2018-2027 National Development Plan

Seamai

KrisW1001 wrote: »

N25 Castlemartyr Bypass - I assume (hope!) this would connect the Western approach to Castlemartyr with the Shanagarry road, and so avoid the traffic-light junction in the village. I regularly drive this road, and to me, that is the movement that accounts for most of the congestion in Castlemartyr itself.

Castlemartyr has become a right bottleneck in the last few years, it reminds me of when I was a kid and we'd head off to Youghal on summer weekends and it was bumper to bumper the whole way.

marno21

DumbBrunette wrote: »

I noticed in this year's allocations that there are lots of projects that are prefaced with the letters 'AT', like in the attached pic. Most of the allocations are for €50,000. Does anyone know what these are for?

I'm guessing here that it's "active transport" given the volume of these that mention cycling.

Also, would anyone know what the Cork ten-t route study is exactly??

I'm only speculating here but I'd imagine a study to assess the needs of the TEN-T route network around Cork. There was a similar in Donegal done a few years back. At the minute, by 2030 the only improvements in Cork complete will be the M28, Dunkettle and motorway to Midleton West. Glaring deficiencies in the network with the North Ring Road, N22 out to Macroom, N25 to Youghal, N27 to the Airport and N71 for miles all well above capacity.

DumbBrunette

Thanks Marno, that makes sense given the locations mentioned. The small sums involved suggest feasibility studies or preliminary design works are to be carried out.

Happy Christmas to you and everyone else on the forum

marno21 wrote: »

I'm guessing here that it's "active transport" given the volume of these that mention cycling.



I'm only speculating here but I'd imagine a study to assess the needs of the TEN-T route network around Cork. There was a similar in Donegal done a few years back. At the minute, by 2030 the only improvements in Cork complete will be the M28, Dunkettle and motorway to Midleton West. Glaring deficiencies in the network with the North Ring Road, N22 out to Macroom, N25 to Youghal, N27 to the Airport and N71 for miles all well above capacity.

Jayuu

Found this on the TII site. I think this thread might be the best place to post this - maybe it's been posted elsewhere as it's from September (apologies if it has). It has a page for each main route project in progress.

https://www.tii.ie/roads-tolling/projects-and-improvements/major-active-projects.pdf

Chris_5339762

Yeah that one has been on here before but its a really good document. It gives a very good idea of what is in the system at the moment and what is planned.

And what has been left out as not proceeding at the moment, like the N22 Ballincollig - Macroom, the N25 Midleton to Youghal, and the N25 Dungarvan bypass. You can see I live in Cork.

roadmaster

When you look at the various stages of developments future road projects are at such as the N4, N3,N2 and M20 we are going to have a mini road building boom in about 5 years .

Cookiemunster

Hopefully. Provided it's not stymied by the economy or the Greens (although they're likely to be an irrelevance by then the way they're going).

steeler j

roadmaster wrote: »

When you look at the various stages of developments future road projects are at such as the N4, N3,N2 and M20 we are going to have a mini road building boom in about 5 years .

Hopefully

Geuze

Jayuu wrote: »

Found this on the TII site. I think this thread might be the best place to post this - maybe it's been posted elsewhere as it's from September (apologies if it has). It has a page for each main route project in progress.

https://www.tii.ie/roads-tolling/projects-and-improvements/major-active-projects.pdf

I'm curious why some N road schemes seem to be missing?

N59 improvements near Oughterard?

N67 near Kinvarra?

N52 between Mullingar and Delvin?

N16 two small schemes?

marno21

Geuze wrote: »

I'm curious why some N road schemes seem to be missing?

N59 improvements near Oughterard?

N67 near Kinvarra?

N52 between Mullingar and Delvin?

N16 two small schemes?

Major projects only.

Realignments/safety schemes not included.

betistuc

Can anyone tell me what TII's definition of Expressway is? Also, what do they mean by TBD? And finally does anyone recognise the image used on page 4 of the document. I can't place that location.

L1011

Exxpressway - Type 2 or 2+2 Dual Carriagway but with the potential for access restrictions (no horses/bikes/pedestrians/whatever)

TBD - To Be Determined / undecided as of yet

I have no idea on the image!

spacetweek

I think the image shows the M11 junction south of Gorey.
Dead giveaway is the part right in the middle that used be dualled but has been singled recently. That's because when the M11 used to end here, it petered out as a dual carriageway which was grandfathered into the new junction here when the M11 was continued down to Enniscorthy.

betistuc

I think you're right Spaceweek. Well spotted.. Thanks to both of you.

