Two-Way Traffic System Set For Denny Street By End Of August

.

Kerry County Council engineer Eamon Scanlon speaking at the Tralee Chamber Alliance AGM on Monday evening. Photo by Dermot Crean.

WORK is to start in less than a month to prepare Denny Street for a two-way traffic system by the end of August.

Kerry County Council Engineer, Eamon Scanlon, briefed members of Tralee Chamber Alliance on the work ahead at the Alliance’s AGM at the Grand Hotel last night.

After the two-way system is in operation, the attention of the Council will then turn to Russell Street/The Mall area where work to transform it into a shared space for pedestrians, motorists and cyclists is scheduled to begin in September.

Continued below…

That work is to continue through to October, November and part of December. Mr Scanlon said there will be a meeting held with the Chamber Alliance and businesses to discuss how to organise work around the Christmas period.

“We’re very conscious that we don’t want to be interfering with business and trade in the busy run up to Christmas,” said Mr Scanlon.

Local businesses will be consulted on the surface material to be used on The Mall. This follows complaints about the paving used in the development of The Square some years ago. Mr Scanlon said they are sourcing a material which, the manufacturer claims, will have resistance values where the chance of a slip accident is “one in a million”.

“It’s very difficult to eliminate it [chance of slipping], but we are going to the highest end of the spectrum we can to eliminate that as an issue,” said Mr Scanlon.

“There is going to be disruption, there is no point in saying otherwise. What it’s about is trying to plan and execute the works in a way that minimises that disruption and hopefully people will see the long term view on this and we’ll have a town centre area which will be worthy of the town of Tralee,” said Mr Scanlon.

The works on Denny Street will not be too impactful on businesses said Mr Scanlon, as it mainly involves changing the parking system from the ‘herring bone parking’ to parallel parking.

“We have a couple of ‘build-outs’ to define the parking bays and this will be done in rolling succession to try to minimise the impact. We’ll try to keep our working areas as tight as possible,” he said.

Plans for the traffic calming measures on Denny Street have gone out to public consultation and representations must be received by May 31. The drawings outlining the proposals are available to be viewed by the public at the Tralee Municipal District office at Princes Quay, at Kerry County Council buildings on their website.