M3 Clonee-Kells route selection and archaelogical info

jank

M3 Clonee-Kells Info
Best pdf to look at is this one
Sorry if posted before

thejollyrodger

It looks like the NRA are digging up all the old stuff and putting whatever on display and the new motorway is going further east of the existing N3 so I cant see it being a major problem.

They expect construction to being in Spring 2006 and finish in 3-4 years. Still its a right long time to just construct 110km of The M3 and the further 34 km of access roads.

mackerski

thejollyrodger wrote:

They expect construction to being in Spring 2006 and finish in 3-4 years. Still its a right long time to just construct 110km of The M3 and the further 34 km of access roads.

The NRA reckons it's 50km of M3, a further 11km of single-carriageway and 24km of link roads. 110km would take it right to the border.

Dermot

thejollyrodger

That just makes it worse ! only 50km ?? pathetic. I think bertie pointed out that those south east asian countries really know how to plan and build things properly. They would have some laugh at this paddy planning

mackerski

thejollyrodger wrote:

That just makes it worse ! only 50km ?? pathetic. I think bertie pointed out that those south east asian countries really know how to plan and build things properly. They would have some laugh at this paddy planning

Anybody would think they had a ready supply of cheap labour...

Dermot

Mayshine

I believe that we [have cheap labour available] do too from EU expansion

No?

Victor

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1325976,00.html

The Sunday Times
October 24, 2004
Letters to the Editor: Road will kill hill’s heritage

I QUESTION the claim (Letters, last week) that the sites that will be destroyed by the M3 motorway “are largely unknown and probably of a very minor nature”. There is no way of knowing the significance of a site until it has been excavated and its relationship to the surrounding archeological landscape has been established. The Tara-Skryne region is an instance of the shameful neglect of Irish heritage by successive governments.
In the early 1990s, a four-mile zone of archeological protection was established around the hill of Tara by Duchas, after the Discovery Programme began to show beyond doubt that the hills of Tara and Skryne, and the Boyne valley itself, all formed part of one archeological landscape. Its integrity as a heritage landscape had been respected for thousands of years. However, the National Roads Authority (NRA) and Meath county council decided that the motorway would pass well inside the zone of archeological protection and less than a kilometre from the hill itself.



The “archeology” carried out by private companies in the employ of Meath county council along the route was a simple matter of digging up the ground and seeing if anything was there; but even using this destructive method, substantial archeological remains have been identified which demand extensive further exploration.

The mania for building huge roads, many of which are not even justified by realisitic projections of traffic volumes, is draining billions from the Irish economy and straight into private companies.

It defies reality to suggest that the M3 should proceed, as Frank Cosgrave suggests, in the interests of “safety, the environment and the taxpaying commuters”. The NRA in its concern to fund environmentally and culturally destructive enterprises is showing its disregard of all three.


Andrew McGrath
Secretary, The Tara Foundation

Victor

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,2765-1337132,00.html

Letters to the Editor: Stop funding killer roads

ANDREW MCGRATH of The Tara Foundation (Letters, last week) is right to highlight “the mania for building roads, many of which are not even justified by realistic projections of traffic volumes”. The classic example is the Nenagh bypass which carries an average of about 6,500 vehicles a day, well below the National Roads Authority’s figure of 7,700 as the point at which an upgrade is necessary. It is to be upgraded to a four-lane road. In contrast the proposed new Castleblaney bypass will be of the Swedish 2+1 type on a route that carries 9,500 vehicles per day.

It is a sad reflection on this government’s priorities that it is quite happy to overfund the roads lobby while leaving people on hospital trollies.

Brian Hodkinson
Birdhill, Co Tipperary

TAKE THE TRAIN: I am one of the ordinary citizens who lives in Navan and takes the bus to Dublin, via the Hill of Tara, referred to by Frank Cosgrave (Letters, October 17). Frankly, I would rather catch the train, but it stopped running in the 1960s. And despite all the hype about development and investment in public transport, I still arrive in a Busaras that looks like it closed around the same time as the train station.

Often the most frustrating part of waiting for the bus in Navan is when it actually arrives, full. Last Sunday the driver told me that there was another one right behind him (like they always do). It arrived an hour later, full. That’s what I get for being ordinary, and not having a Beamer and an Easypass, I suppose.

Selling a motorway to the public by calling it safer is about as honest as selling crack to children and telling them it’s safer than heroin. As long as they keep building roads and we keep buying cars, the dead will keep multiplying. Everyone knows re-opening the train line would be the safest of all alternatives, since it would actually take drivers off the roads.


