NRA predicts investment in roads will eliminate traffic congestion
Friday, 10 December 1999 22:08
The Chairman of the National Roads Authority has said a £4.7bn investment in the country's national roads will eliminate traffic congestion and delays within the next seven years. Liam Connellan said that the investment, which is part of the National Development Plan, means that the country can look forward to a free-flowing, efficient and safer road network, capable of coping with the projected growth in traffic.
A 40% increase in the amount of traffic using our roads over the past five years has been compounded by a road network that is still sub-standard along many stretches. However, all that is about to change, according to National Roads Authority Chairman Liam Connellan. Speaking this morning at a breakfast briefing hosted by Cork Chamber of Commerce and The Examiner newspaper, Mr Connellan said that government plans to invest almost £5bn in our national roads network over the next six years would make traffic congestion and delays a thing of the past.
He said that a record 13 schemes have already been completed this year. These include by-passes of Maynooth, Portlaoise, Longford, Mullingar, Kilcullen, Arklow, Balbriggan and Donegal. With many of the principal by-passes completed, the emphasis will now switch to the improvement of long stretches of road. Mr Connellan gave a commitment that the roads between Dublin and Belfast, Cork, Galway and Limerick will be up-graded to motorway or dual carriage standard over the next six years, when, he said, congestion will be a thing of the past.
