FYI Charlestown bypass to open today.

Mayo Exile

According to the "Western People", the N5 Charlestown Bypass should be open before the end of October, maybe before the bank holiday weekend.

See here: http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story.asp?j=38285

Also is the N2 Castleblayney Bypass open yet? It seems to be dragging on forever! I thought it was meant to be late August.

RadioCity

No sign of Castleblayney bypass opening yet. They were resurfacing at Clontibret yesterday, using stop/go boards even though the road was wide enough for 4 lanes of traffic.

At the south end they were about to put up the central reservation. The roundabout is now in use.

Mayo Exile

According to the News Section on the Mayo National Roads Design Office website, the Charlestown Bypass will be officially opened on 2nd November at 12.30pm by the Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey.

See here: http://www.regdesign.com/News.htm

Mayo Exile

Also November 2nd according to the Western People.

http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story.asp?j=38488

Gillie

Just to confirm something.

This bypass is purely for the N5 and is not going to affect traffic on the N17?

Cheers

Mayo Exile

It will intersect with the N17 just south of Charlestown. See route map: http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/MayoCountyCouncil/N5CharlestownBypass/Map,10681,en.pdf

cast_iron

And the NRA website (which should be the primary source of information for schemes of this nature) still tells us it's Q1 2008 before it's ready.

nordydan

http://www.nra.ie/News/PressReleases/htmltext,11003,en.html

Charlestown Bypass will open tomorrow - Fri 2 nov.

Also, the N2 Castleblayney bypass will open monday.

patrickc

Charlestown bypass opening today
Friday, 2 November 2007 08:04

The Charlestown bypass on the N5 national primary route is to be officially opened today.

The opening of the 18km stretch of single carriageway through counties Mayo and Roscommon is expected to take 7,000 vehicles a day out of the town.

The road extends from the eastern end of the Swinford Bypass to east of the village of Carracastle.

good news yet more roads opening up.

jrar

patrickc2006 wrote: »

Charlestown bypass opening today
Friday, 2 November 2007 08:04

The Charlestown bypass on the N5 national primary route is to be officially opened today.

The opening of the 18km stretch of single carriageway through counties Mayo and Roscommon is expected to take 7,000 vehicles a day out of the town.

The road extends from the eastern end of the Swinford Bypass to east of the village of Carracastle.

good news yet more roads opening up.

I know the town well - this day is long-awaited and very welcome !

daveirl

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fricatus

daveirl wrote: »

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I'm tempted to tell you to pick up your teddy, daveirl. The Cork area hasn't done too bad out of the national roads programme these past few years. Drive from Midleton to Ballincollig on the Santa Ana Freeway and you'll see what I mean.

You'll get your wish anyway. Let the people in Mayo enjoy their day.

E92

fricatus wrote: »

You'll get your wish anyway. Let the people in Mayo enjoy their day.

They haven't even decided where they want it to go yet! It will be years before anything is done about it.

In saying that, good luck to Mayo with a new bypass, remember this and some other road scheme are the only road projects planeed for Mayo for quite some time, so they might as well make the most of it.

Bards

daveirl wrote: »

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this is in the BMW region and is priority one status thus it gets more funding from Europe for infrastrucutre projects and requires less money from the Irish Taxpayer unlike projects in Cork which would have to be funded by the Irish Tax payer.

Cork has had its fair share of road development over the last decade so less of the whinging please

trellheim

As a % of DC road between 2 major cities in the republic I'd say it's the best of them all on the N20.

what, there's only between twomilehouse and rathluirc that isn't DC and the rest is...

Mayo Exile

Whats needed now is to clear the N5 bottlenecks in Co Roscommon, especially at Ballaghaderreen and Strokestown. The N5 through Ballaghaderreen is a national embarrassment. Have you ever seen the chaos when artics have to do a 90 degree turn at that junction in the town!

Avns1s

Mayo Exile wrote: »

Whats needed now is to clear the N5 bottlenecks in Co Roscommon, especially at Ballaghaderreen and Strokestown. The N5 through Ballaghaderreen is a national embarrassment. Have you ever seen the chaos when artics have to do a 90 degree turn at that junction in the town!

Thoroughly agree with all of the above. I would be worried about how Ballaghaderreen will cope now.

