N25 - Midleton to Youghal [planning and design to commence 2023]

If I could, I would only quote your last paragraph but the lads fecked up basic functionality of the site.

I have said similar a number of times, nothing much will be done while the Lakeview RAB remains. No matter how much is spent east of Midleton, the RAB will mean the net benefits are limited. I think the solution is a new junction further east with new link roads running north and south. Add a new P&R station on the train line to green up the project, that could move it up the priorities list pretty swiftly.

Yes please. Lakeview is probably the biggest issue around. From the "sustainable" perspective it's quite bad, and from a traffic flow perspective it's bad too. I agree that it needs to be further East.

I appreciate the effort, and understand your logic but I would go with the East-West 2+2 as a flyover (of flyunder?) if it were technically possible. I realise that it would be more complex, but if you flyover North-South you still need to deal with pedestrians and cyclists. The junction basically cuts the town in two and people don't currently like to walk over the existing pedestrian bridge. They literally prefer to dodge traffic at the East of the Roundabout rather than use it.

For me, the better solution is to move the junction further East.

In an absolutely dream world, I'd love to see a "half" cut-and cover of the junction, so that E-W traffic goes through a short tunnel, the N-S traffic is an at-grade street with sustainable transport accommodated by design, no merge lanes in the current location and Bailick Avenue restored as an active transport link (only) between East and West, like the doodle above. This would actually facilitate development of the land South-East of the junction, if that was desirable to the Council (I'm not sure what the long-term plan for that land is).

Hey I'm with you all the way. I'm one of the people who cycles and drives on it regularly and I'm extremely familiar with the needs for an upgrade.

But it is not politically sexy.

East Cork doesn't matter. Cork overall barely matters, and it is very difficult to persuade politicians and planners that we in East Cork need upgraded infrastructure. To compound matters there is a train line directly in parallel with the N25 which has been explicitly marked to stay shut in the medium-term (a plan that I agree with). The issues on the N25 are not statistically significant. Absent a high mortality rate, the N25 will not get significant funding.

Hilariously enough, I think my "doodle" above could be dressed up as an urban realm and sustainable transport enhancement, if someone had enough willpower. You could easily use it to fund the Midleton East junction. You'd then have a Midleton West (Oatencake) and Midleton East junction. I personally don't think there's need for three Midleton junctions!

You mean to rebuild the line and restore train service, or to turn it into a greenway? I would be all for a greenway, but I would be surprised if a railway to Youghal would be commercially viable.

Yep, it's not commercially viable. Once Waterrock is done, a SDZ in Mogeely could be a good shout. But Youghal is a BIG stretch. I'd love to see it in my lifetime, but I really doubt it.

You're absolutely right. I'm pro M25 but politically the only way this section of the N25 would be touched is if either East Cork or West Waterford got a front bench minister. Just look at how Wexford has prospered during Brendan Howlins tenure.

Hopefully we'll see that at some point but it won't be soon.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Transport21 intend on the Atlantic corridor motorway from Rosslare to Letterkenny being complete by now?

In the multiverse maybe !

Agreed Kris, I drive Castlemartyr to Cork every day for work and capacity wise it seems fine. A bypass of Castlemartyr is essential at this stage though, it's such a bottleneck for commuters and day trippers at the weekend. The village itself would benefit massively from reduced traffic, there are a lot of empty properties that might finally be redeveloped if traffic volumes were reduced.

Yep I know of several serious crashes which have resulted from people pulling out of side-roads.

The Dungarvan roundabouts are a disaster too. They render the bypass almost unusable. They'll surely be looking for a "bypass-of-the-bypass" before long. I often find it faster to go through town than to take the bypass, and that shouldn't be the case.

On theoretical distance and speed it's slower to go the ring road. It's 3km/60kmh versus through the town (2.4km/50kmh). I think they've recently made the square a 30kmh "shared space", and that now makes the end result closer, so it's almost equal both ways.

The roundabouts make you cede right of way, so if there's a car even going the opposite direction to you, you must act with caution and not "chance it" until they're through. Maybe "negotiate" the roundabout is a good way to describe it. And though you negotiate 2 "proper" roundabouts through the town, the ring road has 5. HGV's naturally won't build up to full speed between some of the roundabouts. I don't think it's possible to go anywhere near the 60kmh average end-to-end. I suspect it's more like a 35-40kmh average.