Vincent Salafia
Navan, Co Meath

DMC

TBH, I'm from Kells, and I want the fúcking thing built. Any person I've talked to from Kells, Navan or Dunshaughlin say simply, tell our learned friends from Dalkey and UCD who appear once in a blue moon to marvel at the mounds, to shove it, and give us the infrastructure that has been long overdue.

That, short of me going to Iran and procuring some uranium for my ultimate solution for Dunshaughlin.

Victor

DMC wrote:

TBH, I'm from Kells, and I want the fúcking thing built. Any person I've talked to from Kells, Navan or Dunshaughlin say simply .....

What is the Meath fascination with this? What of the people of Trim? Why is the road diverted away from Trim and between two major achaelogical sites?

http://www.thepost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-130655261-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper-2FNews.asp

Government gets tough on road litigants
31/10/04 00:00
By Pat Leahy, Political Reporter

The Department of the Environment and Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council will seek their legal costs from a plaintiff whose court challenge delayed the building of the M50 motorway at the Carrickmines Castle site in south Dublin.

The decision marks a change in the approach to such cases, where previously costs in "public interest-type'' cases have not been pursued. Government sources suggest that there is a need to "put down a marker'' that legal actions which delay public projects or cost the taxpayer dearly will not be "a free ride''. There is a strong feeling that if an "example'' is made in a few cases, it could stem the increasing numbers of people who seek to frustrate public policy through the courts.

Such an example would involve pursuing a number of unsuccessful litigants personally for the state's legal costs. In some cases the costs could run to millions of euro. Dominic Dunne, a conservationist, lost his attempt to stop the construction of the motorway on the site of a medieval castle.

The National Roads Authority estimates that delays caused by legal actions have cost in the region of €20 million. Judgment on the costs of the High Court case is likely to be delivered this week.

DMC

Victor wrote:

What is the Meath fascination with this? What of the people of Trim? Why is the road diverted away from Trim and between two major achaelogical sites?

This is the problem with Meath and roadworks for so many years, dogged by historical stuff, blocking progression. I'm in favour of preserving past artefacts, but its now or never of this route. No one wants this route delayed a second longer, other than the corduroy crowd with their dinky trowels.

The N3 is the main route to South Donegal/Fermanagh/Tyrone, and so, the proposed M3 is sticking as close to the existing route as possible.

Trim is in an interesting location, between to major routes in the N3 and N4, which will have either a new road or upgraded. There has not been anything in the Meath Chronicle about upgrading the Trim road futher, but the R154 from Fairyhouse Cross/N3 to Trim has had extensive strengtening work already and more to come. I'd say if the same was done towards the M4, i.e Trim-Enfield R159, that work would suffice.

Victor

Victor wrote:

Why is the road diverted away from Trim and between two major achaelogical sites?

Sorry, what I mean is why did they seem to go out of their way to avoid Trim and go between the centre of two archaelogical zones and as close to as many sites as possible?.

Map http://www.taraskryne.org/mapindex.html
Detailed map http://www.taraskryne.org/map1.html

EIS map http://www.meath.ie/roads/M3_EIS/volume2/maps/4_12.html

DMC

I dont really see what you are getting at, Victor, but if the proposed road was closer to Trim, then surely the journey would be a lot longer to get to Navan/Kells, which would mean longer construction and then less people using the road, hence less tolls and more traffic on the old road. The planned route (or close alternatives) would be more direct.

I know that when this is built, the old N3 will still be busy, just like the N1 through Drogheda still is, with folk avoiding the tolls.

DMC

Just one other thing in relation to Trim, I just remembered.

One could look at what they did to Ardee. There was and are no plans to build motorway from Dublin to Monaghan on the N2, but because of blackspots like Slane Bridge, what they wanted to do was get the HGV's off the N2, and get them to use the M1 almost as far as Dunleer, where, they built a new extra wide single carraigeway national route link road, the N33, which then tied into the N2 north of Ardee.

As Slane residents will testify, this didn't work, but who is to say that if the same was done for the commuters from Trim, and tie it into the proposed M3, that that will suffice and work better than the Ardee model.

narommy

Mayshine wrote:

I believe that we [have cheap labour available] do too from EU expansion

No?

NO!!!!

This country is so F*cked.

Remember when a contractor working on the Port Tunnell got in sh1t for paying Turkish workers less than the market rate. Not even minimum wage rate. Granted if the job was given to a contractor he would price it at market rates and keep the difference. I'm so fed up of people wanting to have it both ways :mad: :mad: :mad:

Victor

DMC wrote:

I dont really see what you are getting at, Victor, but if the proposed road was closer to Trim, then surely the journey would be a lot longer to get to Navan/Kells, which would mean longer construction and then less people using the road, hence less tolls and more traffic on the old road. The planned route (or close alternatives) would be more direct.

