Route for A5 upgrade?

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

Has anyone heard which website the route of the A5 has been revealed on? Apparently it was on the news that a minister somewhere has revealed it on a blog or something.

dmxdave

Is this it? http://www.a5wtc.com/ also have a look here http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/roads/a5omaghstrabane.html

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

Thanks Dave, found some info here and here. The official date of the announcement wasn't to be until Tuesday so a bit of a heads up for locals affected by the new route. I'm sure they all know by now though - just back from the shops & saw that it's on the front page of this morning's Irish News!

dmxdave

Aah I see what you were after now, I tried zooming in on the map between Martin & Peter but it is not clear enough lol

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

I've found the original photo on noeldempsey.ie but even though the res is a bit better it's still not great. Can't believe it's still up tbh as according to the wesleyjohnston site you linked to, it's been up since last Tuesday ie a full week before the official announcement! According to the official site, detailed maps are NOT going to available at the announcement - people are just going to have to wait till the following week and attend a local roadshow. Bit of a shambles really and not fair on the people it's affecting.

warmhands.coldheart

From what I have heard, the end of the road is going to be a complete shambles. I'm led to believe that instead of taking it around the back of Londonderry/Derry to join up with the Cresent Link Road up by the Hospital, they are going to end it pretty much at New Building so you'll still have to go through Prehen and through that end of the city on your way through to the airport or if on route to Limivady or Coleraine.. so traffic chaios in my view... will create a massive bottleneck there

dmxdave

Listed home faces A5 demolition


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/foyle_and_west/8165348.stm

Money_Grabber13579

That's what happens when the road boffins are in charge. Could they not have used a quarter of the £600 million to upgrade the rail network into a high speed line (at least 90 mph) as a way of encouraging people out of their cars? At least this way, people would be allowed to keep their homes and lots of money would be saved to contribute to more worthwhile projects.

Schtum

What rail network would this be?
West of the Bann hasn't had a railway network since the 1950s.
At present it's an hour between Omagh and it's nearest hospital. I would think this disparity alone warrants the upgrade.
The island of Ireland is far too rural to ever depend on fixed transport systems. Roads are here to stay.

Money_Grabber13579

Schtum wrote: »

What rail network would this be?
West of the Bann hasn't had a railway network since the 1950s.
I would doubt that people in Omagh would want to wait for a train at 2am to get their nearest hospital which is almost an hour away at present....

Yep, but the track bed still exists so it wouldn't be anywhere near as expensive to reinstate that as build a new road. And I doubt there's going to be much traffic at 2am, so the current road would serve just fine. At that time of the day, there isn't even going to be much improvement in journey times, so basically it's another pointless exercise.

On one hand we have the green lobby telling us to get out of our cars and onto the trains, and on the other, it's telling us to drive more and discussing the prospect of cutting back the rail network. Now does that make any sense?

Schtum

Money_Grabber13579 wrote: »

Yep, but the track bed still exists so it wouldn't be anywhere near as expensive to reinstate that as build a new road.

Sorry, but a large part of the "track bed" lies under the present A5.

And as for the state of the current A5, you obviously haven't been on the road between Omagh and Derry in a while. A more efficient road route, rather than the stop/start mess that exists at present is in everyone's interests.

A new railway would be little more than a white elephant - of limited use and with minimal impact on numbers of journeys by vehicle. The only people who would truly benefit would be the contractors.