Parents of children in the new Holy Family Junior and Senior Schools have set up a car-pooling schedule in an effort to help alleviate severe traffic difficulties being encountered around Aughnaharna.
Since the brand new Holy Family schools opened on Thursday, traffic has been heavily congested close to the new schools, which cater for 1,400 primary school students.
This has prompted a parent to post a spreadsheet for other parents from the Holy Family schools to sign up for car-pooling on the Portlaoise Community Noticeboard, in an effort to cut traffic going to the schools in the morning.
This has already been extensively shared as parents look to find a solution to the traffic difficulties.
The mother said she left her house in Portlaoise at 8.10 am on Monday morning and didn’t get to the school until 8.45, despite living less than two miles from the school.
“That is a cruel situation,” Monsignor John Byrne PP said of the traffic delays she encountered.
He welcomed the efforts being taken to try and assist the movement of traffic.
“We are going to need the cooperation of everybody, the parents and the staff,” Msgr Byrne said.
“We will be very grateful for anything that helps to solve the traffic situation and hopefully car-pooling will help, as well as additional school buses which will reduce the traffic on the road,” Msgr Byrne said.
While traffic had eased a little earlier this week, there were still significant hold-ups.
System
“Traffic is going to be an issue and we need to work out a system,” Msgr Byrne said.
“We were surprised by the extent of the problems last week”.
He said this was caused somewhat by everyone stopping to see the new schools and also acquaint themselves with the layout of the school and ensure their children knew where to go.
“It was the first time for parents to come to the school, and parents of Junior School children can’t just drop them and go,” Msgr Byrne said.
He said parking facilities are available for these children, and it is hoped that more parents of senior school children will use the drop and go system once they are familiar with the school.
“We are never going to eliminate the traffic as it is a big school, and everyone arrives at the same time. There is a certain amount of staggering of times but there is only so much you can do on that,” he said.
Traffic is under “active consideration” at the moment and school management hopes school traffic will settle down to “tolerable levels” in the next week.
Blocakage
“An analysis is being done on blockage points,” Msgr Byrne said.
The parent who posted the car-pooling plan felt additional car park spaces need to be provided at the school, particularly for those attending the junior school section with young children.
This mother also described the roundabout at the Aughnaharna junction as a “bottleneck”.
It is hoped that a planned new Portlaoise Southern Relief Road, which will create a link from the Timahoe Road to the Abbeyleix Road, will also help traffic in the coming years.
Laois County Council recently got the go-ahead for compulsory purchase orders at Kylekiproe for land to complete the Timahoe link road
Funding of €1 million was also allocated earlier this year to allow for the compulsory purchase of land for the road.
SEE ALSO – Council gets go-ahead for land CPOs for Timahoe link road
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