Atlantic Corridor

This article is about Irish road project. For other uses, see Atlantic Corridor (disambiguation).

The Atlantic corridor^[1] or Atlantic motorway^[2] is a proposed road project in Ireland. The scheme, announced in 2005, was intended to link Waterford in the South-East to Letterkenny in the North-West via motorway or dual carriageway by 2015.^[3] However, in part due to the post-2008 Irish economic downturn, major sections of the roadway were delayed or cancelled.

Atlantic Corridor development progress, as of late 2017

The Atlantic Corridor, when combined with the inter-urban motorways linking Dublin and the other cities, is intended to ring the island of Ireland and to connect primary population centres.^{[citation needed]}

National primary roads

The constituent national primary routes, included in the 2007 plan, included:

• N15 linking Letterkenny and Sligo
• N17 linking Sligo and Galway
• N18 linking Galway, Ennis and Limerick (including the Limerick Tunnel project)
• N20 linking Limerick and Cork
• N25 linking Cork and Waterford

Progress

As of 2018, over 100 km (62 mi) of the route was completed motorway or dual carriageway.^{[citation needed]} At that time, the next construction planned was the M20 from Cork to Limerick, which was allocated €850 million in government funds under the National Development Plan 2018-2027 capital scheme. The M20, which was "progressed through planning and design phases" as of 2010,^[4] is proposed to link with the planned Cork northern ring road, also forming part of the Atlantic Corridor route, connecting the planned Cork to Limerick motorway with the partially completed Cork-Waterford N25 dual carriageway.^{[citation needed]}

Completed sections

• N4 Colloney to Sligo
• N15 Ballyshannon/Bundoran bypass
• N4 Sligo inner relief road
• N17 Tuam bypass
• M17 Galway to Tuam
• M18 Limerick to Galway
• M20 Limerick to Patrickswell
• N20 Blarney to Cork
• N25 Waterford City Bypass
• N25 Cork to Midleton

Proposed developments

• N25 Carrigtwohill to Midleton road - construction rescheduled^{[citation needed]}
• M20 Patrickswell to Blarney - planning stage (as of 2020)^[5]

See also

• Western Rail Corridor
• Wild Atlantic Way
• Transport in Ireland