Remaining Bottlenecks

JupiterKid

We all know the huge improvements that the Irish road system has undergone in recent years. Many bad bottlenecks - Naas, Athlone, Drogheda, Kildare, Gorey etc are now, thankfully, history.

However quite a few bad bottlenecks remain - places that weren't even problems a few years ago but are now a major headache. I'll give a list of my top ten remaining bottlenecks and when they're to be bypassed. Feel free to add you own.

1. Castledermot, Kildare (2010??)
2. Moate, Westmeath (2008)
3. Thomastown, Kilkenny (post 2010??)
4. Newry, Down (2009)
5. Mountrath, Laois (2010)
6. Gort, Galway (2011??)
7. Abbeyleix, Laois (2010)
8. Buttevant, Cork (post 2010??)
9. Navan, Meath (2010)
10. Ballinasloe, Galway (2009)

galwayrush

Claregalway co Galway.35,000 vehicles per day and no date in sight.:mad:

Chris_533976

LIMERICK (SRR Phase2) (2010)
Charleville (2010+???)
Clarinbridge (2011?)
New Ross
Castlemartyr
Killeagh
Waterford
Dungarvan

Plenty more there

Zoney

Chris: Limerick SRR phase 2 will be open before 2010, I'd nearly guarantee it. Even the midwest roads site says 2009/2010, but I could see it opening by late next year. They're already putting the tunnel in place, and parts of the alignment are nearly ready for putting a road onto. The flyovers are also going in as we speak, at the various junctions etc.

SeanW

I'd put in Longford Town, with the N5 going through it - the town often comes to a standstill with passing traffic particularly Mayo-Dublin cars and Norfolk Line trucks. There had been some loose talk of a "Phase 2" bypass for Longford but I don't think anything came of that.

Stark

Mountrath - think I was delayed there for 90 mins before after coming off the motorway on a bank holiday weekend. Got off the motorway, barely travelled a few hundred meters when I was stopped dead by the tailback.

I've heard Abbeyleix can be a nightmare but thankfully I've always been lucky with it.

Macroom, Co. Cork can be a nasty bottleneck apparently. No sign of a bypass in the future.

RadioCity

Castleblayney, Slane, & Ardee(sometimes), the right tun at Ballygawley A5 onto the A4, Omagh (nightmare)- a town which has a "throughpass" but not worth a monkeys, and Ballybofey....

mike65

Castleisland can be bad. They spent a ton of money on the road from Tralee to Abbeyfeale which is great but forgot the bit in the middle.

The good news is that all section of the Waterford bypass are well under way, they appear to be on schedule.

Mike.

Wishbone Ash

RadioCity wrote:

the right tun at Ballygawley A5 onto the A4

I think it's ridiculous that that junction wasn't incorporated some way onto the nearby roundabout.

(When the traffic is backed up, you could perform the cheeky manoeuvre of going up the left, making a left turn and then executing a safe U-turn up ahead and you're on you're way. Not that I would ever advocate doing it though! )

Zoney

RadioCity wrote:

Omagh (nightmare)- a town which has a "throughpass" but not worth a monkeys

Is the Sligo inner relief road much good (I'm assuming it's kinda in the same category)?

E92

Charleville is a nightmare in Cork.
Mallow is bad, and that has a bypass, but the bypass needs to be bypassed again .
Newcastlewest, Co Limerick(on Limerick to Tralee road)
Abbeyfeale(also on same road, and in dire need of a bypass)
Macroom is an unmitigated disaster 99.9% of the time.

Bandon still doesn't have a bypass(well it sort of does, but its useless for most people)

And Abbeyleix is the worst.
Mitchelstown needs one too, and I dont mean an inner relief road. The inner relief road for Mitchelstown is 3 miles long, whereas going straight through Mitchelstown is only a mile, so everyone still goes through it(its faster).
Sometimes Listowl in Co Kerry is bad too. Its a very narrow town, so if anything happens, it gets very tight.

What annoys me a lot is all those little villages on the way, you have to slow down to only 60 km/h from 100.

