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N22 - Macroom to Ballyvourney (Macroom Bypass) [open to traffic]

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Comments

  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,317 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    Tarmac now down past Kilnagurteen overbridge. That’s only 800m from the junction at Millstreet Road.

    There’s about a weeks work left until they have got to Millstreet Road. Surely we’ll be hearing about an early opening soon at this rate



  • Registered Users Posts: 4 bypasser


    That’s the CBGM layer you see gone past Kilnagurteen - it just looks like tar as it has been sprayed with a black bitumen sealer to let it “cure”. Has to be left for 7 days before you can lay tar on it. A separate tar crew have laid binder course (2nd last layer of tar) up past Bealick Mill and are continuing west towards Gurteenroe.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,081 ✭✭✭theguzman




  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,317 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21




  • Registered Users Posts: 3,057 ✭✭✭hans aus dtschl


    Anyone willing to make a prediction on the potential partial opening date?



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  • Registered Users Posts: 4 fullasanegg


    I'll go with early November, while Micheal Martin is still taoiseach and gets to open it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,057 ✭✭✭hans aus dtschl


    I'm going to go even more optimistic and say October. For no technical reason other than it looks so far advanced already, and the difference it will make to everyone's journey and the general quality of life in Macroom.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭KrisW1001


    It could open with one lane each way at a reduced, 60 km/h, limit and it would still be a huge relief to Macroom.



  • Registered Users Posts: 16 glanmiredj


    Latest look at entire route far as county bounds

    https://youtu.be/oGh-HR-CoQU



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,455 ✭✭✭dmeehan


    Kerry Fine Gael TD and Deputy Government Chief Whip, Brendan Griffin, has received positive indications that part of the new N22 Cork-Kerry road could open early.


    https://killarneyadvertiser.ie/news/part-of-new-cork-kerry-road-could-open-early/?fbclid=IwAR3azA-A9efWBTf_OrNd0iDNr_aOKD-cT6-WYITyp4h0jes9UbJu1S2B0Q8

    Post edited by dmeehan on


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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,455 ✭✭✭dmeehan


    Motorists warned of major disruption on N22 Macroom/Ballyvourney bypass

    Road users travelling to Cork are being warned of major disruption on the N22 Macroom/Ballyvourney bypass which is due to last for several months.

    For the next two weeks, starting from Monday, there’ll be a 24 hour stop/go system between Coolcower and Two-Mile bridge.

    Cork Fine Gael councillor Eileen Lynch is advising motorists to be mindful of delays and to allow thirty minutes extra for their journey.

    https://www.radiokerry.ie/news/motorists-warned-of-major-disruption-on-n22-macroom-ballyvourney-bypass-286990



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,811 ✭✭✭Chris_5339762


    It's going to be vile, but here's hoping that they get good weather and are finished before the two weeks. I'm not going to Killarney until this is sorted!



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,030 ✭✭✭niloc1951


    Just two questions.

    First, is the west-bound side of the old N22 being left in place as a segregated straight-on lane to facilitate west-bound traffic not entering the new bypass.

    My second question is why no similar segregated lane for east-bound traffic coming off the new bypass



  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,317 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    This is the new layout at Coolcower

    The existing N22 will be gone entirely, it’s just remaining partially there at the minute to facilitate temporary traffic management



  • Registered Users Posts: 4 bypasser


    Updated layouts attached. Old N22 will form a separate private access road for properties on south side of new Eastbound link road with a dedicated link on to the new roundabout.




  • Registered Users Posts: 43 peter.teahan


    Does the new road look very narrow or is it just me? I'm hearing no hard shoulder? It will never make motorway grade down the road?



  • Registered Users, Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 7,259 Mod ✭✭✭✭yerwanthere123


    I think it looks extremely narrow, glad it's not just me. Is it really 2x2 lanes the whole way, or just some of the way? I suppose it'll make sense when we see it fully built.



  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 11,749 Mod ✭✭✭✭Cookiemunster


    It was never meant to be a motorway. 2+2 is a standard that's now being used all over the country. It's not narrow, it's 4 lanes wide. No hard shoulder, but two lanes in each direction with a metal barrier separating the each side of the road.



  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,317 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    It’s 2+2, about 16/17m wide. It’ll never need to be upgraded to motorway with the traffic volumes it’s taking so it’s more than good enough.

    Ovens-Macroom will need to be motorway grade but you know the world we live in now and the chances of that happening anytime soon.



  • Registered Users Posts: 35 RockCastle


    An update video from the Council put up on Friday. It was taken on the 23rd June which is over two weeks ago and great to see the first finishing coat down beyond the Millstreet junction even back then, they are really moving.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0uHFSqHY2g&t=616s



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  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,317 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    More finishing work being done at the Coolcower roundabout today, lighting columns are in and fencing and barriers are going in on the water facing side.

