[article] Motorway Design Idiocy!!!!!

mike65

this from indo

A MOTORWAY project linking Dublin with Cork and Limerick was approved yesterday.

However, Bord Pleanala, which gave the go-ahead for the project, believes it is seriously flawed, as there is no interchange between the Cork and Limerick routes when they branch off about 20km south of Portlaoise.

The planning board strongly criticised the design of the €360m toll road. For instance, if drivers coming from Cork want to transfer to the Limerick motorway branch, they will have two options.

One is to get off at the nearest point and travel on back roads to the nearest access to the other motorway. Alternatively, they can drive all the way to Portlaoise to get on the southbound Limerick section.

This would add a minimum of 40km to the journey and would cost, at today's prices, between €3 and €4 in fuel - plus at least an extra half hour's journey time. This would be on top of tolls to be levied.

A Bord Pleanala inspector recommended refusal of the project, saying the lack of an interchange would only cause problems for many drivers. Many who want to travel between towns in Laois/Tipperary particularly will have to use local and regional roads instead, which would seem to defeat, in part, the purpose of the project.

Bord Pleanala said it accepted the inspector's concerns, but in an unprecedented move, granted permission because it was in the national interest to do so. It did not want to delay, in the interests of the National Development Plan.

The inspector warned the lack of an interchange would cause major traffic problems for towns and villages such as Ballacolla, as traffic traversed back roads linking the motorways.

There would be more traffic through Durrow and more particularly Abbeyleix via Ballacolla, after exiting the M8 at Grantstown...

Treacy Hogan
and Tom Felle

Mike.

sharkman

OK .. So they give the go-ahead but believe it is seriously flawed ..


Par for the course really . Couldn't expect anything else

sliabh

To be fair, how many people are going to be turning from the M7 to the M6 and vice versa?

BrianD

This publiv-private partnership is a sham. These opportunities are only offered on a routes where the pickings are easy ..the M50, M3 and now the M7/8. Surely the tolls could be used to pay for the interchange which is essential.

mike65

sliabh wrote:

To be fair, how many people are going to be turning from the M7 to the M6 and vice versa?

Not the point really. On a smaller scale when you reach the Cashel bypass from Clonmel you can't turn on to it if you want to go towards Cahir/Cork instead one must enter Cashel and use the interchange at the west of the town. They could have built a slip road but choose not too.

Mike.

narommy

I'd have to agree withthe inspector.

Is seems to be designed the same way as the M7/M9 Junction.
Caters only for inter city routes.

I think it is designed as a toll funnel

sliabh

slaibh wrote:

To be fair, how many people are going to be turning from the M7 to the M6 and vice versa?

mike65 wrote:

Not the point really.

Actually it is the point. Why build something that is not going to be needed or used much?

There isn't much point for someone (in lets say Borris in Ossiary) to drive up the M7 motorway to Portlaoise and then come back down the M8 to get to someplace like Cashel along that route. Even with a motorway they will always be faster going direct across Tipperary.

The point behind these motorways is that they are to facilitate long distance travel, not some punter making a 15-20km local spin.

BrianD

It beggars belief! I fired off an email to the NRA and the relevant minister to ask why. I've also requested the name qualification and salaries of the decision makers. There are just too many bad decisions being made by over paid government staff.

It's just amazing that this project could have got to the approval stage without the junction included. I could possibly understand if it wasn't build because of cost reasons but not to be included in the initial design. All were getting here is a substandard road that will be tolled. Poor value for the travelling public.

As someone else pointed out, the M7/M9 (Exit 9 off M7) is similarly designed so M7 traffic bound to Dublin can not access the M9 without travelling to the next junction and bact tracking. There is no signposting in place that would help the driver complete this manouever and head onto the M9.

To be frank, we've waited long enough for this infrastructure so another couple of months in planning, design and approval would not make any difference in the short term but would be worth it in the long term.

impr0v

Not a big thing but the M6 will only be a 200m section of road in Westmeath, part of the Dublin Galway route, you presumably mean the M8.

sliabh

impr0v wrote:

Not a big thing but the M6 will only be a 200m section of road in Westmeath, part of the Dublin Galway route, you presumably mean the M8.

Yeah thanks for spotting that. I have corrected it.

And BrianD I think you have wasted your time there. If the tone of the mail is like the post it will be deleted straight away. Not that they would provide the information you are looking for anyway.

But seriously, for either the M7/M8 or the M7/M9 junctions, why would anyone other than someone making a local spin need such an intersection?

The only idiocy here is the like of the indo trumpeting another "government disgrace". Using your brain shows that this design decision makes sense.

thejollyrodger

Can they just not include an interchange FFS. Like how hard can this be ?

sliabh

thejollyrodger wrote:

Can they just not include an interchange FFS. Like how hard can this be ?

