Motorway from Dublin to Sligo Needed Badly

Andy From Sligo · 19-02-2018 6:58pm

Carrick-on-Shannon definately has to be bypassed for sure - it gets really snarled up there

ah no, feck it - stop pee'ing about and run a good DCHQ motorway from Sligo to Kinnegad and pick up the existing M4 - 120km/h no roundabouts / traffic lights / tractors / slow vehicles / bicycles all the way!

Mint Sauce · 19-02-2018 7:14pm

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

Carrick-on-Shannon definately has to be bypassed for sure - it gets really snarled up there

ah no, feck it - stop pee'ing about and run a good DCHQ motorway from Sligo to Kinnegad and pick up the existing M4 - 120km/h no roundabouts / traffic lights / tractors / slow vehicles / bicycles all the way!

Andy, seriously, its not needed! I have driven the whole distance in the middle of the night sometimes, and have been lucky to meet more than a few cars once past Longford!

DC to Castlebadwin, yes. By-pass Carrick, yes. Get rid of all them feckin roundabouts around Longford, yes. Motorway from there, yes!

At one point I would have said HQDC/Motorway the whole way, but once you have driven it a few times, you realise its really not needed, plus driving at 120 for the whole distance, could get quite boring, and send you to sleep, if anyway fatigued.

marno21 · 19-02-2018 7:18pm

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Andy, seriously, its not needed! I have driven the whole distance in the middle of the night sometimes, and have been lucky to meet more than a few cars once past Longford!

DC to Castlebadwin, yes. By-pass Carrick, yes. Get rid of all them feckin roundabouts around Longford, yes. Motorway from there, yes!

At one point I would have said HQDC/Motorway the whole way, but once you have driven it a few times, you realise its really not needed, plus driving at 120 for the whole distance, could get quite boring, and send you to sleep, if anyway fatigued.

This is exactly it.

A motorway won't get built anyway as the traffic volumes won't justify it under TII's project guidelines. We'll likely see motorway standard to Mullingar and 2+2 from there to north of Carrick in the medium term. The Collooney-Castlebaldwin scheme is also a definite 2018/early 2019 start.

By 2027, the likely only gap in the Dublin-Sligo route will be from south of Castlebaldwin to north of Carrick, where there is high quality single carriageway, which also happens to be the quietest part of the route.

The M4 will likely be widened to 3 lanes in either direction as far as Maynooth which will also help, outbound especially, at peak times.

Spanish Eyes · 19-02-2018 7:24pm

The bends going in and out of Newtownforbes are unreal. Yikes!

Mint Sauce · 19-02-2018 7:48pm

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

The bends going in and out of Newtownforbes are unreal. Yikes!

Keep forgetting about that part. Those 90° turns!

:eek:

Mint Sauce · 19-02-2018 7:53pm

marno21 wrote: »

This is exactly it.

A motorway won't get built anyway as the traffic volumes won't justify it under TII's project guidelines. We'll likely see motorway standard to Mullingar and 2+2 from there to north of Carrick in the medium term. The Collooney-Castlebaldwin scheme is also a definite 2018/early 2019 start.

By 2027, the likely only gap in the Dublin-Sligo route will be from south of Castlebaldwin to north of Carrick, where there is high quality single carriageway, which also happens to be the quietest part of the route.

The M4 will likely be widened to 3 lanes in either direction as far as Maynooth which will also help, outbound especially, at peak times.

Widening there, definitely. Either direction from there/Enfeild I have found busy at very random times. It's also a shame the motorway ends before this side of the M50. From there, with the drop in speed, continuous junctions, and slips, even as far as the south circular, is quite stressful driving, and not a journey I would like to make every day.

Andy From Sligo · 19-02-2018 9:26pm

surely there are a few more unanswered questions and observations here :

A long flat Road straight(ish) road with cars that can go constant speed (in 5th gear or whatever) without keep stopping or starting is better for the environment.

A long flat Road straight(ish) road with cars that can go constant speed (in 5th gear or whatever) saves fuel , a plus for long distance drivers.

When you look at all the motorways that have been built across Ireland - why has the northwest been forgotten like this for so long and its blank up in this area ie no motorway? - and dont you think its long overdue we need a decent road for the amount of people who commute to and from Dublin to the northwest?

why do people have to use figures at the moment of how many people use the N4 why can they not look to the future and think what a proper motorway 'could' achieve and the amount of traffic could be achieved if there was a proper motorway - if you start up a shop business or want to build some flats or whatever you always project how many people will use it ...not base on how many people use the services there presently -

so, vision thats what is needed - or this area is going to keep missing out if after all these years you can see that no big infrastructure (such as a motorway) has been built then you will look at the motorways of ireland in years to come and there will still be no Motorway on the map for the northwest - just loads of N4 national road 'Patched up' here and there - , yes maybe most towns bypassed, yes maybe some stretches of DCHQ here and there ... what the hell are the future generation going to feel/think about this - they are going to be saying in years to come "how comes there are no proper motorway to the Northwest still after all this time but other areas of Ireland have them?"

