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N25 - Waterford to Glenmore [design ongoing; ABP in mid 2022]

nordydan

Not sure which thread to put this in, the N25 Waterford Bypass would be the closest but its lokced. I am not sure if it has been mentioned before, but route options for proposed DC scheme to link the end of the WCB to the proposed New Ross bypass have been posted here:

http://www.kilkennycoco.ie/eng/Services/Roads/Roads_Projects/N25WaterfordGlenmore/

Edited to attach scheme document and maps ~ Furet

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spacetweek

It's been a year since the last post here. Any updates?

NedNew2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122090883#Comment_122090883

One morning I was travelling from New Ross to Waterford on the left lane of the climbing lane stretch at Glenmore. A UK registered car coming from Waterford suddenly passed me on the wrong side of the road (head on) in the outside climbing lane - obviously totally confused by the road set-up and lining. There was no other traffic in either direction. I consider myself lucky to this day to be able to tell the story.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122091185#Comment_122091185

I think the N25 DC should head west, new junction on the M9 and connect to an upgraded Fiddown bypass. It would link up much of Munster and south Leinster and would help justify upgrading the N24 and proper bypasses of places like Clonmel.

hoodie6029

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122088882#Comment_122088882

Multiple crossings and houses and farms opening out on to this. Cars having to turn across 3 lanes of traffic and a hard shoulder to join it in places. Not safe for pedestrians and cyclist really. Good luck cycling up the hill from the Glenmore roundabout toward Waterford where there is no hard shoulder. Etc. etc. The best driver behaviour in the world doesn’t change all these issues.
Rosslare and up the N24 to the M8 should be dual carriageway. You essentially link Cork and Waterford Cities with dual carriageway via this route too. Finish the N24 up to Limerick and you have a fabulous network across the country.
Whether that’ll ever happen….

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122088882#Comment_122088882

Every road death can be attributed to human behaviour I suppose, but the design of this road is no longer fit for purpose.

eg. right turns are still allowed here, so a car can be stopped on the white line waiting, with traffic 1m either side of them going past in opposite directions at 100km/h. Nuts.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/mW35o6PyZhsxY4pPA

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122088882#Comment_122088882

It's deceptive. Looks fine, but there's lots of dips and hidden junctions.

It's not actually that busy, but given the poor visibility and the fact that it carries a fair amount of goods traffic, it should be upgraded on safety grounds.

marno21

TII appeared to be prioritising this one given how advanced it had got in 2019. It had a route selected in 2019, despite the fact that the funding envelopes published in early 2020 did not envisage it going to construction this side of 2020.

In some ways, there seemed to be a push to patch up some of these dual carriageway gaps (this, and the N4 at Carrick on Shannon come to mind), but at the same time there were more to be created on the N21 for example.

Of course, the idea of using road dualling as a safety measure has gone out the window since the dweebs were invited into coalition so perhaps this novel idea might be revisited post election.

Chris_5339762

Its actually not a bad road at all, if people just drove sensibly and didn't tailgate or do stupid overtaking on this short stretch (between two dual carriageways) then the accident rate would plummet. This one is human behavior, sadly.

That said, of course for route consistency it should be 2+2. Needs to be nudged forward, this one, but then I'm a fan of strategic routes and how Cork - Rosslare should ALL be 2+2.

hoodie6029

This stretch is going to have speed cameras deployed to it now. You’d be doing well to average over 100km/h in either direction over this stretch. You’ll always get stuck behind a slow driver, lorry or camper even at night. (Though it’s not 100% clear that it will be an average speed camera from the article, in fairness)
You get motorbikes ripping along here at the weekend but they are unlikely to be snapped by a camera.
With an election looming, the need to green light the money for this road. They’ll lose serious votes otherwise. 2 dual carriageways linked by this throwback is a disgrace.
https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/2024/05/01/gardai-announce-locations-of-nine-new-speed-cameras-at-accident-black-spots/

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119905920#Comment_119905920

No, although FFG will shuffle and play musical Cabinet chairs, the Greens there are keeping their bums firmly on the seats they're on.

