N7 - Newlands Cross upgrade

PseudoFamous wrote: »

I could argue that due to the higher amount of fatalities on the N11 gap, it's a matter of national urgency that it needs to be upgraded. It also is a huge bottleneck during rush hour, and even more so when the Dubs are trying to get to and fro their holiday homes.

You're not the only one with problems.

I could argue that a drop in speed limits and few average speed camera's would sort the issue on he N11 in terms of the accident rates and the queues at the Newland Cross junction has waaaaaaay longer tailbacks and a lot more often than the N11 gap

We have bigger problems.

Wild Bill wrote: »

Given the rather hairy exit from the N7 onto the M50, which even now results in queues and queue hoppers as well as confused drivers - it seems that eliminating NX might be good news for all other directions but could lead to a right pile-up coming off the N7 on to the M50. :eek:

They made a right mess of the N7 > M50 exit all right. Give that they had three lanes inbound they should have designed it so that the left lane became the M50 (N) exit, the middle lane the M50 (S) exit and the right lane the through road across the motorway. The two M50 lanes could then have further divided into two nearer the exit.

While this wouldn't have eliminated all of the lane jumping and queue hoppers it would have made far more sense than the current arrangement.

However as somebody has stated, by having traffic moving more regularly to the M50 the flow should smooth out a bit.

Tragedy wrote: »

The more I drive the N7>N9>Kilcullen, the more I think fixing Newlands X without running three lanes to the N9 turnoff is essentially pointless and will help alleviate peak traffic not a jot. The N7 before and after Naas is just a complete mess from 4:30pm until around 6:30pm.

It may not solve all the problems but making the junction freeflow will smooth out the traffic flow. I find a lot of the problems in the immediate aftermath of NewlandsX outbound is that because traffic has come to a complete stop it takes way too long for it to get back up to speed again. By removing that stop it should keep traffic flowing easier out the Naas Road.

However I don't think it going to do a lot for inbound traffic because of the bad design on the N7/M50 interchange. You're still going to have all the M50 traffic hitting one lane to get onto the M50 with the inevitable last minute lane changers. Until that problem is rectified I can see still delays there streaming back to the NewlandsX junction.

Tragedy wrote: »

I do however, have a problem with your quote.

I said it's essentially pointless because it wont help alleviate peak traffic(i.e. further further out along the N7, and it certainly won't help merging on to the m50 or the Naas road). Your rewording of what I actually said bears little relation to what I actually posted. So far, no-one has actually disagreed and given reasons though I'm sure some do and I'm more than happy for them to do so.

Claiming that fixing one of two huge problems affecting the whole length of the N7 without fixing the second(or at least planning to) being essentially pointless at alleviating peak traffic problems isn't the same as called NX a waste of time and not ever helping traffic. If neither you nor Wild Bill can see the difference between the two, welp that's your problem and not mine!

I left out the word "peak" in my last quote by mistake. It was not an attempt to reword your quote. However I stand by my assertion that there seems to be little difference in sombody saying something is "essentially pointless" and saying something is "a waste of time". But there's no point in arguing semantics.

Leaving the above to one side I did actually give a reason why I disagreed with your assertion in my repsonse to your very first quote. You just seem to have ignored it because of your issue with Wild Bill

What I said what that I think that by removing the artificial stop at NX, less than a mile away from the M50 the flow of traffic out of the city will be smoother and therefore there is very likely to be an improvement in the conditions of the N7 outbound even at peak times because a smoother flow of traffic tends to lead to less congestion. There will certainly be an improvement in the immediate area around the M50/NX.

A similar situation existed on the N4 with the junction at Lucan/Adamstown (Junction 4). When this was a traffic light junction similar to NX it created huge tailbacks on the N4 every evening well beyond 7pm. Now that the road has been grade separated those tailbacks have been hugely reduced.

Now I don't think it will improve much on the inbound leg of the journey because of the bad lane design at the N7/N50 interchange and I've said that in a previous post as well but overall I think the development at NX is necessary and while the widening on the M7 to three lanes may come at a much later date I'm glad this section of the road is being worked on.