N11/N25 - Oilgate to Rosslare Harbour [route options published]

Looks like there is a shortage of space for trucks to park up in Rosslare..

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wexford/wexford-district/truck-drivers-throwing-bottles-of-urine-into-ditches-as-rosslare-europort-bears-brunt-of-holyhead-closure/a1238619143.html

I assume the issue is the intention to build motorway? Type 2 DC would be fine here and could be progressed much fast. There is also the possibility that after feckin' about for several years with this, that it gets rejected and the process has to start again.

I think it'll be motorway until it meets the N25. TII (and NRA back when it was that) don't like isolated sections of motorway, so I don't think any of the N25 part will have blue signs.

My guess so is motorway to the N25 junction, Type 1 Dual Carriageway until the southern end of the Wexford bypass, then 2+2 from there.

The Waterford bypass doesn't meet the geometric criteria to be a motorway, except at 100 km/h, so there's no point in putting blue signs on it just to have a line on a map.

I think it's the new requirememt for a service area too.

A political tussle is ensuing

https://www.southeastradio.ie/ger-carthy-responds-to-criticisms-from-leonard-kelly/

I’ve said it before and I’m right in thinking this will not happen any time soon. I’ve been on/off the ferry and on this road and while busy it’s never very bad and moves along well. It’s wide two lane with hard shoulders and by most standards not a bad road.
I did think there was supposed to be a new Rosslare port access road to bypass the fairly inadequate steep and narrow one but not sure what happened those plans

yep should have bypassed Oylegate

plus, the ring roads around Wexford town are an utter nightmare and could be “fixed” relatively easy in the meantime by building two left only lanes at the maldron roundabout from Rosslare direction towards New Ross, there’s free space there to do it 🤷🏼‍♂️

Don't think there actually is a lot of space at the roundabout to create 2 left lanes for New Ross if you look at the map. Maybe an auxiliary left lane that would avoid the roundabout but the merge of that lane back into the mainline M25 from the roundabout would be tight.

Not if they weren't sure if they were going to cross the river at this point. I'd have to see if I could find the original route proposals for the extension (they are probably somewhere back in this thread) and I'm completely open to correction on this but I think one of the route options did cross here.

Advancing to the end of the next bottleneck instead of dealing with that bottleneck avoids some objections which might scupper the entire project. Divide and conquer or being pragmatic - take your pick.

Not sure what they mean by reclassification of the active travel route or how it would make any difference.

I still don't understand how, with the last round of extensions, one can drive from the North to Oilgate on motorways, then you have to go through local roads in villages to get to wexford itself.

It seems mad. I don't see why this is taking so long

So I'm only a couple of years living in wexford (we have family down here so I've seen the changes over the years), but it seems they are doing it piecemeal. Like the last J24 to J25 addition. I don't understand why the J24-J25 was not the rest of the way to wexford too. Is there any other major city not connected by motorway to Dublin? Cork, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Belfast etc.

It was shelved years ago after spending millions on reports etc, THEN, as to some change in the law (that nobody seems to be able to say what it was), more millions are after being spent on it AGAIN. Mott McDonald are laughing all the way to the bank, among others. Yet ZERO progress

Gorey and Enniscorthy were an absolute nightmare,they were getting bypassed anyway I'd imagine. The motorway is from a policy decades ago to connect Rosslare with a decent road.

Still doing it.

For Abbeyfeale and Newcastlewest I said 2+2 or Single, but not Type 1. Type 1 single has a design capacity of 13,500. 2+2 has design capacity of 22,000 (and higher with longer junction ramps). Type 1 is 35,000+. I don’t see 35,000+ anywhere along there soon.

The difference between Abbeyfeale and Enniscorthy is that on N21 beyond Abbeyfeale, traffic continues to decline, whereas on N11 traffic picks up south of Enniscorthy due to its interchange with N25 and the funnelling effect of N11 being the only crossing of the Slaney here.

I didn’t say N11 wasn’t a busy road. What I said was that the reason N11 is busy has very little to do with Wexford Town being its terminus. The junction with N25, the major east-west route along the South coast, plus the fact that it’s the only crossing of the Slaney for miles around (at least 7km, unless you fancy driving all the way into Wexford), has quite a bit more do with how busy N11 is.

I’m willing to bet that when the new road is eventually built, AADT for the river crossing will be a lot lower than that 17,391 figure: a good chunk (maybe half) of that is local traffic around the hinterlands of Enniscorthy and Wexford; the lack of crossing points funnels it all through N11. Total traffic, old N11 + new M11, will be a little higher overall, but I suspect old N11 will keep a healthy 7-8,000 AADT on it, simply from local journeys.

On this route, I wouldn’t be jumping around mad if it was realised as 2+2 the whole way from Oilgate southwards (remember, old N11 will still exist for local traffic), but my suspicion that it’ll be motorway across the Slaney, then 2+2 down to Rosslare: I don’t think there’d be a huge saving on the cost of the bridge by making it 2+2.