National Primary Route 5 |
Could open : 2015-2020 |
Status : Under consideration |
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The N5 currently originates at Longford and winds its way west on a largely substandard alignment all the way to Westport. The N4 passes through Longford on its way to Sligo. Westbound traffic wishing to access destinations such as Charlestown, Castlebar and Westport joins the N5 at Longford since it is the shortest route despite not being up to the task in terms of build quality. However, this will change in the future. The N4 is due to be upgraded to dual carriageway the whole way from Mullingar to Sligo which offers the possibility of skipping a large part of the N5. If a short section was built between Carrick-on-Shannon on the N4 and the small village of Frenchpark, N5-bound traffic could continue on the N4 dual carriageway as far as Carrick before joining the new N5 at that point. This would remove the necessity of upgrading many poor quality sections of the N5 between this point and Longford, particularly at Strokestown. In a private correspondence with the NRA in 2009, it was revealed that such a scheme is in fact being considered. If it takes place, it will happen after the N4 Carrick-on-Shannon and N5 Ballaghadarreen bypasses are completed since these are prerequisites. | ||||
Wikipedia page on this road |
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ESSENTIAL INFO :
| Origin | N4 west of Carrick-on-Shannon |
| Terminates | N5 at Frenchpark |
| Places Served | - |
| Routes Spawned | - |
| Intersects | N4 |
SURVEY :
Please take a minute to answer a very short survey on your opinion of this road proposal.
JupiterKid from Ireland rates this scheme 8/10 and its alignment 9/10; and reckons the standard is about right. He/she has the following comments to make:
"This re-routing of the N5 makes complete sense. It maximises the future upgrade of the N4 and removes the need to upgrade the N5 between Scramogue and Frenchpark. It's believed in any case that there might be considerable difficulties upgrading the exisitng N5 in the vicinity of Tulsk because of multiple ancient settlement sites.
However, the N5 is such a poorly aligned and dangerous standard of road that it could be argued that minor improvments such as widening in sections and removing the worst bad bends from the Frenchpark-Scramogue section should be carried out in the interim. The route as it stands barely merits regional route status let alone a National Primary."
Neworder79 from Ireland rates this scheme 7/10 and its alignment 4/10; and reckons the standard is about right: "Straightened alignment should allow adequate safe passing opportunities, currently non existent on that section of N5." He/she has the following comments to make:
"This could be attractive to N5 commuters AS LONG AS the chosen alignment keeps journey times down and doesn't track too far north.
"A southern bypass of Carrick-on-Shannon linking the N4 east of the town it would make this a more compelling case. The danger of this scheme is that despite the cost and addition of a new N road, it will add to already long journey times between Dublin and West, motorists would stick to the faster, shorter, more direct N5 route."