M20 - Cork to Limerick [preferred route chosen; in design - phase 3]

AugustusMinimus

littlemac1980 wrote: »

And a couple of hard shoulders on the road from Croom to Charleville wouldn't go astray - would at least bring that road up to about 1980's standards.

IMO, if a series of bypasses are done, they

1. Must be built to HQDC standard so that they can be redesignated to motorway in the future.
2. Must be built in such a way that once the building of the complete M20 is confirmed, that these sections can be built into the scheme.

Theres no point in building bypasses ala Cahir which will be subsequently also bypassed. Cahir must be the only place in Ireland with two bypasses.

Rightwing

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

IMO, if a series of bypasses are done, they

1. Must be built to HQDC standard so that they can be redesignated to motorway in the future.
2. Must be built in such a way that once the building of the complete M20 is confirmed, that these sections can be built into the scheme.

Theres no point in building bypasses ala Cahir which will be subsequently also bypassed. Cahir must be the only place in Ireland with two bypasses.

Wasn't there a bit of that messing going on with Nenagh also.

antoobrien

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

IMO, if a series of bypasses are done, they

1. Must be built to HQDC standard so that they can be redesignated to motorway in the future.
2. Must be built in such a way that once the building of the complete M20 is confirmed, that these sections can be built into the scheme.

Theres no point in building bypasses ala Cahir which will be subsequently also bypassed. Cahir must be the only place in Ireland with two bypasses.

Enfield & Loughrea have two. If I'd have had my way so would Athlone.

spacetweek

antoobrien wrote: »

Enfield & Loughrea have two. If I'd have had my way so would Athlone.

Also Swords.
There are plans to bypass for the second time Killarney, Clonmel and Dungarvan also. Not always a bad idea if the town has grown significantly or the original bypass was a mickey mouse job.

Vanquished

Rightwing wrote: »

That road is as much the M21 as the M20, if not more so.

Rightwing wrote: »

I know, but I've seen cars turn around on that motorway, they think they are on the motorway to Cork and they've missed the exit.

Another hairbrained decision by the NRA.

Must be the shortest motorway in the world.

Chuckle chuckle.

Hmmmm the proliferation of "M20" signage would probably give you a clue as to the route's designation!

Also the large overhead gantry and exit cantilever signs for CORK are pretty hard to miss.:rolleyes: If some motorists aren't bright enough to follow such a simple directive they shouldn't be on the road in the first place!

The arrangement whereby the mainline continues as the N21 towards Adare is perfectly reasonable as the majority of traffic is from M20 south to N21 south.

The old N20 was configured in the same fashion. N20 traffic had to turn off just outside Patrickswell as the mainline continued to Adare as the old N21.

marmurr1916

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Theres no point in building bypasses ala Cahir which will be subsequently also bypassed. Cahir must be the only place in Ireland with two bypasses.

There are several other towns and villages on former national routes that have bypasses which were later bypassed by motorways: Swords, Leighlinbridge, Enfield, Mitchelstown, Roscrea and Loughrea.

These local bypasses are still useful, especially at Loughrea which is a long way from the M6.

The Mitchelstown bypass and the M8 combine to effectively give it a ring-road, probably the smallest town in Ireland with this arrangement.

Rightwing

Vanquished wrote: »

Hmmmm the proliferation of "M20" signage would probably give you a clue as to the route's designation!

Also the large overhead gantry and exit cantilever signs for CORK are pretty hard to miss.:rolleyes: If some motorists aren't bright enough to follow such a simple directive they shouldn't be on the road in the first place!

The arrangement whereby the mainline continues as the N21 towards Adare is perfectly reasonable as the majority of traffic is from M20 south to N21 south.

The old N20 was configured in the same fashion. N20 traffic had to turn off just outside Patrickswell as the mainline continued to Adare as the old N21.

We should also cater for tourists etc.

I can't see any rationale for signing a road as a motorway, a few kms down the road it's not a motorway :rolleyes:

They could start this all over the country, tralee to dingle , build the 1st km a motorway, advertise it as a motorway, the rest of it a deathtrap.

marmurr1916

Rightwing wrote: »

We should also cater for tourists etc.

We should cater firstly for people who live in Ireland. Tourists, like all other road users, are able to use sat-navs and look at maps (either online or paper maps) which clearly show that the M20 is a very short motorway.

Rightwing wrote: »

I can't see any rationale for signing a road as a motorway, a few kms down the road it's not a motorway :rolleyes:

Believe it or not, they have motorways in other countries that end after a few kilometres too and become single-carriageway.