No, if you look at the maps, the route they have chosen is longer, further away from Trim *and* causes more archaelogical disturbance.

How about we build a motorway between the Pyramids, but not actually on the Pyramids?

Oh yes, the road magically stops at the county boundary at each end.

mackerski

Victor wrote:

Oh yes, the road magically stops at the county boundary at each end.

Be fair - at the southern end, it terminates on the existing N3 dual-carriageway scheme (which is actually about 1km into the county, but that's splitting hairs). It also leaves only two major bottlenecks on the N3 (inside the state), Virginia and Belturbet, neither of which is in such dire need of a bypass as Dunshaughlin or Kells.

Dermot

DMC

Victor wrote:

No, if you look at the maps, the route they have chosen is longer, further away from Trim *and* causes more archaelogical disturbance.

How about we build a motorway between the Pyramids, but not actually on the Pyramids?

Oh yes, the road magically stops at the county boundary at each end.

I fail to see this fascination of yours with Trim, Victor. The existing N3 doesn’t come close to Trim, and the M3 is seen as resolving the 3 worst bottlenecks on the N3, so logically, it will stay as close as possible to the N3. But you have failed to see my suggestion of maybe an N34 link road with Trim. As for the archaeological aspects, I've already said build and be damned.

The M3 project is entirely a Meath Co. Co. project, and it does stop on the Cavan border, but it does tie into the existing Clonee by-pass, which is 2kms into the county. Tenders for the Virginia and 2nd Cavan ByPass for the N54 are out there.

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/4384817?view=Eircomnet

Challenge to Tara motorway planned
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 6th November, 2004

Conservationists have threatened legal action if the Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche, gives the go-ahead to excavation of the proposed M3 motorway through Co Meath.

The Save Tara Skryne Valley group made the warning after they presented the Minister with a petition listing 10,000 signatures asking him not to proceed with the motorway plan.

The group's public relations officer, Mr Vincent Salafia, said its legal advisers were preparing a constitutional challenge to the National Monuments Act.

Nobody wanted "a repeat of Carrickmines", Mr Salafia said. But he added: "If the Minister gives the go-ahead during the next couple of weeks, we'll be into court immediately."

Although Mr Roche did not accept the petition in person, the group still hopes for a meeting with him before a decision is made.

In a letter accompanying the petition, the Minister was urged not to approve excavation, because the proposed route "unnecessarily traverses and partially demolishes the national monument of the Hill of Tara".

The letter claims that a decision to proceed would be "contrary to Irish and European law because it [ would allow] Ireland's premier national monument to be excavated and dissected by a motorway project when there were alternative routes considered that did not encroach on the monument.".

The letter and petition were accompanied by letters of protest from British archaeologists, the Archaeological Institute of America and Irish and international academics.

"All the expert advice worldwide is: just don't go there," Mr Salafia said.

He acknowledged, however, the people of Meath were "very much divided" on the motorway plan, because traffic problems were a source of frustration.

chewy

i don't know what is the obsession is with progress people keep on complaining about these blowins who know nothing about the area, but then the people who just want to get to dublin quicker know nothing about what would actually be the best way to deal with our traffic problems either...

i've been thinking about trying to collate some info on an alternative view of progress, that buidling this motorway is not actual achieve "progress", but i don't have enough knowledge, maybe writing this will help it or nix it...

there has been reports stating that a huge amount of tourism (money!!!!) comes or could come from tara etc....

that current and previous tactics in relation to road building will not solve our traffic problems and infact now the tactic of building roads and nothing else is doing more harm to the economy then anything else...

er ill think of more

Victor

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/1127/tara.html

Hundreds protest against proposed motorway
27 November 2004 16:36

Hundreds of people have taken part in a protest in Dublin against the proposed M3 motorway route in Co Meath.

The demonstrators say the planned route, which passes close to the Hill of Tara, is an example of bad planning.

Marchers said the Government must make better efforts to preserve Ireland's cultural heritage.

Environment Minister, Dick Roche, is to make a decision soon on whether the M3 should be re-routed away from the Tara/Skryne valley.

