Dual Carriageways being Re-classified to Motorways?

E92

Is this ever actually going to happen?

Were we being led up a golden path? The Minister has been able to change the situation under the Roads Act of 2007.

They made a lot of noises about it being done a while back, and we're still waiting.

A good few weeks ago in the Irish Independent we were promised that the Minister would be pushing on with it and it said that within the next 72 hours he would be implementing it and a Public Consultation would begin on the following Monday(it was in a Friday edition of the paper). I still haven't seen the said Public Consultation on the Department of Transport's website.

So whats the story? Anyone got any insight as to what may or what now seems more like may not happen?

corktina

i think what actually is going to happpen is that some roads will have the speed limit increased to 120 whilst remaining N roads.....

cormie

any list of what roads around?

corktina

corktina wrote: »

i think what actually is going to happpen is that some roads will have the speed limit increased to 120 whilst remaining N roads.....

Costwise it makes more sense, just changing a few speed limit signs as opposed to having to change every single sign and installing emergency phones, change road markings etc

trellheim

Motorways don't have at-grade junctions

trellheim

trellheim wrote: »

Motorways don't have at-grade junctions

I'm thinking about HQDC's only like the N6 Kinnegad - Athlone, all grade separated .

corktina

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm thinking about HQDC's only like the N6 Kinnegad - Athlone, all grade separated .

yes...i think that will be the criteria...

Zoney

Deleted User wrote: »

Costwise it makes more sense, just changing a few speed limit signs as opposed to having to change every single sign and installing emergency phones, change road markings etc

Cutting corners again would be inexcusable. Internationally "almost a motorway" is not a motorway, even with the same speed limit. We will not be able to say "our main cities are linked by motorway to Dublin". Maps will continue to show relatively few blue lines on Ireland.

Safety-wise it's also inexcusable. Motorways exist for a reason - they are a restricted class of road that pedestrians, cyclists, certain vehicles and learner drivers should not be allowed on. Hard shoulders are stricter (solid line rather than dashed). Motorways have to have emergency phones every km or so.

As for the signs, they are a different colour to emphasise the different road classification and restriction.

E92

I agree with Zoney. They are Motorways in all but name. They should therefore be reclassified as such. Andf not just the interurbans. There are plenty of other HQDCs that should be re classified, like the Ballincollig bypass for instance.

But either way there should be a limit of 120km/h. 120 km/h isn't even that fast, compared to some Motorways(UK Motorways have a design speed of 100 mph or 160 km/h, so in theory they should have a limit of 100 mph yet they're stuck with a limit of only 70 mph), but nevertheless a big improvement on 100.

Niall1234

E92,

very likely that the Gov want the entire route to be completed before they will reclassify as motorway.

So, when there is HQDC all the way from Cork to Dublin for example, its then that that whole route where possible will be reclassified.

fitzyshea

The idea is that all the HQDC's will be upgraded to motorway speeds, but obviously we will have to wait until the roads are finished. None of them are as yet.

Chris_533976

After the massive fuss over the provisional licence debacle a few week ago, I'm worried if this will ever happen.

The minute that learners/farmers/cyclists will be told that they arent allowed on these roads there will be uproar. In other countries they would be told where to shove it, but I am worried that the government will say 'fine, leave them as HQDCs to capitulate'. I want motorways, not the silly situation we have at the moment. What will happen??

GerardKeating

fitzyshea wrote: »

but obviously we will have to wait until the roads are finished. None of them are as yet.

Why obviously ? There is nothing to stop them with the existing sections, for example the Kilbeggan-Kinnegad HQDC

corktina

Zoney wrote: »

Cutting corners again would be inexcusable. Internationally "almost a motorway" is not a motorway, even with the same speed limit. We will not be able to say "our main cities are linked by motorway to Dublin". Maps will continue to show relatively few blue lines on Ireland.

