Limerick Transport
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Christ, you’re right.
What they’ve done is not noticeable driving out to Adare.
And not one word about it by anyone I know.I wonder what that was done for . . . 😉
Yes, I suppose you’re right — they’ll mostly come in by the Crescent SC and then on to . . . Ballinacurra and O’Connell Avenue.
Had a poke around the Galvone – M20 junction this weekend.
The removed slip road from the M20 to the South Ring Road can be easily restored.
More peculiarly, there is a dodgy guidance onto the M20 for traffic leaving the city from the South Ring Road to Adare.
I mean it is a very narrow and poorly signed shared lane with traffic leaving the city for Dublin.
And if you do not have your wits about you and stay on the right side, you could end up on the the road out towards the Dublin Road.
A fella from N. Ireland was lost at the roundabout last Friday, as I was looking at things.
He couldn’t find clear signs towards Adare.So it now looks as if the interchange at Galvone is so designed as to put everyone approaching it from either direction onto the national primary road linking the tunnel and the Dublin road . . .
………………..
@teak wrote:
Had a poke around the Galvone – M20 junction this weekend.
The removed slip road from the M20 to the South Ring Road can be easily restored.
More peculiarly, there is a dodgy guidance onto the M20 for traffic leaving the city from the South Ring Road to Adare.
I mean it is a very narrow and poorly signed shared lane with traffic leaving the city for Dublin.
And if you do not have your wits about you and stay on the right side, you could end up on the the road out towards the Dublin Road.
A fella from N. Ireland was lost at the roundabout last Friday, as I was looking at things.
He couldn’t find clear signs towards Adare.So it now looks as if the interchange at Galvone is so designed as to put everyone approaching it from either direction onto the national primary road linking the tunnel and the Dublin road . . .
I don’t think it is designed to put everyone onto the M7 teak, I reckon that it is just purely down to poor planning, for instance up to a couple of weeks ago the sign for limerick racecourse was on the left side of the road going out, leading people to believe that they had to join the M7 if they wanted to go racing for the day, This has since been changed.
Having read the previous posts on this thread, it has all become clearer.
Grade A mess up rather than LA Confidential style conspiracy.
That said, I do not see any reason why the M20 – South Ring Road link can’t be easily re-established (e.g. simply as a run-off road from the start of the cloverleaf loop round onto the Tunnel Route) and traffic from the south distributed among a number of roads into the city.
Otherwise it’ll be chaos.There is a feeling around that a gombeen element within the Crescent shopping centre is trying force footfall through this place by putting it in people’s faces day after day .
Whatever about this, it is clear by now that all traffic routing decisions should be referred to a council of citizens prior to approval.
Councillors ignorance of technical matters is just plain astonishing.@teak wrote:
Christ, you’re right.
Christ, I wish I was wrong.
I wonder what that was done for . . . 😉
The NRA has explained that two-way access was always a temporary arrangement and the inbound lane had been closed to coincide with the imminent opening of the Limerick Tunnel. This is what the contractors had been asked to do after extensive public consultation and Limerick City Council at that stage wanted outbound access only from the Childers Road.But Cllr Jim Long said the context to that stance was completely different.
“In 2001, that was the proposal and councillors and residents agreed that it should be closed off once it was finished. But that was in the context of safety concerns for the Roxboro Swimming Pool and Carew Park FC and children running across a busy road. Since then, Roxboro Swimming Pool has closed and Carew Park have relocated across the road. The position has changed but the NRA’s position is that they contracts have been signed and the contractors would have to be compensated,” Cllr Long said.
They might have to compensate the tunnel operator for lost tolls too. Drivers are rational people and many would take a similar direct route through the city if the Rosbrien Interchange was reconnected for Cork, Waterford and Dublin traffic heading in the Galway direction (avoid tolls).
When politicians are involved, there is more than what meets the eye regarding the layout of this Interchange.
P.S. Check out the route map and then click the Cork/Kerry to City Centre and Dublin to City Centre destinations on it.
Must a Green Route have bus-lanes in it ?
Limerick Regeneration Project list (PDF)
Phase One Implementation Plan
Access from the Southern Ring Road (Cost: €7 million)
Proposal is to put in place modifications to the recently completed Rosbrien Interchange to facilitate access to Southill from Dublin and Cork via the Roxboro Road. Project would include new access routes, new bridge construction, widening existing bridge and additional slip roads. This project has a city, county and regional context.
Anybody know exactly how do they intend to re-connect the inbound access for the following two routes by modifying the Rosbrien Interchange with the Roxboro Road with just €7 million?