Metrobest

Victor wrote:

http://www.rte.ie/news/2004/1127/tara.html

Sorry, but am I the only person who thinks the sooner this motorway is built, the better? I think it's absolutely outrageous that people living in Dalkey and Hollywood, no less, are telling the people of Navan and Dunshaughlin that can't have a direct road into Dublin. Stuart Townsend obviously loves Tara so much he decided to live thousands of miles away from it.

The protesters are trying to conjour up this image that the motorway is somehow going to bulldoze through the hill and tear it apart. What rubbish. The existing road, built long ago, is closer to the hill than the proposed one. Are our forefathers 'philistines' because they built houses and roads beside "sacred' Tara? Of course not.

Wherever you build a road in Ireland there'll be monuments. Half the time, the monuments are only discovered when the road's being built. So, time to put things into perspective. The hill of Tara is just that: a mediocre grass-strewn hill. There's plenty more hills like it. This isn't the Cliffs of Moher. If it were so wonderful, wouldn't international tourists have been swarming around it for decades?

What gets me is that a bunch of do-gooding protesters think they can tell the hard-pressed commuters of Co Meath that they should stay put in the traffic jam because these greenheads - who like to stroll around Tara every year or so - would be offended at the sight of a road.

Roads are a fact of life. We need them. Ireland needs motorways. Anyone who's had to travel across the country on a Sunday afternoon can confirm this.

In other countries they are building motorways, too. It's not just an Irish phenomenon. In France, for example, I read recently that just south of Nice (or is it Marseilles; I'm not an expert on French geography, Victor!) they have built a fantastic viaduct linking a motorway across two hills running over a river. It looks stunning. Properly designed, motorways can be an addition to the landscape.

Motorways are a terriffic feat of engineering. And they make people's lives easier. Far from turning in their graves, I think that had the Kings of Tara known of modern motorway technology, they'd have ordered thousands of their Irish peasant slaves (ironically, the do-gooders worshipping these sacred monarchs would have been enslaved to them in a past life) to build one, and they wouldn't have given a moment's thought to a bunch of green-eyed hippies clinging to a tuft of grass on some ugly hill along its route.

Victor

Metrobest wrote:

somewhere that just south of Nice they have built a fantastic viaduct linking a motorway across two hills running over a river.

Nice being a well known southern coastal city ...

http://www.viamichelin.com/viamichelin/gbr/dyn/controller/mapPerformPage?strAddress=&strLocation=nice&strCP=&strCountry=1424&x=0&y=0

jank

Ill rip into this tommorrow when I have time

By the way where is this motorway going??

Victor

jank wrote:

Ill rip into this tommorrow when I have time

Rip into his argument, not him.

jank wrote:

By the way where is this motorway going??

See this PDF - numbered page 4 and 7 (page 6 and 9 of the document)

SeaSide

The question that I have is why splitting the N2 and N3 with one road was dropped. instead we will now have one dual carriageway/motorway running 15miles from the other a distance of 30 miles.

loyatemu

>why splitting the N2 and N3 with one road was dropped

according to the Irish Times at the weekend - the NRA didn't want run a motorway through an area with no major road infrastructure - so they decided to run it through Tara instead and build another motorway along the N2.

Metrobest - the people of Meath do not have a monopoly on the historical sites in the county - Tara is a site of national importance and anyone should have the right to express their opposition to this scheme.

This motorway is being built primarily for commuters - all it is going to do is increase congestion along the route and encourage car-based commuting into Dublin. For a lot less money the navan rail line could be reopened and proper park and ride facilities built.

M3 is built -> housing and industrial development increases along the route -> all this extra traffic feeds into the M50 -> the M50 explodes -> Metrobest still spends half his life sitting in traffic jams. Now THAT'S good planning!

sliabh

loyatemu wrote:

Tara is a site of national importance and anyone should have the right to express their opposition to this scheme.

As only a few hundred people turned out it seems that they are pretty apathetic about this

jank

loyatemu wrote:

>why splitting the N2 and N3 with one road was dropped

according to the Irish Times at the weekend - the NRA didn't want run a motorway through an area with no major road infrastructure - so they decided to run it through Tara instead and build another motorway along the N2.

Metrobest - the people of Meath do not have a monopoly on the historical sites in the county - Tara is a site of national importance and anyone should have the right to express their opposition to this scheme.

This motorway is being built primarily for commuters - all it is going to do is increase congestion along the route and encourage car-based commuting into Dublin. For a lot less money the navan rail line could be reopened and proper park and ride facilities built.

M3 is built -> housing and industrial development increases along the route -> all this extra traffic feeds into the M50 -> the M50 explodes -> Metrobest still spends half his life sitting in traffic jams. Now THAT'S good planning!

What he said.

