437 
That N11 traffic congestion get-out clause…
A Change Of Gear For Kilpedder Rat-Run
WCC lodge plans for Road Safety Improvement Scheme
previous post
That N11 traffic congestion get-out clause…
sed by many people as a way around any heavy traffic 
congestion along the N11, the so-called rat-run through Kilpedder is being addressed by Wicklow County Council.
And that scheme involves a series of junction alterations, signage changes and traffic restrictions designed to discourage those opportunistic drivers.
According to traffic surveys carried out in March, over 1,000 vehicles used the Johnstown road and Willow Grove merge during peak morning traffic. Over one 24-hour period, 1,515 vehicles were counted at the former and 1,378 at the latter, with the majority of the 
traffic not local.
With €100,000 allocated already, the full cost of the new road safety scheme is estimated at €300,000.
1 comment
Hi P,
Thanks for raising this. The An Coimisiun Pleanala case is not an appeal against the scheme. It is a request for the commission to determine if the scheme designers should have undertaken and Appropriate Assessment and / or Environmental Impact Assessment report, given that some of the scheme is within the Glen O’the Downs SAC and the scheme mentioned impacts being filtered by the Three Trouts stream, also in the SAC at the point that matters. This won’t stop the scheme, but there is a thing called the ‘precautionary principle’ for developments in or close to an SAC that I think should have been applied.
Nobody wants rat running and we all want improved road safety.
The big problem with this scheme, for me, is the closure of the one-way system from the N11 up to the Willow Grove. It is to become a cycle only route in the opposite direction.
The resulting detour from the east side of Barry’s Bridge to the west side of Barry’s Bridge, via the N11 southbound, Farrankelly Road and Kilpedder roundabout, is 4km. Some houses up around the Glen O’Downs industrial estate have a 4.7 km trip. We shop in Delgany, there are no shops Willow Grove or Kilpedder. As a community our kids go to school in Delgany, their friends live there. The community severance and additional kilometres driven by almost 500 cars a day, which currently use the one way system (WCC figures) , is environmentally shocking by any measure.
By all means, we say share the road with the cyclists using a safe, separated cycle lane. There is plenty of room it used to be a two-way road. But don’t lock us out. Did Bray Wheelers actually ask for the whole road, or did they ask for a protected cycleway?
102 people who signed an attendance sheet at a public meeting in the Grove Bar on Tuesday are committed to road safety and opposing rat running, but would like to be able to get home at night!
So, we have asked the council to consider a 6am to 10 ban on traffic (except buses and emergency vehicles) coming from the N11 into Kilpedder, at the Kilpedder Inn. That would catch the rat runners. But there is a garage and homes there that need the access at other times.
We have also asked the council if we might share the one-way system we currently use, with a segregated, contra-flow cycleway.
I wish I could direct you to the maps and drawings online, but these have expired on the council’s website, ahead of a deadline for submissions on June 12.
We know there are safety issues and we know there is rat running. But these can be addressed effectively and within the scheme’s small budget. We are not rat runners. We live here. (Rant only beginning!)