M28 - Cork to Ringaskiddy [under construction; 2028 completion]

The M28 contract notice published in September 2023 stated an estimated contract value of €150m, so not sure where the above €250-€500m figure came from.

I just took the figure used by the Examiner in the second paragraph of this article:

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41239774.html

Just an FYI for anyone interested, I followed fhe progress of the Dunkettle interchange upgradeand got weekly email updates on same

I just got an email now from that same source offering updates now on the M28 project.

I have signed up for same, so for anyone interested keep an eye on your inboxes

https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-41602759.html

Those who have been following this project through its tribulations will choke over the irony of this:

Announcing the funding allocation for Cork, Jerry Buttimer, Fine Gael TD for Cork South Central and minister of state for rural transport, said that since his election to the Dáil last November, he had stressed the importance of the completion of M28 Cork to Ringaskiddy road.

“This funding is an important part of that, and I will be continuing to advocate for funding in 2025 and into next year,” Mr Buttimer said.

"Massive support" for a bunch of other politicians also who were nowhere to be seen when the project actually needed support.

Will the Mallow relief road form part of the M20?

Today in Ringaskiddy. Good progress.

. .

No. These are progressing as two separate projects, unrelated to the M28

Mallow Relief Road thread here:

and M20 thread here:

There was a mini piling rig on the eastern side of the road on Maryborough Hill today

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-41609302.html

Well its official. Personally I can't see how an 11km motorway is going to take 3 years. The amount of enabling works that they have already done with earth embankments should mean that they can get stuck into the concrete works for the interchanges very early. I'm going to speculate and go for a June 2027 completion date

I'm actually looking forward to them dropping the speed limit on the N40 to a probable 60kmh for the tie-in works. That'll take the wind out of some of the accident prone tailgaters on that section.

From what I see of the Bloomfield interchange (commuting on it 25 years unfortunately) most of the issues West Bound are caused by traffic coming from Rochestown not knowing how to merge correctly (merging across continuous white lines), along with those who do merge bullying their way into the right hand way as quickly as possible.

Hopefully they reduce that merge from Rochestown to a single lane and reduce the speed limit dramatically from the M28 at the merge.

I’ve always felt that the merge problem should have been avoided at construction time by removing the left lane Westbound: through traffic would then have to stay right, joining traffic would slip into a new left lane, and then there’d be two lanes across Douglas: enough time to get organised for the Kinsale Rd interchange. Yes, removing one lane between the Bloomfield exit and merge is a drop in “capacity”, but there really was no extra capacity west of the merge.

But that’s the current road. The new scheme actually adds an additional merging lane Westbound. Tiger-tail markings like this work surprisingly well at keeping cars in lane, so things may be better.

Here’s the new Rochestown Road junction, by the way (my arrows and labels):

… and here’s where the traffic is sorted into N40 East and West:

See Roads Act 1993