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

is that a freight hub or a park & ride or both where i've marked X

looks a very impressive plan. congrats to all those working on it.

"planned communication strategy" - Please don't make me laugh - it's too late.

For over 40 years I've been driving from Cork to Limerick and back again and I can safely tell you that this is electioneering waffle -

2027 ? - Something more important inside the M50 will come along to sort out this

I can only assume you're trolling here, Kermit.

First off, nobody builds cloverleaf junctions anymore: they're unsafe, as they require traffic weaving. Unrolled cloverleafs require enormous land-take that would increase project costs and mean moving the road at least a km further from the towns it serves... or you could just flatten hundreds of homes and businesses to satisfy a weird fetish for overengineering, I suppose.

The right solutions have been used in the right places: the N21/M20 interchange has been significantly upgraded to a high speed freeflow merge, which it should be, especially as N21 Adare is proceeding. (old N20 here will only be a local road, which is why it has been isolated from new M20)

Just like N9 back in the 2000s, the section being upgraded isn't a particularly busy road (even allowing for all the people who avoid the current N20), but it is a dangerous one. Motorway makes sense to create a western road spine from Blarney to Tuam, but the big gain is from replacing the death traps.

But: traffic lights? On rural motorway interchanges? You do realise that once you put lights on any of the arms leading off an interchange, you require then an all, which will cause traffic on the road to back up.. what kind of fool designs a motorway that you have to queue to get off even when there's no traffic? Roundabouts are the best solution for the traffic volumes on this scheme.

(I wonder sometimes if you drive at all... Traffic lights are a pain in the arse for drivers: they make you stop and wait when you don't have to)

As for tolling, it's the future…Have a look at average road tax prices and fuel consumption of cars over the last ten years, and then think about what effect that has on tax revenues... that money has to be made up somewhere. The tolls will be fairly distributed, unlike M50 where people crossing the Liffey are subsidising all other users. Tolling also tips the cost-benefit calculations in favour of building motorways, which is something I thought you wanted... All of France's motorways are tolled, and their network is superb.

It would be very poor "electioneering waffle" to wait two weeks after an election. Infrastructure projects are often multi-year so they do not tie neatly into election cycles. We do not yet know when the next GE is (other than it's between now and March 2025).

Not much to say really from my end - excellent plan. Just what we needed and an M20 to boot.

My only two points -

This will still be hamstrung by the lack of the N40 Cork North Ring and for the sake of a few kilometers of dual carriageway not starting the M20 at Glanmire and combining the two projects is a missed opportunity that will cost us 15 years of absolute, unnecessary carnage in Blackpool and Ballyvolane. The temptation will still be there to go M8 to Mitchelstown and over the Hospital route to avoid Blackpool especially at rush hour.

I can see the tolling aspect being scrapped, although I'd be happy enough to pay a toll on this route.

Likely Cork will have upgraded it's bus infrastructure by then as part of BusConnects. Blarney Station will be open before this I would say.

Ok so you want to cancel the project entirely?

N40 North is too big an addition to just absorb into scope. It's only a few km of DC but it's extremely complex. I'm not "happy" it's not being done, but they get a pass on this one for me. We need an N40 North and Northern distributor separately. Hopefully the distributor is in motion at least. Not sure N40 North is moving at all though unfortunately.

Yeah, a 'motorway' with cycle lanes - right

not physically connected to cycle lanes, the active travel route will be parallel to the motorway, not on it, if you care to actually read any article on the topic/

I'd like it as a project but I think it's a long-shot. The land there would all need to be CPO'd. I'd say we'll sooner see that cycle link done by the N25 route. You'd have rail/cycle possibilities between Mallow and Midleton too. One for the greenways thread, but you're reminding me of my childhood when I was able to get the train and cycle back over the course of a few days entirely on segregated cycleways. This is a type of tourism that we really can compete with internationally, because our weather allows almost year-round cycling (never too hot or cold!).

Irish Rail progressing Blarney P&R with new train station. See recent presentation by IR which discusses same.

What is this rubbish?

Do you actually think tolling motorways is a Green thing ?

I suppose they tolled all the tunnels too 🤣