    Final surface seems to be going down on some of the approaches too so perhaps traffic will be switched to the new roundabout soon

    EDIT: Cork bound traffic being switched to the roundabout from tomorrow afternoon.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,861 ✭✭✭awaywithyou


    Would having a hard shoulder not make the road safer?

    makes no sense to b cutting corners in a project of this scale



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭KrisW1001



    There is a 0.5 m hard strip at the left-hand side, where a car can pull in in an emergency, and that leaves enough space for other traffic to go around them (and in many places cars can park up onto the verge and be completely off the road). The reason for hard shoulders on motorways was so that a breakdown didn't leave a car in the traffic lanes (remember that when motorways were first built across Europe, they had no speed limits). But this is not a motorway, it has a 100 km/h speed limit, and breakdowns really aren’t something that happens these days.

    A hard shoulder would make the road far more expensive, not very much safer, and would almost never be used.



  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,317 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    There’s also emergency lay-bys every 2km or so along the route in the event a driver needs to pull in for some reason



  • Registered Users Posts: 661 ✭✭✭PeaSea


    Hi all, can I ask, does this bypass mean M8 / Macroom is now the best route from the North / Dublin to Killarney ? Previously I would have used M7 / Newcastle West. I'm also towing so I would prioritise quality of road over time to an extent (which is why I don't use M8 / Mallow).



  • Registered Users Posts: 661 ✭✭✭PeaSea


    Did not know about the N21 bypasses in planning, thanks.



  • Moderators, Regional South Moderators Posts: 5,710 Mod ✭✭✭✭Quackster


    Longer in distance but faster in time when this project is completed. And an overall better driving experience too.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭KrisW1001



    You can’t argue that the mechanical reliability of cars isn’t far, far higher today than in the 1950s when the first motorways and dual carriageways were designed. You see a lot of breakdowns because it’s your job, but I’ve seen maybe two or three in the last year on open roads. And there’s very few failures are so catastrophic that you can’t drive slowly for less than 2km to the next refuge. That includes running out of fuel, but frankly, there’s no excuse for that on this road.

    Other countries don’t even have hard shoulders on their single carriageway roads, and still manage good safety statistics. I don’t know what “1970s dual carriageways” you’re referring to, as anything in Ireland dating from back then has long since been upgraded to a motorway due to high traffic levels. This road won’t have anything like that much traffic, is engineered to a very high standard, and has long sight-lines, so if a vehicle needed to stop in an emergency and couldn’t reach one of the laybys, anyone arriving later would literally have minutes to decide how to not run into them.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭KrisW1001


    N71 has the same minimal hard shoulders as the new N22 road, and there are parts of the Northbound “carriageway” that have none at all. See for yourself: N71 - Google Maps , N71 - Google Maps. This road is inadequate for the volume of traffic along N71 (around 20,000 a day), but it’s going to be really, really expensive to improve it. For comparison, this new stretch of N22 will carry around 10~12,000 vehicles a day when open.

    N18 Limerick-Cratloe has average daily traffic of 40,000 vehicles. That’s why it is built to a higher standard. N22 will have just over a quarter of that volume.

    The old N1 Swords bypass was built as the main Dublin-Belfast road with expectations of 30~40,000 vehicles per day, that’s why it’s wider. It’s the oldest of the schemes you mention, as it was designed in the early 1980s, and opened in 1984.

    (N71 was bodged together in the mid 1990s: Nortbound is the actually the old road, Southbound is new; Northbound was heavily reworked in the early 2000s because the old “just use the old alignment” approach was lethal. Swords opened in 1984; N18 Bunratty bypass is the oldest part of this road, dating from 1992, but it was reworked in the late 2000s as part of the M18 and Shannon Tunnel approaches)

    Northern Ireland really is not relevant, as the NI Roads Service uses completely different design standards (which are different in some ways to the rest of the UK too - each nation has its own independent Highways Agency), but you might look at the recently-dualled A6 to see what is considered best-practice up there these days. The Google car hasn’t got there yet, so here’s a picture - note the shoulders, or lack of:

    Officially, they call this type of road “high quality dual carriagway”, incidentally. Down here, we only use that term for Motorway-standard roads, but that’s more because we have very few “low quality” dual carriageways left on the national network for comparison. (N25 Carrigtwohill-Midleton is the only one I can think of, with its multiple median crossings)

    And Electric Vehicles are not in any way less reliable than traditional cars. They have less than a dozen moving parts, compared to over a thousand in a combustion-engined vehicle - there really isn’t much to go wrong: the fact that a company like Tesla can get away with such sloppy assembly tells you just how fundamentally reliable an EV drivetrain is. Sure, they can run out of battery - but again, your car running out of fuel is not an accident, regardless of what the fuel is.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,811 ✭✭✭Chris_5339762


    Dromod to Roosky is the same standard and I don't think there has been any major problems with them. If someone does break down in a bad spot, sightlines are good enough and traffic low enough that you can get out to the overtaking lane without a problem.



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