M7/N7 Nenagh to Limerick

mysterious

The road has gotten a step closer to finally starting.

The council is looking for contractors to have demolition of the 10 buildings that currently obstruct the planned new roadway. The road is already fenced too.

jank

All well and good but what the hell is keeping the Portloaise to Cullahil/mounraith part from starting. IMO its the most important part of the whole M7/M8 route.

Any updates on this?

Chris_533976

Well on this site they're talking about the Cullahill to Cashel part of the route being finished in 2009.

As far as I know the Portlaoise - Cullahill section is starting at the end of this year. Think I heard that on here somewhere.

Anyway, I reckon they're trying to get the whole lot finished by 2009/10. But you know how things go.

1huge1

well i know were talking about the limerick nenage motorway but i was just wondering when they will start building the shannon tunnel as it is on the same road as the N7 (even though its called something else)

mysterious

I think the Nenagh to Limerick section out of all the existing N7/n8 deserves most the of the attention right now, this section of road carries over 14,000 vehicles and rising due to the opening of the N52 link and Limerick bypass phase 1. This scheme was the first planned section of road between the Capital and the region to be mooted. Well the plan was already drawn up in 1999 just before the NDP project started, in case people don't know.

The accident rate on this section is noted on the Irish independant two weeks ago as one of the high risk accident prone section of National route, despite being a wide high class road.

except the Irish independant also noted the "N7 Abbeyleix to Borris on ossary needs urgent upgrade" :rolleyes: The Dublin meedia

mysterious

Bump old thread, can't find the newer one.

Well I'm might be able to get some pics of the Nenagh Limerick motorway during the week, some pretty interesting terrain it goes through, in comparison to the old N7, which is also one of the better stretches of N7 route to drive on!


I seen the earthworks around the Annacotty interchange
ARRRRAAAGHH!
"A la mad cow of the west"


Why do "they" or some of "you" not learn from "your" mistakes in this country that "we" live in.(checks address)

Horay!
Another stupid rotary interchange is planned here at the Lisnagry RO. Why the ****k are NRA still copying the 1960s model interchanges of the British that do not work. They are nasty.
NRA have spent that last friggen 3 years getting rid of the rotarys on the M50 for freestyle un-rolled half clover leafs tec.

And now they put them on the Limerick bypass (at one of its busiest intersections)
I can see that in 10 years time we have a luas like marked and built over this ****ty Lissy naguire junction proceeding to the megopolis of Newport (aka clondalkin) Castleconnel (aka Saggart) and we have gridlock on this stupid interchange, and we have a luas line over it. To make a bad situation worse of course horay. Even worse we let the stupid planners get away with building this ****e as it is. Up a red cows arse that is, thats what planned!


10 years on Its aka super duper mad cow montrosity. NRA you are officially stupid.


No I'm afraid we havent' learned from your mistakes. I have. My eyes and ears have been sore of paying attention to the mess of the mad cow interchange already. Dont say i didnt say I told you so!!!!!!


RANT OVER:D AND MY TRUE-ER WORDS OF WISDOM ARE ALSO OVER:p

Poxyshamrock

Went from Limerick to Dublin on Monday and must say the M7 is progressing well, new roundabout at castleconnel, new roundabout at birdhill and widening of roads just beginning on the limerick side of Nenagh.
Also the roundabout at Finnegans has completely changed.

mysterious

Since there is only one interchange, between Limerick and Nenagh, I thought again. Stupid.


They should of least built an interchange where the R499 meets the N7. This would allow a shorter safer route for Thurles traffic to go to Limerick than have to use the bohereen road to Newport. It is one of the worst R roads in the country, for the level of traffic that use it.

I've heard alot of people from Thurles go via Silvermines en route to Limerick rather than go by the Newport route.

Any sky views of the Lisnagry interchange? Is there any genious in it? Or is it a plain rotary:rolleyes:

Oh this is Ireland:rolleyes:


Honestly I should be running NRA.

mysterious

The Limerick to Birdhill section seems to ahead of the remainder, will they be opening this section in the first phase?

This will mean the busiest section and Birdhill would be bypassed.
So I heard it's meant to open officially may 2009. Push it earlier:D


The section is by far one of the busiest N section of routes in the country.
Traffic averages 16,500 throughout the lenght between Limerick and Nenagh.

The R445, local traffic and N52 join the N7 at Carrigtoher and the traffic doubles from here onto Limerick. The Bypass carries 9,000 a day (the lowest of any section of N7 (due to no local access) joins with over 7,000 vehicles on the N52. So therefore, it's accurate to say that the traffic would easily be 17,000.

