2020 Vision for Athy - Entire Document - Kildare.ie

Table 9.5: Traffic flows on sensitive routes: Do Minimum and Southern Distributor Scenario
Location and Direction
Demand
Flow
TRAFFIC FLOWS
2016 2016
Do Minimum Southern Distributor Assessment
Actual
Flow
Queue
Flow
Demand
Flow
Actual
Flow
Queue
Flow
Duke Street between Convent Lane E 407 217 190 229 220 9
and Burrow Quay W One Way One Way One Way One Way One Way One Way
Inner Relief Street between Convent E 980 509 471 413 402 11
Lane and Burrow Quay W 1479 954 525 792 791 1
Stanhope Street
N
S
519
702
374
635
145
67
350
576
346
575
4
1
Carlow Road
N
S
699
265
644
140
55
125
600
304
600
300
0
3
Southern Distributor Route east of E N/A N/A N/A 672 672 0
Ardrew W N/A N/A N/A 520 519 1
The results of the SATURN analysis indicate that the provision of the Southern Distributor Route will not only
provide a bypass of the town centre for through traffic, but will more importantly, facilitate trips around the town
centre and outlying residential and employment centres, thereby minimising town centre traffic.
Athy Town Centre will remain the primary trip attractor in 2016 and will therefore continue to cater for significant
volumes of traffic. The provision of the southern distributor route coupled with the network of slow mode routes
and traffic management measures will help reduce traffic flows on the key town centre routes. Traffic demand on
the Inner Relief Street between Convent Lane and Barrow Quay and Duke Street almost halves on introduction of
the Southern Distributor Route and Slow mode links. Carlow Road will suitably remain the distributor link into the
town centre from the south and will continue to receive moderately high volumes of traffic.
The reduction in town centre traffic within this scenario has resulted in improved global statistics, with the average
journey time of trips within the study area reducing to approximately 5minutes and the average speed of vehicles
increasing to 37.3km/hour.
An evaluation of the MEPLAN outputs highlighted in Table 9.4, show a vast improvement in the modal splits,
with work, education and school traffic experiencing a modal shift of approximately 20% from the Do Minimum
scenario and the 2002 present day scenario.
Subsequent runs of SATURN and MEPLAN for the Southern Distributor Route scenario have resulted in minimal
oscillations in the modal splits between car trips and walking/cycling. This indicates that the overall reduction in
modal splits in this scenario is a result of ‘positive’ modal choices for the population of Athy as appose to ‘forced’
modal choice as experienced in the Do Minimum scenario. In order to develop an attractive and prosperous town,
it is essential that people be presented with a positive modal choice for all journey types.
Outer Bypass Assessment
Similarly to the Southern Distributor Route, the construction of an Outer Bypass to the south of the town will
result in a reduction in the volume of traffic on sensitive town centre routes. Table 9.6 below compares flows on
key routes between the Southern Distributor Route and the Outer bypass assessment.
Athy IFPLUT Study 109 Final Report December 2004