N22 - Macroom to Ballyvourney (Macroom Bypass) [open to traffic]

Chris_5339762

Any news?

On this note, a woman was awarded €170,000 after her baby was delivered stillborn. Kerry Hospital sent her to Cork Hospital in an Ambulance.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1214/woman-awarded-170-000-after-loss-of-baby.html

Emphasis mine.

A woman whose baby was delivered stillborn after being sent on a two-hour ambulance journey has been awarded €170,000 damages against the HSE at the High Court.

She attended Kerry General Hospital in Tralee, when the hospital decided to send her 110km away by ambulance to Cork without a blood transfusion on board.

Two hours to do 110km is shameful, and a good bit of it is this section. 60kmh is the average along here, its so twisty you cant get any faster. And this is without the overtaking problem.... cars would pull in for an ambulance (wherever they can)

road_high

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Any news?

On this note, a woman was awarded €170,000 after her baby was delivered stillborn. Kerry Hospital sent her to Cork Hospital in an Ambulance.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/1214/woman-awarded-170-000-after-loss-of-baby.html

Emphasis mine.



Two hours to do 110km is shameful, and a good bit of it is this section. 60kmh is the average along here, its so twisty you cant get any faster. And this is without the overtaking problem.... cars would pull in for an ambulance (wherever they can)

I really think Macroom bypass and Adare bypasses would have been far more beneficial for Kerry than the millions being ploughed into the Tralee one for now.

AugustusMinimus

mfitzy wrote: »

I really think Macroom bypass and Adare bypasses would have been far more beneficial for Kerry than the millions being ploughed into the Tralee one for now.

Yes. But these bypasses wouldn't be build in Co Kerry and so it wouldn't give the same big effect, as silly as this sounds.


Is the plan still to do with HQDC all the way to Macroom ?

imangry29

Credit to the Corkman for coverage on this (only show in town to their credit) - 2 articles from November and December:
http://www.corkman.ie/news/high-court-finds-n22-planning-process-fair-3303807.html
http://www.corkman.ie/news/leave-sought-to-appeal-n22-ruling-3330727.html
Good news and a concrete judgement delivered. Appellant's legal arguments "misconceived". Planning process was "lengthy, public and fair".
"The Judge said she found no material flaws in the procedure of the Board, and that it had due regard to the material before it."
Not across the line yet, appellants are appealling for leave to appeal to Supreme Court, to be heard in March!

For the little information it provides on the case thus far, see Courts.ie, use High Court Search function and enter 2011 (year) 431 (case number) and specify that 'Proceedings' are JR Judicial Review (from dropdown). Judgement delivered 10th December, no sign of that text yet on the website.

Agree completely that Adare (what a shame on that!) and Macroom schemes would be of far greater benefit to Kerry, than the Tralee bypass (which will only benefit Tralee road users at a local level). Kerry is totally isolated on the national road network, arguably more so than the North West and requires connectivity for the benefit of the entire county.

imangry29

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Yes. But these bypasses wouldn't be build in Co Kerry and so it wouldn't give the same big effect, as silly as this sounds.

Is the plan still to do with HQDC all the way to Macroom ?[/QUOTE]

It's HQDC over the full length (22km), starting just West of Ballyvourney (joining the decent WS2/2+1 scheme from Killarney) and finishing just East of Macroom, meeting old road once again i.e. from Macroom to Cork, we still have a crap, winding section of road (west of Lissarda). Lissarda bypass next on the wishlist if Macroom scheme ever built, ha http://www.corkrdo.ie/n22_baile_buirne_to_macroom_introduction.php! But living with road east of Macroom is a very small price to get this one over the line.

There seems to be confusion on what the route actually is in a lot of past posts, so refresher map attached (from EIS published on corkrdo.ie website).

imangry29

Court hearing for leave to appeal to Supreme Court adjourned to 22 April (and who knows how long more again after that ... Easy to see how the legal profession makes a living). Cork CoCo minutes from Feb show scheme allocated €400,000 for 2013 from NRA to progress land acquisition, subject to positive outcome in court. (Dunkettle awarded €200,000 also subject to outcome of statutory proceedings)

Chris_5339762

Good to see Dunkettle seems to be shooting up the priority list.

Sponge Bob

imangry29 wrote: »

Court hearing for leave to appeal to Supreme Court adjourned to 22 April (and who knows how long more again after that ...

A Long time if they accept that there is a case to argue, they are severely backlogged. The judgement is online.

http://courts.ie/judgments.nsf/6681dee4565ecf2c80256e7e0052005b/d5dbb853b1cb295580257afe005ba07b?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,STACK

It contains the following 2 sections.

