[Article] Necklace tunnel to dwarf the others

Maskhadov

Necklace tunnel to dwarf the others
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Ralph

Riegel

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1564718&issue_id=13699


IRELAND is poised to get a third major road tunnel, a key element of a €500m road project that will dwarf both the Dublin Port Tunnel and the Lee Tunnel.

Cork Co Council are now liaising with the National Roads Authority on the proposal to complete the final link in Cork‘s €1.5bn ring road necklace.

The proposed road will complete the missing section the ring road linking the existing Glanmire by-pass with the Ballincollig/Macroom/Bandon roads.

However, because of the nature of the terrain, one of the design proposals includes a huge tunnel, more than twice the length of the 600 metre Jack Lynch/Lee Tunnel.

Opposition politicians including former Sport Minister Bernard Allen, have slated the delay in getting the road under construction with the project seen as vital to Cork‘s economic future.

It is not expected that the road will be completed before 2012.

When completed it will offer motorists a circular route around Cork city enabling drivers to avoid the city no matter from what direction they approach.

The need for the road has been underlined by progress on other congestion problems including the Dunkettle roundabout, Kinsale Road flyover, Ballincollig by-pass and the completion of the Fermoy by-pass which will extend the Dublin-Cork dual-carriageway from Watergrasshill to north of Fermoy and open in September.

A new tunnel to complete a ring around the city. Good news for Cork !! I didnt hear about it before though. Has it been on the cards for a while ? Is there a website for more information?

murphaph

How will a 1200m tunnel dwarf the Dublin Port Tunnel exactly? :rolleyes:

This sucker better be tolled!

Spengman

Ya i dont really get it either, isnt the Dublin port tunnel around 5 or 6 kms long?,its frequently been mentioned as one of the most ambitious tunnelling projects in europe!, not sure about that but its certainly a huge project. I dont agree with tolls but this one is a shoe-in surely, Cork got away with murder with the jack lynch tunnel and of course here in Limerick theres going to be a toll on the new tunnel under the shannon, just 2kms from the city centre! madness!:mad:

jwt

Cork "Got away" with no tolling on the tunnel because it was primarily funded by the EU through development grants.

When the Gov. proposed tolling it the EU politely pointed out that if they wished to toll the tunnel the Gov. would have to refund the development used to construct the tunnel...



John

Lennoxschips

christ almighty, will they just put some proper public transportation into cork

enough with the feckin ringroads already

murphaph

jwt wrote:

Cork "Got away" with no tolling on the tunnel because it was primarily funded by the EU through development grants.

When the Gov. proposed tolling it the EU politely pointed out that if they wished to toll the tunnel the Gov. would have to refund the development used to construct the tunnel...



John

And in Dublin the biggest stroke ever was pulled and virtually the entire M50 between junctions 1-6 and 7-11 were paid for in a large part by the EU. A small private outfirt named NTR got to build the bit between junctions 6-7, and tolled it :rolleyes:

Agree about the public transport, Cork badly needs and deserves major improvement. They have shown a dedication to sensible planning rarely seen in Ireland.

Chris_533976

Hmm. A tunnel to me seems like a waste of time. They could easily make it a bit longer and bring the ringroad overground through the piles of green area there is around there.

They definatly need to finish the ringroad. The so called 'north ring' at the moment is just basically a glorified street through Ballyvolane.

But yeah they need more public transport BADLY. I was in Germany recently and in a small town, there were more buses in a 15 minute period than there are in the middle of Cork.

And from Munich airport to Munich, theres apparently a bus EVERY MINUTE. The day Cork gets minutly buses will be the day of armageddon.

Edit: And when it comes to the Lee Tunnel... I dont think they could realistically toll it anytime soon. For the simple reason that the South Ring would empty and everyone would go through Cork again. It'd bring the city to a standstill.

murphaph

Northern Ring

Maskhadov

thanks for the link murph.

Are they putting in a tunnel for ALL of that northern section ? that looks like a really big tunnel.

