N4 Foxhunter

Trampas

Who thinks that they should put bollards down on the N4 at the foxhunter heading west to stop people coming out of the garage and cutting across onto the Lucan bypass ut force them up the to the lights on the lucan exit and down the otherside of the lights.

I see to many cars just cutting in across a solid white line with cars driving at 80kph towards them

godtabh

Trampas wrote:

Who thinks that they should put bollards down on the N4 at the foxhunter heading west to stop people coming out of the garage and cutting across onto the Lucan bypass ut force them up the to the lights on the lucan exit and down the otherside of the lights.

I see to many cars just cutting in across a solid white line with cars driving at 80kph towards them

So you wait another 20 mins waiting to turn at the lights with the extra volume of traffic?

The entrance is to close to the slip road and wouldnt be built in todays world.

There is no ideal solution. You put bollards up you create another problem else were.

You dont put cones and wa*kers who think the own the road try and dodge 2 lanes of traffic.

But to be fair from a safety point of view cones would be good just a pain in the arse for any one going to Lucan

Chris_533976

Idiots will either hit the bollards or move them

godtabh

Chris_533976 wrote:

Idiots will either hit the bollards or move them

Not sure if you know the junction but idiots try a move across 2 lanes of traffic heading towards the lucan slip road. At least if the cones where there it mite put them off a little!

Trampas

kearnsr wrote:

So you wait another 20 mins waiting to turn at the lights with the extra volume of traffic?

It would take 2 mins to get through them lights as they are very favourable for cars going up the slip.

Idleater

Trampas wrote:

It would take 2 mins to get through them lights as they are very favourable for cars going up the slip.

I agree completely.

I thought years ago when the Foxhunter and Texaco were looking for PP to extend, they should have put an access road "out" at the further foxhunter exit already a bit up the slip road and make a proper "in" to both premesis where the current "in" for the texaco is.

That way the trucks that park outside (where they shouldnt) could drive into the carpark as a truck stop if they really wanted.

L.

godtabh

Trampas wrote:

It would take 2 mins to get through them lights as they are very favourable for cars going up the slip.

During peak hour the extra amount of cars would add to the q time at the lights. During the current construction work this just makes the situation worse.

Often you have a jam all the way down to Lucan village which strecthes back to EuroSpar. The lights maybe in the slip roads favour but when the junction doesnt have capacity then its not much good to you

r3nu4l

I think this is a no-win situation for anyone, it's a nightmare trying to pull out at the texaco if you want to bypass the village. It's fine when traffic is fairly light but horrible when there is lots of traffic.

It's also dangerous to slow down to let people out but maybe if there was a reduced speed limit before the Texaco it would make it easier to pull out and change lanes? Not a popular notion I know but probably the most feasible (i.e. cheapest ).

godtabh

r3nu4l wrote:

It's also dangerous to slow down to let people out but maybe if there was a reduced speed limit before the Texaco it would make it easier to pull out and change lanes? Not a popular notion I know but probably the most feasible (i.e. cheapest ).

Speed limit along here was just recently increased. If they changed it back there would be up roar as SDCC gave assurance that once the cross roads opposite Texaco was filled in the speed limit would increase.

I think the old system at the slip road worked better

r3nu4l

kearnsr wrote:

Speed limit along here was just recently increased. If they changed it back there would be up roar as SDCC gave assurance that once the cross roads opposite Texaco was filled in the speed limit would increase.

Yep, I knew all of that, I 'm back home every couple of months so I notice the changes and I keep up to date by reading the Lucan Newsletter and as much local stuff as I can

I do think that increasing the limit was wrong in this case (and believe me, it take a lot for me to say that, I like my increased speed limits!) as it make it more difficult to exit the Texaco garage safely seeing as how hardly anyone will slow down voluntarily to let people out.

I take the point though, reducing the limit again would cause some serious stirrings among the natives!

Elphaba

Don't the road markings there mean it's actually illegal to cross over anyway? People take chances they don't have to when it really doesnt take that long to get through the lights

jmkennedyie

Cones or flexible bollards is a great idea. I guess very few motorists exiting Texaco read the sign in the median telling West bound traffic to go up the slip.

BTW, as I recall the N4 upgrade will force traffic exiting Texaco to go up the slip. There will be one way "service roads" (lanes) parallel to the main carriageway to reduce the number of entrances/exits at this location and at others...Spa hotel/McCoy's motors/etc.

Seth Brundle

A concrete barrier would sort it out!
The volume of traffic coming out of the forecourt would not add much to the queueing time on the slip road. The two main delays that I have noticed are idiots who are in the wrong lane approaching the slip (either in the hard shoulder or still on the main N4) and also the bus stop at the top of the slip road.