19. I am not clear as to why Mr. Sweetman was joined as a notice party in these proceedings. At the hearing he sought to address me on various matters which were not the subject of the leave granted in the case and were not related to that leave. I therefore declined to hear his submissions.

and

20. The applicants have raised a very wide-ranging variety of arguments and have referred the court to a very large number of authorities. It seems to me that many of the arguments are misconceived and have no application to the case in hand. For example, it is not possible to argue that the oral hearing process under the Planning Acts can in any way constitute an attack on the fundamental Constitutional rights of the applicants. Participation in such a hearing is an entitlement, not an obligation or a burden, and as a matter of law can not be seen as an infringement of the right to liberty or the right to earn a livelihood. On a different tack, English law relating to Royal parks cannot be assumed to be relevant on the basis that some of the land in question once belonged to the kings of Munster.

spacetweek

Item 20 sounds like a Monty Python quote.

imangry29

NRA Annual Report 2012 and Programme 2013 available to download on the NRA website (under General Publications). Page 11 indicates what's on the agenda after current PPP package. Nice to see N22 scheme at the top of the list for whatever reason (usually the schemes are listed in order of road number) Fingers crossed now on court judgement this month! Fred Barry hinting though that nothing beyond the PPPs will start during govt lifetime (page 2).

spacetweek

A few mistakes on that list; should say N8/25/40 Dunkettle Interchange not N7/N25 and should say N69 Listowel Bypass not N86.
The N14 schemes are dependent on the A5 and that's run into difficulties in NI so that puts less pressure on us to complete our parts. So only the first 6 schemes are worth talking about and likely to proceed. 3 Duals, 1 single, one junction upgrade and one motorway widening.

imangry29 wrote: »

Fred Barry hinting though that nothing beyond the PPPs will start during govt lifetime (page 2).

I'm still holding out hope that they're being conservative and increased road investment will come to be seen as desirable soon enough.

imangry29

The High Court saga rumbles on. Judgement reserved on 30 April in the Stack Shanahan application for leave to appeal their failed case to the Supreme Court. Justice O'Malley suspends judgement on application to 19 July.

cillo2000

I know it's a pure guessing game - but does anyone have any idea what reduction we'll see in the travel time between Cork and Killarney? I assume the build will take 2-3 years as long as they don't dig up something of historical interest.....

AugustusMinimus

What are the exact plans for this route ?

HQDC to Macroom and single lane carriageway past Ballyvourney to tie into the new road the other side ?

Chris_5339762

AFAIK it was HQDC to Macroom, then 2+2 from there to tie into the current good S2 that is past Ballyvourney.

The planned HQDC from the end of the Ballincollig bypass to the start of the Macroom - Ballyvourney 2+2 has been suspended.

irishshadowfax

Have ye seen the speed trap signs have moved to Macroom and Ballyvourney towns now also, 50km limit in BV, impossible to abide by early in the morning... Some fuc'king money making rackets

AugustusMinimus

What sort of saving will they be making by going with 2+2 over HQDC for the Macroom to Ballyvourney section.

It's only about 15 miles (or less) and the whole section will have to be an offline build.

cillo2000

From the PDF that was attached I make it out to be 22KM - I'm heading home this weekend so I'll see how long it takes me to do this 22KM section. I assume once it's done I should be able to do it in under 15min doing 100KPH. I'd say it takes at least 30min at the moment.

When the cork roundabouts are finished and this road is complete (god only knows when) I reckon I'll be able to do Dublin to Kenmare in about 3hrs , it's 3.5 at the moment.

irishshadowfax

U wouldn't be driving a red golf by any chance Cillo?!

niloc1951

Referring to the most recent population growth figures to 2041 it looks like our population will grow between 20% and 60% depending on various factors.
An interesting subset of figures is that the population of 15 to 64 year olds (predominantly the 'of driving age' part) is projected to grow between 0% and 50%.

Working from the basis of the N25 between Kinsale Beg east of Youghal and Wexford which is mostly Wide S2 (except for the Waterford by-pass) and provides excellent and predictable travel times, a similar type with 2+1 sections, would seem to be all that is required between Ballincollig and the western side of Ballyvourney.
It would of course be wise to 'future proof' the route with over and under bridges at important junctions, like for example the one on the N21 at Croom.

The days of grandiose schemes to serve the egos of politicians need to be consigned to the grave.

