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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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spacetweek

Rodin wrote: »

Just don't ask how Irish motorways were funded.....
You might not like the answer

Not sure what you mean? Nearly all of them were funded by the Irish taxpayer. Not by the EU.

BelfastVanMan

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Would it be better/cheaper from an NI POV to link the N2 to the A6 along the A29 corridor which would be shorter than the A5 route? I don’t know if the terrain would allow for it. From a network POV, it would be good having a central spine road west of Lough Neagh linking to the M1 and M2/M22 going east and the A6 going west. Its not so good from an ROI POV as it is a less direct route to Donegal but the Newbuildings to Strabane section of A5 would tie it into the National Road network in Donegal. The A5 is going nowhere fast and the Irish government might be happy for it, and their funding commitment to it, to be dropped.

Good idea in theory, this; the A29 desperately needs bypasses of so many towns on it's route, and this could kill two birds with one stone.

serfboard

BelfastVanMan wrote: »

Good idea in theory, this; the A29 desperately needs bypasses of so many towns on it's route, and this could kill two birds with one stone.

My own preference would be to build the new A5 as proposed, and then to build an Aughnacloy->Newry road bypassing Armagh (city), paralleling the A28.

That way all traffic going north (Belfast, Derry and Letterkenny) goes directly north to Newry and forks off at the Newry bypass for the Northwest. (I know that this would increase the load on the M1, but I think that a lot of traffic currently going Northwest goes up the M1 anyway, and forks off @ Junction 14 for Ardee).

And to show that I'm not just talking theoretically, I've done this drive in reverse going Derry->Cork via Aughnacloy/Armagh/Newry. It was a long journey but once you get to Newry it's motorway all the way to Cork.

BelfastVanMan

serfboard wrote: »

My own preference would be to build the new A5 as proposed, and then to build an Aughnacloy->Newry road bypassing Armagh (city), paralleling the A28.

That way all traffic going north (Belfast, Derry and Letterkenny) goes directly north to Newry and forks off at the Newry bypass for the Northwest. (I know that this would increase the load on the M1, but I think that a lot of traffic currently going Northwest goes up the M1 anyway, and forks off @ Junction 14 for Ardee).

And to show that I'm not just talking theoretically, I've done this drive in reverse going Derry->Cork via Aughnacloy/Armagh/Newry. It was a long journey but once you get to Newry it's motorway all the way to Cork.

That's a great idea, and would link Armagh city up nicely with the rest of the road network, both north and south, with decent quality roads at long last.

Chris_5339762

Armagh is a really nice place, but its a horrid bottleneck and the main junction (that serves basically every road) is a rotten thing!

[Deleted User]

Is the A5 really that bad? At least they have provided overtaking lanes on stretches of it unlike the single carriage-way roads in the Irish side.

Obviously, I want the A5 upgraded but I'd never drive out of the way to avoid it.

MJohnston

salonfire wrote: »

Is the A5 really that bad? At least they have provided overtaking lanes on stretches of it unlike the single carriage-way roads in the Irish side.

Obviously, I want the A5 upgraded but I'd never drive out of the way to avoid it.

There aren't that many overtaking lanes at all, and this is especially problematic between Omagh and Strabane where the road is just really dangerous for overtaking. It's not a busy road at all, but just one tractor or slow driver can add a good 20 minutes to your journey, which is immensely frustrating.

ncounties

salonfire wrote: »

Is the A5 really that bad? At least they have provided overtaking lanes on stretches of it unlike the single carriage-way roads in the Irish side.

Obviously, I want the A5 upgraded but I'd never drive out of the way to avoid it.

If you were driving it regularly you would.

celticbest

salonfire wrote: »

Is the A5 really that bad? At least they have provided overtaking lanes on stretches of it unlike the single carriage-way roads in the Irish side.

Obviously, I want the A5 upgraded but I'd never drive out of the way to avoid it.

