Garda assistance during the N6 road works will be “ongoing” until October, it has been confirmed this week.
“We are in constant communication with the construction company and the town council, and we will be constantly monitoring the traffic situation as the road works move. Where a problem arises, we will deal with it,” said a Garda spokesman yesterday [Thursday April 14].
Last week the Gardai had members on rush-hour point duty at Custume Place and other pinch points around town as the €7 million, moveable construction site on the N6 had the Roscommon Road (Junction 12 ) closed.
This work, coupled with additional and unrelated roadworks on the Tuam Road in Monksland by Roscommon County Council led to unprecedented levels of traffic into Athlone and the subsequent calls in the town council meeting to get the Gardai to take charge of the situation.
With the completion of this tranche of work last Friday, and the moving of the work to the east side and the closure of the Coosan junction (J11 ), when the senior garda who spoke to the Advertiser last week said “We’ll not be there til October”, he reffering specifically to Custume Place, and not the rest of the project.
Garda will be available to the town council until the N6 fully re-opens later in the year.
For operational reasons the Gardaí will not be covering every junction every day for the duration of the works, but will monitor the movements of both the construction works and traffic flows and react accordingly.
“This week we had gardai on point duty at Garrycastle bridge, and we will continue to work with all agencies. This will be ongoing as the traffic problems move as the roadworks move,” said the Garda spokesman.
The N6 will be down to one lane in each direction between junction 11 (Coosan ) and junction 10 (Ballymahon Road ) from Saturday, April 9 to Friday, April 29.
The eastbound on ramp at junction 12 (Roscommon ) and the off ramp at junction 11 (Coosan ) reopened to traffic last Friday, April 8.
The eastbound entry at junction 11 and the eastbound exit at junction 10 will be closed from Tuesday, April 12 for approximately 3 weeks.
The road works on the 9km section of the N6 Athlone relief road started in January and are expected to go on until October, after it was originally projected to finish in June.
The €7 million project will see new overlay, median strip, safety barriers, road markings, road studs, ducting, drainage, and verge reinstatement installed or constructed in 11 phases.
