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

touts

marno21 wrote: »

According to a post on skyscrapercity, FF will not enter into any programme of government without this scheme included. It is their priority #1, 2nd of which is the M21 Adare bypass, however that is being progressed as part of the Limerick-Foynes scheme.

I hear FF won't go into government unless there is an agreement to extend the Dart to Dingle and their second priority is to make Knock Airport a mega airport hub a la Changi and Heathrow. Now you can go back and quote those as facts over in skyscrapercity and it will be as accurate as the speculation on skyscrapercity.

There is no way FF's first and second priority for supporting a government are two roads one of which is already progressing. They will have about 50 things on their priority list ahead of roads. Sadly infrastructure outside the M50 isn't going to be a priority under whatever government comes to power. The one exception to that might be broadband as they all seem to agree that is necessary but with the "budget overrun magnets" that are the Airport Metro, Dart and Luas extensions plus planned upgrades to the M50 & M7 no one in rural Ireland is getting a new motorway for the lifetime of the next government or two.

marno21

touts wrote: »

I hear FF won't go into government unless there is an agreement to extend the Dart to Dingle and their second priority is to make Knock Airport a mega airport hub a la Changi and Heathrow. Now you can go back and quote those as facts over in skyscrapercity and it will be as accurate as the speculation on skyscrapercity.

There is no way FF's first and second priority for supporting a government are two roads one of which is already progressing. They will have about 50 things on their priority list ahead of roads. Sadly infrastructure outside the M50 isn't going to be a priority under whatever government comes to power. The one exception to that might be broadband as they all seem to agree that is necessary but with the "budget overrun magnets" that are the Airport Metro, Dart and Luas extensions plus planned upgrades to the M50 & M7 no one in rural Ireland is getting a new motorway for the lifetime of the next government or two.

I should've made it clear that I was talking about transport priorities. The M20 is not a white elephant, it is much needed infrastructure. Perhaps Fianna Fail actually have a functioning brain in their party and realise that the unsustainable model of only having Dublin as an attractive place for employers to come to has to end and without it (and other infrastructure) other parts of the country are economically stifled.

Why would any company locate in the south west when employees spend half the time in traffic?

Schadenfreudia

touts wrote: »

They will have about 50 things on their priority list ahead of roads. Sadly infrastructure outside the M50 isn't going to be a priority under whatever government comes to power.

Nor, as we have seen, are transport infrastructure within the M50 - or anywhere else.

they all seem to agree that is necessary but with the "budget overrun magnets" that are the Airport Metro, Dart and Luas extensions plus planned upgrades to the M50 & M7 no one in rural Ireland is getting a new motorway for the lifetime of the next government or two.

Bizarre. They are building the M17/M18 and a complex of roads in Wexford - not to mention that DU and MN and Luas extensions were abandoned while the Ultimate White Elephant, the Galway - Ennis rail line, went ahead!

Two kilometres of Gluas in Galway city would have provided vastly more value - but the Save Rural Ireland lobby don't really like any cities :mad:

Schadenfreudia

marno21 wrote: »

Perhaps Fianna Fail actually have a functioning brain in their party and realise that the unsustainable model of only having Dublin as an attractive place for employers to come to has to end and without it (and other infrastructure) other parts of the country are economically stifled.

Will only happen when the politicians have the cojones to prioritise a few cities (very few) to act as an alternative node.

I doubt the "rural" lobbies will ever agree on that - so Dublin will motor on, albeit not as well as it should, given the "hospital in every parish" begrudger brigade who dominate rural politics are dragging the whole country down.

cjpm

Yet another accident on the N20

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/one-person-airlifted-to-hospital-with-critical-injuries-after-multivehicle-crash-34556444.html

Not sure of the exact location, possibly the Killarney Roundabout in Mallow...

MayoSalmon

How many people need to die?? Munster politicians should be ashamed!!

marno21

The Annabella roundabout is turning into a sick joke. Currently all N-S and E-W traffic has to use it and now Dairygold are expanding beside it.

Mallow is just going to grind to a halt soon without a N-S M20 bypass & E-W N72 bypass

Sam Kade

MayoSalmon wrote: »

How many people need to die?? Munster politicians should be ashamed!!

How exactly are politicians to blame for crashes?

marno21

Sam Kade wrote: »

How exactly are politicians to blame for crashes?

Constant failure to get this project started. Many parts of this road are beyond capacity and are downright dangerous.

The traffic situation in Mallow means that although it is 'bypassed' North South it still has to go through an at grade roundabout with the E-W N72.

