

Independent Councillor Darren Jack Kelly said the new lights have delayed traffic.  “The businesses, hardware [store], food restaurants across the road from JC’s have been hugely affected. They’ve been onto me daily.”

But while councillors were calling for the removal of the lights, council officials were adamant that wouldn’t happen.

They really need to prioritise the safety of pedestrians, said James Culhane, a senior executive engineer with the council.

There are so many cars at the junction where the car park exit meets the thoroughfare and it has posed safety issues to pedestrians, he said. “One of the factors is the continuing building of new developments in the surrounding area, which has created a population growth.”

A backlash

The lights went into operation back in October, Harte says. “And since the moment they were switched on, there was an enormous backlog on the main thoroughfare, from one end of Swords to the Ashbourne Road.”

Kelly, the independent councillor, told the area committee meeting that he had lived on the Rathbeale Road for his whole life.

It had become a nightmare, he said. “Over the last 30 years, I’ve never seen it so bad.”

Kelly said he couldn’t get out of his laneway just off the road on Friday and Saturday evenings because of the traffic. “It’s a disaster to be honest with you and something needs to be done.”

Butler, the Fianna Fáil councillor, said he had been among the inconvenienced motorists to face delays during a bad teething period.

He got caught between the lights at the junction and the ones just east of the exit within the first two weeks of their being installed, he said. “Then you don’t realise, cars moving out of JCs, you’re blocking them.”

Initial irritation after the lights were switched on had grown in late November when Dunnes Stores – which owns JCs – introduced a one-way system around the supermarket, said Independents 4 Change councillor Dean Mulligan. “The one-way-in, one-way-out done was a disaster as well. The junction was viable and usable.”

Now, he said, “you have people breaking lights, and you’re increasing bad driver behaviour.”

The supermarket on Rathbeale Road branch started to earn a string of one and two-star negative reviews on Google, the ire directed towards the traffic measures.

For a while, businesses on the road saw adverse effects.

People were posting on Facebook, warning others against using the route, says Nikki Jordan, the owner of No. Sixty One Salon and Spa on the Rathbeale Road.

“Our phones were ringing with people cancelling appointments,” Jordan says.

But it’s been three weeks now since the problem was at its peak, she says. “Things have gotten better.”

People aren’t still phoning in to cancel their appointments, she said. “We’re fully booked.”

Unintended consequences

Still, at the area committee meeting on 12 December, a coalition of disapproval sprang up.

Butler, Kelly and Mulligan were joined by independent Councillor Joe Newman and Fine Gael’s Luke Corkery in tabling a motion.

The five asked for the area committee to recognise the negative effect these lights were having on traffic management and safety.

They called for a removal of the lights, with an alternative arrangement to be put in place as soon as possible.

Butler, of Fianna Fáil, said that the lights were a case of something not broken being fixed.

However, Culhane, the council engineer, in his response to the motion, said there was a real problem to be solved at the junction.

The shopping centre had seen a steady and sustained increase in traffic flows, he wrote in his response. And new developments have brought more residents into the area, he says.

Over an extended period, the council has observed many safety issues for both pedestrians and the movement of traffic, he said, “and it was clear that safety improvements were needed at this location”.

Traffic speeds had improved since the signalised junction was installed, he said, and the Operations Department would continue to monitor the area and adjust if necessary.

They had been consulting with Dunnes Stores, Culhane said, speaking at the meeting. “There was issues just off where the new pedestrian is with an uncontrolled crossing.”

That was impacting efficiency but Dunnes have now removed the uncontrolled crossing point, he said. “We’ve noticed some improvements there.”

Signalised pedestrian crossings are a part of the Active Travel Strategy as they prioritise pedestrians and cyclists, he said. “I appreciate the concern was raised, but we are trying to promote pedestrian safety and movements at this junction.”

Just north of Rathbeale Road, the Glen Ellan Road will be soon opened up – after it has been partially fenced off by the developer Gannon Properties for years – Culhane said, “which would add another release valve to it”.

Deirdre Sinclair, a council administrative officer, said she wasn’t happy for the councillors to agree the motion asking for the lights’ removal.

Councillors had approved the measures in the 2024 programme of works, she said. “I know not all of you were in the chamber at that point.”

The lights were installed. Tweaks were made. The council met with Dunnes Stores on site to address issues, she said. “I agree it’s a bad time. Christmas is a bad time.”

But they’ve spent a lot on this highly specialised system and she would not be in favour of the motion, she said.

Said Culhane: “I wouldn’t be in favour of removing a junction that would compromise pedestrian safety.”

The councillors on the area committee, in the end, agreed to revisit the item in January.