New Navan link road to drastically reduce delays on Rathaldren road, says council

When the new bridge over the Blackwater opens later this year, it will reduce traffic congestion the N51 Slane /Rathaldren Road junction by 25 per cent.

The long term solution to the chaotic peak time traffic delays at the junction of the Rathaldren Road and the N51 will be the opening of the LDR4 scheme, which will link the Rathaldren Road with the Navan-Kells Road, councillors were told before Christmas.

At a meeting of Navan Municipal Council, Cllr Francis Deane called on Meath County Council "to alter the sequencing of the traffic lights on the Rathaldren Road at peak

hours to facilitate school traffic as well as users of Blackwater Park travelling to and from Saturday morning runs from 10am to 11am."

He was told modelling by the council predicts that when opened “the AM peak traffic through the junction will reduce by 25 per cent as a whole and by 42 per cent on Rathaldren Road approach alone.”

Cllr Deane was told the junction is one of the busiest in Co Meath. "The junction is at capacity and changes to provide additional time to different approaches will result in reduction to others.

"The N51 traffic has very heavy traffic at peak times in both directions, but in particular in Southbound traffic in the AM. The N51 peak time coincides with the Rathaldren Rd peak times. It is evident that any delays experienced on the N51 has an exasperating affect very quickly on the rest of the traffic in Navan due to blocking at the Round “O” roundabout or the Fire station junction," a report to the council stated.

"Rathaldren Road already gets a significant portion of time in each cycle (up to 25 per cent of available cycle time) considering there are four traffic phases and one pedestrian phase.

“The issue with exiting Rathaldren road is the efficiency of traffic progressing through the approach. The efficiency is quite low and is affected by a number of factors, including the two opposing exits to the shops, the school exit and their associated yellow boxes, the zebra crossing and general traffic progression to cross the in-ground vehicle detectors to extend the green time."

Cllr Deane was told the Traffic Signal team will look to see if they can programme the controller to allow better side road flow when the N51 peak times have elapsed and other times such as weekends. This will be done in very minor increments over time to avoid adverse knock on effects.

The councillors were told that the new road and bridge was expected to be completed in ten months time.