ROI roads better then North

darkman2 · 30-05-2006 7:01pm

bk wrote:

Actually, I agree, I think the economy will remain hot for at least another 3 - 5 years and after that it will stabilise (note, not go down, just stop growing so quickly) and will probably remain that way for a long while.

However the T21 plan is for the next 10 years, most of it hasn't even been started yet, we need to put all our money into the T21 plan and complete it before we even think of looking to the north. Plus I think there will be even more work to do after the T21 plan, see above, about another 5 - 10 years worth of work. So it is likely be 15 - 20 years before we catch up with the rest of Europe and then we can talk about looking at the North. But until then forget about it. Most of our money has already been allocated for projects in the south, there is nothing left for the North for at least another 15 years.

I agree but I think they will add other elements to it as the finances continue to improve. The Outer ring motorway for Dublin is very important along with the entire Metro project and the Eastern Bypass. The new Luas lines are vital aswell. In the NDP other elements were added so I think the same will probrably happen again, although NDP is still not complete.

I dont know why there are duplicate posts. Sry.

ardmacha · 30-05-2006 9:52pm

Originally Posted by ardmacha
Fermanagh/Leitrim/Donegal is not the most prosperous part of the country and there is a clear case that these counties are disadvantaged to some extent by the border. There will be no reopened railways in this area!
But realise that this is because nobody lives there.

Exactly, leave some of the political stuff above and look at geography. (I suspect that some of this debate has to do with the East v West stuff, in general I think development away from Dublin should be encouraged, without going mad and without neglecting the buildup of infrastructure in the East).

Back to the point, I think Donegal is the only county that has neither a railway nor a planned HQDC link on most of the route to Dublin. This is not only a question of population, Waterford has a HQDC link to Dublin planned, a much bigger city, Derry, does not.

smashey · 30-05-2006 9:59pm

Victor wrote:

But realise that this is because nobody lives there.Yes, as a national park

Victor, I think you will find that more people live in Donegal than most other counties. From memory, it is the sixth most populous county in the Republic.

nordydan · 30-05-2006 10:06pm

mysterious wrote:

Darkman and ye all

Leeeettt it goooo!
It will do ya wonders:D

The M2 in Belfast is some Motorway that no where on the island can match against(note i'm trying to change the subject) I think it's the M2 anyways

it has over 8/9 lanes

Yes paid for by all NI citizens, including my relations taxes. where is there anywhere near an equivalent outside belfast? There isnt even DC to derry past randalstown (barring the very recent toomebridge bypass).

The point I would like to emphasise is that where it MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL to both parts the Irish Governemnt should consider investing funds. I am not saying do it at the expense of say the N3,6,7,8,9,11 but it should not be dismissed due to the CURRENT political situation. The funding of the City of Derry airport is a clear precedent. I would not dismiss anything. Eg a western enniskillen bypass would benefit almost entirely Dublin to South Donegal drivers. Why not consider funding it - it would only be about 3km maximum. on a par with say the edgeworthstown bypass.

As for people pissed off over political comments on this post - IT IS A POLITICAL POST!

Few examples of potential projects that would benefit primarily southern motorists (not every f**king road in the north for christs sake - i am not talking about 200km motorways:

1. South Derry bypass - N13 to A6
2. Enniskillen bypass
3. Ballygawley to N2/A5 border
4. A37 Cullavile
5. Upgraded N54 Cavan Monaghan road
6. Belcoo-Blacklion bypass

darkman2 · 31-05-2006 1:59am

nordydan wrote:

Yes paid for by all NI citizens, including my relations taxes. where is there anywhere near an equivalent outside belfast? There isnt even DC to derry past randalstown (barring the very recent toomebridge bypass).

The point I would like to emphasise is that where it MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL to both parts the Irish Governemnt should consider investing funds. I am not saying do it at the expense of say the N3,6,7,8,9,11 but it should not be dismissed due to the CURRENT political situation. The funding of the City of Derry airport is a clear precedent. I would not dismiss anything. Eg a western enniskillen bypass would benefit almost entirely Dublin to South Donegal drivers. Why not consider funding it - it would only be about 3km maximum. on a par with say the edgeworthstown bypass.

