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In Pictures: Why Ardee needs a bypass now

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A lorry attempts to turn onto the Kells Road from Castle Street. Photo Credit: Adrian Crawley.
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This article originally appeared on ThisIsArdee.ie

In three weeks time, Ardee Municipal District councillors will meet representatives fom Transport Infrastructure Ireland to discuss the building of a western bypass for Ardee. It is a much needed project. Despite land having been acquired and the project being ‘shovel ready’, no funding has yet been made available for it.

In their bid to convince the TII to bump Ardee up on the list of priority projects, they could do worse than to show them some of the photos below. Our man with the camera Adrian Crawley was out and about in the town last week to capture some of the traffic issues that so plague Ardee.

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Something tells us this Monaghan Mushrooms vehicle isn’t stopping in Ardee to do some shopping. Frankly, it’s far too big to be navigating Bridge Street anyway….
The same could be said for this Kingspan lorry. Whether it’s turning onto the Kells Road or going straight through, these lorries are a danger to other vehicles and especially pedestrians.
Bridge Street is the most narrow point of the N2 going through Ardee – and with vehicles joining it from Hale Street and John Street, it’s one of the busiest points too.
Here’s some of that aforementioned traffic coming onto Bridge Street from the N2 and John Street. When busy here, traffic can take an eternity to move.
When big vehicles meet on Bridge Street, it can get very, very tight…
This is just a very small sample of the how the traffic can back up on the N2 – often as far back as Sliabh Breagh!
Arguably the main traffic issue within the town is the Kells Road junction. Large commercial vehicles turning at that narrow junction causes chaos….
…as demonstrated here. It’s such a sharp turn and difficult to manoeuvre.
So many lorries turn at that cross that is not fit for that purpose. Besides that, it’s a very busy pedestrian crossing and the dangers to pedestrians are many.
Undoubtedly, it slows things up and contributes to the slowing down of traffic flow in the town.
A little further up the street – the controversial pedestrian crossing at the Bank of Ireland. Installed t provide safe passage across the street for pedestrians – it doesn’t quite manage it. Especially with vehicles turning onto Castle Street from Sean O’Carroll Street and with cars stopping in the yellow junction box too.
Finally, this shot was taken my Mark Bogger Conlon on Bridge Street on Tuesday morning. You can forgive him for being a bit wary – given what happened last year (Ardee, Hay!). But that is just ridiculous.

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