Only greater fiasco on a National route is Claregalway. And there's no sign of anything being done. No doubt the people in the NRA and Galway Co Co got their pay rises like all the other public servants!:mad:

Chris_533976

trellheim wrote: »

As a % of DC road between 2 major cities in the republic I'd say it's the best of them all on the N20.

what, there's only between twomilehouse and rathluirc that isn't DC and the rest is...

You can skew the facts any way you want, but no matter what way you look at it the N20 between Mallow and Croom is some of the worst main N road in the country. It needs to be fixed NOW. Cork - Blarney is DC. Blarney to Mallow is S2 and pilot 2+1. Mallow - Croom is awful, Croom bypass is WS2.


And they have decided where they want it to go, I have basic plans of the route. Dunno if its out of date though, or whether its been changed or what.


Edit: Agreed with Claregalway though, that place is a joke.

trellheim

Thanks for letting me "skew" the facts. I'm happy to be a "skewer"

Take city pairs

Belfast Dublin
Dublin Cork
Dublin Limerick
Cork Limerick.

Only Belfast Dublin is a better road than Cork-Limerick and up until [ only weeks ago ] it was worse [ before the new DC from Dundalk-Newry opened ]

I'd put the N20 DC way, way, way down the list because

1: it's good at the moment

2: massive upheaval to fix south of Buttevant.


Claregalway only a problem if going to Galway->Tuam or Roscommon or vv

as a giant % of flows it wouldn't be high up there.

Carawaystick

trellheim,
On the N20, ther's Dual Carriageway from Limerick to the N21 start about 10 km tops and then from Blarney to Blackpool maybe another 10 km tops.

Where's this invisible Dual Carriage way til we all use it next time?

Are you saying that before the N1/A1 Dual carriageway from Ballymascanlon to Newry was opened, the road between Belfast and Dublin was actually worse than the road between Limerick and Cork?

this is so wrong it makes Dempsey's claim the the N5 is part of the atlantic corridor look good.

trellheim

A: Cork Limerick not even a major city pair

[ see http://www.nra.ie/mapping/index.jsp?county=Corkm ] at end of page.

Ok; Cork->beyond Mallow good high quality road some of it DC with overtaking lanes on hils .
Are we agreed on that ?
Just beyond Mallow->North of Rathluirc road single carriageway . Are we agreed on that ?

North of Rathluirc/Charleville or whatever you want to call it up to the N21 intersect is
high quality road wide lanes

N21 Intersect-> Carew park in Limerick - DC All the Way.

So : To answer the specific criticism. You are correct Mr. Carrawaystick. There is no magic DC there.

Not all DC but some very good roads there.

I drive that road [ Dublin-Buttevant and sometimes onwards ] a lot ;
there are other roads far more deserving of attention [ e.g that nasty N11 section that people keep getting killed on ]

the N81 Tallaght-Blessington.

the N6 to Galway

the N9/N10 to Waterford

E92

trellheim wrote: »

Thanks for letting me "skew" the facts. I'm happy to be a "skewer"

Take city pairs

Belfast Dublin
Dublin Cork
Dublin Limerick
Cork Limerick.

Well according to the AA, Dublin-Belfast is 104.7 miles, of which at least 68.76 is on HQDC/Motorway(I don't know if there are any more HQDCs north of the border or not after the recently opened bit), and 55.89 is full blown Motorway.

So you travel 53.38% on Motorway, and at least 65.67% on Motorway standard road.

Dublic-Cork is 159.5 miles of which at least 78.86 is HQDC/Motorway(not including the newly opened Cahir-Cashel stretch but including the N7 bit which is 3 lanes, I know its not really a HQDC, but its still a high standard of road, and the Cahel bypass, which is only standard DC, but to all intents and purposes is the same as a HQDC to me bar the fact the lanes are a shade narrower) and 48.6 is Motorway.

So that is 49.44% and 30.47% respecitvely.

Dublin Limerick is 122.3 miles, 50.25 on Motorway/HQDC(although the AA doesn't mention anything about the southern ring road, I would have thought it would be faster to go this way, and go right at the roundabout where the N20 and N7 meet(you know where the Tunnel will be soon), so I didn't include that) and 37.58 Motorway.

So that gives us 41.09% and 30.72%.

