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

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.

James 007

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

Only 5 days ago Leo was in South Korea at the border

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has today visited the demilitarised zone dividing the Korean Peninsula as part of the Team Ireland Trade Mission

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar steps onto North Korean soil on ‘sobering’ historic visit to demilitarised zone | Independent.ie

Today, I can't help but feel if he is thinking he is in North Korea to meet the Healy Raes 🤣

deirdremf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121338575#Comment_121338575

major cities like ... Limerick

It's not often that you get to miss a major city while you blink.

65535

You mention 'LILO' ?

Are these the junctions that are on the Macroom Bypass ?

That's what I mean -

When I said 'If only we could do the same between Cork and Limerick' - what I meant was - build a Dual Carrigeway

confidentjosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121339063#Comment_121339063

Sorry to correct you but Limerick is a major city in Irish terms and a major population centre. Not in international terms obviously.

confidentjosh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121339419#Comment_121339419

Yep, LILOs and roundabouts are the junctions on it.

Given the huge numbers using the existing N20, Cork - Limerick will require a motorway. Which is technically a higher spec dual carriageway but also a lot more expensive than the narrow 2+2 dual carriageway built for the N22.

65535

Quote "and therefore high powered junctions with longer slip roads will be required." - I KNOW....

Those 'right angle junctions' without merging are a disaster waiting to happen on the Macroom Bypass and on other roads.

AugustusMinimus

Would proper flood have cost much more to have built.

Yes, I understand that 2+2 is a lesser standard compared to HQDC / Motorway. However, what’s the cost / benefit by going with no slips and stops signs at entrances over full slip roads?

People are idiots and having driven on this road a total of twice, I’ve had 2 incidents where people have pulled out in front of me forcing me both times to go into the overtaking lane to avoid an accident.

chooseusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340666#Comment_121340666

I treat it as I would someone on a slip road about to merge and move over in good time to allow them to merge/ enter safely.

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121340744#Comment_121340744

Certainly what I’ve started to do too.

lordleitrim

I always move to the outer lane even on higher spec motorways where there are LILOs (Roscrea Junction on M7 for example) as the lead time for being able to see merging cars at such junctions is minimal. In fact I generally do it at all merging junctions on motorways as there is inevitably some motorists who will only join a motorway at 30kph regardless of free flow conditions.

Sounds like it's even more imperative to do so on this road...

AugustusMinimus

Given there is a stop sign on each entrance, assume that both lanes need to be empty before you can enter the road?

creedp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121341093#Comment_121341093

Its essential but what happens when it doesn't happen?

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121341093#Comment_121341093

If you think that the Roscrea junction on the M7 is bad (and it's not great), you should check out the (IMO) dangerous junctions 13 and 14 on the M18:

(Google Streetview)

If you are already on the M18, you can only drive past these junctions on the outer lane because some idiot will come flying around the bend and straight onto the motorway.

In general though, I've noticed a severe decline in driving standards in 2023 - worse I think then it was before the pandemic. On single-carriageway roads, people seem to emerge from side roads straight onto main roads either without looking, or doing this crack of pretending that the hard shoulder is a merge lane.

So it's no surprise at all to me to read reports of what people are doing on the new N22.

Cookiemunster

The N22 has no merge lane or hard shoulder, so it's straight onto the driving lane from a stopped position. Cars entering the M18 at least have time to get up some sort of speed before entering the driving lane.

Baldilocks

The 'lack of' and/or 'length of' the slips on and off ANY dual carriageway/motorway, is at best poor practice.

where possible good engineering practice should be used to mitigate the likelihood of an accident.

I doubt that providing decent on/off slips would have had a significant impact on the overall cost, perhaps 2%? Money well spent IMO

yerwanthere123

The view of oncoming traffic at the Toonlane slip road heading westbound is slightly obscured by two signs on the right hand side, seems a bit dodgy to me. Can see it catching some people out.

Pete_Cavan

I wouldn't consider having merging lanes for joining DC that much safer, I've seen plenty of drivers who think they are entitled to pull over into the driving lane once they reach the end of the merging lane, regardless what speed they are doing or what other traffic is in the driving lane. At least with the stop signs for those joining, it is clear who is at fault for any accidents.

