New barrier to be placed nationwide

GoneShootin

It would be interesting to know what the cost of the barriers vs cost of perssonel/services/courts after a fatal motor acccident has occured.

I see your point murphaph, taking the cynical view for all road traffic it would seem to boil down to NRA costs.

Victor

murphaph wrote:

It will make sense if they can develop the towns and cities along it to do so.

Eh, a city either end, one town - Mallow (kinda bypassed) and then you have the Metropolises of Patrickswell (bypassed), Croom (bypassed), Charleville, Buttevent New Twopothouse and Ballynamona (bypassed).

Chris_533976

Fool 5000 wrote:

Sorry not a great pic but you can see it on the right
http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/gallery/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=0

or here
http://www.fema.kaalium.com/crashbarrier/img46.jpg

Ah ok, those things. Yeah theyve put them in the middle of the dual carriageway from Cork to Midleton. They're better than just using trees to stop cars.

What does annoy me about them is this. To look somewhat good, they should always stay in the same line relative to the carriageways. But no, they cut the corners on the road whenever possible, so the barrier is on the left of the hedge for some of the time and on the right for other sections. Just to save a bit of money, it takes the shortest route round the corner. Doesnt really bother me, but it does irk me a bit.

Victor

No, you may have that wrong. The fence goes on the inside of the curve of the road and on the danger side of a bridge.

Capt'n Midnight

MrPudding wrote:

2+1 roads are great. Obviously not as good as a dualler but cheaper and easier to build.

They use them a lot in France.

MrP

If they got rid of hard shoulders and just put in lay-bys instead we could have dual carrige ways for less, and they'd be safer than 2+1's.

murphaph

Victor wrote:

Eh, a city either end, one town - Mallow (kinda bypassed) and then you have the Metropolises of Patrickswell (bypassed), Croom (bypassed), Charleville, Buttevent New Twopothouse and Ballynamona (bypassed).

Yeah, I wasn't really looking at the stretch in isolation but as part of the link from Cork-Limerick-(Shannon)-Galway.

murphaph

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

If they got rid of hard shoulders and just put in lay-bys instead we could have dual carrige ways for less, and they'd be safer than 2+1's.

Not so sure, you'd still have the median crossings on that sort of road unless you grade separate and that's where the real expense is encountered and you're in a different league altogether. I don't believe that 2+1 is particularly dangerous, the figures from Sweden have been very encouraging. The 2+1 is suitable here precisely because it allows us to retrofit it to existing WS2 roads.

MT

Fool 5000 and Bamboozled, guys if you’re linking to a pic on Sabre right click on the picture and get its url through properties. As I’ve found out in previous posts if you just link to the page in the address bar the image will get shifted on to another page when someone puts a new pic in that gallery.


Chris, I wouldn’t be too hard on Ireland for the current state of road development. You have to bear in mind the size of the country and where it’s come from, as Dan pointed out. A country of 4 million people is never going to need the sort of motorway networks you’d find in the likes of the UK or Germany. You got to think proportionately, and on that score the Republic will be doing very nicely when network has been completed. Furthermore, as an island off an island off a continent, Ireland doesn’t experience the ‘through traffic’ that countries such as the Netherlands or Germany experience. Ireland just has to cater for it’s own population and freight/tourists only destined for here and nowhere else.

Then there’s the aspect of where the Republic has come from. The US, UK and Germany have been industrialised economies for more than a century and for all of the period that the car has existed. They’ve had the sort of freight needs and experienced the whole urban sprawl and commuting revolutions decades before you did. By contrast the Republic’s economy has only really made the leap from predominantly agrarian to industrialised in the past few decades and to Western standards of wealth only in the last two. So there’s only been the demand and crucially the funds for large scale road construction in the last 15 to 20 years.

I’d say the Republic has made startling progress with its road infrastructure in such a short space of time.

On the issue of maintenance and signage, however, I would agree that these still aren’t taken seriously. Currently there seems to be more of a focus from communities – and their councils/TDs - to get a nice new bypass or other major project funded. Problem is, this enthusiasm seems to evaporate once the thing’s been built and upkeep - especially of signs and road markings - goes down the pan.

Bamboozled

Thanks MT. couldn't find a pic anywhere on Google so clicked his link and posted one where i found barriers.

As for the flicker effect on the barrier reflectors, they must have cleaned them lately. I was dazzled by my own lights at 2am this morning on the 2+1. The reflectors on the poles seem to be fine, its the ones on the actual wires that did my head in.

Chris_533976

Victor wrote:

No, you may have that wrong. The fence goes on the inside of the curve of the road and on the danger side of a bridge.

Yeah inside the curve of the road. Thats what I was trying to say rather than the crap I came out with

I can see moneywise why its done, but when you're travelling over a bridge over the road with these barriers, it looks silly. For aesthetic reasons, I'd spend the bit of extra money and keep them on the same side of the curve all the time.

Victor

Nothing to do with money, everything to do with the centrifugal forces on vehicles on the inside of the curve.