Safety-wise it's also inexcusable. Motorways exist for a reason - they are a restricted class of road that pedestrians, cyclists, certain vehicles and learner drivers should not be allowed on. Hard shoulders are stricter (solid line rather than dashed). Motorways have to have emergency phones every km or so.

As for the signs, they are a different colour to emphasise the different road classification and restriction.

and yet I note that the N7 cahir to cashel section has a lay-by on it....its going to stay an N road isnt it!

icdg

corktina wrote: »

and yet I note that the N7 cahir to cashel section has a lay-by on it....its going to stay an N road isnt it!

That would be actually the N8. And these lay-bys can be easily converted to Garda-only areas.

The **big** reason to reclassify HQDCs as motorway isn't mentioned in any of the posts above. Its' access control. Basically, with a HQDC, anyone can apply for and be granted access to the road. People can build houses, shops, garages, and all sorts of other things on the road with direct accesses. Planning policy prohibits this, but there's nothing really to stop a council going on a solo run (with the big attraction of increased revenue in the form of rates in the case of business premises). Once these accesses start to appear, 120kph has to - for safety's sake - go out the window. You might even have a situation as with the Lucan Bypass where a road built with a 100kph speed limit has to have it permanently lowered, say 80kph.

With a motorway, any possiblity of this is eliminated - the law prohibits accessses onto motorways anywhere other than junctions and MSAs. Period.

corktina

icdg wrote: »

That would be actually the N8. And these lay-bys can be easily converted to Garda-only areas.

The **big** reason to reclassify HQDCs as motorway isn't mentioned in any of the posts above. Its' access control. Basically, with a HQDC, anyone can apply for and be granted access to the road. People can build houses, shops, garages, and all sorts of other things on the road with direct accesses. Planning policy prohibits this, but there's nothing really to stop a council going on a solo run (with the big attraction of increased revenue in the form of rates in the case of business premises). Once these accesses start to appear, 120kph has to - for safety's sake - go out the window. You might even have a situation as with the Lucan Bypass where a road built with a 100kph speed limit has to have it permanently lowered, say 80kph.

With a motorway, any possiblity of this is eliminated - the law prohibits accessses onto motorways anywhere other than junctions and MSAs. Period.

ya N8 damn sausage fingers.... :-)


why build the laybys at all then? they are waaaaay too big to be Gard only areas

SeanW

Chris_533976 wrote: »

The minute that learners/farmers/cyclists will be told that they arent allowed on these roads there will be uproar. In other countries they would be told where to shove it, but I am worried that the government will say 'fine, leave them as HQDCs to capitulate'. I want motorways, not the silly situation we have at the moment. What will happen??

And what's wrong with that? A lot of towns rely on these HQDCs for their main bypass - towns like Mullingar for example, had an HQDC bypass built in the early 90s.

Put cyclists, mopeds, tractors, L-platers, and the soon to be introduced R-plate driver (the last two categories could run to hundreds of thousands of motorists) off that HQDC by reclassifying it motorway and said users all have to go throught the town centre.

Not very sensible. Have you considered this?

martin1016

Pretty sure that where the Motorway ends past Dundalk and becomes a National road (all green signs) the speed limit remains 120km until you cross the border where there is usually a speed trap

Chris_533976

SeanW wrote: »

And what's wrong with that? A lot of towns rely on these HQDCs for their main bypass - towns like Mullingar for example, had an HQDC bypass built in the early 90s.

Put cyclists, mopeds, tractors, L-platers, and the soon to be introduced R-plate driver (the last two categories could run to hundreds of thousands of motorists) off that HQDC by reclassifying it motorway and said users all have to go throught the town centre.

Not very sensible. Have you considered this?

Not a problem in any other country. Why should we be any different?

ardmacha

Put cyclists, mopeds, tractors, L-platers, and the soon to be introduced R-plate driver

Few cyclists bypass towns, they are more likely to go into town or use the local road network. Learner drivers can have their accompanying driver drive on the motorway and R drivers need not be banned from motorways, but if they are it is because they are not qualified to drive there, so have no cause for complaint.