On a related note, is there pedestrian lights at the top of the slip road, and if not will there be when the new bridge opens?

sweeper4

Elphaba wrote:

Don't the road markings there mean it's actually illegal to cross over anyway? People take chances they don't have to when it really doesnt take that long to get through the lights

The road markings actually mean it is legal to cross over. Two lines, broken white line nearest the station with continuous white line parallel. Was not created that way at first, but a lot of people driving on inertia used to the old layout found themselves in the lane directing them up the slip. Cue a lot of last second illegal lane changes. Now they are legal last second lane changes.

godtabh

There is a white line just after the entrance to Texaco all the way to the slip road. So if you enter either texaco or the foxhunter legally speaking you are meant to merge on the the slip road an make your choice were to go at the pedestrian lights.

The outer ring road is being built at the moment. When it is the volume of traffic going over the Woodies fly over will increase massivley. It will then become harder for slip road traffic to merge on to the fly over traffic (even if lights are in favour of slip road traffic which I doubt will happen as it will be the minor road). Each junction only has a certain capacity. At the moment the queue lenths at the slip roads is massive at peak times. Add the volumes that will be generated due to Addamstown (which will use the Outer Ring Road to get on/off the N4) and other developments means that the all ready poor situation will get worse.

Kashkai

On the one hand, you could say that this garage and the Foxhunter pub were built years ago when the traffic volumes at that time allowed the development of a petrol station and a pub beside a dual carriageway and a slip road.

On the other hand, and this is my view, the planners should be shot for their lack of foresight. Its madness that traffic from the Texaco garage can be allowed (legally or not) to pull straight out onto the N4. The only thing preventing daily pile ups is the backlog of traffic stretching back from the Newcastle road junction a mile away that naturally slows traffic to a crawl usually at or around this slip road. However, with plans to get rid of the bottleneck at the Newcastle road junction, this will hopefully allow traffic thats cleared the M50 to have a free run out to the M4. On the downside, you'll have a continuous flow of cars doing 80kph that won't allow cars to pull out from the garage safely.

Perhaps the Council should CPO the Foxhunter pub and bulldoze it which would allow a proper petrol station/rest stop to be built for cars and trucks before they start on the journey west. This rest stop would then direct traffic up the slip road so they could then re-enter the westbound flow down the slip road on the far side. Or would this be a crime against Irishmen everywhere that a pub was a destroyed in order to save lives:rolleyes:

r3nu4l

Prosperous Dave wrote:

On the one hand, you could say that this garage and the Foxhunter pub were built years ago when the traffic volumes at that time allowed the development of a petrol station and a pub beside a dual carriageway and a slip road.

The pub was there long before the dual carriageway, it was known as Ma Langans back then. Also, the pub was there long before the housing estates behind it so it would have been possible to put in a proper exit road road years ago with a bit of foresight but that would be asking too much methinks

Prosperous Dave wrote:

On the other hand, and this is my view, the planners should be shot for their lack of foresight. Its madness that traffic from the Texaco garage can be allowed (legally or not) to pull straight out onto the N4. The only thing preventing daily pile ups is the backlog of traffic stretching back from the Newcastle road junction a mile away that naturally slows traffic to a crawl usually at or around this slip road. However, with plans to get rid of the bottleneck at the Newcastle road junction, this will hopefully allow traffic thats cleared the M50 to have a free run out to the M4. On the downside, you'll have a continuous flow of cars doing 80kph that won't allow cars to pull out from the garage safely.

Exactly, spot on!

Prosperous Dave wrote:

Perhaps the Council should CPO the Foxhunter pub and bulldoze it which would allow a proper petrol station/rest stop to be built for cars and trucks before they start on the journey west. This rest stop would then direct traffic up the slip road so they could then re-enter the westbound flow down the slip road on the far side. Or would this be a crime against Irishmen everywhere that a pub was a destroyed in order to save lives:rolleyes:

That would make sense and be a great idea. Unfortunately the two brothers that own the Foxhunter also own the Silver Granite in Palmerstown and have hotel interests in Dublin and Kildare. I'd say persuading the council to make a CPO would be difficult due to 'politics' - trying to avoid any legal defamation here!

Seth Brundle

Prosperous Dave wrote:

On the other hand, and this is my view, the planners should be shot for their lack of foresight.

I recall a rumour from a good authority that a Mr Redmond was involved in that forecourts approval. He was also involved in the Esso on the other side of the M50.
But sure aren't rumours always incorrect!

