Traffic chaos sparked by athletics event

Traffic came to a standstill on the Ballygraigue Road in Nenagh on Saturday last as crowds flocked to the Munster Juvenile Athletics Championships in Nenagh Olympic’s indoor stadium.

One local resident John O’ Hara said there were also significant traffic problems in nearby Tyone due to the number of poorly parked cars by some of those attending the championships.

Mr O’ Hara said great inconvenience was caused to other drivers passing these areas. He said traffic came to a standstill for up to 30 minutes at around midday.

Mr O’ Hara was himself caught up in the standstill for up to 25 minutes. He said the problem was caused mainly by uncontrolled, unregulated and unreasonable parking near the stadium on the Ballygraigue Road.

“Nenagh Olympic needs to reconsider the continued running of these type of events if it’s not able to provide extra parking and better traffic management,” said Mr O’ Hara.

He also urged that the local authority and the gardaí examine whether future major crowd-pulling events at the stadium need to be reviewed in the absence of an improved traffic management plan.

club responds

In response, Nenagh Olympic Athletic Club committee member, Louis Crowe, said one of the problems contributing to the traffic congestion was that the timetable of events did not run to schedule. “Competitions for juvenile athletes competing in the uneven age groups in the morning ran over time and then the crowds began to arrive for the competitions of athletes in the even age groups scheduled for the afternoon,” he explained.

Mr Crowe said the club took in a record 148 vehicles into its own grounds to try to alleviate the situation.

Garda “no parking” bollards that had been placed along one side of Ballygraigue Road were ignored by a significant number of motorists attending the championships, which contributed significantly to the problem.

Mr Crowe said the club informed local gardaí that motorists were ignoring the signs on the bollards.

Gardaí came into the stadium and called on all motorists who had ignored their directions to move their cars. Mr Crowe said the club also directed motorists to use the public parking facilities beside the nearby hospital to alleviate congestion.

However, this was causing a separate problem on Sundays as elderly people attending Mass in the nearby church were blocked from parking close to the church. Mr Crowe said he had requested gardaí in Nenagh to contact the Munster Athletics Association, organisers of last Saturday’s championship, to point out the concerns that existed over staging big crowd-pulling championships in the stadium on one day. He said the association needed to consider spreading the competitions out over two days in order to the ease traffic problems.