Irish planners need to go to planning school!

probe

The Indo reports today that Louth Co Co’s plans to build a link road from Dundalk to the E1 motorway have been refused by An Bord Pleanala on the grounds that it is a major national route linking Dublin and Belfast and adding local Dundalk ring road traffic functions to the motorway would cause traffic problems.

In virtually every part of Europe, main E road routes also operate as “ring roads” for the cities they circumnavigate (eg Toulouse, Montpellier, Nice, Zurich, Frankfurt etc) The just need to build enough lanes on the road in the vicinity of the city to take both local and transit traffic, which when combined with a decent system of on and off ramps and clear gantry signage provides the optimum solution. In countries that toll national motorways, they generally don’t toll the bits that act as ring roads around cities so as not to screw up everybody (a la the M50) waiting for hours to pay the tolls.

If you are forced to build a separate peripheral road system to carry local “ring road” traffic you end up with the increased cost of the additional duplicative roads, more big trucks in town centres and longer journey times because national transit traffic can’t get off the motorway system at precisely the best location for the required destination.


probe



Indo article (02.05.06)
PLANS by Louth County Council to build a new link road on to the M1 motorway from Dublin to Belfast have been shot down by An Bord Pleanala in a landmark decision.
The board ruled the plan would lead to high-speed traffic "weaving" on to the motorway and was no substitute for proper local roads to service development in the area.
The ruling is highly significant as it is unusual for the board to turn down major road proposals. The council had proposed a link road from the Armagh road to facilitate local access in the area west of Dundalk.
The plans included a new junction, two roundabouts, realignment of the regional Armagh road, two new slip-roads and a range of associated works.
Refusing permission against the advice of its own planning inspector, the board said the M1 motorway was a Euroroute and a road of the highest national strategic importance linking the cities of Dublin and Belfast.
The motorway as designed and approved provides for three access points to the town of Dundalk via junctions with national routes.
"It is considered that the provision of a further access by way of retrofitting a junction with a regional road, to primarily accommodate traffic to be generated by proposed local development, would be contrary to the principles of good road design."
Notwithstanding the specific objective in the Dundalk and Environs Development Plan 2003-2008 the proposed road would adversely affect the carrying capacity of the national primary route.
The new road would also be contrary to national policy to protect public investment in such roads.
"Furthermore, the proposal would create a highly undesirable precedent for the provision of junctions on motorways and national routes to facilitate local traffic."
The board said the distance of the regional road to the proposed junction with the M1 and the huge numbers of motorists wanting to get onto the motorway would lead to "weaving of high-speed traffic on the motorway".
This would result in a reduction in the level of service for which the motorway was designed and would impact adversely on road users.
The board ruled the proposed junction could be seen as "a substitute for the provision of an adequate local road infrastructure to service proposed development in the general area".

nordydan

Was driving from Athlone to Belfast yesterday (great drive) and up the M1 Dundalk-Western Bypass. It is slack enough at this point and could handle the extra traffic. Better to get all the traffic onto the road at this point than further near the carlingofrd junction. A silly decision.

murphaph

Dundalk already has the N52 eastern relief road to carry local traffic around the town. The motorway wasn't built to carry cars from one end of Dundalk to the other. If the gridlock is so bad that one can't drive from one end to the other, then don't drive. Walk, cycle or whatever. Major cities in Europe (including Manchester, Leeds etc.) have motorway ringroads but they are major cities, Dundalk is a small town by British Isles standards and we should bare that in mind.

If we've learned anything from the M50 it's that motorway bypasses and local traffic are not good bedfellows.

jd

probe wrote:

The Indo reports today that Louth Co Co’s plans to build a link road from Dundalk to the E1 motorway have been refused by An Bord Pleanala on the grounds that it is a major national route linking Dublin and Belfast and adding local Dundalk ring road traffic functions to the motorway would cause traffic problems.

