Ireland's most famous bottlenecks

mysterious

Well I think this would be interesting to know which are the most famous snarl ups now!

Bottlenecks that are now gone and in the history pages!


N1 Drogheda and Balbriggan

N7 Kildare Monasterevin and Nenagh , tailbacks are history!:)

N8 Cashel

N4 Enfield one of the most famous snarl ups in the country like Kildare

N6 Loughrea

N11 Arklow

N18 Newmarket on Fergus

some towns which are jacknifed!

N3 Dunshaughlin
N3 Navan/Kells
N4 Edworthstown
N11 Gorey (road started)
N8 Abbeyleix
N7 Mountrath
N6 Moate
N17 Tuam
N21 Newcastlewest
N8 Fermoy (soon to be bypassed)
N25 New Ross
N18 Ennis (soon to be bypassed0
N6 Ballinasloe
N2 Ashbourne (Finished 2007)
N9 Carlow


anymore worth mentioning, which towns do you dread passing through?

spacetweek

mysterious wrote:

anymore worth mentioning, which towns do you dread passing through?

As a kid I always remembered Kinnegad being woeful, on the way back from Mayo on the Easter Bank Holiday. It was so bad we used to get out of the car and set up picnics!

A few corrections: The N4 Edgesworthstown bypass started this year. Ashbourne is due to finish summer 2006. The Carlow bypass is starting next year I think.

strassenwolf

Don't forget what used to be the Daddy of them all - Naas. Though Athlone was also a nightmare

gurramok

Mitchelstown is another, they don't even have plans to bypass it yet afaik despite it located on major Cork-Dublin route!

Chris_533976

Mitchelstown is apparently getting a ****ty single carriageway bypass soon.

As for Cork ->

N25 roundabouts - Dunkettle (x2), Kinsale Road (being fixed), Sarsfield Road, Bandon road roundabouts.

Whoever dropped the flyovers from the original plans needs to be lynched.

Victor

gurramok wrote:

Mitchelstown is another, they don't even have plans to bypass it yet afaik despite it located on major Cork-Dublin route!

Actually a partial bypass is under construction.

Capt'n Midnight

I can remember before the bypass Athlone used to be interesting around the August bank holiday weekend

mysterious

Ya Naas ws very bad pre bypass era. but I don't remember it that much. My parents said the traffic was horrendous coming form the old Limerick road onto the Main Street where it converges with the Waterford traffic, back in its haydays even in the 1970s there were thousands of vehicles litterly form all courners in the south of Ireland had to squeeze through it :eek:

Something like 52,000 cars a day use the Bypass daily....

I hear on the Radio that Dunshaughlin can be awful

Danno

Do people not know the shortcut around Abbeyleix???

Coming south toward Abbeyleix, veer right just after the rumble strips. After the old railway bridge, veer left. Next is a staggered junction on the Mountrath rd, go "straight" through, down a big hill, watch for a bad bend at a farm enterance.

At the bottom of the hill, another bad bend with a junction, keep left. Next you meet the junction with the Rathdowney road, turn left.

After the "50k/mph Zone Ahead" signs, there is a small road to the right through woodland, follow this road for over a mile to rejoin the N8 about quarter the way to Durrow, veer right and Cork is only 165km ahead!

Now, be careful using this shortcut, don't be stupid and crash on it, blocking it up.

DubTony

mysterious wrote:

anymore worth mentioning, which towns do you dread passing through?

Dublin ...


and it's bypass is crap as well.

Bluetonic

Often a bypass of a town/bottleneck can actually make the place a lot worse at times as parking restrictions etc.., are relaxed.

I give you Balbriggan as an example.

D'Peoples Voice

mysterious wrote:

Well I think this would be interesting to know which are the most famous snarl ups now!

anymore worth mentioning, which towns do you dread passing through?

