Your roads wish list for 2011-2020

Ren2k7 wrote: »

1. M20 Cork to Limerick - Vital that the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in the Republic are linked.
2. M2/A5 Derry to Dublin motorway/DC - It's silly not to link the largest city in Ireland with a major city like Derry with a population approaching 100,000.
3. N13/N15/N17 HQDC upgrade - Provides a high quality route between the Greater Derry Area (Derry City, suburban Derry and Letterkenny - 237,000), Sligo (pop. c.20,000) and the M17 motorway at Tuam. This would also provide a vital Interurban route in the same manner as Cork - Limerick - Galway.
4. M25 Cork to Waterford - Same reason as above. Would link two large urban centres with each other via a high quality route.
5. M24 Limerick to Waterford - Along with the above motorways this would provide ALL the cities on this island with a direct high quality road connection with one another and would be future proofed for at least 100 years.
6. M4 Mullingar to Sligo - Finish off the M4 and provides a motorway linking the North West with Dublin.
7. LOOR - For obvious reasons
8. M50 Eastern Bypass
9. Sligo - Cavan - Dundalk route
10. N55 2+2 upgrade - For selfish reasons I mentioned a while back :P.

Just to clarify, I think if there is going to be upgrades to roads in sparsely populated between major urban centres then they should be done to HQDC standard, in the same way many sparsely populated areas between Dublin and Cork/Galway/Limerick/Waterford have a motorway.

Hence, the west should get motorways as they would lie on strategically important route ways between major urban centres.

Zoney wrote: »

8) N24 Pallasgreen-Bansha, Bansha-Cahir (another cheat, 2 schemes)

N24 also ridiculous and another situation where traffic levels are probably held back from what they should be (and even so, rising given the use as a connection to the interurban motorways). I'd add more N24 in here but taking up two slots on the priority list is about the most I can do really - we'll be lucky to have Pallasgrean-Bansha done (pathetically not even quite reaching Cahir!).

Furet - I'm actually taking you up on that point about Dunkettle - I think the North ring as a result does come ahead in priority.

tech2 wrote: »

6: - N22: Cork NRR Junction upgrades Poor at-grade junctions and end result traffic madness. Would love to see the design when it's published.

veryangryman wrote: »

Im not surprised. Who will really need it? How often these days do you come to a standstill on the M50. Very little bang for buck now that M50 is upgraded

5.4 Conclusions

The assessment of future year deficiencies has therefore highlighted continuing reduction in levels of service on the M50. Although capacity on the M50 is currently being increased through the development of additional lane capacity and the introduction of freeflow interchanges, future demand for the M50 is expected to exceed capacity. In essence, the M50 is currently required to operate a number of functions as follows:

• It acts as a cross city route, connecting South Dublin with North Dublin. The M50 is the only high-capacity route which provides this connection without the need to travel through the heart of the City Centre, or established residential areas. Some 30% of the traffic on the M50 use the route for this purpose, representing a considerable volume of traffic on the route;

• It is an orbital route outside the City which allows traffic entering the city to chose an appropriate radial route into the City Centre. Indeed, such activity is currently encouraged, whereby traffic from Dublin City to the N7 is routed via the N4 and M50 to join the N7 at the Red Cow. This use of the M50 will cater for some 40% of the total traffic flow;

• It provides connectivity between the growing settlements around the periphery of the M50, such as Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Clondalkin, Lucan and Swords. As outlined later in this report, South Dublin County Council and Fingal County Council are currently examining local roads to improve such connections. Nonetheless, the M50 will remain an attractive route for many such movements, and will continue to provide one of the few crossings of the River Liffey; and

• It is a strategic road connecting the National Primary Routes. The M50 provides the only high quality connection between all National Primary Radial Routes, and the current geography encourages significant volumes of long distance interurban traffic into the M50 as part of their journey. For example, a journey from Drogheda to Naas is most effectively achieved via the M1, M50 and N7. The local pressures on the M50, however, inhibit easy movement of such strategic trips, and therefore has a negative impact on the development of economic links through the region in line with the objectives of the National Spatial Strategy. The volume of Strategic movements on the M50 is some 30% of the total traffic flow, when strategic trips are defined as those with an origin and destination both outside the M50.

All the above issues point to the need to develop alternative road capacity which will allow the existing functions of the M50 to be more evenly distributed throughout the road network. The Development of a Leinster Orbital Route would facilitate a high quality connection between the National Primary Routes, which would greatly improve connections between the different towns in the Leinster Region. It could therefore benefit up to 25% of the existing traffic on the M50, in addition to attracting a notable volume of traffic away from Regional and Local Roads. It is noted, however, that any transfer of traffic from the M50 to the Leinster Orbital Route is expected to result in traffic from parallel local roads transferring onto the M50 to take advantage of the additional roadspace. As such, the actual impact on M50 traffic conditions may be limited.

The future year assessment of traffic flows therefore highlights the need for definite consideration of the Leinster Orbital Route.

Jayuu wrote: »

I started a Top 10 list but couldn't get it down to less than 15. I also got confused by some of the criteria (e.g. Do we include the M20 given that its planned even if not started or are we only to exclude schemes that we know are definitely starting such as Newlands X and the like?).