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

nordydan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121329997#Comment_121329997

1pm

KrisW1001

Baile Bhuirne has tourism in its own right - it’s a common base to explore the Cork-Kerry bounds.

As for passing trade, the line the bypass takes makes it only 400 m shorter than driving through the two villages: leaving at Toonlane and driving through the villages adds only 5 minutes to your trip, but as this offers the last services of any kind until at least Glenflesk (or Kilgarvan if heading to Kenmare), and the last place to eat before Killarney or Kenmare, I think a lot of tourists will still choose to stop here.

But you’ve only got to sit in the likes of the Mills or the Abbey and listen to the accents of the customers to realise that most of their business is drawn from the surrounding areas, and the presence of the bypass won’t affect that negatively.

peter.teahan

Here :) 3pm opening one side and 30 mins later the other

AugustusMinimus

I find it bizarre that they didn’t build the junction so you can come off at the west most junction while travelling westbound.

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121331239#Comment_121331239

We'll have to see I guess.

The motorways killed a lot of thriving businesses in Ireland (Josephine's in Urlingford for example).

I can imagine tourists driving from Cork to Killarney or vice versa not bothering to stop en route since it's only just over an hour's drive.

Whereas if they were passing through Ballyvourney, they'd be tempted to pull over.

Torrey

Leo looking straight at you 😂

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121332180#Comment_121332180

I like how 3 Healy-Raes turn up for a Cork road project opening, albeit one that does benefit Kerry.

KrisW1001

Those pricks would turn up for the opening of an envelope.. it’s not like they’re busy doing anything useful.

A former colleague of mine got married in Kenmare many years ago, and she warned the hotel that if any member of the Healy-Rae family was let in to the reception she would be looking for her money back. Sure enough, toward the end of the night, there was the familiar smell and sound of Jackie, who, having been told he was neither invited nor welcome at the front door, had come in the back via a fire-door, and was glad-handing his way around a couple of tables before he was met by security and escorted off the premises...

lordleitrim

Ah...was in Cork city for an appt. this morning and had looked forward to driving the full stretch at 2.30pm back to Tralee as all the media outlets said a 1pm opening but we were still sent through Ballyvorney. I even googled the Examiner and other sites at 1.30 before I set off and they reported in the past tense that Leo "opened the final section at 1pm" so I thought it was definitely open. I see in the post above it was after 3pm instead....

It was still great to drive the other stages (my first time today) . Killarney seemed like no distance from the end of the dual carriageway on the way home. Roll on my next bugbear, Adare!!

peter.teahan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121332730#Comment_121332730

the man himself

Apogee

RTÉ News report from earlier today

https://twitter.com/rtenews/status/1721519787988123811

confidentjosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121332865#Comment_121332865

Ha ha that's hilarious. They're horrible dinosaurs those grifters. Wouldn't turn my back on them for a second.

theguzman

Had to go to Macroom this evening and it was a delight to drive it, however for the hundreds of millions spent I have to say the engineering of the Junctions are an absolute disgrace; what sort of moron OK'd the design?? Especially at the Ballyvourney start/end??

Coming down the county bounds toward Cork I witnessed U-Turns being made by cars coming from Cork to access the Ballyvourney Junction. They should have added a slip there and made good long approach lanes to all the junctions for to build-up speed and slowdown, on the downhill Killarney facing section cars are barrelling down at 110km/h+.

Returning back towards Killarney then I nearly had a fatal collison again at this woeful Ballyvourney Junction where a stupid driver just pulled out into the 100km/h driving lane forcing me to drop anchor hard with metres to spare and swerve out into the overtaking lane, which then merges back to a single lane, only to become a right hand crossing which I mistook as the begining off the old climbing lane and was building up speed again and was forced into an awful hard brake and left hand swerve to avoid rear ending a car which was turning right, that right hand junction should never have been put there and is being used for U-Turns when that local road could all have been integrated into a proper Junction a few metres back.