Ive mentioned already that it is more or less a road to nowhere (ie it doesnt connect up 2 major urban areas like the M1 or M7 does)

Metrobest

loyatemu wrote:

>why splitting the N2 and N3 with one road was dropped

according to the Irish Times at the weekend - the NRA didn't want run a motorway through an area with no major road infrastructure - so they decided to run it through Tara instead and build another motorway along the N2.

Metrobest - the people of Meath do not have a monopoly on the historical sites in the county - Tara is a site of national importance and anyone should have the right to express their opposition to this scheme.

This motorway is being built primarily for commuters - all it is going to do is increase congestion along the route and encourage car-based commuting into Dublin. For a lot less money the navan rail line could be reopened and proper park and ride facilities built.

M3 is built -> housing and industrial development increases along the route -> all this extra traffic feeds into the M50 -> the M50 explodes -> Metrobest still spends half his life sitting in traffic jams. Now THAT'S good planning!

How important is Tara? Not very. Do a straw poll in your office tomorrow; ask who's been up its hill. Not many, I'd guess. Ironically, the 'beauty' of Tara would reveal itself to a much larger audience when the motorway is built. I've ridden the German autobahn through some beautiful mountain-drenched scenery: it's so pleasant. The idea that roads are a blight on the landscape is simply false; motorways are a feat of engineering that can marry happily with the landscape. The key is not to allow tacky retail development spring up beside the hill, which I somehow doubt would ever happen given the storm-in-teacup being created by the 'Save Tara' flock..

You cannot argue that the motorway is not needed. Plainly, it is; commuter volumes on the existing N3 are insane. When the M50 is widened to three lanes it will be able to cope with a lot of extra congestion fed into it by the M3.

Rail based transport can only capture a small slice of the outer urban market; population densities in Co Meath are such that people will gravitate towards car-based solutions. In an ideal world everyone would go to the park and ride site and take a train into Dublin: this will never happen. Experience in Europe shows that no matter how good the rail option, people still choose cars. And Ireland has the lowest car-ownership rates in Europe, so in the next twenty years motorway capacity shall need to baloon. Leaving our shameful network of glorified 'national road' dirt tracks the way they are is not an option.

Kaner

Seems to me that the reason the M3 is being built is that it is part of the spatial strategy. According to the strategy, Navan is supposed to be a growth area, and in order for this to happen it needs good road links to Dublin port and airport so businesses will set up shop in and around the town. Of course there will be commuters, but the idea is to have jobs there so everybody doesn't have to commute to Dublin.

As for the importance of Tara as an archeological site; it has a place in the Irish psyche which will ensure plenty of quacking and clucking. The site itself is disappointing, just a few hollows on a grassy hilltop. There is really nothing there, and it there is no comparison between it and Newgrange, which is actually quite close to the M1 motorway. You have to imagine Ard Ri O Neill and the other High Kings of Tara running around their magnificent wooden sheds, which cannot have been very big judging from the site.

The existing main Dublin/Navan main road is actually much closer to Tara than the the planned motorway. But now the Tara of legend has been expanded to include Skrane - whatever that is. I hunted for some other ancient sites near Tara a few years ago, and there is really nothing to see except a few ditches that are unrecognizable except for the signposts indicating something was there once upon a time.

If the NRA have any brains they will put the motorway in a cutting about 30 feet deep for a couple of miles so it cant be seen from the top of the Hill of Tara. That will solve the eyesore issue, but you'll still have some heroes trying to save some supposedly priceless broken pisspot or campfire or some other 'artifact' unrecognisible to the average Joe. I dont mind them protesting so long as they dont expect the taxpayer to cover their court expenses. If they want to hold up projects that benefit thousands of people they need to put their money where their mouths are. There needs to be give and take on this issue.

mackerski

jank wrote:

Ive mentioned already that it is more or less a road to nowhere (ie it doesnt connect up 2 major urban areas like the M1 or M7 does)

No - it bypasses smaller urban centres that today are choked with traffic. Like the realigned N2 will.

Dermot

spacetweek

>Ive mentioned already that it is more or less a road to nowhere (ie it doesnt connect up 2 major urban areas like the M1 or M7 does)

The town of Navan is due to be built up to city size with a target population of 75,000, so Dublin will have a major satellite city. The M3 is essential to service transport between the two - in addition to an eventual reopening of the rail line. Proper countries don't built rail or road, they build rail and road.

>The question that I have is why splitting the N2 and N3 with one road
>was dropped. instead we will now have one dual carriageway/motorway
>running 15miles from the other a distance of 30 miles.

