Norman Wyse
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@Andrew Duffy wrote:
Yes, the N9/N10 scheme will be motorway standard, despite its not being included in the National Road Needs Survey that predated the National Development Plan. Predicted traffic levels on the road won’t reach even the levels required for an at-grade dual carriageway duting its lifetime.
Not that I want to start an argument about this, but I have some serious doubts about these predicted traffic volumes. Particularly a survey that came out about a year ago saying that only a small number of vehicles travel from Waterford to Dublin each day. The South East is more densely populated than the West, for example, and the populations served by an M9 and an M6 are quite similar. I estimate that, excluding Kildare, the M6 serves some 280,000 people. The M9, excluding Kildare, would serve some 230,000 people. (The M9 would serve a lower population due to the proximity of the M8 and N11) The 230,000 population served by the M9, however, would be distributed relatively close to the road, whereas the 280,000 population served by the M6 is more sparsely distributed: as far away as Clifden, Westport, etc. So judging sheerly on a population basis, I’m not seeing a better case for a Galway Motorway than a Waterford one.
As for previous surveys of traffic on the N9, it is well known that the N9 is one of the worst national primary routes in the country, and traffic often take alternative routes, such as the N11, and other, smaller roads. I don’t think you can measure traffic on the N9 and make predictions based on that for numbers that would travel on an M9.
@Andrew Duffy wrote:
While the roads that will be built to Cork, Limerick and Galway will be motorway standard and will have 120km/h speed limits if the _local_ coucils decide, the Fermoy bypass in Cork will be classified as a motorway. Also, how far away from the city that’s paying for it does a road have to be for it to be visible through the blinkers? How about Laois and Tipperary, where the M7/M8 scheme will be built? Or is it the fact that the motorway classification are on roads between Dublin and other cities, where the traffic levels warrant them, that irks you?
And presumably Waterford?
