"Ballina councillors claim town will be ‘isolated’ by road plans"

monument

It seems a case of all roads lead to Castlebar...

From an article in the Mayo Advertiser: All of the nine elected members of Ballina Town Council were seriously critical of all the different route options for linking the N26 out of Foxford to the N5 on to Dublin that are under consideration at present...

Full article here: http://www.advertiser.ie/mayo/article/60554/ballina-councillors-claim-town-will-be-isolated-by-road-plans

nuac

The originally proposd route thru Bohola would have meant a shorter journey from Ballina to Dublin or Galway and the south.

Captain Slow IRL

Any links to maps of proposed route?

Cosmo Kramer

Did ABP not rule out a dual carriageway last time around? Surely in that case it would be madness for the town councillors to push for a DC option to be submitted again and would only serve to delay the process further.

Also, even if the junction is further west wouldnt it at least provide better connectivity within the county to places like Mayo General Hospital which are also of importance without adding much or any time to a drive to or from Dublin given the improvement in the standard of road that would be achieved. Turlough does seem a little too far west, but Ballyvary or Bohola should be suitable locations to join the N5 I would have thought.

What is the predominantly used route from Ballina to Galway at the moment?

oscarBravo

When I lived in Ballina, I would go to Galway via Bohola & Knock, as a rule. I think Bohola is a pretty decent compromise.

gustavo

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

What is the predominantly used route from Ballina to Galway at the moment?

I usually go Ballina - Foxford - Bohola - Kiltimagh - Claremorris - Galway

Neworder79

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

Any links to maps of proposed route?

All on Mayo Regional Design Office site. http://www.regdesign.com/?page_id=590

Shame the study didn't look a wider options like and eastern Swinford route (fastest for Dublin/Airport), or an extended Southern link in with N17/Galway/airport.

What ever way they go it will be a compromise, not possible to address Ballina- Dublin/Castlebar/Galway connectivity with one road.

finisklin

Best Galway route - Ballina, Swinford, Kilkelly, Galway.

I did the Ballyvarry - Balla road for years and the prison road is twisty and narrow!

monument

Neworder79 wrote: »

What ever way they go it will be a compromise, not possible to address Ballina- Dublin/Castlebar/Galway connectivity with one road.

The problem is their 'compromise' of the most westren route (ie a route to Castlebar) will harm Ballina's attractiveness to tourists and business.

Once this goes ahead, Ballina won't get any upgraded connection to the N5 for years, if ever.

finisklin wrote: »

Best Galway route - Ballina, Swinford, Kilkelly, Galway.

I did the Ballyvarry - Balla road for years and the prison road is twisty and narrow!

They did not look at Swinford seriously because this project is now more about Castlebar, and connecting the whole county with Castlebar. It's not really about connecting north Mayo with the N5.

oscarBravo wrote: »

When I lived in Ballina, I would go to Galway via Bohola & Knock, as a rule. I think Bohola is a pretty decent compromise.

Bohola would be a good compromise but their perfered route is to Turlough.

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

Also, even if the junction is further west wouldnt it at least provide better connectivity within the county to places like Mayo General Hospital which are also of importance without adding much or any time to a drive to or from Dublin given the improvement in the standard of road that would be achieved. Turlough does seem a little too far west, but Ballyvary or Bohola should be suitable locations to join the N5 I would have thought.

Turlough is way too far west and Galway
houses the regional hospitals, public and private -- Castlebar could be downgraded again, if that's possable.

Cosmo Kramer wrote: »

What is the predominantly used route from Ballina to Galway at the moment?

That's part of the problem -- traffic from Ballina to Galway goes all over the place, so traffic counts will not be great at counting such traffic, and then the NRA can downplay the Ballina-Galway traffic flows.

finisklin

The engineer pulled a swifty when he had the open day in Straide last December. Is Straide a good location to represent North Mayo for the open day? Methinks not.

With Inda weighing in behind it, not much MM can do to change this. Though, as Johnny O'Malley said 30 years ago, it is a road frpm Dublin to Castlebar and not Ballina.

The 'Na is sucking the hind tit on this with the single lane carriage way and Castlebar getting a dualer.

I wouldn't mind but Ballina has a great product with salmon fishing and the Mary Robinson centre coming on stream. Shame that the infrastructure doesn't match.

monument

Has Enda said anything about the Ballina section yet? Or has he just commented on the N5 project in general?

J harrison

Hi all

Few points in relation to the above

Ballina dual carriageway was deemed unnecessary due to traffic volumes. Despite this 200m being spent on dual carriage way to Westport ( town with population of 6,000 and same town that Michael Ring is from. Where is consistency here?