It's the worst major road in Ireland, very few overtaking points once you enter the 6 as the road narrows due to there being no hard shoulder. At least in the 26 you have a hard shoulder & in Dublin & part of Meath it's Motorway standard then in Monaghan part of the road is 2+1.

This road badly needs to be upgraded as it links the 5th biggest City on the island to Dublin and considering all other major cities are already linked including the likes of Glaway, Waterford & Kilkenny which all have smaller populations it leaves Derry as the poor neighbour, currently a 233km journey takes over 3 hours, if the road was upgraded it would take less then 2 hours. Add to this the inproved safety it's a no brainer.

MJohnston

celticbest wrote: »

It's the worst major road in Ireland, very few overtaking points once you enter the 6 as the road narrows due to there being no hard shoulder. At least in the 26 you have a hard shoulder & in Dublin & part of Meath it's Motorway standard then in Monaghan part of the road is 2+1.

This road badly needs to be upgraded as it links the 5th biggest City on the island to Dublin and considering all other major cities are already linked including the likes of Glaway, Waterford & Kilkenny which all have smaller populations it leaves Derry as the poor neighbour, currently a 233km journey takes over 3 hours, if the road was upgraded it would take less then 2 hours. Add to this the inproved safety it's a no brainer.

As I keep saying though, the A6 upgrade will change that situation greatly.

The A5 is of great benefit for Donegal county, but Derry itself will probably be close to 2 hours 15 minutes from Dublin at legal speeds once the A6 is done.

BelfastVanMan

MJohnston wrote: »

As I keep saying though, the A6 upgrade will change that situation greatly.

The A5 is of great benefit for Donegal county, but Derry itself will probably be close to 2 hours 15 minutes from Dublin at legal speeds once the A6 is done.

Not with York Street Interchange in it's current guise... be more like 3 hours.

cgcsb

MJohnston wrote: »

As I keep saying though, the A6 upgrade will change that situation greatly.

The A5 is of great benefit for Donegal county, but Derry itself will probably be close to 2 hours 15 minutes from Dublin at legal speeds once the A6 is done.

??? Dublin to Belfast now is just about 2 hours drive.

MJohnston

cgcsb wrote: »

??? Dublin to Belfast now is just about 2 hours drive.

It obviously depends where in Dublin you're measuring from, but I was making the mistake of applying a legal speed of 120km/h to the whole journey, which is obviously not really true in the North.

Port Tunnel to York Street is about a 1.5 hour journey though, if you're sticking to the limits. The upgraded A6 should mean Derry only adds another hour to that.

[Deleted User]

celticbest wrote: »

It's the worst major road in Ireland, very few overtaking points once you enter the 6 as the road narrows due to there being no hard shoulder. At least in the 26 you have a hard shoulder & in Dublin & part of Meath it's Motorway standard then in Monaghan part of the road is 2+1.

This road badly needs to be upgraded as it links the 5th biggest City on the island to Dublin and considering all other major cities are already linked including the likes of Glaway, Waterford & Kilkenny which all have smaller populations it leaves Derry as the poor neighbour, currently a 233km journey takes over 3 hours, if the road was upgraded it would take less then 2 hours. Add to this the inproved safety it's a no brainer.

Agreed with all these points but 5th largest? When did that happen??

BelfastVanMan

circadian wrote: »

Agreed with all these points but 5th largest? When did that happen??

According to Wikipedia, and you can draw your own conclusions from THAT... ;-) ...

Derry is the 4th largest city in Ireland.

jimmycrackcorm

MJohnston wrote: »

Yeah, as I've said a few times on this thread, once the A6 upgrades are finished (and they're flying along), going via Belfast will be a significantly better option. I'd be curious to see how much that'll effect the business case for the A5/N2. Still need improvements for Derry to Letterkenny, of course.

I've done the belfast route a couple of times. Maybe It'll improve but it's a bit like asking anyone travelling Dublin to Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim etc to use the N4 to Galway and take it from there.

Let alone ignoring Donegal, more to the point, it's very emphatically stating that Derry is not significant to us like Galway, Limerick, or Cork as a city.

