The levels of traffic usually siphoned off from the town centre by the Castleisland Bypass will be flowing back through its old thoroughfare for a couple of days this week.
The annual raft of routine maintenance on the bypass at both sides of the Knocknagore roundabout from Dooneen on the Limerick Road to Clashganniv on the Killarney Road will be carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 12th and 13th from dawn to dusk.
Routine Maintenance Works
Colas Limited, Colas Teoranta and Roadbridge (CRJV) on behalf of Transport Infrastructure Ireland plans to close the N21 Castleisland Bypass over a period of two days to facilitate routine maintenance works.
The intention is to close the Northbound dual carriageway between the roundabout with the N23 to the south and the L2041 to the north on Tuesday 12th May and repeat this in the southbound direction on Wednesday 13th May.
Traffic Through Town
The program for the closures is as follows: Northbound closure on Tuesday, May 12th. from 8am to 8pm.
Southbound closure on Wednesday, May 13th. from 8am to 8pm. During this time, traffic will be diverted through Castleisland.
Colas Limited, Colas Teoranta and Roadbridge are the companies behind the joint venture we see abbreviated as CRJV.
The merger operates motorway maintenance and renewal contracts in Ireland and its responsibilities include all operations and maintenance such as that on the Castleisland bypass on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Sense Of Security
As Castleisland’s Main Street users we may have been lulled into a false sense of security recently with the dramatic drop-off in through traffic.
Even with the imposed Covid-19 travel restrictions traffic has been ramping up quite noticeably over the past week or more.
There will be people coming through Castleisland who may have never driven through the town before.
Well Developed Bad Habits
We have a well developed, bad habit of crossing the street where ever we like or want to. We often do so only a handful of metres away from the designated crossing points in front of the Post Office and in the Latin Quarter from Killarney Road to the Back of the Forge.
We can’t assume that all these new drivers will distrust our instincts enough to brake at times when we take every step for granted and don’t exactly apply the Safe Cross Code.
And Some Endearing Habits
Another of our endearing habits is the one where we’re about three-quarter of the way across the street and we stop dead in our tracks to thank and wave to the nice motorist for not flattening us while we cross.
Be careful of them strange drivers out there on Tuesday and Wednesday as Castleisland’s Main Street returns to a semblance of the way we were pre bypass, pre 2010, pre everything.