If one (from scratch ) was at least now started running from Sligo to join up to the M4 in kinnegad (or thereabouts) it would take years but at least it would be started and maybe could be completed in sections

- I hate this N4 road with a vengeance - yes its better than it was , and i dare say with the improvements they have planned it will get better ... but why do we have to just put up with 'better' ? - why can we not have 'the best' with a proper motorway with a proper motorway status and all the features a proper motorway has?

if it doesnt do my head in too much and give me a headache I am going to try and look into this issue about there is not enough people using it to justify a proper motorway and i am going to try and do some research where there is a motorway built and try and see how many people used the national road before a motorway was built there and then I am going to try and compare with how many people use the motorway that has been built in its place ... wish me luck...

marno21 · 19-02-2018 9:46pm

Simply because there isn't the traffic volume demand for a motorway, especially given that the population in Sligo, if every single person from Sligo drove to Dublin and back every day a hypothetical M4 wouldn't reach capacity.

For the price of a full M4 from Sligo to Mullingar, you could get the N4 upgrades required, the N17 upgrades in Sligo and parts of the N15 scheme.

TII recognise the need for 4 upgrades along the N4:

Collooney-Castlebaldwin (2+2 upgrade, starting 2018)
Carrick-on-Shannon to Dromod (2+2 upgrade, for appraisal)
Mullingar-Longford (Rooskey) (HQDC/2+2, for appraisal)
Maynooth-Leixlip (widening to D3M)

This will upgrade approximately 80km of unupgraded N4, which will make a vast difference to the road as is.

BenBulben18 · 19-02-2018 9:48pm

Andy I travel the road to Dublin on the regular at non-commute and commute times and people are right, there just isn't the traffic between Castlebaldwin and Carrick. Plus there's reasonable overtaking opportunities, dual lane at one stage etc. Yes, of a Sat or Sun pm, Carrick is to be avoided but that's just a case of planning your trip.

Even with a motorway, that doesn't seem to be what's stopping inward flow of businesses etc here, so the cost of it couldn't be justified.

Andy From Sligo · 19-02-2018 10:18pm

Why are people just saying 'the people that live here' about people using it when they say it wouldnt be justified?

My logical way of thinking is that visitors/tourists would use it - plus any additional business that would set up in the northwest because there would be a proper full motorway link from the northwest to the capital additional businesses like warehouses,logistics firms, more people moving into the area because it has a motorway to Dublin - more people commuting between jobs on the Sligo route to the capital, people maybe switching from using the train to going to dublin by car on a motorway because its more flexible.

I just dont get why the some people cannot get the "Build it and they will come (or use it)" theory and why they are just looking at how much the route is used at present and think it would not get any busier if it was a decent road (proper motorway) - i cannot be the only one thinking "I hate that road/route to dublin" - I am sure there are others .. even if they have improved it over the last few years

We all have to have much more vision in this country - if people carry on saying "its grand as it is" and there is no need for it to be upgraded to a full motorway , dont just think of yourself here - is it going to be great for the future generation , is it going to be sufficient to put the Northwest and keep it on the map if there is no proper motorway - could you imagine in some other countries in (progressive) Europe these days where you have to travel 120km (or whatever it is) without travelling on a proper motorway?

Andy From Sligo · 19-02-2018 10:23pm

also, I just thought of another thing - these improvements they are going to be doing on the existing N4 .. how long will that take - and how much disruption? - its going to be even more of a nightmare getting from sligo to dublin, more taffic lights/roadworks/single lanes and hold ups whilst they do whats necessary on this road .

Sure if they started to build a proper full motorway to hook up to the existing M4 then people could just continue to use the the N4 as usual with minimum disruption whilst the other 'proper' motorway is being built over the years

Mint Sauce · 19-02-2018 10:27pm

Plenty of towns bigger than Sligo across Europe, even over the water, don't have motorways connected to them Andy.

Again, there is simply not the traffic demand.

BenBulben18 · 19-02-2018 10:38pm

The 'build it and they will come' thing doesn't apply to Sligo. There's no reason why it shouldn't be as busy as any town its size, and you have to conclude there's resistance to change among the powers that be here. Nothing a motorway's gonna do about that!

