N8/N25/N40 - Dunkettle Interchange [under construction]

moyners · 16-03-2015 10:57am

Not great news today

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/no-funds-for-easing-cork-tunnel-gridlock-318573.html

Michael.. · 16-03-2015 1:50pm

Very bad news indeed. I thought funding was already available for this.

KCAccidental · 16-03-2015 5:00pm

Seems like Cork is becoming the forgotten city when it comes to infrastructural investment!

mydiscworld · 18-03-2015 10:00am

Michael.. wrote: »

Very bad news indeed. I thought funding was already available for this.

Indeed. Talks with the landowners have been going on for months. Any without agreement to be CPO'd. Very odd

antoobrien · 18-03-2015 10:52am

mydiscworld wrote: »

Indeed. Talks with the landowners have been going on for months. Any without agreement to be CPO'd. Very odd

Actually a very astute move because getting the landowners onside removes the need for a costly CPO process and the potential for legal challenges etc.

spacetweek · 18-03-2015 1:31pm

KCAccidental wrote: »

Seems like Cork is becoming the forgotten city when it comes to infrastructural investment!

Cork just had Bandon/Sarsfield and Dublin has only had Newlands X in the last 5 years. And no new roads are being built in any other Irish city.

Pablo Escobar · 18-03-2015 1:51pm

spacetweek wrote: »

Cork just had Bandon/Sarsfield and Dublin has only had Newlands X in the last 5 years. And no new roads are being built in any other Irish city.

The point is that there is a serious bottleneck that needs to be sorted. What you just said typifies the attitude with regard to this project which has actually been ongoing for almost 30 years. There's currently 4 fly-overs on that section of road and it works perfectly for anybody travelling within the southside of the city or to the west. However, these flyover's are pretty much negated if you're travelling north or east as the bottleneck has been shoved through the tunnel and into the Dunkettle Interchange. It means that the investment you spoke of isn't getting full value, and everybody that uses the road knew it would happen.

marno21 · 19-03-2015 4:44am

spacetweek wrote: »

Cork just had Bandon/Sarsfield and Dublin has only had Newlands X in the last 5 years. And no new roads are being built in any other Irish city.

Dublin had the M50 interchanges followed by Newlands Cross. After the M50 interchanges were fixed (especially Red Cow), the bottleneck moved out to Newlands, and now has moved out to the M7 J9-11 section.

Cork first had the Kinsale Rd R/A followed by Bandon and Sarsfield, so traffic is now freeflow along the N40 mainline until it reaches the Dunkettle pinchpoint. Compared with Dublin, where all junctions are now freeflow, the Dunkettle interchange is the biggest of them all so needs the most attention, especially now with the N40 freeflowing into it.

Pablo Escobar · 19-03-2015 1:44pm

PPP is being considered:

http://www.eveningecho.ie/cork-news/public-private-partnership-considered-for-dunkettle-interchange/

hans aus dtschl · 19-03-2015 2:46pm

Pablo Escobar wrote: »

The point is that there is a serious bottleneck that needs to be sorted. What you just said typifies the attitude with regard to this project which has actually been ongoing for almost 30 years. There's currently 4 fly-overs on that section of road and it works perfectly for anybody travelling within the southside of the city or to the west. However, these flyover's are pretty much negated if you're travelling north or east as the bottleneck has been shoved through the tunnel and into the Dunkettle Interchange. It means that the investment you spoke of isn't getting full value, and everybody that uses the road knew it would happen.

This reminds me of when the Jack Lynch Tunnel was being planned first, there was serious concern that such an amount of money was being spent on infrastructure "outside Dublin". The Cork harbour area's generating close to 30% of Irish GDP (mostly through mutlinationals). Accordingly, plans to improve infrastructure in the Cork harbour area (airport, roads, port) actually benefit everybody.

If it must come down to an "us vs them" argument, the SW development region (Cork/Kerry) is the only one in the country where unemployment has actually been rising according to the latest figures.

cgcsb · 19-03-2015 4:19pm

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

This reminds me of when the Jack Lynch Tunnel was being planned first, there was serious concern that such an amount of money was being spent on infrastructure "outside Dublin". The Cork harbour area's generating close to 30% of Irish GDP (mostly through mutlinationals). Accordingly, plans to improve infrastructure in the Cork harbour area (airport, roads, port) actually benefit everybody.