Chris_533976

MT wrote:

Chris, I wouldn’t be too hard on Ireland for the current state of road development. You have to bear in mind the size of the country and where it’s come from, as Dan pointed out. A country of 4 million people is never going to need the sort of motorway networks you’d find in the likes of the UK or Germany. You got to think proportionately, and on that score the Republic will be doing very nicely when network has been completed. Furthermore, as an island off an island off a continent, Ireland doesn’t experience the ‘through traffic’ that countries such as the Netherlands or Germany experience. Ireland just has to cater for it’s own population and freight/tourists only destined for here and nowhere else.

Then there’s the aspect of where the Republic has come from. The US, UK and Germany have been industrialised economies for more than a century and for all of the period that the car has existed. They’ve had the sort of freight needs and experienced the whole urban sprawl and commuting revolutions decades before you did. By contrast the Republic’s economy has only really made the leap from predominantly agrarian to industrialised in the past few decades and to Western standards of wealth only in the last two. So there’s only been the demand and crucially the funds for large scale road construction in the last 15 to 20 years.

I’d say the Republic has made startling progress with its road infrastructure in such a short space of time.

Oh yeah, I understand that. Its only recently they've been able to do anything about it with funding.

But I still cant understand this tho. They KNOW there is a traffic problem here. Too many cars. Part of the solution is public transport, part is driver education and part is better design.

Taking the example of the new Red Cow junction, I still cannot comprehend why the new design still includes traffic lights. They know its a terribly busy junction, they know the traffic will be there but they still insist on putting a dirty set of lights in. Plus the fight about the Luas being on stilts? I would bet money it would have been on stilts from day 1 in any other European country. No question of putting it at-grade. I guarantee they'll have to re-work that junction within a few months of it opening.

Another example I've used before is the south ring in Cork. There are 3 roundabouts on it. The original plans for the south ring had flyovers for all three roundabouts included. These flyovers were scrapped at the last minute to save money. And now they're spending far more money, and basicially causing mayhem for up to 9 years (3 years each) to fix the blunder. Whenever I go up to Cork and see the construction site for the first one, I get irate because I know it was an idiot who decided to get rid of them from the original plans. You spend up to 30 minutes in that jam daily, I dont know how many vehicles use it, probobly around 50k.... thats 25,000 hours of peoples time WASTED daily because of a morons decision.

No, I dont deny that great progress is being made. By 2010 there'll be dc/motorway all teh way from Cork to Dublin. But what irks me like mad is the raft of incredibly bad decisions made by road/rail/etc planners in this country. Chronicly bad ideas that just keep happening. Futureproofing is the key because as populations increase, the traffic will increase, no matter how well public transport is implemented. But yet they still build ringroads/national route merges with enormous signal controlled roundabouts (Lee tunnel in Cork) instead of spending a bit of extra money to grade seperate the junction and solve jamups. Anywhere else in Europe the main routes are fully grade sperated at every intersection. Why not here?

It seems to me they'll only fix a problem here once theres a huge jamup, and the jamup gets worse for the 3 years of construction. Elsewhere they build things before the jamup starts, or at least before it gets as bad as here.

I know I get annoyed on here a lot, but the sheer level of incompetance at the design level is staggering in this country.

Victor

Chris_533976 wrote:

Another example I've used before is the south ring in Cork. There are 3 roundabouts on it. The original plans for the south ring had flyovers for all three roundabouts included.

No. I've watched the project for the last 18 years and flyovers were not initially included, much to my dismay as a 16 year old.

Bamboozled

Weren't they given the costs from whoever (its late, I cant remember) for the flyovers though and decided not to go with them in the end?

Chris_533976

There was something anyway, I could well be wrong, but I got it from somewhere that the plan was to put the flyovers in in the first place which was then scrapped.

Arguments aside, noone in their right mind can say it was a good idea to leave them out tho.

murphaph

How far along are they with these flyovers?

Chris_533976

First one is due to open by the end of the year I think. They have the bridge sections in place and are building up the road on either side of them for the runup.

The other two arent started. Presumably there'll be about 6 months to a year downtime between construction, then about 2 - 3 years of building on each of the other two.

At least on the third they've build the dual carriageway sides far apart so the flyover can fit down the middle.

The second one theres hardly any room for traffic while its being built. Will be a bit of a nightmare that one I reckon.

My thoughts on this will be that it'll be about 3 years to build the second and then 3 years to build the third. By then the other roundabout near the tunnel where the N25 & N8 meet withthe main route into Cork will be an utter disaster up to the standard of the Red Cow. They'll need to upgrade that junction to freeflow around that time I think.

Aidan1

The Kinsale Rd junction will be open before the end of the summer - the total build time will be around 2 years. The next two, Bandon Rd and Sarsfield Rd, will be done at the same time and should start early next year.

The Dunkettle interchange is also up for review, as far as I understand planners are considering their options with regard to the effects the North Ring Road will have on traffic also, when that comes on stream (2012-2015?). Among the options included is a full free flow junction.

