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

Carrigtwohill-Midleton was stopped before ABP had a chance to kick it out. It was nothing more than an enabler for suburban car dependent sprawl, dressed up as a remediation project.

N25 as a whole saw a lot of investment through the nineties, which left it in a much better state than other primaries, especially those around Cork. This has put it at the back of the queue for improvements, even quick wins like bypassing Castlemartyr.

Midleton-Youghal is congested in Castlemartyr and to a lesser degree in Killeagh, but it is a pretty safe road overall compared to other primaries in Cork. That counts against it when decisions have to be made on which project to fund. N22 Macroom or N25 Midleton-Youghal? Obviously N22. N20 or N25? N20. N28 or N25? N28 every time (plus the TenT contribution helped).

That is absolutely the correct priority, and should have been done long before now.

I expect something fairly short to cut the corner of N25 that the town sits in. Even a single carriageway would be fine here (traffic flows well enough either side, even at peaks). If the alignment of this road will become part of an eventual N25 Midleton-Youghal, I'd expect either 2+2 or a single with wide verges that could be cheaply retrofitted to 2+2 later.

Bypassing Castlemartyr will hugely improve Killeagh, as a lot of the delays there are due to traffic skipping Castlemartyr by going through Mogeely.

Anyone have a map for the proposed Midleton Northern bypass?

I would have thought the northern relief road would have been extended to the R627. However I’m not sure there is a corridor available. Very poor planning.

The Broomfield (Avoncore) route is a complete mess alright, yep. Maybe they'll CPO a load of land immediately North of the Train Station? I can't see it happening.

That would be great yes, but I'm not sure if there's any space available for a Northern tie-in to the R626? That's what's badly needed. Midleton train station is really underperforming as a P&R too without this connectivity, so it'd be great if they could at least tie the train station into the R627 as part of this work...

The priority at Midleton should be a new junction east of the town with new link roads running north and south. Extend the rail line 1.2km and add a new P&R station on the train line to divert some of the commuter traffic currently travelling from east of Midleton to west of it. It would take some pressure of Lakeview RAB (north/south traffic as well as east/west), albeit it would still be over capacity. The P&R car park would also double as the greenway trailhead so would get use at weekends also.

It is the kind of project which would get funding and shouldn't be too contentious so could progress quite quickly. Would make more sense than some of the other things that are being talked about.

Bit of progress on the Castlemartyr/Killeagh bypass(es) reported in the Examiner.

It doesn't make any sense to me. I can't understand why it was left behind. Some people seem to think N24 upgrades will suffice but they won't: a lot of the traffic on the East Cork corridors is not end-to-end.

The numbers absolutely do not support a Type 1 DC anywhere between Midleton and Waterford.

Type 2 from Youghal to Midleton and around Dungarvan can (just about) be argued for, but the case for dualling any other stretch between Youghal and Waterford can only be made on the grounds of continuity and safety, not capacity.

Where did you find that figure? It's 16300 weekday AADT between Castemartyr and Midleton according to TII : https://trafficdata.tii.ie/sitedashboard.asp?sgid=XZOA8M4LR27P0HAO3_SRSB&spid=5229D2644906&accessible=1

... this is the busiest part of Youghal-Midleton.

Capacity of Type 2 is nominally 20,000 but this limit is due to the use of Compact GSJ and at-grade roundabouts: it can be increased to 30,000 by using higher capacity junction designs.

But we're not going to build capacity for the benifit of car commuters. . it's a waste of resources. A 2+2 fixes the safety issues and gets traffic out of the villages. Any further investment will be focused on giving people better alternatives to driving in and out of Cork city every day.

Agree that, apart from a new Blackwater bridge and the unimproved stretch at Kinsalebeg, there's not much else needed as far as the Cork/Waterford border. In Waterford county, Dungarvan is an issue, but the landscape will make that very expensive.