[Article] Dual Carriageways to be re-classified as Motorways

spacetweek

jd wrote:

Even the "New" Asford/Rathnew section? I thought it was built to HQDC standard, what is the problem with it?

It wasn't built to HQDC. Due to a few issues, such as frontage access, and the need to protect trees from unnecessary destruction, many parts of the N11 in Wicklow were built below spec. There would be too much destruction if the N11 from Bray-Wicklow was upgraded. The best we can hope for is more junctions like at Delgany and minor improvements to existing junctions. And maybe a couple more frontage accesses closed off.

Does anyone know if the access at Delgany village is going to be closed off when the Delgany interchange opens next year? They need this, the town basically has the N11 traffic whizzing by right outside pubs, etc.

loyatemu

spacetweek wrote:

Does anyone know if the access at Delgany village is going to be closed off when the Delgany interchange opens next year? They need this, the town basically has the N11 traffic whizzing by right outside pubs, etc.

thats not Delgany, its Kilpeddar. I'd imagine the access on the northbound carriageway will be closed, but the one on the other side (leads to Kilquade) will probably be left open as it doesn't connect with the new junction.

As part of the upgrade the northbound access from Delgany is being widened to become On\Off - this will mean traffic looking to access Delgany village (including the 184 bus) will no longer have to make a long detour up to the Glenview Hotel to turn around.

JupiterKid

As far as I know, the existing interchange at Delgany Golf Club will remain open to traffic, whilst the Kilpeddar village exit is closed off and linked to local roads. Did you know that the Delgany junction was the very first grade separated road junction in the Republic of Ireland? It opened in 1973 or 1974.

ardmacha

JupiterKid wrote:

Did you know that the Delgany junction was the very first grade separated road junction in the Republic of Ireland? It opened in 1973 or 1974.

Was this before the Belfield flyover?

Gillie

Slightly off topic but there was mention yesterday of speed limits on Dual Carraigeways being upped to match Motorways?
Anyone else hear this?

Bluetonic

Gillie wrote:

Slightly off topic but there was mention yesterday of speed limits on Dual Carraigeways being upped to match Motorways?
Anyone else hear this?

*ahem* Thread a few threads down from this one....

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=246

Bards

Gillie wrote:

Slightly off topic but there was mention yesterday of speed limits on Dual Carraigeways being upped to match Motorways?
Anyone else hear this?

if you would care to read the topics of the threads there is one titled "dual carriageways to be re-classified as motorways" just a few threads below this

Gillie

Jesus! This has been out a while so! Thought it was just mentioned yesterday.

Cheers

Victor

Posts moved.

MDTyKe

Apparently the N1 - the new bit just opened (whole thing opening in a few weeks) will be upgraded too. It's definately M standard. Im not sure what the North will do with their A1 - it may become A1(M) or may not. On the approach to Newry, it's now 3 lanes wide each side, as opposed to the current 1... definately a big change!


Matt

JupiterKid

Originally Posted by JupiterKid
Did you know that the Delgany junction was the very first grade separated road junction in the Republic of Ireland? It opened in 1973 or 1974.

Was this before the Belfield flyover?

Yes, I believe so - by about a year or thereabouts. There was also a private underpass for Roadstone lorries built under the Naas dual carriageway in 1972 to access their quarry at Cheeverstown but it wasn't open to public traffic.

Mayo Exile

Article on the front page of the Motoring supplement in today's Irish Times (15 August) stating that there is a delay in reclassifying DC's to Motorways.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/motors/2007/0815/1187036472081.html

Promise to re-designate dual carriageways delayed

Changing road designations to motorway from dual carriageway are being needlessly delayed, says Tim O'Brien

It would seem that red tape is holding up Government promises to redesignate the new high-quality dual carriageways as motorways, thereby protecting them from development and increasing the upper speed limit to 120km/h.

Since the enactment of the Roads Act 2007 this summer the Government has the power to act as promised and retrospectively designate the State's new high quality dual carriageways as motorways.

But motorists planning to enjoy the freedom of higher motorway speed limits would be well advised to hold their accelerator foot in check: Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey is currently not considering any high grade dual carriageways for redesignation. This is because, according to his department, the Minister has not been asked to do so.

The stance of the Minister would appear to be at odds with the urgency displayed by his predecessor Martin Cullen, who had announced plans to change the designation of motorways as far back as May 2006.

