Public’s anger over endless road works causing long delays on the Kilkenny Road, Carlow 

LONG delays on the Kilkenny Road because of endless road works are leaving people angry and frustrated. That was the message from elected members at last week’s meeting of Carlow Municipal District.

“I hear you loud and clear, members,” Pádraig O’Gorman, Carlow Co Council’s director of services for transport, said in response to the complaints he received from councillors at the meeting. Mr O’Gorman said that he expects the project to be completed in July, but that the road works should not be as disruptive as they are for the duration of the project.

Temporary traffic measures are in place on the Kilkenny Road as a 400m segregated cycle track is being built, in addition to upgrades to 500m of footpaths and various traffic-calming measures, such as the installation of two new pedestrian crossings.

These works are being done under the Carlow to SETU Pedestrian and Cycle Scheme Phase 2, which is meant to improve road safety for students commuting to SETU and also local residents.

Cllr Fintan Phelan was the first councillor to raise the matter when he said: “The level of anger over this at the moment is palpable.” He went on to say that people have been stuck in traffic on the road for up to an hour-and-a-half and asked the council to take immediate action.

Cllr Adrianne Wallace said: “There’s been a lot of works going on in the last year or two for improvements, which is great and welcome, but there is just something wrong with that traffic management system.” Mayor of Carlow cllr Paul Doogue concurred with the other councillors and added that it took “an hour and 15 minutes for one lady to get from SETU to Graiguecullen for work. She was 45 minutes late for work.” 

Mr O’Gorman said in response to the councillors’ complaints that his department was aware of the issues that traffic on the Kilkenny Road was causing and had raised the matter with representatives of Active Travel, the scheme that is funding the works.

Mr O’Gorman said that finding a solution to the current delays was “difficult, as you are looking at the one lane system, and with the river we don’t have an option to divert any work to the west.

“We will look at it; we will talk to the contractor; I’ll talk to him this evening now following this meeting and we will see if we can get any improvements,” Mr O’Gorman said.

“If we can make some improvements, we will put them in place straightaway.” The improvement works will cost €1.2m and are being funded by the Department of Transport, which in December announced a €3m funding commitment for Active Travel improvements in Co Carlow.

Councillors expressed their annoyance at bearing the brunt of the public’s anger on this matter.

Cllr Phelan said: “We are the ones getting it in the neck. Not the officials, not the ones doing the work, it’s the elected members.” Cllr Doogue agreed with cllr Phelan and said: “We are getting it in the neck and all we can do is bring it back to yourselves and, hopefully, something will be done urgently.”