An eight-mile bottleneck responsible for constant traffic problems along the N4 in Co Sligo may soon be eliminated. There are strong reports this week that funds to upgrade the corkscrewed route between Lackagh (outside Collooney) and Castlebaldwin will be sanctioned following a meeting between the National Roads Authority (NRA) and Sligo County Council's engineering staff next Tuesday.
Over the last five years, the road has been sharply criticised as a result of many serious road traffic accidents. The poor surface, undulating hill-rise and accompanying sharp bends all contribute to making this stretch of road extremely hazardous.
In the light of millions of pounds of EU and Exchequer funding being spent on upgrading the N4 between Sligo and Collooney, Boyle and Carrick-on-Shannon, along with the bypassing of the Curlew Mountains road, many motorists asked why work on this particular section could not get the go-ahead.
Anxiety increased when it was claimed the NRA's priority scheme pushed the project back for final completion from 2010 to 2014.
The N4 in Co Sligo is a way of many contrasts. For motorists who enjoy the relative comfort of a four-lane highway for several miles from Sligo to Dublin to be suddenly confronted with little more than a county road which hasn't been meaningfully upgraded for possibly 100 years, apart from being surfaced with tar, the journey is disconcerting.
Being the main commuter artery between Co Sligo, north Roscommon and south Leitrim, along with being the primary economic corridor to Dublin, it has been the subject of increasingly vociferous demands for improvement.
At the recent launch of the National Development Plan 2000-2006 in Ballaghaderreen, many Sligo politicians hoped for a commitment to upgrade the N4 to the standard of other national primary routes.
Indeed, jokes were bandied about the day that the ministerial drive to a Fianna Fail rally in Sligo would dispel any lingering doubts that sections of N4 were in need of drastic surgery.
But locals were crestfallen to discover there were no definite plans to upgrade the route. Matters became worse when it was revealed that Sligo was the only region where its entire national primary network would not be upgraded to dual carriageway or motorway standard.
But this week a Sligo county councillor, Mr Eamonn Scanlon, said he had received notification that £250,000 for the planning and design of the road is imminent. It is estimated that the entire project will cost about £15 million.