Andy From Sligo · 19-02-2018 10:41pm

I am (my points) are always going to hit a brick wall with a lot of people - because I am saying (believing wholeheartedly) that the route will automatically get busier if there was a proper motorway in place and over a short amount of time I believe (lets call it the M4 motorway from Sligo to dublin hypothetically) - but as I say its going to hit a brick wall with people who can only see how busy it is at present and can not see the potential

Imagine telling people to set up business in Sligo because there is a motorway link to Dublin ... imagine selling this area and what it has to offer to tourists at Dublin airport and citing that there is a proper motorway all the way to the northwest and there are most probably other benefits a proper motorway can offer to a part of a country instead of just a national road - some things being a hell of a lot shorter journey times and less hold-up , straighter road and being able to drive at speeds of 120kmh most of the way (if you want to) without getting arrested for speeding.

Mint Sauce · 19-02-2018 11:23pm

Plenty of tourists come to the NW without any motorway, nearly even further from one if they are going to Donegal. I would be quite happy with a mix of decent Dual Carriage Way, and improved roads radiating from the NW Towns along the major routes. Plus with some of the current standard of driving from some of its drivers, am not sure would want to share a Motorway with them anyway.

red sean · 19-02-2018 11:36pm

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

also, I just thought of another thing - these improvements they are going to be doing on the existing N4 .. how long will that take - and how much disruption? - its going to be even more of a nightmare getting from sligo to dublin, more taffic lights/roadworks/single lanes and hold ups whilst they do whats necessary on this road .

Sure if they started to build a proper full motorway to hook up to the existing M4 then people could just continue to use the the N4 as usual with minimum disruption whilst the other 'proper' motorway is being built over the years

Do you honestly believe a road can be manufactured in a giant shed somewhere and flown into position in the quiet hours of the night, ready for peak time traffic? :rolleyes:

Andy From Sligo · 19-02-2018 11:47pm

red sean wrote: »

Do you honestly believe a road can be manufactured in a giant shed somewhere and flown into position in the quiet hours of the night, ready for peak time traffic? :rolleyes:

no, which is the reason why i say if they started constructing a brand new motorway independent of the N4 then they can build it without disrupting existing traffic thats on the N4

marno21 · 19-02-2018 11:49pm

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

no, which is the reason why i say if they started constructing a brand new motorway independent of the N4 then they can build it without disrupting existing traffic thats on the N4

Most of the planned N4 upgrades I listed above will be new build. There is 3km of dual retrofit on the Collooney stretch, about 8km on the Carrick stretch and an undetermined amount on the Longford to Mullingar stretch. These stretches of N4 are so wide that it'll likely be possible to maintain 2 lanes of traffic while upgrades are taking place.

Building a new road to avoid distribution would cost hundreds of millions extra and have little benefit

Andy From Sligo · 19-02-2018 11:55pm

Mint Sauce wrote: »

Plenty of tourists come to the NW without any motorway, nearly even further from one if they are going to Donegal. I would be quite happy with a mix of decent Dual Carriage Way, and improved roads radiating from the NW Towns along the major routes. Plus with some of the current standard of driving from some of its drivers, am not sure would want to share a Motorway with them anyway.

and I believe many many more would come if there was a proper motorway - and if calculated time of travel, posters could have on them Sligo only 2 hours away (or whatever long it would take - I dont really know how much travel time it would cut down to be honest) M4 - gateway to the Northwest and then list underneath all the things to do in the northwest.

With me personally if i were a tourist if I had just arrived (flew into Dublin or got ferry into dublin) and saw that it was a 3 hour journey to Sligo on a normal national road (and a bad one at that in places) it wouldnt appeal to me to travel to Sligo ... but if it were a proper motorway all the way or most of the way it would more than likely change my mind and i would go for it.

SligoBrewer · 20-02-2018 1:32am

The motorway to Waterford has done them no good. Literally none. Gorey has a motorway and it's bigger than Sligo population wise. Any good? No. It's not the be all and end all. Endless miles of roads that nobody will hardly drive on won't solve the problems that decades of bad commercial planning have caused in Sligo town. Sligo should play to it's strengths, look what it has that you can't get in Dublin or Galway or Limerick, not build more bloody roads causing more urban sprawl for cars that will have to be off the roads in how many years' time.

Plus, motorway driving is boring af.

Andy From Sligo · 20-02-2018 1:46am

SligoBrewer wrote: »

The motorway to Waterford has done them no good. It's not the be all and end all. Plus, motorway driving is boring af.

but such a great way of getting from A-B (well when they work ok and not chock a block with jams or roadworks) - I used to love travelling the motorways in the UK - and they used to be served very well with motorway service stations - get out, stretch your legs, have a pee - have something to eat and a cup of tea.