Now, lets get onto Cork Limerick, a distance of 62.2 miles. Thers about 5 miles of DC(and its not even HQDC) from a good bit north of Blackpool to Blarney. Theres 0.96 miles of DC at the Mallow bypass. Close to Limerick, there is another 6.48 miles of HQDC.

So there is a grand total of 0 miles of Motorway, and 12.44 miles approximately of DC.

Altogether we have the grand total of just 20% or 1/5th of the distance(and I'm being VERY generous with that) of Cork-Mallow travelled on a standard of road appropriate to connect the 2nd and 3rd largest cities in this country.

Avns1s

trellheim wrote: »

Claregalway only a problem if going to Galway->Tuam or Roscommon or vv

as a giant % of flows it wouldn't be high up there.

Your not quite correct in that you are underestimating the problem.

What about Galway -> Sligo, Castlebar, Donegal, Etc.

What about when coming from the Shannon Limerick Cork area to any of the places above?

It works (or rather doesnt!) in the opposite direction also.

Have you seen this mess any morning or evening at "rush hour"?

Claregalway is more than a problem, it's a joke. It's a farce in this day and age. Couple that with the traffic lights close to Galway Airport a few mile away and you have a prime example of how a main route should NOT be.

trellheim

Thanks for those facts E92.

Consider.

1: I apologize for the foray into 'DC' .

What I meant was that the roads there, whenever I drive them, are fine for the volume of traffic on them.

Where the road is DC [ as it seems to me to be a lot ] it's needed - e.g around Limerick, Cork and Mallow.

The road isn't busy enough to justify DC the whole way [ except until recently , see the NRA studies re positioning of same ]

I reiterate. There are far more justified stretches of road than this for upgrading.... it's not even Transport 21 AFAIK.

The Dublin-Limerick roads have more congestion, as does Dublin-Cork.

To repeat : never any problems on that road ...

Chris_533976

I've been saying myself about the N20 in other threads that the Mallow - Blarney scheme isnt top priority. I fully admit that and say that its wide most of the way with plenty of overtaking opportunities. It needs doing eventually, but there are far more needy schemes out there. Mallow - Croom is the bit thats in dire need of fixing, as soon as possible.

I did a photo tour of Cork - Galway route a few months ago, heres a link to a thread on Sabre with the pics, debunks any "good road" theories for the Mallow - Croom stretch.

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=290989

Mallow - Croom is plain dangerous and needs to be upgraded far more than, say the N8 Mitchelstown (proper) bypass. Fixing the road south of Buttevant isnt a huge upheaval as the DC is set to carve straight through the bad bends according to my map.

And north of Charleville theres a fair few km of narrow road with no hard shoulders and no overtaking opportunities. Its barmy. Needs upgrading ASAP.

jrar

Avns1s wrote: »

Your not quite correct in that you are underestimating the problem.

What about Galway -> Sligo, Castlebar, Donegal, Etc.

Getting back onto the topic of this thread, ironically the Charlestown by-pass only takes traffic of one axis (Dublin-Westport) out of the town - the Galway-Sligo/Donegal traffic still has to go through the town

Victor

Can we keep this thread to the Charlestown Bypass, please?

cast_iron

Anyone else notice how they don't seem to allow a motorist pull into the hard shoulder when turning left off the new road. They reduce the HS size to about 3 foot, and create a box in the centre of the road for traffic turning right, into the same side road.

Basically, it means all cars must slow down to the speed of the car turning off the road and are not allowed overtake - even if the road ahead is clear.

Is this a new practice by our road builders; it seems very strange?

road_high

Not that I ever really travelled that end of the country much but just wondering has the N17 bypassed Charlestown as well or does traffic still have to go through the town. Seems a bit sill y to me the didn't do the two at once in that case??

NedNew

E92, great facts and figures but rendered somewhat cryptic by using miles - sure they disappeared years ago.

So Dublin-Belfast is 166km and Dublin-Cork is 255km.

It would be great if you could repost with km stats.

Thanks

Victor

mfitzy wrote: »

Not that I ever really travelled that end of the country much but just wondering has the N17 bypassed Charlestown as well or does traffic still have to go through the town. Seems a bit sill y to me the didn't do the two at once in that case??

No, the N17 isn't bypassed yet. I can't remember the reasoning, but I think it was to do with adjacent sections of the N17.

