Road Design on Boyle to Sligo Road At Castlebaldwin
Now I am not an engineer, but I am someone who uses the roads quite a lot. I have travelled on the Boyle to Sligo (N4)every week over the last few years. I was delighted when Sligo County council or the NRA started to work on the the section after Castlebaldwin on the Sligo side. It is definately a major improvement on the road that was already there. I think it is due to finish shortly as they are working on the sides and generally tidying up.
But here comes my gripe: When coing from Sligo there is a turn off to the right and on the main carraigeway there is an arrow for straight ahead and an arrow to turn off right. So far so good you might say, but there is no room for a car to move out to the right they are still on the main carraigeway. Now what really is annoying is that there is a massive amount of a hard shoulder on the left. So why could they not have made the road with a lane to turn right and use some of or all of the hard shoulder for traffic going straight on? Who is getting paid to do a design like this?
Some years back when the Curlew bypass was built a similiar problem existed. If you were coming from Carrick-on-Shannon towards Sligo and wanted to turn off for Ballyfarnon you had to move out to the overtaking lane and wait in it to turn right, if traffic was coming from Sligo. A lethal situation. It took a few years for them to change the layout of that juntion, all they needed to do was to change road markings.
Maybe the same designer is involved with this road design at Castebaldwin.
Declan
www.duignan.eu
Road design at Castlebaldwin