N25 - Midleton to Youghal [planning and design to commence 2023]

I’d be slow to add another junction so soon after the main Midleton one, and a LILO on a 2+2 would only ever help half the journeys: you could get to Cork easily but not back. But in exchange for the loss of that direct in/out, the housing off the Rocky Road would now have far better wheeled access into Midleton, via the overbridge (or probably underpass) shown than it does now, so it’s swings and roundabouts.

The project being looked at now is most likely SC bypasses of both towns. It was literally thrown into the mix to appease a local TD, it wasn't on the agenda at national level so I doubt it will be a mega project. This is why I would be reluctant to praise your man for what he did, most likely he has been fobbed off with an inferior solution (but he'll probably get reelected multiple times before the road is built and this becomes obvious so he probably doesn't care).

Realistically, no junction should be provided at Lakeview RAB, just an overpass. The amount of houses which would have to be CPOed is significant, other homeowners wont be happy that on/off ramps are beide their home and it would mean the R road stays wedged with traffic despite removal of the RAB. A new junction further east and new distributor road going north and south is a much better option.

Yeah I'd hold very little value in single-carriageway bypasses of Killeagh and Castlemartyr to be honest. I'd say it needs to be Lakeview and 2+2 the whole way realistically. I know there's not the same volume of traffic, but if Cork-Killarney is mostly 2+2, and Cork-Limerick is mostly 2+2, why bother spending money on upgrading the N25 unless it's 2+2?

It will not be a single-carriageway. The current alignment outside of the towns is wide enough and has good enough geometry for a straight 2+2 retrofit, although this will require offline construction of local property access roads. Any new Single Carriageway on a National Primary road has to be designed and built with upgrade to 2+2 in mind, so the saving for a single-carriageway road would not be significant.

There should not be a need for any complex structures either: the terrain is flat, and there are no significant routes crossing N25 - there are less than ten junctions of any kind off N25 between Castlemartyr and Killeagh. You just need one junction at Killeagh, one at Castlemartyr (preferably north side to also serve the already planned SDZ and new rail station at Mogeely), a link-road to stop Garryvoe traffic needing to use Castlemartyr en route to Cork, and that’s pretty much it.

But, perfect being the enemy of good, I would be very happy if two stretches of what will be the eventual alignment were built to bypass Castelmartyr and Killeagh right now. Something like this:

(I’ve included a relief road for the traffic to and from towns south of Castlemartyr, because this is really where the town’s traffic problems come from)

Even as single-carriageway roads, these would do a huge amount to remove the bottlenecks, and when the whole project is tackled, the sections are there and ready to be widened.

In terms of planning, people object to divided roads much more than to single carriageways, so two SC bypasses would be much easier to get installed, and if a wide enough corridor is purchased, no further CPO process would be needed again to widen a 2+2. If a road that nobody has direct access onto is being widened, it doesn’t attract the same amount of objection as one that has people’s houses alongside.

I don’t believe the whole scheme from Midleton to Youghal will be SC. A project of that scale will be built as Type 2 DC simply because the extra cost of this kind of DC isn’t a big amount over SC once you’re doing something that size. (And besides, the whole length outside of the towns is already Type 1 Single, so what “upgrade” would a single-carriageway Midleton-Youghal scheme even provide?)

However, I can see a situation where two much shorter, single-carriagway bypasses something like I drew get approved and built as an interim relief for the traffic problems in Castlemartyr and Killeagh. This would be perfectly acceptable to me if those two short bypasses were built along the alignment of what was going to be the full scheme eventually, and if the land take and any structures were sized for the eventual DC, such that they could be relatively cheaply upgraded to Type 2 DC as part of that full scheme.

(There’s little sense in making such short runs DC, as this would encourage dangerous driving toward the end of the DC stretches)

What I was saying was that while the DC would be great, and is the most likely configuration of a complete upgrade, I’d be happy if something would be done, and especially if it would be done in such a way as to not be a waste of money later. The current situation of ”Jam tomorrow, nothing today” isn’t helping anyone.

Great article in today's Examiner about the N25 situation. A dual carriageway or motorway is really needed here but will Eamon Ryan allow it?

Castlemartyr is the problem, not the traffic. There are two fairly manageable streams of traffic meeting at a tight junction under traffic-light control, and the low capacity of this junction and Main Street to the west backs up all the approaches.

East of Castlemartyr things move pretty well; to the west there are delays at peak times, but generally the traffic flows fairly smoothly until you get to the roundabout at Midleton. In Castlemartyr itself, however, there are long tailbacks at all times of day and night.

People try to dodge Castlemartyr by going East/West through Mogeely, and it’s these cars leaving/rejoining N25 that cause most of the delays in Killeagh.

But the overall traffic here does not justify a motorway/Type 1 DC. Anywhere between Midleton and Waterford, a 2+2 would be far more than will be needed for decades.

I’m hoping for an end-to-end design, but one which allows the two town bypasses to be constructed first without needing to do the connecting parts. That would provide the greatest relief with the lowest cost and delay. The way the current route takes a sharp turn in Castlemartyr and the opposite sharp turn in Killeagh would allow this unless the chosen route is really far from the current N25.

I think the final thing will be 2+2, and that would be great. But in the interests of fixing the problem quickly: have the design sorted, then building two stretches of wide single along the eventual path of the full 2+2 road would be an easy win, and could be quickly upgraded to 2+2 when needed. Once that’s done, there are better places to spend the roads budget in Co. Cork for now (N71!)

Unfortunately, our planning law doesn’t allow us to do this kind of targeted scheduling: you either build it all, or the planning lapses on the bits you didn’t do.

It’s not just the short stretch of SC, but the access roads for the properties. There are, however, only a few of these along the stretch between the two towns, and the whole length from just west of Castlemartyr to just east of Killeagh is only 7.5 km (probably only 7km when you take the two corners out of it) anyway, so yes, it might make sense to do that.

Actually, from the end of the dual carriageway at Midleton to the start of the Youghal bypass is 20km, so maybe breaking that into three tendered projects, with this one as the middle of those, would be a nice way to get it the whole thing done.

Cost and time too, not just “ideology”. Given its situation and the surrounding development, Lakeview could end up costing as much as the two town bypasses combined. And its configuration is the most likely to draw complaints at the planning process, with a couple of deep-pocketed landowners along any place where the road could be routed. There’s going to be pressure from the council to keep Lakeview as an all-movements interchange and add yet another all-movements Midleton junction to the east of the town, and something like that will involve a big land-take and we’ll be in another N28 situation before you know it.

But I agree that it should be included in the design, but doing that is going to condemn the residents of Castlemartyr to an extra year of traffic as the Midleton end gets tangled up in judicial review nonsense.. I’m surprised you’re still blaming the Green Party for the slow pace of progress, when in truth the planning system is the greatest source of delay.

Incidentally, Castlemartyr needs a relief road in addition to this bypass, but that’s something that we’ll have to rely on the “Town Centres First” programme to deliver, I think.