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A5 - Derry Dual Carraigeway

johnbk

I know there are a number of posts that relate to this roads project but I thought I would start one relating specifically to progress. I attended the public display at Omagh yesterday and I was shocked at how many people were there. The car park was packed and there was a queue out the door. Anyway, I got a chance to talk to the Mouchel road designers. They have a different team for each of the three sections.

Junction designs have not been finalised but this is the indications they gave to me.
It starts with a short (1km) single carriageway bypass of New Buildings which finishes on a roundabout on the Strabane side of this village. From here it will be 2+2 carriage way with no LILOs or central reservation crossing to Stanbane at a roundabout and onto its end at another roundabout on the Armagh road out of Aughnacloy. Another short single carriageway road will link this roundabout to the existing N2 and bridge at the border. The existing A5 will be left as it is on its entirety.

The junctions are not complete yet but are more than likely going to be grade separated. They would not indicate if these grades would be compact or otherwise. The reason they went round the east side of Aughnacloy was mostly down to a significant Archaeological feature to the west (called the Thistle). The reason they have kept so close to Omagh is to encourage use of the new road.

The most interesting section of this road (From an engineering point of view) is as I expected around Strabane. The road will come in along side the existing phase 1 bypass and straight trough the Traveller halting site, rise over the existing Lifford link and pass over a new bridge over the river. It will travel a short distance along the bank to a new roundabout where the new Lifford link will join in. The new Lifford link will have a roundabout on the other side of the river where the new N15/N15 will join.

Also in Strabane they will have some sort of junction at the existing Lifford link road, so when finished they will have two junctions within 500m of each other. I’m not convinced they are doing a very good job of designing what will be a major junction in the years to come at Strabane. Once the maps are on the A5WTC website I will discuss this further.

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roadmaster

Is it not going to be 2+2 from Jnc 14 N33 to the border?

BelfastVanMan

roadmaster wrote: »

Is it not going to be 2+2 from Jnc 14 N33 to the border?

Not yet; it will start just north of Ardee, where the N52 bypass will peel away from N2 and presumably, the future N2 Ardee Bypass will start, as well.

lucernarian

BelfastVanMan wrote: »

Not yet; it will start just north of Ardee, where the N52 bypass will peel away from N2 and presumably, the future N2 Ardee Bypass will start, as well.

Looking at 2017 values, the N33 is like 20% higher volumes than the N2 north of Ardee. If a road is to be 2+2ed, the road with no online housing or businesses, and with the higher traffic volumes ought to be selected?

The N2 north of Ardee is hitting about 10k AADT, didn't think that was a good justification for replacing a <30 year old road. Plus having to provide separate (and likely inconvenient to local use) pedestrian and cycling access.

Currently is the Aughnacloy section of the A5 dualling to take place in the 2nd or 3rd phase?

BelfastVanMan

lucernarian wrote: »

BelfastVanMan wrote: »

Not yet; it will start just north of Ardee, where the N52 bypass will peel away from N2 and presumably, the future N2 Ardee Bypass will start, as well.

Looking at 2017 values, the N33 is like 20% higher volumes than the N2 north of Ardee. If a road is to be 2+2ed, the road with no online housing or businesses, and with the higher traffic volumes ought to be selected?

The N2 north of Ardee is hitting about 10k AADT, didn't think that was a good justification for replacing a 0 year old road. Plus having to provide separate (and likely inconvenient to local use) pedestrian and cycling access.

Currently is the Aughnacloy section of the A5 dualling to take place in the 2nd or 3rd phase?

Phase 3; It will be the last bit, yes.

I agree with you...The N33 should be dualled at the same time...and ideally the N2 Ardee bypass as well.

lucernarian

BelfastVanMan wrote: »

Phase 3; It will be the last bit, yes.

I agree with you...The N33 should be dualled at the same time...and ideally the N2 Ardee bypass as well.

