Letters to the Editor: Time to ditch outdated Blackwater Bridge idea

(Editor, Meath Chronicle)

Dear sir - I moved to Navan around 20 years ago. One of the first things that was obvious, when I moved here, was how transport links were regularly overwhelmed. Housing estates were being developed at all ends of the town creating significant growth in Navan's population.

At the time there was no M3. Since being built, the motorway has itself added significantly to the over all traffic volumes in Navan town and surroundings. Both on the lead up to the construction, and subsequent years after the M3 was built, it became clear that previous planning decisions did not seem to work hand in glove with the anticipated traffic growth, and associated congestion, which the new motorway brought.

It would appear rag tag ideas and half cooked, rushed, relief solutions have been the order of the day by decision makers in this town over the past few decades. The hopeless traffic chaos that ensues, in what's a relatively small town - day to day - pays testimony to this.

Two new bridges have been constructed in the past two decades. One of these bridges (linking the Round O Roundabout to the Dublin Rd) was so badly thought out that its traffic flows have had to be changed three times since its construction.

Surely town planners had a definitive idea of how this bridge would be used before millions were spent on it! Earlier in the town's history, a relief road was built directly through the middle of the town, essentially cutting the town in two. That in itself was an atrocious decision, one which the dereliction on Flower Hill can attest to.

Also, all along this route, there are endless signal controlled intersections, constantly snarling traffic to a halt. Honestly, you think it was designed to create bigger problems rather than solve them.

This brings me to the main point of my letter, the new Blackwater Bridge. I cannot state this enough. If this goes ahead we will be back in the same mess again almost immediately only with millions of euro wasted.

This is a hopelessly outdated idea (rather than a key part of solution infrastructure) to resolve Navan's traffic problems. It would appear, like decisions made in the past, this idea is being pushed through, because it's the only option on the table.

The attitude appears to be 'we are better off to do it than not do it'. This is the ideology that has landed this town in the traffic organisation mess we have today.

This bridge was originally conceived as far back as the eighties (possibly before that). It has no relevance at all in today's green driven world. In today's modern, ecologically minded world, we are talking about removing heavy traffic and commercial traffic from urban areas, not adding to it.

Traffic levels today were simply inconceivable to the planners who envisaged this bridge over 40 years ago. If this bridge is built we're about to drive all traffic on the north side of the town through a park, past a school entrance, via many new housing estates and slap bang in to the middle of land which is currently being planned for large residential development.

That's before it's taken in to account the recent upscale in heavy commercial traffic from Tara Mines which would presumably use this road to access the tailings lake, traffic which might have to be increased in the future.

Absolutely nobody could have invisaged that level of heavy goods traffic when this Bridge/road was originally suggested. Young families walking their children to school or Blackwater Park will be asked to share space with high levels of commercial traffic on a busy feader road.

Anybody collecting their children from St Oliver's National School can attest to how concerning this is at the moment, yet we're honestly suggesting simply moving the traffic around the corner!

When this brigde was conceived it was done so as an orbital route to direct traffic away form Navan, a bypass as such. This would no longer be the case. In essence this is now a motorway link road. The town and its surroundings have subsequently outgrown this idea.

Progress has outstripped this plan. The bridge and adjoining road (should they be built) are now simply going to be in the middle of a burgeoning town rather than circumnavigating it.

What is needed now is a complete new plan for a road that simply removes traffic from Navan entirely. This road needs to be considerably further outside of the town. I implore Meath County Council to please find a way to call a halt to this ludicrous, outdated plan. A step back is needed and some joined up thinking, about the future of this town, rather than yet another hap hazard idea being deployed.

Yours,

Enda Butler,

Navan.