Waterford bypass

One of the lasting legacies of the economic boom in Ireland over the last decade is the newly-constructed road network. Even as the country goes broke, the last of the big road projects are being completed. Many of the projects have been finished well of schedule (probably due to the involvement of experienced foreign construction companies as well as the policy of fixed price contracts).
I’m counting the days until the completion of the M6 extension means continuous motorway from Dublin to Galway, which should free up at least an hour a day for me. Flying from Shannon to Heathrow on an early morning flight last month, I took a few pictures – for once I had a window seat where the window wasn’t covered in scratches.

I couldn’t figure out what I was looking at when I took the picture above. I knew it should be Waterford, but I didn’t know about the new bridge (Google Earth is great for identifying towns from the air). A bit of Googling showed a Kilkenny People article predicting a December 2009 opening date and the route of the N25 Waterford city bypass.The bridge was officially opened last Monday (October 19th) – 10 months ahead of schedule. The bridge is the longest in the country at 465 metres – the bypass, including the bridge, cost around half a billion to build.

Here is a gallery of images showing a series of pictures taken along the path of the river Suir.