Connecting the inter urbans

DWCommuter

Forget about the Orbital route, which is just a Dublin bypass.

While things have gone pear shaped economically, I decided to take out the crayons for the roads and not railways!!!!:D

I drive around the country a lot and have watched the inter urbans develop over the last few years. Great to see and the only thing I'll credit this diabolical Government with, despite them being 4 years late. Anyway, I frequently thought about connecting these roads down through the country. Theres no plan that I know of, so I'll offer my thoughts. Its simple enough to allow folks to get dug into drawing on maps.

Why don't we build a 2+1 limited access road linking the N4, N6, N7, N8 and N9. A real cross radial link up of our primary routes. Look at a map. I say we run it down the midlands and creep across towards the waterford bypass.

Cool Mo D

What I think would be a better bet for connecting the shiny new motorways is doing something about the atrocious state of the national secondary roads. The N80 and N52 would be particularly good for covering trips that are hard to make with the current set up of main roads radiating from Dublin.

I don't know if it's just me, but any trip I make on the secondary roads I'm confronted with very narrow, windy roads with no spots to overtake the legions of old lads doing 60kmh in a clapped out Micra, or slow trucks and horse boxes which seem to appear any time the road frees up and I'm about to make some decent progress. Even a good standard of single carriageway with some decent straight sections would be a godsend!

TheNog

Every major town should be connected with a very good national route type of road or maybe even by dual-carraigeway. For example tullamore, mullingar, athlone and portlaoise should all be connected with dual carriageways with say tullamore being the centre of that radial.

the only thing standing in its way is of course is the current recession so the money os not there and the fact that there probably would not be a public-private partnership cos it would be unusual to have tolls on roads of these types.

murphaph

I'd also like to see the N80 and N52 upgraded to 2+2, limited access, eventually. 2+1 is no more Derek-the NRA have abandned it's further use as 2+2 only requires a little bit more land and gives much greater benefits. The behaviour on the 2 major bits of 2+1 told the NRA they should build no more. They work in disciplined Sweden-not here!

Bards

I'd like to see the N24 Waterford Limerick road upgraded to HQDC/Motorway Crossing the M8 At Cahir and linking Limerick & Galway to Waterford (Three of the Five Cities)

With the atlantic road corridor going ahead this would complete the jigsaw and have all the cities linked to each other and dublin by Motorway/HDC

marmurr1916

The N24 should definitely be upgraded, so should the N25 between Cork and Waterford. It would be great to see the N52 upgraded between Ardee (with the N33 upgraded from Ardee to the M1) and Tullamore and the N80 upgraded between Tullamore and it's junction with the N11 near Enniscorthy.

If the N52/N80 route was upgraded to motorway/HQDC it would eliminate the need for the Dublin Outer Orbital Route and provide the country with what would in effect be a super-bypass of the greater Dublin area.

Not likely to happen for many years though.

D.L.R.

Totally agree with this, outside of the Dublin interurbans its still the wild west regarding roads. We need better roads (in the midlands particularly) to provide viable, non-Dublin routes between the larger towns. The secondary road network is still very poor indeed.

Drogheda, Dundalk, Navan, Athlone, Mulligar, Tullamore, Portlaoise, Carlow etc should have links of decent quality, without necessarily relying on the motorway system.

The links don't even have to be motorway or DC, just decent, straight roads with good sightlines would do the job. A couple of new primary-designatied roads and associated upgrades would be ideal.