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

Road works on the N20 this week north of O Rourkes Cross, looks like they are resurfacing the road, expect long delays over the coming weeks.

The fact they are resurfacing the old national road suggests to me that the motorway plans have been scrapped

Surely they would be better off opening the new motorway before resurfacing the N20 though, unless they've scrapped the M20 plans of course

You can't say with any confidence that it's DEFINITELY happening though, can you? It hasn't even gone for planning permission yet

The money was not there for almost 10 years from 2008. The road would have been built years ago had the financial crisis not happened. It had progressed through many of the required steps when it was stopped due to lack of money. I don't think it's politicians on a slow bicycle race to keep voters with them for another few years. I also think that unless you are minister for Public Expenditure or Transport then your influence on project selection and approval is minimal. Those ministers are going to use their position, where possible, to help their constituency and they will let the bureaucrats get on with the rest.

It's reasonable that you see this road as maybe never being done, because we've had so many false dawns. But some of what you've written is demonstrably incorrect.

The money was not available when Varadkar was compelled to shelve the scheme in 2011. He made a difficult decision and I'm not criticising it, but the decision was both financial and political. If this scheme were the most important piece of expenditure in the state then there would have been enough political will to find enough money to keep it moving. So specifically in 2011 there was neither enough money nor political will. That was 14 years ago.

Following that - and the full history can be read in this thread - the scheme was restarted from the very start unfortunately.

Today - and again I apologise for going into politics - we have a government far more politically aligned with road-building than the previous one. There are no signs that the current government will shy away from road-building, quite the opposite. In comparison with the previous government, the infrastructure nerds on here are monitoring the sustainable infrastructure schemes more closely.

The money was not available when Varadkar was compelled to shelve the scheme in 2011.

Without trying to delve too much into politics this road would have cost a fraction of the bank and bondholder bailouts at the time, and would have generated some income if it was tolled properly. The money was there, it just wasn't used wisely. There was money for the upgrade of newlands cross which opened in 2014 for example but not for the M20? Doesn't really add up

Yes, they decided to completely restart the process, rather than pick it up from where it left off. Restarting means it will take longer and cost more. The last major news announcement I recall was around the time of the GE back in November

This all leads me to believe they would rather continually announce it than build it. All in the name of keeping the votes pedaling in

Eamon Ryan and the Green Party allegedly wanted the road to be built with a greenway parallel to the route. Now I don't fully believe what they say but I wasn't against such an idea to be honest, if somebody wants to cycle this route they should be accommodated, especially if it means we get the motorway built at the same time.

To be fair, nobody who voted green was expecting them to build roads so they were appealing to their voter base and I think that's fair enough.

It's been vital infrastructure for a very long time and the towns on the route would see a huge benefit, no doubt. The Macroom bypass has been opened for some time now and I've only heard good things from the very small amount of people I know who live there

Just a side note, this thread is pretty good, there's been a lot of informed input and good discussion down through the years:

• why the road was shelved in 2011, even though M18/M17 continued
• why cycle infrastructure was added to the design
• why direct rail was not included in the design
• impact of Greens in government on the project
• route selection (why Buttevant corridor rather than Mitchelstown)

I know it's a long thread with a lot of pages, but definitely worthy of a read IMO. If this road were in danger of being shelved you'd likely read it on this thread from informed sources very quickly.

Yep, he made a big public song and dance about many roads, but this one seems to have been largely spared.

The biggest negative thing I can think of him doing was perhaps inflating the predicted price in the media. But even that may have just been ass-covering (inflation, securing budgets etc) rather than an interference effort. What people typically pointed out as his interference efforts in other projects were failures to sign-off or allocate budgets in a timely fashion etc. And of course a few very public statements of "I would prefer a bypass" etc

But the NM20 project team were so careful in assessing all modes etc, I think they really safeguarded the road from "green" pushback. I'd like to think it will sail through business justification. I just wish they had an N40 North to accompany it!

The decision in 2011, disappointing as it was, was inevitable both from a financial and political perspective. People have short memories here as to how the country was back then.

In 2011 it would have been impossible to approve spending hundreds of millions of euro on a road at a time when thousands of people were losing their jobs, taxes were increasing, services were being cut and the country had to be bailed out because it couldn't borrow funds on the open market. Yes, I get that infrastructure brings long-term benefits but we were in a hole and there was just no way it could have continued at the time.

As for today, the M20 is a key part of the NDP which has only just been reviewed. It would hugely politically embarassing for the government to withdraw or cancel it at this stage. Currently it's moving towards planning 2026 and I see no reason that anything has changed here.

Does anyone know why a large portion of the N20 Mallow to Blarney was completely closed for a few nights during the past week.

Lots of facebook posts from people that got lost trying to take backroads to avoid it.