A5 WTC (New Road from Aughnacloy to Derry)

Started by Hereiam, June 08, 2009, 11:51:29 AM

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LeoMc

Quote from: Eamonnca1 on January 25, 2023, 09:41:58 PM
Quote from: LeoMc on January 25, 2023, 12:08:24 PM
Quote from: Eamonnca1 on January 25, 2023, 06:58:41 AM
Quote from: screenexile on January 24, 2023, 08:17:11 PM
Heard this clampit on Nolan's show this morning and wanted to reach through the radio and wring his neck!!

https://twitter.com/stephennolan/status/1617870665700319232?s=46&t=fGrYjuK5gKO6-5Rz-dhDZg

He has a point. The only sure way to cut the number of road deaths is to cut the number of vehicle miles travelled, and that means giving people viable alternatives to private cars.

I'd be in favour of part of the A5 project if it meant bypassing Omagh and allowing the current A5 route to go back to its original use as part of the Portadown-Dungannon-Omagh-Derry railway that should never have been closed. Ditto for Strabane.
Public transport works where there is sufficient population density to make regular services viable.
There is some push on Twitter to have the Antrim to Lisburn line reopened to allow a regular (every 15 minutes) each way service between Belfast, Lisburn, Crumlin, Aldergrove, Antrim, Templepatrick Newtonabbey, Belfast (the circle line). That sort of investment, and I know it is in the East, would take many more cars off the road that a twice a day service to Castlederg or Drumquin.

Yes, we need to get more cars of the road and the Great Northern railway would benefit many who live along its route,  but West Tyrone is a rural area where car dependency cannot be easily eradicated.

Omagh is the biggest town in the north without a railway station, and there are far smaller towns with stations (Scarva, anyone?). There's plenty of justification for reopening that line through Dungannon, which in my opinion should be a higher priority than the complete A5.

There used to be a narrow gauge branch line that went to Castlederg from the mainline station at Victoria Bridge. No railway ever went to Drumquin that I'm aware of.

Restoring the railway is only part of the job. The other part is adjusting settlement patterns so that more people cluster around stations instead of having traffic-inducing bungalow blight peppered over the countryside.

The Knockmore line that you speak of is the lowest hanging fruit of all the railway reopenings since the tracks are still there and still in occasional use for certain types of movement. Putting a halt at Aldergrove and connecting it to the rest of the network in a Belfast circle line is a no-brainer. Following that I'd like to see Portadown-Armagh reopened. 10 miles of undisturbed route just sitting there with cuttings, embankments, and half the bridges already in place. It'd prove the concept of reopening a dormant line, and would build popular support for the reopening of the old Derry Road line.

Omagh has a population of around 20,000. There are 4-5 times that number living in the 'hinterlands'. Do we continue to let people die on that road while you spend the next 15-20 years doing proof of concept and building the "into the west" railway. That does not help the people of Drumquin or Dromore or Gortin or Trillick,etc.

A rail line is a  nice to have and would support a % of the population in 10 or 15 years but the road is needed now.

Walter Cronc

Perhaps it's pie in the sky stuff but surely when a road is built it makes sense to build the railway line adjacent to it.

Still cannot get my head around how unionists are against this proposed road. My god I'm sure some of their relatives have lost lives on the A5.

LeoMc

Quote from: Walter Cronc on January 25, 2023, 10:32:47 PM
Perhaps it's pie in the sky stuff but surely when a road is built it makes sense to build the railway line adjacent to it.

Still cannot get my head around how unionists are against this proposed road. My god I'm sure some of their relatives have lost lives on the A5.

I always thought they should have cycle paths running alongside, like a lot of Dutch roads.

Walter Cronc

Quote from: LeoMc on January 25, 2023, 10:35:15 PM
Quote from: Walter Cronc on January 25, 2023, 10:32:47 PM
Perhaps it's pie in the sky stuff but surely when a road is built it makes sense to build the railway line adjacent to it.

Still cannot get my head around how unionists are against this proposed road. My god I'm sure some of their relatives have lost lives on the A5.

I always thought they should have cycle paths running alongside, like a lot of Dutch roads.

Oh aye even better! Combine the modes of transport

Eamonnca1

Quote from: Walter Cronc on January 25, 2023, 10:32:47 PM
Perhaps it's pie in the sky stuff but surely when a road is built it makes sense to build the railway line adjacent to it.

Still cannot get my head around how unionists are against this proposed road. My god I'm sure some of their relatives have lost lives on the A5.

