Fears town bypass has been put on hold ‘in favour of other routes’

FEARS that a badly needed ring road for Tralee are being long-fingered by the National Roads Authority (NRA) have been voiced by Kerry county engineer Tom Curran.

Initially, it was hoped that work on the €60m bypass would start later this year, but that is not going to happen.

Mr Curran said the main priority of both the Government and the NRA at this stage seemed to be to get work on four major inter-urban routes of Dublin and the western corridor completed.

While most of the money is being diverted to hugely expensive national routes, traffic congestion is getting worse in Tralee, he claimed.

“I was taken aback recently when I learned that the result of a traffic count showed that 17,000 vehicles are using the road into Tralee per day,” he said, adding that the road completed only a few years ago had already exceeded its design capacity.

“This road was designed for 16,800 vehicles, which shows that if we don’t get the ring road, all the other infrastructure, including the Castleisland bypass, will be futile, as traffic must be distributed equally around Tralee.”

He said it now appeared the NRA had reversed priorities and wished to complete the principal national road network. The NRA did not see the Tralee ring road as part of its remit in relation to the major national routes, he believed.

The need for the proposed 11.5km ring road has been felt for years, and Tralee continues to experience chronic traffic congestion, with long tailbacks being a daily occurrence around the town.

Meanwhile, Kerry County Council has been given the green light by An Bord Pleanála to compulsorily acquire lands for a €29m bypass road in Castleisland.

Work is expected to start later this year and the 5.4km road should be completed in 2008.

Castleisland, one of the main entry points to Kerry from Dublin, has become one of the worst bottlenecks in the county and the bypass is intended to divert up to 70% of traffic away from the town itself.

The work will also be part of ongoing improvements to the Castleisland/Limerick road, on which a new 7km stretch from Headley’s Bridge to Feale’s Bridge was opened recently.

There are concerns, however, that a major new €90m road between Killarney and Farranfore will not go ahead as soon as was envisaged, again due to priorities shifting to the major national routes.