Motorways in Ireland

Try driving from Bray to Parkwest everyday and include a tram system crossing a roundabout.

As one who lived near one of the stops of the Cork-Cobh rail commuter line, it always amazed how such a good asset was wasted due to the lack of a decent service. Thankfully, some new railcars were put in, the double track line was upgraded wtih concrete sleepers and new signalling, and a more rational timetable was put in place. No longer a creaking old train way past its sell by date (boiler carraige anyone!), but a sleek push pull railcar. Not surprisingly, traffic soared as people for once could rely on it and get there in comfort. As the line passed Tivoli and the and the tailbacks into Cork, one saw first hand the advantages of taking the train.
Ironically, Irish Rail did all they could to get rid of the service in the 80’s and the only thing that kept the line open was the NET plant and its related train cargo specials. Similar to Dublin, Cork had lines all over the city once, with over 5 stations in the city centre at one point. Obviously, many never made sense economically or otherwise, but parts of the lines out to Bishopstown, Kinsale, and Crosshaven would be damn useful today!

@Frank Taylor wrote:

There is an argument that the traffic levels between most Irish cities don’t justify 2 lane motorway. instead, we could have bypassed every town on the way and used a 2+1 passing lane road, as seen in Australia and Sweden. 10 years ago, any Irish person driving in France or the UK would feel slightly embarrassed and think, ‘Why can’t we have a network of motorways?’ The NRA has spent 17 billion over the last 10 years to achieve this end. Maybe we could have spent this more wisely.

I agree that there has been a number of instances of over-engineering in a lot of NRA projects that has led to:

@IRELAND.COM wrote:

NRA had no senior accountants when agreeing road costs
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 12th May, 2005

The National Roads Authority (NRA) did not have an accountant at management level at a time it was negotiating road building contracts worth billions of euros, it emerged today.

It also emerged that the cost of projects originally estimated at &#8364]http://home.eircom.net/content/irel…?view=Eircomnet[/url]

The percentage overspend here is off the scale.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

It might have been an idea not to continue the radial structure of roads and rail emanating from a congested Dublin Ring motorway. Rather than upgrading Dublin-Cork, Dublin-Waterford and Dublin-Limerick, we could have upgraded Dublin-Waterford-Cork-Limerick-Dublin. Journey times would not have been greatly increased compared to the direct routes. The Swiss, aided by geography, have managed to build a balanced infrastructure that has allowed the development of at least four decent cities. France, by contrast, looks much more radial. These patterns reflect their respective degrees of government centralisation.

I’m not so sure about building a Dublin- Waterford-Cork-Limerick-Dublin Motorway as it would have a total of 335 miles on the basis of

Dublin- Kilkenny- Waterford 105 miles
Cork Waterford 75 miles
Cork- Limerick 65 miles
Limerick Newbridge 90 miles

Alternative routings on

Dublin-Kilkenny- Clonmel-Cahir- Cork 160 miles (The original Dublin- Cork road T6)
Kilkenny- Waterford 30 miles
Cahir – Limerick 35 miles
Total 225 miles

Instead we will have

Dublin -Cork 160 miles
Portlaoise- Limerick 70 miles
Newbridge -Waterford 75 miles
Total 305 miles

@A-ha wrote:

hmmm, the NRA can never seem to help overspending, shame they alsways overspend in the wrong ways!

Is there a right way to over-spend public money?

@patty wrote:

Are there any three lane motorways in Ireland? Are there any projects? Is the project to upgrade all main routes to motorway status?

FYI – This is what happens when ….

The Irish Times – Thu, Apr 08, 04

Hearing into proposed €250m road between Limerick and Nenagh ends
Karl Hanlon

An oral hearing into a controversial proposal to build a €250 million motorway between Limerick and Nenagh concluded yesterday amid heated scenes.
The seven-day hearing was told that there were objections from more than 100 landowners who have been served with compulsory purchase orders on their homes and property.
An Bord Pleanála inspector, Mr Michael Ward, also heard submissions from groups and individuals in relation to the Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed route.
On the final day of the hearing in Limerick yesterday, conservationist Mr Ruadhan MacEoin, made a lengthy submission on alternative proposals to the new 37 km road.
Central to his argument was a proposal to upgrade the existing N7 route between Limerick and Nenagh along the lines of the “two plus one” routes.
This is basically a three-lane carriageway which allows safe overtaking at 2 km sections in both directions along the route.
The conservationist argued that this proposal would be less damaging to the environment and be considerably more cost effective.
At the end of Mr MacEoin’s submission, Mr James Macken SC, for the local authorities, made his final address and Mr Ward closed the hearing.
At this point, Mr MacEoin made several attempts to ask the expert panel to address the points he had just raised in his alternative proposal.
However, his request was repeatedly denied by Mr Ward, who told him the hearing had closed.
“I am deeply upset at the way in which the inspector concluded the hearing in such a needlessly aggressive manner without allowing the experts to address my questions,” Mr MacEoin said afterwards.

