How much did Motorways improve the driving times

I remember that lol..

Good summary of it here...

Motorways really opened up the entire country making trips between places much more straight forward even if the place you were going to wasn't specifilly on a motorway.

We used to travel West Mayo to Dublin - was a 6 hour drive passing through every single town and village en-route, tailbacks of traffics at various locations. Getting out of Dublin on a Friday evening, tailbacks in Maynooth etc While the last portion of the journey hasn't gotten any more convenient the rest of it has and its dooable in less than 4 hours.

I know a lot of people in parts of Mayo now go south via Tuam and motorway network from there as the journey time is more predicable despite massive improvements being made on the "traditional" route East.

Laterally would have done Galway-Dublin on a semi regular basis and going through Loughrean, Craughwell, Ballinasloe was tough going.

Can do Lucan to Galway city now in 1hr 50 odd - would have taken 3+ depending on traffic and longer again when there was no motor way to Athlone.

As others have said, its the predictibility that has really helped. You know how long it will take you from A to B ans there are far less variables in play from A to B.

Still a few bits to be done - Limerick Cork, General improvements from Charlestown to Sligo and you open up many more parts of the country.

It's grand if you get a clear run.

Noticeably worse getting out and around Dublin these days. M50 seems to have constant traffic jams.

I find driving on motoways utterly boring to the point of putting me to sleep. But really fantastic to get places.

I remember Cork-Dublin being 4.5-5 hours alright. In the late 2000's I remember doing 3 round trips between Cork and the Northside of Dublin in two days, and each trip was around 6 or 7 hours and I thought that was just unbelievably good at the time!

I do Cork to Ballina, Sligo, Westport etc a bit and it's still harrowing on the N20 section, but it's come down from a 9 hour round trip to just over a 7 hour round trip at good times.

I want to re-state that the N20 particularly still needs to be done. Cork-Limerick is totally unpredictable, and can vary quite a lot from around 80 minutes to 150 minutes. Cork-Waterford isn't all dual and it's not perfect but it's a damn sight better than it was. What was 4 hours to Rosslare is now around 2.5!

Some individual stretches were more impactful than others: The Jack Lynch Tunnel, Ballincollig bypass and Shannon tunnel for instance. But I can barely remember how we coped before the M50.

I rememeber someone on here a few years ago saying that they rocked up to possibly Larne with a large crane that had to be delivered to Killarney somewhere. Back in the 80s possibly. Based on the equivalent distance in the UK, they estimated it would take at least 5 hours to deliver.

It took 14.

There were 2 people killed by trucks in Charleville in the last 2 weeks. Motorways have a human element as well as a driving time one

My homeplace is at one of those passing points outside Mitchelstown. I grew up with the sounds of sirens and literal bangs and smashes from car crashes. It used to be absolutely lethal there where people would do exactly what you mention, mash the loud pedal at first sight of a potential gap. Not to mention the Friday evening traffic which would stretch maybe 2km outside the town in all directions.

I worked on the Motorway construction at the time, the difference in the days after it opened was staggering. Motorway infra is a game changer for this country.