Not a problem in any other country. Why should we be any different?

Many Irish people think they should be allowed to go everywhere although they haven't actually learned to drive.

Chris_533976

I can understand that motorway-banned drivers might be annoyed that they cant use the new road, but that wouldnt give them the right to put everyone elses safety at risk by driving on HQDCs.

Meeting a tractor on a HQDC is bad, meeting a cyclist on the mainline crossing the onramp off a slip road is terrible. It shouldnt happen, and reclassifying to motorway would be the best way to solve a lot of problems.

It HAS to happen, what we have at the moment is a typical Irish farce.

SeanW

I am suggesting that you look at the consequences of reclassifying town bypasees on the town being bypassed and the level of extra town traffic they're going to have to deal with.

Firstly, as for the tractors and cyclists, that (sortof) what we have broken hard shoulders (and overtaking lanes) to deal with.

Also remeber that this government wants to introduce the Restricted Driver, who will be blanket-banned from driving on motorways for two years after taking out their first driving license, on top of a bunch of other nonsensical restrictions - none of which I think there's any need for but that's another story.

There are 450,000-odd L drivers now, many of whom will presumably become R drivers in the near future, and more people using mopeds, tractors and bicycles. Lets say the "motorway banned" figure does or will run to half a million people.

Half a million people would, as a result of a reclassification of a town bypass, have travel through various town centres instead, needlessly wasting time, and compunding any traffic problems that town may already have. I assume you agree that this situation should be avoided.

I'm suggesting that if the objective is to get through traffic away from town centres, that this objective is best served by a toll free HQDC.

But if we just want to see blue lines on maps, then perchance you are right and getting rid of the HQDC would solve a lot of problems.

It just might create many more.

Calina

SeanW wrote: »

I am suggesting that you look at the consequences of reclassifying town bypasees on the town being bypassed and the level of extra town traffic they're going to have to deal with.

Actually, on that point I have just this to say - it is ludicrous that the motorways in this country are also town bypasses. The sane thing would be to build point to point motorways and equally provide national route bypasses for the towns that are not classified motorways.

sorry. I'll get back to reality just now.

ardmacha

If there is significant cycle traffic build a proper cycle lane. Tractors should use the rural road network. Even if R drivers were banned for 2 years, a person might drive for 50 years, so this would only be 4% of traffic. L drivers are irrelevant, as I said, they can choose where to conduct their lessons, it need not be on a motorway or in a town centre.

By all means move traffic from town centres but not at the expense of increased danger on the main routes.

Niall1234

L drivers actually using the road for a purpose should essentially be off the road within a year. The rest should be L drivers who will be out on the road learning to drive with an expierienced driver with them

As Ardmacha has said, they don't have to learn on motorways.

MathsManiac

I presume that part of the reason that a lot of HQDCs aren't already motorways is that there isn't a reasonable parallel route. It wouldn't be fair to prohibit a whole bunch of people from a main route without giving them a reasonable alternative.

MathsManiac

MathsManiac wrote: »

I presume that part of the reason that a lot of HQDCs aren't already motorways is that there isn't a reasonable parallel route. It wouldn't be fair to prohibit a whole bunch of people from a main route without giving them a reasonable alternative.

I thought that they all were built in parallel to an existing N road, anyway learners, agricultural vehicles, cyclist shouldn't be on fast trunk roads anyway.

In most other countries tha motorway network connects regions together, rather than incorporate town bypasses. In another thread here someone mentioned that the Motorway network should have been designed to link regions.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=54430705&postcount=56

This is emblematic of a wider mistake that the government made in its motorways programme: it stuck too religiously to existing routes for the interurban motorways. They could have built one motorway from Dublin as far as Birr, and split it at that point for Limerick and Galway. Similarly, they could have built the M8/M9 as one road as far as say, Freshford in KK, and then split it for Waterford and Cork then.

icdg

SeanW wrote: »

And what's wrong with that? A lot of towns rely on these HQDCs for their main bypass - towns like Mullingar for example, had an HQDC bypass built in the early 90s.

