There was ample evidence on the M4 through the midlands yesterday that significant numbers of heavy goods vehicles were avoiding the new €500 million M4 toll motorway.
However, traders along the former main route to the north-west said that drivers of cars travelling between Dublin and the west were using the new motorway, principally because a lack of signs gave them little information on where to divert to traditional food and refreshment stops.
The situation was the "worst of all worlds", according to the traders, leaving them with the trucks, which they claim are now going "faster than ever" through the towns, but not the carloads of customers they need.
According to Redmond Kennedy of the Monastery Inn at Clonard, the requirement that each toll route was to have an alternative free route at least implied that signs would direct the attention of motorists to the fact that alternative routes were available to them.
He said that he was considering a legal challenge to force the National Roads Authority to indicate alternative free routes on its signs.
The NRA had said that such signs, to be erected at relief roads at Kinnegad and Enfield, would indicate the presence of Clonard, but no such sign had been erected, Mr Kennedy added.
A spokesman for Eurolink, the builders and operators of the new M4, said that the signage had been dictated by the NRA and Eurolink had complied fully with its recommendations.
He also revealed that Eurolink was "in conversation" with the NRA about the feasibility of providing a petrol station and motorway services on the new route.