Until now, the local authorities and the NRA have been focussed on catching up. Its only in the last while that they've been able to pay any attention to looking ahead

Chris_533976

Good to hear, you're obviously more in the know than I am

Hopefully they'll go for the freeflow option... and hopefully when they do Dunkettle they'll put a bridge in at the Glanmire roundabout while they're at it

murphaph

Good to see some progress at least being made in Cork. The city & county deserves high quality transport links given the high value the pharma (etc.) sector is to our economy. Cork has genuine potential to grow to be a much larger city. Thye north ring road may seem a little overboard nw but I reckon it'll be a neccessity in a few short years. Cork would be in the lucky position of having the only complete dual carriageway orbital road on this island. There aren't even that many cities in Britain with this claim to fame (London, Manchester & Leeds are all I can think of)

Aidan1

Route Selection is ongoing on the Cork NRR. They're on to phase 2 now. The route corridor and junction types are going to be critical if this is going to work or be an unholy mess.

If, and only if, they can restrain development along the road, and at the junctions, it will work. If not, it'll just be another M50.

Details here

http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/pdf/734326387.pdf

The next step of course, will be redoing the older DC section of the N25 between Midleton and Carrigtwohill. Both Amgen and a new housing development locally each involve a new flyover being constructed. An oportunity to get rid of the at grade crossings, me thinks.

murphaph

In fairness to the NRA, getting rid of median crossings on older DCs is a specialty of theirs. They have eliminated way more at grade crossings than their counterparts the Roads Service in Northern Ireland in recent years.

Chris_533976

Aidan1 wrote:

Route Selection is ongoing on the Cork NRR. They're on to phase 2 now. The route corridor and junction types are going to be critical if this is going to work or be an unholy mess.

If, and only if, they can restrain development along the road, and at the junctions, it will work. If not, it'll just be another M50.

Details here

http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/pdf/734326387.pdf

The next step of course, will be redoing the older DC section of the N25 between Midleton and Carrigtwohill. Both Amgen and a new housing development locally each involve a new flyover being constructed. An oportunity to get rid of the at grade crossings, me thinks.

mmm IMO that section could just do with a dose of tar. Theres a ton of local access in it which will prevent it being motorwayed. Two or three bridges along that length to solve the (incredibly dangerous) at grade minor road crossings of the entire carriageway will be nice. Apart from that and the possible need for a new sliproad at the quarry, this road is fine I think. Drove it today, no major problems. I'd say put that money into dualling the N25 east of Midleton to the other side of Castlemartyr.

Victor

Yeah, theres a couple of turns on that section that just don't need to be there. The road was dualled, by simply building a new carrriageway next to the existing one.

I suspect further east that dualling isn't really required, but bypasses are.

Fool 5000

I suspect further east that dualling isn't really required, but bypasses are.

Yeah i think your right there Victor .It would first be impossible to widen the Midleton Bypass (Because Midleton has expanded behond the bypass) and then widen the Midleton-Castlemartyr-Killeagh because settlements along the road.Maybe just bypass for Killeagh and Castlemartyr

Apart from that and the possible need for a new sliproad at the quarry, this road is fine I think.

Yeah its very dangerous there especially with thoses quarry trucks turning there

I'd say put that money into dualling the N25 east of Midleton to the other side of Castlemartyr.

I dont think there is need for dualing on the far side of Midleton because most of the traffic turns off at Midleton or at the Lakeview roundabout.

spacetweek

Chris_533976 wrote:

And now they're spending far more money, and basicially causing mayhem for up to 9 years (3 years each) to fix the blunder.

They're nearly finished Kinsale Road and the other two roundabouts on the SRR are being done at the same time.

Fool 5000

They're nearly finished Kinsale Road and the other two roundabouts on the SRR are being done at the same time.

No they are building the 3 roundabouts one after another. Does anyone know which one they are doin after Kinsale road roundabout?

Chris_533976

Read the page, this was answered above

Aidan1 wrote:

The Kinsale Rd junction will be open before the end of the summer - the total build time will be around 2 years. The next two, Bandon Rd and Sarsfield Rd, will be done at the same time and should start early next year.

Aidan1

The NRA has it as an 'aim' to DC the N25 as far as Youghal.

Much more likely is the possibility that they will grade separate the road as far as Midleton in the short term, with a new flyover at Waterrock and another at the Amgen site. They also intend, and have been asked by CorkCoCo to dual the road from the Lakeview Roundabout East as far as the junction with the old Youghal Road out of Midleton (about 1.5km), build a new grade separated junction there to take traffic from the East (Youghal direction) to the Railway station P+R without conflicting with national traffic.

The Lakeview Roundabout is a serious problem also, and will need work - even a simple slip road to take traffic from Ballycotton/Cloyne/Whitegate on to the N25 West would help a lot in the mornings. That junction is seriously compromised since the day it was built, it was supposed to be grade separated, but the County counci, at the tome ran in to problems acquiring some houses, hence off centre roundabout.

A lot of this is spelled out explicitly in the Special Local Area Plan for Midleton.

Chris_533976

Thanks

Midletons getting incredibly busy (especially since the Tesco opened), at least they're planning on doing something about it


Next task should be the Fota Road onto Cobh Island. No matter the fact that the wall is falling down, its full of potholes, road markings are worn off and the road serves the entire of Cobh, its funding for upkeep this year is €20,000