N81 Campaign website forced to close

road_high

Online campaign forced to wind up

A website established to clean up the N81 and lobby over the dangerous state of the notorious road has been disabled due to a general lack of public interest.


The website www.cleanupthen81.com was finally put out of its misery at the end of July by Blessington resident Gary Finaly, who can't understand the lack of reaction to the site which initially received plenty of support.


The site aimed to lobby the local authority about the filthy state of sections of the road, covered with mud and dirt, and the Government over the amount of accidents which regularly occur on the N81.


Soon over 100 visitors were logged on and joined up to the forum discussing different ways of tackling the problem. But once a public meeting was set by by Mr. Finlay, people seemed to immediately lose interest.


'It proved to be a waste of time,' says the bitterly disappointed campaigner. 'To be honest I can't really believe it. From now on I will just do whatever I can or would normally do as an individual citizen. People are always giving out about the N81 but as soon as you try to do something about it, they become silent.'


Regular visitors to the forum all undertook to attend a public meeting in St. Kevin's Community College, and Mr. Finlay was left stunned when he found himself the only person in the hall on the night. Since then the forum and website has pretty much been dormant as previous visitors shied away from it, leaving him with little choice but to wind it down.


'Maybe people lose interest once the summer arrives because they see the N81 as being more dangerous during the winter. If so, you cant stop and start a campaign to suit yourself. You have to be consistent. It was very weird the way people just suddenly stopped paying any attention and I can't really explain it,' he admits.


Mr. Finlay will continue lobbying on an individual basis and while the site is now disabled, he would still consider getting back up in action if the interest was there.

spacetweek

mfitzy wrote:

Online campaign forced to wind up

A website established to clean up the N81 and lobby over the dangerous state of the notorious road has been disabled due to a general lack of public interest.

Dunno what happened here. Maybe the people on the site wanted to complain but reckoned there was nothing they could do.

I reckon the N81 should be replaced with dual as far as Blessington anyway what with all the truck traffic and the fact that it's so close to Dublin and the growth of the towns along its route.

popebenny16

That's the internet for ya!!

road_high

Its fairly typical of the lack of 'community spirit' on this side of the country.
If this were in the west of Ireland they'd be out protesting, blocking the road and shouting the doors of dail eireann down!He who shouts loudest generally gets in Ireland. People in the east complain but never take things a step further.

loyatemu

people in the east don't have time - they spend large chunks of their week commuting.

road_high

loyatemu wrote:

people in the east don't have time - they spend large chunks of their week commuting.

This is very true. But apathy seems to be a big part of it too. I mean not everybody is a commuter, surely a lot of locals must be seriously pissed off with this road too.
I mean if I was using that road on a regular basis and living in the wet Wicklow/east Carlow area I would definitely support that campaign.

DerekP11

Its an awful shame that Mr. Finlays energy in relation to a good issue, was let down, by those who will continue to moan and grown about the condition of the road, but take no active role in doing something constructive about it.

New campaigns are always very hard to get off the ground, when parish pump politics aren't involved. Platform 11 had many similar experiences around the country and even at meetings held in Dublin. One particular event in Limerick attracted 2 local people!

Online campaigns can be both successful and unsuccessful. The initial success stems from the easiness of access to comment on the issue. The unsuccessful part comes when you attempt to transfer this success to bums on seats at a public meeting. However, its a pity that Mr. Finlay closed the website so quickly. From my experience, if you keep your site going and continue to feed press releases to the media, you will continue to attract and encourage visitors to your site and forum. The next step is to get to know contributors and organize informal meetings to establish some sort of steering committee. From there you build up to a public meeting. I am, off course, basing this opinion on Platform 11s past mistakes. Thankfully, we have now established a foothold and generated a momentum.

As for the N81. I live in Naas and often use it inbound to the city, if I have early morning business in Blessington. Prior to 98, it wasn't great, but the Tour De France gave it a temporary makeover, with resurfacing and decent road markings. Since then, it hasn't been touched and the expansion of housing in Blessinton, Baltinglass and Tullow has poured a hell of a lot of traffic onto it, all Dublin bound. Its quite alarming that its perhaps the most neglected national class route into the city. It definetly needs to be dualed to Blessington. A big job considering the gradients and moutainsides from Jobstown to Brittas. The NRA appear to have no plans for anything. In hindsight, refusal of planning permission for developments, unless a committment was made to upgrade the road, would have been a more sensible short term option.

If anyone has contact details for Gary Finlay, I'd appreciate it.

John R

DerekP11 wrote:

If anyone has contact details for Gary Finlay, I'd appreciate it.

PM Sent.

DerekP11

Cheers John.

John R

No Problem.


It is a worthwhile issue, I used to use the road on and off a few years ago and the amount of soil dropped from the quarry trucks was unreal, in wet weather I hated the road. Used the window washers so much I'd have to refill the tank daily.

Pity that people are not bothered enough to do anything about their local issues other than just gripe online but there it is. I see it regularly with an organisation I work with. A small group of people put their time and money into doing something and also have to put up with online warriors who bitch and moan about everything but are curiously absent when the time comes to get something done.

DerekP11

I feel your pain. Dealing with it everyday of the week.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

dublinhead

What is the hold up on the the N81 getting upgraded? Its a joke after the Tallaght bypass at Jobstown where it goes down to one lane. There is loads of room for it to be widened. I think this would take some of the pressure of the N7 naas rd.

road_high

dublinhead wrote:

What is the hold up on the the N81 getting upgraded? Its a joke after the Tallaght bypass at Jobstown where it goes down to one lane. There is loads of room for it to be widened. I think this would take some of the pressure of the N7 naas rd.

Good question. Everything in Ireland is delays and more delays, no matter how simple the project.
They're (NRA) probably focusing their attention on the major interurbans first and then the N81 might get the work it so badly needs.
A guy even started a campaign (www.cleanuptheN81.com) a few months back, organised a meeting over the road- and nobody turned up to the meeting, in Blessington I think. That was a shame. The accident rate on the whole N81 tells the story of bad and dangerous that road actually is.

seamus

The plan has been on the back burner for quite some time.

I'm guessing there are two things at play here:
1. General apathy and "We don't really care about the N81" from the county councils
2. The amount of land that would need to be bought to both realign the N81 and increase it to four lanes. That is, from Tallaght to brittas, most of the land on either side of the road is in private ownership. This would require some extensive and expensive CPOs (some businesses and homes would need to be demolished). Blessington would require a complete bypass - once again requiring a serious amount of land acquisition, and building. The area is generally hilly (and if you don't have hill, you have big hulking lakes) which makes the costs spiral.

D'Peoples Voice

dublinhead wrote:

What is the hold up on the the N81 getting upgraded? Its a joke after the Tallaght bypass at Jobstown where it goes down to one lane. There is loads of room for it to be widened. I think this would take some of the pressure of the N7 naas rd.

this road?
http://www.sdublincoco.ie/index.aspx?pageid=939&pid=4144

Uuuh Patsy

Nope

BrianD

dublinhead wrote:

What is the hold up on the the N81 getting upgraded? Its a joke after the Tallaght bypass at Jobstown where it goes down to one lane. There is loads of room for it to be widened. I think this would take some of the pressure of the N7 naas rd.

Would it not be fair to say that there is no longer any pressure on the N7 now that it has been widened and grade separated junctions installed.