Minor schemes & realignments

Roscommon County Council have tendered for tree removal along the route of the 3.4km N60 Oran realignment

https://irl.eu-supply.com/app/rfq/publicpurchase.asp?PID=131895

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

I see there is a scheme to replace an old bridge in Mountrivers Co Clare. But why on earth are they knocking the old bridge. Why not let it remain and have it for pedestrians only. Absolute madness.

https://twitter.com/gilleeece/status/1014925627269500929?s=21

Just to note that one of the photos in that tweet is of a different bridge. Doesn’t hide the fact that an old stone bridge is being knocked when it could remain beside a new bridge.

The 2nd bridge seen in the aerial photo is a temporary bridge installed to facilitate the road being operational during bridge rehabilitation.

The original bridge is being knocked and replaced with a new bridge in exactly the same location. There was no feasibility for keeping the old bridge as the new bridge will be taking its place. There isn't funding to replace this bridge with a new one downstream combined with the added costs of road realignment. If the bridge wasn't sufficiently bad enough to require demolition, they wouldn't be doing this.

This bridge is part of a contract to rehabilitate 4 bridges, 2 of which will involve bridge demolition and replacement (Dysart Bridge on the N23 in Kerry and this bridge Mountriver Bridge on the N67 in Clare), and two which will involve bridge widening and strengthening (Beheenagh Bridge on the N72 in Kerry between Rathmore and Barraduff and Ballymona Bridge in Kerry on the N70).

The tweet above seems to be from someone who knows half the story and isn't aware of why this is being done. It's not being done because someone in Clare County Council is on a crusade against bridges. The bridge simply isn't fit to remain in place.

Engineering consultancy services required by Cork County Council for N73 Annakisha realignment. Absolute dogs dinner of a road

https://irl.eu-supply.com/app/rfq/publicpurchase.asp?PID=132302

Donegal Storm wrote: »

Not sure if its been mentioned but there looks to be a realignment/widening ongoing along few km of the N2 south of Emyvale. Drove it for the first time in a while earlier and a lot of mature trees have been chopped with marker pins along the new alignment

Yep, this is the N2 Monaghan-Emyvale Phase 3. The whole lot from Clontibret-Border will eventually be replaced by 2+2 dual carriageway in the next few years.

Donegal Storm wrote: »

Is there any particular reason theres so much resurfacing going on at the moment around the country? Off the top of my head I've seen resurfacing on the N14, N15, N17, N4 and N2 over the past few weeks and for the most part I never noticed issues with any of the sections being resurfaced. Seems like a waste of money that could have been spent on actual improvements to the roads

A lot of them would be either reactive or preventative maintenance. The national road network has a backlog of maintenance requirements that are only being fulfilled now due to funding shortages during the recession. Once a steady state of maintenance is reached, more money will then be funnelled into new capital projects (starting 2019).

The Monaghan bypass is too narrow for 2+2. It's also too short for 2+2 to have much of a use and the roundabout in the middle shows it was always planned as a distributor road rather than a bypass.

wingfo wrote: »

Been driving the n25 a lot lately between cork and Waterford.Cork to midelton is good wide road and most of the route to Waterford, obviously Castlematyr and Killagh youghal bridge and a few km beyond would have to be bypassed/ widened.
My point is would a 2+2 dual carriageway be possible to be build as there's enough space with hard shoulder/grass verges on either side of the road.
No cpo,s needed it would be cost effective and the traffic volume doesn't really need a motorway. Thoughts ???

Some of this has been said by BelfastVanMan but..

This is a major issue with a lot of national primary routes that are up for upgrade. A lot of national routes were widened to various standards of wide single carriageway, and these have functioned well but do have quite a few limitations.

Some of these were built as greenfield routes, mainly since the mid 90s. These can easily be upgraded to 2+2, a good example is the N25 around Kilmacthomas and the Youghal bypass, these are grade seperated single carriageways. The issue though with the rest of the route, is that although it is wide, it has frequent accesses and side junctions. These houses would require CPO and the junctions would require bridging.

I think it may be worthwhile for TII to retrofit some WS2 offline schemes as 2+2 such as the Kilmacthomas/Youghal sections as above, the Ballyshannon/Bundoran bypass, Jamestown/Drumsna bypass amongst others.

wingfo wrote: »

Carrigtohill to Middleton had a lot of side entrances as well but they worked around that

Carrigtwohill-Midleton was built by building a new carraigeway alongside the existing carriageway. It's a much lower standard than the N25 East Cork Parkway between Carrigtwohill and Dunkettle, and had median gaps until these were sealed. The Carrigtwohill-Midleton section is to be upgraded in the National Development Plan due to safety issues with the existing alignment.