In virtually every part of Europe, main E road routes also operate as “ring roads” for the cities they circumnavigate (eg Toulouse, Montpellier, Nice, Zurich, Frankfurt etc)

The planners are dead right. To have a motorway acting as a ring road for what is an average sized town is nuts.

darkman2

murphaph wrote:

Dundalk already has the N52 eastern relief road to carry local traffic around the town. The motorway wasn't built to carry cars from one end of Dundalk to the other. If the gridlock is so bad that one can't drive from one end to the other, then don't drive. Walk, cycle or whatever. Major cities in Europe (including Manchester, Leeds etc.) have motorway ringroads but they are major cities, Dundalk is a small town by British Isles standards and we should bare that in mind.

If we've learned anything from the M50 it's that motorway bypasses and local traffic are not good bedfellows.

Since when is Dundalk in the 'British Isles'. Anyhow I reckon its a good decision

murphaph

darkman2 wrote:

Since when is Dundalk in the 'British Isles'

Since the city was founded. Ireland is one of the British Isles archipelago. If you want to get political and dispute internationally accepted terminology (to be found in your irish inter cert geography books!) then you'll have to do it in /boards/soc/politics. This really isn't the place.

darkman2

murphaph wrote:

Since the city was founded. Ireland is one of the British Isles archipelago. If you want to get political and dispute internationally accepted terminology (to be found in your irish inter cert geography books!) then you'll have to do it in /boards/soc/politics. This really isn't the place.

Its been taken out of Irish schoolbooks you will be glad to know. And rightly so.

Victor

darkman2 wrote:

Since when is Dundalk in the 'British Isles'. Anyhow I reckon its a good decision

Drat, you mean its still part of Normandy?

murphaph

<Philip bites tongue and refuses to get into some sort of republican debate>

A Dub in Glasgo

Maybe so but you used the term in full knowledge that some people would bite

Why not use 'these islands' or 'in Ireland or Britain'?

darkman2

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Maybe so but you used the term in full knowledge that some people would bite

Why not use 'these islands' or 'in Ireland or Britain'?

I always say 'these Islands'. I think its more appropriate. I think were going WAY off topic here thoguh as much as id love to continue this debate:cool:

murphaph

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Why not use 'these islands' or 'in Ireland or Britain'?

Simply because I was taught at school (by good irish catholic priests mind!) that these islands are called the British Isles and I'm not going to start calling them something else all these years later just to avoid offending someone. You can call them what you want, I won't pull you up on it or pretend not to understand what you mean.

probe

murphaph wrote:

Dundalk already has the N52 eastern relief road to carry local traffic around the town. The motorway wasn't built to carry cars from one end of Dundalk to the other. If the gridlock is so bad that one can't drive from one end to the other, then don't drive. Walk, cycle or whatever. Major cities in Europe (including Manchester, Leeds etc.) have motorway ringroads but they are major cities, Dundalk is a small town by British Isles standards and we should bare that in mind.

If we've learned anything from the M50 it's that motorway bypasses and local traffic are not good bedfellows.

1) Given the relatively small size of Dundalk, the marginal extra traffic impact on the E1 of an additional interchange will be easier to accommodate. You haven’t outlined your case for the alternative of building parallel “ring road” facilities. While one would prefer people to walk or use their bicycle, this isn’t a practical alternative for delivery vehicles or householders shopping for heavy purchases. In the context of minimising the amount of land needlessly sucked into road building I fail to see what relevance the size of the city has (ie Dundalk compared with Manchester, Leeds) has to do with the equation. If anything, smaller urbanisations have even less excuse for not using nearby national routes as part of their “ring road” system than mega cities such as Paris.

2) The reason why the M50 can’t deal with demand is primarily down to three planning mistakes. (a) tolling (b) not enough lanes and (c) absence of proper motorway interchanges. It has nothing to do with the fact that a separate ring road should have been built to accommodate local traffic – as your and ABP’s logic would suggest.