Gort in Co Galway is supposed to be a nightmare now that Ennis is finally bypassed.

Gonzo

Blanchardstown on the N3 - it may be a dual carriageway but its really bad on many weekday mornings.

Dunshaughlin were I live, really bad most evenings.

corktina

sometimes Kanturk can be particularly bad....if two or three Farmers bring their churns to the Creamerey at the same time and one of their Donkeys gets a bit frisky, you can get held up for three or four minutes sometimes....yes, its true I tell ye.

Davidth88

Mountrath
Adare
Newcastlewest
Abbeyfeale
CastleIsland

It always amazes me how the guys in these towns live with the crazy situation where their town/village is cut in half and still vote the same people back in every time

If I lived in Mountrath for example I think I would have raised direct action , to get that town bypassed , if that meant blocking the road or something I would have done it.

I hear silly rumours that Adare ' don't want a bypass ' because it would take trade away from the town.... I can't believe people are that silly.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

AndrewMc

Are there any vehicle-per-day counts for these places? Only one figure posted (for Claregalway) so far.

mcauley

Gonzo wrote:

Dunshaughlin were I live, really bad most evenings.

Only recently experienced this....but its hell alright. Doesn't ease up till late evening!

RadioCity

Re A5 right turn onto the A4:

(When the traffic is backed up, you could perform the cheeky manoeuvre of going up the left, making a left turn and then executing a safe U-turn up ahead and you're on you're way. Not that I would ever advocate doing it though! )

Not when I'm there you won't! I deliberately block the 2 lanes to stop anybody doing that. And I'm not driving a car.:D

There is an improvement planned for there, involving a rounabout junction with the new A4 dual carriageway from Dungannon and improvements towards Enniskillen.

Its a bit hit and miss, one Saturday recently a massive tailback caused by chickens collecting money in buckets for charity! I was tempted to tell them to cl**k off!

Zoney

AndrewMc wrote:

Are there any vehicle-per-day counts for these places? Only one figure posted (for Claregalway) so far.

AADT of at least 16000 for Adare (N21).

AADT of about 11000 for 6km south of Gort (N18).

11000 or so for Pike of Rushall (just west of Mountrath - N7).

Abbeyleix (N8) is about 13000.

Just north of Thomastown on N9 (Paulstown) is over 14000 - that's a fair bit considering that's Waterford traffic only, it's after the N10 junction for Kilkenny.

Some of these figures are growing fast though with over 8% year on year growth (2005-2006) for N7 for example.

There's a fair bit of traffic counter data accessible on the NRA website, here.

Gillie

Zoney wrote:

Is the Sligo inner relief road much good (I'm assuming it's kinda in the same category)?

It's made a huge difference as far as I'm concerned. If your heading in from N15/N16 its still a pain in the arse though.
They fecked up on Hughes Bridge and there is a big bottleneck as a result.
If your heading south (towards the inner relief road) there is only one lane. The right hand lane is for finisklin only while on hughes bridge.

Overall it is a massive improvement on what we had!

Other bottlenecks would be Gort & Tuam.
Can be very bad!:(

fitzyshea

Chris_533976 wrote:

LIMERICK (SRR Phase2) (2010)
Charleville (2010+???)
Clarinbridge (2011?)
New Ross
Castlemartyr
Killeagh
Waterford
Dungarvan

Plenty more there

Waterford is been bypassed as we speak its part of the N/M9 nad N25. Dungarvan is also to be bypassed.

Drax

Julianstown. Co.Meath.

Even though there M1 bypasses it, it still needs its own village bypass. People use this village as a rat-run to avoid the toll but also the fact that Drogheda is a commuter town with large volumes of traffic using the Julianstown road to get to the M1.

http://www.julianstown.com/traffic.htm

MLM

Sarsfield Road and Bandon Road roundabouts in Cork. The Dunkettle interchange.

AndrewMc

Athy, approx 20000 per day. Not aware of anything being planned, let alone built.

