Remaining inter-urbans are apparently underway!

Irish and Proud

If I have understood correctly from www.transport21.ie, the following projects have commenced construction in February of this year:

1. M7 Castletown (well Borris really! ) to Nenagh;
2. M9 Kilcullen to Carlow;
3. M9 Carlow to Knocktopher (plus N10 spur I imagine!);
4. N52 Tullamore By-pass (not an inter-urban - I know!)...

...so all the inter-urbans are either operational or underway!

Now, I still haven't got any word about the N18 Gort to Crusheen or Gort to Oranmore (actually Athenry! ). Also,I believe the mainline design speed of these projects is 120kph, so will they be classified as the M18? - Well, we'll just have to wait and see!

Regards!

Chris_533976

A few months ago I heard from the NRA that the N18 schemes will be nearer to the end of this year to start.

No word yet on M/N status.

I'd say at least part will the M, to the junction at Kiltiernan. This will be due to their being no further junctions until the M6 junction near Athenry.

That said, the M6 there is NOT in the first round of reclassifications for some reason. But by the time the N18 is built hopefully it will be so we'll get at least some M18.

Hopefully the N18 will be M right back to Shannon as the road is up to it.

kman

Yes, I drove the N7 today to Limerick, the orange works access signs are up now from the end of motorway at Portlaoise to Nenagh, so seems all remaining sections are now being worked on at last.

mysterious

kman wrote: »

Yes, I drove the N7 today to Limerick, the orange works access signs are up now from the end of motorway at Portlaoise to Nenagh, so seems all remaining sections are now being worked on at last.

There has been archeoligical digs, fencing, guys going around with SUVs with yellow jackets.


But i don't see any actual work! the Portlaoise Borris well in advanced at this stage, as so is the Limerick - Nenagh end.

But there is no work from the Nenagh to Borris from what i've seen yesterday!

Chris_533976

From the website ->

Work also began on the N25 Tullamore By Pass.

Well done lads, thats one hell of a bypass

mysterious

oh oh and OH

The bypass has 6 bridges.

And...it even has 1 underbridge too

This is unbelievable...

Bards

mysterious wrote: »

oh oh and OH

The bypass has 6 bridges.

And...it even has 1 underbridge too

This is unbelievable...

and if you go to check out the scheme on T21 they have a picture of the new suir cable stayed bridge in Waterford currently under construction. maybe they got the N25 and the N52 mixed up?


http://www.transport21.ie/PROJECTS/ROADS/N52_Tullamore_By_Pass.html

Stark

Chris_533976 wrote: »

No word yet on M/N status.

Friday was the last day for objections to the motorway orders so hopefully there should be some more progress soon.

Chris_533976

Hopefully a second round

I sent in to that email address telling them to ignore all the whingers and haters and do whats right for the country

ga2re2t

mysterious wrote: »

oh oh and OH

The bypass has 6 bridges.

And...it even has 1 underbridge too

This is unbelievable...

On a serious note: The consultants for the Tullamore bypass concluded that it should be at least a 2+1 type, based on NRA guidelines. For safety reasons they also suggested only having one junction, with the N80 to the south of Tullamore.
The road is now being built as a standard single carriageway and, although I'm not sure, will probably have an extra two junctions with local roads.

Seems to me like a few local politicians hijacked this project.

Of course, (in case people don't know already) it's only in T21 cos of Brian Cowen's clout.

spacetweek

Stark wrote: »

Friday was the last day for objections to the motorway orders so hopefully there should be some more progress soon.

Are you referring to a second round of changes? They've already announced their first-round list (discussed elsewhere but it's basically N7,N8,N9 and N6 from Athlone-Kinnegad.)

Chris_533976

Hopefully, roughly including parts of the N18, N25, N22 and N11. At least

fricatus

Bards wrote: »

and if you go to check out the scheme on T21 they have a picture of the new suir cable stayed bridge in Waterford currently under construction. maybe they got the N25 and the N52 mixed up?


http://www.transport21.ie/PROJECTS/ROADS/N52_Tullamore_By_Pass.html

Oh my God, tools!

E92

I thought the public consultation on the reclassifying of the roads ended at the end of February, no?

What's this round 2 all about?