- Dublin / Waterford to City Centre
- Cork to City Centre
@CologneMike wrote:
Anybody know exactly how do they intend to re-connect the inbound access for the following two routes by modifying the Rosbrien Interchange with the Roxboro Road with just €7 million?
- Dublin / Waterford to City Centre
- Cork to City Centre
The giveaway is probably the talk about connecting to the Roxboro road. This probably means two slips onto the bridge just east of the actual existing junction. I.e. R511 – road out to Fedamore. Only two slips needed, offslip on M7 eastbound (allowing M18/M20 traffic to access Roxboro) and offslip on M7 westbound (allowing N24/M7 traffic to access).
This is more likely than any true modifications to the existing freeflow junction.
Ah, I see what you mean.
The “Dublin / Waterford to City Centre“ and the “Cork to City Centre†in-bound routes would be as follows.
How about this one ?
A breakthrough road off the loop round to the tunnel-bound road and then onto the inner roundabout before the old Roxboro Swimming Pool . . .
Another thing I’d like to raise here is this.
Traffic signposting upon the new orbital road.
Basically everything related to these.
Design, size, location, prominence, colour-coding, symbol-coding, lettering size, etc, etc.
And most of all — why always – always – Rennicks ?The new signs at the nodes of the orbital route are terrible.
Black & white, too small, block capital letters, no colour nor symbol coding.
And no prominence.When is someone from LCC going to be sent on a course to Holland or Germany on signs ?
@teak wrote:
How about this one ?
A breakthrough road off the loop round to the tunnel-bound road and then onto the inner roundabout before the old Roxboro Swimming Pool . . .
That map is not detailed enough, it does not show the merging lane coming from Galway travelling towards Cork.
Your suggestion would bisect it. (See above)
They would have to re-configure the interchange into a Clover Leaf one to achieve that, like the one below.
See previous post.
Follow the grade up the west loop then slip off onto another graded embankment that lifts the M20-N20 link high enough to clear the Galway-Cork loop.
A kinked slip road would result — perhaps not safe at night.Tunnelling the Galway-Cork under the M20-N20 slip (or vive-versa) would be expensive as the rock is so close to the surface.
What a hames they made of it. 😡
@teak wrote:
What a hames they made of it. 😡
My own warped mind :rolleyes: tells me the PPP people behind this €660 million project (toll collection) would have no complaints about the hames made at Rosbrien.
Would love to get the full story from the City Manager Mr. Mackey and the City Councillors (2003) Cronin, Power, Kennedy, Ryan, Leddin, Hourigan, O’Hanlon, Fahy, Bourke, Leddin, Walsh, Gilligan, Cross, Scully, Wallace, Byrne and Sadlier.
Plans to build a bus lane in Limerick are partially accepted (Limerick Leader)
By Nick Rabbitts
WORK is set to commence on the first part a bus lane on Limerick city’s southern exit over the next week after councillors voted to progress the work from the county boundary to Punches Cross.
At a heated city hall meeting this afternoon, a proposal by Independent councillor John Gilligan to start the first phase the work on the €5m bus lane project was accepted by nine votes to seven.
The news will come as a disappointment to four of Fine Gael’s five southside city councillors, plus the O’Connell Avenue/Ballinacurra Residents Association, who have vigirously campaigned against the building of a green bus route on the city’s southern exit.
Fine Gael councillors Michael Hourigan, Kevin Kiely and Diarmuid Scully voted in favour of Cllr Gilligan’s proposal, with the remainder joining Labour councillor Joe Leddin in voting against the multi-million euro proposal.
The remainder of the proposed bus lane – which could bring in O’Connell Avenue – is set to be debated at the beginning of next year, with a variety of different proposals in place.
A bird‘s eye view (see bing.com)of O’Connell Avenue from Punch’s Cross to St. Joseph’s Church reveal to me that most of residents (not all) have some form of parking to their homes (rear or driveway). Some have even got together and blatantly converted their front gardens into a car-park, thus destroying its residential character.
Those O’Connell Avenue residents that are blocking the bus lane proposals are holding the city to ransom!
A bird‘s eye view (see bing.com)of O’Connell Avenue from Punch’s Cross to St. Joseph’s Church reveal to me that most of residents (not all) have some form of parking to their homes (rear or driveway). Some have even got together and blatantly converted their front gardens into a car-park, thus destroying its residential character.
Those O’Connell Avenue residents that are blocking the bus lane proposals are holding the city to ransom!
Nonsense.
Walk round the back lanes — if there are any — and you’ll see that a lot of the houses have elaborate extensions into the back gardens.
