[Article] Major carriageway upgrade opened

Victor

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/6167490.stm

Major carriageway upgrade opened

A new dual carriageway has been officially opened on the main road between Belfast and Dublin.

The six-mile stretch, costing £25m, runs from Loughbrickland to Beech Hill in County Down.

Roads Service has said it is also pressing on with plans to dual the section of road from Beech Hill to the border.

A £33m scheme to upgrade the road from Cloghogue to the border is already well under way.

This is part of the cross-border Newry to Dundalk Link Road project.

Gerry McGinn of the Department for Regional Development said the statutory procedures for four further new junctions on the A1 at Hillsborough, Dromore, Banbridge and Loughbrickland had also been confirmed.

"The completion of land acquisition procedures for the £109m scheme to complete the remaining section of the route is anticipated before the end of 2006," he said.

Work on the road is expected to begin in the spring of 2007.

Last March, the government unveiled plans to spend more than £1.5bn on Northern Ireland's roads and public transport system.

The government said a total of £770m would be used to develop the road network, while £704m will be spent on the railways.

A further £81m was earmarked for bus and coach services.

ardmacha

£25m, big bucks! Of course they don't see the irony in announcing the construction of 4 proper junctions on the older part of the A1 when they have just "completed" another stretch with multiple cheap and dangerous at-grade junctions.

Zoney

Those at grade junctions on the A1 are very dodgy. It's absurd that they won't upgrade the route to motorway or at least full grade-separation.

wwhyte

And, of course, the most dangerous stretch is left till last.

spacetweek

wwhyte wrote:

And, of course, the most dangerous stretch is left till last.

Presume you're referring to the Newry BP upgrade, this is hardly the most dangerous section? The town's already bypassed, by all accounts the N1/A1 scheme under construction atm was the worst section.

mackerski

The most dangerous stretch now isn't Newry-Border, but Newry BP-Beech Hill. It's not very long, of course, but it's narrow, bendy and with bad sight lines.

Dermot

wwhyte

mackerski wrote:

The most dangerous stretch now isn't Newry-Border, but Newry BP-Beech Hill. It's not very long, of course, but it's narrow, bendy and with bad sight lines.

There's a very sharp right turn just before the end of the northbound stretch of DC on Newry-Beech Hill, so sharp that the end of dual carriageway sign appears at night to be on the right hand side of the road when it's actually on the left. And there's a very sharp right turn just after the end of the southbound stretch which could easily catch someone who's still going too fast after coming off the DC. I don't know about accident statistics, but those two locations are the ones where I've personally had the scariest moments on that road. The now-dualled stretch LBL - Beech Hill never struck me as being anything like as scary (the southbound lane of the now-obliterated DC stretch north of Beech Hill was a bit dodgy, but still not as bad as those two other points I've mentioned).