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TRALEE Municipal District councillors approved the new locations for permanent and semi-permanent taxi ranks in the town at a special meeting on Friday afternoon.
The taxi rank issue has been a contentious one since drivers were moved out of The Mall to facilitate the ongoing works.
The issue of location of ranks was put out to public consultation from late September and there was a huge response from the public. A recommendation was made by Director of Services, Charlie O’Sullivan, and councillors were asked to vote on it.
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After a few amendments, they unanimously approved the following;
Full time (24hr), permanent main appointed stands
1. Bridge Lane (7 spaces)
2. Abbeycourt (8 spaces)
3. Edward Street (6 spaces)
4. Bridge Street (2 spaces — one outside Shaws, one outside ‘Small’ Benners)
Part time, permanent main appointed stands
5. Russell Street (3 spaces — starting outside Dish restaurant) — 6.30pm to 8.30am
6. The Mall (4 spaces) — 7pm to 7am
7. Upper Castle Street (2 spaces — near Hennessys Bar) — 6.30pm to 8.30am
8. Abbey Car Park (7 spaces — running down to Cassidy’s Restaurant) — 6.30pm to 8.30am
9. Bridge Street (1 space — next to ‘Small’ Benners permanent taxi space) — 7pm to 7am
Initially there was no permanent spaces allocated to Bridge Street. However, some councillors argued that there should to be a taxi visible at all times by people looking from The Mall area down towards Bridge Street.
Director of Services, Charlie O’Sullivan expressed safety concerns about putting daytime spaces on Bridge Street as he said taxis would have to do a U-turn after picking up passengers — due to the Mall pedestrianisation — and he said this has the potential to cause harm to road users.
It was agreed among councillors that two permanent spaces be allocated — one outside Shaws and one outside ‘Small’ Benners.
Among the huge amount of submissions from the public were the results of a questionnaire issued by Tralee Chamber Alliance. While it showed overwhelming approval for the location of most of the ranks listed above, there was additional information regarding Denny Street.
Of the 59 respondents, it showed 32 in favour of a day/night rank on Denny Street with 24 against and 3 no comments. However, when asked if they would be in favour of losing further parking spaces on the street, 46 were against and 11 for.
The Denny Street rank issue was brought up by a number of people in submissions. However, since it was not included as a possible location for rank in the proposal for public consultation, it could not come up for consideration by councillors.
This was noted by Cllr Toireasa Ferris, who suggested that the approved new byelaws be reviewed again on September 1, 2018.