As for people pissed off over political comments on this post - IT IS A POLITICAL POST!

I agree. We keep hearing about unionists from certain quarters but how would nationalists feel about funding of major projects jointly (even if it is only a gesture)?

bk · 31-05-2006 8:49am

darkman2 wrote:

I agree. We keep hearing about unionists from certain quarters but how would nationalists feel about funding of major projects jointly (even if it is only a gesture)?

Most would probably want you to keep out of their business. They would realise that such an action would cause far more problems with the unionist then it is worth.

nordydan · 31-05-2006 8:54am

bk wrote:

Most would probably want you to keep out of their business. They would realise that such an action would cause far more problems with the unionist then it is worth.

I would sincerely doubt it, bk. Most know that their best chance of getting that part of the country developed would be through some level of funding from the south. I doubt too many local residents would mind as long as their roads are upgraded. Both sides of the community up here are bitching about the quality of roads especially WOTB.

murphaph · 31-05-2006 9:25am

The A6 is to get a major improvement with a HQDC bypassing Dungiven and running all the way to L/Derry.

MrPudding · 31-05-2006 10:12am

murphaph wrote:

L/Derry.

L/Derry? You mean Stroke City?

MrP

murphaph · 31-05-2006 10:28am

MrPudding wrote:

L/Derry? You mean Stroke City?

MrP

That's the one MrP

Good ol' Gerry Anderson. I think this debate is really based on some false assumption that all roads in NI have deteriorated into what we used to see as normal for the likes of Cavan etc. That's just not true. In many cases the rural roads in NI are in way better nick than their equivalents in the south. A few flasshy roads projects does not a quality network make.

Much work to do in the RoI methinks. If you were a taxpaying resident of somewhere in the south that got passed up for a bypass while Enniskillen gets one out of your taxes I'd imagine you'd be pretty peeved.

Anyway, people are forgetting that a LOT of projects have political origins and aren't based on any real need. Donegal has had rather a lot of money spent on it's roads recently, and a lot of it has been for political reasons. It happens in the east too, don't get me wrong, but it's easy NOT to fund a road in a 'foreign' jurisdiction so they don't.

The north and the south can cooperate on other things such as the second electricity interconnector announced yesterday, that sort of thing is fine as each pays their share.

nordydan · 31-05-2006 10:35am

darkman2 wrote:

I agree. We keep hearing about unionists from certain quarters but how would nationalists feel about funding of major projects jointly (even if it is only a gesture)?

Both nationalist parties are actively pursuing this and both want an island wide spatial strategy. Makes sense regardless of political persuasion, if only to eliminate the poorer border regions.

EG
Western Enniskillen Bypass
Purpose: To provide a bypass of enniskillen for commuters heading from south donegal/north enniskillen to cavan, dublin and the SE. Link between A46 and A509.
Length: about 3km
Cost: I would guess about 30-35million euro but open to correction.
Who would benefit more: The republic, the north would benefit little.
Chances of Brits/Unionists doing it: 0 (0.5% of new schemes projected in the next 15 years in the 6 counties are in fermanagh)
Benefits:Reduced travelling distance. Up to 25-30 minutes of journey time at peak times - at least 10 minutes at off peak times. Also it would stop free staters travelling through Enniskillen and giving their tax euros to perfidious albion and those dastardly sassenachs.
Reasons against doing it:
Brits/Unionists should be doing it - never going to happen
Its a foreign country - Its an island
Waste of money - Hardly. enniskillen is a bottle neck on the dublin ballyshanon route. Its is only to the republics disadvantage that this situation remains.
Offending unionists - being irish offends unionists. Anything you do will offend them. tell them the roas means that you can SPEND AS LITTLE TIME AS POSSIBLE in the north. That'll buy them over.