Railways are a different animal from roads. They need to be flatter (steel wheels on rails have less grip than rubber tyres on tarmac) and straighter (flanges on the wheels scrape the rails when the turn is too tight). They need their own routes, and they work best when they run right through the middle of urban areas. Limited access highways work best when they connect towns but don't go right into the middle of them.

Eamonnca1

#425
Quote from: LeoMc on January 25, 2023, 10:22:04 PM
Quote from: Eamonnca1 on January 25, 2023, 09:41:58 PM
Quote from: LeoMc on January 25, 2023, 12:08:24 PM
Quote from: Eamonnca1 on January 25, 2023, 06:58:41 AM
Quote from: screenexile on January 24, 2023, 08:17:11 PM
Heard this clampit on Nolan's show this morning and wanted to reach through the radio and wring his neck!!

https://twitter.com/stephennolan/status/1617870665700319232?s=46&t=fGrYjuK5gKO6-5Rz-dhDZg

He has a point. The only sure way to cut the number of road deaths is to cut the number of vehicle miles travelled, and that means giving people viable alternatives to private cars.

I'd be in favour of part of the A5 project if it meant bypassing Omagh and allowing the current A5 route to go back to its original use as part of the Portadown-Dungannon-Omagh-Derry railway that should never have been closed. Ditto for Strabane.
Public transport works where there is sufficient population density to make regular services viable.
There is some push on Twitter to have the Antrim to Lisburn line reopened to allow a regular (every 15 minutes) each way service between Belfast, Lisburn, Crumlin, Aldergrove, Antrim, Templepatrick Newtonabbey, Belfast (the circle line). That sort of investment, and I know it is in the East, would take many more cars off the road that a twice a day service to Castlederg or Drumquin.

Yes, we need to get more cars of the road and the Great Northern railway would benefit many who live along its route,  but West Tyrone is a rural area where car dependency cannot be easily eradicated.

Omagh is the biggest town in the north without a railway station, and there are far smaller towns with stations (Scarva, anyone?). There's plenty of justification for reopening that line through Dungannon, which in my opinion should be a higher priority than the complete A5.

There used to be a narrow gauge branch line that went to Castlederg from the mainline station at Victoria Bridge. No railway ever went to Drumquin that I'm aware of.

Restoring the railway is only part of the job. The other part is adjusting settlement patterns so that more people cluster around stations instead of having traffic-inducing bungalow blight peppered over the countryside.

The Knockmore line that you speak of is the lowest hanging fruit of all the railway reopenings since the tracks are still there and still in occasional use for certain types of movement. Putting a halt at Aldergrove and connecting it to the rest of the network in a Belfast circle line is a no-brainer. Following that I'd like to see Portadown-Armagh reopened. 10 miles of undisturbed route just sitting there with cuttings, embankments, and half the bridges already in place. It'd prove the concept of reopening a dormant line, and would build popular support for the reopening of the old Derry Road line.

Omagh has a population of around 20,000. There are 4-5 times that number living in the 'hinterlands'. Do we continue to let people die on that road while you spend the next 15-20 years doing proof of concept and building the "into the west" railway. That does not help the people of Drumquin or Dromore or Gortin or Trillick,etc.

A rail line is a  nice to have and would support a % of the population in 10 or 15 years but the road is needed now.

That presupposes that only townies would use the train, but the railway would still be useful to people in the hinterlands. The railway is so useful that people in outlying areas make a point of getting to the stations on it, driving if necessary. It also removes traffic from the road, which frees up capacity for people who absolutely have to drive.

seafoid

https://www.a5wtc.com/ProposedSchemeMenu

"The A5 Western Transport Corridor (A5WTC) is a Northern Ireland Executive led scheme which will provide 85 kilometres of dual carriageway from south of Londonderry at New Buildings to the border at Aughnacloy. It will improve links between the urban centres in the west of the province (Strabane, Newtownstewart, Omagh, Ballygawley and Aughnacloy) and provide a strategic link with international gateways."

Northern Ireland will not be missed
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

cynic

West of the Bann-ed - all part of a pattern:

- Nearly no universities (new Ulster campus at Coleraine, instead of the obvious larger Derry, long painful struggle to get Derry campus developed, only progressed from the 90s)

- Poor quality infrastructure (water pipes cheaper and badly maintained, as admitted by an engineer in a recent water shortage)

- Invest NI grants largely going East

- No piped gas

- No motorways

- No railways of the kind used by my parents and grandparents up to 1957 (who only had to cycle 2 miles to get a train to either Belfast or Dublin) - see: https://twitter.com/upthewoodenhill/status/1380807523754729478/photo/1

I always remember, as a small boy, in 1975, feeling slightly puzzled that the Loyalists blew up our nearly-completed new Catholic primary school.  How could you be threatened by a mere primary school, I thought, as I resigned myself to another year in the old dilapidated primary (where my grandparents had gone) with its outside dry toilets, rats under the floorboards, broken windows closed with cardboard, no sports facilities of any sort, no heating, no school meals etc etc.

