NRA to 'retrofit' lanes on newer national routes

THE NATIONAL Roads Authority (NRA) is to retrofit "two-plus-one" or dual carriageway roads to some of the State's newer single carriageway bypasses.

The move is in line with the NRA's own findings, and a European report to be published later this month, that wide single carriageway roads without median crash barriers, of a type built extensively in Ireland in recent years, pose a significant risk of head-on collisions.

Such wide single carriageway roads include bypasses of Monaghan town and Carrickmacross on the N2; Edgeworthstown in Co Longford; the Hughestown Meera improvement scheme on the N4; the Strokestown, Co Roscommon, to Longford scheme on the N5; and the 18km N5 bypass of Charlestown in Co Mayo.

Other routes include most roads that have been completed in recent years, and are outside the major inter-urban routes between Dublin and Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford, or the Atlantic Corridor between Limerick and Galway.

In addition, a number of routes such as the N9/N10 Athy link route to the Waterford motorway; bypasses of Slane, Collon, Ardee and Belturbet, among others, are still listed for development as wide single carriageway roads.

An NRA spokesman said yesterday that all new single carriageway national roads, built or proposed, were being reassessed.

The authority's preference was for dual carriageways over two-plus-one roads as there was little cost differential, he said.

However, he added, the programme was constrained by land costs and sometimes driven by inappropriate development pressure.

The treatment of each single carriageway road would depend on an individual assessment, he added.

Inspectors for the European report, EuroRap, visited Ireland and inspected more than 1,500km of national roads, as well as NRA information.