N25 - Carrigtwohill to Midleton [route options published]

"Shelved" is media frenzy. It hasn't been shelved, it just hasn't got funding this year.

Cork was, once again, trying to piggyback on the National roads budget to fund its local infrastructure needs. Personally, I’m happy that the funding has been postponed on this - the money is better spent elsewhere in the country. (If it had to be spent on N25, I would have preferred the money to be spent in making an overpass at the Lakeview roundabout and tidying the junction for Midleton just East of the roundabout; or in putting a relief road in place in Castlemartyr)

shelving it for now seems to have been a sensible decision.

If theres a need for an odd flyover or junction to enable industrial estates or new towns be connected to the national road network then thats a different pot of cash to national roads development and not something that needs a full dual carraigeway upgrade.

From a national perspective the bypasses of Castlemartyr and Killeagh are definitely more of a benefit , even if the progress on those projects came through political meddling.

I said “piggybacking” precisely because N25 is a national route and a Ten-T route, and I think it’s entirely fair to point it out. National routes are not supposed to be collectors for Cork city’s suburban commuters, but that’s been the mode of operation around Cork ever since the original Cork LUTS study in the late 1970s. One of the major drivers of this particular upgrade project was that it would allow increased residential development at Water Rock.

If that’s the goal, a parallel regional road would be the proper option, but then that would mean funding would have to be found locally, not from the national roads budget. Worse, this pattern of trying to get something for nothing is what has made the National road network around Cork such a disaster for traffic. (I live in Cork city).

As for N24, it is getting funded because the road is a death-trap in many places. You can’t say that about any part of N25, except the bit that’s being replaced between Glenmore and Waterford City.

I dont think it has been claimed that "nobody will drive" with new development. The fact is that new development on the scale proposed here will result in some increase in traffic, this would be inevitable with or without the road upgrade. Some of that traffic will be looking to access the national road network so not having a junction here just shifts it to another junction and adds traffic to the roads enroute. Preventing additional car commuting is done by providing viable alternatives (which is happening with the greenway and Cork suburban rail project) and prioritising public/active travel in urban areas and around employment hubs, not by ignoring substandard sections of N roads.

A Castlemartyr bypass will also attract more car commuters, possibly more than the Carrigtwohill - Midleton upgrade as there are no public transport options. It would also compound the problems at Lakeview. Carrigtwohill - Midleton needs upgrading in any case, even if traffic doesn't increase.

@Chris_5339762 - Traffic levels on New Ross to Wexford are so low (<8,000 AADT) that they would not justify a dual carriageway for a long time yet, and while the existing road might be a single-carriageway, it is a wide and well-aligned one. N25 Wexford to Rosslare, which is earmarked for an upgrade, was always a worse section, and that upgrade is likely to be 2+2 only because it will carry a lot of traffic from both M11 and N25 into Rosslare port.

(Glenmore to Waterford, the other section being upgraded to 2+2, has AADT of over 11,000, which is creeping toward the limit for a single-carriageway, but it’s also a very unsafe road)

The section of N25 between Ballinamona and Windgap (the “over the mountains” bit between Dungarvan and Youghal) is also not in need of upgrade. While this would be the cheapest to upgrade the mainline to 2+2 - you can see that when they did the blasting on this, they were planning for a much wider road in future - the real costs would be to grade-separate the small number of very lightly used junctions, which would be hard to justify on cost/benefit grounds, given that the existing single carriageway has such low traffic levels are very low, and the road is wide and safe. In decades of driving this route, I have never experienced a delay on this stretch for any reason.

Places like Dungourney,aghada ect , (hell even midleton itself ) have very dispersed populations , aghada and whitegate are relatively small villages , with loads of houses spread out across the hillside - so off current methods of public transport - they'd drive down the hill to the village - get the bus to either midleton or Cork - midleton train station is a bit out of the way ( hence the huge but empty car park ) so that's probably a no no ,plus being delivered to Kent station , means another trip to get to your destination - ( unless you work on horgans quay ) little island and carrigtohil are as bad ...

You'd be mad not to drive -

I was making the point that a large scale upgrade of the N25 between Midleton and Waterford is extremely unlikely. Most of the towns en-route have been bypassed and the road is generally suitable for the volumes it carries. The N24 on the other hand needs new bypasses at a minimum and would link up much more than just the south so it's not surprising that it wouldbe ahead in the queue. Yes bypasses of Castlemartyr and Killeagh are needed but pinning hopes on a full DC bypass will see little happening for many years.

