N4 - Collooney to Castlebaldwin [open to traffic]

Video courtesy of Kieran Feely.

This is the infrastructure project I’ve followed most closely and for the longest time since it is literally close to home.

When I was looking into planning for my house near the route 14 years ago, route selection was already done. I followed the planning and the CPOs and the early works. I watched with interest as the fences went up on the route corridor and tried to guess what order they’d do things in. I have been utterly fascinated by the earthworks and the speed they could lay down the main bones of the project. I watched overpasses, underpasses and river bridges take very solid form where there had been only engineering drawings. I loved how they juggled the logistics of the in line section at the Collooney end with minimal disruption to my daily commute. I’ve watched the way they’ve flown through the surfacing and barriers and markings and road furniture. And they delivered all against the background of a pandemic.

It was a pleasure to finally get a spin on it last night. Great job!

Anyone update OpenStreetMap yet.

Whats the time saving like...5 min i'd estimate not to mention the safety

Road is also live in Waze since Monday.

Lovely stretch of road, but the entry "ramps" at the Ballymote/Riverstown junction are horrible for a 100kph road. From the video shared in earlier posts, they basically look like left turns.

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The design speed of a road depends on the design and spacing of the junctions as much as the geometry of the mainline. There are single-carriageway roads that would be safe at 160 km/h .. if it wasn’t for the possibility of traffic joining suddenly from the left, or stopping to turn right; similarly, the N7 is 3+3 lanes and subject to 100km/h limits because it has many closely-spaced junctions with short slip-roads.

Or, to put it a different way, the only reason why a motorway is permitted to run at 120 km/h is because junctions are far apart, and all junction movements are gradual and are carried on filter lanes that run for at least 250 metres.

This new road does stop traffic crossing the centreline, but it still has sharp left-turn in junctions, just like a single-carriageway road has. For that reason, 100 km/h is the proper speed. The fact that these junction entrances are less frequent than on an un-upgraded single-carriageway does not make them less dangerous if someone darts out from the side road without looking.

A Type 2 Dual Carriageway is not designed to allow a faster speed limit. It is designed to make overtaking safer and dramatically reduce the chances of head-on collisions. This still requires drivers to drive within the limits of of how far ahead they can see clearly, the stopping distance of their car, their reactions and their level of attention. And because “everyone else” on the road is such a bad driver, that means 100 km/h for a Type 2.

... it also has no hard shoulders, and fewer pull-ins for breakdowns etc. Now, breakdowns are rare, but I wouldn't want to be stopped on a 2+2 changing a tyre with 120kmh traffic coming up behind me.

Why are the speed vans not being deployed to sections instead of wasting Garda resources doing the same job?

They do the road from Colloney to Sligo often enough.

Saving almost one life per year seems a bit much, surely there wasn't one person (on average) being killed on the old road every year?

Were the same people involved in the Hyde Bridge work in town? (They should never get a road contract again)

I doubt it made much difference. It's a strategic road combined with recent government pushing of Sligo and Athlone as regional centres. AADT of course is a big factor to.

Recall the Ballinasloe - Loughrea section of the old N6. Same deal with crosses etc. The NDP linking cities got that sorted, not the crosses IMO

Solid yellow lines are only used in two places:

1. For short stretches at junctions on roads that have road-edge markings. Not all of these have hard shoulders.
2. On motorways - there is usually a full hard shoulder.

Brilliant thanks for answering - i have not travelled at night yet on that road in my car so I didn't know for certain - but glad to hear it

Is there any sign of the Eastern Garvoge Bridge happening? It should also really help the town and remove some local traffic from Hughes Bridge.