JupiterKid

It's great to see the N5 Charlestown bypass open ahead of schedule. Now could the NRA hurry up and improve the rest of the atrocious N5 through Roscommon? It's a national disgrace.

I do agree that the N20 between Mallow and Croom needs upgrading quite urgently. The section around Buttevant in particular is appalling.

I'm out of the country at the moment but hasn't the Castleblayney bypass also opened this weekend?

galwayrush

Avns1s wrote: »

Only greater fiasco on a National route is Claregalway. And there's no sign of anything being done. No doubt the people in the NRA and Galway Co Co got their pay rises like all the other public servants!:mad:

That is so pathetic:mad:
There is no hint of a solution, and some idiot from ther NRA decided the new N17 will go from Tuam to Athenry,adding 8 miles to an existing 21 mile journey. and that is suppost to be the long term solution to Claregalway.:mad:

Victor

Next off-topic post gets an infraction.

bandit197

cast_iron wrote: »

Anyone else notice how they don't seem to allow a motorist pull into the hard shoulder when turning left off the new road. They reduce the HS size to about 3 foot, and create a box in the centre of the road for traffic turning right, into the same side road.

Basically, it means all cars must slow down to the speed of the car turning off the road and are not allowed overtake - even if the road ahead is clear.

Is this a new practice by our road builders; it seems very strange?

I live in this area and had a spin on the new road today. I too noticed that there are no speed reducing lanes provided when taking a left turn, in most places. I think this is a massive design flaw for obvious reasons. Also, I also cant understand why the NRA is still using two lane design over alternate three lane design..ie an lane provided for slow moving traffic switched back and over every 2 km or so. I also noticed that a lot of the road has continuous white lines so no overtaking. This is not at junctions but on curved sections. In my own opinion I think this is ludacris on a new road. Dont get me wrong..this is a long awaited piece of infrastructure and Im delighted to see it open but I think the 65 million or so that the project cost should leave us with a flawless example of engineering.

PogMoThoin

I'm also from the area and have heard that changes in the layout of Charlestown are to be discussed, ie. the Sligo to Galway traffic may get the right of way over the Castlebar to Dublin.

My opinion of the road is that they have created some dangerous junctions, ie the Carracastle junction. There have been several accidents @ the Swinford junction. This is the very reason they said they created a flyover in Charlestown for the Sligo/Galway traffic. Why didnt they create another flyover while they were @ it.

spacetweek

nordydan wrote: »

http://www.nra.ie/News/PressReleases/htmltext,11003,en.html

Charlestown Bypass will open tomorrow - Fri 2 nov.

Also, the N2 Castleblayney bypass will open monday.

Anyone been on either of these? Particularly Castleblayney, that's a 2+1 I believe with GS junctions?

nordydan

Gillie wrote: »

Just to confirm something.

This bypass is purely for the N5 and is not going to affect traffic on the N17?

Cheers

There are plans for a N17 bypass as well. See page 3 of this PDF:

http://www.regdesign.com/Brochures/N5%20Charlestown%20Bypass_Preferred%20Route%20Public%20Consultation%20Slideshow.pdf

Hence both the N5 and N17 will have one junction each to access Charlestown, and a GSJ for each other. No at grade roundabout thank god.

Victor

Threads merged.

nordydan wrote: »

See page 3 of this PDF:

And remember to turn it upside down!

Thats the worst PDF I've seen outside an RPA press release (Print on headed paper, scan, save as gif image, make pdf).

http://www.rpa.ie/?id=317

spacetweek

Slightly confusing article in the Times today, apparently the new bypass is going to take "7,500 of the 1500 vehicles a day" that go through the town. That's quite a bypass. :rolleyes:

Chris_533976

What they mean is that people will be so amazed by the beautiful and wonderous new road that they'll get to the end, feel bad, turn around and drive it again. All day.

nordydan

Did anyone have a look at the photos on the mayo regdesign website?? This roads looks like it could be easily widened to 2+2 if required.

Neworder79

I think the N17 Charlestown bypass has evolved into a larger dual carrigeway scheme with the development of the Atlantic corridor. The NRA site now widens the scope of the project to linking the N17 Cooloney/Tobercurry Bypass to Knock/Claremorris Bypass.

http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/MayoCountyCouncil/N17TobercurryBypasstoKnockBypassPh1/SchemeName,10925,en.html