If a road is a motorway, it's signposted as a motorway, even if it ends in a short distance.

Rightwing wrote: »

They could start this all over the country, tralee to dingle , build the 1st km a motorway, advertise it as a motorway, the rest of it a deathtrap.

Why would anyone need to build a motorway from Tralee to Dingle, even for 1km?

As has been explained a few times on this thread, the old road was designated N20 from Limerick to Patrickswell and the motorway section which has replaced this is designated the M20 - mainly because it is a motorway.

Should there be some other road signposted as the main route between Limerick and Cork? Which route would you suggest and why?

Rightwing

marmurr1916 wrote: »

We should cater firstly for people who live in Ireland. Tourists, like all other road users, are able to use sat-navs and look at maps (either online or paper maps) which clearly show that the M20 is a very short motorway.



Believe it or not, they have motorways in other countries that end after a few kilometres too and become single-carriageway.

If a road is a motorway, it's signposted as a motorway, even if it ends in a short distance.



Why would anyone need to build a motorway from Tralee to Dingle, even for 1km?

As has been explained a few times on this thread, the old road was designated N20 from Limerick to Patrickswell and the motorway section which has replaced this is designated the M20 - mainly because it is a motorway.

Should there be some other road signposted as the main route between Limerick and Cork? Which route would you suggest and why?

The road should be called the N20. I remember travelling on this section a few years back when it was the N20, then some quango decided to waste tax payers money and take down all the green signs and put up blue ones.

Why is the road from limerick to shannon not a motorway? You couldn't make this stupidity up.

Vanquished

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

IMO, if a series of bypasses are done, they

1. Must be built to HQDC standard so that they can be redesignated to motorway in the future.
2. Must be built in such a way that once the building of the complete M20 is confirmed, that these sections can be built into the scheme.

Theres no point in building bypasses ala Cahir which will be subsequently also bypassed. Cahir must be the only place in Ireland with two bypasses.

They really need to split the project us at this stage. At least move forward with the stretch from south of Mallow to the southen end of the Croom bypass with a view to starting construction in the next 5 years!

This would take out the worst section of the existing route and also bypass the choked towns of Charleville and Buttevant. The stretches from Mallow to Blarney and Croom to Attyflin are wide single carriageway with shoulders and can wait a little longer.

The fiasco in Adare needs to be resolved urgently as well. The tailbacks in that village each evening are utterly shambolic! Not just any village either. An important heritage, tourist village at that!:(

Resurrect the black route to the north of town and get on with it! This route would also integrate seamlessly with the existing M20. Eventually when funds allow, a full access, free flowing M20/M21 interchange should be built at Attylin just south west of the current junction.

source

Rightwing wrote: »

The road should be called the N20. I remember travelling on this section a few years back when it was the N20, then some quango decided to waste tax payers money and take down all the green signs and put up blue ones.

Why is the road from limerick to shannon not a motorway? You couldn't make this stupidity up.

Because of the number of houses and junctions exiting directly on to it. It would be unsafe to have it as a motorway.

Rightwing

source wrote: »

Because of the number of houses and junctions exiting directly on to it. It would be unsafe to have it as a motorway.

I haven't seen any exit for a house ?

Cookiemunster

Rightwing wrote: »

The road should be called the N20. I remember travelling on this section a few years back when it was the N20, then some quango decided to waste tax payers money and take down all the green signs and put up blue ones.

Why is the road from limerick to shannon not a motorway? You couldn't make this stupidity up.

There was no quango. The then minister for transport decided that every high quality dual carriageway in the country that could be redesignated as a motorway would be. This included the section of the N20 from Limerick to Patrickswell. It didn't include the N18 from Limerick to Shannon as it is not a high quality dual carriageway and it has multiple side entrances and houses on it.
I think you should do some research on the subject before commenting any further.

Cookiemunster

Rightwing wrote: »

I haven't seen any exit for a house ?

You've obviously never driven to the road then. On the Limerick bound carriageway you have Setrights Pubs and around 8 houses whose driveways exit onto the dual carriageway within around 500m. This is just one example.

Rightwing

Cookiemunster wrote: »

There was no quango. The then minister for transport decided that every high quality dual carriageway in the country that could be redesignated as a motorway would be. This included the section of the N20 from Limerick to Patrickswell. It didn't include the N18 from Limerick to Shannon as it is not a high quality dual carriageway and it has multiple side entrances and houses on it.
I think you should do some research on the subject before commenting any further.

