A further two weeks to decide one-way fate

A final decision on the future of the town"s one-way system has been delayed for two weeks after a heated debate at the October meeting of Athlone Town Council, which saw a proposal by Cllr Mark Cooney to delay the decision for two weeks supported by Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. His Fine Gael party colleague Cllr Mick O"Connell voted with Labour"s Ray Lennon and Independent Cllr Austin Berry to scrap the system immediately and revisit it in the future. The council is now to engage an independent traffic consultant to survey the traffic flow on the new system and is set to meet again on October 20, when the fate of the one-way system is likely to be decided. At this week"s meeting, Director of Services Barry Kehoe said the system had been in place since August 13 and the council had been working diligently on it to improve the traffic flow through the town. He said the idea of the one-way system was to improve the centre of town and the town as a whole so that it could compete with other towns around the country. He said it would give more space over to pedestrians and allow people to stop and chat in the centre of town. He said €6m had been allocated for the streetscape project and the council was in a position to appoint consultants and agree details to go to tender and the streetscape could be in place in 2009 or early 2010. However, he said there was no point in going ahead with the streetscape if there was two-way traffic in the town centre.