KrisW1001

To clarify about Expressways: A type 2 Dual Carriageway (aka "2+2 road", "Expressway") does not allow pedestrians/cyclists on the two 2-lane carriageways, as this type of road has no hard shoulders, but the design has to provide a separate path or paths alongside the motor lanes for bikes and pedestrians.

betistuc

KrisW1001 wrote: »

To clarify about Expressways: A type 2 Dual Carriageway (aka "2+2 road", "Expressway") does not allow pedestrians/cyclists on the two 2-lane carriageways, as this type of road has no hard shoulders, but the design has to provide a separate path or paths alongside the motor lanes for bikes and pedestrians.

Would the Stillorgan dual carriageway be classed as an expressway?

BelfastVanMan

betistuc wrote: »

Would the Stillorgan dual carriageway be classed as an expressway?

No, it was built to a different, now-defunct spec back in the 60s and 70s.

Limerick74

Public consultation on the Department of Transport’s NIFTI underway. May have a big impact on which projects get included in new NDP https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/737a6-national-investment-framework-for-transport-in-ireland-nifti/

millb

Limerick74 wrote: »

Public consultation on the Department of Transport’s NIFTI underway. May have a big impact on which projects get included in new NDP https://www.gov.ie/en/consultation/737a6-national-investment-framework-for-transport-in-ireland-nifti/

Some fairly poor strategy in Doc 13 DoT . All Dublin centric road, rail, ports and airports. Everything centres on Dublin. Dublin is the benchmark for all. eg Dublin Airport. Dublin Port, Roads and Rail. No creative concepts for the future eg moving the port - or any of that type of thought..

Aontachtoir

millb wrote: »

Some fairly poor strategy in Doc 13 DoT . All Dublin centric road, rail, ports and airports. Everything centres on Dublin. Dublin is the benchmark for all. eg Dublin Airport. Dublin Port, Roads and Rail. No creative concepts for the future eg moving the port - or any of that type of thought..

Dublin is the centre of the economy and the nation. It's where we need to build critical mass to help Ireland continue to punch above its weight economically, and is the only urban centre in Ireland that has a reasonable chance of rivalling other European capitals for business and investment. While we do need to invest in the regions, especially the cities of the west and the south, Dublin will always remain the engine of the economy and the source of most of those taxpayer euros. Compare Dublin's role to Paris driving France or London driving the UK.

I say this as a Corkman!

marno21

Aontachtoir wrote: »

Dublin is the centre of the economy and the nation. It's where we need to build critical mass to help Ireland continue to punch above its weight economically, and is the only urban centre in Ireland that has a reasonable chance of rivalling other European capitals for business and investment. While we do need to invest in the regions, especially the cities of the west and the south, Dublin will always remain the engine of the economy and the source of most of those taxpayer euros. Compare Dublin's role to Paris driving France or London driving the UK.

I say this as a Corkman!

The thing is though, in road terms anyway, south of the M6, road connectivity to Dublin bar the N11 south of Oilgate and the N21 is pretty much complete. (There are several routes that are used to access routes that eventually lead to Dublin such as the N71 but that's stretching it a bit).

Getting to Dublin from Galway, Limerick, Cork or Waterford is easy. Getting between those places is the challenge. Regional connectivity is very important in that regard (M18 aside).

KrisW1001

I agree with that.

The big infrastructure developments in Dublin from now on will be about public transport: we've reached a point where the best way to improve road capacity in and out of Dublin would be to extend Bus, LUAS and DART services, maybe even a brand-new rail corridor or two, so that daily commuters leave their cars somewhere and free up a bit more space on the roads.

In the regions, the problems are different. There's still major bottlenecks in travel between regional cities, let alone towns. Take Waterford: a trip from Waterford to Cork is easy and predictable (and hasn't really benefitted from the inter-urban roads programme), but Waterford-Limerick is something of a trek with numerous places to get caught along the way (N24 upgrade, in the current NDP, should address a lot of this). Realistically, Waterford-Galway means going to Limerick first, even though that's nearly 20% longer than the shortest routing (which is regional roads all the way). As for anywhere North of Galway - that's a major mission.

Given that the current plan covers the remaining primary routes fairly well, the next should focus on the Secondary route network, providing good-quality, consistent road links between smaller population centres. They don't have to be dual-carriageways: the sort of well-engineered single-carriageway roads with limited frontage and junctions that you find in Continental Europe would do wonders for connectivity.