Stark

spacetweek wrote: »

Are you referring to a second round of changes? They've already announced their first-round list (discussed elsewhere but it's basically N7,N8,N9 and N6 from Athlone-Kinnegad.)

In each of the PDF documents containing the proposals to redesignate those roads as motorway, there's a section that says objections can be made up to Friday 28th March 2008.

Saabdub

Driving past the Priory Pub on the N9 you can now see the fence-lines of the Kilcullen to Carlow road and the excavation of the Athy link Road.

Saabdub

Chris_533976

E92 wrote: »

I thought the public consultation on the reclassifying of the roads ended at the end of February, no?

What's this round 2 all about?

And this Round 2 is what I would like to happen

nordydan

Saabdub wrote: »

Driving past the Priory Pub on the N9 you can now see the fence-lines of the Kilcullen to Carlow road and the excavation of the Athy link Road.

Saabdub

Was down in Kilkenny and waterford at the weekend with the missus. 40 minuted to get through Carlow. I also saw the road marked out between kilcullen and carlow.

It was the first time I have been on the N10 in my life. I'll safely say neither road will be missed!!

Irish and Proud

Saabdub wrote: »

Driving past the Priory Pub on the N9 you can now see the fence-lines of the Kilcullen to Carlow road and the excavation of the Athy link Road.

Saabdub

It's good too see this project off the blocks so fast - it'll do a great job to as far as Carlow.

However, we'll be very sad to miss Castledermot! - Won't we?!! :rolleyes:

On second thoughts, I guess not!

Let's hope the Carlow to Knocktopher section makes good progress too - BTW, isn't the Carlow By-pass due to open very soon? - Wonder how the Waterford to Knocktopher section is doing? Isn't it by-passing an already brilliant section of N9?!! :rolleyes: Seriously though, the M9 will surely be a great job when it's done and dusted!

Regards!

fricatus

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Wonder how the Waterford to Knocktopher section is doing?

Heading north out of Waterford, about halfway to Mullinavat, you can see the excavation running parallel about half a km to the east of the current road and right through some high ground. There's an overbridge for some local road passing over it at quite a height. I don't know if it's open to traffic yet, but I'd say there's some view from up there!

A little before that, just leaving the city, you can see a viaduct on the left hand side through the trees, crossing the little Blackwater stream near Kilmacow. It looks more or less finished.

And then north of Mullinavat, at Knockmoylan, there's a bridge under construction to carry the M9 over the current N9 - extremely impressive! The supports appear to be more or less complete. I would imagine the beams will be put in place sometime over the next two or three months. But will they have to close the current road to do so? We're not spoiled for diversion routes!

Lastly, there's an NRA sign as you travel south out of Ballyhale, which says that the Waterford-Knocktopher section is due to open in Spring 2009.

Roll on...

Irish and Proud

fricatus wrote: »

Heading north out of Waterford, about halfway to Mullinavat, you can see the excavation running parallel about half a km to the east of the current road and right through some high ground. There's an overbridge for some local road passing over it at quite a height. I don't know if it's open to traffic yet, but I'd say there's some view from up there!

A little before that, just leaving the city, you can see a viaduct on the left hand side through the trees, crossing the little Blackwater stream near Kilmacow. It looks more or less finished.

And then north of Mullinavat, at Knockmoylan, there's a bridge under construction to carry the M9 over the current N9 - extremely impressive! The supports appear to be more or less complete. I would imagine the beams will be put in place sometime over the next two or three months. But will they have to close the current road to do so? We're not spoiled for diversion routes!

Lastly, there's an NRA sign as you travel south out of Ballyhale, which says that the Waterford-Knocktopher section is due to open in Spring 2009.

Roll on...

Thanks for that mate! - I believe the M25 is going great guns too!

Regards!

road_high

It's going to be some turnaround; one of the worst N roads in ireland being transformed into one of the best...

mysterious

Since the Castletown - Nenagh M7 has started.

Which side are they starting on?

The final bridge that carries the Old Dublin road (R445) is going to be knocked, as its to narrow.

Where will the new bridge be positioned?