I'd sooner say only a N33 dualling is needed and would be by far the cheapest to do. The N2 proposals itself strikes me as an unnecessary upgrade or crayonism to have the A5 dual meet *something* dualled across the border.

roadmaster

In relative terms 2+2 is cheap enough. But the main benefit is the safety aspect as it will stop head on collisions

lucernarian

Why not do the busiest section of the route to Derry, and the one with no access issues to speak of? The N33?

There are loads of routes across Ireland (N20, N25 and a whole bunch of national secondaries) which consist substantially of S2 roads, few of which would have been aligned and constructed entirely in the past 25 or so years. There have been a couple of bad head-on accidents on the Carrickmacross bypass, but sometimes things just happen that way. Next year maybe the N25 in Waterford will have a string of head-on collisions, or the N24, or the N5 Ballaghadereen Bypass...

And 2+2 requires new land take to allow for safe pedestrian and cycling access...

marno21

Castleblayney-Ardee is carrying 10k+ vehicles per day with around 11% HGV, and is reaching capacity for a single carriageway. It's also been flagged as in the top 4 stretches of national road for head on collisions (along with N4 Mullingar-Longford. N20 Cork-Limerick & N22 Ballyvourney-Ballincollig). Because of this, and Government policy to improve access to the NW, this section is to be upgraded but the majority of the upgraded road will be reused in the new scheme.

marno21

Good news and explanation from Wesley Johnston here regarding the recent outings in the Courts: http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/roads/a5omaghstrabane.html

His latest estimate for the start of Newbuildings-Strabane is Autumn 2019.

marno21

https://twitter.com/niroads/status/1069912082924126209

Fantastic stuff.

[Deleted User]

Great news.

[Deleted User]

I know this road is of high standard, what would the speed limit be?

MJohnston

circadian wrote: »

I know this road is of high standard, what would the speed limit be?

It's the north, so NSL = 70.

BelfastVanMan

MJohnston wrote: »

circadian wrote: »

I know this road is of high standard, what would the speed limit be?

It's the north, so NSL = 70.

Yip, 70 for UK Motorways and DCs, 60 for SC. (Unless otherwise stated.)

[Deleted User]

Fantastic stuff, I know that road is 60 most of the way but there are large sections where it's pretty dangerous to be hitting 60. Can't wait for a safer, wider road with no high kerbs to your left!

BelfastVanMan

circadian wrote: »

Fantastic stuff, I know that road is 60 most of the way but there are large sections where it's pretty dangerous to be hitting 60. Can't wait for a safer, wider road with no high kerbs to your left!

Very much agreed. :-)

hi5

Looks like the A5 could be a victim of the children's hospital budget overrun...

https://www.northernsound.ie/a5n2-funding-cut-efforts-match-overruns-national-childrens-hospital/

L1011

The legal challenges mean there's nothing to fund anyway yet. Case of finding a budget line to transfer, nothing else.

If there's a hard border we'll have zero reason to give it a cent and should spend the money on the N15 bypasses and the various Sligo schemes to reduce traffic on the throughpass

MJohnston

Given the absolute state of Northern Irish politics at the minute, that's probably an easy choice to make. A much needed upgrade, but kind of pointless to rush it ahead of the Brexit fallout at this stage.

We should just resurrect the Sligo to Letterkenny portion of the Atlantic Corridor as a motorway, at this stage, and upgrade the Dublin to Sligo connection.

marno21

MJohnston wrote: »

Given the absolute state of Northern Irish politics at the minute, that's probably an easy choice to make. A much needed upgrade, but kind of pointless to rush it ahead of the Brexit fallout at this stage.

We should just resurrect the Sligo to Letterkenny portion of the Atlantic Corridor as a motorway, at this stage, and upgrade the Dublin to Sligo connection.

We are doing it the other way around.

15km of N4 to start construction this year (Collooney-Castlebaldwin), 75km now in planning (Mullingar-Rooskey & Carrick-Dromod). Ballybofey/Stranorlar BP also in planning.

cgcsb

Well if the axe is going to fall on any particular project it should be this one, which provides close to 0 social or economic benefit to the state. The way things are going, the UK could end up charging us customs duty to use our road that we bought and paid for. Axe it immediately as far as I'm concerned. The government also needs to start proceedings to recover the money we invested into the A8 Belfast-Larne scheme which was funded under the understanding that Irish business could use said road to export to Scotland/North England through Larne tariff/toll free.