BelfastVanMan

KrisW1001 wrote: »

I agree with that.

The big infrastructure developments in Dublin from now on will be about public transport: we've reached a point where the best way to improve road capacity in and out of Dublin would be to extend Bus, LUAS and DART services, maybe even a brand-new rail corridor or two, so that daily commuters leave their cars somewhere and free up a bit more space on the roads.

In the regions, the problems are different. There's still major bottlenecks in travel between regional cities, let alone towns. Take Waterford: a trip from Waterford to Cork is easy and predictable (and hasn't really benefitted from the inter-urban roads programme), but Waterford-Limerick is something of a trek with numerous places to get caught along the way (N24 upgrade, in the current NDP, should address a lot of this). Realistically, Waterford-Galway means going to Limerick first, even though that's nearly 20% longer than the shortest routing (which is regional roads all the way). As for anywhere North of Galway - that's a major mission.

Given that the current plan covers the remaining primary routes fairly well, the next should focus on the Secondary route network, providing good-quality, consistent road links between smaller population centres. They don't have to be dual-carriageways: the sort of well-engineered single-carriageway roads with limited frontage and junctions that you find in Continental Europe would do wonders for connectivity.

Agreed. The recent works on the N52 between Delvin amd Mullingar are a good example of this.

Chris_5339762

KrisW1001 wrote: »

Take Waterford: a trip from Waterford to Cork is easy and predictable

mmm, I'd say Dungarvan with its 7 roundabouts and then Castlemartyr and the Lakeview Roundabout at Midleton would disagree. Those need to be sorted urgently, yet there are no plans for any of them (apart from a sticking plaster at Castlemartyr).

KrisW1001

I've driven that route regularly for years. There are no dangerous sections anymore (even the Pike east of Dungarvan is safe now), and it takes me around 1h35 - 1h45 with no major variations. Safe, and predictable.

On a journey of that length, it's easy to avoid the commuter peak times. If you're unfortunate enough to need to join Cork's morning commuter traffic after setting off from Waterford, you have my sympathy, but that really is the very worst case.

The Dungarvan roundabouts aren't a problem - they're a lot better than the lights that used to be used along that road.

The only true bottleneck is at the bridge in Castlemartyr where lots of traffic for East Cork comes in to a tight, light-controlled junction - if they even put a relief road from the Ladysbridge road to join the N25 at a decent sized roundabout on the Cork side of Castlemartyr it would fix a lot of these problems. That's the only place where you can be delayed regardless of the time of day.

Yes, It could be faster, and it would be nice to get through-traffic out of the two remaining town streets, but doing this really should not the main priority of road improvements when there are still places in the country with actually dangerous roads that need addressing now.

roadmaster

BelfastVanMan wrote: »

Agreed. The recent works on the N52 between Delvin amd Mullingar are a good example of this.

Apparently the plan was before the crash was when the motorway network was complete the then NRA would focus on upgrading the national secondary route network

millb

Aontachtoir wrote: »

Dublin is the centre of the economy and the nation. It's where we need to build critical mass to help Ireland continue to punch above its weight economically, and is the only urban centre in Ireland that has a reasonable chance of rivalling other European capitals for business and investment. While we do need to invest in the regions, especially the cities of the west and the south, Dublin will always remain the engine of the economy and the source of most of those taxpayer euros. Compare Dublin's role to Paris driving France or London driving the UK.

I say this as a Corkman!

Will be fun when the Congestion Charges apply to the M50.

veryangryman

roadmaster wrote: »

Apparently the plan was before the crash was when the motorway network was complete the then NRA would focus on upgrading the national secondary route network

Can i be a stickler on this? While It seems like a logical next step, I don't know if they ever said anything like that. Did they document it in the plan?

We do live in Ireland... I've been hurt before :pac:

roadmaster

veryangryman wrote: »

Can i be a stickler on this? While It seems like a logical next step, I don't know if they ever said anything like that. Did they document it in the plan?

We do live in Ireland... I've been hurt before :pac:

Along Long time ago I use to work in a NRDO and we where always told that's what the plan was as we use to ask what we would do when the Network was complete

roadmaster

roadmaster wrote: »

Along Long time ago I use to work in a NRDO and we where always told that's what the plan was as we use to ask what we would do when the Network was complete

What would be considered a complete network of motorways in Ireland?