New road & infastructural projects in Ireland.
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I have decided that, this title deserve a thread of its own, as there are so many views and opinions with regards to new roads and rail projects in Ireland. As there are discussions on other threads.
With so much delays and the reactions to a new “ndp” etc.
There is a lot of money and time been wasted, something has to be going wrong.I also think some road projects that are less needed are putting some other major projects to a halt,
I.e., some Inter-urban routes under the national development plan are been put under a watering hole and scrapped,
E.g. M7/N7, Shannon tunnel, and major Motorways projects like the messy M50 and so on.
Major controversy over the design and type of roads, such as the term Super dual carrieways
The Cork and Limerick routes were all meant to be Motorway standard now as much as 80% of it is Dual carriageway??
M7 Limerick to Nenagh was designed as Motorway, but then carried out more CPO and valuable time, and allowed the class of the controversial roads to be degraded and delayed for over Three years
Other similar examples of roads that should have been Motorway standard, Watergrasshil N8
And the Naas Dual carriageway.(under construction)Such fine stretches of these roads that are Motorway standard but yet they have a fancy name for such roads and the speeds are the same as the national routes?
40 billion was confirmed to build all these roads yet only just 30% of the roads are completedremember the M1 that was completed, that road was heavily funded by the EU , something the Governtment dosent mention to often. Yet there are so proud to have finished most of the M1/N1 route.
The western rail has been shelved ?? or just been left dormant
dave123 the odd thing is that many of these stretches (watergrasshill for example) are new designs and thus truly segregated dual carriageways of motorway standard. i.e. there is no local access. Why the classification is maintained at “N”?
Probably stayed N because the same half-wit who decided we didn’t need motorway crash barriers or serivce/rest areas to have a rest/leak or fill our cars with petrol came up with it……
The whole thing is a joke!!
@d_d_dallas wrote:
dave123 the odd thing is that many of these stretches (watergrasshill for example) are new designs and thus truly segregated dual carriageways of motorway standard. i.e. there is no local access. Why the classification is maintained at “N”?
My whole point is why?
the road is a 100k/mh but yet its motorway standard, its stupid doing only 60 miles an hour.
on some dual carrigeways in france is 110k/m hour, yet there are not motorway standard 🙁New traffic legislation introduced last year (primarily to introduce km/h speed limits) gives councils the power to place a 120km/h limit on any dual carriageway road, whether motorway or not.
The high quality dual carriageways are generally slightly below current motorway standards – although largely built with a design speed of 120km/h and with entirely grade-seperated junctions there are private accesses to farm land in the form of sharp left turns. While the presence of sharp left turns doesn’t neccessarily preclude a road being a motorway, the requirement to allow agricultural traffic does. Allowing agricultural traffic on the new roads has two advantages – it reduces the amount of it on old single carriageways and thus reduces the temptation to recklessly overtake; and it increases the chance of the road passing planning without objections.As far as I know there are design rules (nra/national road design standards) that determine whether a road can qualify as a Motorway, and also what the max speed is (the design speed of the road). The higher the spec of the road or the higher the design speed, then the longer the space for on/off ramps, the further the distance between junctions, the wider the bends, etc. Obviously the higher the spec / speed then the more land/money that is required, etc.
The tightness of some of the bends is the reason why some of the M50 is reduced to 100km/h.
Some of the new Naas Road junctions currently in construction seem to have v. tight on/off ramps. Maybe because of space constraints? Maybe this prevents it being a MWay.Can anyone out there confirm/deny/give some definitive examples?
For a road to be classified as motorway a number of conditions must be fulfilled. The following conditions generally apply:
Motorways must be accessed at junctions by slip roads off the sides of the main thorough-fare;
Separate motorways are joined by link-roads at an interchange, the object of which is to allow traffic to change route without stopping or slowing significantly;
Traffic lights are not permitted (except at toll booths and certain small interchanges);
The start and end of a motorway must have signposted entry and exit points;
Certain types of transport are banned, typically: pedestrians, bicycles, learner drivers, horses, agricultural vehicles, underpowered vehicles (e.g. small scooters, invalid carriages).
In the UK and the Republic of Ireland there are further restrictions:The central reservation must remain unbroken (a noted exception being the Aston Expressway in Birmingham, which has none);
Emergency phones must be provided at a regular distance;
A ‘minimum speed limit’ may apply.All of these regulations is the reason that Ireland does not have more motorways. I have yet to see more then one emergency phone on the dual-carraigeways in the Cork area, and if some people drive any slower they’ll come to a standstill. They should be given the option to get out and walk or else just throw them into the side or a ditch…. they hold up all the traffic!
