N56 - Dungloe to Glenties

Is this new part also open to traffic now?

Thanks for that :)

Phase 5 Dungloe - Cloghbolie

Letterilly - Kilraine Part 1 is nowhere near complete, nearly the entire road is running on what will become the cycle track - either the old road or a new single lane.

What looks like another small offline section on the D-C map there was actually done by DLCC in ~2009 (albeit it took them years to do so) - the new road is just a resurfacing with cycle track alongside of that.

To answer that - still three sections, still possible to be held for 11+ minutes depending on how you catch the sequence.

One tiny section is now online on the new road - where it bridges that tiny river at the Glenties end, and the old bridge is now demolished.

Dungloe to Cloghbolie is finished on the road, but there are still some landscaping works and bits of the cycle track to finish up. Numerous workers on Good Friday even!

That's not been started. Was it even tender awarded?

There were signs for a Wills site office over there last year (near the closed hardware store), but I'm fairly sure it was not awarded at the time anyway!

Probably still possible to lose a lot of time on these lights if you hit them at the wrong times; but 4 minutes delay on the way North and 3 on the way South (plus the drive through being significantly slower of course) is a huge improvement over Easter. Six weeks should see the bulk of it on the new alignment I'd say.

My six-weekly or so query for updates on delays has come around again - how long is a bad day currently?

When is this section due to finish up? It's going to look very different when I'm next up, be great if it was finished by then

Oh that's excellent stuff. I was last up at Easter so it'll be a big change now this time, and i wont be up till Christmas. Be a fine road when it's done.

Local news

https://www.donegallive.ie/news/local-news/945957/new-100-million-west-donegal-road-walkway-and-cycleway-to-open-soon.html

Because most people forget that it was even part of the project, I guess. "Dungloe to Glenties" does not include Glenties to a turnoff in the middle of nowhere unless you know that was the plan!

That is what Edwin has been providing updates on above, I'll be able to give a further update tomorrow but I doubt its changed much in 8 days.

Drove this today the whole way to Dungloe, what a pleasure to drive. Would normally only go as far as Nairn turnoff, so last time I'd gone whole way the section closer to dungloe had barely started. Wife had never copped it and was surprised at how fast we got up.

Cant say I'd be familiar with names, but barring the traffic lights being in place to finish off some works, the whole road is opened. There is a bit towards narin where they had to blast through some rock, I assume that's the bit, but yeah it's done. Can see the old road to the right as it goes over the top of the hill. Then there's lights just down past that.

Road is basically done now, albeit there were two ultra-short lights sections on Friday while there was machinery on the carriageway to do works on the landscaping etc. These were not there on the weekend days. The 50km/h is still in place for a lot of it and I suspect could be a fish-in-a-barrel thing if AGS wanted it as the road is fine for 100km/h now - wearing course, lining, studs etc all done.

There is some significant rock breaking along the unstarted bit south of Glenties but that may be completely unconnected to this - I don't know if the tender was even awarded for that!

The last piece does not bypass Glenties, it'll only be from south of Glenties to the Frosses turnoff. Wouldn't be too hard to bypass the town, and there's long term plans for other N56 bypasses (Dunkineely and Bruckless) but not for this

R262 is going to be like that for ages. There's funding for bridge works on two bridges in this year's tranche but nothing else. It's a money pit as it needs constant resurfacing to level out what's sunk in to the bog!

There's a funding commitment in the 2023 figures that seems far too big (5.63m) to be the final payments for work completed; plus some for land purchase (140k) so presumably the final bit will actually start this year.

It's been awarded to Fox Contracts. It's more a greenway and some small realignment from what I've seen

Agreed, a real pity too as I believe the original plan was to cut west from where the last job finished on the other side of Glenties, go across the river to the west of town and join up at Kilraine. Can't see it ever happening to be honest