N80 - Mountmellick Bypas

marno21

Funding to be made available for a feasability study on relief for the town of Mountmellick. No details yet.

http://www.leinsterexpress.ie/news/home/246260/flanagan-welcomes-funding-for-feasibility-study-on-traffic-in-mountmellick.html

road_high

What feasibility study is needed? It's needed 10 years ago, just go build one.

munchkin_utd

road_high wrote: »

What feasibility study is needed? It's needed 10 years ago, just go build one.

well, I suppose you'd need to see what route, roughly, would make sense.

Are you looking to primarily facilitate Tullamore-Portlaoise traffic, so a shorter by-pass to the west would do, or is it to also cater for folks heading towards Dublin (noting that Tullamore-Dublin traffic would head on the N4 so isnt a factor) so you'd need a much longer route to the east.

medoc

No harm in looking in to all possible needs and route options I suppose. A lot of Tullamore Dublin traffic use the M7 though via Portarlington and onto the motorway in Monesterevan. I think the main need for the Mountmellick bypass is the N80 traffic so the west side would be likely. Something along a similar route to the unofficial back roads bypass at present.

road_high

munchkin_utd wrote: »

well, I suppose you'd need to see what route, roughly, would make sense.

Are you looking to primarily facilitate Tullamore-Portlaoise traffic, so a shorter by-pass to the west would do, or is it to also cater for folks heading towards Dublin (noting that Tullamore-Dublin traffic would head on the N4 so isnt a factor) so you'd need a much longer route to the east.

Both are needed! Rather than wasting money on the obvious (we all know it's "feasible"), progress straight to the route option stage and start from there. Mountmellick is chronic and getting worse each year. It's painful watch HGVs try turn left in the middle of the town.. actually the whole Portlaoise to Tullamore stretch in particular warrants urgent attention.

marno21

https://www.midlands103.com/news/midlands-news/two-solutions-to-laois-traffic-congestion-given-to-representatives/

An inch at a time.

medoc

marno21 wrote: »

https://www.midlands103.com/news/midlands-news/two-solutions-to-laois-traffic-congestion-given-to-representatives/

An inch at a time.

Like the traffic on a Friday evening

road_high

The N80 from Killeigh to Portlaoise really is terrible. That bit outside Portlaoise through the bog where the road margins are subsiding forever is woeful. I have my own little way to avoid the centre of Mountmellick though it’s debatable prob how much time it even saves. Whole route beds major investment but unlikely to get it

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119571478#Comment_119571478

Yep that stretch is woeful. Most of it until you get to the Offaly border is fairly poor.

I can't understand how we don't have at least a proper dual carriageway between Portlaoise and Tullamore. Done right it could even serve as a real outer link between the M7/M8 and M4/M6.

road_high

Priorities in this country are all wrong unfortunately- endless billions are wasted on aid and welfare to ungrateful foreigners rather than building up the infrastructure of the country.

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119580646#Comment_119580646

Ireland is to take in 20 billion euro in corporation tax this year , money on turnover by multinationals which by rights really is owed to other EU countries but thanks to Irelands EU membership and the common market is being booked in Ireland and tax paid into the irish coffers because of it.

Even after the 700million odd for africa, thats 19.3 billion of corporation tax sloshing about - and 5 billion of that was unexpected so as a one off income should be going on one off projects like infrastructure.

Theres plenty of money. Dont be blaming the africans for a lack of a bypass here or a few bends there.

and.... going completely off tangent, but if you dont like coloured people or foreigners and want to stop them coming to Europe or Ireland then the best way to do that is to provide them with jobs/ hope/ education in their home countries so they have no desperation to leave the god forsaken poverty stricken places and trek across the desert to Europe.

KrisW1001

I deliberately didn’t address that post because I didn’t expect it to be still around by now, but there’s a general point that’s worth making: the reason why roads aren’t built is not becase someone’s “taking” it. The budget has to cover the needs of everyone in the country, and sometimes your needs aren’t as big as you think. If you want a genuine reason why your own pet road scheme isn’t built, you shouldn’t look toward the relatively small number of people who have sought refuge in this country, or those who came here looking for a better life and have worked hard to make it. Instead, I suggest you look to your own family, particularly those above retirement age, because the old-age pension and associated benefits is by far the largest “hand out” given by the government to people living here. You want to free up some cash, then take it off your parents or grandparents.

To be clear, I’m not calling for cuts in the old-age pensions, just cuts in the lazy, bigoted and racist rhetoric that tries to blame some random “other people” group for a lack of progress on a single issue (housing, education, health, roads, crime, whatever). So, the bit of road that you use isn’t great and needs to be fixed up? This is Ireland, we’ve about a hundred years of road infrastructure spending to catch up on: you’re not special, join the queue. It’ll get done, but there’s only a limited amount of money available for this stuff. If you don’t like how long it’s taking to get that work done, vote for politicians who want to raise higher taxes to pay for higher spending. As for anyone who tells you that the problem can be fixed by taking from one or other section of the population, you’re the a bigger fool for believing them. (“the rich” or “foreigners” make equally good scapegoats if you don’t have a handy religious or ethnic minorty arleady in place). All those people want is to get you angry enough that you won’t examine their bogus claims in any kind of detail.

@munchkin_utd - 100% agree with your comments. One reason why Corporation Tax windfalls aren’t being spent on infrastructure projects is that we are still heavily indebted as a country following the financial crisis of 2009. (National debt was €50 billion in 2007, versus €250 bn today - COVID added about 30 billion to that pile). We spend about 3~5 billion a year just paying the interest on that, and that’s with bond rates at a historic low. It’s estimated that the extra debt interest payments between 2010 and 2020 cost the state over €30 billion. Think what we could do with an extra €3 billion a year, every year, for the last decade... A lot of the corporation tax windfall has gone on paying down the costs of the Covid pandemic, but even that required borrowing.

Cookiemunster

And the extra €5bn this year has been earmarked to be spent on the cost of living crisis.

bennyineire

Is there any update on this road at all?

marno21

https://www.laoistoday.ie/2023/02/21/no-progress-for-foreseeable-future-on-delivering-bypass-of-laois-town/

Just like the traffic in Mountmellick, this is going nowhere fast.