My first motion at Tuesday’s (15th November) MD meeting, ‘In light of worsening traffic chaos, that we get an update on the status of traffic management plan for Kildare Town and Newbridge Town and a plausible explanation for the ongoing delay. In the absence of a delivery date, I reiterate the request to see the current iteration of the plan however far from agreement.

Report October 2017: The members will be updated on continued discussions with the National Transport Authority (NTA) at the municipal district meeting. The outline of the proposal submitted to NTA proposed using a multi-disciplinary team, with the main objective being the creation of an enhanced environment with multi-functional

streets, maximised connectivity, permeability and ease of movement. The outline proposal and associated draft tender documents have been provided to CouncillorMcLoughlin Healy. The Roads Department will copy the draft documents (circa 70 pages) to all members if required.

Update November 2017: The Director of Services Transportation met with Mr. Hugh Creegan, Director of Transport Investment and Taxi Regulations in the National Transport Authority within the last 2 weeks in order to outline the frustration being experienced by the officials and elected members in Kildare County Council in regard to a number of Kildare County Council projects being delayed, including the proposed Traffic Management Plan for Newbridge. Mr. Creegan outlined his difficulties with funding, in addition to the fact that recent experiences with Traffic Management Plans (TMP)’s funded in other counties had not delivered the type of blueprint that provided value for money or tangible outcomes. Therefore Mr. Creegan offered, as an alternative, that he would assign one of the NTA’s Strategic Planning staff to develop a Transport Plan for Newbridge. The initial desktop analysis and information gathering has commenced, and on the 30 November the NTA staff member and the head of the NTA Strategic Planning Section will meet with the Director of Services and the Senior Engineer in Roads to outline and agree a series of workshops and workplan that ultimately will produce a Transport Plan for Newbridge.

The members will be kept updated on progress. A review of the data from the existing Kildare town TMP has not been carried out and therefore the Roads Department is not in a position to provide a report at this time. The replacement of the Senior Executive Engineer (Traffic) has been requested and is awaited.