Lennoxschips

murphaph wrote:

Agree about the public transport, Cork badly needs and deserves major improvement. They have shown a dedication to sensible planning rarely seen in Ireland.

I'm not so sure, have you seen the Kinsale roundabout?

Also, they gave planning permission to major shopping centres right next to the new ring road, causing congestion that wasn't needed. There's some dodgy planning there.

What they should do is put in a dedicated bus lane from the Parnell Place bus station right down the South Link road, with dedicated bus-only spurs going to Douglas and Ballyphehane/Togher.

murphaph

Maskhadov wrote:

thanks for the link murph.

Are they putting in a tunnel for ALL of that northern section ? that looks like a really big tunnel.

No, the tunnels are the shaded rectangles within those route alignments.

murphaph

Lennoxschips wrote:

I'm not so sure, have you seen the Kinsale roundabout?

Also, they gave planning permission to major shopping centres right next to the new ring road, causing congestion that wasn't needed. There's some dodgy planning there.

What they should do is put in a dedicated bus lane from the Parnell Place bus station right down the South Link road, with dedicated bus-only spurs going to Douglas and Ballyphehane/Togher.

I take your point. I suppose I really meant that Cork Co Co and City Co have cooperated quite well in determining where people should live and have developed the towns, rather than the Co Co allowing vast swathes of one-off housing which is totally unsustainable.

Victor

murphaph wrote:

I take your point. I suppose I really meant that Cork Co Co and City Co have cooperated quite well in determining where people should live and have developed the towns, rather than the Co Co allowing vast swathes of one-off housing which is totally unsustainable.

No, in my opinion the county council is one of the worst offenders for inappropriate development. Look at Douglas, Togher, Ballincollig, right on the city's doorstep and just sucking development out of the city, which is still under-developed.

Maskhadov

Cork City has the scope to double its population. The appropriate authorities should be doing their best to facilitate that and not pander to the one off housing brigade which is wrecking this country.

Chris_533976

Lennoxschips wrote:

I'm not so sure, have you seen the Kinsale roundabout?

Also, they gave planning permission to major shopping centres right next to the new ring road, causing congestion that wasn't needed. There's some dodgy planning there.

Lol

Mahon Point shopping centre. Right next to the Tunnel. Its a joke.

Its got Tescos, B&Q and a whole lot more. To get to Tescos, you have to go through 3 sets of traffic lights. The whole development is served by one road.

Lets just say the residents nearby, who had used this single access road for years during construction, were suddenly faced with 45 minutes of traffic to go the last mile to their house.

MT

This northern ring road sounds very promising. So will Cork become the first city on the island to have a complete dualed ring road?

Mahon Point shopping centre. Right next to the Tunnel. Its a joke.

This is an example of a widespread problem with poor planning - the conversion of bypasses into choked distributor/commuter roads with the building of residential and retail developments at their junctions.

Aidan1

Have they settled on a final alignment for the road yet? One can only assume that it will be 'announced' at least once before the next general election ...

And yes, Cork is acknowledged to have the best transport and landuse planning in the state - in that the local authorities there have actually done some since 1978. Its far from perfect, but its a lot better than elsewhere. The CASP and the revised Special Local Area Plans are cases in point.

MT

Yes, the countryside in Cork seems to have weathered the last decade or so much better than places such as Clare or Donegal. There are still attractive swathes of unbroken countryside that have avoided the saturation bombing of the bungalow blitz that have ruined many other areas down south.

Chris_533976

Cork is fine, but you should see the development nearby - Cobh, Midleton, Carrigtohill etc.

Ruined by new estates. Theyre going up everywhere.

600 houses on top of a hill in Cobh. Its disgusting. Ruined the whole town. And another few hundred to come.

MT

I agree that estates eat up the countryside too but they're much less damaging than the confetti of obtrusive one-offs that has been scattered over far larger swathes of the Irish countryside in the last two decades.

When houses have to be built I think an estate on the fringe of a town is the lesser evil than the equivalent number of houses in one-off form. The former allows for more of the unspoilt landscape to remain intact.