Confirming that the new Ashbourne bypass would be a 'national' road, the then minister said it would nevertheless have a speed limit of 120km/h instead of the 100km/h "default" speed limit, as set out in the Rules of the Road.

Challenged on the issue Mr Cullen announced a review of the designation of all the new high quality dual carriageways, with the aim of changing them from 'N' designation to 'M' designation.

The new high-quality dual carriageways are built to the same specification as motorways he said, they were among the State's newest and safest roads, and he hinted strongly that he believed they had only been designated N roads in the first place because the planning process for an M road was more complex.

Mr Cullen told the Seanad on March 7th this year that the change was important as anyone could create an access point to a national road, while access to a motorway was restricted to grade separated junctions.

The creation of a power that would allow a minister to change a designation from national road to motorway was, he said, essential if the National Roads Authority investment of billions of euro in the major inter-urban roads was to be protected from over-development and urban sprawl.

In the interim, however, the Republic would have to put up with yet another "Irish solution to an Irish problem": two different designations for new, high quality roads with different speed limits.

Both have a carriageway width of seven metres and a hard shoulder of 2.5 metres and can carry the same volumes of traffic.

The Department of Transport advises that road signs on national roads are green and therefore an upper "default" speed limit of 100km/h applies. Motorway sections would have blue road signs and an upper default limit of 120km/h.

The Rules of the Road and the Road Safety Authority website tell a similar story but this is clearly not the case at Ashbourne where the "default" limit has been raised as the road forlornly awaits its promised redesignation.

And there are other difficulties for the unsuspecting driver. The new road from Dublin to the Border was officially described as "motorway" in ministerial speeches at the opening of the final stretch from Dundalk to the Border earlier this month. But the green signs on the southern side of the Border depict an N designation - strongly implying a speed of only 100km/h.

A number of the new high-quality dual carriageways will actually be tolled roads despite not yet being motorway schemes.

Why has new Minister Noel Dempsey not acted to sort this out once and for all?

Or perhaps for that matter, is it the State's 400,000 provisional drivers who are behind it, as they too are not permitted to drive on motorways?

Certainly the National Roads Authority, with its billions of euro investment is a body which should be keen to see the designation made uniform. However, it said it can't designate roads, as that is a power reserved for the Minister.

But this week Mr Dempsey's office appeared to lay the blame squarely at the authority's door. A spokeswoman said the Minister must first get an application in from the NRA to upgrade any route "and so far none have been received".

In a written statement on the issue the Department added: "The key point here is that it is up to the NRA in the first instance to decide which routes, or parts of routes, would merit being reclassified from national to motorway status.

"This is in keeping with the respective roles of the NRA and the Minister under the original Roads Act 1993. This Act, which established the NRA, places responsibility for the detailed planning, design and implementation of the national roads programme with the NRA. The Minister for Transport has responsibility for overall policy and funding of the programme.

It seems the root of the delay is that someone needs to call into the NRA offices in Waterloo Road and ask them to ask the Minister.

I have highlighed a piece above indicating the ambiguity here. Louth Co Co byelaws effective from today give a speed limit of 120km/h on this scheme.

http://www.louthcoco.ie/downloads/Byelaws/NationalRoadsSpecialSpeedLimitByeLaws2007.pdf

(See fifth schedule).

mike65

My proposed solution to this is a mass ignoring of the 100 km/h limit, we can all plead confusion caused by ministerial ambiguity.

Mike.

DerekP11

My proposed reply to this news....its a ****ing joke. No doubt about it.

What a half arsed little nation we are. A bit like a lotto winner wasting all the cash on ****e that has no foundation.

Can't wait on the book. Whats it called again? Oh yeah, "After the Celtic Tiger - A Transport legacy."

Zoney

Well, Dempsey wasn't known for *high speeds* in his last job either...

Chris_533976

Much as I'd like blue signs to go up everywhere, I think it would make common sense to wait till the interurbans are done. Its a waste of money (and signs) to have "Start of motorway" and "End of motorway" signs everywhere in a piecemeal fashion.

Just wait till each interurban is finished and upgrade it to M THEN.