It is much cheaper (financially, in terms of M2 of land under asphalt, and overall regional quality of life) to provide for the required capacity by creating enough lane and junction capacity at the outset than building extra duplicative road infrastructure at a later stage running in parallel.

Why has so much infrastructure in Ireland (ring roads, motorways, traffic interchanges, airport terminals, rail, and bus stations etc) been so under-sized in terms of current and future demand and un-integrated with the rest of the system?

Why go off in a tangent and attempt to “re-invent the wheel” when the tried and tested infrastructure models used in the rest of Europe work?


probe

murphaph

The reason the M50 can't cope is because it was originally meant to be a bypass of Dublin City but multiple close proximity junctions coupled with poor planning have allowed the road to become a commuter route for short journeys. There is no reason to believe the same thing wouldn't happen to Dundalk and the town spread out beyond the M1, engulfing junctions as it goes. It's a small town. It already has 2 junctions giving access to the N52 at each end. The N52 therefore forms the eastern half of an orbital road. How much more do the denizens want?

If trucks and people doing their shopping can't get through then perhaps it's because umpteen unnecessary journeys by people who aren't doing these things are taking place. Maybe the emphasis should be on eliminating these unnecessary journeys or encouraging their taking by foot or pedal cycle. Dundalk is not a big metropolis. People could easily navigate it without their cars.

Good call by ABP, this one.

jd

It is not just the extra volume of traffic that causes the problem; traffic merging on and off the motorway has a disruptive effect.

murphaph

jd wrote:

It is not just the extra volume of traffic that causes the problem; traffic merging on and off the motorway has a disruptive effect.

Indeed, this was the very reason J8 on the M50 was binned. They finally learned that weaving movements cause terrble knock-on congestion.

probe

murphaph wrote:

The reason the M50 can't cope is because it was originally meant to be a bypass of Dublin City but multiple close proximity junctions coupled with poor planning have allowed the road to become a commuter route for short journeys.

Where are the close multiple proximity junctions on the M50 please? The M50 doesn't have a lot of junctions by urban standards. The key problems on the M50 are the toll booths, the fact that it has only four lanes and it doesn't have motorway junctions - just illconceived roundabouts.

Anyway if the original intention of the planners was only that the M50 should be a "bypass of Dublin" they need to go back to planning school - which was my original point.

probe

probe

jd wrote:

It is not just the extra volume of traffic that causes the problem; traffic merging on and off the motorway has a disruptive effect.

Merging traffic won't have a disruptive effect if there is enough lane capacity where the traffic merges.

probe

murphaph

probe wrote:

Where are the close multiple proximity junctions on the M50 please?

Junctions 9 & 10 (Red Cow & Ballymount) are very close together and have shocking amounts of (often dangerous) weaving. Junctions 11 & 12 are also close together and weaving is evident.

probe wrote:

The M50 doesn't have a lot of junctions by urban standards.

It wasn't bilt as an urban expressway though. It was built as a bypass yet it has junctions with regional and unclassified roads. The M25 suffers from exactly the same problems-junctions added to placate locals have made the M25 a commuter route with junction hopping adding chronically to weaving and consequent congestion on that road.

probe wrote:

The key problems on the M50 are the toll booths, the fact that it has only four lanes and it doesn't have motorway junctions - just illconceived roundabouts.

The NRA are on the record as saying that even when all the above are addressed with the upgrade, the average speed will be the same due to increased traffic volumes.

probe wrote:

Anyway if the original intention of the planners was only that the M50 should be a "bypass of Dublin" they need to go back to planning school - which was my original point.

Exactly. They made a hash of it and we should learn from these mistakes. It appears ABP have, thank God.

jd

probe wrote:

Merging traffic won't have a disruptive effect if there is enough lane capacity where the traffic merges.

probe

Oh- you want to add more lanes to the m1 around Dundalk?:)
Merging traffic will have a disruptive effect. And TBH , the cars will have barely merged on to the motorway before they are slowing down to turn off.

probe

murphaph wrote:

Junctions 9 & 10 (Red Cow & Ballymount) are very close together and have shocking amounts of (often dangerous) weaving. Junctions 11 & 12 are also close together and weaving is evident.

