Twenty-year battle for a bus stop in west Wicklow village nears victory

By Hugh O'Farrell Walsh, The Wicklow People

For over two decades, the intersection of the N81 and the village of Hollywood was haunted by a grim reality. It was one of the most dangerous black spots on the Irish road network. This week, however, that narrative is finally being rewritten.

District councillors in Baltinglass were informed at their monthly meeting that contractors are beginning to apply the final markings to the N81 Hollywood Rural Traffic Calming and Bus Stop Scheme. This means the local community can begin preparing to celebrate an infrastructure victory twenty years in the making.

The history of this stretch of road is a stark reminder of near-misses and tragedies. As far back as the 1998 National Roads Needs Study, the N81 was flagged for critical deficiencies. By 2008, data revealed that collision rates on this section of the road were nearly seven times the national average.

For years, Hollywood’s safety was tethered to the massive N81 Tallaght to Hollywood Improvement Scheme. This multi-million-euro national project promised a total realignment of the road, but it became a victim of its own scale towards the end of the last decade. When the project was officially omitted from the National Development Plan (2018–2027), Hollywood’s safety needs were effectively mothballed along with it. Residents were left crossing a 100kph national secondary road in the dark, waiting for buses in grass margins with no shelter, lighting, or protection.

The deadlock broke not in a government department in Dublin, but in the Baltinglass Municipal District chambers in 2021. Frustrated by the all-or-nothing approach of national planners, local councillor Patsy Glennon and now Wicklow TD Edward Timmins made a move that would define the project’s future.

The two representatives took the unusual step of pooling €10,000 of their own discretionary municipal funding to bypass the state’s inertia.

This seed money was used to commission a professional feasibility study specifically for Hollywood village.

By facilitating the technical work themselves, Cllr Glennon and Deputy Timmins successfully argued to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) that a localised safety scheme could and must be decoupled from the stalled national bypass project.

Funding for the bus shelters and pedestrian infrastructure is part of the Department of Transport’s Active Travel allocations, which recently granted over €8.5 million for a range of projects across County Wicklow, including €500,000 for bus stop enhancements.

The path to completion hasn’t been without its final hurdles. In late January, the region was battered by Storm Chandra, which caused an estimated €15.6 million in damage across Wicklow’s road network. While the Baltinglass district bore the brunt of the storm, requiring nearly €5 million in emergency repairs, the Hollywood site remained resilient.

Despite the temporary chaos of the storm, the project remains on track for its official opening in mid-April. The new infrastructure represents a total transformation of the junction.

The N81 speed limit has been permanently slashed from 100kph to 80kph at the Hollywood approach. For the first time, Hollywood features three new controlled pedestrian crossings and high-spec public lighting, ensuring children and elderly residents can safely reach the village centre.

New, modern bus shelters now serve the 132 Bus Éireann and 183 Local Link routes, turning a dangerous roadside wait into a dignified commute.

While Cllr Glennon and Mr Timmins continue to lobby for the N81’s inclusion in future National Development Plans, the completion of the Hollywood Cross scheme provides immediate relief. For the people of Hollywood, this is more than just tarmac and glass, it is the end of a twenty-year wait for the ability to walk through their own village safely.

While the physical work on the N81 is almost finished, a verbal battle over who deserves the credit, and who should cut the ribbon, is just beginning.

The tension flared during the recent district meeting when Cllr Gerry O’Neill insisted that the local community, including a former parish priest, must be at the heart of the project’s official opening. Highlighting the decades of campaigning by residents, Cllr O’Neill argued that those who lived with the danger should be the ones to celebrate its resolution.

“The locals should be central to this,” Cllr O’Neill stated, emphasising that the project belongs to the people of Hollywood who never gave up on their demand for a safer village.

The suggestion was met with a sharp rebuttal from Cllr Glennon, who pointed to the specific political manoeuvring required to move the project from a pipe dream to a construction site.

Responding to the debate over the project’s origins, Cllr Glennon praised the efforts made by members of the local community but defended the strategic intervention made by himself and Deputy Timmins in 2021.

“You can rattle and rave all you like,” Cllr Glennon remarked, “but it was the feasibility study that Edward Timmins and I got the funding for that actually moved this project along.”

Cllr Glennon’s stance is that while community support was vital, the project would still be stalled if not for the decision to fund a standalone safety study that forced TII to act.

Based on protocol the Cathaoirleach of the Municipal District or the Cathaoirleach of Wicklow County Council performs the ceremony. For nationally significant road projects, a government minister (Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien would be the obvious choice) may be invited to lead the opening.

As seen in this case, there is no rigid rule preventing community involvement. Cllr O’Neill formally called for a locals-first protocol for the Hollywood opening but didn’t receive much support for the proposal,

Cllr Glennon emphasised that the protocol should recognise those who secured the project’s funding and feasibility. The initial study was presented to former minister Stephen Donnelly in Hollywood, demonstrating the village’s united front.

If community representatives are indeed invited to attend the official opening, council officials have a long list of people to reach out to.

The transformation of Hollywood Cross was fuelled by a persistent, grassroots campaign led by the Hollywood Forum and local advocates who refused to accept the status quo of a dangerous junction.

Established in 2017 under the leadership of figures like Jim Ruttle, Mary O’Callaghan, and Aideen Klauer, the forum worked alongside Hollywood Tidy Towns to move the village’s safety needs to the top of the political agenda.

The group, led by volunteers like Tommy Tutty, worked to ensure the technical safety scheme also enhanced the village’s aesthetic and consistently lobbied Wicklow County Council to move safety projects forward despite the lack of a national N81 bypass.

While the project eventually secured high-level support from Minister Simon Harris and the strategic seed funding of Cllr Glennon and Deputy Timmins, it was the community’s decades of lobbying, and their lived experience of the N81’s hazard that provided the moral weight for the scheme.

This deep-rooted involvement is why Cllr O’Neill insists that the residents, should be central to the official opening ceremony, ensuring those who campaigned for the change are the ones to celebrate its completion.

In the end whoever turns up on the day to cut the ribbon and pose for some photos, it’s clear as the orange safety barriers are cleared away later this month, Hollywood finally trades its black spot status for a new identity as a modern, safe, and connected gateway to the west Wicklow region.