N25 - Dungarvan Outer Bypass

Wizard72 wrote: »

Hi Bards -

Just wanted to give you a snap shot of what inspiring engineering & quality project work Tramore House Road Design Office can come up with when it comes to road planning & development.
This latest installment in the 'Rathbride Abbey Rat Run is their handy-work & now they have the cheek to try & endorse it by demanding completion of a Part 8.

11 years later…

Has this project ever been revisited?

Since the Greenway took off the need for an outer bypass is significantly greater, what with such an increase in traffic levels, particularly during the Summer.

A lot of the route seems to have been started a long time ago, then abandoned. Were all the CPOs etc. completed?

I’m not sure but there is at least a significant of road marked out along what seems to to be one of the proposed routes.

Like so…

Along there.

Ah. I see. Thanks.

But as to my question, I wondered if anyone had heard anything to suggest that this project might restart?

It’s a disgrace Castlemartyr is still the way it is, it’s a nightmare.

Killeagh isn’t too bad but yeah, probably an easy enough win.

It’s a pity there isn’t a decent road where I’ve marked, you’d then have an outer bypass, though that section of N72 is very narrow, with no shoulders.

We do not multiplex national routes in Ireland - with the exception of routes that traverse Northern Ireland, every N road has exactly one start and one end point.

But that proposal completely misses the point of this project (and you've left two roundabouts in).

It might be called the “Dungarvan Outer Bypass”, but the most important piece of road to be bypassed is the bit you’ve left alone, to the East of Dungarvan:

Every red dot is a dangerous junction. I drive this road a lot, and I’ve seen a crash at every one of those points over the years. It's a really nasty bit of road.

Unfortunately, any Dungarvan bypass (which I'd really love to see) would basically have to go from the top of the hill west of Dungarvan all the way to the eastern side of Lemybrien. That would remove all of the bad road and would connect with the Kilmacthomas bypass too. Anything less would just leave a bit of awful road inbetween.

It's going to be eye wateringly expensive for the amount of traffic that'll use it, and thats the big problem. It's needed, but the cost.

If this gets started before Castlemarytr on the N25 then some heads need to roll.

The problem with that thinking is that you keep adding bits on until the works quickly become so big that they’ll never get started. With a limited budget, you have to pick your fights, and that means focusing on safety first.

There are genuinely dangerous stretches of road elsewhere in the country that should be addressed before we look at capacity and convenience on a road like N25, where honestly there are no real issues apart from this one section at the Pike and the eastern approach to the Youghal bypass at Kinsalebeg. The rest of the road in Co Waterford is running well within the capacity, and it's safe (although I would do something about McGrath’s cross, the junction for Mahon Bridge east of Lemybrien, which is catches a lot of people out when heading east; perhaps making both it and the Stradbally exits left-only would improve things..)

The other urgent works are to get the traffic jams out of Castlemartyr’s main street, and doing that would solve the problems in Killeagh. The main justification for that will be quality of life for the residents of Castlemartyr itself - no road project will ever get funded on the basis of making car commuting easier: Greens or no greens, there’s a growing understanding that you can’t road-build your way out of traffic congestion, and the only thing that will work is diversion of commuters to other modes.

Mostly agree with that ordering but some of the works are a little too big. #4 doesn't need to reach Dungarvan, just join witht he previous improvements at Kinsalebeg. Beyond here all the way to Dungarvan is an extremely quiet section, and the existing road is absolutely fine.

But around there on your list, at #3.5 or #4.5, should be a scheme to upgrade the 12 km stretch from the eastern end of the Kilmacthomas Bypass to the western end of the Waterford Bypass - the terrain is difficult in parts (which is why it was excluded from the Waterford Bypass) so it could be very expensive, but it's a busy road (busier than Kinsalebeg) with a potentially dangerous crossings.

The existing Kilmacthomas Bypass does not need dualling, and I'd drop it to last and promote Carrigtwohill, if only to fix that lethal left-in-left-out at Oatencake.

(There's also a small stretch of N25 just before it meets the proposed N11/N25 Rosslare scheme that should be addressed, but that might be fixed by an extended link road)