I'd say decelerating lanes are more important for exits, without them you have people breaking hard in the driving lane.

Charles Babbage

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121341396#Comment_121341396

The point is that the N22 has a low volume of traffic. You are expected to wait until there is a gap in the traffic and you can move out and accelerate without disrupting other traffic, this is not a long wait given the traffic volume.

Dodgy LILOS don't envisage waiting and IMHO should have a proper long acceleration lane.

Water John

Travelled Limerick - Mallow yesterday and today. That is the next section that needs to be done.

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121343396#Comment_121343396

You’d imagine having merging lanes should be much safer as the relative velocities between cars in the event of an accident should be much lower.

In the case of the N22 there’s a possibility of a 100kph car impacting a near stationery car.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121344261#Comment_121344261

There must be thousands of locations around the country where there’s a possibility of a 100kph car impacting a near stationery car turning onto the road. Basically every junction on every 100kph road in the country, plus the vast majority come with the added danger of traffic coming from both sides. It is clearly not practical/possible to provide merging lanes everywhere, that's why we have stop signs.

Drivers are required to obey signs and use there judgement on when is a suitable opportunity to join the road. The new DC N22 is obviously much safer than most other similar speed junctions as there is a second lane where vehicles already on the road can move into and right turns are not possible.

Mr.CoolGuy

So has anyone on this thread driven between Killarney and Cork at peak or non-peak times since Monday? How long did the drive take and how does it compare to 3.5 years ago?

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121345497#Comment_121345497

Everything is relative. The Ballybeg Bends on the N20 are safe if drivers stick to the limit. I don’t think anyone in here will say that the Ballybeg Bends are acceptable however.

Ultimately the junctions on the N22 were a design choice. It was safety with traffic levels in mind vs budget. They were deemed not worth it. Only time will tell if they weren’t.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346102#Comment_121346102

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here, are you advocating for a programme of works to add long merging lanes for every side road joining a 100kph road? Ultimately, there are countless locations where traffic has to join a 100kph road from a standing start. If it is deemed unsafe on the new N22 where good sightlines are provided, traffic only comes from one side and a second lane is available to traffic already on the road, then it must be far more dangerous at those other locations.

The safety of every inch of road relies on drivers following the rules of the road, obeying signage/road markings and using good judgment. If a driver decides to ignore a stop sign and plough out onto a main road without consideration for traffic already on the road, that is not a failure of road design.

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346448#Comment_121346448

Of course not. I’m questioning whether current 2+2 design specifications make sense from a cost / benefit analysis.

What for instance is the saving money wise on a project like this by not having slips on each junction?

I agree that ultimately, the problem is drivers who will miss the stop sign and just blindly pull onto the road. Road design has to take these kind of drivers into account too though in order to try to minimise crashes as much as reasonably possible.

Water John

Used the slip No 2 at Ballincollig onto the N22 heading into the city today. Driver ahead of me did not use the slip to accelerate, so three of us were emerging slowly onto the main road and running out of space. Emerging from a stopped position would have been safer, oddly enough.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121347013#Comment_121347013

yes, there's a safety benefit in making drivers stop and check their surroundings before joining the road.

Short slips are known to be more dangerous than having no slip lane at all, as the presence of a merging lane encourages drivers to join without thinking. That's fine if the lane is long enough for them to get to to speed, but very bad if they then get forced into the main lane before they've found a safe gap.

chooseusername

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121347013#Comment_121347013

I've never had to use it, but it looks like you have about 50 mtrs to merge onto a 120km DC. Luckily the slip road is downhill and traffic on the DC have a good view of the slip road and could move over for you (if they chose to do so). But you could be behind a tractor or a jeep pulling a trailer on the slip road.

N40.jpg

Water John

You can accelerate quickly quite easily, as you say it's downhill, but this guy didn't and we were all, almost in slow motion being squeezed. Slow drivers can be a danger.

Baldilocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121346448#Comment_121346448

I'm not suggesting that legacy locations should be modified (though, if they are accident blackspots, then they should).

