R586 - Bandon to Bantry

marno21

https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/mayor-calls-to-upgrade-main-west-cork-route-to-national-status-471560.html

Calls for this route to be a national secondary with the associated potential for improvement. This used to be a T route back in the day, the T64 which was the predecessor for the N71, was routed Cork-Bandon-Dunmanway-Bantry-Killarney, avoiding the coastal route via Clonakilty and Skibbereen.

I would be in favour of designating one of the two Cork-Bantry routes as a national secondary and upgrading ONE of them. At present you have two poor routes between Cork and Bantry, the R585 and R586. If you were to prioritise one, which I would propose as the R586, it would be beneficial to have one decent route.

It's hard to think that 55 years ago Bantry had a railway and two trunk routes and now has so little.

JupiterKid

Yes I would agree. The R586 is a much shorter and direct route to Bantry from Bandon. It carries quite heavy traffic volumes and quite a lot of lorries. A good friend of mine used to live in a house immediately beside this road near Enniskean and the lorries roaring by at night would make the house shake!:eek:

The N71 from Bandon to Skibereen is much longer, hugs the coast more and is much more of a tourist route. I’d upgrade the R586 to 2+2 with bypasses for the villages and towns on the route and widen and straighten out the N71 from Bandon to Bantry via Skiberreen.

Kevwoody

I think a full review of all regional roads should be carried out to assess the need for reclassification, as traffic volumes have increased massively since the country's roads were designated.

On a side note, can anyone tell me when we got the current N roads? I never heard of the T roads until I seen Marno's post.

marno21

Discussion on 103FM today on this issue, 20 minutes in: https://soundcloud.com/cork103/cork-today-11-june-2018

Councillors from West Cork are to meet Shane Ross next Thursday regarding this issue, hoping to have the R586 redesignated as a national secondary route.

marno21

Cork County Council have advertised for consultants to guide a N71 -> R586 Bandon Relief Road through Phases 1-4 of TII's Project Management Guidelines

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicTenders/ViewNotice/211363

L1011

Could they possibly consider finishing the first relief road first, so it doesn't end at a T junction?

marno21

L1011 wrote: »

Could they possibly consider finishing the first relief road first, so it doesn't end at a T junction?

That's also on the cards, but a TII project. This will be useful for the trucks coming from the R586 onto Cork, Carbery trucks etc.

In reality, there is definitely a case for a full 2+2 bypass rather than the 2 relief roads, one of which will only route half way around the town and the southern one will start in the town on the eastern side.

marno21

marno21 wrote: »

Cork County Council have advertised for consultants to guide a N71 -> R586 Bandon Relief Road through Phases 1-4 of TII's Project Management Guidelines

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicTenders/ViewNotice/211363

Awarded to RPS

https://irl.eu-supply.com/ctm/Supplier/PublicTenders/ViewNotice/222433