Relief Road announced

The long-awaited Kilcullen Relief Road will now be in place by this time next year, offering significant time savings for motorists currently struggling to make their way through the town for local destinations.

National Roads Authority spokesman Michael Deegan, speaking on KRFM local radio this morning, said that negotiations with landowners on the route have been completed, and work on the road will begin 'within weeks'.

However, one small problem still has to be addressed: who will pay for a new bridge that is required for the relief road? The anticipated cost of €20m is 'not in the NRA's budget', Mr Deegan said. He suggested that local businesses raise the money, with a view to recouping it by tolling the bridge.

"There's a precedent for this, as Kilcullen was the location of the first toll road in Ireland back in the 1700s," he noted.

The road will siphon traffic away from the town via the Link Centre north of Kilcullen, and will cut through the back of the new Hillside development and cross the Liffey via a new bridge into the Cattle Market field.



From there it will link, alongside Castlemartin Woods (pictured above), with the new road currently under construction from the rear of Cnoc na Greine to the Athy Road via the new Kilcullen Business Park.

Since the spurt of developments which have more than doubled the town's population in the last few years, traffic through the town has reached the same level as it was before the Kilcullen Bypass was opened. M50-style 'gridlock' is now a common sight in the town's Main Street

Local business leaders have welcomed the announcement, saying it will make the town more 'pedestrian-friendly' and provide greater impetus for Kilcullen to become a nicer shopping centre, especially in view of the increased numbers of retail premises both already built and in the planning stage. And there has been a generally positive response to the toll bridge idea, in view of the enormous profits that have been made by National Toll Roads and the Roche family at West Link and East Link.

There's a certain irony in the fact that the northern node point for the Relief Road at the Link Centre is owned by local businessman Pat Dunlea. Many years ago, prior to the opening of the M9 Kilcullen Bypass, Pat campaigned in a General Election looking for a 'northern link' to be added to the motorway, though without success.

This morning's news will certainly be seen as a 'better late than never' confirmation that such a link was needed.

— Bill Trapman.