So when the Motorway opens, it should be at least 15,000 A.A.D.T.
With the opening of the Shannon tunnell traffic, will increase too.


P.S what is the news with the Adare bypass?? Any update. It's going to be HQDC I think now?

Cool Mo D

15,000 AADT is not much at all. A good quality single carriageway can handle over 20,000 AADT and the design loading for a 2 lane motorway is well over 50,000 AADT.

Zoney

Adare bypass is on the long finger AFAIK, despite the fact that ~17K AADT passes through the village.

Those are high enough levels to require 2+1 capacity, but since 2+1 is not going ahead, and one has to allow for traffic growth, dual carriageway is required, probably the cheapest "2+2" configuration (i.e. no hard shoulder and wire central barrier).

tinytina

I hear on the grapevine that the consortium of contractors on this section ran out of money. As it was a fixed price project the government refused to pay any more, however, they had paid the consortium in full upfront. Consortium has pulled out, and I hear that the project is going to be shelved for time being.

Has anyone else heard any update on this?

mikemac

tinytina wrote: »

I hear on the grapevine that the consortium of contractors on this section ran out of money. As it was a fixed price project the government refused to pay any more, however, they had paid the consortium in full upfront. Consortium has pulled out, and I hear that the project is going to be shelved for time being.

Has anyone else heard any update on this?

Here's the story.
Limerick Co.Council tendered the contract and it went to a Portuguese company. Don't reply back with "keep the jobs at home", hey it's a major project so it has to be advertised across the EU. Possibly Tipperary was involved too but it's Limerick Co. Council taking the lead here.

This contractor got in various local sub-contractors. The contractor got the money but didn't pass it on to the sub-contractors.
So the local sub-contractors were stuck for money, some owed hundreds of thousands. They took the easy option and lobbied the TD's and lashed Limerick Co.Council and more or less asked the council to pay out twice so they'd be compensated.
Limerick Co.Council rightly told them to fook off, independent TD Michael Lowry jumps in as a facilitator and gets lots of publicity.

This was as far as it went around Christmas, I hope it's progressed since then

tinytina

So basically the Portugeuse contractor has made off with the money? I guess Limerick CoCo has never heard of staged payments.

Chris_533976

Zoney wrote: »

Adare bypass is on the long finger AFAIK, despite the fact that ~17K AADT passes through the village.

Those are high enough levels to require 2+1 capacity, but since 2+1 is not going ahead, and one has to allow for traffic growth, dual carriageway is required, probably the cheapest "2+2" configuration (i.e. no hard shoulder and wire central barrier).

Old bit of bump, but I thought the other day that if the NRA were any good, they'd mix the M20 Croom - Patrickswell (all 6km of it) and do the N21 Adare bypass in the same contract. In a sense the same as the M7/M8 scheme, but without the toll and built more quickly.

The Word Is Bor

tinytina wrote: »

I hear on the grapevine that the consortium of contractors on this section ran out of money. As it was a fixed price project the government refused to pay any more, however, they had paid the consortium in full upfront. Consortium has pulled out, and I hear that the project is going to be shelved for time being.

Has anyone else heard any update on this?

Again grapevine based but I had heard something similar in late November/early December. Essentially had heard that the JV had gone bust and where mothballing the scheme for the winter in the hope of refinancing the scheme in the New Year when the interest rates had fallen. There still is quite a sizeable amount of work still to be done and I would think that May '09 is very optimistic for a completion date. I haven't heard anything more since.

The Word Is Bor

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Old bit of bump, but I thought the other day that if the NRA were any good, they'd mix the M20 Croom - Patrickswell (all 6km of it) and do the N21 Adare bypass in the same contract. In a sense the same as the M7/M8 scheme, but without the toll and built more quickly.

Except for the fact that the N20 Croom-Patrickswell when it goes to site will be part of the M20 Cork-Limerick scheme (well one scheme of probably two) and forms part of the Atlantic Corridor, which also falls under the guise of Transport 21. There be none of this "ah shur we'll just tack another 10-15km's onto a scheme..".

The N21 Adare By-pass is a good bit off with various wranglings over zoning lands for future use (thus possibly influencing the cost of the land as part of the CPO). Another issue is designation of the Maigue as a cSAC or SAC which would have a serious impact on the crossing of the river. These might or might not be the reason behind the delays and I've no doubt that funding is an issue. This scheme is also a bottleneck for the scheme(s) further down the N21 Abbeyfeale-Adare scheme. No sense in building the Abbeyfeale-Adare scheme unless the Adare By-pass is in place.

mysterious

The Lisnagry interchange is going to be a disaster........


So ****ing cheapish............