© The Irish Times

So there you go. As to lack of strategic positioning of the routes, this thread may also be of interest:

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3633

From a factual perspective, in relation to Dublin – Cork / Limerick / Waterford route siting one does note 2 clear historic trends:

1) Infrastructure has been successful – provided the route selection process also gave due consideration to population centres other than just the end destinations. Hence, the Dublin – Cork mail coach roads went via Carlow and Kilkenny, while the Dublin – Cork railway went close enough to Limerick so as to also serve that by spur from Limerick Jcn.

2) Infrastructure has been unsuccessful and/ or commercially unviable where routes were run too close together. The 2 best examples from Irish experience are the Turnpike roads built in the 18th century – where the network was too dense and overly focused on the Dublin / S.E. of the country (Plus ca change! See “Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape” pub 1997 for more), and the Royal Canal, built in the 19th C., practically paralell to the Grand Canal and a financial black hole from day 1.

Point being that there were really 2 choices when it came to servicing cities, either build slightly circuitious routes between the major cities, or alternatively upgrade with 2 + 1 systems along existing routes. Given that the NRA overspend to date equates with €5000 overspend per taxpayer, it does not strike me as value for money to build a motorway solely for only 800 vehicles per day that currently are on the Waterford road south of Kilkenny.
From the perspective that a bit of strategic planning would have got far better bang-for-buck, it is depressing to watch billions of taxpayers money needlessly wasted while rats infest class rooms and hospitals fall apart. That said, and if one accepts that a mistake was made by building a motorway via Portlaoise, there may actually still be time to get more efficient motorway route selection. Were the political will there, it might be found that the Dublin – Galway and the Dublin – Limerick routes could be amalgamated with a junction somewhere near Birr, and likewise Dublin – Cork should go via Carlow, Kilkenny, Clonmel with a spur or 2 + 1 to Waterford.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Carlow and Kilkenny Chambers of Commerce, County Cos, etc, did not see that both their access, and the actual financial justifiacation of construction would be better advanced were they to push for such a route choice.
In the meantime Jack’s last comment as to a tribunal is probably on the money 😀

Ah! Thats that off my chest !

H.

But they should know in advance that things like zebra crossings are needed. This government is the biggest eejit for overspending on roads etc. Is eejit an irish word? :confused:

[FONT=Arial]I always wondered how you spell eejit :confused: [/font]

Dave,

it was late 1960’s the Lemass govenrment when the Country went from Trunk & Link Roads to National Primary Routes and Regional Routes. The old system was a lot simpler the main routes were

1 Dublin to Belfast
2 Dublin Monaghan Derry
3 Dublin Sligo
4 Kinnegad Galway
5 Dublin Limerick
6 Naas Athy Kilkenny Clonmel Cahir Cork
7 Dublin Enniscourty Waterford
8 & 9 Went from Dundalk and Monaghan snaking through the midlands to Potlaoise and Athlone
10 Derry Letterkenny
11 Letterkenny Cork

I note the absence of what is now the N3

Hutton,

it is a little late for the T6 route at this stage given that motorways already exist to Portlaoise and will exist to Carlow on the N9 very soon both 50 miles on each respective route.

There is the possibility of taking a Western alignment close to Thurles and following the rail line as far as Limerick Junction then crossing the Galty Mountains on the Western side before coming out at Mitchelstown, this would give a virtually identical Dublin – Cork whilst requiring only a 20 mile dual-Carriageway to Childers Rd in Limerick which would also double up as a DC/M-way from Limerick to Cork.

The one caveat I would enter is that I have no idea if the East Limerick section is designated SAC or high-amenity. But if it were a clean route it would cut 50 miles from the Dublin to Limerick requirement. Whilst giving a far superior Galway/Limerick to Cork route.

The Board granted permission for the Carlow / Kildare Scheme as far as I’m aware and I would imagine that as there aren’t any legal challenges that I’m aware of it can be considered a done deal.

I don’t think that Kilkenny with a population of 20,735 can justify a 10 mile diversion on the N8; personally I would favour linking Limerick with Cork and I for the life of me cannot see the rationale to build 50 miles of extra dual-carriageway to link Roscrea population 4,578 and Nenagh population 6,121 to the national network at such expense, from a Limerick perspective it would be the fastest way to get a motorway to Dublin as with Cullen at the table and Smyth gone Waterford will get a dual-carriageway before Limerick despite Limerick being a bigger City with larger satelite towns.