Galway City Council is to forge ahead with the production of detailed designs for the city’s two BusConnects schemes — confident that a judicial review of the Cross City Link will not be upheld.

Director of Services Derek Pender told a meeting of the Council on Monday that they would soon commence this step in the development process following the approval by An Coimisiún Pleanála of the Dublin Road BusConnects last week.

“We’re now into an eight-week standstill [on the Dublin Road project] when somebody has the right to take a judicial review,” he said.

“But we’re going to take the risk and go to detailed design on the Cross City Link and the Dublin Road Bus Corridor in anticipation of getting over the judicial review,” continued Mr Pender who said they faced losing six to nine months of progress if they waited on its outcome.

A judicial review of permission for the Cross City Link, which runs from University Road at Newcastle and links up to the Dublin Road Bus Corridor, was launched last year and is understood to be ongoing.

The Dublin Road Bus Corridor cleared its first major hurdle last week when An Coimisiún Pleanála gave the green light to 3.9km of continuous segregated cycle lanes and bus lanes running from the Moneenageisha Junction to the Doughiska Junction.

As part of its decision, the Commission granted consent for Galway City Council to compulsorily purchase a number of properties along the route to facilitate widening necessary for the scheme.

A number of conditions have been attached to the grant of planning permission, including the moving of a bus stop proposed for outside Flannery’s Hotel.

The stop will now be relocated to outside Galwegians Rugby Club with the consent of the parties involved, reducing the loss of green space outside the hotel, and the impact on parking there.

The works proposed for the route, in addition to public and active transport measures, include for the upgrade of public lighting; a series of new signalised junctions; the removal of 446 mature trees to be replaced with 409 new trees; and the reconfiguration of traffic movements to facilitate improved pedestrian, cyclist and bus accessibility and movement.

An Coimisiún Pleanála’s Inspector’s Report noted that a total of 16 submissions were received on the project, among them one from the HSE in relation to a proposed new entrance for Merlin Park University Hospital.

They stated that the Council’s plan did not include for a mooted ‘fourth arm’ off the existing Galway Crystal junction to provide better access to the hospital campus.

In response, Galway City Council said its proposals for the bus corridor did not preclude such an alteration to the junction in the future. Ahead of that, a signalised junction is to be built at the existing Merlin Park entrance.

Residents of the Woodhaven estate, across the road from the Merlin Bar, expressed some concern about access to their estate and the removal of the right-turning lane for traffic entering the estate from the Oranmore direction.

Connacht Hospitality Group [The Connacht Hotel] made a detailed submission, included in which was a similar objection to the removal of its right turning lane for traffic travelling in the same direction.

Galway City Council said the design manual for urban roads supported the removal of these right-turn lanes as a means to reduce carriageway width and “enhance pedestrian facilities”.

The planning inspector concurred and said, overall, the “scheme provides for enhanced pedestrian facilities and there has been a determined effort made to provide clear segregation of modes at key interaction points along the corridor”.