Wishbone Ash

E92 wrote:

The inner relief road for Mitchelstown is 3 miles long, whereas going straight through Mitchelstown is only a mile, so everyone still goes through it(its faster)

1. Everyone doesn't go through it. If they did why is the town centre much less congested than it used to be?

2. If everone still goes through the town, how do you explain the existence traffic on the by-pass?

3. The only reason that it appears to be quicker to go through the town is because much of the traffic is using the relief road, i.e. it's working!

The congestion in Mitchelstown is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. It was normal for it to be backed up beyond the Firgrove Hotel most evenings and occasionally back to the Skeeheenarinka NS area.

PoolDude

Enniscorthy is becoming much worse now the Gorey bypass is open.
For its danger value the Rathnew - Arklow stretch of the N11 is a bottleneck, 17 deaths in something like 8 years.

Carawaystick

Slane is bypassed by M1/N33 for the N2 direction. as is Ardee and COllon. If yer not gonna use the M1 waste time on out single lane National primary route so.

Wilton and Bandon roundabouts on the south ring road of Cork (N25)

Tullamore

corktina

Wishbone Ash wrote:

1. Everyone doesn't go through it. If they did why is the town centre much less congested than it used to be?

2. If everone still goes through the town, how do you explain the existence traffic on the by-pass?

3. The only reason that it appears to be quicker to go through the town is because much of the traffic is using the relief road, i.e. it's working!

The congestion in Mitchelstown is nowhere near as bad as it used to be. It was normal for it to be backed up beyond the Firgrove Hotel most evenings and occasionally back to the Skeeheenarinka NS area.

a lot of traffic usintg the Mitchelstown bypass is hreading for the N72 to Mallow BUT in my experiance MOST of the traffic on it is N8 traffic....

Irish and Proud

Julianstown on the R132 (old N1) - 20,000+ CPUs per day!

The R132 Gormanston to Drogheda should be redesignated as a national route, as it forms a major link to Drogheda South from the M1. To take the Drogheda Bypass means putting up to a couple of miles onto the journey while paying €1.60 for the privilege. The above mentioned road needs to be upgraded to at least D2AP.

Wishbone Ash

Carawaystick wrote:

If yer not gonna use the M1 waste time on out single lane National primary route so

Eh, come again!

Chris_533976

MLM wrote:

Sarsfield Road and Bandon Road roundabouts in Cork. The Dunkettle interchange.

That worries me.

Plans are there for Sarsfield & Bandon as one scheme. But as far as I know theres nothing even in planning for Dunkettle. Thats a disaster zone as it is, its going to be beyond chronic once Sarsfield & Bandon roundabouts are done.


Macroom is getting a bypass eventually, dunno if it'll be S2 or DC though.
Mitchelstown will be getting one soon, its the last scheme of the N8.

Got through Gort no problems yesterday at 630pm, 5 minute wait. But I've been stuck there for 30+ minutes often enough.

Limerick will be the big one though, I've frequently been stuck for a full hour trying to get through that place

MLM

Chris_533976 wrote:

That worries me.

Plans are there for Sarsfield & Bandon as one scheme. But as far as I know theres nothing even in planning for Dunkettle. Thats a disaster zone as it is, its going to be beyond chronic once Sarsfield & Bandon roundabouts are done.
(

Sarsfield and Bandon were supposed to go ahead as soon as the kinsale road one was complete, but was postponed to divert funds to the inter-urbans. The north ring road should take some pressure off Dunkettle, assuming it gets built. Rather than expensively re building this interchange, it would be better and more productive to improve public transport in the surrounding areas. I would love to see high frequency bus routes between, Glanmire, Blackpool, Mayfield, Mahon, Douglas, Watergrasshill, Fermoy, and Little Island.

yellow012

AndrewMc wrote:

Athy, approx 20000 per day. Not aware of anything being planned, let alone built.

Afaik the plan is: The M9 when its finished is going to be the main artery from Waterford - Kilkenny - Carlow - Dublin. What they hope will happen is a lot of the traffic that normally would travel through Athy on the N78 will use the M9 instead.
The existing R418 linking Athy to Castledermot will be upgraded linking Athy to the M9. There is also plans for a inner relief road bypassing Athy.
When all this is finished the N78 is going to be downgraded to a non-national 80kph road.
If this was all done it would make a huge differece to the town, as it stands its one of the most pedestrian/cyclist unfriendly places I know of.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

DMC2005

RadioCity wrote:

I deliberately block the 2 lanes to stop anybody doing that.