But whatever about that there is no reason that a householder ought be expected to give up his backgarden for the greater good. The amenity value of front gardens on this road is already nil owing to the noise, pedestrians and litter.To me the solution is very simply this.
The biggest component of O’Connell Ave traffic is the trans-commuters, i.e. people simply using it as their habitual through-road to their destinations in the city or in southern suburbs/county.
These trans-commuters may readily be encouraged to use Prospect Hill, Hyde Road and Roxboro Road routes that will lead onto the new city orbital route.
That would remove at least 70% of the existing O’Connell Avenue traffic.
After that there would be no need for a bus-lane, even if the number of buses doubled.
Since the 2 existing lanes are quite broad, the present ability of motorists to tuck in on both sides to allow an ambulance to pass is retained. (With an additional bus-lane this capability is lost as the 3 lanes would then be minimally sized.)It really defies belief that, in all this controversy, no one seems to question why the trans-commuters ought not move.
It is always either the residents ought move on their parking retention; or the council ought move on their green route proposals.
Why should the habits of trans-commuters take priority over residents to the extent that they lose their parking or lose any bit of garden that they may have ?One thing is clear.
If a bus-lane is brought in, then families will start to move away from O’Connell Avenue.
We all know what will happen then.
Homes will be converted to cheap flats/offices.
Neither tenants nor landlords will maintain these fine old buildings and the whole area — one of the best areas architecturally — will become run-down.@teak wrote:
Nonsense.
Walk round the back lanes — if there are any — and you’ll see that a lot of the houses have elaborate extensions into the back gardens.
Well for example Verona Esplanade Terrace and McNamara’s Terrace have rear parking.
In fact I counted around 150 residential houses, 5 schools, 7 shops, 1 church, 2 pubs and 1 restaurant along O’Connell Avenue from Punch’s Cross to St. Joseph’s Church.
From what I see only about a quarter of the 150 residential houses would have a parking issue.
In fact parking spaces will coexist with the bus lane as seen in this example (Opposite Mount School).
How many residential houses do you think are affected and where?
It really defies belief that, in all this controversy, no one seems to question why the trans-commuters ought not move.
It is always either the residents ought move on their parking retention; or the council ought move on their green route proposals.
Why should the habits of trans-commuters take priority over residents to the extent that they lose their parking or lose any bit of garden that they may have ?You would not be advocating that the city changes the layout of its street grid? O’Connell Street is the main street of the city and O’Connell Avenue its natural extension. Unfortunately cars are like mobile phones, nearly everybody has one and that is the problem, not public transport. O’Connell Avenue always was and always will be one of the main public roads leading into the city centre. Private property (cars) should be kept on private property. Before the advent of the motor car, people did not leave their horse drawn cars on the road when they didn’t use them? The original Military Road looked great without all those parked cars too.
One thing is clear.
If a bus-lane is brought in, then families will start to move away from O’Connell Avenue.
We all know what will happen then.
Homes will be converted to cheap flats/offices.
Neither tenants nor landlords will maintain these fine old buildings and the whole area — one of the best areas architecturally — will become run-down.Yeah Landlords buying up family homes for renting purposes was once a general problem in many parts of the city. College Court housing estate near the UL was such an example. It was purpose built for families with ample green space for kids to play. Unfortunately when houses came on the market, landlords out bided younger families and rented them out to six students or so per house. Eventually the estate died as a neighbourhood. This trend may have in the meantime reversed itself since the building of student villages or apartments.
By the way, will the O’Connell Avenue residents get all those new footpaths, new public lighting, new trees for free? My road got upgraded five years ago and was billed by the local authority to the tune of €8,000.
I doubt if anyone will be billed for enhancements on this project.
You appear to base your thinking on the maps and images of the proposed plan as shown by LCC.
(cf. image below.)Just go there some w/end evening or early morning and measure the street and footpaths.
First thing you’ll see is that the block from Wolfe Tone St to Roden St is wrong.
One can’t fit a bus-lane in here without loss of the parking on the west side.
Even if you take a bit from both pavements.That leaves 39 cars to go into 18 parking spaces on the eastern side.
I am not “advocating a change in the layout of its street grid”.
I advocate that the pattern of through-commuter traffic be altered so that :1) The heritage and streetscape of O’Connell Avenue is conserved in the most effective way — i.e. by enabling families and owners of businesses to continue living there and caring for their properties.
2) Priority for the use of this route (at least during peak hours) is given to
* Emergency vehicles — e.g. Garda, FB, CD, Amb/P-M
* City-route buses — both commuter and tourist
* Taxis
* Residents/proprietors and their guests/customersThere is no basis for through-commuters demanding access via O’Connell Avenue just because they have done so in the past.
