N2 - Slane Bypass [planning decision pending]

€100 m for a 400m-long bridge and 3km of approach roads is not expensive. Type 2 is most likely, as the road to either side of the project is Wide Single.

The new N2 at Slane is actually exactly the kind of project that Eamon Ryan has pushed for - a small work that doesn’t encourage car commuting, with high benefits for the local environment. The current situation is clearly not good for the environment: heavy-goods vehciles idling at traffic lights is just carbon emissions for no economic good; on the new road, freight could operate much more efficiently. And, as I’ve said before, when transport is electrified, we will still need road improvements - in fact, for electric transport, the road is a bigger factor in transportation energy use than it is with combustion vehicles.

Ryan is at the top of a notoriously fractious party; and when he talks down roads, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that a lot of this is a show to placate the hard-line elements in his party - the ones who want to completely ban cars and stop people buying fossil-fuel and go live in some imaginary Hobbiton ... largely because their well-paid profession and inherited wealth allows them to do without a car, and invest in expensive, high-tech heating systems for the house they own, rather than have to rent.

Has the preferred route gone for planning yet?

The consultation on the Draft Slane Public Realm Plan 2022 closed last week but the details are here, harmless enough really, the kind of thing which should have been done a long time ago;

Well the application to ABP hasn't been made yet and the Climate Action Plan was published long enough ago so no excuses. Galway also serves as a warning and you'd expect it be heeded.

The Slane bypass also includes the public realm improvements so there is an integrated approach considering things beyond simply the road itself, unlike Galway.

Apart from the toll removal (which is a different matter), what purpose would this serve at all except to confuse people who are used to the existing route numbers? N33 and N2 are both Primary roads already, and there is absolutely no legal significance to a route having a single-digit number.