We certainly won't. The N2 upgrade is only very minor - it will not be a motorway, it will be a very short (10 km), very badly needed dual-carraigeway covering the heavily trafficked Ashbourne-M50 route. The only major roads that will be near the M3 are the M4, an east-west route, and the M1, a north-south route. The M3 is a NW-SE route, so what's being duplicated?

>put the motorway in a cutting

This seems like an essential feature. Sink it below the surrounding area, and plant tall trees alongside - this sounds like it would make a huge diff.

I always laugh when I think about the irony of discovering archaeological remains only when they start building a road over them. It's a pretty expensive way to discover the past. Also, I'd love to point out to the tree-huggers: people would never have known about many of the sites (e.g. Viking Village in Waterford) had roads not been planned; what about not missing what you never knew?

weehamster

Why is it always road, roads and more roads.

Irish Rail plan to rebuild the Navan rail line ( to a station past Dunboyne for now, which later will extend to Navan town.

Heres a few interestering commuting stats that IR gave in this recent presentation for the Greater Dublin Intergration Rail Plan.

Rail Plan Presentation

BrianD

Metrobest, as a former resident of Co. Meath living close to the N3 for over 25 years, I see absolutely no need for it. The sooner that this crazy M3 is dropped the better and hopefully public pressure will achieve this. Why on earth do we need 3 motorways/dual carriageway parallel to each other???

The M1 is built as is one of the busiest roads in the State and yet beyong the Airport iit is only operating at a fraction of its capacity. It looks like we don't have a choice with the M2 as this is under construction. The M3 can be stopped in its tracks.

Frank McDonald demonstrated some excellent alternatives to the M2/M3 in last Saturdays times. One included the building of a link road from Navan to the M1 where there is plenty of capacity. These are the types of ideas that our OVERPAID and INEPT planners seem to be unable to come up with. Instead, its a simple turn the existing road into a motorway.

There is scope to upgrade the N3 which would include a bypass of Dunshaughlin and Navan and the upgrade of some junctions along the route e.g. Fairyhouse cross. We certainly don't need a tolled motorway. The existing non-dual carriageway will serve Navan/Kells for YEARS to come.

The politicians have failed to demonstrate why the M2 and M3 routes are worthy of the budget as they are not considered to part of the critical national infrastructure. We have idiot councillors in Navan calling for the m-way but I have never heard of them calling for the much needed reopening of the Navan railway line - a significant project that can bring real benefits to the county. I ain't a tree hugger but it seems that these guys are the only people with the balls to question these ridiculous projects that the powers that be impose on us.

Finally Metrobest your disregard of our historical sites is breathtaking and disgraceful.

loyatemu

When the M50 is widened to three lanes it will be able to cope with a lot of extra congestion fed into it by the M3.

this is not the case
the NRA have already admitted that the extra capacity will fill up almost immediately - the existing M50 is at capacity for much of the day - it will get much worse when the port tunnel is opened and all traffic for the port goes through the blanch junction. Also the NRA have said the upgrade of the M50 is last roll of the dice for the road.

I would not suggest that everyone currently using the N3 would use a reopened Navan rail line but a significant proportion would. People will use high quality public transport if it is available and the rail line would take people right into the city centre, unlike the motorway which will just speed people toward the gridlocked M50.

The N3 may well need upgrading, but the railway should be a higher priority, and the planned motorway is serious overkill.

mackerski

BrianD wrote:

It looks like we don't have a choice with the M2 as this is under construction.

There is no M2, nor any immediate prospect of one.

Dermot

BrianD

Are they not currently constructing a new dual carriageway alongside the existing N2? If not strictly m-way standard it will still be as good as. I refer to it as the M2 to distinguish it from the existing road.

Crossley

BrianD wrote:

Are they not currently constructing a new dual carriageway alongside the existing N2? If not strictly m-way standard it will still be as good as. I refer to it as the M2 to distinguish it from the existing road.

It seems even the NRA are confused re this. About half the references on their site call it the M2 while the others the N2. May be something to do with the fact that they wanted to toll it. Whatever its official designation it's certainly being built to motorway spec.

Nuttzz

I think that the motorway should be built, we need to look at our traffic situation into the future, I have seen in the UK were infastructure is put in place the economy of the area is much improved and I cant see why the same wont follow suit in Ireland however I dont think we should just plough through historical sites for the sake of it, there has to be a route that isnt affected and that we can all agree on

BrianD

The economy does not depend on nor need this motorway into Co. Meath. It does need a rail line as an alternative to the N3.

