Fingal County Council have been given the go ahead by An Bord Pleanála for upgrades to the old Swords Bypass, the R132.
In an update to councillors earlier this week the Chief Executive said:
“The Council was pleased to recently receive An Bord Pleanála’s notification of the successful granting of planning permission for the R132 Connectivity Project, following our planning submission in April 2021. The project involves upgrade works from north of Pinnock Hill Roundabout to north of Estuary Roundabout, to facilitate installation of new protected cycle and pedestrian facilities, removal of hard shoulders, conversion of roundabouts to signalised junctions and a reduction in speed limit to 50km/h. The P&SI team worked closely with TII and the NTA to ensure the proposed scheme ties in and facilitates MetroLink, BusConnects and the delivery of the Sustainable Swords strategy.”
In response Green Party Councillor for Swords Ian Carey said:
“This project is about making the area more safe for all road users and making it easier to get around the town. Since the motorway was built the R132 has simply been a distributor road within the town. Like all our other distributor roads it needs to accomodate all road users and give greater priority to walking, cycling and public transport. This road has contributed to locking people into car use. Swords has one of the highest levels of car dependency in the country. 72% of people who live and work in the town travel by car. This is astonishingly high given that the town is less than 5km across.”