Big part of the reason in refusing ballina road was the disruption to whooper swans. Swans more important than people of North Mayo

Coca Cola and Hollister executives have previous stressed the importance of improved connectivity to Dublin ( not Castlebar)

A brief look at the map of Mayo will quickly highlight the craziness of having the main N26/N5 meeting point in Turlough. Nobody going to Dublin from Ballina / Bangor Erris etc will use it even.

The FG tds including Michelle seems to have forgotten that they are in fact representing the people of Mayo not just Castlebar / Westport

It is completely unacceptable that not one of the Ballina town councillors travelled to Straide to view routes. They really showed themselves up on this point.

The building of this current proposed road could spell DISASTER for Ballina.

People of Ballina need to protest. We need to highlight this to the national media. We need to highlight what is happening to our town and its future. We need to to draw national media attention to the buiding of DC between Westport and Castlebar (people around country struggling to survive will not be impressed)

Its in our hands. Do we sit back or do we protest

oscarBravo

J harrison wrote: »

Ballina dual carriageway was deemed unnecessary due to traffic volumes. Despite this 200m being spent on dual carriage way to Westport ( town with population of 6,000...

...presumably because of higher traffic volumes.

finisklin

monument wrote: »

Has Enda said anything about the Ballina section yet? Or has he just commented on the N5 project in general?

He has commented on the Westport to Turlough part, as per the advertiser comments. Can't see him anything about the Ballina part in public, except in private to MM. We know where that conversation will end......

Cosmo Kramer

I'm sure I read on a number of occasions that the Castlebar to Westport road is the busiest in County Mayo by a distance. The actual population of Westport relative to Ballina isn't really of relevance. I reckon (purely from my own experience of using it) that the N5 west of Castlebar is easily busy enough to justify a Class 2 dual carriageway - which is the lowest standard of DC used in Ireland I think.

A lot of the time it does seem as though everything in Mayo goes to Castlebar/Westport and I can understand why those in the north of the county would feel isolated. I recently visited Ballina for the first time in many years and you can clearly see that it is not getting a fair share of investment compared to the other two towns - and probably Claremorris as well. In the same way that we all seek balanced regional development in the west of Ireland relative to the east, it seems only fair that the same principle should apply within the west as well. At the same time there is a need to promote strong regional centres to attract development and the Castlebar/Westport area provides a localised population centre that north Mayo cannot compete with. It's a difficult one.

Getting back to the road itself, the location of Lough Cullin suggests that the proposed road from Ballina would have to take an unnatural swing south-west to get to Turlough. As I said earlier in the thread, having the junction at a point somewhere between Ballyvary and Bohola would seem like a better compromise all round.

Cleahaigh

We'll all be long in the grave before a dual carriageway is built between Castlebar and Westport. Gold plated nonsense.

Even with the boom-time traffic figures, the Benefit to Cost Ratios given in the Route Selection Report are pretty poor.

Alqua

If the connection to the N5 goes that far West, no one from the Ballina direction/North Mayo will use it as it's so far out of the way - dramatically so! I'm sure that is obvious to anyone who'd check, but of course it won't be a swaying factor.. As long as the powers-that-be don't then turn around and try to say, 'We gave you this road'..!!

J harrison

J harrison wrote: »

It is completely unacceptable that not one of the Ballina town councillors travelled to Straide to view routes. They really showed themselves up on this point.

Ballina councillors have absolutely no right to complain if they cannot even bother to turn up to a public hearing, what exactly do they think they are paid for ?
We'll see if the locals are any better by voting every single one of them out!

Why are people saying that Turlough is the preferred route as i cannot find a preferred route selected anywhere. ?

I would like to get planning in the straide area, will this whole area continue to be sterilised for planning or is there a date when it will be released ??

voz es

ah the road to westport is for tourist reasons

nuac

voz es wrote: »

ah the road to westport is for tourist reasons

Yes, also for industry, especially Allergan

In fairness to Ballina there has been much delay in getting a proper connection to the N5.

Hooper Swans more important than humans?

monument

nuac wrote: »

Yes, also for industry, especially Allergan

In fairness to Ballina there has been much delay in getting a proper connection to the N5.

Hooper Swans more important than humans?

Most of the long-term delay at upgrading the Ballina-N5 link is humans and human politics.

irishgeo

monument wrote: »

Most of the long-term delay at upgrading the Ballina-N5 link is humans and human politics.

Not in my back yard brigade.

monument

irishgeo wrote: »

Not in my back yard brigade.

I was told years ago that some people between Ballina and Foxford giving out about a proposed route got it delayed and the money rerouted to the roundabouts in Castlebar.

Not saying, and I can't prove the above is true, but if there's projects competing for money it helps the case of one if the other has protesters making noise.