N5 Longford
N5 Ballaghaderrin
N5 Charlestown
N78 Athy (mainly because it's a dump)

N3 Dunshaughlin and Navan could be easily bypassed and cheaply by the Government upgrading to dual carriageway the R163 from Slane(extension of the new N2) to Kells(Northern side). No toll road needed to bring traffic to Dublin from Cavan/Ballyshannon via a M3.
It's nothing new for a orbital National primary road to branch off another orbital national primary road, take the exaple of the N5,N6,N8, N9 and N10 to name but a few. Orbital national primary roads don't have to start at the M50.

invincibleirish

Victor wrote:

Actually a partial bypass is under construction.

the partial bypass is under construction from what im aware is for traffic for the locality to the west of . the Examiner recently came with the compulsory land purchase list, in it it showed that what was under construction is dual cariageway connecting with Fermoy bypass(M/N8) all the way past Mitchlestown,one assumes then that this will connect up the shiny new M8/M7 project eventually.

murphaph

It's a relief road that is goin to skirt round th west of M'town, with the M8 passing east. The relief road will be needed anyway, I just hope it is at least temporarily seamlessly plugged into the existing N8 until the M8 is built to provide a temporary bypass.

Dublin is of course (as DubTony pointed out) the worst place to traverse with a sh!tty undercapacity bypass that's tolled!

mike65

At certain times New Ross can be a pig.

Mike.

Sponge Bob

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

I can remember before the bypass Athlone used to be interesting around the August bank holiday weekend

Athlone was the mother of them all

murphaph

....then the A12 Westlink in Belfast can be hellish with the upgrade going to cause great pain! Has to be done though, really should have been a motorway for the amount of destruction of West Belfast that it required in 1980. Something like 65k cars a day use the Westlink.

Maskhadov

The NRA have a .pdf file showing all the road works going on in the country. You can see it here : -

http://www.nra.ie/News/DownloadableDocumentation/file,1318,en.PDF

There is an awful lot of work to be done. The worst part of it is that the vast majority of new national routes dont have the 2+1 roads.

Victor

Maskhadov wrote:

http://www.nra.ie/News/DownloadableDocumentation/file,1318,en.PDF

Interestingly, this is not the original document1318 it is a covert revision, reusing the original number, largely because they botched the timing of so many projects. Only I think 3-4 projects were meant to open in 2005 with about 15 in 2006.

spacetweek

Victor wrote:

Interestingly, this is not the original document1318 it is a covert revision, reusing the original number, largely because they botched the timing of so many projects. Only I think 3-4 projects were meant to open in 2005 with about 15 in 2006.

I spotted that too (note: need to get a life ) Note they've removed projects which were supposed to start this year (M3, N25 Waterford) which have since slipped.

Maskhadov wrote:

There is an awful lot of work to be done. The worst part of it is that the vast majority of new national routes dont have the 2+1 roads.

Yea it's scary isn't it. Even ignoring the national secondaries and the interurbans (which hopefully will be finished in 5 years??) there's such a long way to go. The Atlantic Corridor, remaining projects on the N2 and N3, long stretches on the N5, lots in Donegal, lots around Cork, loads on the N21 and N24, etc. As for 2+1, in fairness they only decided to start using those a few years ago, so any projects completed up to then or sections which are'nt deficient are going to be waiting a very long time for further upgrades.

Maskhadov

spacetweek wrote:

I spotted that too (note: need to get a life ) Note they've removed projects which were supposed to start this year (M3, N25 Waterford) which have since slipped.
Yea it's scary isn't it. Even ignoring the national secondaries and the interurbans (which hopefully will be finished in 5 years??) there's such a long way to go. The Atlantic Corridor, remaining projects on the N2 and N3, long stretches on the N5, lots in Donegal, lots around Cork, loads on the N21 and N24, etc. As for 2+1, in fairness they only decided to start using those a few years ago, so any projects completed up to then or sections which are'nt deficient are going to be waiting a very long time for further upgrades.

Im sure they will have the intercity network completed by 2010/2012 to motorway/high quality dual carriage way. But the amount of work they have to do afterwards is very scary indeed.

If someone was to write down all the schemes that have to do be done on national routes and secondary routes it would be thousands of Km and take another decade to do.

With so many cóck ups with existing (and relatively simple) projects it doesnt inspire confidence.

They should try to push the 2+1 roads for any new project getting off the ground.

D'Peoples Voice

spacetweek wrote:

As for 2+1, in fairness they only decided to start using those a few years ago, so any projects completed up to then or sections which are'nt deficient are going to be waiting a very long time for further upgrades.