Kashkai

As an aside to my idea to CPO the Foxhunter and its large car park, I thought we were all moving towards a more enlightened society whereby drink driving was no longer socially acceptable. Therefore, why does this pub need such a large car park at all. Shouldn't people leave their cars at home if they're going to drink or are all the patrons of the Foxhunter sipping coffee/orange juice before driving home. Perhaps a garda checkpoint at the exit of this car park would help to persuade people to leave their cars at home and thus the need for the car park would be removed. Maybe a new slip road could then be built from the Texaco garage around the back of the Foxhunter to allow cars to enter the slip road at a safer distance from the N4.

Ah, its easy to have common sense when you dispense with the need to take politics and big business interests into account.:p

Seth Brundle

CPO?
Should the state spend large sums of money buying out a pub purely to assist traffic coming out of the busiest petrol station in Ireland?

Kashkai

kbannon wrote:

CPO?
Should the state spend large sums of money buying out a pub purely to assist traffic coming out of the busiest petrol station in Ireland?

CPO - Why not? Haven't they been paying big money to farmers for bits of land so we can have some decent roads.

My own preference would be to remove the garage completely and thus problem solved. However, this would mean that you wouldn't pass a petrol station between the Esso garage at Palmerstown and the Mullingar bypass. Long way if you are on the reserve tank. I know most of us would know where petrol stations are off the main roads but tourists and our country brethren might not.

Now if we had proper garages/rest stops on our motorways, this would solve the problem mentioned above. However, the NRA believe that we don't need them as our cars will run forever without refueling and we have iron bladders that don't need emptying.:eek:

jmkennedyie

Prosperous Dave wrote:

...On the downside, you'll have a continuous flow of cars doing 80kph that won't allow cars to pull out from the garage safely.

Last plans I saw, the N4 upgrade that removes the traffic lights at the Newcastle road junction also forces traffic exiting Texaco/Foxhunter to go up the slip via a new service lane, so this scenario wouldn't arise.

AFAIR the Texaco service lane had two 'entrances' from the N4, one between St. Loman's & Texaco and one after Texaco.

Something Similar at Spa hotel / McCoy's motors.

icdg

kbannon wrote:

CPO?
Should the state spend large sums of money buying out a pub purely to assist traffic coming out of the busiest petrol station in Ireland?

To put this into context for people unfamilar: its' an extremely busy petrol station, to the point that I have in recent times only seen it closed once - on the day of mourning post 9/11, and I have it on good authority it was back open that evening. Otherwise it is open 24 hours a day 365 days a week, and busy no matter the time of day or night!

Point being, the CPO involved in purchasing this would no doubt involve an extreme amount of money, and no doubt end up in the courts for years. It would put the amount of time (seven years!) taken to close the median crossing opposite it in the shade.

I wouldn't agree with reducing the speed limit either, the 40 mph works limit on this road (which remained for the aforemention seven years after the works were completed!) was madness. It was built with a 60 mph limit, its now 80 km/h. Its one of those limits which to people unfamilar with the situation deem is mad...

Victor

Isn't this all going to be sorted in the upgrade scheme?

godtabh

icdg wrote:

To put this into context for people unfamilar: its' an extremely busy petrol station, to the point that I have in recent times only seen it closed once - on the day of mourning post 9/11, and I have it on good authority it was back open that evening. Otherwise it is open 24 hours a day 365 days a week, and busy no matter the time of day or night!

It was also closed the day of his daughter’s funeral. She died in the Navan bus crash last year.

Isn't this all going to be sorted in the upgrade scheme?

I've seen plans for an upgrade from the Dead Man's to the Spa but they are only at a very early stage and the South Dublin County Council hasnt awarded them. Wasnt paying particular attention to them. Just saw them on some one's desk.

But are you talking about the outer ring road works?

spacetweek

kearnsr wrote:

I've seen plans for an upgrade from the Dead Man's to the Spa but they are only at a very early stage and the South Dublin County Council hasnt awarded them.

They're not at an early stage, the've been planned since 2000 and were supposed to start in 2003. They are ready to go and will start in summer 2007.

icdg

While we're talking about the N4 - why have SDCC / NRA erected directional signage at the M50 roundabout in black-on-orange? True the upgrade works are going on and obviously these signs will be removed as works progress, but they look exteremly garish and hard to read. Contrast with the N7 upgrade when temporary directional signage was provided in normal primary route green, with patching and all.

godtabh

spacetweek wrote:

They're not at an early stage, the've been planned since 2000 and were supposed to start in 2003. They are ready to go and will start in summer 2007.

