Woman left ‘shaken’ amid ‘really dangerous’ change to Waterford roads

A woman was left “shaken” after “nearly being taken out” whilst crossing the road in Waterford city, a council meeting has heard.

Independent councillor Declan Barry described the incident during the November Metropolitan District meeting of Waterford City and County Council.

Cllr Barry said that he has heard about several “potentially dangerous” pedestrian crossings in the city.

“One lady rang me there last week and she was shaken on the phone after nearly being taken out in the middle of the day”, he stated.

Cllr Barry also raised the issue of changes to public lighting on footpaths, particularly at pedestrian crossings.

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“I’ve noticed that our public lighting, and I’d say it’s the same all over and a lot of people would agree, that the new lighting is very soft and it’s actually a danger to be quite honest.

“On the Williamstown Road there opposite Mount Pleasant, in the night time, pedestrians can’t be seen at all.

“This change of lighting has even added to it now so it’s making it really, really dangerous.”

In response to Cllr Barry, Senior Engineer Michael Murphy said that the new lighting is actually brighter.

“In the last two weeks, we’ve done a survey of all the pedestrian crossings in the city. There’s two types of lighting.

“Modular star is the new type so we’re changing all the lighting on pedestrian crossings to the new type. Now it will take a while.

“The new type, the most obvious one, is at the Courthouse. It’s a horseshoe shape and it’s much brighter.

“So we’ve a programme to change all the pedestrian crossing lights and we hope to start that soon.”

On the subject of pedestrian crossings, Mr Murphy gave an example of the crossing at Whitfield Hospital as one which the council will look to change.

“It’s too wide for the type of crossing that’s there and traffic is not stopping for people or it doesn’t appear to be working very well. We’re going to change that,” he added.