Chris_5339762

Yeah, this one sadly is an Eamonn Ryan holdup. Get him out (will he be reshuffled in December? I bloody hope so) and we can get things like this one back on the agenda.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119904471#Comment_119904471

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/politics/arid-40720704.html

Eamon Ryan doesn't like big roads so unfortunately it does have to remain on the back burner. It doesn't matter that people are getting killed on this section of road that TII had clearly flagged for improvement, or that it's busier now that it's sandwiched between two dual carriageways, it has to wait for new leadership at the Department of Transport.

hoodie6029

Got a response from kilkenny Co Co, since this doesn’t by pass a town, it’s not gonna happen any time soon unfortunately. Not their decision but from central government. Looks like I’ll be staying on the back roads to avoid the auld wans holding up the road and dropping to 50km/h for the bends for many more years.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902168#Comment_119902168

Unlikely unless JP pulls off a big shock and makes it into cabinet during the reshuffle.

hoodie6029

Anyone know where this project is at? Still waiting on funding from TII? What are the prospects of this getting built anytime soon?

hoodie6029

Great info there @josip. You can see a sharp turn just north of the current road at the Glenmore roundabout, framed by trees now. I presume this was one of the infamous bends.

You can see remnants of the old road around Murphy Motors too. It’s strange that there were three roads in parallel, so close that were all going to the same place essentially.

I’m guessing from that stretch of road to New Ross (R723) from the current Glenmore roundabout was a brand new road built in the 90’s to meet up with the old main road near the now derelict Petrol Station.

@Chris_5339762 Google earth says that it goes back to 1985 for this area but I haven’t been able to get it to work.

Chris_5339762

I had a look on the old Geohive maps but couldn't really make sense of it. The current road is pre the 1995 mapping anyway.

road_high

Be interesting to see an old road map of this to see exactly where it went. Sounds like the current road is a mixture of new build and upgrade of what was there previously

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118931300#Comment_118931300

The old road still exists as far as here.

https://goo.gl/maps/EbNe4eRE6bbt859t5

Just beyond this point there was a fairly serious hairpin bend, known by the wonderful name of "the turn at the bottom of Glenmore hill". The camber was also off to the outer edge where there was a considerable drop and it was a nightmare in bad winter weather. At least 1 milk tanker went off at that point. The hairpin also meant that trucks couldn't get a run at Glenmore Hill. Glenmore Hill isn't much in the way of a climb, (Category 4 climb when the Tour de France went up it), but it's long, narrow and loaded trucks at the time couldn't get out of the low gears going up it. The build up of cars behind them were called 'lorries funerals'. The current N25 up Glenmore Hill is faithful to the old line pretty much from the bottom as far as here. Can't remember the name of the garage here. The son was in the Counsel, first name DJ and is a guard now I think. Griffins, that's it.

https://goo.gl/maps/Nz72bJo2JUZCBzYe7

There's a bit of that road, still there, used to be a long double hairpin I think. Went to the right here where the gate is:

https://goo.gl/maps/SRDUbe2a1icStGxC6

Nearly everyone from the cycling club would be able to tuck in behind a truck on the way up and draft all the way up to Murphy's motors. They'd usually get burned off after that but St.Ledger managed to stick in behind one all the way to Waterford one day. He was still shaking when we caught up with him. The road after Murphy's Motors follows the same line now as then but it's much improved.

hoodie6029

Slight OT, I was curious about the original route from Waterford to New Ross, this thread has been great for info.

So before the first railway bridge (in the video), did traffic heading for Waterford travel up the hill through the back of Glenmore, down through Rathinure and out on to the current N25 around the Rhi Glenn Hotel?

marno21

https://kclr96fm.com/south-east-tds-to-meet-south-kilkenny-councillors-over-shelved-road-projects/

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118469865#Comment_118469865

1st Bridge (County Road Bridge or Ballyverneen Bridge depending who you're talking to)

https://goo.gl/maps/GDc8dsPnyjVR5jQ3A

2nd bridge (Annaghs Bridge)

https://goo.gl/maps/uLw463ZABywq3v2B9

spacetweek

In the RTE video, where is that sharp bend under the railway bridge? Maybe it's all gone now? I can't find it on Gmaps anywhere.