However a newly road should not introduce such a significant hazard. These should be designed out within reason. Justifying poor design by referring to an obscure (to most of the population) road classification is hiding behind a technicality.

Equally, suggesting everything would be ok if everybody drove in a legal manner, is not best practice... It is easy to be over the limit in most modern cars (I use cruise control alot to avoid this), people look at phones (I'm not defending this, just stating it happens), people have health issues, difficult passengers, etc., and some drive dangerously....

for a small % of the overall cost, the risk associated with the on/off slips could have been mitigated. It should be noted that accidents have a cost, both to those directly affected and the economy. I recall seeing various figures for accidents, though none from the CSO. In the event of an accident resulting in a carriageway being closed for a couple of hours, it wouldn't take long to break into 7 figures - a couple of thousand people held up...

Good Engineering Practice is to:

1) Remove the risk - not possible without removing either the drivers, or the slips

2) Reduce the risk - include design features that will allow the risk to be removed (long slip roads!)

3) Use procedures - depend on good driving.......time will tell on this.

4) Personal Protective equipment - turn all cars into Zorbs that can absorb the impacts....

Pete_Cavan

Expecting drivers to stop at STOP signs is not hiding behind a technicality. No idea what "obscure (to most of the population) road classification" you think I referred to, unless you consider National roads an obscure classification.

Stop signs are a way of removing, or at least reducing, risk. Drivers stopping and merging at an appropriate time will generally be safer than a merging lane which is a dynamic situation and plenty of drivers don't use them correctly.

Your talk of the cost of accidents equally applies if there were merging lanes. TII most likely have determined that requiring drivers to stop before joining the road is the safest in this situation, hence the design. And "a carriageway being closed for a couple of hours" wont hold up "a couple of thousand people" given the N22 at Macroom has an AADT of just under 8,500.

Hibernicis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121348479#Comment_121348479

Excellent post and it clearly highlights the point that @AugustusMinimus was making about the dangers posed by the these "Compact Grade Separated Junctions". Designing a brand new road with an expectation that drivers of varying skills and abilities (and none) will, from a standing start (zero Kph), safely join a flow of traffic moving at 100Kph, and frequently up to 125Kph, is ridiculous to say the least. And trying to dumb this down on the the basis of junctions on existing roads (the line of which can be 100/200 years old and basically follow old cow paths) is just a lot of whataboutery. And trying to justify this by saying that short slips are known to be more dangerous than having no slip lane at all so lets have no slip lane at all - is also daft, nobody is arguing for short slips - these should be provided and should be of adequate length to allow a vehicle to accelerate safely from a standing start to the average lane 1 running speed.

In general terms this 22Km stretch of road is a well executed engineering marvel, with many positive aspects which will bring huge benefits to car and truck drivers, businesses and inhabitants in the area and especially to the long suffering townsfolk of Macroom and Ballyvourney. It was long overdue and is an example of the benefits of modern infrastructure and the stupidity and damaging travesty that is Ryan and the GP's attitude to modernising roads. And it's a really enjoyable drive. That said, having driven Phase 1 and Phase 2 on a number of occasions, and having deliberately exited and rejoined at the various junctions, I think it is a crying shame that the additional money wasn't provided to construct safe deceleration/acceleration lanes at the junctions. It couldn't have added more than 1% or 2% to the budget.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121349349#Comment_121349349

Going from a standing start (zero Kph) to safely joining a flow of traffic moving at 100kph is a basic requirement for anyone driving a vehicle. There are thousands of locations where a driver will have to do so, almost all of which in more dangerous circumstances than on this DC. That is not whataboutery.

And this notion that the junctions were designed like this to save costs is absolute nonsense. TII developed this road standard and junction design on the basis of what was considered appropriate, including from a safety perspective. It is a standard design and has been and will be used elsewhere.

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121349560#Comment_121349560

I can only assume that the lack of a hard shoulder is the reason for slip roads then. Perhaps no hard shoulder results in slips on being more dangerous.

Certainly I cannot see how a slip off wouldn’t be warranted though.