Plucking numbers from thin air certainly doesn't bolster your case. The South West as a whole only produced 17.5% of GDP in 2010

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/economy/2010/regincome_2010.pdf

It certainly hasn't doubled in 4 years as a proportion of national. Never mind the harbour area only.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

If it must come down to an "us vs them" argument, the SW development region (Cork/Kerry) is the only one in the country where unemployment has actually been rising according to the latest figures.

no, the mid-west, Limerick and Clare, is the only one seeing rising unemployment.

hans aus dtschl · 19-03-2015 4:47pm

cgcsb wrote: »

Plucking numbers from thin air certainly doesn't bolster your case. The South West as a whole only produced 17.5% of GDP in 2010

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/economy/2010/regincome_2010.pdf

It certainly hasn't doubled in 4 years as a proportion of national. Never mind the harbour area only.

no, the mid-west, Limerick and Clare, is the only one seeing rising unemployment.

I was working off 2005 figures, when the Cork/Kerry area generated ~25bn rather than current ~19bn. I also mistakenly meant GNP (90bn) rather than GDP, so you're absolutely right, my figure's wrong, I apologize.

Nonetheless, the point I was making was to the tune of "the area generates 17.5% of GDP. It benefits the exchequer to improve industrial facilities in the area."
It's not as though we're talking about pumping huge resources into some countryside town, it's a pretty industrial area.

On the issue of unemployment, my figures are actually correct:
http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/lr/liveregisterjanuary2015/#.VQrs-I6sV9A
But I should have stated that the SW was the WORST performer, not the ONLY BAD performer.

Live Register Jan 2015:
SW +946
DUB +525
SE +307
ME +257
MW -304

Neither are terribly important details, I was hoping to make the point that it ISN'T an "us versus them" argument, but if that's what it's reduced to, the area has some claims in that regard, that's all.

Subpopulus · 19-03-2015 9:36pm

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

On the issue of unemployment, my figures are actually correct:
http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/lr/liveregisterjanuary2015/#.VQrs-I6sV9A
But I should have stated that the SW was the WORST performer, not the ONLY BAD performer.

Live Register Jan 2015:
SW +946
DUB +525
SE +307
ME +257
MW -304

Neither are terribly important details, I was hoping to make the point that it ISN'T an "us versus them" argument, but if that's what it's reduced to, the area has some claims in that regard, that's all.

Your figures are extremely selective. Yes, unemployment has risen according to 'latest figures', but that's because you compared December 2014 to January 2015. Unemployment levels rose just after Christmas because seasonal jobs always dry up in January. They've all fallen since. Year on year unemployment figures fell by 10.2% nationally.

Comparing December 2014 to January 2015 the selected regional figures (according to your link) are:

Dublin -10.7%
South-West -10.5%
Midwest -12.4%

So yes the midwest performed well last year, but it's hard to say why. IIRC in 2012 at least Cork City had one of the lowest average unemployment rates per member of population, so it might just be that the Midwest's unemployment rate is falling from a greater high.

Chris_5339762 · 19-03-2015 10:04pm

Great, link it in with the Mallow bypass which keeps getting mired down in the courts.

hans aus dtschl · 20-03-2015 11:22am

Subpopulus wrote: »

Your figures are extremely selective. Yes, unemployment has risen according to 'latest figures', but that's because you compared December 2014 to January 2015. Unemployment levels rose just after Christmas because seasonal jobs always dry up in January. They've all fallen since. Year on year unemployment figures fell by 10.2% nationally.

Comparing December 2014 to January 2015 the selected regional figures (according to your link) are:

Dublin -10.7%
South-West -10.5%
Midwest -12.4%

So yes the midwest performed well last year, but it's hard to say why. IIRC in 2012 at least Cork City had one of the lowest average unemployment rates per member of population, so it might just be that the Midwest's unemployment rate is falling from a greater high.

Absolutely, we can probably discuss this in much nicer detail in an economics thread.

Any relevance to the point I was making though? Hint: do you disagree that the area is an important economic hub for the country, or that the local economy there isn't what it could be? Or are you just bored?

spacetweek · 20-03-2015 2:19pm

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Any relevance to the point I was making though? Hint: do you disagree that the area is an important economic hub for the country, or that the local economy there isn't what it could be? Or are you just bored?