Thanks for the extra information, but it doesn’t justify why on Irelands inter urban routes, have so much road types? When only travelling at least 200 km between to Cities?
Does this make sense?The original plan was to have motorways spine from Dublin to Belfast (M1) Then Dublin to the south linking Limerick and Cork M7 (M8)
The rest would be mostly dual carriageway with some motorway standard sections such as the M3 and M4
Now most of all inter urban routes are now dual carriageway
I have looked up on the Nra also with regards to the Western spine of the country i.e. – Sligo-cork route N18/N20
Which is standard dual carriageway (not super dual carriageway) this gets so fecking ridiculous!Now most of the Cork sections of the route i.e. most of the N20 was to be dual, now the plan is two plus one scheme? 😮 I know these roads are safer than standard two lane roads but, they are not able to handle traffic and beat safety of a dual lane road.
When saying all this is its still puts me in blunder, to where all the original money budget the Nra was sticking to, when now most of the roads are now way behind schedule and outdated, and just after mentioning that we are getting less of a proper 1st class road than the Nra told us in the beginning as I stated above!
Also I have noticed that The Nra still has other secret agendas, e.g. when you travel on a major artery (N7 or N8) most noticeably Tipperary and Laois parts, these sections are part of the major inter urban routes and were to have new roads etc, when one would notice that the , NRA would say that they have been delayed to get the project (lack of funds) :rolleyes: going and then its shelved almost immediately, you will notice all the roadwork’s come out of now where and start doing the existing road, what a bloody waster of time,
In my mind , it tells me the NRA are holding their breath on those roads, along with many others, (just noted , I use these as prime examples because I’m most familiar with these roads) that is one agenda ,Its totally inadequate. Its like using this term for easier way to understand what the NRA are taking it as : let’s
take rice out one by one out of a sauspan , while its more sensible to get the sieve!( Awacky term ) but its a pretty good example of how the NRA are acting.Is this any wonder?
Anybody see this scenario?
Why spend million on the existing N routes when at that time they are supposed to started the new route??
:confused:The NRA have a large piggy bank , and they are not using it wisely……. 😡
full info on the m50 upgrade is available at:
http://www.sdublincoco.ie/index.aspx?pageid=1741
very detailed photomontages, showing before and after stuff – all part of the EIS, you’ll definitely need broadband though, its all in pdf, pretty large files – downlaod the file ‘part 3’ first, shows the most …
Preliminary work has started on the red cow, with a good chunk of the trees being felled & hoarding up in specific areas to cater for the first (& biggest) fly-over, taking traffic from the M50 southbound to the N7 westbound.
Good to see that luas will be able to travel through without having to stop, guess that puts all the ‘put it on stilts’ rubbish to bed.
Quite surprised at the extent of the work myself, even side roads are being seriously upgraded. I’ve heard estimates that the full upgrade will cost € 800m ? sounds very conservative to me if that figure includes the actual widening & the upgrade of all the junctions. Also the widening seems to be more like 4 lanes on either side, with a dedicated lane leading from junction to junction, say from the red cow to liffey valley, with 3 dedicated lanes on the inside …
Yeah, I seen the digging last week, though I only thought it was just minor works, or eircom? etc 😮 😀
I’m very surprised to see them starting it already. 🙂
On the newspaper recently, said that the road was to be delayed till next year! oh well i’ll take it as it got the go-ahead 🙂Oh this is exciting , the mad cow roundabout is desperate 😮 , it takes nearly a half an hour to cross it at times 😮
The Red cow Interchange, unlike the M1 and N4, will not be a virtual clover leaf as seen in other countries as there is a set of traffic lights on some of the ramps and the luas crossover, southbound M50 (Tallaght direction) to Naas road outbound.
But traffic will be a lot more minimal as there are free slips taking traffic away from the intersection altogether. E.g. tallaght traffic who wish to go onto the red cow city bound will be able to loop away from the luas silts, I haven’t seen the maps in quite a while so I’m not entirely sure of all the layout.I seen the Map of the Interchange, and some of the loops looks really tight, to be honest
Any comments
Those tight loops are very American, I think they are ok, although certainly large trucks and SUVs have to slow down quite quickly, and then accelerate to motorway speed.
The loops on that map seem to have enough distance to me, the thing is there should be a largish merging area to get up to speed after the loop – which seems to be there. Not all american loops have this, for instance the Los Gatos ramp to the notorious CA 17.