On the contrary it's the quangos and the government that need to do the research.

marmurr1916

Rightwing wrote: »

The road should be called the N20. I remember travelling on this section a few years back when it was the N20, then some quango decided to waste tax payers money and take down all the green signs and put up blue ones.

There was no quango - it was a ministerial decision.

A motorway isn't just blue signs. The types of traffic that can use it is restricted, making it much safer than an all-purpose dual-carriageway, and the default speed limit increases from 100km/h to 120km/h.

Rightwing wrote: »

Why is the road from limerick to shannon not a motorway?

Because it's not built to motorway standards: https://maps.google.ie/?ll=52.693897,-8.796928&spn=0.007972,0.021136&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=52.693897,-8.796928&panoid=goFmsMxTCdDXl_aaDXvscg&cbp=12,76.84,,0,5.21

Rightwing wrote: »

You couldn't make this stupidity up.

Hmmm...

Rightwing

marmurr1916 wrote: »

There was no quango - it was a ministerial decision.

A motorway isn't just blue signs. The types of traffic that can use it is restricted, making it much safer than an all-purpose dual-carriageway, and the default speed limit increases from 100km/h to 120km/h.



Because it's not built to motorway standards: https://maps.google.ie/?ll=52.693897,-8.796928&spn=0.007972,0.021136&t=m&z=16&layer=c&cbll=52.693897,-8.796928&panoid=goFmsMxTCdDXl_aaDXvscg&cbp=12,76.84,,0,5.21



Hmmm...

The M50 in dublin has a 100km speed limit, talk about trying to confuse the public,

Sometime I wonder is there any bigger waste of money than the councils, and that includes the banks.

marmurr1916

Rightwing wrote: »

On the contrary it's the quangos and the government that need to do the research.

Research into what? Whether a dual-carriageway with multiple private driveways leading off it should be redesignated a motorway? I think they've concluded that it shouldn't be done. Why? Because the international and national research shows that it would be unsafe.

Or research into whether people too dumb to look at satnavs or maps should be allowed to drive? Because only people too dumb to look at satnavs or maps would think that the entire road from Limerick to Cork was motorway.

Rightwing

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Research into what? Whether a dual-carriageway with multiple private driveways leading off it should be redesignated a motorway? I think they've concluded that it shouldn't be done. Why? Because the international and national research shows that it would be unsafe.

Or research into whether people too dumb to look at satnavs or maps should be allowed to drive? Because only people too dumb to look at satnavs or maps would think that the entire road from Limerick to Cork was motorway.

People expect standards. The quangos and councils expect massive wages, with no accountability or responsibility.

Our roads are a disgrace, and they know it.

source

Rightwing wrote: »

People expect standards. The quangos and councils expect massive wages, with no accountability or responsibility.

Our roads are a disgrace, and they know it.

Are you even listening to a word we're saying, this is like talking to a brick wall.

Vanquished

The N20 HQDC was re-designated as a motorway in 2009 along with numerous other stretches around the country. The road was built to motorway standards so the designation was entirely warranted. The speed limit was also increased from 100 to 120 km/h again as the design parameters allowed for this.

It was also necessary to protect the route from idiotic, gombeen county councils granting planning permission for retail parks, car showrooms and other inappropriate developments on to the road.

A road needs to be fully grade separated in order to meet the basic criteria for motorway classification. The fact that the N18 from the outskirts of Limerick to Bunratty is a withered 1970s all purpose dual carriageway with numerous private accesses opening directly on to the route would render it totally unsuitable for re designation.

This should be obvious to anyone who has driven that road!

Vanquished

Rightwing wrote: »

The M50 in dublin has a 100km speed limit, talk about trying to confuse the public,

Sometime I wonder is there any bigger waste of money than the councils, and that includes the banks.

The M50 is an urban motorway. The busiest in the country carrying 120,000 vehicles per day. It has 3 lanes in each direction for much of it's length along with auxiliary lanes between junctions. Due to land constraints the lanes are slightly narrower than rural stretches of motorways. This along with the fact that many junctions are quite close together means that it would be unsafe to allow a 120 km/h limit.

Your knowledge and understanding of these issues is clearly quite limited!

Rightwing

Vanquished wrote: »

The M50 is an urban motorway. The busiest in the country carrying 120,000 vehicles per day. It has 3 lanes in each direction for much of it's length along with auxiliary lanes between junctions. Due to land constraints the lanes are slightly narrower than rural stretches of motorways. This along with the fact that many junctions are quite close together means that it would be unsafe to allow a 120 km/h limit.