Cookiemunster

BelfastVanMan wrote: »

According to Wikipedia, and you can draw your own conclusions from THAT... ;-) ...

Derry is the 4th largest city in Ireland.

Actually the Ireland Wiki page has it pipped into fourth by Limerick ;-)

MJohnston

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

I've done the belfast route a couple of times. Maybe It'll improve but it's a bit like asking anyone travelling Dublin to Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim etc to use the N4 to Galway and take it from there.

Let alone ignoring Donegal, more to the point, it's very emphatically stating that Derry is not significant to us like Galway, Limerick, or Cork as a city.

Hmm I'm not sure I understand your first comparison. Once the A6 upgrade is finished, Dublin to Derry via Belfast will be all dual-carriageway aside from about 18km over the Glenshane Pass (and quite a bit of that already has 2+1 sections).

Now I personally still think the A5 is a worthy project, but the A6 upgrade will significantly impact its cost-benefit analysis.

BelfastVanMan

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Actually the Ireland Wiki page has it pipped into fourth by Limerick ;-)

Good old Wiki... :-P

ncounties

This is a never ending story. Derry will be in the 2021 census and over take Limerick again, then in 2026, Limerick will claim to be the larger city as no official figures exist for Derry at that point. Repeat infinitely.

Cookiemunster

ncounties wrote: »

This is a never ending story. Derry will be in the 2021 census and over take Limerick again, then in 2026, Limerick will claim to be the larger city as no official figures exist for Derry at that point. Repeat infinitely.

You may not have noticed the smilies. I (and I assume BelfastVanMan) was not being serious.

BelfastVanMan

Cookiemunster wrote: »

You may not have noticed the smilies. I (and I assume BelfastVanMan) was not being serious.

I had my tongue placed firmly in my cheek. ;-)

hi5

It looks like this could be back on track again..

https://www.rte.ie/news/budget-2021/2020/1013/1171115-budget-2021/

'Budget 2021 is also expected to set aside €500m to fund cross-border projects over the next five years.

The work will be overseen by the new Shared Island unit, set up in the Department of An Taoiseach.

The funding should guarantee delivery of the Government's contribution to the planned Monaghan-Derry motorway. '

MJohnston

Hopefully the Northern Irish government can sort out the planning process for this road so that it's not just money down the drain again.

riddlinrussell

MJohnston wrote: »

Hopefully the Northern Irish government can sort out the planning process for this road so that it's not just money down the drain again.

They seem to have tried their best to make their case as watertight as possible this time, the opposition have explicitly come out and said all they want is to delay it long enough for the environmental assessment to become out of date again, so I would hope a Judge would not look favourably on them.

MJohnston

Fairly scathing rejection of the A5 plan:

https://twitter.com/niroads/status/1371806968667602951?s=21

This could be dead in the water in its current form

lucernarian

MJohnston wrote: »

Fairly scathing rejection of the A5 plan:

https://twitter.com/niroads/status/1371806968667602951?s=21

This could be dead in the water in its current form

Ouch, doesn't get much worse than that. Especially as it criticises the stretch where the road infrastructure is reminiscent of the 19th century.

timmyntc

In my opinion, the scheme should not proceed if there are flood risks which cannot be successfully mitigated or suitable alternatives which would involve less interference with human rights.

More recommendations of a piecemeal, disjointed solution of bypasses and ring roads and junctions galore no doubt

marno21

The way things are going we’ll have DC from Dublin to Emyvale and Letterkenny to Lifford before any substantial sections of this are built.

Some turnaround from a few years ago.

KrisW1001

The Ballygalway to Aughnacloy section, described in the review as having "no benefit" is the part of the scheme that is necessary in order to serve traffic to and from the Republic. Considering that this is a road that will be part-funded by the taxpayers of the Republic, that small fact should have been noted.

... or are we back to the old days where NI governments considered Northern Ireland to be a six-county island floating in the Atlantic Ocean?