The N22 and N25 Southern Ring upgrades are designed to create a motorway ring around Cork city. Cork will have the M20 entering from the northwest and the M8 from the northeast. With some judicious changes on the N25 southern ring road and the future N22 northern ring road, an M22/M25 ring could be created, and possibly renumbered. The N25 as far east as Midleton would be up to scratch too, as would the N22 up to Macroom to the west. Cork would then be at the centre of nearly as many motorways as Dublin - the M8, M20, M22, and M25. Notably, all of these would actually connect with the ring road, unlike at Dublin where the joins are via lower standard DC sections. In order to achieve all this, some junction upgrades or reconfiguration would be needed for the N22 and N25 sections encircling Cork.

Since many elements of this route are currently missing, a number of schemes must take place in order to enable it:

• - Extension of the N22 from Ballincollig to Macroom (suspended in 2010)


• - Reconstruction of the N22/N25 junction to freeflow all movements (not planned)


• - Cork Northern Ring Road, which will create a link from the future M20 to the M8


• - Completion of missing segment from M20 to here - originally part of the Cork Northern Ring, later dropped due to scaling back of the project


• - Upgrade of this section of N22 from reduced dual carriageway to HQDC

Since most of these projects are not planned or suspended, the likelihood of an M22 along this routing is therefore slim.

Please give your opinion on this road proposal. Rate it out of 10, and whether you think the standard (road width) is appropriate.

Wikipedia page on this road