M7 - Castletown to Nenagh

mysterious

I have seen ecavation works starting on either end. I could be wrong on it, as on either end it could just be the tie in works for the existing two new road schemes Portlaoise M7 and the Limerick end M7

Limerick M7 to Nenagh well speeding up now, it's to be finished in 12 months time.:)

Has the tender gone through for the remaining section of N7 in the middle. Has it officially started?

DWCommuter

Everything is underway on the Limerick inter urban. By mid 2010 it will be all Motorway/dual carraigeway. In fact all Inter urbans are underway in entirety, but 4 years or so later than planned.

Blame the farmers.:D

culabula88

mysterious wrote: »

I have seen ecavation works starting on either end. I could be wrong on it, as on either end it could just be the tie in works for the existing two new road schemes Portlaoise M7 and the Limerick end M7

Limerick M7 to Nenagh well speeding up now, it's to be finished in 12 months time.:)

Has the tender gone through for the remaining section of N7 in the middle. Has it officially started?

How much of the Limerick Nenagh have they finished? Is 12 months the offical time for it to be finished?

rekrow

culabula88 wrote: »

How much of the Limerick Nenagh have they finished? Is 12 months the offical time for it to be finished?

According to the NRA website the target completion date is Q2 2009. I assume this includes a couple of months for them to say it was completed ahead of schedule. So 12 months sounds about right. Don't know if they'll do a partial opening sooner as seems to be the fashion. Last time I was in Limerick they hadn't much done on the tie in to the SRR. Junctions seem to take the longest on these projects.

Chris_533976

Also where possible they seem to open it in sections (eg: Mitchelstown to Cashel scheme on the N8, half of it was opened back in October 07 and the other half is being done now).

testicle

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Also where possible they seem to open it in sections (eg: Mitchelstown to Cashel scheme on the N8, half of it was opened back in October 07 and the other half is being done now).

The Sections here are Limerick to Nenagh and Nenagh to Borris-in-Ossory.

Chris_533976

Yeah but often contractors would open the first half of an individual scheme and then work on the second. Thats what happened on the N8. The scheme is officially called "Mitchelstown to Cashel", but the Cahir to Cashel part is open, and the Mitchelstown to Cahir section is now being worked on.

mysterious

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Yeah but often contractors would open the first half of an individual scheme and then work on the second. Thats what happened on the N8. The scheme is officially called "Mitchelstown to Cashel", but the Cahir to Cashel part is open, and the Mitchelstown to Cahir section is now being worked on.

It would be great to open is segments. But both of the N7 schemes are fairly short in comparison to the sections underconstruction on the N6 and N8.

Though they could open the Limerick to Birdhill interchange section as it will bypass the most heavily trafficked N7 and Bypass the village of Birdhill where well over 16,000 vehicles a day carve through pretty village. This section is ahead of the remainder of the route also.


Has Anyone seen a peak of the proprosed interchanges for the Castletown scheme?
The Roscrea interchange, will have to be something out of ordinary, I mean as it will feed N62 both Roscrea town and Templemore routes to connect to this particular interchange for the N7. I hope they future proof this important interchange. I suspect with the upgrades of the N62 and proximity between both towns and the main interchange for the entire town of Roscrea. Where as other towns in comparison,

Interchanges/acceses on other interubans
Nenagh 3
Cashel 3
Portlaoise 3
Fermoy 3

Roscrea on a national route bear in mind still will have only one connection. so they should make sure that this interchange can carry extra traffic etc.

mysterious

Nenagh Castletown M7 Scheme is underway officially.

Contractors are Somague Bowen.
Never heard of them.


Any update on the Limerick/Newport interchange. I hope this is a free flow junction. Over 26,000 vehicles a day use it. with many R roads joining. Such as Newport and Castleconnel roads intersect the old N7.

Anyone have the plans for it? There are none on the net?

serfboard

Should this discussion not be on the infrastructure forum?

mysterious

Well there is no need for two forums.

Infastructure threads are in the commuter and transport forums too.

Zoney

mysterious wrote: »

Any update on the Limerick/Newport interchange. I hope this is a free flow junction. Over 26,000 vehicles a day use it. with many R roads joining. Such as Newport and Castleconnel roads intersect the old N7.

Anyone have the plans for it? There are none on the net?

I don't know. If they don't do something sensible with it, it will be a disaster I agree. My guess is that the best we might get is the new Limerick-Nenagh road crossing the existing roundabout continuing directly to the SRR mainline, and the existing roundabout just having slips added from the DC. The worst we might get is just expanding the at-grade roundabout... That would be doom (already is disasterous at rush hour but will be even worse with traffic continuing to grow and encouraged by the DC/motorway all the way to Dublin).

mysterious

Well judging by NRA website the N7 between The existing N7 roundabout and Ballysimon exit is nearly 25,000 vehicles with above average growth figures

With Newport doubling it's size and has no accesss to the new M7 apparantly. It will still cause mayhem to the existing road layout.

