Anger at morning rush hour gridlock in estates
THE GAA County Board has come in for fierce critism from residents of Corish Park and neighbouring areas who woke up last Wednesday to find their estate under siege by fans trying to buy tickets for the June 10 clash between Wexford and Kilkenny at Wexford Park.
‘There was no thought given to it by the GAA,’ said chairman of the Corish Park Residents’ Association Pat Kavanagh, his comments echoed by other estate residents including those at Whiterock View, where badly-parked match day cars recently halted the progress of an ambulance attending an elderly patient.
‘You would have thought the GAA would have told us the tickets were going on sale at 9 in the morning,’ he said.
Mr Kavanagh said large numbers of cars began building up on roads along the immaculately-maintained green at Corish Park, with cars parked nose to tail both sides of the road.
On the other side of the green a set of car tracks showed where one frusrated motorist had gone ‘off road’ to escape the congestion.
The fact that there was only one ticket booth at the park added to the problems with some fans queing for long periods to get tickets, which meant their cars were parked in the adjoining estates for long periods as well, a lot of them during the morning rush hour.
Many residents trying to take their children to school at the Gaelscoil, Kennedy Park and St Peter’s College found their way blocked, with the road too narrow to get through and in some cases their driveways blocked.
‘A lot of cars just seemed to have been adandoned.’
One local resident, who asked not to be identified, said that when she looked out of her front room window there were so many cars parked that she thought there was a big funeral on, although she said he had no major problem people parking in the estate to get to Wexford Park, which ‘has been here since 1913’.
Commenting on garda plans to seal off the estate on the coming match day, June Roche said the problem in the past has been that often there was no-one around to patrol such restrictions and people looking for parking spots ‘just moved
the barriers.
‘I have to say it was worse than ever this morning,’ she said.
Sean Roche, a former residents association chair, agreed with Pat Kavanagh that the GAA did not appear to consider the problems faced by local residents and had done nothing to warn them of the congestion last Wednesday.
‘Why they began selling tickets at 9 a.m. when people were trying to get their children to school and to get to work I have no idea. Why didn’t they start selling them at 7 p.m., which would have made a lot more sense,’ he said.
Colm Kelly, from Whiterock View, accused the GAA of ‘being a law unto themselves who are only interested in the bottom line of making money from ticket sales’.
‘People are dumping their cars and they are saying so what,’ he said.
Mr Kelly said that when he came off duty on match days he couldn’t get into his driveway and cars parked on yellow lines posed a huge problem for large numbers of elderly people living in the estate.
He said local residents were due to send a delegation to urge the gardai and the local authority to take drastic action including issuing parking tickets, something he said was not being done effectively now, and clamping illegally-parked cars.
‘We would like to see a clamping service put in place and residents being issued with parking permits,’ he said. One of those trapped in the
traffic queues near the Park was Emergency Medical Technician and MarineWatch member Conor Barry who said that even with the gardai on hand the situation was ‘beyond a joke’
Local man Leonard Kelly said 9 a.m. was a bizarre time to put the tickets on sale ‘at this location. The roads around us are already in a mess with the Broadband installation, so to put them on sale during the morning rush hour is just ridiculous’.
And Siân Gwyther said she came down Corish park on the bus this morning at 8 a.m. and the bus driver had an awful time trying to get through.
‘If an emergency service vehicle had to get through, it would have been bedlam. I totally get why the residents give out about this. It was crazy there this morning,’ she said.
The gardai will be hoping their measures and parking restrictions will be heeded for the big game.
IF AN EMERGENCY SERVICE VEHICLE HAD TO GET THROUGH, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BEDLAM