M20 - Cork to Limerick [preferred route chosen; in design - phase 3]

Not up through the main street of the village if that's what you mean. There is a tiny strip of path one one side of the road with some bicycles painted on it once before you enter the cycle lane when heading towards Limerick.

The Mallow Relief Road active travel path or the Mallow to Dungarvan Greenway would link the southern and northern sections of the N/M20 active travel.

Having looked at the latest update, I think there are lots of things which to me, in my limited knowledge of the project and it's constraints, could be done better. The proposed two partial junctions set up at Croom as I previously said seems crap and a single junction further north would be better.

The junction for Charleville should also be further north imo. I don't see this project doing much for Charleville. Obviously longer distance traffic will be removed but much of the traffic from the town and the wider area will still be going through the main street to access the M20, particularly to/from anywhere south.

I'm not sure if the N72 Mallow relief road has been considered in the design. Not sure how it will link to the proposed new roads layout, presumably an additional roundabout with the current N72 west of the junction. Shifting the junction even 250m north, putting the eastern junction roundabout between the N72 and N73 with both feeding directly into it, then the N72 relief road can tie directly into the junction roundabout on the west side.

I also think all the talk about transport hubs rings a little hollow when they don't bother with a P&R or two when there are junctions less than 200m from a rail line being upgraded to have frequent commuter trains

Yep the P&R is definitely a bit frustrating. Also the lack of a full tie in to anything other than the existing road at Blackpool is frustrating. And obviously the N72 tie-in is missing. But it seems like they were somehow told it's out of their scope, in all cases. I suspect that was all very deliberate: "remove from scope anything that is outside of our control that could delay us"

A lot of the project is old news. The majority of landowners went through this process 15 years ago. And it was in ABP last time before the plug was pulled.

It was always expected to restart eventually.

On a side note. Has anyone checked on the Cork-Limerick Business alliance. Hope he’s ok? 😜

Edited to say he’s ok. I googled CLAG and he popped up on Newstalk with his usual speil. I was getting worried as I hadn’t seen him mentioned in the press since the latest announcement 😂

I think the vast majority of the populace will be happy just to get a motorway built now after all these years of empty promises

I don't see how what is proposed for the M20 could be described as "seamless integration", there'll probably be four roundabouts there when two could suffice. Ideally the would be included in the Mallow bypass section of the M20 for construction.

In terms of phasing/contract arrangements, I'd say best would be;

1. Blarney to Mournabbey - very dangerous as is and can't have a motorway further north feeding into the existing road*
2. Mournabbey to Charleville junction (including N72 Mallow relief road) - removes the worst bends
3. Charleville junction to M21 - I don't think the proposals do much for Charleville anyway so it can wait and Croom has a bypass already

*it might even make sense to make this a separate planning application in the hope that it would have an easier time getting through ABP and avoiding a JR, allowing it to proceed quicker

Do you really want to encourage traffic to a motorway junction on the R515?

Junction of R515 and N20 above.

‘Torturous ba**ard of a road’

That section is one of the busiest single carriageway roads in the country.
And the most dangerous too

I’m referring to Rathduff to Blarney. Single carriageway. And a disaster waiting to happen.

Rathduff to Mourneabbey is the 2+1 section. And is already way over capacity. So much so that the locals can’t cross it at times.