N4/N5: How should they be developed?

Allergan, Baxter (x2), Hollister, Coca Cola... etc all on N5. Would actually be worse off in terms of longer haulage journey times via N60-N17-M6 than the current N5-M4.

The big Westport-Bohola DC plan was already scrapped. I dont expect any major work on N5 for a long time.

Most of the Mayo N5 is wide good quality SC with hard shoulder. Carracastle-Charlestown, Swinford, Bohola, Ballyvary bypassed over last 30 years so it has less ribbon development than some other N routes.

Westport-Castlebar is in contrast a very poor narrow windy section with reglar accidents and some of the highest traffic numbers on the whole N5. That and removing Ballaghaderreen bottleneck would make a huge improvement to the route.

Not sure if remaining Ballaghaderreen-Strokestown section will ever be tackled but some smaller schemes and passing areas could improve safety.

N5 Ballaghaderreen bypass tendering to start "immediately" with construction to begin in 2012 according to Roscommon FG TD Frank Feighan. He says he has assurance that "the money has been ring-fenced" by minster Varadkar to fast-track completion of the project which is considered shovel ready.

http://www.midwestradio.ie/mwr/news/5452-construction-to-begin-next-year-of-ballaghaderreen-by-pass.html

gally74

First stroke from Kenny n 17 more important

road_high

Neworder79 wrote: »

N5 Ballaghaderreen bypass tendering to start "immediately" with construction to begin in 2012 according to Roscommon FG TD Frank Feighan. He says he has assurance that "the money has been ring-fenced" by minster Varadkar to fast-track completion of the project which is considered shovel ready.

http://www.midwestradio.ie/mwr/news/5452-construction-to-begin-next-year-of-ballaghaderreen-by-pass.html

Has Enda Kenny writen all over it!! Road improvement (albeit badly needed) serving his constituency ala Cowen and Tullamore bypass. And also soften the blow of the A&E closure in Roscommon so the local FG TDs can point to something positive locally.

L1011

At least its not actually *in* Mayo, but the N5 in Mayo was already Flynned up to a rather high standard...

One of the obvious issues with working on the N5 in Roscommon will be the amount of archaelogical remains around "Cruchain Ai" (Tulsk) it would be Tara Mark II

lotusm

Ballaghaderreen-Strokestown is the worst part of the N5 and I would say also in national road terms... its badly needs to be upgraded... Tourists will not travel long distances from Dublin, commuting time has to be bought doen to 2.5 hours to get to the likes of Castlebar /Ballina.

Tbh damaging Cruchan Ai won't get you anymore tourists, there needs to be a new road alignment that completely avoids the site.

I see that it's been listed as a potential UNESCO world heritage site (along with other royal sites)

http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5528/

Cosmo Kramer

It is of course Kenny related and with Longford being sorted as well it will make major inroads in terms of Mayo to Dublin travel. However as neither scheme is in Mayo it doesn't look too obvious in terms of looking after his own constituents.

The remaining 20 miles of the N5 are practically unfixable as discussed above and will remain in place for a long time, however the journey to Mayo is becoming increasingly easier and this can only be good news for an area that was massively overlooked in terms of infrastructure in the last decade.

Sponge Bob

Ballaghadereen and Longford, if bypassed, remove the 'variability' involved in travelling to and from Mayo. Westtips proposal to send the N5 due east from Ballaghadereen to Carrick on Shannon is the only game in town to my mind now that Royal Complex is in UNESCO land.

It could take up to 10 years for that World Heritage Site application to be decided, game over for Frenchpark/Tulsk .....surely.

Not only that the geophysics and Magnetic survey have found some fairly large structures. For example Cruchan mound (Rathcrogran) was found to have a palisaded circular enclosure 360metres in Diameter around it which has a Rock cut ditch about 5meteres wide. Here's an image of the geophysical survey

Image taken from this PDF:
http://www.nuigalway.ie/archaeology/documents/waddell_2009_rathcroghan.pdf

PDF specifically on the mound and the buried inner circle in it.

http://www.nuigalway.ie/archaeology/oldsite/documents/the_innermost_rathcroghan.pdf

Cruchan Ai is by far one of most important sites in Irish mythology and history. Not only does is it the starting point of the Táin (as well as site of the battle between the two bulls) but also the center of power for the Connachta and their descendant dynasties. The Uí Briúin Ai continued inaguration there until the 17th century (The O'Connor Don), plus the earliest writings on the Uí Néill state that Niall reigned from Cruchan and not Tara, thence the stories about the likes of both Niall and Laoghaire been buried in and around Cruchan.

Also "Uaimh na gCat" is the point where the dead are suppose to enter the world of the living on Oíche Shamhna (Halloween).

Public information day on the proposed N5 Westport to Turlough road project are being held this week in Castlebar, Westport and Turlough (Museum). Final designs on display and 3D renderings of major junctions. The project is in phase 4 and ready to move to CPO & EIS, subject to approval and funding.

No major changes to the recent plan, despite some concerns raised about T2 DC design (central wire barrier) and lack of a junction between Westport and Castlebar. There are several underpass and link roads provided for affected housing and villages such as at Islandeady.

Junctions are compact GS joining the N5 at Turlough, GS interface with N84 & N60, and 80m roundabout crossing existing N5 at Castlebar and again terminating at Westport.

The Westport - N59 northern relief road has been moved slightly further north to route around the IDA park which has has recently been purchased by Allergan Pharma.

Cosmo Kramer

Neworder79 wrote: »

Public information day on the proposed N5 Westport to Turlough road project are being held this week in Castlebar, Westport and Turlough (Museum). Final designs on display and 3D renderings of major junctions. The project is in phase 4 and ready to move to CPO & EIS, subject to approval and funding.