MrPudding · 31-05-2006 11:02am

murphaph wrote:

I think this debate is really based on some false assumption that all roads in NI have deteriorated into what we used to see as normal for the likes of Cavan etc. That's just not true. In many cases the rural roads in NI are in way better nick than their equivalents in the south.

They have done some really nice work on the road between Belfast and Coleraine over the last few years. I find generally the road in the north are far superior.

Yes, there have been a few nice new roads built down here but the I think the majority are still bad. When you are driving over to the west to a major city you can find yourself on an N road with dodgey edges, dodgey markings, dodgey signs and very few "cats eyes."

Compare that to the A class roads in the north with may just be going from one small town to another and they are so much better. Nice wide lanes, mostly kerbed at the edges, good road markings which are kind of reflective and give excellent visability, cats eyes on the centre line and the edges and lovely big highly reflective signs.

Of and they have worked out int he north that if there is a pothole in the road you have to actually remove the section around it and carry out a repair. This is as opposed to the sothern method which seems to consist of dumping a wheelbarrow full of tarmac into it, lighting up and fag and saying "ah sure, it'll be grand."

Let the north take care of themselves. As the other have pointed out, we have a massive deficit in transport here in the south, both in roads and in public transport. Let's get that sorted before we try to improve the already arguably superior lot of our friends in the north.

MrP

darkman2 · 31-05-2006 6:33pm

The biggest problem in the North is the huge yearly subsidy. I doubt 1 single kilometre of new M-way will be built until thats reigned in.

nordydan · 31-07-2006 10:16am

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5229370.stm

Road network to get £400m upgrade
Details of a proposed £400m package to upgrade roads across Northern Ireland by 2015 have been outlined.
Regional Development minister David Cairns announced a two-month consultation period on Monday.

The plan includes £130m for the road from Londonderry to Strabane, a £50m Westlink fly-over and £10m to improve the Omagh to Enniskillen road.

Up to £1bn has already been set aside for major improvements until 2015, but this money will fund fresh schemes.

By-passes are planned for Enniskillen, Ballykelly and Fivemiletown and there are plans for a new £45m link between the M1 and Hillsborough, to take through traffic past Sprucefield.

Other projects include a £50m scheme to provide a fly-over junction carrying Westlink over York Street, as well as dualling on the A26 from Coleraine to Ballymoney and the A3 from Portadown to Richill.

The proposed investment in Northern Ireland's Strategic Road Network now stands at £1.4bn - the highest in real terms for over 30 years
David Cairns
Regional Development Minister

Mr Cairns said not every roads scheme in Northern Ireland could be funded and, as a result, he was putting the proposals out to public consultation before plans were finalised in the autumn.

"This package of improvements is part of the ongoing investment being undertaken in Northern Ireland's infrastructure which is essential to encourage economic development," he said.

"It is to be funded as part of the Investment Strategy for Northern Ireland (ISNI) in which an extra £400m has been earmarked for major improvements to the trunk road network during the period up to 2015.

"This is over and above the £1bn already in the pipeline, and means that proposed investment in Northern Ireland's Strategic Road Network now stands at £1.4bn, the highest in real terms for over 30 years."

David Orr of the Roads Service said it was important to plan for the future.

"Major schemes like these have lead-in times of at least six years from the time they are included in the programme until work starts on site," he said.

"So this consultation is an important first step towards getting the work on the ground."

The £1bn programme was announced last year while the extra money was first proposed in December.

nordydan · 31-07-2006 10:20am

Looks Derry-Strabane and Coleraine-Ballymena will get completed. The new omagh enniskillen is due to the movement of a hospital. And the enniskillen bypass has at least been considered.
However the most interesting scheme will be the Westlink to M2 scheme. It'll make the M50 upgrade look like a girls tea party!

darkman2 · 31-07-2006 6:01pm

nordydan wrote:

Looks Derry-Strabane and Coleraine-Ballymena will get completed. The new omagh enniskillen is due to the movement of a hospital. And the enniskillen bypass has at least been considered.
However the most interesting scheme will be the Westlink to M2 scheme. It'll make the M50 upgrade look like a girls tea party!