It would make sense to move the replacing bridge at the crossroads where the existing N7 hits the crossroad just after the bypass at the current N7, a few reasons

1.gives local traffic greater access to the Motorway, and its 400 yards nearer to Toomevara.
2. Further away from houses, the existing interchange actually circles a few houses:eek: its actually land locked bt the bypass on one side and the old road on the other, with slips completely encaving the houses on the right off the R445!
3. More space and allows the R445 to go in a proper alignement over the M7 the current layout is crazy.

fricatus

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Thanks for that mate! - I believe the M25 is going great guns too!

Regards!

It's flying along... some sections already have some sort of tarmac/underlay (sorry, total layman here...) already down. The bridge pylon is about halfway built - seriously impressive sight on the right coming in from Carrick-on-Suir. The top of it is lit up like a Christmas tree, so at night it's extremely cool.

Check out this thread. The guy who does it is a legend. It's the most impressive photographic record I've seen of modern Waterford, and if you trawl through it, especially the last four or five pages, you'll see some serious pictures of the construction activity:

http://www.upthedeise.com/waterfordmessageboard/viewtopic.php?t=101

mysterious

Guess the mother of all roads.... THE N7, is not to be discussed yet:D

tonc76

Gort - Crusheen and Oranmore - Gort have been recently designated M18

Tender process for both is currently ongoing

mysterious

tonc76 wrote: »

Gort - Crusheen and Oranmore - Gort have been recently designated M18

Tender process for both is currently ongoing

That's interesting as the Ennis bypass and Shannon Dual carriegway are mostly of standard DC design with a few HQDC bits.. Needs some doing before it ever get re-designated!

It just reminded that we officially will have an M18/M17 intersection with the N6 staying DC, that's a tad odd when looking at it like that!

Considering the radial routes would of been the M routes:) Oh well.

And the 3 level stack... ugh..

ga2re2t

mysterious wrote: »

It just reminded that we officially will have an M18/M17 intersection with the N6 staying DC, that's a tad odd when looking at it like that!

I keep wondering why people are calling it an M18/M17 intersection? They're gonna be basically the one road right, so they won't actually be "intersecting" with one another? It'll be just a change of name at a specific point.
The M18/M17 stretch will, though, be intersecting with the N6 (which will almost certainly be reclassified in due course to M6).

I presume most people on this board are for a fully free-flow, non-restricted, interchange at the M6/M17/M18, like the ones they're constructing at the N6/M50 and N7/M50? My experience here in France is that very few large motorway interchanges are non-restricted. Most are designed for specific movements only, and other nearby junctions are to be used for full "freedom" so to speak. Here's one near Dijon for example:
http://maps.google.fr/?ie=UTF8&ll=47.275269,5.145121&spn=0.021052,0.040169&z=15
(remember, driving is on the right!)

By the way, I put together a drawing of the future N6/M17/M18 layout on Google maps if anybody is interested:
http://maps.google.fr/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=fr&msa=0&msid=102535404538961261408.00044477633535c3f4313&ll=53.289026,-8.708038&spn=0.593525,1.2854&z=10

tonc76

ga2re2t wrote: »

I presume most people on this board are for a fully free-flow, non-restricted, interchange at the M6/M17/M18, like the ones they're constructing at the N6/M50 and N7/M50? My experience here in France is that very few large motorway interchanges are non-restricted. Most are designed for specific movements only, and other nearby junctions are to be used for full "freedom" so to speak.

I'm not sure of the exact figures but the M6/M17/M18 interchange will not have an AADT large enough to warrant a freeflow junction. The fact that this junction iwill be a 3 level stack would also complicate the arrangement as well as the increased cost of landtake.

Chris_533976

tonc76 wrote: »

Gort - Crusheen and Oranmore - Gort have been recently designated M18

Tender process for both is currently ongoing

Where did you hear all this? Nothing on the NRA site etc about it.

tonc76

A friend of mine is currently involved in tendering for both

Chris_533976

Thats great news anyways Construction still set for Q4 this year does he/she know?

Just looking at the roads, not taking geometry etc into account, the N18 could potentially be M from either Hurlers Cross or Shannon interchanges. It cant be M right back to the South Ring Road Phase 2 junction, as there is local access (and houses) floating about onto the carriageway. Not the end of the world tho, I'd rather have a bit of DC and have another project done than fix up some DC to motorway.

ga2re2t

What exactly is a three-level stack?
Any examples from the internet (Google maps, Wikipedia)? I did a little bit of searching and came across these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_interchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_(road)#Four-way
but I'm not sure what type of stack is proposed for M6/M17/M18.