Stark

How much can the signs actually cost? You're still going to have to have signs on all junctions entering and exiting the motorway, which would be the significant cost I would imagine. I also imagine the signs are reusable, as in they can be taken up and put somewhere else where they're needed. Meanwhile, while waiting for the road to become motorway, there's the danger of private accesses popping up, thereby ruining the massive investment made in the road.

murphaph

Chris_533976 wrote:

Much as I'd like blue signs to go up everywhere, I think it would make common sense to wait till the interurbans are done. Its a waste of money (and signs) to have "Start of motorway" and "End of motorway" signs everywhere in a piecemeal fashion.

Just wait till each interurban is finished and upgrade it to M THEN.

But surely a bigger waste of money to erect ALL signs in green only to replace them ALL again with blue! Start/End of motorway signs are small and cheap, full size ADS signs are large and pricey!

Ford Cortina

I don't know about sign manufacture, but isn't there a way spray paint the signs blue and then "repaint on the wording" in situ. In the US the letters on the sign are removeable.

Or....Are the signs so cheap that it's just as well to replace them?

I wonder will the contractor 1)remove the yellow stripes to make continuous yellow line, or 2) will they just paint straight over them? I think option 1 will look cleaner but probably not worth it.

Who does everything have to be so difficult, all that's needed is to replace the 100Km/h signs with 120Km/h ones. In the UK, dual carriageways have the same speed limit as motorways. If anything the ones in Ireland are safer as there is a hard shoulder for slow vehicles to use.

spacetweek

Deleted User wrote:

In the UK, dual carriageways have the same speed limit as motorways.

Really?? I'm pretty sure they don't. I was under the impression that our move in 2005 to allow 120 on a non-motorway was unusual at the time because it isn't normal in other countries, especially the UK.

Agreed on upgrading to Mway before the road opens, otherwise you're spending loads of money on signs and then having to replace all of them. And they'll screw that up, like they usually do. The NRA should be directly responsible for sign erection on national roads!

Stark wrote:

Meanwhile, while waiting for the road to become motorway, there's the danger of private accesses popping up, thereby ruining the massive investment made in the road.

I know there's no law against that, only a policy, but surely only a really stupid local council would actually allow it? ::roll eyes::

Stark

spacetweek wrote:

Really?? I'm pretty sure they don't. I was under the impression that our move in 2005 to allow 120 on a non-motorway was unusual at the time because it isn't normal in other countries, especially the UK.

It's definitely 70mph for a dual carriageway in the UK

http://www.highwaycode.gov.uk/09.htm#103

That said, you do see an awful lot of them with 60mph signs up.

spacetweek wrote:

but surely only a really stupid local council would actually allow it?

Well from the original article:

The National Roads Authority has however been alarmed at the level of housing and commercial 'ribbon' developments permitted alongside dual-carriageways. When these developments are being built new access slip roads and junctions are also created.

New NRA research has shown that 26pc of road deaths and 50pc of all crashes occur at junctions where drivers are making right-hand turns off roads and this is a growing problem on dual-carriageways where planning permissions are granted for developments with access roads to the dual-carriageway.
....
Mr Dempsey said yesterday that there were major differences between the access and development controls that apply to the two road types.

Development beside and access to motorways was far more stringently controlled than in the case of dual carriageways.

So it seems that there are in fact, some really stupid local councils in Ireland.

Zoney

Stark wrote:

So it seems that there are in fact, some really stupid local councils in Ireland.

"Really stupid" would suggest that they aren't aware of what they're doing and the reprecussions. However, that's not the case.

jd

At one stage a few years ago the NRA said it would find it hard to justify spending money on N roadsin County Clare because of the lax approach to planning permission there.

spacetweek

spacetweek wrote:

Really?? I'm pretty sure they don't. I was under the impression that our move in 2005 to allow 120 on a non-motorway was unusual at the time because it isn't normal in other countries, especially the UK.

As someone who learned to drive in the UK and have driven there for 30 years, I can assure you that 70mph is the default speed on Motorways & duel carriageways, but as Stark says many sections have been reduced to 60mph, mainly on older sections that were existing roads that had a parallel two lane road built to make it duelled (the existing section sometimes being a bit windey).