No wonder we have traffic problems when people block lanes deliberatly.

No matter what roads are built, idiots that do this will still cause traffic problems.

RadioCity

No matter what roads are built, idiots that do this will still cause traffic problems.

Are you aware of the context of the road, and why do you refer to me as an idiot?

The left turn is a rarely used lane, except for motorists who skip the queue, turn left, do a dangerouus U turn and are then facing the right direction. If everone waited in a queue and didn't cut in, the queue would move much quicker. And that is fact.

spacetweek

yellow012 wrote:

When all this is finished the N78 is going to be downgraded to a non-national 80kph road.

Interesting - source?

Carawaystick

Wishbone Ash wrote:

Eh, come again!

I don't see why money should be wasted on the N2 south of the N33 junction. the entire N2 should be re-routed via the M1/n33.
I see there's plans for Slane to be bypassed, and Collon on the nra's site. waste of time and money.
If the M1 and M3 aren't enough to get through meath, then the county should be paved over.

Same in Louth, the N52 from Ardee to Dundalk should be re-routed via the M1 and N33. it's free to use the motorway here so no excuses.

The N52 is already re-routed along the N6 from Tyrrelspass to Kilbeggan.

Wishbone Ash

DMC2005 wrote:

No wonder we have traffic problems when people block lanes deliberatly.

No matter what roads are built, idiots that do this will still cause traffic problems.

When driving large vehicles such as articulated trucks it is frequently necessary, for safety reasons, to block two lanes.

If an articulated truck driver intends to turn left from a 2 lane street/road into a narrower road, he needs to move across to the right lane to enable the trailer to clear the corner. He may have to do a 'muppet check' and block part of the left lane to prevent car drivers from crawling up the nearside and putting themselves in danger of the turning trailer.

This would be expected in a category EC driving test.

DMC2005

RadioCity wrote:

The left turn is a rarely used lane, except for motorists who skip the queue, turn left, do a dangerouus U turn and are then facing the right direction. If everone waited in a queue and didn't cut in, the queue would move much quicker. And that is fact.

It is not your job to police the roads, or ensure that traffic queues fairly. To block a lane in case someone gets somewhere before you is both petty and childish. This is like people that sit in the overtaking lane of motorways at 120km/h and justify it by saying that anyone going faster them is speeding.

Why can't everyone just obey the rules of the road, and stop using other peoples poor driving as an excuse for their own ?

Wishbone Ash wrote:

When driving large vehicles such as articulated trucks it is frequently necessary, for safety reasons, to block two lanes.

I've no problem with that, however it's clear that he is not blocking the lane for safety reasons - he is blocking it to stop people skipping the Queue.

corktina

some lane markings would want looking at and would helo a lot in this respesct.

for instance, Mallow railway station roundabout heading south...two lanes, right on for straight on or turn right...left one for Mallow town....nearly noone uses the left turn as they all turn at the previous roundabout....so this lane is largely used for queue jumpers....simply changing this lane to straight on or turn left and having the right lane for right turns would help the traffic a lot and stop the abuse (i did see the Gards stop two guys the other morning for abusing this lane...never saw that before...

DMC2005

corktina wrote:

simply changing this lane to straight on or turn left and having the right lane for right turns would help the traffic a lot and stop the abuse (i did see the Gards stop two guys the other morning for abusing this lane...never saw that before...

Totally agree. However if idiots still decided to block this lane just in case someone was jumping the queue, then we'd be back to square one.

yellow012

spacetweek wrote:

Interesting - source?

I was talking to the Towns Engineer. FWIW I will believe all this when I see it happening.

road_high

AndrewMc wrote:

Athy, approx 20000 per day. Not aware of anything being planned, let alone built.

