Council to warn motorists over roadworks plan

Details of roadworks for the Dundrum area of south Co Dublin, costing over £100 million, are to be announced today amid growing anxiety of "unprecedented" traffic chaos in the area.

Announcing the schemes this morning, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council will ask householders, commuters and residents to restrict their car journeys for the next three years.

The new and improved roads scheme was designed to offset the anticipated traffic gridlock in the area due to the opening of sections of the Southern Cross motorway and construction on the Ballinteer and Leopardstown interchanges which will serve the final leg of the M50.

However, a series of delays has caused construction of the relief roads and motorways to overlap with each other and with large-scale engineering projects in the area. These include:

Work on a Wyckham bypass extension.

Improvements to the Sandy ford and Brewery roads, Leopardstown dual carriageway and the green route from Ballinteer to Eden House, Rathfarnham.

Completion of the Ballinteer Road improvement scheme and the Wyckham bypass, and commencement of the Dundrum bypass.

The building of the Central Park business park at Leopardstown.

The redevelopment of Sandy ford Business Park across the road.

The opening of the M50 to Ballinteer, due this summer.

The building of one of the largest junctions on the M50, the Leopardstown interchange.

Construction work on the Luas line which includes two park-and-ride facilities, the rebuilding of the Taney Road junction and bridge, and the route extension by private enterprise to Central Park.

The council says the warning to restrict journeys is necessary because of the scale of the projects scheduled to be completed by 2004.

Restrictions envisaged include a ban on sprint racing at Leopardstown racecourse due to the construction of the southeastern motorway.

The Dundrum bypass, construction of which begins this morning, has been delayed by a year. It was to have opened in time for the opening of the M50 to Ballinteer, when considerable volumes of traffic would be expected to come around the ring road to the south Dublin suburbs.

However, this traffic will now find much of the local road network closed and delays are expected to be severe.