The Mullingar Bypass is not a HQDC as we know it now. It is a standard dual carriageway which is grade-seperated. It was not built to the full engineering and curviture standards which apply to motorways. The HQDC specification as it currently exists, on the other hand, is identical to a motorway except for the lack of emergency telephones, broken-line hard shoulder, and signage.

In any case, even if the Mullingar bypass were a HQDC, the fact that it is seperated from the M4 by the low-quality McNead's Bridge scheme (which has at grade junctions with median crossings and no hard shoulder for some of the way) would probably mean its exclusion from any motorway reclassification anyway.

The Athlone bypass is similar standard to the Mullingar bypass so I would imagine it will pose trouble when it comes to reclassification on the N6.

D.L.R.

icdg wrote: »

The Athlone bypass is similar standard to the Mullingar bypass so I would imagine it will pose trouble when it comes to reclassification on the N6.

My guess is when the route is completed, they will then begin upgrading the likes of the Athlone bypass to motorway standard, clearing the way to rename the whole route M6. I'd say because of all the red tape that a lot of the schemes currently under construction will appear as N routes initially, and this whole motorway signage change will be a gradual one. Sure look how long it takes the political parties to remove their election signage.

By the way, anyone know why the N6 curves round to the north of Athlone, instead of going in a straight line to the south? Always puzzled me!

D.L.R.

D.L.R. wrote: »

By the way, anyone know why the N6 curves round to the north of Athlone, instead of going in a straight line to the south? Always puzzled me!

There are no routes to the south of the town, but Roscommon Longford & Tuam roads are to the north of the town.

If the route went to the south, traffic for those destinations would still have to go through the town.

As for upgrading to Motorway standard, apart from one (sharp) bend near the bridge, it should be fairly simple.

Chris_533976

They might apply motorway restrictions to it but keep it as 100kmh. Would do the job fairly well I reckon, but I dont know the town so I could be wrong.

Chris_533976

Chris_533976 wrote: »

They might apply motorway restrictions to it but keep it as 100kmh. Would do the job fairly well I reckon, but I dont know the town so I could be wrong.

I should have added that I don't expect this section to be upgraded as there is no alternative route for agricultural vehicles. There is already a huge amount of "local" traffic choking up ther town most days without forcing prohibited traffic through as well.

It'll be interesting to see what will be done here.

jd

Chris_533976 wrote: »

meeting a cyclist on the mainline crossing the onramp off a slip road is terrible.

There is a group of cyclists (club?) that fairly regularly cycle on the Arklow By-Pass. While they are within their legal rights, it is pretty irresponsible.

SeanW

The Mullingar Bypass is not a HQDC as we know it now. It is a standard dual carriageway which is grade-seperated. It was not built to the full engineering and curviture standards which apply to motorways.

I stand corrected. As for McNeads Bridge, I know all about it, I also know that the NRA intendds to grade seperate it at some stage.

ardmacha wrote: »

If there is significant cycle traffic build a proper cycle lane. Tractors should use the rural road network. Even if R drivers were banned for 2 years, a person might drive for 50 years, so this would only be 4%.

By all means move traffic from town centres but not at the expense of increased danger on the main routes.

Even assuming that your 4% figure will have any meaning any time this decade, its still 4% too much for a town centre that already has a traffic problem.

Where a town centre is already dealing with too much traffic, isn't it a more practical solution to send ALL through traffic on a grade seperated or HQ Dual Carraigeway?

Stark

Interestingly enough, I noticed that the new HQDC from Cashel to Cahir has a motorway style hard shoulder, ie: continuous yellow line rather than broken yellow line. Perhaps in anticipation of imminent upgrading to motorway status? A pity they've gone and erected green signs though.