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

BluntGuy

The new M20 motorway inbetween Cork and Limerick. I've heard that there are many people that feel it's rather unnecessary considering the traffic volume.

I personally believe if they're going to upgrade the N20 route, they may as well use the safest long-term solution, which of course is a direct motorway link. But what do you all think?

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L1011

They didn't go hugely far up the hills: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cork_Electric_Tramways_and_Lighting_Company#mediaviewer/File:Cork_City_Electric_Tramways.jpg

cgcsb

Hogzy wrote: »

Id say when the motorway is built the journey times will be so quick that a bus would be a quicker and less expensive option between Cork and Limerick.

Nit really, if a new section between mallow and patrickswell is well designed, it can offer competitive journey times

cgcsb

zulutango wrote: »

How feasible would a LUAS be in Cork?

I'd like to think that Limerick could do with a single line connecting Castletroy - city centre - Raheen

Extremely, perhaps a 2 line system, north-south and east-west. A city with 300k people+ and no light rail system is a bit of an oddity in the eu.

irishfeen

zulutango wrote: »

How feasible would a LUAS be in Cork?

I'd like to think that Limerick could do with a single line connecting Castletroy - city centre - Raheen

I assume there would be three seperate LUAS lines in Cork - something like this I would imagine -

zulutango

cgcsb wrote: »

Extremely, perhaps a 2 line system, north-south and east-west. A city with 300k people+ and no light rail system is a bit of an oddity in the eu.

Population isn't the only factor though. The dispersal of the population is a big issue. Irish cities tend to be absurdly spread out such that most forms of public transport are barely feasible.

corkoian

irishfeen wrote: »

No but I do know of a few around Mallow - have no idea what contact it was... Possibly something to do with a ring road perhaps??

I know of landowners being contacted about land for slip roads and junctions for the M20 in the last few months!

irishfeen

corkoian wrote: »

I know of landowners being contacted about land for slip roads and junctions for the M20 in the last few months!

Yep, that's what I have been hearing too - don't know if it means anything with the future of the road though.

spacetweek

zulutango wrote: »

Being cynical for a second, perhaps there's a resistance in the capital to enabling this counter-balnce to the Dublin region?

That sounds paranoid - this isn't a zero-sum game. Helping the regions doesn't take anything from Dublin, it just adds new potential markets to be invested in.

spacetweek

Hogzy wrote: »

Id say when the motorway is built the journey times will be so quick that a bus would be a quicker and less expensive option between Cork and Limerick.

Agreed, you'd need to start by establishing that there's even a need for a new rail
line between those cities when you could just improve the existing one and Dublin's rail network requires billions worth of improvements.

antoobrien

spacetweek wrote: »

That sounds paranoid - this isn't a zero-sum game. Helping the regions doesn't take anything from Dublin, it just adds new potential markets to be invested in.

It should help Dublin by relieving the pressure on infrastructure (and prices).

zulutango

zulutango wrote: »

Being cynical for a second, perhaps there's a resistance in the capital to enabling this counter-balnce to the Dublin region?

spacetweek wrote: »

That sounds paranoid - this isn't a zero-sum game. Helping the regions doesn't take anything from Dublin, it just adds new potential markets to be invested in.

antoobrien wrote: »

It should help Dublin by relieving the pressure on infrastructure (and prices).

I agree fully with those points, but I'm not sure the politicians, the senior civil servants or the general electorate see it that way.

irishfeen

zulutango wrote: »

I agree fully with those points, but I'm not sure the politicians, the senior civil servants or the general electorate see it that way.

Yep and you have to remember the distribution of the electorate and the lack of a senior minister from Cork ... Funding for this might be a decade away as Dublin will get priority as it always has.

zulutango

irishfeen wrote: »

Yep and you have to remember the distribution of the electorate and the lack of a senior minister from Cork ... Funding for this might be a decade away as Dublin will get priority as it always has.

You'd think the senior opposition TDs in Cork would be clamouring for it. What's Micheál Martin's position?

irishfeen

zulutango wrote: »

You'd think the senior opposition TDs in Cork would be clamouring for it. What's Micheál Martin's position?

Michael Martin a useless c.unt ... Simple as... He won't be getting into government any time soon in any case if there is a brain cell among the electorate.

AugustusMinimus

Not sure if I've posted this in here yet (had posted it in the Cork NRR thread). Its the proposed M20 - N40 junction. Interesting to see they switched from the earlier planned 3 stacker with a roundabout to a fully free flow partially unrolled cloverleaf.

Its good that the NRA are finally seeing sense when it comes to junctions. This junction in particular will be future proofed for many years to come when built.

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

You'd think the senior opposition TDs in Cork would be clamouring for it. What's Micheál Martin's position?

The Ministers for Finance and Education are from Limerick and there's no movement. If Michael Noonan isn't willing to release funds for a major infrastructure project that would have huge positive effect on his own constituency then the opposition TD's wouldn't get anywhere. I suppose we'll know more tomorrow when the budget is announced.

corkoian

Anything about funding in the budget?