At 1 billion euros I doubt it:rolleyes:

Maskhadov · 31-07-2006 7:05pm

Good to see the north trying to catch up with the south. the roads are in a pretty bad state up there and need every cent of this money.

nordydan · 31-07-2006 8:42pm

darkman2 wrote:

At 1 billion euros I doubt it:rolleyes:

As far as disruption per square metre goes it'll be hard to top.

75-80% of the schemes and money are going west of the bann, at least the imbalance is finally being addressed.

murphaph · 31-07-2006 10:15pm

Maskhadov wrote:

Good to see the north trying to catch up with the south. the roads are in a pretty bad state up there and need every cent of this money.

Don't ya mean "every penny"?

darkman2 · 31-07-2006 10:46pm

The point really being that the North will never have 1 billion to spend on one project. I welcome this investment though:)

ardmacha · 01-08-2006 3:24am

The whole NI roads document is here
http://www.drdni.gov.uk/DRDwww_FOISearch/document.asp?doc=9280

A few points.

There are several 2+1 roads proposed.

The Eniskillen bypass seems to be south of the town, useful for Belfast- Sligo but not helpful for Dublin-Donegal.

The A1 will have all at grade junctions removed from Belfast to Loughbrickland. This will mean that the bit they are building now will be the lowest standard part of the road, when the Newry bypass is upgraded to HQDC.

The Sprucefield link is needed because of bad planning in that area.

nordydan · 01-08-2006 10:36am

darkman2 wrote:

The point really being that the North will never have 1 billion to spend on one project. I welcome this investment though:)

It will if they stop the dole for a week!!!

nordydan · 01-08-2006 11:30am

ardmacha wrote:

The whole NI roads document is here
http://www.drdni.gov.uk/DRDwww_FOISearch/document.asp?doc=9280

A few points.

There are several 2+1 roads proposed.

The Eniskillen bypass seems to be south of the town, useful for Belfast- Sligo but not helpful for Dublin-Donegal.

The A1 will have all at grade junctions removed from Belfast to Loughbrickland. This will mean that the bit they are building now will be the lowest standard part of the road, when the Newry bypass is upgraded to HQDC.

The Sprucefield link is needed because of bad planning in that area.

Yes the loughbrickland section will stick out a bit, but in my experience traffic crossing at these points is quite low. The current sprucefield layout is a joke, but if they extended the A101 to form a west to north bypass of lisburn though the final setup after the new M1 link road will be quite efficient. In conjunction an upgrade of the B101 to A primary status would serve the airport very well for commuters from mid and south down and A1 commuters north.

One thing I noticed in general was the need for more routes to sort out the lack of proper access to aldergrove.

The enniskillen bypass was a suprise, perhaps complaints about no schemes in fermanagh rattled a few cages.

mackerski · 01-08-2006 12:50pm

nordydan wrote:

but if they extended the A101 to form a west to north bypass of lisburn though the final setup after the new M1 link road will be quite efficient.

That was the original route intended for the M11 from Belfast to Newry. What appears to be on the cards here, though, is an online upgrade to HQDC from Hillsborough roundabout (which you'd imagine would be grade-separated) to fly over the existing J7 and presumably freeflow in the Belfast direction only.

Dermot

nordydan · 01-08-2006 1:01pm

mackerski wrote:

That was the original route intended for the M11 from Belfast to Newry. What appears to be on the cards here, though, is an online upgrade to HQDC from Hillsborough roundabout (which you'd imagine would be grade-separated) to fly over the existing J7 and presumably freeflow in the Belfast direction only.

Dermot

Yes its exactly like the M6/M4 interchange with a more convuloted route for the Dublin to M1 West movements and freeflow for the two main ones. I believe the new HQDC will start just south of the awkward Hillsborough roundabout. In such a scenario would this be the start of the M1 northbound??