NedNew2

I remember driving from Ross to Waterford on the stretch in question a few years ago where there is a climbing lane (up Glenmore Hill) only to meet a UK car coming head-on from the opposite direction but on my side of the road (in the overtaking lane). Luckily I was in the left hand lane but I hate to think what happened after they passed me. They were obviously confused with the myriad of road-markings there.

This is why I would strongly favour this part of the road to be upgraded to dual carriageway to avoid such incidents. People often use the slogan that safety comes first, well there's an example why.

Arguments about how money could and should be spent elsewhere are a whole other topic.

GandhiwasfromBallyfermot

Anger in South Kilkenny as 2 major road projects fail to get funding for 2022 (kclr96fm.com)

Either way, no matter what our views on the project, it looks like we will be waiting a while for a definitive decision.

KrisW1001

Taken as a whole, this really is the least safe section of N25: It’s deceptive in the way the N20 south of Charleville is: the road is relatively wide and there are climbing lanes, but there are also lot of side turnings and relatively blind junctions. Yes, people complain about Castlemartyr or Lakeview in Midleton, but nobody dies or is seriously injured by sitting in traffic, whereas this road has all the attributes that add up to make accidents serious ones.

Once you get beyond Slieverue, this road is already wide enough to accommodate a 2+2 with little or no additional groundworks; most of the cost will be for junction overbridges and providing parallel access roads for properties and businesses.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118460239#Comment_118460239

Sorry, I included the clip not because of the bridges, but because it showed the old Glenmore Hill before it was widened and realigned past Duggans. The current road still travels along that realignment. I'm not very knowledgeable about current road design best practice, but I thought that at-grade turning points across oncoming traffic is no longer considered good design on a national route? The part at Ryans where you again turn across traffic up to Alywards was dangerous 30 years ago and is no less so today. Every few hundred metres you have places where cars are turning across traffic. The hard should is not as wide as you claim and in most places isn't wide enough to accommodate a broken down vehicle.

I'm not arguing against your UHW points, but those are points for a different thread/forum, not this.

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118441151#Comment_118441151

makes sense.

For the uphill sections they could simply do the obvious and have a climbing lane (as opposed to a VERY wide hard shoulder and a yellow line that some choose not to cross and pull in on ) and that eliminates any slow trucks/ Yarises driving people too demented and making silly overtaking manoeuvres.

GandhiwasfromBallyfermot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118460064#Comment_118460064

That bit of road you're talking about from that article is all along the pink rock which isn't even in the 10km section to be upgraded and has already been bypassed both by the alignment you mentioned above and the new ross bypass!

The part of the road they are proposing to upgrade is actually a good bit of road already with wide lanes on either side and a wide hard shoulder on either side for almost the entire length apart from the bit that already has the overtaking lane. What part of the 10km stretch they are proposing to upgrade is specifically not fit for purpose?

The proposed cost of the upgrade is €130m. The estimated cost of running 24/7 cardiac care in UHW is €2.9m per annum I just think putting that kind of money into upgrading an already good little bit of road is terrible value for money. What we really need in the south east is better healthcare, a university of scale (not a scaled down TU), connected public transport etc not more/slightly better roads.

josip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118459367#Comment_118459367

They have been making safety improvements on a regular basis between Ross and Waterford over the years. I'm not sure of the cost but 'fraction' is an imprecise term; for example 5/4 is also a fraction but probably not what you had in mind.

Safety issues aren't simply an issue due to bad driving behaviour. One could argue that driving behaviour was worse back in the 80s with drink driving, no seatbelts and badly maintained cars. But they still went ahead and realigned the part up Glenmore Hill because it was no longer fit for purpose at the time due to the increasing volume of traffic on the road.

Things have moved on, and 30 years later and with increased speeds and volumes since then, that part is again no longer fit for purpose. Other parts of the road still follow the line of the original New Ross to Waterford road. That line is at least 150 years old and dates from a time when hp really meant horse power.

In case anyone hasn't already seen it, here's Heinrich hammering along back in the 80s.

https://www.rte.ie/archives/collections/news/21271228-kilkenny-road-causing-concern/