N11/N25 - Oilgate to Rosslare Harbour [route options published]

That side road the lights are there to service isn't busy by any means, usually one or two cars when the lights change.

There's a little national school down there,but they'd be coming and going outside of peak times anyway. Seems crazy to be holding up half the parish when there's nothing on the other road.

Archive Today will enable you to read it.

2030 at best before it starts. The N11 is manic in both directions.

there is now an issue over the active travel arrangement

our local politicians are poo (TDs and Councillors)

I’ll be angry but not surprised if this fails again and more millions are spent on it in 5 years time to go through the whole poxy process again 🙄

So Phase 3 will have taken 5 years. Should we expect an explanation for the need for an online Service Area when the M20 doesn't need one?

Services near Rosslare would seem like a good idea for both arrivals and departures through the port, the traffic will be starting/ finishing nationwide journeys whereas the M20 is 80km end to end with many journeys not covering the full distance, but I don't think any other motorways have included online services as part of the build. Surely, the services can be a separate project.

The need to incorporate 'Active Travel' in what is primarily a HGV access route to a port seems braindead. By all means, incorporate a ringfenced budget for active travel routes in the catchment, but tying the delivery of active travel routes to an access route to the port seems insane.

The active travel routes and HGV route should be decoupled, both should happen but they should not be codependent.

This project has apparently had to provide services along the route due to some regulation. I'm not sure what that is but I can't see how it wouldn't also apply to the M20. I assume the services area won't be at the port because that should be easy to provide and shouldn't require any additional design work, nevermind years of it.

At Ringaskiddy, a HGV service area is to be provided by the Port of Cork within the port grounds. If TII are doing it here, I'd assume it's well away from Rosslare, presumably north of Wexford town. Having it south of Wexford town basically makes it a port facility in which case TII shouldn't be wasting years on it.

It comes across as the whole project being a shïtshow and they are looking for excuses.

The online service area is not a new development. It was announced way back in 2023 (see page 20 of this thread). There’s no requirement for it to be exactly at 50 km, just “within” 50 km: a site north of Oilgate on the existing M11 would also meet the requirement.

However, I think an exception should be requested in this case, because the N25/N11 interchange would be a far, far better place to put services, and it is just 57 km from the Gorey services - maybe a little less depending on the final route of M11. Services here would benefit traffic heading East-West on N25 as well as North-South on N/M11.

But why isn't the M20 working to this regulation? If this project is being delayed by a requirement to incorporate services every 50km, why not the M20? This project actually published it's Preferred Scheme Option before the M20 project did so any changes in requirements impacting this should also have applied to the M20.

I can't see there being any significant demand for a service station south of Oilgate. Anyone traveling north will have recently started their journey and is unlikely to stop so soon. Anyone heading south will be nearing the end of their journey and again are unlikely to stop. Most will use a normal service station off the motorway rather than pay inflated prices. The biggest source of demand is likely to be truckers but they'd be better accommodated at REP and won't want to stop so close to it.

Has it ever been confirmed how much, if any, of this project is to be motorway?

If the "hubs" included in the M20 design meet the requirements (I have no idea what the requirements are, the only reference I have seen to them are from Wexford CoCo in relation to the delays to this project) then that should be easy to provide at the existing Oilgate roundabout. I assumed a full MSA as TII have developed at other locations as that would require a dedicated junction and significant design work. A car park with EV chargers and a jacks off a standard junction shouldn't result in years of delays.

In relation to your final sentence, WCC advised that it was a new requirement that services had to be located within 50km of each other, rather than the previous 80km. This introduced the requirement to this project, which was not previously a concern. It has already caused significant delay, such that the much larger M20 project, which published the preferred option later, will submit it's planning application before this has finalized it's design.

Another component of the delay is the requirement for an Active Travel route but WCC have been planning a Wexford - Rosslare Greenway at the same time so would have made sense to combine these.

I assume the issue here is an intention to build a motorway but that is creating many design issues and landowner problems that they can't resolve in a way that they are confident that would get planning approval. Building a DC here should be fairly simple.

Motorway all the way would be ludicrously expensive and almost certainly have a poor business case. Upgrading the Wexford bypass to motorway would require a new parallel road, in which case online upgrade of the existing road only creates more difficulties for construction so you end up building a new motorway parallel to a SC with little congestion!

South of Wexford has nothing like the traffic volumes to justify motorway so it really shouldn't be considered. Upgrading the Wexford bypass to DC would be relatively simple and provide the same benefits at much lower cost.