Motorways in Ireland

how about we call our superficial lanes a 10 lane motorway 10 lanes so we can add all the off ramps slip roads and even the extra lanes that are on the slip road , god we have the widest roads in europe Andrew ,
Andrew we don’t HAVE EIGHT LANES , THERE ARE NOT MAINBOUND LANES FOR TRAFFIC … WE HAVE ONLY OFFICIALLY THREE LANE MOTORWAYS . WEAVING IS LIKE SAYING YOU BUY PORRIDGE WITH ADDED SUGAR IN IT ,

lol i did…… there should be 3 lanes to portloais , when all the limerick ,waterford and cork sections join up, traffic will funnell onto the existing M7 ,and i can see that happining in 15 years time! the naas bypass takes a pretty large amount of traffic when only twenty years ago it went through the town.
i don’t really care how many lanes there or auxillary, weaving worms and girrafes there are ! what is needed is neccessary to carry the amount of traffic for any don’t you think?

Well you will not find a Service Area on any of the new Motorways.

there should be 3 lanes to portloais

Why? Just because it would look nice and impressive? Since the Monstereven bypass, I’ve always been able to drive at whatever speed I want once past the current roadworks at the Dublin end. On off peak times, I’ve driven miles without encountering another vehicle on that stretch. There are serious bottlenecks on roads all over the country and you’re talking about spending maybe a billion quid on upgrading a road that probably isn’t even operating at half capacity at the moment?

Despite the hype, we are still a SMALL country with ONE moderately sized city and a couple of other small cities and towns. Building an eight lane (three driving plus a pair of the ubiquitious and stupidly wasteful hard shoulder lanes) motorway would constitute a monumental vanity project.

The NRA are constructing vanity projects all over the country with little reference to cost/benefit analysis (they’ve only recently hired a senior accountant to examine the minutae of PPP contracts, ffs). Sometimes this sort of building seems to me to reflect a purile national lack of self-confidence; we need trophy overspecified roads all over the country in order to PROVE that we’re now a proper country and not some mickey mouse backwater. Any rational outsider would look at a motorway which carries an average of less than 500 vehicles a hour and ask “what the fuck?”. Missallocation of resources (i.e. pouring billions into unneeded road capacity) is as damaging to an economy as is a lack of infrastructure.

This ‘continuity of design’ arguement is one being increasingly spouted in this country of late, based on safety concerns. Has this been proven internationally?

Are varying types of high standard road not compatible in forming a road network?

There is no real necessity for three-lane roads anywhere except in the immediate hinterland of Dublin ie the M50.
However, we should continue to develop roads – as we are doing – with the third lane accounted for in the central median (for future growth).
Everybody is complaining about the M50 needing to be upgraded to three lanes already. But imagine if the space hadn’t even been put there – what we would have done then.

It doesn’t need more than three lanes – three lanes and grade separated junctions would suffice.
After that, the next solution is a second ring road between six and ten miles further out.
Trying to make the M50 into the largest road in the world is not going to miraculously cure capacity issues on the old Naas Road, the Navan Road, Drumcondra, Finglas, Dundrum etc.
Stopping non-Dublin traffic and circling Dublin traffic getting close to the city centre has to be the aim in future.

Dave, gridlock on the M50 is symptomatic of much greater infrastructure failings. Even if you have four lanes worth of traffic on the M50 – it all still has to get on and off somewhere.
The problem (both now and into the future) will always be cars leaving the ring road
The vast majority of the current tailbacks are caused by cars trying to exit the M50 and waiting on traffic lights to allow them through a roundabout. Think the Red Cow, Blanchardstown, Lucan intersections.
While half the traffic might be going away from Dublin into a motorway, the other half is going into residential areas inside the city, where upgrading the roads is not an option.
An eight-lane M50 is about as sustainable a suggestion as paving over the Liffey and the canals.
Comparisons between Dublin and London just don’t make any sense either.
There are more people living inside the M25 than there are on this entire island.
It’s four lanes wide in part and still doesn’t work – what does that tell you? That endlessly widening ring roads doesn’t fix anything. They just get full again.

Whatya think of this? – from our Minister for Transport:

Minister hits out at motorway protesters
30/06/2005 – 16:24:38

People who take court actions against state infrastructural projects are stealing from their fellow taxpayers, a Government minister claimed today.

Transport chief Martin Cullen launched a stinging attack on those who mount legal challenges to block major road projects as he opened the final sectin of the much delayed M50 motorway around Dublin.

A number of proposed projects have been delayed by court proceedings taken by conservationists and historians because of their proximity to sensitive sites such as the Hill of Tara and Carrickmines Castle.

But Mr Cullen said campaigners should accept the decision of the planning authorities and stop resorting to courtroom battles.

“When independent assessments are made and projects are given the green light, I am not accepting of people then using the court systems to delay, delay and cost the state a fortune,” he said.

“My point is they are robbing money out of the taxpayers’ pockets of this country unfairly.

“This is a democracy, when the decisions are taken by fair institutions and different bodies, we should accept them.”

Mr Cullen said only a small number of people opposed most projects.

“We have a highly independent, transparent statutory process in this country where all of these projects go to, everybody gets a fair hearing, everybody gets a chance to make their point,” he said.
This bit is bollocks for a start ↑

“When the decisions are taken, they should be accepted.

“The vast majority of the people on all of these projects are fully behind them, it is time that the very few, and it is the very few, causing massive hold-ups and robbing money out of taxpayers’ pockets in this country that could be well invested in other transport areas or indeed, many other areas of the economy, and it is time that it stopped.”

Mr Cullen said a democracy was about going through the proper processes and having a majority coming to a conclusion.

“Abuse of democracy is what goes on beyond that with people using every element of the court system to block up and freeze up and stop investment in this country,” he told RTE radio.

“I won’t stand for it and it’s time that this sort of carry-on was stopped.”

Sorry about the language, but sometimes this pathetic current government would bring it out in you.

It was the “highly independent” bit I was refering to: The planning applications, oral hearings, planning / archaeology reports and decisions for the roads end of transport infrastructure are all a big charade; as is well known the last dozen or so major roads projects were simply rubber-stamped by the otherwise highly independent An Bord Pleanala.