2 Initial Assessment of Options

2.2 Athy to Monasterevin Route

The obvious tie-in point at the northern end of the study area was the southern termination of the M9 Kilcullen spur at Kilcullen. However an alternative tie-in further west was investigated. This route corridor (the "western corridor") ran parallel to the railway north of Athy to join the proposed Heath to Mayfield M7 motorway scheme to the south of Monasterevin.

However it was found that a western corridor would not attract traffic from Carlow and this traffic would coninue to use the existing N9. In view of this result and the discarding of routes in the N78 corridor, as described above, no further work was done on the western route as it failed to meet the objective of attracting traffic from the N9 corridor north of Carlow.