The M11 north of Lisburn was an utterly stupid plan and a symptom of the powers-that-be at the times. I am somewhat confused that the consultation states that the whole A1 will be expressway but there seems no provision at this stage to upgrade the beech hill loughbrickland road. Unless they are simply going to close the central reservations and tell the traffic to U-turn at the next GSJ. If they wer quite close together this may indeed be a possibility.

westtip · 01-08-2006 1:07pm

ardmacha wrote:

The whole NI roads document is here
http://www.drdni.gov.uk/DRDwww_FOISearch/document.asp?doc=9280

The Eniskillen bypass seems to be south of the town, useful for Belfast- Sligo but not helpful for Dublin-Donegal.
.

Brilliant, and I don't care who pays for it. We need good links to Belfast so we can start treating it as our natural city to go to for destination shopping, entertainment etc. Enniskillen is a huge disincentive to travel from the Sligo region to Belfast, because the town can add up to an hour to your journey. A bypass to the south of Enniskillen will add hugely to the options of traversing the country on a West/East route to the axial North South route on the East coast of this country. Really, who cares about the border these days - Let's throw some money in the pot from both sides of the border to improve the interconnectivity of both parts of this small island - It is absolutlely key for the BMW region to see improvements in the trunk roads in the north, For Sligo Leitrim and Donegal - NI is our natural hinterland.

nordydan · 01-08-2006 1:14pm

westtip wrote:

Brilliant, and I don't care who pays for it. We need good links to Belfast so we can start treating it as our natural city to go to for destination shopping, entertainment etc. Enniskillen is a huge disincentive to travel from the Sligo region to Belfast, because the town can add up to an hour to your journey. A bypass to the south of Enniskillen will add hugely to the options of traversing the country on a West/East route to the axial North South route on the East coast of this country. Really, who cares about the border these days - Let's throw some money in the pot from both sides of the border to improve the interconnectivity of both parts of this small island - It is absolutlely key for the BMW region to see improvements in the trunk roads in the north, For Sligo Leitrim and Donegal - NI is our natural hinterland.

Well said, you should apply for a EU peace & reconciliation grant for that last post of yours!

mackerski · 01-08-2006 2:23pm

nordydan wrote:

I believe the new HQDC will start just south of the awkward Hillsborough roundabout. In such a scenario would this be the start of the M1 northbound??

I doubt it. I see one other junction before you land on the M1, it would serve the western movements to the M1 and be the exit for Sprucefield and Lisburn. In any case, the M1 still runs through to Dungannon, and a spur to Hillsborough would be pretty long. A1(M) perhaps?

Dermot

nordydan · 01-08-2006 3:18pm

mackerski wrote:

I doubt it. I see one other junction before you land on the M1, it would serve the western movements to the M1 and be the exit for Sprucefield and Lisburn. In any case, the M1 still runs through to Dungannon, and a spur to Hillsborough would be pretty long. A1(M) perhaps?

Dermot

I dont think there is another junction as I think the road will begin to veer east after hillsborough and all traffic for sprucefield will divert at this point.
Surely if you are on a road which leads only to a motorway then that must also be part of that motorway.

mackerski · 01-08-2006 4:23pm

nordydan wrote:

I dont think there is another junction as I think the road will begin to veer east after hillsborough and all traffic for sprucefield will divert at this point.

You may be right. I misread the document at first - where it refers to a flyover of Hillsborough Roundabout I read Sprucefield Roundabout, which would have pointed to an online upgrade of the existing alignment. On the basis of the true text, the aligment could go anywhere. Realistically, though, north of the M1 is built up pretty much all the way between J7 and J6, so I'm not sure where other than at the existing J7 you could get the slips in..

nordydan wrote:

Surely if you are on a road which leads only to a motorway then that must also be part of that motorway.

Mostly true - it has to be part of a motorway.

Dermot

ROI roads better then North

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