I find it very odd that people are decrying a necessary upgrade of an existing DC due to planned development focused on vastly improved rail services, in favour of 12km of new build DC serving small towns and a dispersed rural population. The suggestion that the former shouldn't proceed due to increasing traffic, while the latter should proceed makes little sense.

The volumes east of Midleton has limited national cross country traffic, so upgrades east of Midleton would be similarly to facilitate mostly local traffic movements, except there is no alternative unlike from Midleton west. If the goal is modal shift then Carrigtwohill - Midleton should be priority, some additional traffic is of limited concern when there is scope to accommodate our growing population along with a new commuter rail service. Any additional population east of Midleton will be just as car dependent as the current population there.

That's madness. Council appealing to TII to progress a project to allow them to expand lands for development, because the original Council effort was of low quality.

The councilor is talking so much rubbish here: "traffic is being backed up onto the motorway". It's not a motorway, and traffic is being backed up because you and your colleagues allowed enormous amounts of development on and around the junction and relief roads, buddy.

Blaming TII here is outrageous as far as I'm concerned.

I still think this one needs sorted eventually (especially the Midleton westbound slip), but its a dual carriageway already and there are very rarely accidents on it... so there is a lot to be done before this section should be prioritised.

It only ended up in the queue originally because Amgen were coming, then it stayed on the menu once they left.

They wanted to open up the land between Midleton and Carrigtohill for low-density development sprawl. That's the entire play here from the Council. Don't be fooled by talk of safety or even housing. They hoped to put in another retail warehouse/business park at the north side of the junction. And the whole thing is a few hundred metres from a commuter rail line but there was no talk of a station. The whole thing was a really transparent effort from the Council to "unlock lands for development" using TII funds. They even let the veil drop a few times in the media and said it straight out.

To improve safety on that road, you'd also be hoping to get agri vehicles and vulnerable users off it but these weren't a priority whatsoever. Almost no thought at all was given to them. And they make up a surprisingly high proportion of the end users.

I don't even think any of what's written in that article is true. A new junction to N25 wasn't listed as needed when Waterrock got approval: it got approval on the basis that it would create no more car traffic!

None of those new URDF and UEA roads really link to the section of N25 proposed for upgrade. I'm in favour of that URDF project, and I'm very much directly impacted. The proposed UEA roads all link westward, exactly where you expect all the traffic to come to/from. So I believe it's Cobh Cross that would need the upgraded junction for that UEA, rather than the Milebush/Waterrock side. I reckon very few people are going to access that UEA via Milebush, merging with all the Waterrock and Midleton West traffic and then coming back towards Cork, almost everyone will be going through Terrysland and out to Cobh Cross.

And why am I OK with this? Because of the levels of employment in Carrigtohill and Little Island, both a short distance from the new UEA. Because of the massive new schools complexes right in the middle. And because of the levels of sustainable transport proposed: a greenway, two railway stations and cycle lanes throughout. I think this is one of those rare proposals where a good mode share can actually be achieved. Maybe I'm being too optimistic!

YIMBY, basically. I don't think the milebush junction needs to be created for this new UEA, and I'm unusually optimistic about the mode shares that can be achieved.

Yep. I'd fully agree. But it's nowhere near as urgent as the lakeview roundabout junction and East of Midleton though.

The problem is that the local councillors are saying that the N25 needs to be upgraded by TII, for the express purposes of allowing the council to pursue unsustainable development dreams around a newly created junction at milebush...and in doing so, undermining the N25 a little bit.

In short, they want to turn a piece of national infrastructure into their pet distributor. It's not reasonable. They messed up Oatencake, so someone else must fix it, is the attitude. I wouldn't even have minded if they had put in a local distributor plan around milebush, but they didn't bother: their plan was for retail and warehouse sprawl, like they did in Little Island, Cobh Cross, Kinsale Road, Togher, Frankfield, Airport Business Park etc etc etc. That's been their business plan for decades.

They pick a junction on a national road near the city and try and coax businesses to set up near the city, with no supporting infrastructure, hollowing out the city and creating unsustainable developments in the process. Now they want a new junction to built (by TII!) just to facilitate it!

Houses directly on it and short merge lanes. Needs to be resolved. But I fully agree with you, they're not urgent issues whatsoever. In East Cork, this is literally one of the best and safest roads by a long way. The "urgency" to get it done is all to facilitate unsustainable development.