Renewed calls for ring road in County Roscommon town
The junction at ‘Hell's Kitchen corner’ in Castlerea, which is a cause of concern locally for motorists. Pic. Liam Reynolds
There are renewed calls for a ring road in Castlerea to help remove some of the heavy traffic currently choking up the middle of town on the N60 route.
Fine Gael Senator Gareth Scahill, who is making the call, pointed out that the volume of traffic in the town is set to increase even further when the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramogue road project is complete.
“The new N5 is going to be the direct Dublin Road now and traffic will be coming off the N5 from Frenchpark to Castlerea, heading to Williamstown and Ballyhaunis. So, there’s going to be a higher traffic of volume on the N60,” he said.
Senator Scahill said that a previous traffic survey showed that 70% of vehicles that go through Castlerea don’t stop and many of them are HGVs.
Calls for a ring road have been made over the years and the local senator is now calling for a strategy to be put in place, as a first step, for such a route.
“We’ve been approved for Town Centre First funding which is aimed at opening up the town. If we were to take away a volume of that traffic, it would make the town a lot more accessible and safer for people,” he said.
Senator Scahill has also raised related concerns that the very busy junction at ‘Hell's Kitchen corner’ in the town will bear the brunt of increased traffic when the new N5 upgrade is complete.
He explained that he recently conducted an accessibility survey with the Brothers of Charity and that particular junction was highlighted as a major problem for service users.
Senator Scahill has previously raised the ring road proposal with Eamon Ryan when he was Environment Minister and also with the current minister in that Department, Darragh O’Brien.
He is raising the matter again in the Seanad this morning, Wednesday.