Chris_5339762

2+2 is overspecced, but the argument was that it costs only 10% more than 2+1 so they might as well. 2+1 hasn't gone down well here anyway due to apalling driver behavior at the end of the '2' sections.

cillo2000

Aye Ger - you missed a good party last weekend.

AugustusMinimus

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

2+2 is overspecced, but the argument was that it costs only 10% more than 2+1 so they might as well. 2+1 hasn't gone down well here anyway due to apalling driver behavior at the end of the '2' sections.

It's not just at the end that appalling driver behaviour happens.

So many times I've seen on the Cork - Limerick road where a person will take an entire stretch of dual carriageway section to just overtake one car.

2+1 is about as frustrating to drive as it gets. It gives you a taste of being able to overtake slower traffic, but in reality it doesn't work as about half of Irish motorist have no lane discipline.

Quickelles

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

about half of Irish motorist have no lane discipline.

Much less than half but many more than are required to screw the system up.

imangry29

cillo2000 wrote: »

I know it's a pure guessing game - but does anyone have any idea what reduction we'll see in the travel time between Cork and Killarney? I assume the build will take 2-3 years as long as they don't dig up something of historical interest.....

Drove Killarney to Cork this morning, no hold up in Macroom around 7.50am so this must be repeated mid afternoon / evening when traffic goes slower or comes to a stop. Anyway, the section of road being replaced W of ballyvourney to just E of Macroom took me 20 mins 26s in no great hurry. The new 22km route at 100km/hr would be 13 mins 12s (or saving 7mins 14s). The usual delay in Macroom can add about 5 to 10 mins on to this so i'd estimate a saving of anywhere between 5 and 18 mins depending on traffic in Macroom and how fast you'd typically drive through or around the town. This conservatively assumes a law abiding speed of 100km/hr on the new road of course... N22 motorists are very law abiding... A 120km/hr stretch on HQDC around Macroom (a la Ballincollig) would be a help.

niloc1951

imangry29 wrote: »

Drove Killarney to Cork this morning, no hold up in Macroom around 7.50am so this must be repeated mid afternoon / evening when traffic goes slower or comes to a stop. Anyway, the section of road being replaced W of ballyvourney to just E of Macroom took me 20 mins 26s in no great hurry. The new 22km route at 100km/hr would be 13 mins 12s (or saving 7mins 14s). The usual delay in Macroom can add about 5 to 10 mins on to this so i'd estimate a saving of anywhere between 5 and 18 mins depending on traffic in Macroom and how fast you'd typically drive through or around the town. This conservatively assumes a law abiding speed of 100km/hr on the new road of course... N22 motorists are very law abiding... A 120km/hr stretch on HQDC around Macroom (a la Ballincollig) would be a help.

No argument there, but add in a slow moving hay stack or heavily laden truck or some one towing a caravan or any other of the types of large/heavy vehicles entitled to use our roads but don't have the performance of a modern car on narrow hilly/bendy sections and your twenty and your bit minutes could turn out to be more likely thirty five and a bit as there are virtually no safe places to overtake such vehicles and the inevitable queue of traffic behind them.

imangry29

Fully agree, i experience it all too often!! That's why i said I must repeat under more typical conditions. Doing reverse journey tomorrow, will try it going through Macroom on a Fri eve.

imangry29

Interesting update from Minister Varadkar during the week. http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/debates%20authoring/debateswebpack.nsf/(indexlookupdail)/20130515~BB?opendocument#BB00700

"...To ensure there might be projects suitable for inclusion in future phases of the PPP programme in the medium term, the NRA has decided to take a number of projects through the planning process to develop a pipeline of potential future projects. In this regard, I understand the NRA intends to submit to the N5 Westport to Turlough project and the N5 Colloney to Castlebaldwin project to An Bord Pleanála later in the year. The Macroom bypass project was approved by An Bord Pleanála in April 2011. However, a judicial review against the approval of the scheme was heard and rejected by the High Court. I understand the applicant has sought leave to appeal against the High Court’s decision. A determination on whether leave to appeal will be granted is due to be made in July. Depending on the outcome of the latter, this is a project which the NRA may give consideration to including in a future round of PPP projects."

A lot of 'maybe's and 'ifs' but with the right outcome in July, looks like Macroom would be top of the queue for the next PPP round based on above - particularly if delay continues in Galway.

Apogee

From Saturday's Irish Times - see attached.

On a related question, why are the 60 km/h speed limits still in force eventhough the roadworks between Macroom and Ballyvourney were apparently completed months ago?

Quickelles

Apogee wrote: »

From Saturday's Irish Times - see attached.

Great news! Some anti-roads nonsense put in it's box