Chris_533976

http://www.cbrd.co.uk/reference/interchanges/3round.shtml

This one. They dont seem to be too impressed with it

Irish and Proud

ga2re2t wrote: »

What exactly is a three-level stack?
Any examples from the internet (Google maps, Wikipedia)? I did a little bit of searching and came across these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_interchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_(road)#Four-way
but I'm not sure what type of stack is proposed for M6/M17/M18.

A 3 level stack generally refers to a rotary where mainline traffic for the 2 intersecting routes is diverted under or over the roundabout. In the case of the M17/M18 - N6 interchange, the N6 will go under while the M17/M18 will go over. The left turning traffic will also by-pass the roundabout by means of simple free-flow slips, while the rotary itself will serve all the right turning movements.

Regards!

Irish and Proud

fricatus wrote: »

It's flying along... some sections already have some sort of tarmac/underlay (sorry, total layman here...) already down. The bridge pylon is about halfway built - seriously impressive sight on the right coming in from Carrick-on-Suir. The top of it is lit up like a Christmas tree, so at night it's extremely cool.

Check out this thread. The guy who does it is a legend. It's the most impressive photographic record I've seen of modern Waterford, and if you trawl through it, especially the last four or five pages, you'll see some serious pictures of the construction activity:

http://www.upthedeise.com/waterfordmessageboard/viewtopic.php?t=101

It's really good to hear!

Only got to see a few photos so far, but some other regional road projects (other than R710) seem to be happening too - like part of the road to the Airport! Will try again later!

Cheers mate!

tonc76

See attached

Zoney

Chris_533976 wrote: »

http://www.cbrd.co.uk/reference/interchanges/3round.shtml

This one. They dont seem to be too impressed with it

And nevermind how poor they might be considered in the general case, in the particular case of the M6/M18/M17 junction, it means some of pretty busy traffic flows will have to merge on the roundabout level; Galway->Limerick versus Tuam->Galway and Dublin->Tuam.

This may be simply a bit awkward at the beginning, but it is undoubtedly going to be problematic in the future and the junction design is not very easily adapted to allow those flows to be made freeflow.

ga2re2t

Cheers for all that info. I get it now. Worse, I can actually picture the "changing lanes" war on the roundabout during peak times!

If money was tight, would a restricted junction not have been a better option? Although looking at it, I'm not sure that's a good idea as there doesn't seem to be enough options for people who wish to travel in the restricted directions.

What stage is the design process at for the M6/M17/M18 junction? Were objections submitted? Is it possible to design such a junction in a way that allows for future upgrading to a more free flow design (for example, by allowing extra bridge clearance and the like)?
(Sorry about all the questions )

Zoney

The thing is, I don't know that a three level stack is that cheap, even if M50-style junction (partially unrolled cloverleaf) is indeed more expensive. Three level stack seems to be a penny-pinching design that's only really useful for two crossing motorways that are genuinely low traffic (i.e. use on of these instead of the equivalent of the M1/M50 junction that has all traffic on one of the motorways go via the roundabout).

I mean, I could understand them being cheap and doing an M1/M50 style junction (ordinary roundabout interchange), but doing a three-level stack they surely might as well go the whole way and build a free-flow junction.

At least the N20/N7 junction in Limerick will be freeflow, even if it is going to be restricted and missing the link for N20 to city centre (Carew Park link road to Childers Road). The loops do look a bit "exciting" mind you - even tighter than the M50 ones though the gradient isn't as steep.

Chris_533976

Add to that junction a rest stop tacked on the south-east side (with presumably its own bridge over one of the left turn slips) and you've gotten a disgrace of a junction.

Tho it wont be too hard to upgrade, all they need to do is go a mile down the road and put a freeflow Galway - Limerick slip there, say. Its expensive, but land isnt a problem as it will be in the middle of a field, basically.

I will say I feel very sorry for anyone living there at the moment. Its quiet at the moment, but 3 motorways and a rest stop coming soon. Poor sods