A Dublin County Council plan to build a modern highway from Dublin to Bray at the cost of £1 million is to be revived.
In 1953 when plans for the new road were first proposed objections were many. Protests came from interest groups – rate payers, property owners in villages due to be bypassed, and motorists from all over the country, who felt it was unfair that such an amount of money was to be spent solely on a project in Dublin.
When the protests died down, the proposal for the Dublin Bray highway had died with it. Now it has been revived.
Dermot Tierney, Chief Assistant County Engineer in Dublin County Council, talks to RTÉ reporter John Ross about the possibility of reopening plans for this road scheme again.
While the Bray Road does not have the same level of commercial traffic as the Naas Road, it carries the largest number of vehicles per day, and per hour, of any other road in County Dublin. Road building is not cheap, but Dermot Tierney admits an investment will have to be made,
You cannot build nine miles of a dual carriageway highway without delving pretty deeply into the pocket for money.
Garda Sergeant Michael O’Brien, from the Traffic Section of Dublin Castle is someone who is familiar with the many and varied aspects of the Bray Road. He acknowledges how busy it is, not only for Bray bound traffic, but also for the seaside resorts on the east coast of Ireland, and the scenic areas of Wicklow and Wexford,
There’s plenty doing on this road.
An AA motorcyclist at Loughlinstown who also uses this road a lot believes an improvement would be very welcome,
There’ll be no trouble at all. It’ll be a straight run through for traffic.
This clip from an episode of ‘Newsview’ was broadcast on 14 June 1962. The reporter is John Ross.