For the same reasons the Bord Pleanala gave the go ahead, because it will add to the project cost and it will delay the start of the project.

But I'd add, it won't be used by anyone!

impr0v

To be honest I think this is a lot of noise about nothing. The central principal of Motorway design is that they are designed to seperate long distance through traffic from local traffic. People are approaching this argument as if they are Mrs. Jones living a few miles down the M8 branch of the 'Y', and want to go visit Mrs. Murphy a similar distance down the M7 branch. It makes no financial sense to cater for this type of journey.

Look at this map here, figure 1.1 from the non-technical volume of the EIS for the scheme. (You'll need Acrobat reader installed, and will need to rotate it 90 degress).

It's admittedly a poor enough map, but the heavy black line indicates the route of the proposed (now approved) scheme.

Take the example of traffic coming from the Cork direction and wishing to travel in the direction of Limerick. Why would they travel out of their way as far as the intersection to turn back in the other direction when it is much shorter to take the R435 through Rathdowney (hard to read, but it's the orange route going almost North-South through Rathdowney), or even better, the N62 (the green-black line on the extreme left of the drawing, which runs from Horse and Jockey on the N8, through Thurles, to Roscrea on the N7)? Both of these journeys are facilitated with interchanges on this particular scheme and the adjoining ones, namely the proposed M8/N8 Cullahill to Cashel scheme, and the N7 Castletown to Nenagh scheme.

In fact I would go as far to say that traffic not coming from further afield as Cashel on the N8 and Roscrea on the N7 (heading Dublin bound) would be classed as local traffic and should therefore be using the local roads as they do at the moment. Traffic which misses the N62 turnoff, can still avail of the R435 option, and after that they then have to do what has been described by posters above, i.e. go to the Portlaoise interchange and turn back (which also involves going through the toll plaze twice).

The simple facts of this matter are that the traffic studies carried out would almost certainly not have justified facilitating the traffic movement which you are referring to when looked at in the cold hard light of cost benefit analysis, given the alternatives which exist. Without doing the distance figures on it, the motorist seeking to make this journey would be going considerably out of their way to do so, albeit on better roads, and I think you'll find that very little traffic would have done so.

sliabh

Using a slightly easier to follow map:

Anyone planning to go east along the M7 or M8 to Portlaoise and then return west on the other road would need their head examined. At best you are doubling the distance you are travelling.

BrianD

Sliabh wrote:

And BrianD I think you have wasted your time there. If the tone of the mail is like the post it will be deleted straight away. Not that they would provide the information you are looking for anyway.

On the contrary Sliabh, I do get a response and I have no problem in illiciting resposes. I even have had politicians ring me on to discuss further. Of course they won't provide the info - unless you do a FoI - but it is to underline that the public are getting fed up with highly paid individuals in public bodies making dreadful decisions - Carrickmines being a good example.

This type of hokum would not be tolerated anywhere else. The presence of the junction should be a given and its purpose is not to facilitate local traffic as suggested. There is plenty of traffic beyond the immediate locality that could use this junction and it is ultimately beneficial to all road users. We'll survive without I'm sure but there is no good reason for ommitting it.

sliabh

BrianD wrote:

but it is to underline that the public are getting fed up with highly paid individuals in public bodies making dreadful decisions - Carrickmines being a good example.

I have a number of friends that work as planners, engineers and architects. They have studied and worked in their fields for years. They do these things for a living. Their work is checked and reviewed by their peers.

They are very frustrated with (uninformed?) people in the media who are leading on the public with daft scare stories that usually only have a passing acquaintance with the facts. Where bone headed decisions do get made, you will most often find that some gombeen politician has over ruled them (a good example is the planning rows in Wicklow county council at the moment where the experts are having their advice ignored)

I have said it before, but these people do not make what appear to be dumb decisions to piss off the likes of you. They will always have much better information on the problem and best approaches to solving it than someone who just read an article in the indo.

BrianD wrote:

The presence of the junction should be a given
and its purpose is not to facilitate local traffic as suggested. There is plenty of traffic beyond the immediate locality that could use this junction

I think impr0v and I have shown that this isn't true. Would you care to explain to me why someone would travel east from the M7 onto the M8 and then head back west?

jlang

I can't think of a journey that would require the use of such a routing. If somebody wanted to go say Roscrea->Kilkenny, they'd be mad to go up the motorway and back down again when the straight across option would be far better unless they had a fetish for motorway driving. If the 3-way motorway interchange had local access or nearby junctions,those movements might be useful, but the fact is it doesn't and the nearest junctions are far enough down that anybody wanting to go from one to the other (or further) wouldn't use the motorway.

For what it's worth, I'm not fully convinced they were right to build the M7-M9 junction without the extra movements, but I'm not too familiar with the roads around Kilcullen.

impr0v

mike65 wrote:

Not the point really. On a smaller scale when you reach the Cashel bypass from Clonmel you can't turn on to it if you want to go towards Cahir/Cork instead one must enter Cashel and use the interchange at the west of the town. They could have built a slip road but choose not too.