Leonard Hofstadter

Doesn't seem like it, unfortunately.

spacetweek

No funding, we're just continuing with the PPPs already announced, N25 New Ross and M11 Enniscorthy to start in 2015. Nothing beyond that confirmed.

moyners

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/road-network-creaks-as-traffic-returns-to-celtic-tiger-levels-30697875.html

Hopefully the NRA calling attention to this more publicly will get the government at least looking at the problem

swoofer

I go to Cork in 2 weeks from Clare and I will go via mitchelstown rather than endure that N20. Its shocking to read the M18 will be extended and nothing for the Limerick -Cork motorway!! I cant fathom it. I am pleased with the M18 .

AugustusMinimus

swoofer wrote: »

I go to Cork in 2 weeks from Clare and I will go via mitchelstown rather than endure that N20. Its shocking to read the M18 will be extended and nothing for the Limerick -Cork motorway!! I cant fathom it. I am pleased with the M18 .

IMO, Mallow to Limerick should have been done before the current M17/M18 project. Then the M17/M18 and finally Cork to Mallow.

revsperminute

Would it not make more sense to upgrade the N24 to motorway spec. and have the Limerick / Cork route via a new M24 and the M8 rather than upgrading the N20. It would an upgrade of 55km approx. (N24) of new motorway compared to 80km of motorway (N20)

The Megaphone

revsperminute wrote: »

Would it not make more sense to upgrade the N24 to motorway spec. and have the Limerick / Cork route via a new M24 and the M8 rather than upgrading the N20. It would an upgrade of 55km approx. (N24) of new motorway compared to 80km of motorway (N20)

Unfortunately doesn't do anything to help commuter traffic into Cork City from the Mallow region which peaks at around 20,000 vehicles a day on the N20.

cgcsb

The Megaphone wrote: »

Unfortunately doesn't do anything to help commuter traffic into Cork City from the Mallow region which peaks at around 20,000 vehicles a day on the N20.

Why would we want more traffic coming into Cork City, especially along the Mallow corridor where there is a frequent rail service. Good park and ride facilities are a better option

The Megaphone

cgcsb wrote: »

Why would we want more traffic coming into Cork City, especially along the Mallow corridor where there is a frequent rail service. Good park and ride facilities are a better option

Afraid i don't really have that much time for smart travel as it only works if the alternative method of travel is competitively priced with a high frequency of service, so unless Cork CoCo plan on building a light rail system to rival the Luas you can forget about it.

So back to the road, the upgrade is not to encourage greater use, rather a necessity to cater for current traffic volumes (let alone volumes in 20 years time). To put it in perspective, there is more traffic using the N20 from Mallow than there is using the M9 Motorway to Waterford.

Leonard Hofstadter

cgcsb wrote: »

Why would we want more traffic coming into Cork City, especially along the Mallow corridor where there is a frequent rail service. Good park and ride facilities are a better option

The existing road is totally inadequate; it's very unsafe (especially the 2+1 bit) and is completely over capacity. Yes, of course, rail services should be improved, but rail does not suit everyone and we need to plan for the future rather than doing everything in the typical Irish half-assed way and with the 'era shur it'll be grand' kind of an attitude.

Mc Love

N20 is even worse when there is a bloody horse fair on or when there is a park and ride proposed for the Charleville Park hotel and Gardai have to get called in to sort the traffic outside the hotel and people have to take diversions on R roads at best

Missyelliot2

Letter I received from Programming Division of the NRA......Looks like there will be improvements made to the footpaths....we should all drive on them through Buttevant.

Thank you for your email.

As you may be aware, investment in transport infrastructure, including the national roads improvement programme, has been scaled back significantly under the Government’s capital investment plan “Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2012 – 2016”. As a consequence, the funding available to the Authority for allocation to road authorities to carry out works on the network of national roads, which comprises 5,500 km of carriageway, is extremely limited.

Funding is, accordingly, being targeted by the Authority at those sections of the network of national roads that have been identified as being in most need of improvement.

Network condition surveys have identified a number of priority improvement schemes on the N20 at Charleville and Mallow and remedial works will be carried out at the locations concerned as funding resources permit.

The NRA continues to invest significant sums of money on renewing pavements on priority sections of the national road network. In recent years pavement expenditure on this route has been circa €5.5M in the past 3-4 years and this year circa €3.5M is currently being invested.

In 2011, the Minister for Transport, Mr. Leo Varadkar, directed that the M20 Cork to Limerick scheme be suspended due to funding constraints. However, the Authority with the funding available, has been able to provide Cork County Council with funds for pavement improvements/maintenance along the route. Construction of the Cork to Limerick scheme however will require significant funding to be made available, which at the current time, is not possible. With regard to your taxes and particularly your transport related taxes, please note that approximately 25% of same are invested by the Exchequer in transport related expenditure, the Authority does the best it can nationally, with the 10% (of transport related taxation) it receives. Until such time that this increases significantly, major bypasses will be limited to what can be made available through public and private means and the Authority will concentrate on the maintenance of the existing infrastructure with the funding made available.

I trust the above information is of assistance to you.

Regards,

Programme Division.

In this context, pavement means the road surface.