Don't forget this m-way will have a lovely long tailback every morning at the toll booths!

mackerski

BrianD wrote:

Are they not currently constructing a new dual carriageway alongside the existing N2? If not strictly m-way standard it will still be as good as. I refer to it as the M2 to distinguish it from the existing road.

I don't refer to it as the M2, for the simple reason that it won't be so called. The main reason it won't be designated a motorway is that no provision is being made to retain an alternative non-motorway route for prohibited traffic. You're not quite correct to state that the realigned N2 will be as good as a full motorway. In most details it will be, but the speed limit will inexplicably be 20km/h lower.

Dermot

Metrobest

BrianD wrote:

Why on earth do we need 3 motorways/dual carriageway parallel to each other???

The M1 is built as is one of the busiest roads in the State and yet beyong the Airport iit is only operating at a fraction of its capacity. It looks like we don't have a choice with the M2 as this is under construction. The M3 can be stopped in its tracks.

Frank McDonald demonstrated some excellent alternatives to the M2/M3 in last Saturdays times. One included the building of a link road from Navan to the M1 where there is plenty of capacity. These are the types of ideas that our OVERPAID and INEPT planners seem to be unable to come up with. Instead, its a simple turn the existing road into a motorway.

We have idiot councillors in Navan calling for the m-way but I have never heard of them calling for the much needed reopening of the Navan railway line - a significant project that can bring real benefits to the county. I ain't a tree hugger but it seems that these guys are the only people with the balls to question these ridiculous projects that the powers that be impose on us.

Finally Metrobest your disregard of our historical sites is breathtaking and disgraceful.

Frank McDonald is a journalist with an opinion. I'd take what he writes with a giant scoop of salt. I read his piece last Saturday too. His proposal makes no sense. The M1 was designed to deal with Dublin-Belfast traffic. In time its traffic volumes will rise. The fact that there's no congestion on M1 shows it's doing what it's supposed to do: be a quality road. .

When will you and Frank McDonald be happy - when the M1 is as clogged as the M50? If M3 traffic was fed into the M1, you'd need to widen that motorway, improve road access into the city centre from that access point. Journey times would go way up, the existing N3 would be as clogged and dangerous as ever. A most unsatisfactory solution.

The powers that be haven't "imposed" any projects on anybody. The M3 is being built because it is needed. Get a grip on reality. The people of Co Meath are crying out for this motorway. They are the silent minority: the hard-pressed commuters whose lives are being made miserable by the woeful dirt track between Navan and Dublin. And yet all we hear are the voices of a hundred hippies, from Dalkey to Hollywood, hardly any of whom have to endure the car commute from Navan to Dublin each morning.

I love Ireland's scenery and wonderful landscape. But I don't think every sqaure centimetre of our lovely land has to to be green and grassy and monumental. Sorry, but I don't class the Hill of Tara in the same group as the Cliffs of Moher, Newgrange or the Giants' Causeway. If Tara was as wonderful as you are trying to make out, UNESCO would have dubbed it a World Heritage Site. The Hill of Tara will always remain. And the thousands of motorists driving past it on the motorway will appreciate it with the utmost love.

Kaner

Its funny that people who complain about Dublin sprawl and a lack of planning are critical of the one piece of forward planning that makes sense, that is the spatial strategy for the Leinster area. The plan calls for satellite towns and cities connected to Dublin port and airport and with motorway and rail links to the city. This will slow Dublin sprawl while creating 20 or 30 mile green belts between the city and these towns.

If towns like Navan, Drogheda, Dundalk, Mullingar etc grow to 50,000 to 75,000 within 15 years then it will take a lot of pressure off the Dublin area. Creating infrastructure in Dublin is too expensive, whereas it can be put in much more cost effectively as these satellite towns develop. However, jobs and not just people need to move to these towns.

A town like Navan with a projected population of 75,000 needs a motorway to Dublin. It will be as big as Limerick, so does it not make sense to put a 21st century road in now? Businesses need road transport more than they need rail transport and moving new jobs and businesses out of the Dublin area is what this is all about. Sure a rail link is a great idea, and it will come, but the road will make a bigger contribution to regional development.

There is another motorway in the spatial strategy linking M1 near Drogheda, the M3 near Navan, and the N7 at Naas. This will help alleviate the pressure on the M50, although God knows when it will be built.

Metrobest

loyatemu wrote:

When the M50 is widened to three lanes it will be able to cope with a lot of extra congestion fed into it by the M3.

this is not the case
the NRA have already admitted that the extra capacity will fill up almost immediately - the existing M50 is at capacity for much of the day - it will get much worse when the port tunnel is opened and all traffic for the port goes through the blanch junction. Also the NRA have said the upgrade of the M50 is last roll of the dice for the road.