Late at night or early in the morning when I pass, if there's a HGV ahead of me, I'll often go through town and come out ahead. I fully acknowledge that this is undesirable. But I also think the number of roundabouts was excessive.

Maybe we should start a new N25 thread for East of Youghal, because this is an interesting discussion IMO. Dungarvan has long been a pain in the behind, for me.

EDIT: Dial 07:00 into Google maps there, and it'll tell you through town is normally faster than the Ring Road. Whereas, if you dial in 19:00 into Google maps, it'll tell you that around town is normally faster. This echoes what I've seen and I think echoes what you're saying. Depending on the time of day, through town is faster. That's a shame, to be honest.

There is no chance of dual carriageway east of Dungarvan, nor should there be. The fact that east of Midleton is well down the priorities list tells a story, that's before the terrain difficulties east of Youghal.

An upgraded N24 will accommodate traffic between Cork and Waterford/Rosslare. The additional distance is small and the better road quality and fewer reasons to stop could make that route more fuel efficient. At that stage the N25 between Youghal and Waterford would be more suited to being a National Secondary.

Naturally traffic east of Cork would continue to use the N25. Depending on the start point/destination, the N24 may be a more attractive route, particularly if DC is provided making it an easier/safer journey. It would become even more so if the Cork NRR was built.

The fact remains, the traffic levels between Youghal and Waterford, the safety of the existing road and the difficult terrain to be contended with if building a new road will mean that such a new road is extremely unlikely to be built. We know for certain that it is not on the radar for the foreseeable future. The N24 is further ahead in the process and if delivered, it will likely impact future N25 upgrades.

Taoisigh and Ministers don't have a free hand to build any road they like. Even if they did, the entire process takes so long that they could no longer be in that position when vital decisions are made. There is a long list of projects moving through the system, any other projects added have to start from the beginning.

It never ceases to amaze me how some people complainaboutprojects elsewhere and accuse of parish pump politics but then cry out for parish pump politics to benefit themselves.

Bypassing both places is a much bigger scheme than I was expecting from the Greens. In honesty, Castlemartyr alone would fix 90% of the problems.

Lakeview will be its own project, I suspect. It will need some pretty expensive solutions to deal with the movements it needs to in such a limited area. It's also a safe, out-of-town interchange that is congested primarily at peak times by car commuters, so that would push it down the list for improvements. (Killeagh and Castlemartyr have heavy traffic traversing the main street, and Castlemartyr is congested across the whole day; both count in their favour for being progressed ahead of Lakeview)

Killeagh to the Youghal bypass is already pretty good. A lot will depend on what standard of road is chosen for this scheme. If it's 2+2 (which I suspect it would be, given current traffic levels), that would make a direct tie-in to Youghal bypass more likely.

I don't want to derail the thread with a tangent but looking at the sign from the above article (https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41055371.html), should it be Cork at the top followed by the furthest away destinations in order? What is the logic used in the sign?

Spot on, there's quite a few big properties with huge gardens on the main street in Castlemartyr ripe for renovation but the appetite isn't really there because of how busy the road is all day.

It's mind boggling that it's still only being discussed given the volumes of traffic that pass through both villages each day and how easily and cheaply they could be bypassed.

As a regular user of this road, and a regular waiter at the eastern side of Lakeview, trying to go forward, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. This is what I’d do...

First, I think the best solution for Lakeview is to make it a limited-access junction (to Cork/ from Cork only) on an N25 that goes above it, something like this. That would facilitate the vast majority of movements at this point. Very little traffic comes from North and goes East, or from South and goes East.

I think making the N25 as an overpass here is the least disruptive, and as a bonus, the existing pedestrian bridge is replaced by a ground-level path under the main carriageway, making this way useful to cyclists too. You could add in the missing road movements, but that would interfere with the pedestrian way, and I really don’t think there are enough cars that go that way to justify it.

East of the junction, the road would taper down to Type 2 DC, then at the eastern side of Midleton itself, a proper full access junction for Midleton, something like this. I’ve take a guess that they’d run a new N25 south of its current alignment here - I think that a short section here would need to be offline to avoid all the housing entrances. (And a parallel access road will be needed too probably as far as the Two-Mile Inn)

The section between these also has its problems, with housing entrances, but I think somehthing like this could work, and would probably improve active transport access around this part of the Midleton (The existing pedestrian underpass here would stay).

Very good IMO but what about South to East? I think there might be a lot of HGV's so you might need an alternative route. But I agree with where you're going with it.