Mike.

In fairness Mike it is the point. When you have X money to design and build a scheme and are forced to prioritise junctions you have to go with facilitating the traffic movements for which there is the most demand. In terms of coming from Clonmel to Cahir, going via Cashel is more than three times the length of the direct journey, therefore there will be relatively little traffic making the movement. The design of these major schemes will always prioritise the regional traffic movements, and in this case the traffic they would have been facilitating would have been predominantly traffic generated between Rosegreen and Cashel and wanting to go to Cahir. The figures obviously justified letting that traffic continue travelling via the town itself rathering than facilitating their access to the dual carriageway at that location.

loyatemu

this is a load of fuss about nothing
the M7-M9 junction is exactly the same and it inconveniences virtually no-one
even if there was a full junction you would almost always be quicker using the local roads.

Its the same as every tiny town and village along the route demanding their own junction - it makes no economic sense and reduces the efficiency of the road.

vinnyfitz

All significant Bord Pleanala decisions are posted.

On the site you can also see who are the Board members who took the decision. I'm sure their salaries are a matter of public record BrianD - I doubt if you would have to do an FOI.

I've not read the 513 page inspectors report or the much shorter Board decision but I guess refusal of the scheme proposed would delay the road by (maybe 18 months?) while a new scheme is developed, consulted on submitted and reassessed. One has to make a choice between the inconvenience of the poor design for a small fraction of potenital users and the inconvenience of no road for 18 months for the vast majority of users.

BrianD

This project can wait 18 months ... we've waited years for it as it is. Many of the problem spots on either route have been bypassed. While a motorway link to both Cork and Limerick is highly desirable it is not the most pressing infrastructure project in the nation. Even when this section is completed the m-way will still be incomplete.

BrianD

Sliabh I accept your point about politcs meddling in the affairs of planners. However, there an unacceptable number of fiascos particularly in relation to road building but also in general planning that are being made by people who should know better. My own brother is a planner and is particularly critical of many controversial incidents. the media conveniently blames a load of unwashed hippies when the crux of the problem lies elsewhere.

Personally, I find the lack of a full junction at Exit 9 on the M7 are real pain as I frequently travel from the Newbridge area down to Waterford and I ain't interested in using a load of side roads.

Imposter

Might the lack of this junction have anything to do with the cost of building it against what probably will be an untollable stretch of road assuming the toll plaza would be between Portlaoise and any such junction?

BrianD

Sure what the hell, as long as the design does not impede us Dublin folk on our ocasional visits to Cork and Limerick, who cares!!

I do believe that the decision to toll this development had an influence on the junction design. While other posters have made a point that there are more direct ways of getting about for local or intermediatary traffic than using this motor way junction there is a strong arguement to keep certain types of traffic on the m-way rather than using local roads. It is part of a national network and seems odd that a "full" junction is not being constructed.

Zaph0d

sliabh wrote:

I have a number of friends that work as planners, engineers and architects. They have studied and worked in their fields for years. They do these things for a living. Their work is checked and reviewed by their peers.

They are very frustrated with (uninformed?) people in the media who are leading on the public with daft scare stories that usually only have a passing acquaintance with the facts. Where bone headed decisions do get made, you will most often find that some gombeen politician has over ruled them (a good example is the planning rows in Wicklow county council at the moment where the experts are having their advice ignored)

I have said it before, but these people do not make what appear to be dumb decisions to piss off the likes of you. They will always have much better information on the problem and best approaches to solving it than someone who just read an article in the indo.

I agree with all this however -

I'd like to see public bodies publishing all their consultancy reports and executive summaries on the web when making big cash decisions like this. If they're going to spend a billion on a road, shouldn't the public get free access from home rather than being forced to make an FoI request or a trip to the planning office between 9 and 5? The NDP web site is the public portal for a 52 billion euro spending project yet it hasn't been updated in 5 months and they don't answer emails.

Does anyone know why, for example 40m trams are on line B and 30m on line A. What was the logic? I am curious.

I'd welcome some transparency. It's not like there is much commercially sensitive information involved in building roads or railway lines (once the routes have been decided).

If a vacuum of information is created around major spending decisions it's no wonder that myths and scare stories abound.

dowlingm

Why would they travel out of their way as far as the intersection to turn back in the other direction when it is much shorter to take the R435 through Rathdowney (hard to read, but it's the orange route going almost North-South through Rathdowney), or even better, the N62 (the green-black line on the extreme left of the drawing, which runs from Horse and Jockey on the N8, through Thurles, to Roscrea on the N7)?

Spoken like someone who has never used either road. I have and I think I'd rather pay a toll and go out of my way!