Why Are The Blacklion Lights So Shite?

An inquisitive and ever-so-mildly frustrated GG reader got in touch today, to ask about those pesky traffic lights down from Blacklion Church.

For young Morgan, a seven minute wait at the bottom of Chapel Road wasn’t exactly conducive to a bright and breezy morning.

Whenever the light finally turned green, it was just for seconds, and the traffic jam ahead had no room at the inn.

It meant that some drivers eventually decided to ignore the red light, and just snake their way onto the main road.

So, what’s the story, Ruairi? Here’s what the town engineer had to say on the matter…

We’ve had problems with those lights since the Irish Water foul water sewer works there through the junction last summer. They dug through the sensor loops on the road and never replaced them.

This was causing a situation where the Chapel Road junction was getting a green light and stopping traffic on the main R761 even if there were no cars on Chapel Road. In the end, as it was taking so long to replace the loops, we put in detectors on the tops of the lights, to manage the traffic, and this was carried out during an upgrade of the signals to LEDs.

This has helped the flow of traffic through the junction along the main R761, and so, yes, there are delays for the few cars waiting to exit onto the R761 from Chapel Road. There’s a lot more traffic around the area now, due to all the development, so, people do just have to wait their turn.

Jumping back, the junction of Chapel Road onto the R761 at Blacklion was the main junction for the road all the way to Delgany village, and so, due to delays for vehicles getting in and out of the junction, it was signalised. Since then, Chapel Road has been connected to Delgany Wood Avenue and, more recently, to the Redford Junction via the new road at Seagreen. Therefore, this junction is now of lesser importance, and, quite rightly, there should be no need for signals on it. 

To that end, we have prepared a redesign of the junctions at Blacklion, which will see the removal of the signals at Chapel Road. The works should commence soon enough, starting with the drainage improvement works followed by the footpath improvements and minor junction alignments.

This will all be followed by the resurfacing of the road carriageway, which is long overdue.

Update 17th Feb 2020: Turns out the new radar device on the lights was acting up, and now, hey, all better!