Bottleneck on east-west road to be bypassed from Monday

This weekend marks the end of the familiar traffic bottlenecks at either side of Kinnegad, Co Westmeath, on the Dublin-Galway road.

On Monday, the National Roads Authority will open the Kinnegad Relief Road, a 1.2 km bypass which will separate the Galway traffic on the N4/N6, taking it around the village.

The move will effectively eliminate one of the State's worst traffic obstacles, relieving the Friday evening build-up of traffic on the Dublin side of Kinnegad and the Sunday evening tail-backs at the Galway and Sligo road junction at the west of the village.

The bad news for drivers travelling between Dublin and Sligo is that traffic will still be routed through Kinnegad but the National Roads Authority has plans for that too.

"The full solution involves the construction of a new road from Kilcock to north-west Kinnegad, a distance of almost 35 km," said the NRA chief executive, Mr Michael Tobin.

The construction of this road is some years off and is being undertaken as part of the NRA's forward-planning schemes. Almost £1 million has been allocated to Westmeath County Council to develop the route.

While Monday's opening will not provide the full solution, the NRA says the separation of the Galway traffic will make "a tremendous" difference to journey times.

It is also expected to make a major difference to Kinnegad, removing some 7,000 vehicles a day from the main street. Traffic volume west of Kinnegad has risen sharply - a 9 per cent increase each year in the five-year period 1993 to 1998.

At present 16,000 vehicles a day pass through the narrow main street, while on the May Bank Holiday this year, traffic travelling west hit record delays, being backed up from Kinnegad through Enfield and back to the end of the M4 motorway. The journey time between Enfield and the west of Kinnegad was more than two hours, it was reported at the time.

Because of its pivotal location for traffic between Dublin and the west and north-west, the bottlenecks at Kinnegad have become probably the best-known in the State.

Described as a "single carrigeway motorway", construction of the road took slightly more than seven months to complete. It was co-financed by the European Union and the total cost was £2.6 million.

Work on the new crossing of the Kinnegad river was deferred until March last because of concerns over the effect of construction on salmon spawning.

The river was temporarily diverted on March 1st, to allow the positioning of the 100 metre bridge and the Eastern Regional Fisheries Board removed all the fish from the dammed section before the water was removed.