National Primary Route 7

The N7 between Dublin and Naas, known locally as the Naas Dual Carriageway, was extensively upgraded in 2006. It was widened to 6 lanes and had 4 new junctions added. Most local access was also closed off. However, the job was not completed, with a small number of such accesses still remaining. Considering this is such an important road, with such high traffic volumes and so close to Dublin, it is imperative that the section is eventually upgraded to motorway.

It's frankly daft having a 6-lane grade separated N7 running from the M50 to Naas, where the motorway starts - why isn't the 6-lane section motorway too? Its sightlines and width are built to a higher spec than Naas's M7. Only minor alterations would be necessary to bring the motorway standard as far as the R136 Outer Ring Road. Further in from there, although the whole road will be grade separated shortly after 2010 with the opening of the Newlands Cross junction, there will still be frontage, bicycle and pedestrian access, as well as bus lanes and bus stops. The main work required to achieve an upgrade of Naas-Outer Ring would be completion and upgrade of the parallel service road which currently only goes from Naas to Blackhill. A number of changes would be needed to upgrade this service road:

-Widening of the service road from Naas to Blackhill (Jct 4), and from 3 km east of Blackhill to Rathcoole. The road was pieced together from country lanes;
-Construction of a 3 km missing section from Blackhill east to the road to Rathcoole;
-Construction of the proposed Rathcoole outer distributor road;
-Provision of the future grade separated junction at the oddly named Tootenhill, beside Rathcoole;
-Closure of the at-grade N7 access in Rathcoole and diversion to the new junction;
-Closure of the at-grade N7 access in the Citywest area.

In addition, a number of private accesses to the N7 along its entire length would need to be closed and diverted to the service road. This could be difficult in places if the access only leads to a single building. Finally, many of the new N7 grade separated junctions, and the older Citywest junction, feature very tight loops and short ramps, which would need to be reconstructed.

Wikipedia page on this road