Your knowledge and understanding of these issues is clearly quite limited!

When the quangos are constantly moving the goalposts no wonder are confused.

AugustusMinimus

Vanquished wrote: »

The M50 is an urban motorway. The busiest in the country carrying 120,000 vehicles per day. It has 3 lanes in each direction for much of it's length along with auxiliary lanes between junctions. Due to land constraints the lanes are slightly narrower than rural stretches of motorways. This along with the fact that many junctions are quite close together means that it would be unsafe to allow a 120 km/h limit.

Your knowledge and understanding of these issues is clearly quite limited!

The lane widths on the M50 were also reduced from 3.5m to 3m when the M50 was widened to 3 lanes in each direction. This alone would have forced a 100kph speed limit on the 3 lane sections.

blindsider

Rightwing wrote: »

When the quangos are constantly moving the goalposts no wonder are confused.

But they're not. BTW which quango do you mean?

AFAICS the NRA etc are following international best practice. Have you driven in the UK recently?

There, the M25 amongst others, has VARIABLE speed limits, - the centrally-controlled signs are used to vary the speed limits depending on traffic congestion etc.

See the front cover of this:

http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_185830.pdf


Other people on this (and other infrastructure) thread seem to be very well informed. I presume they are Civil Engineers (I'm not). Perhaps we should 'listen' to them and learn from their expertise.

Bloody shame they can't find an innovative way to start the M20 Cork -Limerick - could they not just contract the whole thing out, including CPO, design etc etc? If they extended the PPP scheme by 10 yrs would a 'civils' company not be interested?

Jayuu

The problem with building bypasses which get then added into motorways is that you end up with the Cashel situation where you have around multiple exits for the one town instead of just one (or two at a push).

If bypasses were to be built for towns on the N20 they should only have exits at either end and be used purely to take traffic around the town.

marmurr1916

Rightwing wrote: »

The M50 in dublin has a 100km speed limit, talk about trying to confuse the public,

Sometime I wonder is there any bigger waste of money than the councils, and that includes the banks.

As explained above, there are valid reasons for the 100km/h speed limit on the M50.

This is an explanation of the Irish speed limits system:

Default Speed Limits are governed by the legislative code applying to the Road Traffic Act 2004 and they apply on a default basis to all road types as follows;

• Motorway Speed Limit 120 km/hr
• National Roads Speed limit 100 km/hr
• Regional and Local Roads Speed Limit 80 km/hr
• Built-up area speed limit 50 km/hr

Special Speed limits may be introduced by a process outlined in the Road Traffic Act 2004 which ultimately results in proposals being approved by elected members of county and city councils by the making of bye-laws which set out the locations where Special speed Limits are to apply. The categories of Special Speed Limit available for consideration are;


• 120 km/hr in respect of a dual carriageway on a national road,
• 100km/hr in respect of a motorway, a non-urban regional or local road, or a road in a built-up area,
• 80km/hr in respect of a motorway, a national road or a road in a built-up area,
• 60 km/hr
• 50 km/hr in respect of any road other than a road in a built-up area

http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/web/Cork%20County%20Council/Departments/Divisional%20Services/Roads/About%20Roads

Ludo

Cookiemunster wrote: »

You've obviously never driven to the road then. On the Limerick bound carriageway you have Setrights Pubs and around 8 houses whose driveways exit onto the dual carriageway within around 500m. This is just one example.

Yep...Sure is. My mother in law lives in one of those houses by setrights. I stay there regularly. Pain in the ass to get out of at times and dangerous. Definitely right to have a 100 limit there.

RikkFlair

Christ, it really takes a dank drizzly day like today to show up this route in parts, the section from the Croom bypass southwards is just a deathtrap, tractors holding up 10+ cars, poor visibility...you know the rest.

Counting down the (many) years til this project begins

road_high

RikkFlair wrote: »

Christ, it really takes a dank drizzly day like today to show up this route in parts, the section from the Croom bypass southwards is just a deathtrap, tractors holding up 10+ cars, poor visibility...you know the rest.

Counting down the (many) years til this project begins

Did Leo Varadkar not say it won't go ahead or something recently? Really think Limerick and Cork cocos are asleep with upgrading the N20 and N21. Places like Adare and Charleville should have been bypassed decades ago. Towns that were not actually as bad (in my opinion) have been bypassed long ago. It's a crying shame. I know they don't directly fund upgrades like this but surely they're a major component in the planning and advancement of such schemes.