N25 or what's left of it

niloc1951

The currents roadworks and monumental delays at Killeagh are intolerable. Locals say they will be ongoing until next May and then moving to Castlemartyr and the section of the N25 which joins both villages (the bit that flooded for a week earlier this year).
How was a section of a national primary route between second and fifth largest cities in the state and the Rosslare Europort left to deteriorate into what can best be described as a third world dirt track.

I know there are looooong term plans to bypass both villages and provide a new dual carriageway from Midleton to the proposed new Youghal bridge, but why in the name of sanity have the the by-pass sections not have been put in already and connected later to the proposed new road.

Would it not have made sense to put in the by-passes BEFORE tearing up the sections of the N25 going through the two villages.

BelfastVanMan

Like in Buttevant...

niloc1951

BelfastVanMan wrote: »

Like in Buttevant...

Buttevant is finally finished after all the years of disruption and suspension breaking conditions
However the new M'way route is currently 'on hold' and Minister Ross said in July that the project is expected to be re-examined in 2017, which is probably code for 'don't expect anything in the foreseeable future' :mad:

BelfastVanMan

The M20 has been given the green light, again. There's an excellent thread in boards.ie for it (sorry, don't have the link), although, it has to start from the very beginning again.

mordeith

I'd say there's no chance of that bypass happening for years. Roadworks are made worse by poor management of the stop-go system.

niloc1951

mordeith wrote: »

I'd say there's no chance of that bypass happening for years. Roadworks are made worse by poor management of the stop-go system.

Stop go is not a solution during rush hour (rush two hours). No matter how well it's done the sheer volume of traffic will continue to cause long tail backs.

Perhaps during peak periods an alternative to stop go should be introduced, westbound traffic could be left on the mainline using the N25 and eastbound traffic diverted to the L3809 which is in reasonably good condition after recent repair works.

mordeith

niloc1951 wrote: »

Perhaps during peak periods an alternative to stop go should be introduced, westbound traffic could be left on the mainline using the N25 and eastbound traffic diverted to the L3809 which is in reasonably good condition after recent repair works.

Agreed. I think most people thought that's what they'd do.

AugustusMinimus

mordeith wrote: »

I'd say there's no chance of that bypass happening for years. Roadworks are made worse by poor management of the stop-go system.

Original plan was HQDC from Midleton to a new dual carriageway bridge in Youghal. This won't happen for at least 15 years. Even the cheap job of upgrading Carrigaline to Midleton to HQDC won't happen soon.

niloc1951

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Original plan was HQDC from Midleton to a new dual carriageway bridge in Youghal. This won't happen for at least 15 years. Even the cheap job of upgrading Carrigaline to Midleton to HQDC won't happen soon.

You mean Carrigtwohill to Midleton.

That section is okay for now, it flows well until the Lakeview roundabout, any monies coming available should be spent sorting the roundabout and bypassing Castlemartyr and Killeagh first.
The only issues of immediate concern on the above section are the short merging lane westbound at the western end of Midleton and the unlit and hard to see exit from the eastbound lane opposite, quite a few strangers miss that at night.

road_high

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Original plan was HQDC from Midleton to a new dual carriageway bridge in Youghal. This won't happen for at least 15 years. Even the cheap job of upgrading Carrigaline to Midleton to HQDC won't happen soon.

Surely the Youghal bypass would be tied into any new scheme though? It's a fine piece of road and I'd say could be easily upgraded to dual carriageway and tied in. I do agree the bridge and road around that café stop will require bypassing at some stage though.

road_high

The N25 overall is not a bad aul road. All of Co. Wexford is pretty good (New Ross bypass is underway and huge addition), into South Kilkenny and onto the Waterford bypass is very good.
Waterford to Kilmacthomas is a bit windy in parts. Onto Dungarvan is very good. Dungarvan itself needs an outer bypass but can imagine that'll be fairly expensive due to the topography.
So Killeigh/Castlemartyr are the worst bits by some way and definitely after New Ross are the next bits that should be looked at.

marno21

Sections of the N25 are good (East Cork Parkway, Waterford BP, soon to be New Ross BP, Wexford BP etc)

There was firm plans during the good old days (as AugustusMinimus pointed out) for several schemes:

* Carrigtwohill (Junction 4 where the old road is subsumed into the DC and the houses start on the mainline along with the LILOs) to Midleton upgrade from low quality DC to HQDC with the constuction of a parallel access road.

