N22 - Macroom to Ballyvourney (Macroom Bypass) [open to traffic]

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930738#Comment_120930738

I would have assumed some sort of temporary order was issued?

CB19Kevo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120930738#Comment_120930738

Big but important difference being, that was an active construction area with the appropriate signage and speed restrictions in place.

A minor reconfiguration in the scheme of things..

Any recent images / video of the current situation ?

Poor weather causing much delays?

yerwanthere123

Per Macroom Noticeboard Facebook page, a protest being organised Saturday morning at 9am 😬

VEHICLE PROTEST Saturday morning 5th August at 9am. Please turn out to support this very important cause to keep access onto the new road at Carrigaphooka. We will be congregating at Carrigaphooka at 9am will drive out to coolcower, back through town, onto bypass at millstreet Road and back to Carrigaphooka. Media has been informed and local representatives will be invited. Please turn out in force in car, lorry, tractor, bus, motorbike, vintage, anything at all. Get the kids involved with banners and posters on vehicles if possible. We have a voice now is our chance to make it heard. If you think there should be access at Carrigaphooka turn up and make a difference, don't moan and complain once it's gone. Let's do this.

Water John

Good grief.

KrisW1001

The temporary roundabout cost £1.5 million, and the only way it’s legal is that they got a temporary exemption. (Or they could have cute-hoored their way around it by noting that by the time any case against Cork County Council for building a road without planning would be heard, the roundabout would be gone anyway).

For reference, adding a grade-separated junction over the N17 cost about €9.5 million. This wouldn’t need the bridge, but it would need slips and the terrain is really difficult here, so if you wanted a junction it could cost nearly the same. For that sort of money, a second roundabout and a relief road between the current Millstreet road junction and old-N22 west of the Old Triangle would make that junction more usable for traffic from south and west of the town.

arsebiscuits82

I reckon once the road opens next week this will be fogotten about fairly quickly, the early opening of the macroom section has made a massive difference to the town.

Imagine if it was only opening next week also. There would have been a fully finished road sitting empty for 7 months! The uproar would have been off the charts.

there is no point crying about an access now, this should have been done at planning stage.

ADKELMAC

€9.5 million for a full grade-separated junction sounds like good value.

The contractor on this n22 project has shown that terrain is no obstacle to them.

To complete the Carrigaphooca junction we have the Contractor, machinery & plant onsite, bridge & roundabout already in place. Most of one of the required slips already insitu from the old n22 route. Add a bit for inflation.

All that’s really required is the political will and a little buy in from TII

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120933815#Comment_120933815

And planning permission!

It can't be done now, it may be possible at some undefined point in the future (subject to planning permission, funding allocation, etc.). "political will and a little buy in from TII" are not all that is required, anyone claiming that is horribly misinformed.

Anyone partaking in this protest is only wasting their time and fuel.

ADKELMAC

Political will can assist in providing a route to planning permission, I think we all know this.

Similarly in the case of the temporary roundabout. The route to doing it was found, the money was found. Yes it was necessary to allow opening the first section which was great. Politicians got their day out also. Political will.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120933923#Comment_120933923

A temporary solution is not in any way the same as a permanent junction. No amount of political will is going to get a junction built in the short to medium term. It would need to be planned, costed, go through planning, get funding and finally be built.

That will take an minimum of 5 years and probably a good bit more. It not going to happen. Within a few months people will be used to the permanent setup and the clamour for a junction will be gone.

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120933923#Comment_120933923

You can’t compare a temporary roundabout to a permanent full junction. A permanent junction will have to go through the relevant project phases (including initial justification, a junction there was considered not necessary during design of the current project), environmental assessment, safety review, etc. Applying for planning permission without the relevant information is a waste of time, it'll just be rejected.

Political will isn't going to get it through planning in the next week, after which your point that "we have the Contractor, machinery & plant onsite" becomes mute. Design and planning will take a couple of years even in the best case scenario, that is the reality.

You can keep throwing out these easy answers but that is not how things work (nor should it be how things work, if it were then we'd have huge amounts taxpayers money being pissed away on every half-baked idea).

ADKELMAC

I agree 100%. Public money shouldn’t be wasted in half baked ideas. That didn’t stop us from spending €1.5 million on a temporary roundabout, built over a couple of days.

The roundabout worked away fine all the same though. Did it’s job.

KrisW1001

Okay, I’ll try explain why this is a bad idea using pictures, not words.

The map below is what’s called an “Isochrone Map”. It shows you the maximum distance you can travel within a given time from a starting point. Here, I’ve shown 15 minutes reach driving from Tonn Láin (Left, Red area) and from Millstreet Road (Right, Blue area). The Purple area in the middle is within 15 minutes of either location.

So, let’s add another junction at Carrigaphuca, and see how things improve. On the map below, I’ve combined the two previous areas into one, coloured blue, and added a green area showing 15 minutes driving time from your new junction:

What’s really important here is to see how much extra reach has been added: you can see that by looking for bits that are only green, and not also covered by a blue area. Any place that’s only green is one that used to be more than 15 minutes from a junction, but is now less than 15 minutes.

