Process of reducing speed limits in Waterford urban areas to begin in March

The process of reducing the speed limits in urban parts of Waterford will commence in March, a council meeting has heard.

Sinn Féin councillor Pat Fitzgerald raised the issue at the January plenary meeting of Waterford City and County Council.

Cllr Fitzgerald spoke about the change to the speed limit on rural roads that was introduced last year.

He mentioned how plans to reduce the speed limit in all urban areas to 30km/h were put on hold due to a legal issue.

He continued: “Has that been resolved? Can we act, say if there is a street in the city or in a village or a town that really needs to be brought down to 30km/h and it’s currently a 50km/h street?

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“Can we actually take that down to 30km/h or will the legislation that was passed allow that, so that problem can actually be sorted?

“Because we have a few streets there, they’re 50km/h but they’re not fit for it. They should really be reduced to 30km/h.”

In response to Cllr Fitzgerald, Director of Services Gabriel Hynes outlined a change in approach by the Department of Transport.

Mr Hynes said: “We will bring in special speed limits [...] for your approval for 30km/h within the urban areas.

“So it is our intention once we have our own workshops on these, that we would sit down with each district to review the urban areas and decide what areas you feel would be appropriate to reduce from 50km/h to 30km/h.

“So we hope to commence those workshops in March and thereafter it goes out for public consultation.

“We will review what comes back and then we will come back to the districts again and it will probably come to the plenary.”

He added that the date for the implementation of these new speed limits will probably be decided by the Department of Transport. However, that is yet to be confirmed.

Mr Hynes concluded by reiterating that the council will commence the process of reducing the speed limits in March.

Following the 2023 Speed Limit Review, the Department of Transport initially announced plans to make 30km/h the default speed limit in urban areas.

However, that change was never enacted because Irish law does not have a clear definition of what constitutes an urban area.

As a result, the Department changed its policy and is now instructing local authorities to introduce speed limit by-laws.

This means that each council must follow a statutory process, including public consultation, before any changes are made.