* Midleton - Youghal HQDC incl. retrofitting of the existing Youghal BP and a new bridge over the River Blackwater.

* Dungarvan Outer BP: existing BP riddled with roundabouts and is effectively a relief road. was to be built as Type 2 DC/2+2

* Waterford BP: built and opened

* Waterford - Glenmore: to be built to same standard as Waterford BP + start of New Ross BP. Bridges gap of 2 seperate HQDCs

* New Ross BP: under construction as a HQDC part/2+2 part. Opening 2019

* New Ross - Wexford: continuation of the existing 2+2 at the eastern end of the New Ross BP.

* Wexford - Rosslare Harbour: 2+2 incl. retrofitting of existing Wexford BP.

IMHO, as soon as the New Ross BP is open, the most pressing section of the N25 is the one in Cork. It's a motorway standard DC with a large volume of traffic becoming a low standard DC into a single carraigeway. The volumes of traffic east of the Lakeview R/A are too high as can be seen with the regular delays in Castlemartyr/Killeagh and the problems with the road getting torn up with all the traffic esp. HGVs travelling on a road not built for that level of traffic. Therefore I'd be prioritising this section from Carrigtwohill-Youghal, as it has similar problems as the N22 west of Cork with traffic being too high for the existing "ah sure it's grand" section of road with a problematic bottleneck (Macroom vs. Castlemartyr/Killeagh).

niloc1951

Macroom is a serious bottleneck with long delays at rush hour and particularly on Friday evenings, however the road surface is quite good and easy to drive on.
On the other hand the section of the N25 between the west of Castlemartyr and the east of Killeagh is now totally disintegrated with large potholes (some temporarily fixed with lumps of tarmac) sunken manholes and mud exuding through the broken surface (new potholes in the making).

One would wonder given that the above section of the N25 is in need of total reconstruction would it not be less expensive in the long run to put in that section of the proposed new road as a priority and fix up the broken section to a local road specification with a ban on vehicles over 7.5t except for local business.

road_high

niloc1951 wrote: »

Macroom is a serious bottleneck with long delays at rush hour and particularly on Friday evenings, however the road surface is quite good and easy to drive on.
On the other hand the section of the N25 between the west of Castlemartyr and the east of Killeagh is now totally disintegrated with large potholes (some temporarily fixed with lumps of tarmac) sunken manholes and mud exuding through the broken surface (new potholes in the making).

One would wonder given that the above section of the N25 is in need of total reconstruction would it not be less expensive in the long run to put in that section of the proposed new road as a priority and fix up the broken section to a local road specification with a ban on vehicles over 7.5t except for local business.

Drove it recently and was thinking this is what some of the roads in places like Romania, Moldova, Ukraine etc must be like in places. It's bordering on third world and how the surface was allowed disintegrate to this state is startling on a National Primary route. Surely funds could have been found or borrowed some place to do it.
No I reckon, they'll fully resurface it- would still be far cheaper and quicker than building the planned new road (which is still sorely needed).

marno21

niloc1951 wrote: »

Macroom is a serious bottleneck with long delays at rush hour and particularly on Friday evenings, however the road surface is quite good and easy to drive on.
On the other hand the section of the N25 between the west of Castlemartyr and the east of Killeagh is now totally disintegrated with large potholes (some temporarily fixed with lumps of tarmac) sunken manholes and mud exuding through the broken surface (new potholes in the making).

One would wonder given that the above section of the N25 is in need of total reconstruction would it not be less expensive in the long run to put in that section of the proposed new road as a priority and fix up the broken section to a local road specification with a ban on vehicles over 7.5t except for local business.

The N25 dualling from Cork-Youghal is at least 10 years away, if not further. There are no plans at present for it to be built.

I'm sure it depresses AugustusMinimus as much as it does me how bad the Cork road network is, let alone the fact that there will be no improvements until the Dunkettle interchange starts in 2019, and the M20, N22, N25 and N71 dualling are so far away too.

road_high

Apart from the M8 and the Lee Tunnel, there's been precious little done the past 2 decades in Co. Cork of any major note.

niloc1951

marno21 wrote: »

........................... the Dunkettle interchange starts in 2019................................