As you said when the M7 is finished traffic will reach double figures and long distance traffic will be more popular.

I asked a friend of mine about this interchange, and he said the Roundabout is being moved or taken out. The N7 will flyover the existing road network with many slips added. The existing roundabout is too small to add slips when you have a 30m wide road cutting through it, and the roundabout already has four exits, two slipways on each side extra added from the motorway would be distrastrous and inadequate.

I hope it's not a rotary interchange
I hope it's not a dumbell with roundabout

these interchanges are tacky, dangerous, inefficient and costly to upgrade

mysterious

Zoney wrote: »

The worst we might get is just expanding the at-grade roundabout).

The planners in Limerick almost TICK.. But not THAT tick.. It would be illegal to have it at grade since this road is reclassified to Motorway.

That roundabout is already very busy at present anyhoo. we really shouldn't have over 20k vehicles from a full blown motorway a day ramming into it 120kmh do you?

Anyway at bride over IMO is still not enough. to meet the demands of local and long distance traffic.

emmagean

am I correct in saying then that there will be dual carriageway/motorway all the way from Newlands cross to the end of the Portloaise bypass, then single carriageway from there to Borris-in-Ossary and then dual carriageway again from Borris to Limerick?

A huge improvement, but does anyone know if there are plans to bypass Mountrath with dual-carriageway?

loyatemu

emmagean wrote: »

am I correct in saying then that there will be dual carriageway/motorway all the way from Newlands cross to the end of the Portloaise bypass, then single carriageway from there to Borris-in-Ossary and then dual carriageway again from Borris to Limerick

no theres another motorway scheme that will bypass Mountrath and includes a new M7-M8 junction. This is already under construction.

emmagean

loyatemu wrote: »

no theres another motorway scheme that will bypass Mountrath and includes a new M7-M8 junction. This is already under construction.

oh ok. Thanks!
didn't see that on the NRA site

Zoney

mysterious wrote: »

The planners in Limerick almost TICK.. But not THAT tick.. It would be illegal to have it at grade since this road is reclassified to Motorway.

That roundabout is already very busy at present anyhoo. we really shouldn't have over 20k vehicles from a full blown motorway a day ramming into it 120kmh do you?

Anyway at bride over IMO is still not enough. to meet the demands of local and long distance traffic.

As I said, it would be worst case scenario. Don't forget there's no confirmation that the N7 Limerick Southern Ring Road is going to be reclassified as motorway (though it's really stupid if it isn't), and a motorway can terminate at an at-grade roundabout. If they do this it'll be a disaster though.

ardmacha

The M1 motorway in Belfast terminated at a roundabout for 45 years.

kevin7

There used to be a website which I had bookmarked (limerickbusiness.com) which gave details of the Nenagh-Limerick road, including interchanges. It was still live up to about 1 month ago, but now seems to be gone. I don't know who ran the site but it did have details and maps.

From the cached version of the site on google I retrieved this description of the Newport interchange (below), although its hard reading without the accompanying map. They are building a larger version of the exisitng roundabout (this work is already underway). The dual carriageway goes straight over this roundabout. 3 (not the 4 you might expect) merge/diverge slip roads come off the dual carriageway onto the roundabout. The missing slip road is to get on to the DC coming from Limerick on the old N7. Instead, you would join a realigned N7, which stays north of the DC, go along this for about quarter mile to a roundabout tieing in with the Castleconnell road. From this point you could somehow get on to the DC, although this is not described or mapped on the website. Here's the text:

"This junction consists of a grade-separated roundabout. This is the location where the proposed N7 Scheme ties in with the LSRR and the regional road R503. Two bridges (UB3 & UB5) carry the proposed N7 road over the roundabout. This roundabout allows traffic movements in all directions with merge and diverge ramps to the LSRR and a diverge ramp from the proposed N7 Scheme. The merge function to the proposed N7 Scheme is combined initially with the realigned existing N7 and separates at the Castleconnell Road roundabout. Pedestrian and cyclist facilities are included to allow pedestrian and cyclist movements between the R503, the existing N7 (both directions) and the Castleconnell road."

Amtmann

This is the only web resource I can find on the Castletown to Nenagh scheme, apart from what's on the NRA site. It concerns archaeological discoveries, and is out of date: http://www.roscrea.ie/content.asp?section=923

The NRA map (which I suppose everyone has already seen) is attached below.
Bowen Mowlem built the Watergrasshill Bypass in 2001-2003; I wonder if they're connected to these contractors.