It’s not much, is it? And you really want to spend €10 million for that?

[basic maps produced by https://app.traveltime.com/ - compositing by me]

ADKELMAC

Pictures are always good.

ADKELMAC

The pictures explain your point very well. However, what they do not show is that traffic from the Cill na Matra area wishing travel to/from east of Macroom, which many do on their commute to Ballincollig, Cork city etc will not travel west through Lisacreasig /Coolavokig to access the new road via Toonlane junction.

They will travel on to Macroom, through Millstreet rd which has many new homes & residents added to it while the new road was built.

2 sawmills and a large haulier in Cill na Matra plus all the other Trucks and cars trying to turn on a hairpin left turn junction at Millsteet cross in Macroom and the same coming in the opposite direction

€9.5 or €10 million whatever it is, is well worth it from a safety point of view alone to have bookend access each side of the town

Residents of Macroom know the true cost.

KrisW1001

You’ve hinted at the real problem yourself, but let’s say it clearly: it isn’t the lack of a junction, it’s the poor local road connectivity in your area.

€10 m would go a long way to improving the old road around Lissacreasig, or building a relief road from the Millstreet Road junction to old-N22. Both of those would fix your particular problem, but unlike an extra junction, they would also provide benefit to people living in the wider area, including those who rarely use the new N22 at all.

Asking for a private junction for the benefit of the 6-700 people who live near Cill na Martra is a waste of everyone’s time. If this was really about the local area, TDs should be pushing for improvements to old N22 and the local roads that connect with it in this area, not tilting at windmills. I suspect the reason why Mr Creed is so keen on this topic is that he knows that his efforts will never succeed, but pushing at it makes it look like he’s “fighting for the people of _____” and when it does get tossed out, sure well he did his best but “Dublin” wouldn’t have it. This isn’t to bash FG specifically - all politicians, of all parties, do exactly the same thing.

marno21

€10m if available should be spent on the N22 Macroom-Ovens scheme.

ClmAlfie

What people don't realise is, that roundabout cost over 1.2 million was put in at short notice (which I don't believe it actually cost that much and is just a round slab of concrete on the road) so that Michael Martin can open the road before the end of his term as a Tioseach. It's a disgrace. And what's it going to cost to removed, absolutely waste of money. That money should have been used to put in access points.

Policitions have told people at various meetings during the planning stage that there will be access points. They were basically lying, they always knew it wasn't happening.

Also people needs to understand why they're protesting

People living west of macroom, Reneriee, Kilnamartyra and driving cars, buses, trucks. Will have to come to Macroom and will either turn at left at the Millstreet Y cross to go to Millstreet roundabout to go on the bypass or go through the town. Going through the town is actually quicker. Trucks and buses will find it difficult to turn left at the Y cross. They will have to make a big wide turn in other words, go onto the other side of the road then turn left for Millstreet.

Ideally what should have been done is, instead of putting a flyover at Carrigaphooka, they could have built a roundabout accessing the old Ballyvourney road and the new bypass.

The bypass was badly designed and money was wasted. Don't get me wrong, it will be fabulous when it's done. But there's no merging lane from Millstreet roundabout and no hardshoulders. Already there's has been a good few accidents and the one side of the bypass road was shutdown for most it. Even though there are stop signs, drivers just assumed there is a merging lane or hardshoulder, they can go on the bypass.

Every bypass in Ireland has proper roundabouts for access points, hardshoulders and merging lanes. Macroom bypass don't

For those that don't understand what's the fuss all about, I would suggest that ye come to Macroom to see for yourself

marno21

I don't see how it cost 1.2m either tbh I always wondered where that figure came from.

But if you think 1.2m on removing traffic from Macroom for 8 months, 3/4 of them peak travel months is a waste of money you'll have a stroke when I show you the HSE accounts. Or even the money wasted on road plans that Eamon Ryan put in the shredder.

eeepaulo

Is there any talk about improving or changing that hairpin turn at the millstreet cross in macroom so that lorries can use it?

Or is it not enough to warrant a change

arsebiscuits82

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120939444#Comment_120939444

Have a look at the new N4 in Sligo and N5 in Mayo. Access onto these roads is the same as Macroom, no slip lanes.

https://www.rte.ie/news/connacht/2023/0426/1379233-road-connacht/

Hibernicis

@ClmAlfie Addressing your three points:

The €1.2m figure sounds high. That said, when a client requests a late change (such as early opening of a completed section) it presents an ideal opportunity for the contractor to add a few quid to recoup other cost overruns and the like, as well as the actual cost of the measures necessary to cover the requested change. At the same time, if it enabled the significant benefits of the overall project to be delivered early, and saved a few lives in the process it was probably better than leaving the completed section idea delivering zero benefit for nine months.