Many other sections have had the speed reduced because of volumes of traffic and large numbers of junctions thet cross the central reservation.
Most interurban duel carriageways are 70mph (one exception I know of is the A14 between Huntingdon & Cambridge, when constructed 70mph - then reduced to 60mph when the road was redesignated the A14 (used to be A604) along with at least six speed cameras!, may now be 50mph due to ever increasing traffic levels (I believe more traffic than the Dublin M50!)).

spacetweek

jd wrote:

At one stage a few years ago the NRA said it would find it hard to justify spending money on N roadsin County Clare because of the lax approach to planning permission there.

I'd heard about Clare, does it happen anywhere else?

They could argue that since the roads in question are being replaced with new ones anyway, that they'll then become R's and the private access would be allowed.

Not that i'm defending them, or anything. :P

Victor

spacetweek wrote:

I'd heard about Clare, does it happen anywhere else?

Take a look at Discovery Series maps of south-east Meath, lots of rural roads (admittedly not national routes) have continuous housing frontage stretching for more than a kilometre in the middle of nowhere.

They could argue that since the roads in question are being replaced with new ones anyway, that they'll then become R's and the private access would be allowed.

No, they were even allowing one off houses one new national route alignments. Look at Ennis-Clarecastle, it is longer (north-south) than Cork (north-south).

E92

Niall1234 wrote:

Nice to see that common sense is starting to prevail.

Having the likes of cyclists and tractors travelling on interurbans at scandalously slow speeds is quite ridiculous.

Will Naas to Dublin be classified as Motorway but with a 100kph speed limit.

If you ask me, a 110kph speed limit should be brought in for DC which aren't up to the 120kph limit.

I would imagine the Cashel bypass won't get 120kph limit either.

Why shouldn't it? I notice that according to the NRA the N1 Dundalk to the border scheme is a mere standard Dual Carriageway, yet it has a 120 km/h speed limit. There is therefore nothing stopping any Standard DC from having a 120 km/h speed limit.

If all standard DC's had 120 limits, I would have no problem whatsoever with them(I'm more bothered about the fact you can only go 100 on them than anything else).

As for the Motoways, I firmly believe that 120 is a tad conservative for them. Its still a lot better than the 70 mph limit before, but most of the Motorways I've been on in this country are well capable of as much as 160 km/h.

I would like Motorways to have a speed limit of 140 at least, however not until such time as Irish people can drive properly.

If the Irish could drive properly, I would see no real reason why our Motorway netwok couldn't have no speed limits whatsoever(it has been shown in Germany where they do drive properly that the parts of the German Autobahn which have no speed limit are every bit as safe as those with a speed limit, for all those who will want to slaughter me with this speed kills nonsense).


Incidentally, when exactly are these upgrades going to happen, if indeed they will actually happen? Things have gone very quiet on this upgrading up M-way business recently.

Chris_533976

Yeah, they need to actually start doing something about this now that they can.

WE WANT BLUE SIGNS!!!


But much as I'd like no speed limits, would you trust Irish drivers with no speed limits? Germans would be more trustworthy with that. Also, the geometry (bends etc) of the new motorways wouldnt be up to no-speed-limit standards. Slight curves at 120kmh can become unmanagable bends at 200.

Stark

Chris_533976 wrote:

But much as I'd like no speed limits, would you trust Irish drivers with no speed limits?

I actually don't think it would make much difference here. The thing is, it's a minority of people who want to exceed the speed limit on the motorways and they generally do regardless of what the sign says. A large percentage of drivers are happy to trottle on at less than the speed limit on our motorways. I was reading a free speeds survey (was linked off a thread here, free speed is the speed that drivers choose to drive at when the road is clear), and while the free speed in urban areas was generally 60kph (10kph greater than speed limit), free speed on motorways averaged out at about 100kph - 110kph.

Increasing the speed limit by a significant margin might even discourage the drivers who drive small cars that aren't strictly capable of doing 120kph but drive at that speed because the sign says so imo. I know a few people driving Seicentos who will push their cars to the 120kph when on the motorway, whereas if there wasn't a speed limit, they might hang back at a more comfortable 100 - 110kph.

Chris_533976 wrote:

Also, the geometry (bends etc) of the new motorways wouldnt be up to no-speed-limit standards. Slight curves at 120kmh can become unmanagable bends at 200.

That is true. I notice a few of the new motorways have much narrower lanes and more incline/curvature sections. I always feel like I'm about to brush off the concrete median when I overtake on some sections of the Fermoy bypass.