Anyway, as usual I request photos if you're passing by and not in a hurry!

L1011

ardmacha wrote: »

The M1 motorway in Belfast terminated at a roundabout for 45 years.

And it was, admittedly, a disaster at least in recent years.

It now ends (after a bit of a meander as the A12, but entirely grade separated) at a set of traffic lights which isn't much better, mind!

Chris_533976

This is one of those schemes thats so incredibly hush-hush I'd competely forgotten it was being built.

Geogregor

Does any one have any news from N7 construction between Borris-in-Ossory and Nenagh Bypass?
I can find infos on this forum from most of the projects under construction but I couldn't see any news about this one. Also M9 is quite unrepresented on Boards.ie
M8 is covered the best thanks to Furet

Amtmann

The EIS for the M7 C-N scheme is here: http://www.kildare.ie/CountyCouncil/NationalRoadsDesignOffice/N7CastletowntoNenagh/EnvironmentalImpactStatement/Volume2-Figures/index.html

Maps here: http://www.kildare.ie/CountyCouncil/NationalRoadsDesignOffice/N7CastletowntoNenagh/EnvironmentalImpactStatement/Volume4-Non-TechnicalSummary/index.html

Some archaeology along the route: http://www.roscrea.ie/content.asp?section=923

Chris_533976

I spy a compact GSJ at Roscrea

Amtmann

I also took a spin along this today. To get to it I left the M8 at Junction 4 and took the R435 from Johnstown to Borris-in-Ossory. I then proceeded towards Limerick turning off at appropriate sideroads that cross the mainline of this scheme, which is officially called "Castletown to Nenagh".

So, what's the story?

Well, it is less advanced than the M7/M8 scheme. No structures are complete (though most have started), and there is still quite a bit of topsoil along the mainline. I met one farmer near Dunkerrin who claimed that the early finish bonus will no longer be awarded, so he says the builders have slowed down. Yet down the L-road opposite the Dunkerrin Arms work was going on today (Saturday).

***

The M7 C-N scheme looking to Limerick from 3km east of Dunkerrin.




The M7 C-N scheme from the L road across from the Dunkerrin Arms, looking to Dublin along the mainline.



The M7 C-N scheme seen from the N62 south of Roscrea. This photo of the mainline looks towards Dublin.



The M7 C-N mainline seen from 3km east of Dunkerrin looking towards Dublin.



The M7 C-N scheme mainline taken from the N7 at Moneygall. This photo looks towards Limerick.



The M7 C-N scheme mainline taken from north of Toomevara, looking to Dublin.



The M7 C-N scheme mainline close to the village of Knock, which is a few kilometres southwest of Borris-in-Ossory off the current N7.



An underpass underconstruction about 1km opposite the Dunkerrin Arms. The motoway will be carried over a local road by this.


***
From what I've seen, it's fair to say that most of the work is concentrated at the moment between Moneygall and Nenagh. East of Moneygall things are generally quite unadvanced, to a degree that surprised me. Still, this 36 km scheme isn't due in until Q3 2010.

jagged

Furet wrote: »

http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/LaoisCountyCouncil/N7CastletowntoNenagh/Map,15445,en.pdf

Bowen Mowlem built the Watergrasshill Bypass in 2001-2003; I wonder if they're connected to these contractors.

Anyway, as usual I request photos if you're passing by and not in a hurry!

Bowen are the cork based firm, generally over all the structures.
Somague are portuguese,over the big dig.
Its not their first joint venture
They also worked on the new rail terminal/garage in portlaoise

Chris_533976

haha wow N18 Crusheen - Gort is only 3 months into construction and its about the same level of progress.

jagged

Chris_533976 wrote: »

haha wow N18 Crusheen - Gort is only 3 months into construction and its about the same level of progress.

Really Structures too?????
Try get some pictures up;)

mysterious

Chris this route is twice as long. This scheme only started a few months ago.:rolleyes:

The Castletown scheme started last with one of the Waterford schemes.
You should see the earthworks at Moneygall. I think they could go a teeny bit faster. But I think they are doing fine.

Amtmann

Chris is correct. I have posted pictures of the N18 scheme on the N18 thread. (The N18 started in Nov 2008; Casteltown to Nenagh in March 2008. And the M7 C-N scheme is just 14km longer than the N18 G-C)

Regarding this particular scheme, the earthworks at Moneygall are shown in the pictures above. There is a very large pile of rock on the opposite side of the road to the view shown in the photo. On many parts of the scheme the topsoil has barely been removed, however.

jagged

As promised;), Will try get more this weekend

Str 13 just north of Moneygall



Str 16, underbridge looking in the direction of Roscrea



Str 35, one of the longest underbridges,north of roscrea,near the village of Knock

Amtmann

Excellent stuff Jagged, thanks very much for taking the time to take the pictures and upload them.

