The final stretch of the upgrading of the M1 between Dublin and the Border opens to traffic this week four months ahead of schedule.
The 14-km standard dual carriageway will have a speed limit of 120 km/h effectively providing motorists with motorway speeds from the M50 to the Border. The new stretch links the M1 from just north of Dundalk with the A1 Newry bypass on the southern side of Newry.
It is a unique cross-Border project between the National Roads Authority, the Roads Service and Louth County Council. Some 9.7km of the motorway are in the Republic and 4.6 in Northern Ireland and it is estimated to have cost in the region of €121 million.
The scheme is also unique because it involved two statutory procedures to secure approval in both jurisdictions.
However, a single Environmental Impact Statement was used and took the environmental requirements for both sides of the Border into consideration.
At the moment about 20,000 vehicles a day use the road. By 2021 this is expected to reach 40,000, of which 20 per cent will be HGVs. The road will reduce travelling times as well as improving a strategic economic route corridor.
The contractor Siac-Ferrovial, an Irish/Spanish venture, took sustainability into account. Some 435,000sq m of blasted rock was processed into material elsewhere on the build. It will be formally opened on Thursday morning by minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern.