Councillor Anne Marie Ryan raised the problems in Tipperary town due to the traffic management systems that are part of the major N74 road works at today’s Plenary meeting of the council.
The Councillor outlined how the traffic on the N74 Cashel road and the N24(Limerick/Waterford) road consisting of 80,000 vehicles last week (based on TII data) caused delays and gridlock. The N74 Cashel road traffic, measured at 29,864 vehicles last week, is diverted across Knockanrawley on a road that serves Tipperary town Fire Station, 5 housing estates, a primary school, a crèche, several industrial units and a family resource centre. The councillor highlighted how the delays caused by the temporary traffic lights and traffic volume were worsened on some occasions by the contractor moving vehicles during peak traffic times. Given that the work at the Bansha Road Junction, which now operates as a T-Junction, is to continue until April 11th the Councillor asked for other measures to be implemented.
The Council engineer accepted that there were significant delays last week and indicates that some new measures will be put into place this week to improve the traffic flow. The contractor hopes to remove some of the traffic management measures for St Patrick’s weekend but temporary traffic management will return again after the Bank Holiday. Cllr Ryan asked for the details of these changes to be made public as soon as possible.
Cllr Ryan had requested that consideration be given to restoring two-way traffic flow on the Cashel Road for the section from the Junction of James Connolly as far as the junction with the Knockanrawley Road. The N74 road project costing €6M is expected to be completed by October this year. The project is being funded by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (€5M) and Uisce Eireann (€1M).
