Re: Re: Cork Transport

@a boyle wrote:

well a 2+1 with slip roads on and off would certainly be much safer than other roads. And building such a road would a lot cheaper.

The reason i started this was to at least get somebody thinking . a easy billion is being spent building the road to cork. what other things might that have paid for ?

if the train had a very large capacity and was substantially faster than the road , how many would be left driving ?

Duilding a dualcarriage way does not future proof much at all, as i have repeatedly tried to explain. What it does is fuel the city sprawl, generating useless commuter traffic. I am not trying to blame the people who do

I presume when you say “other roads” you don’t include dual carriageways and motorways in that, because 2+1s are not safer than those roads. Of course building a DC will future proof it because until we invent personal magic flying saucers or whatever, roads will remain a primary means of transport and demand for them will only rise, the provision of decent rail links notwithstanding.

The N8/M8 is not just about people commuting to Dublin or Cork, it is traffic between the two and beyond (eg Belfast and North Leinster), particularly commercial and freight traffic. That residual traffic which will always remain even with an excellent train service, in addition to local traffic (eg the punter going from Cashel to Cahir), in addition to those who the train doesn’t suit will require roads of a higher capacity than a 2+1.

As has been pointed out above, 2+1s are not the brilliant system they were initially thought. IMHO they would be better off just creating 2+1s using line paint and not bothering with the barrier. The mere creation of the overtaking lane removes the vast majority of the overtaking that can cause accidents. This works extremely well in Australia. Physically preventing overtaking is a bit nannyish, and more expensive. It has been done on the N71 from Cork to Bandon between Innishannon and Bandon. They simply repainted the road to make the hard shoulder another traffic lane. Cheap, effective, simple. For the price of the paint that could be done throughout the country where conditions allow.