The design work was done in 2011 SEE HERE
So thats eight years from design to shovel to sort a serious bottleneck that must be costing the economy of the country millions every month not to mention missed opportunities of of investment and the creation of jobs in the area.

marno21

road_high wrote: »

Apart from the M8 and the Lee Tunnel, there's been precious little done the past 2 decades in Co. Cork of any major note.

Only the Ballincollig bypass, the three interchanges on the N40/then N25 (which should have been built first day as grade seperated roundabouts not at grade ones) and the Blackpool bypass have been done. It's not near enough considering we have in planning with quite some time:

N40 Cork North Ring West
N40 Cork North Ring East
N8/N25/N40 Dunkettle Interchange
N22 Ovens - Macroom (HQDC)
N22 Macroom - Ballyvourney (2+2)
N25 Carrigtwohill - Midleton (upgrade to HQDC standard)
N25 Midleton - Youghal (HQDC)
N28 Cork - Ringaskiddy (HQDC, now being built as M)
N71 Cork - Bandon (HQDC part, part 2+2)
R624 Cobh DC

Then, the M20 Cork-Limerick is there too.

niloc1951 wrote: »

The design work was done in 2011 SEE HERE
So thats eight years from design to shovel to sort a serious bottleneck that must be costing the economy of the country millions every month not to mention missed opportunities of of investment and the creation of jobs in the area.

The cost benefit analysis for the Dunkettle interchange says that the 100m investment would yield €1bn in benefits, 10:1 ratio. M17/M18 has a ~2:1 ratio.
Wexford motorays have a ~1.5:1 ratio. M28 has a wild ratio of 35:1 or something when the port upgrade is included.

road_high

niloc1951 wrote: »

The design work was done in 2011 SEE HERE
So thats eight years from design to shovel to sort a serious bottleneck that must be costing the economy of the country millions every month not to mention missed opportunities of of investment and the creation of jobs in the area.

That's the difference between us and say China! I'd imagine vital stuff like this would get pushed through in months rather than years. I understand we would have far greater legal and environmental constraints but still in this globalised world our infrastructure has to be competitive regardless.

niloc1951

I see they finally are rebuilding the section of the N25 for 2km East of Castlemartyr Bridge but have skipped a section which is nearly as bad for 1km further East. Would it not have been more cost effective to do the whole 3km stretch as one contract.

While queueing behind a stop/go sign the other day I noticed the new cats eyes along the centre line are set quite high above the surface, I wouldn't like to hit one with an ultra-low profile tyre, those cats eyes look they could inflict serious damage on such a tyre.

The new surface also looks like it could do with a bit more tar to bind it together properly, it looks like it will be very noisy and have a relatively short life before significant deterioration sets in.

Minister

niloc1951 wrote: »

I see they finally are rebuilding the section of the N25 for 2km East of Castlemartyr Bridge but have skipped a section which is nearly as bad for 1km further East. Would it not have been more cost effective to do the whole 3km stretch as one contract.

While queueing behind a stop/go sign the other day I noticed the new cats eyes along the centre line are set quite high above the surface, I wouldn't like to hit one with an ultra-low profile tyre, those cats eyes look they could inflict serious damage on such a tyre.

The new surface also looks like it could do with a bit more tar to bind it together properly, it looks like it will be very noisy and have a relatively short life before significant deterioration sets in.

I live on the north of Waterford city and will often go to Cork via Cahir bypass to M8 as it's easier on man and vehicle given state of N25 from Youghal onwards.

blindsider

Hmmm - haven't tried that. Is it really worth it? might give it a go next time I'm heading that way....

Minister

blindsider wrote: »

Hmmm - haven't tried that. Is it really worth it? might give it a go next time I'm heading that way....

Less stressful. Same toll cost. Better road surface. Once you are not going through Clonmel between 8 and 9 you should be fine. Same journey time.

JupiterKid

Does anyone else think that the existing Youghal bypass has a dangerous layout at the interchanges, where it is D1 for very short stretches and could make drivers unfamiliar with this road into thinking it was a full D2?

Has it had any serious accidents?