N78 - Athy Southern Distributor Road [completed]

Top Survey went out a week or two earlier so you can see the corridor under consideration

Shame they wouldn't just build a proper N78 bypass, this thing looks more an inner relief road and will be pretty much useless if and when it gets swamped by development.

Athy has an AADT of around 5,000, it barely warrants this never mind a bypass considering some of the other bottlenecks around the country.
The distributor road will do an excellent job at taking through traffic off the Main Street and into a road which will be designed to cater for it.

road_high wrote: »

Where’s the traffic counter saying that? All I can is one closer to Castlecomer and one out on the M9 link. These arent the same as in the town itself. Athy is choked with traffic daily

The counter to the south has an AADT of 3,000
The counter to the north has an AADT of 5,000
Neither of these would be justification for a bypass in terms of numbers for a start.
The distributor road will take any through traffic out of the town that doesn’t need to be there. If the town is choked because of local traffic well then a distributor road will have more of an impact than a bypass.
I really don’t see why Athy needs a bypass. I know it’s not a particularly nice town but where are people going from/to that need the bypass? The M9 took all the traffic that used to go this way as an alternative to N9 from Kilkenny.

road_high wrote: »

So what is the ADDT through the town itself? I live fairly close by and avoid athy like the plague if I can. I despise these half arsed cheap options that merely move from one part of a town to another rather than out of the environs properly

The AADT for through traffic is presumably somewhere between 3-5k.
What benefit is a bypass going to have over this road? The problem with Athy isn’t through traffic, it’s local traffic. A bypass won’t solve that but a distributor road will.

Notice of Kildare County Council for Athy Southern Distributor Road for May 4th 2021 to May 3rd 2022. Closure of athy canal side to facilitate construction of Distributor road. Is this the start of construction or has it already begun

https://kildare.ie/CountyCouncil/PressReleasesAdverts/TemporaryRoadClosure-NoticeofIntention-CanalSideAthy.html

Very little from anything I’ve seen. Seemed to have stalked completely. Not surprising with an idiot like Martin Heydi

Did BAM get out on the ground before the end of 2021 with this?

They spoke of been on site shortly after contract signing but no dates given for start or end in anything I've read. https://www.bam.com/en/press/press-releases/2021/10/kildare-county-council-awards-contract-for-athy-distributor-road

Looks a fairly easy build other than a new river crossing. There was already prelim work done on this from what i can see (removing old structures / asbestos etc) so should progress rapidly once they put a digger on site.

passed through athy a few weeks and didn’t see a thing going on. Usually that prat Martin Heydon TD would be going on about it if anything was happening

Yes, @rameire

They are on site about 3-4 weeks and they have started clearing (A LOT OF CLEARING) either side of the R417 along the old railway line,

Will try grab pics over next few days and throw up

Fair enough.... i'll have to go get photos now....

I know PICs or GTFO 😂🤣

Great to see this one get underway after many decades of talking

Looks to be plenty going on anyhow. Saw plenty of progress and site works off the train and also on the Castledermot road. Also lights on the Castlecomer road- big project but it should be very worthwhile

There will be a new roundabouts at ends, but drawings have the intermediate junctions as at-grade, light controlled crossings: this is an urban relief road, not a bypass.

From the planning application:

• 3.4km of urban arterial road (Type 3 single carriageway), incorporating pedestrian and cycle facilities;
• Two new roundabouts – one on the N78 Kilkenny Road south-west of Athy town centre and one on the R418 Castledermot Road south-east of the town;
• One connection to an existing roundabout – N78/M9 link road / R418 Kilcullen Road east of Athy town centre;
• Two signalised cross-roads junctions, at Fortbarrington Road and at the R417 Carlow Road, both incorporating right turning lanes and pedestrian/cycle crossings;
• One river bridge with an 80m single span over the River Barrow;
• One railway bridge over the Dublin-Waterford railway line

Thanks Pablo, its looking good to see it progressing. I might buy you a pint at the end of the month.

great to see everybody out whinging on Facemuck as well.

Hi everyone,

What do you think it will happen in terms of noise levels this new roads sections to close neighborhoods like Corran, Dún Brinn or Coneyboro? Something to concern about it? Thanks.

https://kildare-nationalist.ie/2023/10/17/athy-ring-road-to-open-in-two-weeks/

Should make a big difference- if you’re travelling from north Kilkenny to Dublin direction I wonder will it make the N78 more convenient than joining the M9 further south and saving some kms

Those photo opps piss me off as we have to wait around for days or even weeks to got their narcissistic diaries as taxpayers paying for the schemes…

But let’s stay positive and this should be a great scheme- is the N78 to be redesignated to the new road?