Diabolical design and some one will definitely get killed there before Christmas, bearing in mind conditions were good, in rain I'd nearly have crashed all of which happened with me around 90km/h speed and being ultra cautious due to it being my first time to drive it.

You can always trust Ireland to make a balls of it.

mcburns07

Sounds like you have an eventful drive

KrisW1001

If a new road had just opened on my route, I'd have slowed down a bit so I didn't get caught out by the new junctions, or by the actions of other drivers who got caught out by there being new junctions... but I'm funny like that.

chooseusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121333788#Comment_121333788

"...forcing me to drop anchor hard with metres to spare and swerve out into the overtaking lane, which then merges back to a single lane, only to become a right hand crossing which I mistook as the begining off the old climbing lane and was building up speed again and was forced into an awful hard brake and left hand swerve to avoid rear ending a car which was turning right...",

The signage must be all wrong or non existant for all that to happen

road_high

This thing has had more official openings than Christmas. Utterly ridiculous and just shows how little major infrastructure is going on that these clowns are falling over eachother to cut ribbons on the few crumbs opening.

confidentjosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121333788#Comment_121333788

No. 1 It's not a motorway so there are no significant stretches of slip roads given the smaller amounts of traffic that will travel on it. A rural and remote area with a smaller population cannot expect to have the same scale of roadway that urban areas with much larger populations will have.

No. 2 There are stop and yield signs and lines at every junction. If people are going to ignore those signs then they are the ones causing the dangerous situations/trouble not the designers.

No. 3 There will always be an element of people having to get used to a new road layout and design before becoming familiar with it. Again, this is not a road designers fault but is down to road user behaviour.

No. 4 You clearly know more than the roads engineers who designed this so what roads design company do you work for?

confidentjosh

https://youtu.be/Uir60JVHi7Y

DroneHawk yet again. Fair play to him for his efforts over the last few years.What would we have done without him!

cantalach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121333788#Comment_121333788

So cars are coming down from the County Bounds way over the speed limit, others are making dangerous U-turns, and more still are driving through Stop signs without stopping…and yet somehow it’s the engineers’ fault. Interesting.

marno21

Thread title updated.

The day has finally come. 15 years and 5 months since the thread opened, we finally have completion. Thanks to everyone who contributed to the thread over the years. Fingers crossed the next upgrade on the N22 won't be too far away.

embraer170

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121335572#Comment_121335572

If 2-3 decades is not “too” long.

I fear I will be retired (or dead) before we have a good quality road all the way from Killarney to Cork.

I’d also say by the time we have the Ovens section done, the Kerry section to the county bounds will be fairly saturated.

Torrey

It's a bit surreal going back reading the first page of this thread, it's hard to believe the project is finally completed.

Just want to thank everyone who contributed on this thread over the years, it was my go to place for info on this road, in particular to Marno with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the the road network in this country!

Roll on Macroom - Ovens section

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121334741#Comment_121334741

True but normally Id expect that a brand new multi million road would be designed to minimise risks of accidents. In fairness I have yet to drive a new road in Ireland with a junction as poorly designed as the Millstreet on/off junction IMHO. Havent yet had the opportunity to experience the Ballyvourney one so I await that experience with interest.

65535

I'll be driving it over the next few days - I assume there are 'right angle junctions' - that is ones without a merging lane - that's a big missed opportunity if that is the case.

If only now we could do the same between Cork and Limerick

chalkitdown1

Great to see this finally open. I imagine I'll never set foot (wheels) in Macroom ever again. Bloody hated going to Tralee or Kilarney because of that town. Might go on a day trip to Kilarney in the next week or two just to check it out.

What are we thinking, 30 years give or take, before this joins up with the South Ring Road in Ovens? 😂 I'll probably be in my 70's by the time it's done.

confidentjosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121337065#Comment_121337065

Again, you're missing the point here.

That won't ever happen because the Cork to Limerick corridor has massive amounts of traffic using it and so the low powered LILO junctions won't be a feature. A new road between two major cities like Cork and Limerick that also has huge amounts of traffic will have to be built to motorway status and therefore high powered junctions with longer slip roads will be required.