N25/N30 - New Ross Bypass [open to traffic]

Hmmm. The title of this thread is the New Ross bypass.

But the posts seem to be about why the M9 should never have been built.

I get rather bored with serial 'M9 should never have been built' posters.

The real story is far more complicated than than and is frequently advanced by those who never drove the simply hideous Kilkenny - Waterford section.

Aidan1 wrote: »

Its true, the situation is more complex than it appears. The old road was comically awful, and an upgrade was badly needed. Moreover, any upgrade would have to be done offline. Due to the topography, any new road would also have been expensive regardless of type (due to the Civils costs - bridges, embankments etc), and so the difference between Wide S2 and D2M is probably not all that much.

The big problem was the lack of an intermediate design standard which only came quite late in the day in the form of 2+2 . 2+2 would have been perfectly adequate on the southern sections of the M9 and most midland sections of most of the built Motorways eg West and South of Portlaoise and Athlone.

However 2+2 was not available as an NRA standard and as a design option until the designs were completed and through planning ( say around 2006)

IMO anything LESS than 2+2 would have been inadequate as a design as well so much of the M6 M7 M8 M9 and M11 should have been designed and built as Offline 2+2 . I accept that fully.

So should the bridge section of the New Ross Bypass and HO! and Belold it is being built as 2+2. So thats grand.

But lets be clear, the business case for the M9 never stood up as it is presently built - it's a classic case of county jersey politics ("Galway/Limerick got a direct motorway link so we must get one too",

Agreed. The midlands sections of most of these motorways should have been designed and built as 2+2 and thats that. Many proposed 2+2 upgrades on lesser roads ( N21 N22 etc) should be an offline mix of 2+2 'overtaking sections' and S2 in between sections but at reasonably predictable intervals ....no more than 20km of S2 before a 5km minimum of 2+2 allows overtaking etc...that would be the N25 west of the waterford Bypass section or across Wexford meaning a small 2+2 retrofit in mid Wexford would suffice as an upgrade.

But I digress, build the bridge and let New Ross have some peace.

Aidan1 wrote: »

For most of the network thats left to be built 2+2 would be ideal, along with Wide S2. To be honest, the M20 is probably the most important project left outside of the pipeline, and there's a case for 2+2.

Roads like the N5 in Mayo Roscommon , the N17 / N15 and the N21 and N22 should be developed as a mix of S2 and 2+2 in the main.

S2 can be upgraded to 2+2 anyway ( with extra land take) but 2+2 cannot be upgraded to Motorway, the alignment won't support Motorway speeds.

The case for the M20 is interesting but I am not sure how much you could save this way.

The M20 must be dual carriageway all the way but traffic levels from Mallow North to Croom South do not support Motorway as did not Gort - Ennis but that is built.

If building offline as one will the possibility is that one COULD save money by building a VERY straight 2+2 where the alignment allows an extra 2 lanes to be added in future and is of motorway straightness.

However one will not save a huge amount of money.

The sections near Limerick and Cork-Mallow (to N71 to north ) should be Motorway grade and designation, no doubt about that.

A key deliverable for an M/N20 would be getting Cork and Limerick city centres within 1 HOUR of each other. They are 100km apart. The motorway sections of 120kph are to cancel out the long city sections at 30kph so the ratio between 50kph and 120kph stretches should be minimum 1:3 with 3x Motorway for every 1km of 50kph as there are traffic lights there too.

I'd allow 1 hour a day when you could not deliver that at the very very peak of the rush hours on a wet schoolday evening in winter.

This may mean that more motorway and less Dualler is required in parts to allow higher speeds if desired. You would need 30km of Motorway to cancel out 10km of city type roads to match the delivery objective.

If you EG wanted to get the very northern fringe of Cork City to within 1 hour of Shannon Airport sure it would all have to be motorway wouldn't it.???

Westport to Dublin is 250km, that should be doable in under 3 hours with a few key bypasses and constant 100kph running. Delivering a better result would cost too much but 3 hours should be the target there.

Routes like New Ross carry a lot of HGV traffic which cannot match those speeds of course and freight delivery deliverables are different, eg should Cork and Limerick be no more than 3 hours from Rosslare etc. The N24 is another road that NEED not be fully Motorway but where some motorway is required at each end.

Anyway that is my 2c on the subject ( again ) Good luck to all in New Ross and Waterford and lets hope they finish the 10km missing link west of New Ross in this century.