I would not suggest that everyone currently using the N3 would use a reopened Navan rail line but a significant proportion would. People will use high quality public transport if it is available and the rail line would take people right into the city centre, unlike the motorway which will just speed people toward the gridlocked M50.

The N3 may well need upgrading, but the railway should be a higher priority, and the planned motorway is serious overkill.

The railway shouldn't be higher priority, because the railway cannot and will not cater for the needs of most people who do the Navan-Dublin commute. To claim otherwise is to deny reality. We need road AND rail; it shouldn't be an either/or.

As for your point about the M50, circular ring roads around cities are always busy (anyone been on the Periphique in Paris?!!) However three lanes will keep the M50 moving at a fair old pace, even at peak hours.

PoolDude

I have had to travel to Balbriggan for meetings over the past year. I typically arrange the meeting for 10am and hit the M50 at Firhouse around 9am. I have seen the journey times go down to around 45 minutes.

My point is that during a specific set of windows each day the M50 is currently at full capcity. It is not however at full capacity throughout the day nor will it be when the extra lanes are added. Yes, there will be a morning and evening spike for a number of hours.

We need to not only change the capacity of the road to meet future changes but also our working habits. If people move away from traditional hours then this can be improved.

weehamster

For idiots like Metrobest, again I give you a link for a presentation Irish Rail gave recently. There is a section relating to the N3 road and the amound of vehicles that use it. The then compairs those number with what a rail like would give. It state that the N3/M50 Jtn has about 4000 vehicles per hour going through the exit. Irish Rail plan is to have 14,000 commuters per hour on this rail line.

I'll just type this again for the hard of hearing. 14,000 commuters per hour.No Jams. No Tail backs. Just 14,000 people per hour going straight in and out of the city centre.

There is NO need for the M3.

PLEASE CLICK HERE

Zaph0d

PoolDude wrote:

If people move away from traditional hours then this can be improved.

The problem with this idea is that many employees need to work during roughly the same hours of the day so that they can meet and phone each other. Many employees such as public servants, have some form of flexitime already.

Schools in Germany start a couple of hours earlier than here but I doubt we will change to this timetable as it would not suit teachers or parents.

Metrobest

weehamster wrote:

For idiots like Metrobest, again I give you a link for a presentation Irish Rail gave recently. There is a section relating to the N3 road and the amound of vehicles that use it. The then compairs those number with what a rail like would give. It state that the N3/M50 Jtn has about 4000 vehicles per hour going through the exit. Irish Rail plan is to have 14,000 commuters per hour on this rail line.

I'll just type this again for the hard of hearing. 14,000 commuters per hour.No Jams. No Tail backs. Just 14,000 people per hour going straight in and out of the city centre.

There is NO need for the M3.]

You're being misleading. I'm sure Irish Rail isn't advocating a spur to Dunboyne (Navan is pretty much off the table) as a possible alternative to the motorway. The further you go away from major urban centres, the more road transport usurps rail as the mode of choice for most commuters. In Holland there is a fantastic rail system which I use frequently for trips between Amsterdam and Rotterdam (intercity train every 10 minutes). Yet in terms of passenger numbers, more people use their cars and travel along the six-lane motorway. There's no point pretending rail can negate the need for an M3 motorway when all the evidence shows that people like the convenience and flexibility, not to mention personal space, of their petrol-guzzling cars.

sliabh

weehamster wrote:

Irish Rail plan is to have 14,000 commuters per hour on this rail line.

I'll just type this again for the hard of hearing. 14,000 commuters per hour.No Jams. No Tail backs. Just 14,000 people per hour going straight in and out of the city centre.

That is being optomistic. The plan is to provide the capacity for 14000 per hour to use the system. Whether you see that many in practice will depend on their being that level of demand (that's more people than use the road at the moment) and overcoming people's stubborness to get out of their cars.

As with all such things, it would not be a panacea for commuting ills. But personally I feel the NRA and politicians have yet to justify the need for 4 dual carriage roads in such a small part of the country (the M1 to the M4).

jank

The M3 is being built because it is needed. Get a grip on reality.

Eh no its not!

Other roads should get priority than the M3 that goes nowhere other than satisfy commuters along its route and make business men richer.

How about a real motorway linking Cork to Limerick/ or to Galway!

This for the time being is a waste of money imo and will only futher the mistakes that urban sprawl is somehow good!!