Pedestrian Crossing at Athy Road Roundabout

Carlow Town has many facilities and amenities that the pupils in our school would like to access as part of their education. We often work with The Visual Gallery on art initiatives, collaborate with Carlow County Library on literacy workshops and like to use parts of the town for history and geography lessons - Carlow Courthouse and the older buildings along Dublin and Tullow street being some examples. From a teacher's perspective one of the biggest issues with taking the children on the short walk into any of these is trying to cross over a busy National Route with 25-30 children. The nearest pedestrian crossing to our school is at Dr Cullen Park, 800m away from the Athy Road roundabout. This adds approximately 25 minutes to our walk each way. On the Graiguecullen side of the bridge there are no pedestrian crossings.

In Chapter 6 of the JULAP our school is identified as having poorer accessibility than other schools in the town. In the draft proposals from AECOM, the company who did the Active Travel audit the Athy road roundabout is marked for an proposed upgrade. Our school community would like if this upgrade included a signalised pedestrian crossing near the Athy Road roundabout so that if we were taking groups of children to access their town centre, we would be able to do so safely. 

This would also help with encouraging families in our school community to better access the school by cycling or walking on a daily basis. Many of them currently can't due to safety concerns around being able to cross this busy intersection.