M11/N11 - M50 (J4) to Coyne's Cross (J14) [options published]

I don't think they can just leave it as is. As I understand it, J10 is one of the more significant contributors to the both the traffic and the safety issues they're trying to solve. It's currently a bit of a nightmare on both sides, and impossible to improve it without some fairly significant remodelling which is out of the question due to it being in the SAC.

I have been fairly critical of the whole process, but in fairness to them I think they have made the right call re J10. It was a tough decision that they must have known will cause a fairly big backlash.

Fair point, it's not set in stone, I'll reserve judgment until I see whether they row back on it or not!

Everything you say is valid, which is why I maintain that the offline cyan route was the option they should have chosen despite the financial, engineering and environmental headaches.

No matter what fudges they try between junctions 9, 10 and 11 is not going to solve the problems, and risks making them worse. Having said that, now they have chosen to work with the existing road, they're not going to suddenly go back to looking at offline options.

In this case I think that no matter how much opposition there is to closing J10, there is not much else they can do other than close it. In fairness to ARUP they're trying to find a solution working against very vocal opposition to both closing J10 (inconvenienced local traffic backed by local politicians) and improving J10 (involves widening the road in an SAC).

So no matter what they do, they know they are up against a fight. They have to choose the fight they think they can win. The local opposition against closing J10 is essentially backed by nothing more than nimbyism, whereas the opposition to meddling with an SAC is backed by a fairly stringent EU directive.

Far easier to overcome nimbyism than an EU directive.

I am not sure if the new flyover is going to help the locals much. The traffic joining the N11 at the Drummin junction to head south is currently very light, which suggests the vast majority of Delgany residents heading south access the N11 at J11 - this would make sense as the village is most densely populated in the north eastern area and it is more convenient for them to access the n11 southbound via the R761 at Killincarrig roundabout and the Farrankelly Road.

It follows that if they currently choose to access N11 southbound via Junction 11, then if the new road layout in future means they have no choice but to leave the N11 at Junction 11 then the vast majority will continue on down the Farrankelly Road and into Delgany via Killincarrig Roundabout.

The amount of people who will find it more convenient to leave the N11 at J11, carry on to first roundabout, turn around, back under N11, through the two roundabouts on far side, down to Willow Grove and onto the flyover and into Delgany that way is tiny I would think.

The vast majority of traffic who would ordinarily leave at J10 will now leave at Junction 11 and use the Farrankelly Road instead of the flyover. It's a very expensive solution for a handful of people.

Yes agree Willow Grove traffic needs to get to Delgany, but realistically that's a relatively small number in the grand scheme of things. My point is a flyover is quite a drastic solution both in terms of cost and impact to solve that problem.

If J10 is closed the Willow Grove - Delgany link can be provided by connecting the two way traffic road under Barry's Bridge to the existing road up to Willow Grove and widening that existing road.

Totally agree re the utopians on facebook. I'm quite irritated by the number of people who first pushed for ARUP to solve the problem by tinkering with the existing road, and are now crying foul because they what they actually meant was go and tinker somewhere else that does not effect me.

Sure if they are going to compromise, that seems to be the obvious way to do it.

But my point is in Phase 1, the findings of which led to Phase 2 etc, these stand out as the most problematic - eg being non compliant with TII Geometric Design Parameters - see Table 4.5 of the Feasibility Study. The Southbound diverging lane is 110m short of being compliant.

Can they really leave it as is to compromise and also claim they are fulfilling the project brief of improving the substandard junctions? It would seem unlikely. And apparently the constraints of the SAC mean they are unable to bring it up to standard, so their hands are tied.

Totally agree. The vast majority of J10 Delgany traffic flow is either leaving from or going to the Delgany Wood surrounding area - the north eastern area of the village. it makes absolutely no sense for them to use Kindlestown Hill as an alternative.

They are actually unlikely even to use the proposed replacement to J10 either, eg flyover to J11 via Willow Grove. For the vast majority of houses in Delgany it will be shorter and quicker to access J11 via Killincarrig roundabout and Farrankelly.

I support closing J10, it just seems a bit bananas that the proposed alternative access is building a new road to access J11 instead and the new road is longer and less intuitive for most than the current road to J11!!

Sure they definitely need to provide that link. But a flyover is pretty major solution to that problem.

As mentioned above that could now be achieved via widening the one way route via old downs road and making a better connnection to the road under Barry's Bridge.

Or even better take a link road off the roundabout at Farrankelly Road at connect it to the R762. This is something that WCC have proposed before, in 1999 and 2004 Development plans.

Or even better do both the link road route and widen the Old Down's Road route.

The solution to the problems here can be provided at lower cost and lower environmental and visual impact than the solution they are proposing. The above will also work better in practice than the flyover.

Yes, I think it will be.

In pure euro per metre terms the cost of building a raised road is significantly higher than the equivalent distance on the ground. No idea of the exact length required but in order to accommodate the gradual rise and fall it looks to be at least 400m of flyover required.

On top of that they need to build new access road from the R762 on the Delgany side under/alongside flyover to provide access to the house with gate lodge and the houses on the laneway beside. They also need to build a new access road on the other side to provide access to the house at the bottom of old Willow Grove road.

In the other it is one road. Or as you point out there is an existing narrow road. They could widen that. Yes part of it is private but they could CPO that. The flyover option involves CPOing land too.

On top of that the euro per metre cost they have to consider the economic cost of the disruption while building it. There is no doubt the works involve doing all of this will necessitate considerable lane closures/diversions etc on the N11. Connecting the R762 to Farrankelly road would cause far less disruption.

From an environmental impact point of view in order to accommodate the flyover and necessary access road the stand of 200+ year old beech trees and the old stone walls is right in the firing line. Driving up from Barry's Bridge those trees contribute a huge mount to the rural landscape and biodiversity as well as providing much needed noise and visual screening. Although it is very close to the N11 that area is actually very well insulated from it. If they are all gone to be replaced by a raised road and a new access road, it utterly destroys the local landscape.

On top of that the flyover is right in the line of sight of a protected view, listed in the development plan - the view looking south from the higher path running along the northern boundary of the Golf Course with the Glen of the Downs. If they build this flyover you'll be looking straight at it, and it's accompanying infrastructure from that point.