I have just measured it - they are 1,45km apart. Sufficient distance in an urban environment if enough properly marked and signposted lanes are provided to handle the traffic.

murphaph wrote:

The NRA are on the record as saying that even when all the above are addressed with the upgrade, the average speed will be the same due to increased traffic volumes.

The NRA have no plans to address the issues. They are only adding one extra lane in each direction. The E1 around Dundalk is a relative green field site in comparison with lots of opportunity to do things properly for the long term. Why repeat the M50 mistakes?


probe

John R

murphaph wrote:

The reason the M50 can't cope is because it was originally meant to be a bypass of Dublin City but multiple close proximity junctions coupled with poor planning have allowed the road to become a commuter route for short journeys. There is no reason to believe the same thing wouldn't happen to Dundalk and the town spread out beyond the M1, engulfing junctions as it goes. It's a small town. It already has 2 junctions giving access to the N52 at each end. The N52 therefore forms the eastern half of an orbital road. How much more do the denizens want?

If trucks and people doing their shopping can't get through then perhaps it's because umpteen unnecessary journeys by people who aren't doing these things are taking place. Maybe the emphasis should be on eliminating these unnecessary journeys or encouraging their taking by foot or pedal cycle. Dundalk is not a big metropolis. People could easily navigate it without their cars.

Good call by ABP, this one.

I Agree 100%.

The approval of remote housing developments by Louth CC that require a motorway connection to cope with the congestion they will cause is the big problem here.

The N52 should be more than enough to cope with local ring traffic for Dundalk, if the R177 is really that busy then perhaps a connection to the north of the N52 should be looked at.

I suppose "5 minutes from the N52" is not nearly as good a tagline for a development as "5 minutes from the M1" though.

John R

probe wrote:

I have just measured it - they are 1,45km apart. Sufficient distance in an urban environment if enough properly marked and signposted lanes are provided to handle the traffic.

That is less than a minute at motorway speeds for both joining traffic to merge and leaving traffic to filter off.

If you have ever driven the section you would know that even in relatively light traffic a half dozen badly driven vehicles can cause a mini hold up at this location. In heavy traffic it is a constant source of slow moving tailbacks.

probe wrote:

The NRA have no plans to address the issues.
They are only adding one extra lane in each direction.

There is no real way of addressing the issue, the M50 due to it's design and the unhindered development outside it is already an urban road not a motorway. The damage is already done.

probe wrote:

The E1 around Dundalk is a relative green field site in comparison with lots of opportunity to do things properly for the long term. Why repeat the M50 mistakes?

That's the point, in keeping local traffic off the M1 they are ensuring the same mistake is not made.

murphaph

probe wrote:

I have just measured it - they are 1,45km apart. Sufficient distance in an urban environment if enough properly marked and signposted lanes are provided to handle the traffic.

Ah, that's ok then. All that weaving I see (particularly southbound) must be my imagination. Anyway, 1450 seems a little long to me. More like 1000m I would have thought.

probe wrote:

The NRA have no plans to address the issues. They are only adding one extra lane in each direction. The E1 around Dundalk is a relative green field site in comparison with lots of opportunity to do things properly for the long term. Why repeat the M50 mistakes?

This is wrong. The NRA are making the M50 D3M with full auxilliary lanes between junctions (so the slip roads won't merge and junction hopping will be made easier, for a while) from the M1 to N81. This is effectively D4M as opposed to the current D2M. Not far off doubling the capacity as well as freeflowing and partial freeflowng the busier junctions.

You do remember when much of what the M50 passes through was greenfield? Adding junctions lets councils grant planning for dodgy developments as JohnR correctly points out. The developers (who I presume wanted to pay for this as it's unlikely LCC would have stumped up the cash) prefer the M1 agline than the less than sexy N52 one!

impr0v

The permission refused was for a new interchange on the M1/Armagh Road and ancilliary works, for the Indo to describe it as a new link road is somewhat disingenuous.