No major changes to the recent plan, despite some concerns raised about T2 DC design (central wire barrier) and lack of a junction between Westport and Castlebar. There are several underpass and link roads provided for affected housing and villages such as at Islandeady.

Junctions are compact GS joining the N5 at Turlough, GS interface with N84 & N60, and 80m roundabout crossing existing N5 at Castlebar and again terminating at Westport.

The Westport - N59 northern relief road has been moved slightly further north to route around the IDA park which has has recently been purchased by Allergan Pharma.

Anyone know whether there are up to date online plans available to view for this stage of the project?

Documents on the scheme can be seen here:
http://www.regdesign.com/projects/n5westport-to-turlough.html

PDF map of scheme here:
http://www.regdesign.com/pdf%20files/n5westport-turlough/maps-drawings-photos/overallmap-of-scheme.pdf

Those files are over 2 years old, hopefully they will put up the latest designs also. Can never understand why planning offices can organise brochures and open days but can't upload the content to their websites.

In fairness with Longford nearly done, Ballaghderreen starting this year, if you built this scheme pretty much the whole N5 would be up to scratch standardwise.

Neworder79 wrote: »

Those files are over 2 years old, hopefully they will put up the latest designs also. Can never understand why planning offices can organise brochures and open days but can't upload the content to their websites.

Not all of them, the Map is from September 2011, there is also an update from December 2011. This contains following titbit:

Following the decision by An Bord Pleanála (ABP) to refuse the N26 Ballina to Bohola Stage 2 Road Scheme a separate study was undertaken to check the validity of the connection point of the N26 and N5. Based on the conclusions of this study it was decided to terminate the N5 Westport to Bohola Road Project at a point east of Turlough village from where the route may be continued as best suits the future re‐evaluation of the N26 connection. The new scheme resulting from this decision, the N5 Westport to Turlough Road Project is the scheme currently under consideration.

http://www.regdesign.com/pdf%20files/n5westport-turlough/project-update/Project%20Update%20161211.pdf

The older documents on route selection show all the way to Bohola, the map that from September however confirms to above paragraph.

lotusm

Think I should have put this link here regarding the N5 from strokestown to french park:D

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055673984&page=76

SeanW

It's a shame the Mullingar to Longford dual carriageway was suspended because I use that road a lot and I routinely find it choc-a-bloc, indeed I was coming home last Friday evening and the narrow stretch between Longford and Edgeworthstown was closed because of a head-on collision (not surprising given the massive volume).

I know there's no chance of the project going ahead even this decade because of the state of the economy, but I wonder, could it be cut up into those little projects the gov't is now doing?

By that I mean having Motorway grade bypassees of Ballinalack and Rathowen, and a 2+2 with roundabouts realignment from Longford to after Newtownforbes, all built with a view to including them as pieces of a much larger realignment to be completed in phases later on.

I've attached some pics: blue line = suggested T1DC, dark green line = T2DC and light green = new RS2 for temporary/side roads, and black circle = roundabout.

L1011

It'd be entirely possible (indeed that's how the N4 got to its current fairly OK standard further north - many small schemes) but it'd involve a total redesign from the current plans.

Newtownforbes is probably the most urgently needed of any sectiondue to the two 90 degree turns and the speed at which most traffic enters the town when heading west.

Ballinalack and Rathowen would be better served by one single stretch of road - the existing plans were to go south of the two towns and then back online almost till the railway bridge at Edgesworthstown.

The online sections are pretty extensive and could be done piecemeal also - Roosky to where the road diverges to bypass Newtownforbes and Mullingar to Ballinalack (barring one minor diversion) are entirely online. The only major diversion is Edgesworthstown to Newtownforbes.

SeanW wrote: »

I know there's no chance of the project going ahead even this decade because of the state of the economy, but I wonder, could it be cut up into those little projects the gov't is now doing?

Dunno about that. Wasn't there talk a while back of making it a PPP? I know there are other more urgent ones to be done first but it could take place after 2016.

Noticed some good news and some bad there:

The N4 Collooney-Castlebaldwin upgrade has been reactivated by the NRA on the sly. This will upgrade a poor-quality stretch of the N4 south of Sligo.

The bad news is that they are going to build it as standard single carriageway! This beggars belief. The existing road is already at this standard! Surely we should be standardising on dual minimum for the whole N4 route?

L1011

That was intended to be a mix of Type 2 and Type 1 - motorway standard - DC. Single is a complete waste of money and unlikely to be much cheaper.

http://www.sligotoday.ie/details.php?id=19536 suggests they want to do it Banbridge Bypass style - buy the land and build all structures for dual but only lay single. The Banbridge BP has long since been dualled, but its a pointless penny pinching exercise and I fail to see how they could do a T2DC like this - its inherently a T1 layout.

Sponge Bob

Even a half dualller is better than what is there now. Given the current state of the public finances the same may be done to the awful stretch north of Sligo too.

veryangryman

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Even a half dualller is better than what is there now. Given the current state of the public finances the same may be done to the awful stretch north of Sligo too.

I doubt north of Sligo is anywhere near in the list of priorities. Traffic counts id imagine drop off significantly for anyone heading towards Donegal. Much less of a risk accident-wise than the N4 stretch.

MYOB wrote: »

suggests they want to do it Banbridge Bypass style - buy the land and build all structures for dual but only lay single.

Well that is not quite so bad.

[Deleted User]

Looks like the CPO's for the Westport to Turlough dual carriage way will be going a head shortly.

http://www.midwestradio.ie/index.php/news/21359-taoiseach-welcomes-confirmation-of-cpos-for-n5-from-turlough-to-westport

Will likely be started before the next election.

lotusm

that is great news, that road to Westport is lethal and has claimed many road deaths in recent years..