I think it's clear that there's a big backlog in Cork. Roughly in order of priority:

Dunkettle Interchange
N28 to Ringaskiddy
Regional rail out to Mallow and rest of the proposed new stations like Dunkettle P&R
N25 Midleton Upgrade
M20 (south at least)
Cork Northern Ring
N25 Midleton-Youghal
N22 Ballincollig-Macroom

Chris_5339762 · 20-03-2015 5:05pm

I reckon you're in the right order except that I'd put N22 Macroom to Ballyvourney under Dunkettle and ahead of the N28.

Subpopulus · 20-03-2015 7:29pm

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Hint: do you disagree that the area is an important economic hub for the country, or that the local economy there isn't what it could be? Or are you just bored?

Do I disagree with either of those two things - no. But quoting inaccurate employment figures in an offhand manner isn't the way to argue your case.

marno21 · 21-03-2015 2:49am

There's no real order to these schemes, M20, N22 B - M, N28 and Dunkettle are all under the "urgent and should have been done years ago" section. The fact that none are nearing the construction stage is even more disgraceful. It'll take years for them to be done cos of the controversial "giving too much money to Cork for infrastructure" mentality yet Dublin has had 4 full 100km+ motorways built during the boom, a complete ring road with all of the interchanges fixed on it, widening D2AP on the N7/N4 to D3AP to alleviate congestion.

At the same time Cork still has a roundabout for it's busiest junction, both roads to the nearest cities are single carraigeway for the majority of the route, and the road to the highly important port is a dirt track completely unsuited for port traffic.

Ridiculous that living in Castletroy in Limerick that Cork and Dublin are the same travel time away.

AugustusMinimus · 21-03-2015 10:52am

spacetweek wrote: »

Cork just had Bandon/Sarsfield and Dublin has only had Newlands X in the last 5 years. And no new roads are being built in any other Irish city.

You are being quite selective with 5 years. Go back another 5 and comparing investment shows something alarming.

Dublin:
Dublin Port Tunnel
M50 upgrade
M3
Completion of various inter-urbans
LUAS if you go back to 2004

Cork:
M8 completion
Kinsale Road Roundabout Flyover
Bandon and Sarsfields Roundabout Flyovers

Limerick:
M7 completion
Limerick bypass (including Tunnel)
Start of M20
M18 (part built and under construction)
Limerick - Foynes
Maybe throw in wiping out of Shannon Airport debts too ?

Galway:
M6 completion
M18 (part built and under construction)
Galway bypass progressing (Eastern part effectively complete)

Waterford:
M9 completion
N25 Waterford bypass
New Ross and Enniscorthy bypasses
Southern Ring Road

I don't think its OTT to say that Cork has had the last investment in the last 10 years. Absolutely rock bottom when investment is compared to GDP generation of each area.

Outside of the inter urbans, Cork got effectively a few flyovers. Flyovers of roundabouts which were constructed pre NRA and may have been partly funded by Cork Co Co.

It is quite shocking the under investment Cork is getting at the moment.

AugustusMinimus · 21-03-2015 11:04am

spacetweek wrote: »

I think it's clear that there's a big backlog in Cork. Roughly in order of priority:

Dunkettle Interchange
N28 to Ringaskiddy
Regional rail out to Mallow and rest of the proposed new stations like Dunkettle P&R
N25 Midleton Upgrade
M20 (south at least)
Cork Northern Ring
N25 Midleton-Youghal
N22 Ballincollig-Macroom

IMO, this would be my order:

Dunkettle Interchange
N28 to Ringaskiddy
M20 (Mallow to Charleville)
N22 (Macroom and Ballyvourney bypass)
M20 (Cork to Mallow) & M40 (Cork Northern Ring Road - Eastern Section)
M20 (Charleville to Patrickswell)
N22 (Ballincollig to Macroom)
N25 Midleton - Youghal)
M40 (Cork Northern Ring Road - Western Section)
N27 (Dualling + possible grade separation to Cork airport entrance)
N27 to N28 link road
R849 (2nd Airport entrance scheme)
N25 (Midleton grade separation + local feeder road construction)
R624 (2+2 scheme)

Leonard Hofstadter · 22-03-2015 4:13pm

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

I don't think its OTT to say that Cork has had the last investment in the last 10 years. Absolutely rock bottom when investment is compared to GDP generation of each area.

