Bridge to help end traffic bottlenecks

A NEW bridge has been lifted into place at Reilly’s level crossing in Cabra as part of a €9.8m project aimed at eliminating major bottlenecks in the area.
The bridge was placed last weekend, marking a major milestone in the Ratoath Road realignment-and-overbridge project. Work on the project started in June 2013, and is set to be complete in early 2015.
The installation of the bridge got under way at midnight on Friday and was completed by 5am on Saturday.
A spokesperson for Iarnrod Eireann said: “This is a project which will be of benefit for all modes of transport. Trains will travel in a safer environment, road traffic will not be delayed by congestion at manually-operated gates, and cyclists and pedestrians will have greatly improved facilities also.”
The project will link Ratoath Road from about 300 metres south of the existing level crossing to the Ballyboggan Road junction to the north. The work includes the construction of 500 metres of road, a bridge over the railway and canal, and a junction with the Ballyboggan Road.
According to the Iarnrod Eireann spokesperson, the new bridge will greatly help with the traffic flow on the Ratoath Road, which provides a very widely used north-south connection from the north inner city and Cabra to Finglas.
However, local Cllr Cieran Perry (Ind) said the bridge would lead to more traffic coming through the residential area. “I think it is going to be an absolute disaster. I campaigned against this with the Cabra Community Council. Dublin City Council’s own figures estimate there are about 13,000 cars passing through every day and they expect this will rise to 17,000.
“It is going to be a magnet for traffic coming into the area, coming down a residential road that contains four schools, community facilities and two senior citizens complexes. The community council suggested an underpass…[which would limit] the amount of HGVs coming through but also limits the number of cars…we are disappointed it wasn’t evaluated properly because we think it would have been a much better solution,” he added.