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

To summarise: yes, they are going to build it.

Nothing much visible is happening right now that the first public consultation is coming to an end, but as the title says, the preferred route will be announced in a few months. After that it's planning, tender and finally construction.

Expected start is 2023/2024 at the earliest.

Cork Trucker wrote: »

Ballybeg bends where the go safe van do be?

ya where ''Glenstone Quarries' is that stretch along there that bends ,havent been down there in few years though.

ongarboy wrote: »

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m20-motorway-bill-careers-more-than-1bn-off-track-2fqqhcbwd

Eamon Ryan now saying project could cost up to €3 billion!! He says the money should be spent on investing in Limerick and Cork cities rather than the connecting of them!

Paywall article unfortunately.

Yikes. That is quite the jump. And the final figure will be higher again.

ongarboy wrote: »

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/m20-motorway-bill-careers-more-than-1bn-off-track-2fqqhcbwd

Eamon Ryan now saying project could cost up to €3 billion!! He says the money should be spent on investing in Limerick and Cork cities rather than the connecting of them!

Paywall article unfortunately.

That muppet should be made drive the length of it early on a dreary Tuesday morning in December.... Then tell us how he got on coming through the Mallow roundabouts, Ballybeg bends, Traffic in Buttevant and Charleville, How he got held up by Tommy on his 590 Massey doing 25mph beyond Rourkes Cross with a stream of traffic behind him, then the crap narrow section before he got onto the Croom bypass and tell us how it's acceptable.

Someone tell him it's not about the Cities, it's about the hinterland.

marno21 wrote: »

https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/debateRecord/joint_committee_on_transport_and_communications_networks/2021-03-09/debate/mul@/main.pdf

Full debate with Eamon Ryan here.

I have only skimmed through it but it is what is expected from him.

€3bn for this is nuts. That’s nearly €40m per km of which 15km of the upgrade is planned online. It’s a higher per km cost than the Galway bypass which is suburban (higher land costs) and includes 2 tunnels and a viaduct.

He only looking for an excuse to kick the can down the road. He full of hot air. He is basically going to try to push through a rail solution. The road will still have to be upgraded and the f@@king trains will be empty as they will be from city center to city center.

True, Mr Ryan got stung by the out-manouvering done by Willie O'Dea and others about his daft proposal for Myross. He has it in his head that the "best" solutions for the south west is a rail link for the city centres. Given the loss of face over Myross, he won't loose again and won't allow a road to be built.

As someone who uses that road a couple of times a year, I don't look forward to it. I head to Mallow regularly enough and it has often been bumper to bumper going at 60kph to 70kph from Mallow to Blackpool.

marno21 wrote: »

https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/debateRecord/joint_committee_on_transport_and_communications_networks/2021-03-09/debate/mul@/main.pdf

Full debate with Eamon Ryan here.

I have only skimmed through it but it is what is expected from him.

€3bn for this is nuts. That’s nearly €40m per km of which 15km of the upgrade is planned online. It’s a higher per km cost than the Galway bypass which is suburban (higher land costs) and includes 2 tunnels and a viaduct.

Makes for very difficult and disappointing reading. The man is all over the place with his aspirational and anecdotal claptrap. He appears to have views and opinions on everything, and none of the substantiated by facts or expert opinion. The M20 was raised a number of times and despite the Chairman's best efforts to pin Ryan down, the subtext is quite clear, Ryan's arrogant and delusional view is that little bypasses for Mallow, Buttevant and Charleville is what it is going to be. This nugget, when he was asked about the need for the M20, stood out for me:

Deputy Eamon Ryan: I will make one last point if I can. This is interesting because it is the core of the debate. One of the reasons Dublin has grown so much is because of the motorway network. What it tends to do is bring everything back to the centre. If we have a western corridor motorway from top to bottom, my fear for Limerick is that investment would head to Cork or to Galway.

So there you have it, the traffic that bravely struggles from Cork to Limerick and back on the current boreen will apparantly cease in the event of the cities being linked by a motorway and Limerick will be left with tumbleweed rolling down O'Connell Street, up William street and out onto the Childers Road.

Not to mention his response when Michael Lowery asked abut the possibility of prioritising the Tipp town section of the N24 upgrade in order to provide a much needed bypass

Deputy Eamon Ryan: The first coach service in this country was run by Bianconi from Clonmel to Limerick, I understand. He took a strange route, through the caravanserai in Tipperary via Tipperary town en route to Limerick. No one knows why he took that route; he should have gone via Bansha. My family was involved in looking after the horses at the first stopping post, so my family history includes the Cahir to Limerick road. I hope that bias does not influence my decisions. It is an example of where we should prioritise our towns first strategy.