Outside of the inter urbans, Cork got effectively a few flyovers. Flyovers of roundabouts which were constructed pre NRA and may have been partly funded by Cork Co Co.

It is quite shocking the under investment Cork is getting at the moment.

I couldn't agree more, Cork has been VERY badly let down when it comes to road investment. The only decent road is the one to Dublin.

I'd definitely say the Dunkettle Interchange should come first, but then something simply has got to be done about the N20 - it's an absolute disgrace that there is such a bad road between the country's second and third biggest cities. The M28 would be next. Even after all of that, there's still no shortage of roads that need to be built around Cork, as you've alluded to above.

AugustusMinimus · 22-03-2015 5:18pm

I'd have the M28 ahead of the M20 for a few reasons.

1. Much higher volumes of traffic.
2. Probably more important to the economic development of the city.
3. Its a lot cheaper (easier political decision)
4. The container port development cannot go ahead in Ringaskiddy until this and the Dunkettle scheme are at least under construction.

No doubt though, at least part of the M20 needs to go ahead pronto. I'd suggest the part starting south of Mallow and joining the old N20 somewhere north of Charleville. Do the other 2 bits later when more cash is available.

TINA1984 · 22-03-2015 7:22pm

Let's recall that the SRR flyovers built in the past 10 years were part of the original SRR plans in the 1990s but were downgraded due to cost concerns.

Likewise, the Bandon & Sarsfield flyovers were due to begin construction immediately after the Kinsale flyover were completed, but were then long fingered once Minister Cullen decided to 'prioritise' the interurban programme, which conveniently pushed the M9 projects to the top of the queue.

I believe the line spun was because Cork received a lot of EU funding in the late 80s/90s for the likes of the N71, N20, N8 & SRR, other areas were prioritised for funding once the Celtic Tiger roared.

antoobrien · 25-03-2015 12:54pm

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Galway:
M6 completion
M18 (part built and under construction)
Galway bypass progressing (Eastern part effectively complete)

Nope, currently at route selection.

The switch from RAB to lights on the N6 (completed in 1996) can hardly be described as building a bypass.

spacetweek · 25-03-2015 1:47pm

antoobrien wrote: »

Nope, currently at route selection.

The switch from RAB to lights on the N6 (completed in 1996) can hardly be described as building a bypass.

He's talking about M17/M18.

antoobrien · 25-03-2015 2:22pm

spacetweek wrote: »

He's talking about M17/M18.

Even if this is true (and it's grossly inaccurate to describe that road as such), construction has barely started, delivery is in about 3 years.

moyners · 29-03-2015 6:46pm

antoobrien wrote: »

Even if this is true (and it's grossly inaccurate to describe that road as such), construction has barely started, delivery is in about 3 years.

Bit unfair anto - it's hardly grossly inaccurate. You will be able to bypass Galway heading south to north (the outskirts granted but they can eat up alot of journey time at present) on the M17/18. I think also the point is that construction is underway and it is happening, rather than being on the long long finger like projects such as the M20/Dunkettle etc.

antoobrien · 30-03-2015 11:39am

moyners wrote: »

Bit unfair anto - it's hardly grossly inaccurate. You will be able to bypass Galway heading south to north (the outskirts granted but they can eat up alot of journey time at present) on the M17/18. I think also the point is that construction is underway and it is happening, rather than being on the long long finger like projects such as the M20/Dunkettle etc.

This is getting way o.t. but AM has posted in the GCOB thread, so knows (or should know) the exact status of the Galway bypass being at route selection, therefore it's not at all being unkind to suggest that AM is being at best inaccurate to back up the point about investment in Cork.

But to suggest that the N17/18 road layout comes anywhere near Galway City is at best naive and at worst disingenuous. There are miles of farmland between the city boundary & both Claregalway & Oranmore - the two towns nearest Galway that that will (actually) benefit from being bypassed by the M17/18. They may be accurately described as dormitory towns for Galway, but outskirts of the city is stretching it a long way.

AugustusMinimus · 30-03-2015 8:17pm

Calm down folks. I thought the feeder road built to distribute traffic at the end of the M6 would form part of the Galway bypass. That is all.

N8/N25/N40 - Dunkettle Interchange [under construction]

Comments