Every time I travel the motorways, dual-carriage ways and N roads of Ireland I always badger the driver (not one myself) and fellow travellers with the following idea:
Why doesn’t every such route – or route through each county – have a distinctive planting scheme e.g:
M50: Cherry Blossoms
Dublin to Waterford: Palm trees
Dublin to Cork: Beech trees
Dublin to Limerick: Exotic tall grasses
Dublin to Galway: Golden Acers
Dublin to Belfast: Gorse bushes
etc. etc.I understand there will be issues around leaf fall and the danger of high trees and high winds and also that locally appropriate species should be prioritised but in principal what do you think? (And sod the cost for the moment). Personally, I think it’d look fantastic.
Shane
Personally, I prefer the current trend of giving native wildlife a bit of a chance. From my point of view, ideal planting scheme would include:
– native hardwoods in large spaces (e.g. the area trapped inside the big motorway roundabouts)
– hedging using native trees/ bushes (evergreen and deciduous)…trees like holly are in big trouble at the moment.
– wildflower meadow areas
– locally sourced seeds where possible
– rotten timber allowed to rotSome advantages
– blend into landscape
– disguise road from afar
– keep genes local (e.g. shedding of leaves tuned to the local micro-cliamte)
– support native invertebrates
– support native birds / mammals
– minimal maintenance
– no pest control / fertiliser
– can handle the climateOf course mammel underpasses are critical also to avoid isolating populations.
Thinking about it, why not create ponds in really large areas (help with flood alleviation as well as wildlife).I believe on some recent schemes, the top soil is stored locally explicitly to provide “seed banks” for when the landscaping is being applied.
jmkennedyie – The exposition of my idea was perhaps a little to gimmicy – your development of that idea would be a much more sophisticted interpretation. As you note the benefits in terms of pollution reduction, noise reduction, increased beauty, reduction of negative visual aesthetic, reduced flooding, improved wildlife habitates, sustainable etc. etc. Still like my idea of cherry blossems for the M50 though. Imagine the picture in Spring.
Apparently there was a documentary (might have involved Iain Sinclair) made about the planting of the M25 around London which touched on this subject. Lagest planting exercise in English history or some such – and one man in charge of delivery – what a great job! Landscape gardening / art on the epic scale. Does anybody know of it?
Not to put a downer on this or anything, but it struck me when i saw these plans a couple of months ago that the plan for the remodelling of the red cow was a bit over complicated and falls short of what it should be, it seems to be modelled on a three level stack without actually managing to go the whole hog!, there is just too many loops and so many of these can be disorientating for drivers!, while this is not a cloverleaf, i suppose the best way to describe it is a non standard design, definately not text book interchange design, cloverleafs go right back to the very beginning of the motorway era, they were first used on the german autobahnnen and american freeways in the late 20s and 30s, they were seen as the best way to grade separate motorway junction as they were cheap to build, they are pretty much discredited today and most of them are being gradually removed on the continent, the reason being that they are seen to be unsuitable for large amounts of traffic because the tight loops slow traffic down, large trucks have also been known to topple over even travelling at fairly standard speeds, they also take up huge amounts of land. The design that is most used on europes motorways for grade separating two motorways is a 3 level stack, it looks complicated but it works the best,all traffic is segregated and there is no unnecessary loops and winding sliproads, all the sliproads radiate in an orderly fashion and even though there is a problem with space at the red cow, i think it could be adapted to fit in here. While its great to see something being done with the red cow and my god its about time, i just think we could have gone a bit further and future proofed it for years to come, unfortunately we always tend to lack a bit of ambition when it comes to designing roads in this country!, although in fairness the redcow is a masterpiece when you compare it with the N3 interchange, has anyone seen the plans for it?, in a word: SHOCKING!
ill upload a pic of a 3 level stack later
The major interchange proposals, from the top,
M1 – M50: A directional-T built over the existing roundabout. All movements between the M50 and M1 are freeflowing with the roundabout left to cater for movements to and from the N32.
N2 – M50: Most movements involving the N2 outside the M50 are freeflowing, but the two at-grade crossings are bound to cause problems.
N3 – M50: Magnificent engineering; all movements involving the N3 outside the M50 are freeflowing; it is again a very large distorted directional-T built over and around the roundabout, and removes the first and only at-grade junction on the N3 outside the M50 (until the dual carriageway ends) to boot. This must cost about €250m.
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