I can tell you that I was very surprised recently when travelling along the new stretch of road(N5) between Longford and Strokestown to find it was single lane carriageway.
I believe that every interurban route should as a bare minimum have a single lane and a hard shoulder, because slower vehicles like articulated lorries/tractors can hold up a long line of traffic. All it takes is for some driver behind them to get impatient and risk an overtakling manoeuvre at the wrong time, and you have one serious accident.
To be fair, at one point on this road there is a lay-by, but there is not sufficent notice for drivers of this facility, and lorries can't swerve into this lay-by at the last minute to allow cars to pass.

Lord Nikon

Moate, eastbound.
The Lucan bypass, in the mornings, inbound. Lucan village is quicker than the bypass (on some mornings)

michaelanthony

Stillorgan village. And in general most congestion is caused by ****ty junctions. The most sophisticated ones irish engineers can think up only involve traffic lights. Ever hear of everpasses and underpasses? With the exception of some dual carriageways and motorways. Even then, they're only half arsed attempts.

Chris_533976

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

I can tell you that I was very surprised recently when travelling along the new stretch of road(N5) between Longford and Strokestown to find it was single lane carriageway.
I believe that every interurban route should as a bare minimum have a single lane and a hard shoulder, because slower vehicles like articulated lorries/tractors can hold up a long line of traffic. All it takes is for some driver behind them to get impatient and risk an overtakling manoeuvre at the wrong time, and you have one serious accident.
To be fair, at one point on this road there is a lay-by, but there is not sufficent notice for drivers of this facility, and lorries can't swerve into this lay-by at the last minute to allow cars to pass.

No new routes between big cities should be 2+1. Its shameful. Think of how many other European countries have glorified single lane carriageway between big cities.


Wish theyd just put proper dual carriageway or motorway in and stop the faffing around.

westtip

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

I can tell you that I was very surprised recently when travelling along the new stretch of road(N5) between Longford and Strokestown to find it was single lane carriageway.

the N5 is a c**p road always has been always will be. But then it goes to the West of Ireland what do you expect. Can't understnad why the lemmings in the west continue to put FF TDs in the Dail.

mysterious

The 2+1 is one schemes is liek half washing the dishes. The Entire Galway Limerick road N18 is to upgraded to dual status while the Cork Limerick section is to only get mostly 2+1 !!! amazes how little the Governement expalined this when the orignal plan was to be dual lanes from Croom to Mallow, if you don't believe me look uo the NDP website and see for yourself!!! Well Gort is allso horrible to pass through

Naas and Atlone and were the Parents of all the bottlenecks defieniatly a good description!:)

corktina

for the density of traffic dual carriageways are not justified in many places...put in place more measures to slow down the traffic and lower speed limits is the way to go (properlay enforced)....then if everyone is doing , say 80kph, we'll all get there almost as quick and the accident rate will come down......

mackerski

corktina wrote:

put in place more measures to slow down the traffic and lower speed limits is the way to go (properlay enforced)....then if everyone is doing , say 80kph, we'll all get there almost as quick and the accident rate will come down......

So you don't think that a convoy of cars tailgating at exactly 80 will be prone to accidents?

Dermot

DubTony

michaelanthony wrote:

Stillorgan village. And in general most congestion is caused by ****ty junctions. The most sophisticated ones irish engineers can think up only involve traffic lights. Ever hear of everpasses and underpasses? With the exception of some dual carriageways and motorways. Even then, they're only half arsed attempts.

In fairness, it's hardly the engineers fault. I'm sure most of them would have grade seperated, overpassing, underpassing, freeflow junctions all over the place. It's the man with the money who needs the real kick in the arse.

A friends dad is an engineer with a Dublin council and is constantly frustrated by being told to "scale it down - we can't afford that."

westtip

:mad: Any town with a river flowing through it tends to be a 'mare. Most mentioned already, dublin is of course the mother of them with a crap by-pass clogged up becuase of toll plazas. Ballina with the river Moy can be hellish at peak times, they need a by pass for the N59 to swing round from the sligo Side (East side) to the south side (to the Foxford dublin Road). Liklihood to happen: Nil.

jd

DubTony wrote:

In fairness, it's hardly the engineers fault. I'm sure most of them would have grade seperated, overpassing, underpassing, freeflow junctions all over the place. It's the man with the money who needs the real kick in the arse.

A friends dad is an engineer with a Dublin council and is constantly frustrated by being told to "scale it down - we can't afford that."

Yes-I'd concur. I don't know many civil engineers who would view roundabouts as elegant solutions. And I have heard the same story re scaling things down (from engineers)