Amtmann

I passed this scheme via the N62 south of Roscrea last weekend. It looked like they were getting ready to start bulk earthworks in that particular section.

mysterious

Furet wrote: »

Regarding Castletown to Nenagh, I passed this via the N62 south of Roscrea last weekend. It looked like they were getting ready to start bulk earthworks in that particular section.

Wow that's good news, is the bonus scheme on this still, for that last month progress has been great and alot more noticeable than previous months

Anyone see the plans for this interchange? I will go nuts, if I see a stupid dumbell roundabout. This carries a National secondary road and the traffic from the M7 to Roscrea. They should not make a sh!te job out of it.

Amtmann

Mysterious, the plans are here: http://www.kildare.ie/countycouncil/NationalRoadsDesignOffice/N7CastletowntoNenagh/EnvironmentalImpactStatement/Volume4-Non-TechnicalSummary/LinkToDocument,8383,en.pdf

Chris_533976

See the effort I'll go to for you lot?

Was flying from Luton to Galway the other day so took one or two pics. Unfortunately there was tonnes of cloud (so no M9 pics ) but heres one of the M7 just around Roscrea.

Amtmann

Chris_533976 wrote: »

See the effort I'll go to for you lot?

ROFL. That sure beats the shight out of anything I've ever posted here!

mysterious

Lol at the above:D

Chris was like....just before snapping the pics, "

HAHA can't beat this.. cant win over this... cant top that. HA. Sky is no limit for me"

Mu ha ha ha ha ha


On a serious note: The project seems to be picking up! What do you think? It's a great pic. The green tree huggers would be devastated to see it ripping the countryside. My only concern with these pics, it could trigger such an epidemic.:pac:

dmeehan

mysterious wrote: »

The green tree huggers would be devastated to see it ripping the countryside. My only concern with these pics, it could trigger such an epidemic.:pac:

quick, delete that pic (as brilliant as it is)

mysterious

dmeehan wrote: »

quick, delete that pic (as brilliant as it is)

Dmeehan your asking for a shlaaaap!!:D

Thank god the Castletown scheme is flying along though at least!

mysterious

Carawaystick wrote: »

Nope, the M8 stops south of Cullahill, so there's Durrow first.

Jesus I never knew Durrow and Cullahil ever existed till you told me geeeee.:rolleyes:

My point was, Mountrath and Abbeyleix are the main towns on the route. I couldn't be arsed to name every ballyally mcnally village on both of these routes ffs.

Don't just post for sake you think your correcting me either cus your not:P

L1011

mysterious wrote: »

Jesus I never knew Durrow and Cullahil ever existed till you told me geeeee.:rolleyes:

My point was, Mountrath and Abbeyleix are the main towns on the route. I couldn't be arsed to name every ballyally mcnally village on both of these routes ffs.

Don't just post for sake you think your correcting me either cus your not:P

Durrow environs only had, ooh, 100 or so more people than Abbeyleix environs at the last census...

mysterious

Who cares.


But god, that pic is amazing:D

L1011

Clearly you did, to go off on one about it...

mysterious

Lol....

Amtmann

Come on M7 people! Photos and reports please...how is Castletown to Nenagh coming along?

Tech3

Furet wrote: »

Please do. You might take a look at M7 Castletown-Nenagh while you're at it. I'm off the road now...I might hire a car for a day towards the end of the summer and take a look at some of the M7 schemes and the M7/M8 PPP for which, incidentally, a newsletter is due this month.

I have some photos of the Castletown-Nenagh stretch but there very poor. I was very dissapointed by the progress done on that section. Completion by Q3 next year doesnt seem very likely. I couldnt find 1 completed overbridge.

I agree the M7/M8 and the M7 need to be continued to be covered as the M6 is getting very good coverage by posters. The G-C/N7 Limerick tunnel would be my main priority though as I pass those schemes very often.

mysterious

tech2 wrote: »

I have some photos of the Castletown-Nenagh stretch but there very poor. I was very dissapointed by the progress done on that section. Completion by Q3 next year doesnt seem very likely. I couldnt find 1 completed overbridge.

I agree the M7/M8 and the M7 need to be continued to be covered as the M6 is getting very good coverage by posters. The G-C/N7 Limerick tunnel would be my main priority though as I pass those schemes very often.

Techy they are concentrating on some sections more than the other, its a fairly long scheme. The road from Toome to Moneygall seems very advanced and they have the bridges already complete here. I'm not sure about the rest of the scheme though.

Amtmann

mysterious wrote: »

The road from Toome to Moneygall seems very advanced and they have the bridges already complete here.

Open to traffic?