The final desgin hasnt been decieded. South Dublin County Council are looking for tenders. These tenders are in the early stage in my office with the deadline for handing them in coming up soon

Seth Brundle

[apols for digging up an old thread]

Last Monday morning when heading towards the M50 along the N4, a red Sligo regd Corolla van came out of the Texaco, drove right across the slip road, across the main N4, crossed the grass central median and joined the N4 inbound right behind me!

godtabh

kbannon wrote:

[apols for digging up an old thread]

Last Monday morning when heading towards the M50 along the N4, a red Sligo regd Corolla van came out of the Texaco, drove right across the slip road, across the main N4, crossed the grass central median and joined the N4 inbound right behind me!

Did you get his reg?

You should report him for that.

What a ****ing wanker!

Seth Brundle

Unfortunatley I didn't as he moved lane before I realised it. All I got was the year and county.

r3nu4l

kbannon wrote:

Unfortunatley I didn't as he moved lane before I realised it. All I got was the year and county.

Ah, yes, lads I'm sorry about that, I was in a hurry, there was a baling twine sale on at B&Q in Liffey Valley...:D

That is crazy, I've never seen anyone do that and to do it there of all places is just bizarre. How come none of the unmarked Garda cars that patrol that stretch happened to be there at that moment? Oh well.

Considering the amount of Gardaí that use the Texaco garage, he was a doubly stupid driver!! :mad:

egan007

Trampas wrote:

Who thinks that they should put bollards down on the N4 at the foxhunter heading west to stop people coming out of the garage and cutting across onto the Lucan bypass ut force them up the to the lights on the lucan exit and down the otherside of the lights.

I see to many cars just cutting in across a solid white line with cars driving at 80kph towards them

How about they just design the road properly rather than trying to patch a botch job?

godtabh

r3nu4l wrote:

That is crazy, I've never seen anyone do that and to do it there of all places is just bizarre. How come none of the unmarked Garda cars that patrol that stretch happened to be there at that moment? Oh well.

Question answered!

r3nu4l wrote:

Considering the amount of Gardaí that use the Texaco garage, he was a doubly stupid driver!! :mad:

Trampas

egan007 wrote:

How about they just design the road properly rather than trying to patch a botch job?

Well they are doing road works at the location now.

Seth Brundle

They are currently working on the overpass and Im not sure whether they are going to widen the N3.
However, neither of these moves will stop drivers crossing the slip road!

seamus

There was a drawing of the proposed new layout poasted up here a while back.

As other say, there really only is one solution to the issue;

1. CPO the section of land between the edge of the Foxhunter pub and the sliproad (and build a new side entrance/off-licence entrance for the Foxhunter)

2. Close the garage exit and knock the wall - forcing all traffic exiting the garage to go down by the side of the pub

3. Move the pub entrance about 25m west. Add in a mini-roundabout (inside the new CPO'ed section of land, not on the slip obviously).

4. Enforce a one-way system - traffic may only enter the garage from the N4 entrance. Traffic may only enter the foxhunter from the slip road entrance. All traffic exiting the garage and the pub must use the road from the carpark which joins the slip road further down.

This prevents anyone from crossing the slip to get onto the N4. With the new road layout, it should also reduce the time spent waiting to cross the N4, or to go up and back down the slip road to rejoin the N4 outbound.

godtabh

seamus wrote:

There was a drawing of the proposed new layout poasted up here a while back.

As other say, there really only is one solution to the issue;

1. CPO the section of land between the edge of the Foxhunter pub and the sliproad (and build a new side entrance/off-licence entrance for the Foxhunter)

2. Close the garage exit and knock the wall - forcing all traffic exiting the garage to go down by the side of the pub

3. Move the pub entrance about 25m west. Add in a mini-roundabout (inside the new CPO'ed section of land, not on the slip obviously).

4. Enforce a one-way system - traffic may only enter the garage from the N4 entrance. Traffic may only enter the foxhunter from the slip road entrance. All traffic exiting the garage and the pub must use the road from the carpark which joins the slip road further down.

This prevents anyone from crossing the slip to get onto the N4. With the new road layout, it should also reduce the time spent waiting to cross the N4, or to go up and back down the slip road to rejoin the N4 outbound.

Did you come up with this yourself or did you get it some where?

Texaco and the Fox Hunter will fight tooth and nail not to lose the their land.

Some of this is conflicitng.

Exit of texaco traffic will affect the entrance of Fox Hunter traffic or maybe I'm reading it wrong.

Any chance you have drawings or some such to see what you mean?

seamus

kearnsr wrote:

Did you come up with this yourself or did you get it some where?

Texaco and the Fox Hunter will fight tooth and nail not to lose the their land.

Some of this is conflicitng.

Exit of texaco traffic will affect the entrance of Fox Hunter traffic or maybe I'm reading it wrong.

Any chance you have drawings or some such to see what you mean?

Just an idea I came up with now. Super quick, badly done mspaint image attached...