The time to address design flaws was the design stage. It's too late now to expect a change of this magnitude to be incorporated on an ad hoc basis, and in any event there probably isn't even a mechanism to do so. And sadly, starting a campaign now for the junction to be completely redesigned will fall on very very deaf ears.

I could live with the absence of hard shoulders in this case, given the disparity between the road's design capacity and its actual usage: there is adequate space to accommodate breakdowns etc safely. However the absence of merging lanes is ridiculous, irrespective of precedent elsewhere or the design manual. Given the huge disparity of driving skills on Irish roads, expecting every single road user to safely accelerate from zero or near zero and safely merge into traffic moving at near 100kmh is unrealistic. Having driven the road a few times, and on two occasions by choice used every one of the exits/entrances to experience them, I was quite uncomfortable with joining at some points.

KrisW1001

@ClmAlfie - you’ve got the right problem, but you’re looking for the wrong solution. The answer for having to go into Macroom and then negotiate a hairpin to get onto N22 is to fix the section of road between the old N22 and the Millstreet Road junction. That would fix your problem, and it would benefit far more people.

@eeepaulo That really needs to be done, and the southern side of the junction needs to be given a roundabout too. This design is a bit odd in general: it looks like the designers were expecting to tie in to some local road improvements. The lower-volume Tonn Láin junction is a full dumb-bell, which makes it even stranger that the Millstreet Road exit dumps westbound traffic leaving N22 onto a T-junction.

I think this would be reasonably cheap, without needing to knock down anyone’s house...

ClmAlfie

KrisW1001

Ideally that would be a good idea but unfortunately you are going to go through someone's garden, knock the shed also it would be too narrow and would have to knock down the house. At the cross would be better i think

ClmAlfie

The temporary roundabout was never in the plan from day one and was only built on late last year. If they were able to make a change and had the funds, surely they could have done the sliproads as people claimed it was in the plan before.

Also there is a permanent roundabout on one side and the old road on the other side at the same area they put in the temporary roundabout. They could have easily open it up and joined them on to the bypass or like i said previously, no flyover and put in a proper roundabout

Anyway like you said, it's abit late to be protesting now.

They should have copped it when they started doing the roads about 3 yrs ago and all along no body said anything till the roundabout was put in.

ClmAlfie

arsebiscuits82

They have junctions and can get off and on. But there's none for the places I'm talking about. To get to Cork from Kilnamatyra, Reneriee, and west of Macroom, you have to go to Macroom Town. It's the trucks and buses that will have a problem turning at the cross. They will more than likely will go through the town

ClmAlfie

KrisW1001

Asking for a private junction for the benefit of the 6-700 people who live near Cill na Martra is a waste of everyone’s time. 

There are actually alot more than 6-700 and It not just the people of Kilnamatyra. There are people, businesses, trucks etc from the wider area beyond kilnamartyra like Reneriee, part of ballingeary, from west of Macroom etc. They are the ones that will have to travel to Macroom to get on the bypass

arsebiscuits82

I wonder how the big protest is going?

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120940398#Comment_120940398

Yes, at the cross would work too, but it would not be as good at fixing the sharpness of the turn. No houses are affected by the route I chose - the road land take would be less than 10 metres wide. But this was just me thinking about it for 10 minutes... the point is that this would make it much easier for people west of Macroom to join the new road to Cork, and it would not cost much money.

Heading East, old-N22 is a good road from the Mons all the way into Macroom, but be honest: someone heading from Ballingeary to Cork wouldn't go via this stretch of N22. From Ballingeary to Kerry, you wouldn't go via N22 either, but if you insisted on using a bit of the new road, then yes, every option is bad, but that was my earlier point: There are very few good north-south routes in this part of Cork (for obvious reasons) but if the road from Ballingeary to Baile Mhic Íre (via Reenaneree) was widened and improved, it would do far more for people in this part of Cork than a new junction on N25. What good is a closer junction if it's still be hard to get to

There isn't "a lot more" than 6-700. Census figures give the population of the Cill na Martra ED as about 650. To the south, Ballingeary is 700 or so, but most of Ballingeary ED is too far from N22 to use it for any reason. Other neighbouring districts would be closer to the existing junctions.

€10 m is a lot of money, this would be a bad use of it.

ClmAlfie

KrisW1001

Regardless I don't think that having a roundabout will work in Macroom. They are too many houses. Also a cousin of the TD Michael Creed lives in that area, I don't think he and the neighbours will allowed the roundabout to be built there.

As for the road from Reneriee to Ballyvourney, road has already been widened and improved. They won't be using this road, they'll be using the main road. Going to Kerry is not the problem as they will be able to get on the bypass without going into Ballyvourney.

The road from Ballingeary to Inchgeela needs to improved, it's a very twisty narrow road. It's fine for cars but not for trucks.

There's no issue with the old Ballyvourney road to Macroom

The issue is to get onto the bypass without having to go into Macroom Town