Weird road improvements

AugustusMinimus

Two come to mind, both of the same stretch of road, the N71.

First bit is coming out of city. What can only be described as the most bizarre and unneccesary piece of dual carriageway in Ireland. I cannot fathom why about 3 miles of dual carriageway was built where it was back in the 1980s, considering both ends tie into single carriageway road. The dual carriageway is also extremly twisty and if anything may cause accidents due to drivers having a false sense of how good the road is.

The other bit is Ballinhassig to Half-way on the same road. A completely new section of road was built here to replace the old section in the 1990s. But this is what I don't understand. The old section was good. There was no need at all to replace it.

One other has to be the old Cahir bypass. A single lane bypass built in the 1980s. The only bypass built on the entire stretch of the N8 until Glanmire was bypassed in the early 90's. Why Cahir was singled out for bypass treatment I don't know.

Any other upgraded or new sections of road which come to mind ?

Danbo!

Anyone from in and around Dublin 16/24 may know the firhouse road/ballycullen road upgrade thats been going on over a year now. Bus lanes in both directions so they widened the road, new paths, bus stops, junctions, ramps into estates etc. Such a waste of money. Roads were fine and there was no need for bus lanes, especially in both directions. There are plenty of other roads that could do with upgrading before this. And the ballycullen road is still 50 bloody km/h.

This here is a bit of a head scratcher.

Must have been a serious jam up somewhere to warrant this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60317916&postcount=32

Stinicker

salonfire wrote: »

This here is a bit of a head scratcher.

Must have been a serious jam up somewhere to warrant this http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60317916&postcount=32

There lies a shining moment to Fianna Fail bog crony politics if ever there was one, the road up to both sides of the bridge is literally a bohereen I am lead to believe and while the bridge was needed and welcome it was the sort of project that would be far down the ladder when you consider the other more important routes needing attention:- North Cork Ringrooad - M20 to Limerick anyone?

charlemont

Cahir was an awful bottleneck before the by pass was built as its also got the N24 passing through.

N71 Dual Carrigeway is a pointless enough road but at least heading southbound you can overtake a few crawlers before the D.C. ends.

Stinicker

Stinicker wrote: »

There lies a shining moment to Fianna Fail bog crony politics if ever there was one, the road up to both sides of the bridge is literally a bohereen I am lead to believe and while the bridge was needed and welcome it was the sort of project that would be far down the ladder when you consider the other more important routes needing attention:- North Cork Ringrooad - M20 to Limerick anyone?

I don't agree that it was needed...if it was needed there, then surely every headland and peninsula deserves to be connected via huge big bridges.

I'm sure the FF apologists and back-slappers up there are happy to see the country teeter on the brink of bankruptcy. At least the promise of a big bridge was delivered. It's well worth it

ianobrien

OP, First things first. The "Dual Carrageway" on the N71 was not built as a dual carrageway. The "old road" was replaced with a new one in the '80's (the current outbound lane), and the old road was left to rot. In the '90's, someone got the idea of repairing the old road and making it the inbound lane and turning the "current road" into the outbound lane. Result, one cheap dual carrageway...

As for the Liberties to Half-Way road, thank Christ they built it! The old road was painful it was so slow. There were quite a few inclines on it and trucks would crawl along that road, meaning that a journey from Bishopstown to Half-Way would take up to half an hour (it's ten minutes now). That road was so bad that it was quicker to take the Spur Hill to Ballinhassig road at rush hour.

cml387

Believe it or not,in the old days the N8 came to a STOP sign in the centre of Cahir (opposite the hotel,if you know Cahir).The N24 from Clonmel had priority
heading westwards towards Limerick.

So a bypass of Cahir had the highest priority.

Padraig Mor

More Cork ones (what is it with the council down here?!).

Those who know the dual carriageway between Dunkettle and Midleton will know that the surface between the Amgen site and Midleton itself is very poor - sometimes dangerously so. Two years ago they decided to resurface the (perfectly fine) stretch between the Cobh turnoff and Amgen (about a mile or two), stopping right where the bad surface actually starts!

To top it, they then decided to resurface the section between Dunkettle and near Cobh last winter - a surface which was mostly fine with a few developing problems. Resurfacing could have waited a year or two easily. Cork posters will know that they managed to make a complete balls of this, with the contractor going bust mid-job and the icy weather happening. End result: months of driving on a road with the upper surface peeled off. They eventually managed to finish it, leaving a surface that is very poor for a HQDC (very bumpy). And they STILL haven't fixed the bad section near Midleton!