In any case, the planned pedestrianisation of central O’Connell St will make it more awkward for many to exit on O’Connell Ave than from other nodes on the city orbital route.Sure, people coming in via Hyde Rd will remark on the state of the place, lack of amenities, kids playing with broken trolleys, sneakers on telephone wires, etc.
But isn’t it high time that city council funds were applied to help the decent families of this area rather than cover-up the state of things there ?@teak wrote:
2) Priority for the use of this route (at least during peak hours) is given to
* Emergency vehicles — e.g. Garda, FB, CD, Amb/P-M
* City-route buses — both commuter and tourist
* Taxis
* Residents/proprietors and their guests/customersThere is no basis for through-commuters demanding access via O’Connell Avenue just because they have done so in the past.
In any case, the planned pedestrianisation of central O’Connell St will make it more awkward for many to exit on O’Connell Ave than from other nodes on the city orbital route.RE the Emergency services, the provision of a bus lane will greatly improve the ability of these vehicles to move through traffic, Emergency vehicles are permitted to use bus lanes so having such a lane means a permanently open lane for them when required.
With regard to your idea to move traffic to Hyde road, the only way to effectively do this is to make O’Connell Ave 1 way, thus eliminating the chance of through traffic moving along it. Otherwise you’ll have the council saying “from now we will use Hyde road” and the motorist saying “bugger off, O’Connell Ave is quicker”. The residents of O’Connell Avenue will be much more annoyed with the road being 1 way than having bus lanes.
On the issue of not having a place to park, those spaces on O’Connell Avenue are a public convenience on public property. Not private parking places for residents. There is access to the rear of the property, yes they may loose 6 feet off their substantial gardens to the rear, but so what.
I have just bought a house which has no on street parking near it because the road is too narrow, and I have a considerably smaller garden than the residents of O’Connell Avenue. Yet in order for me to park my car I’m planning to make an entrance from the rear access I have in order to park. If I was to act in the manner that the residents of O’Connell Avenue are acting, I should be lobbying my local councillor and LCC for parking spaces to be provided outside my property.
But it’s a public road and as such I have no right to make such demands. Just like the residents of O’Connell Ave have no right to hold the city to ransom, over public parking spaces which are the property of LCC not the residents, They’re a privilege not a right.
PS while I’m on here has anyone heard of / able to verify the rumours that the roundabout at Shannon Bridge is to be removed in favour of traffic lights?
@teak wrote:
A bird‘s eye view (see bing.com)of O’Connell Avenue from Punch’s Cross to St. Joseph’s Church reveal to me that most of residents (not all) have some form of parking to their homes (rear or driveway). Some have even got together and blatantly converted their front gardens into a car-park, thus destroying its residential character.
Those O’Connell Avenue residents that are blocking the bus lane proposals are holding the city to ransom!
Nonsense.
Walk round the back lanes — if there are any — and you’ll see that a lot of the houses have elaborate extensions into the back gardens.
But whatever about that there is no reason that a householder ought be expected to give up his backgarden for the greater good. The amenity value of front gardens on this road is already nil owing to the noise, pedestrians and litter.To me the solution is very simply this.
The biggest component of O’Connell Ave traffic is the trans-commuters, i.e. people simply using it as their habitual through-road to their destinations in the city or in southern suburbs/county.
These trans-commuters may readily be encouraged to use Prospect Hill, Hyde Road and Roxboro Road routes that will lead onto the new city orbital route.
That would remove at least 70% of the existing O’Connell Avenue traffic.
After that there would be no need for a bus-lane, even if the number of buses doubled.
Since the 2 existing lanes are quite broad, the present ability of motorists to tuck in on both sides to allow an ambulance to pass is retained. (With an additional bus-lane this capability is lost as the 3 lanes would then be minimally sized.)It really defies belief that, in all this controversy, no one seems to question why the trans-commuters ought not move.
It is always either the residents ought move on their parking retention; or the council ought move on their green route proposals.
Why should the habits of trans-commuters take priority over residents to the extent that they lose their parking or lose any bit of garden that they may have ?One thing is clear.
If a bus-lane is brought in, then families will start to move away from O’Connell Avenue.
We all know what will happen then.
Homes will be converted to cheap flats/offices.
Neither tenants nor landlords will maintain these fine old buildings and the whole area — one of the best areas architecturally — will become run-down.This thing about ambulances is interesting, how do ambulances work at present with only one lane and parking?
As for the trans commuters, how exactly would they practically be encouraged to use other routes?
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