[Req] Traffic in Longford and Edgeworthstown on Friday Afternoon

FrCrilly

Hi All,

I’m planning a trip from Dublin to Mayo tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, leaving Dublin at approx 2pm. With the Kinnegad By-pass, I see no traffic problems until I hit Longford and Edgeworthstown. From past experience, I remember these towns being bottlenecks and so are better avoided at peak times. For this reason, I’m planning to detour from Mullingar to Ballymahon to Lanesborough to Strokestown, the advantage of this route having straight roads and quieter towns.

Can I ask anyone with recent experience commuting in the area if there is any reason why I shouldn’t take this alternative route? (eg has the traffic situation in Longford and Edgeworthstown changed substantially in the last year or two).

Thanks In Advance for All Responses.

jrar

I travel that route every 6/7 weeks and things HAVE improved no end.

Firstly, Edgeworthstown is by-passed so there is generally no delay there any more. Longford is more of a problem due to the poor driver behaviour of parking 2 and 3 abreast on the main street, dawdling along looking for parking spaces etc.

You have 2 alternatives here - go around the back of the town hall, down towards the Texaco station (past the Aldi/Lidl) store, and the take a right which will bring you back out onto the Strokestown road,

OR

if you want to avoid the town altogether, stay on the N4 (by-pass) until you hit the roundabout with Homebase etc. on your left. Take that exit, go thru the mini-roundabout and on up to the next right after the garage. Can't remember the name of this road but it takes you down past Pearse Park, just keep following it, and you come back out on the Strokestown road halfway ou tot Flancare Park i.e. you have by-passed the town in its entireity with no delays !

Can't vouch for the Ballymahon route as I've never taken it

SeanW

Ok, first of all, Edgeworthstown has been bypassed. So you don't go through it anymore.
Second, roads other than Primary N roads in this area are rubbish for the most part - you should not consider a deviation unless there's a serious problem. However, you are correct in that Longford town is a hellhole of traffic at that hour of a Friday afternoon. (Thank you Brian Cowen for "delaying" our N5 bypass )

Assuming you're driving a car, I would recommend the following course: From Dublin, stay on the M/N4 until the 3rd roundabout at the Longford Bypass. Take the 1st exit (Left) pass the McDonalds roundabout, to a "dot" mini roundabout at the Topaz station. Take a right (2nd exit) at that roundabout onto Lisbrack Rd. and follow that road for about 2 miles. It's a very bad road with a lot of narrow pinch points and sharp turns, but you will get the N5 relatively quickly.
Turn right at the end of that road to go towards Mayo.
You can see the whole area on Google Maps.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.734142,-7.817202&spn=0.021933,0.05373&z=14

Carawaystick

Wow, that google earth link shows how bad the scrapping of the longford bypass is. A short Kinnegad type link would sort the town out pronto.
I was going from the N4 at dromod towards Galway on the 29th Dec, not a hugely busy time and took 20 mins to get through Longford, cos I stupidly followed the N5 signs

FrCrilly

Thanks for all responses.

In the end I felt I had nothing to lose going the Ballymahon route. The roads are hilly but straight making it easy to overtake safely meaning no lines of traffic behind slow moving vehicles. There were no major hold ups in any of the towns. I left Loughlinstown (most southern exit on M50) on Friday at 2pm and hit Strokestown at 4pm. (I'm not a boy racer).