Furthermore, they seem to be missing part of the story in that Louth County Council were only promoting the scheme by proxy; the entire project, including statutory procedures, was to be paid for by a developer as part of a planning condition. Perhaps this was also a silent factor in their decision.

nordydan

There'll be a few boys in Crossmaglen unhappy about this call by ABP.
Maybe thats the main reason why all the treasonous west brits on this forum are so happy with the decision!

murphaph

nordydan wrote:

There'll be a few boys in Crossmaglen unhappy about this call by ABP.

I don't see why we should damage the efficiency/safety levels of a motorway we paid huge amounts of money for just so some people in a small Northern Ireland town can get to the shops in Dublin a bit faster. I doubt we do a lot of trade with Crossmaglen (not the kind that the VAT man knows about anyway!) so it's hardly in our national interest.

Anyway, Crossmaglen residents would take the B30/A37/N53 or unclassified NI/unclassified RoI/N53 to the M1. Maybe you mean Forkill, an even smaller place with even less cause to be motorway connected and also with an alternative route to the M1. Even if Forkill were in the republic, I strongly doubt a junction would ever have been provided.

nordydan wrote:

Maybe thats the main reason why all the treasonous west brits on this forum are so happy with the decision!

What is it with commuting/transport these days? It's turning into politics. If you're not happy living in the UK then move, don't whine at those of us in the south who just don't care about the sit-yee-ashun.

nordydan

murphaph wrote:

IIf you're not happy living in the UK then move

Only winding you up for gods sake! With comments like that, I would suggest a career in the UDA.:mad:

darkman2

murphaph wrote:

I don't see why we should damage the efficiency/safety levels of a motorway we paid huge amounts of money for just so some people in a small Northern Ireland town can get to the shops in Dublin a bit faster. I doubt we do a lot of trade with Crossmaglen (not the kind that the VAT man knows about anyway!) so it's hardly in our national interest.

Anyway, Crossmaglen residents would take the B30/A37/N53 or unclassified NI/unclassified RoI/N53 to the M1. Maybe you mean Forkill, an even smaller place with even less cause to be motorway connected and also with an alternative route to the M1. Even if Forkill were in the republic, I strongly doubt a junction would ever have been provided.


What is it with commuting/transport these days? It's turning into politics. If you're not happy living in the UK then move, don't whine at those of us in the south who just don't care about the sit-yee-ashun.

You are coming across as pro british, perhaps unintentionally. And telling a nationalist from Northern Ireland to move from the 'UK' is a bit inappropriate, is it not?

nordydan

darkman2 wrote:

You are coming across as pro british, perhaps unintentionally. And telling a nationalist from Northern Ireland to move from the 'UK' is a bit inappropriate, is it not?

Fyi murphaph, I was born in Kerry

murphaph

"treasonous westbrits" is hardly 'light ribbing' nordydan. There wan't even a smilie face to imply you were trying to be humourous. I can't see you, so how am I supposed to know you are trying to be funny? Ya get me?

Anyway, as for this gem;

You are coming across as pro british, perhaps unintentionally. And telling a nationalist from Northern Ireland to move from the 'UK' is a bit inappropriate, is it not?

No, if he wants to partake in a .ie website then he's going to encounter views of RoI citizens and we're not all gonna be waving tricolours and lamenting Kevin Barry's hanging! If the guy wants to contribute to commuting/transport and a cross border road is discussed then he's going to face the reality that a border exists. Simple as that. I'm not going to pussy foot around people because of their own political beliefs, whatever they may be. I would consider politely asking someone to move to a country they feel at is in to be far more appropriate than calling members on here "treasonous westbrits", whether it was meant in jest or not. In any case, if I was to be pro-british, intentionally or otherwise, it would be not one iota of your business Or do we not live in a freethinking democracy now?