But it was all part of a broader agenda.  Anything that looked like progress for them'uns had to be resisted at all costs.

As Edwin Poots' Dad, Charles Poots, made clear in 1975:

"If I was in control of this country, it would not be in the same state that it is in now.  I would cut off all supplies, including water and electricity, to Catholic areas.  And I would stop Catholics form getting social security.  It is the only way to deal with enemies of the state and to stamp out the present troubles."

Old ways die hard, folks.

seafoid

This is a really good analysis of infrastructural apartheid in the North:

https://sluggerotoole.com/2021/03/18/tackling-northern-irelands-infrastructure-apartheid-part-1-the-problem/

Tyrone and Fermanagh have the highest percentages of nationalists because they were tagged on as an afterthought in 1920 .
They also have the worst infrastructure.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

johnnycool

Quote from: seafoid on January 26, 2023, 09:46:04 AM
This is a really good analysis of infrastructural apartheid in the North:

https://sluggerotoole.com/2021/03/18/tackling-northern-irelands-infrastructure-apartheid-part-1-the-problem/

Tyrone and Fermanagh have the highest percentages of nationalists because they were tagged on as an afterthought in 1920 .
They also have the worst infrastructure.

I'd to drive down to Fermanagh quite a bit and the road from Ballygawley into Enniskillen wasn't great but somehow got a bit spent on it when that G7 or whatever it was, was on in the Lough Erne Resort. Strange that.

Is the A5 really an Orange/Green issue or are some reading too much into it?

I believe some farmers have objections to the CPO's on their land, but any nationalist farmer I know would be the same.

smort

Quote from: seafoid on January 26, 2023, 09:46:04 AM
This is a really good analysis of infrastructural apartheid in the North:

https://sluggerotoole.com/2021/03/18/tackling-northern-irelands-infrastructure-apartheid-part-1-the-problem/

Tyrone and Fermanagh have the highest percentages of nationalists because they were tagged on as an afterthought in 1920 .
They also have the worst infrastructure.

Great article

Although I got so angry reading it!  >:(

imtommygunn

then you have Sammy Wilson going on about stuff in Derry when he is probably as responsible as anyone for any nationalists not getting funding. You look at councils like ballymena, east antrim, ards etc and there's still a way to go equality wise despite what a vocal loyalist minority would have you believe.

seafoid

Quote from: johnnycool on January 26, 2023, 10:08:45 AM
Quote from: seafoid on January 26, 2023, 09:46:04 AM
This is a really good analysis of infrastructural apartheid in the North:

https://sluggerotoole.com/2021/03/18/tackling-northern-irelands-infrastructure-apartheid-part-1-the-problem/

Tyrone and Fermanagh have the highest percentages of nationalists because they were tagged on as an afterthought in 1920 .
They also have the worst infrastructure.

I'd to drive down to Fermanagh quite a bit and the road from Ballygawley into Enniskillen wasn't great but somehow got a bit spent on it when that G7 or whatever it was, was on in the Lough Erne Resort. Strange that.

Is the A5 really an Orange/Green issue or are some reading too much into it?

I believe some farmers have objections to the CPO's on their land, but any nationalist farmer I know would be the same.
It looks like the road is also the victim of austerity and budget cuts . It had already been planned around 2012 which is a long time ago now.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU

trailer

Quote from: seafoid on January 26, 2023, 09:46:04 AM
This is a really good analysis of infrastructural apartheid in the North:

https://sluggerotoole.com/2021/03/18/tackling-northern-irelands-infrastructure-apartheid-part-1-the-problem/

Tyrone and Fermanagh have the highest percentages of nationalists because they were tagged on as an afterthought in 1920 .
They also have the worst infrastructure.

A good article which I had read before. Important to note for those in the North who might be inclined to vote Alliance or Green that they are in the same basket as Unionists when it comes to infrastructure in the west.


seafoid

Another disadvantage of the Union. If Tyrone was in the Republic the EU would probably fund the road. It would shorten the journey back with Sam Maguire.
"f**k it, just score"- Donaghy   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbxG2WwVRjU