N5 - Westport to Turlough [open to traffic]

Consultation on Draft Castlebar Local Transport Plan;

I dont know enough about the town to say if they are meaningful proposals or if it is just saying put a bus route and cycle lanes on practically every road.

They really should be looking to pedestranise some areas in the centre of the town, could make the town much more attractive to visit.

The quality of writing in the Connaught Telegraph is truly abysmal, but they appear to be suggesting again that the Castlebar bypass could open early.

If they have contacted the Taoiseach's office to postpone the opening then it won't be opening early. They must have written that piece on the artwork before word on delays came out but forgot to amend it before they posted it.

I think it would be best if they would stop releasing opening dates until they are sure of when it will be ready.

Is the standard of construction work in general just going down? A long time since i've seen an ontime completion. Maybe the Castlebaldwin project (allowing for covid closures).

And the cost of this rubbish keeps going up. Depressing. Anyway, lets look forward to rehiring these companies that let us down time and time again

In fairness they often copy and paste WhatsApp rumours and print them so its definitely a good idea to double check source!

Are you basing your opening dates on what the Connacht Telegraph have said or that contractor has said.

The road safety audit is like a snagging list and they won't be allow open unless everything is up to spec.

Official word from Mayo County Council today is still that the Castlebar bypass will open in the next few weeks, with no specific date given. Rest of the project to open in Q2, which could be any time up to the end of June obviously.

Interesting prediction here that the new road will lead to a 19% increase in traffic through Breaffy, because Ballina to Claremorris traffic will now go this way instead of via Kiltimagh.

Looks great. Can't wait to drive it

Probably my last photo update before the road opens (hopefully anyway!)

The Castlebar to Westport stretch is looking good 👍 Just some road markings to finish at the Westport end.

The Westport relief road has progressed massively since January. The first pic is the roundabout behind Allergan and the next is the view east from the Newport Road roundabout. The N59 Barley Hill section is fully open now, with only the southern tie-in at the Westport end to be completed.

The signage on the mainline is largely complete. Knock airport features very prominently on all eastbound signage, at the expense of Ballina. I'm not sure what Joe Biden would make of that lol.

I don't get why Claremorris would take precedence over Ballina in that sign.

I'd say that's why it's not open. No need to security sweep a closed road. Any bets it's open to traffic next week.

I don't think he will open the road or anything like that, they will just open it for him as a one off to allow him to access the town tomorrow.

The purpose of his trip to Castlebar is to visit the Mayo Hospice. That's on the west side of the town - the "wrong" side in terms of where he's coming from, so it's less disruptive to take him around on the new bypass and bring him in via the Westport Road, rather than taking him around the inner ring road past the football stadium etc.

This way they only need to close the west side of the town for his visit, beyond the hospital, and the town centre and hospital can stay open and relatively unaffected, for what is a private visit anyway - the public event is in Ballina.

He probably won't even realise that he's on a previously unused stretch of road. But it would mean that he would be the first user of the road, which would be a little bit of history in itself.