WTF ? He trots out more of this drivel later talking about his "family setting off from the Caravansary in the Glen of Aherlow and ending up in Limerick city in the Glentworth Hotel" It is frighteningly like listening to CJH when he was visiting some remote part of the country waxing lyrical about his intimate family links with whatever townland he happened to be in.

And when given the opportunity to present facts with attributable sources he behaves like a one term County Councillor:

Deputy Eamon Ryan: Yes, but none of the projects in the NDP had a price on them. The price of the Limerick to Cork motorway would be €2 billion to €3 billion.
Chairman: I do not think so.
Deputy Eamon Ryan: That is what the price would be.
Chairman: It would be €1 billion.
Deputy Eamon Ryan: No.
Chairman: We can differ on that.
Deputy Eamon Ryan: That is what I am told.
Chairman: That is the first I have heard of that. We are being told €1 billion.

All we can hope for is that Kieran O'Donnell (the Chairman) reads between the lines on this and has the big guns (Martin, McGrath and Coveney in particular) lined up and ready for the battle that lies ahead.

The whole thing shows you why our shorter-term political cycle is mismatched with our larger infrastructure needs.

Bass Reeves wrote: »

He only looking for an excuse to kick the can down the road.

Correct. He's at the same stunt on the Western Rail Corridor north of Athenry. Those in favour of it wanted an independent study done. That wasn't enough, but the figures had to be analysed by another body.

And despite both of those coming out against building it, Ryan goes no, no, no, we need another review of Rail freight in the whole of Ireland taking the WRC into account.

For Ryan transport is walk/cycle/rail. That's it. Everyone else can feck off. And don't talk to me about buses - sure they're not real public transport.

There was a reason the Greens weren't given the Transport ministry the first time around - because Fianna Fail knew that they'd dick around with the roads programme. This time, Michael was so desperate to get into power, and Leo to stay in power, that the Greens got what they wanted.

The shenanigans he is at now doesn't surprise. The Greens (not just Ryan) are trying to fight tooth and nail to ensure that the M20 does not get built.

This is deflection from Ryan. Right now, there's a lot of internal dissent inside the Green Party over the government's support for the Canada-EU Trade Agreement (CETA, which is apparently the latest "Big Evil" among the more hardline members of the GP). So, in order to show that he hasn't sold out, he's out in the Dáil taking a hard-line position against a motorway.

Rail cannot replace the road. It can remove car-commuters from the two urban ends of the corridor, but it cannot replace the road in the places where a new road is most needed: the dangerous, under-capacity rural sections in North Cork and South Limerick.

serfboard wrote: »

I've always thought that this idea that you have to build the road in one whole section, or not at all, was disingenous bullsh1t, and Ryan isn't the first to try it (IIRC Varadkar did the same when he was in transport).

You could, at the very least, break it into two halves - Patrickswell/Croom to Mallow, and Mallow to Blarney. I'd be less bothered about the southern half, but the northern half is absolutely not up for discussion, and this bullsh1t about a biteen of a bypass here and there is infuriating.

Build the motorway Eamon, and besides the form of transport that you hate - cars (even though you drive an ICE yourself) - this road can also very efficiently use the form of public transport that you don't like either, known as buses. Raheen church to Blarney will take less than an hour on a bus using a motorway.

One only has to look at the (pre-pandemic) success of the various bus companies using the Inter-City motorways to know how good it can be.

It's the southern part carries the bulk of the traffic. Mallow to Blarney is a short section, you should be talking Patrickswell to south of Charleville and from there to Mallow as seperate sections .

Isambard wrote: »

It's the southern part carries the bulk of the traffic. Mallow to Blarney is a short section, you should be talking Patrickswell to south of Charleville and from there to Mallow as seperate sections .

I would say in order to prescedence:

1. Mallow to Charleville
2. Cork to Mallow
3. Charleville to Patrickswell

The Charleville to Patrickswell section isn’t bad given traffic levels and half of it is the Croom bypass which isn’t old.

Cork to Mallow is critically over capacity and is I think the most frustrating piece of tarmac in the country.

I get the feeling that the Minister is being a bit creative with the price. Possibly including the rail line via patrickswell and any CPOs and connections to Colbert in the 3bn quoted.