I used to regularly drive the M1 from Luton to London (built by the Irish in the 60's lol) i know that particular one was only 33 miles so not long - but a couple of times if the motorway was closed (due to bad accident or whatever) you had to fall back on the A-roads (national routes) and it was a pain and so long with a lot of stop starts and roundabouts, so glad to get back to the M1 - used to travel the M25 too (that got heavily congested a lot of the time) and then up north on the M1 - and when got ferry to and from Ireland the motorways in the UK were a godsend , would have hated to do all that travelling on A-Roads

I never owned a car with Cruise control on it , but i would say if you had a long trip on motorway it be great to just turn on cruise control and just head off.

red sean · 20-02-2018 11:25am

Most foreign tourists coming to the NW want to get away from motorways and see the real Ireland. Their lives generally centre on motorways and airports, so coming here is a welcome chance to slow down for a brief time.
It's like people whinging about no scheduled flights to/from Dublin anymore. When the service was there, it wasn't supported, so wasn't viable.

BenBulben18 · 20-02-2018 11:47am

At the moment it takes me 2 hours 15 to get to Dublin (let's say the end point is the 2nd exit of the M50 from the N4, either north or south). The last time I travelled Dublin to Galway/Galway to Dublin, it took 2 hours 5 - literally a difference of ten minutes between the two, and that's with the usual traffic on the Sligo route.

So assuming they complete the road improvements at collooney/castlebaldwin and from Longford to the Mullingar bypass, you could guesstimate that those changes may well shave up to 20 minutes off the journey, bringing it to under two hours. That's already huge. What other town on the Western seaboard will be that short a distance from Dublin?

I think you're romanticising the idea of a motorway itself, and I get that because I like motorway driving too, but having underused motorways in a country the size/population of Ireland can't be justified. The money is needed for too many other things!

CountingCrows · 20-02-2018 12:56pm

BenBulben18 wrote: »

At the moment it takes me 2 hours 15 to get to Dublin

Summerhill roundabout to M50 in 2hrs 15mins? Don't think I've ever done it in less than 2hrs 30mins and often it's closer to 3hrs. There are so many stretches where it's simply impossible to pass safely.

shanec1928 · 20-02-2018 1:10pm

CountingCrows wrote: »

Summerhill roundabout to M50 in 2hrs 15mins? Don't think I've ever done it in less than 2hrs 30mins and often it's closer to 3hrs. There are so many stretches where it's simply impossible to pass safely.

the 2.15 would be about right.

Andy From Sligo · 20-02-2018 2:23pm

wow! - 2.15 :eek: - what speeds are we talking? is that sticking to the speed limits?

doing 100km/h all the way (and you cant) without getting held up would take around 2hours 10 minutes - ( I divided 207km by 100kmh there )

blackwhite · 20-02-2018 3:07pm

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

wow! - 2.15 :eek: - what speeds are we talking? is that sticking to the speed limits?

doing 100km/h all the way (and you cant) without getting held up would take around 2hours 10 minutes - ( I divided 207km by 100kmh there )

Distance is 197km, not 207k.

Average speed to do it in 2.15 would be approx 87.5km/h.

Google maps estimates a journey time of 2.17 right now, and google estimates tend to be a bit on the slow side for long journeys

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/Circular+Rd,+Knocknaganny,+Co.+Sligo,+Ireland/53.3560648,-6.3914812/@53.3554669,-6.3906575,18.04z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x485ee9cd6812a849:0xea6172e0dcaf1df4!2m2!1d-8.4808092!2d54.2660168!1m0!3e0?hl=en

marvin80 · 20-02-2018 3:13pm

shanec1928 wrote: »

the 2.15 would be about right.

2.18 according to Google Maps:

http://bit.ly/2BHkCYy

Like a poster said above, with the improvements they'll definitely get it under 2 hours.
Even turning the Longford to Mullingar section into motorway you'd reduce that journey by 15 minutes at least.

BenBulben18 · 20-02-2018 3:24pm

Well there or thereabouts, lets say Lucan/Liffey Valley exit if there's traffic, and of course that time is direct without stopping. Granted I'm talking about times where there'd be no major stoppage from roadworks, commute traffic etc etc. Easy enough to overtake safely on certain stretches. Obviously if there's any of the above, or queues into Carrick or very very unfavourable weather conditions, it'll take longer. I'm talking best case here, but I have made it in those times without speeding, but moving at a consistent clip let's say. There's no way it's a three-hour journey.

CountingCrows · 20-02-2018 3:48pm

BenBulben18 wrote: »

There's no way it's a three-hour journey.

In your experience maybe but I can tell you for a fact it's a common occurrence any Friday or Sunday.

Motorway from Dublin to Sligo Needed Badly

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