The exchequer had only €100m to spare last year, our first budget surplus in a long time, lets not go back to endebting ourselves. Axing this project will not recoup the money though, something else has to go.

Kevwoody

cgcsb wrote:

Well if the axe is going to fall on any particular project it should be this one, which provides close to 0 social or economic benefit to the state. The way things are going, the UK could end up charging us customs duty to use our road that we bought and paid for. Axe it immediately as far as I'm concerned. The government also needs to start proceedings to recover the money we invested into the A8 Belfast-Larne scheme which was funded under the understanding that Irish business could use said road to export to Scotland/North England through Larne tariff/toll free.

So Donegal and the Northwest, the most neglected part of Ireland, doesn't need a proper road to Dublin?

MJohnston

marno21 wrote: »

We are doing it the other way around.

15km of N4 to start construction this year (Collooney-Castlebaldwin), 75km now in planning (Mullingar-Rooskey & Carrick-Dromod). Ballybofey/Stranorlar BP also in planning.

Yeah, was just poking around the threads for those projects!

Nidgeweasel

cgcsb wrote: »

Well if the axe is going to fall on any particular project it should be this one, which provides close to 0 social or economic benefit to the state.

Unless your from Donegal, obviously.

cgcsb

Kevwoody wrote: »

So Donegal and the Northwest, the most neglected part of Ireland, doesn't need a proper road to Dublin?

Donegal is basically an island, separated from the rest of the country by the Assaroe lake, with the bridge in Ballyshannon and the new Ballyshannon bypass being the only crossing points. So obviously access is going to be difficult.

In 2 months time you wont be able to use the A5 without border clearance if the English get their way.

An improved N15,N13 and N4 will relieve the situation for Donegal. The state also provides subsidised flights to Donegal (and Kerry bizzarly despite Kerry being a much wealthier part of the country than Donegal with fast rail connection to the capital.

NIMAN

Nidgeweasel wrote: »

Unless your from Donegal, obviously.

Sure its forgotten about.

Would be typical that this is delayed ..... again.

The people of Derry and Donegal are well used to lack of infrastructure. Those in Belfast and Dublin would rather we didn't exist.

MJohnston

Kevwoody wrote: »

So Donegal and the Northwest, the most neglected part of Ireland, doesn't need a proper road to Dublin?

In fairness, that's not what he said. As others have said, there are other options for connecting Donegal better to the rest of the country.

Arguably it's better for Donegal to have improved connections to Sligo (and therefore Galway) first, and create a healthy Atlantic corridor symbiosis between the towns in the west. Then improve the Dublin connections.

The A5 upgrade spend made a lot more sense in a world where a no-deal Brexit didn't seem like an almost certainty.

MJohnston

NIMAN wrote: »

Sure its forgotten about.

Would be typical that this is delayed ..... again.

The people of Derry and Donegal are well used to lack of infrastructure. Those in Belfast and Dublin would rather we didn't exist.

The people of Derry will be grand with the A6 upgrade. Arguably that project by itself made the A5 upgrade closer to pointless (in terms of value to the Irish state), because Dublin to Derry via M1/M2/A6 would be not much slower than M3/N3/A5.

(The A5 upgrade should go ahead for safety reasons, but there's much less reason for the Republic to be funding it now.)

Kevwoody

cgcsb wrote:

Donegal is basically an island, separated from the rest of the country by the Assaroe lake, with the bridge in Ballyshannon and the new Ballyshannon bypass being the only crossing points. So obviously access is going to be difficult.

I'm actually speechless......

cgcsb

NIMAN wrote: »

Sure its forgotten about.

Would be typical that this is delayed ..... again.

The people of Derry and Donegal are well used to lack of infrastructure. Those in Belfast and Dublin would rather we didn't exist.

Bit extreme, no? like infrastructure in spending in Dublin is abysmally low for an industrialised country.