Athy came into my head straight away when I saw this thread. The forgotten town of Kildare for sure...

fricatus

mfitzy wrote:

AndrewMc wrote:

Athy, approx 20000 per day. Not aware of anything being planned, let alone built.

Athy came into my head straight away when I saw this thread. The forgotten town of Kildare for sure...

The M9 is planned to take traffic not just from the existing N9 and N10, but also from the N78, which runs through Athy.

There's even a link planned from Athy to J3 of the new motorway:
http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/KildareCountyCouncil/N9N10KilcullentoCarlow/SchemeName,9879,en.html

Looks from the map as if it starts at the north of the town. It might be a better idea if it was incorporated into a town bypass.

JupiterKid

Actually, talking of Athy - whatever happened to the much vaunted and talked about inner relief road the town was supposed to be getting over 5 years back?

Prof_V

JupiterKid wrote:

Actually, talking of Athy - whatever happened to the much vaunted and talked about inner relief road the town was supposed to be getting over 5 years back?

Thrown out by Bord Pleanála:
http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/ER2035.htm
It got a fair amount of publicity because it's rare enough for this to happen to a road scheme. However, it's still in the 2006-2012 development plan:
http://kildare.ie/CountyCouncil/Planning/DevelopmentPlans/TownPlans/AthyTownDevelopmentPlan2006-2012/LinkToDocument,11530,en.pdf#page=5

road_high

fricatus wrote:

The M9 is planned to take traffic not just from the existing N9 and N10, but also from the N78, which runs through Athy.

There's even a link planned from Athy to J3 of the new motorway:
http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/KildareCountyCouncil/N9N10KilcullentoCarlow/SchemeName,9879,en.html

Looks from the map as if it starts at the north of the town. It might be a better idea if it was incorporated into a town bypass.

Still seems that traffic in from north KK wanting to join the M9 will still haveto crawl through the town though. Even for its' own sake the town badly needs a second bridge crossing or else will continue to stagnate and lag far behind its neighbours.

jimmycrackcorm

RadioCity wrote:

Castleblayney, Slane, & Ardee(sometimes), the right tun at Ballygawley A5 onto the A4, Omagh (nightmare)- a town which has a "throughpass" but not worth a monkeys, and Ballybofey....

Castleblaney is getting it's bypass as we speak. In fact my N95 gps mapping currently urges me to take the bypass but I don't have off-road capability.

AndrewMc

mfitzy wrote:

Still seems that traffic in from north KK wanting to join the M9 will still haveto crawl through the town though. Even for its' own sake the town badly needs a second bridge crossing or else will continue to stagnate and lag far behind its neighbours.

Indeed. I don't really see how the new link road will help traffic through Athy — that link only seems to replace the existing N78 Athy/Kilcullen route. Anyone coming from Dublin to Kilkenny would stay on the N9 already.

I also agree on the stagnation issue. Businesses have complained that traffic is preventing people from shopping (1km+ tailbacks at 11am, 20-30 minute delays aren't unusual). It's often quicker for me to drive 19km to Carlow than 2km to Athy (includes parking in both cases).

yellow012

AndrewMc wrote:

Indeed. I don't really see how the new link road will help traffic through Athy — that link only seems to replace the existing N78 Athy/Kilcullen route. Anyone coming from Dublin to Kilkenny would stay on the N9 already.

I also agree on the stagnation issue. Businesses have complained that traffic is preventing people from shopping (1km+ tailbacks at 11am, 20-30 minute delays aren't unusual). It's often quicker for me to drive 19km to Carlow than 2km to Athy (includes parking in both cases).

Yeah Athy is a town that needs a good kick up the ars£. Total inertia about getting anything done. As it stands motorists and pedestrians and cyclists are all getting the sh1t end of the stick.
Motorist are stuck in traffic crawling through a bottleneck of a town they don't want to go through.
Pedestrians, cyclist, people living next to the N78 in Athy have to put up with conveys of traffic trundling/speeding (depending on the time of day) through the town, night and day.
The M9 if it is ever completed, is supposed to be the solution to everything, somehow i doubt it.:(