The 1970s/1980s bypass was built on the cheap with 4 lanes at the Anabella R/A but south of that it narrows to 2 lanes because a cheaper bridge was built only 2 lanes wide. The swift narrowing from 4 to 2 lanes (before widening back out to 4 at the GSJ south of the bridge) is dangerous as there is a high volume of traffic using this stretch of road.

Had this scheme been built, all Cork-Limerick traffic would be on the motorway east of Mallow, and the amount of traffic using the roundabout would vastly reduced.

Sam Kade

marno21 wrote: »

Constant failure to get this project started. Many parts of this road are beyond capacity and are downright dangerous.

The traffic situation in Mallow means that although it is 'bypassed' North South it still has to go through an at grade roundabout with the E-W N72.

The 1970s/1980s bypass was built on the cheap with 4 lanes at the Anabella R/A but south of that it narrows to 2 lanes because a cheaper bridge was built only 2 lanes wide. The swift narrowing from 4 to 2 lanes (before widening back out to 4 at the GSJ south of the bridge) is dangerous as there is a high volume of traffic using this stretch of road.

Had this scheme been built, all Cork-Limerick traffic would be on the motorway east of Mallow, and the amount of traffic using the roundabout would vastly reduced.

It's two lanes all the way apart from slip roads and margins. The roads aren't dangerous it's the people driving on them.

hans aus dtschl

Sam Kade wrote: »

It's two lanes all the way apart from slip roads and margins. The roads aren't dangerous it's the people driving on them.

The N20 is really dangerous. If you travel intercity, Cork-Limerick or Limerick-Cork, you will very often (almost always) have a choice between overtaking by moving into the oncoming traffic lane, or lengthening your journey significantly. Farm traffic, freight, animals all use this road and there are regularly significant tailbacks. It passes through small towns and has sharp bends and long stretches are single lane with no hard shoulder.

The road connecting our second and third cities is of a very poor standard. It is dangerous.

I genuinely believe that the N20 should be the single priority road investment in the country right now. If you want an economy to exist outside of Dublin, if you want areas outside of Dublin to contribute more to the economy and stop feeding off Dublin's economy, if you want to increase investment in the west, this road is key.

That's why our politicians are studiously avoiding it, presumably.

cgcsb

Excessive speed and human error accounts for almost all road accidents. Poor road design rarely accounts for or contributes to any accidents, much less fatal accidents, almost all of which are caused by excessive speed. This accident took place in the middle of the day, good visibility and nowhere near rush hour traffic.

If road accidents = motorway building the North west would be covered in M signage and there wouldn't be any motorways in Dublin.

hans aus dtschl

cgcsb wrote: »

Excessive speed and human error accounts for almost all road accidents. Poor road design rarely accounts for or contributes to any accidents, much less fatal accidents, almost all of which are caused by excessive speed. This accident took place in the middle of the day, good visibility and nowhere near rush hour traffic.

If road accidents = motorway building the North west would be covered in M signage and there wouldn't be any motorways in Dublin.

Are motorways safer than national (regional) roads, per km driven?
Yes.

"motorways are
statistically the safest way of moving large volumes of
traffic"
http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Leaflets/Leaf_booklets/motorway_driving.pdf

Should there be a motorway between our primary city and the other cities?
Yes.

Should there be a motorway between our second and third cities?
Studies say yes.

moyners

cgcsb wrote: »

Excessive speed and human error accounts for almost all road accidents. Poor road design rarely accounts for or contributes to any accidents, much less fatal accidents, almost all of which are caused by excessive speed. This accident took place in the middle of the day, good visibility and nowhere near rush hour traffic.

If road accidents = motorway building the North west would be covered in M signage and there wouldn't be any motorways in Dublin.

Grade separation makes a huge difference for one. It's lethal for traffic trying to get onto the main road or turn right. People have been killed and people will be killed until they sort it out (I'm not referring to yesterday's incident).

Part of the problem is they're not doing anything at all. Everybody's assuming the motorway will be built eventually so TII and the councils are reluctant to spend anything making small improvements like passing lanes.

L1011

cgcsb wrote: »

If road accidents = motorway building the North west would be covered in M signage and there wouldn't be any motorways in Dublin.

Motorways have less accidents and yes, that is one reason why the North West has such a high rate.

The North West has a mix terrible and terribly designed roads - either cart tracks or WS2 runways. These all have extremely high accident rates

WS2 roads encourage high speed overtaking manoevures and lead to head-ons with closing speeds of 250km/h+. They also encourage ridiculous crossing attempts (drive across and pull in to the shoulder to gain speed; despite there being someone driving down the shoulder to let someone pass and so on). None of this happens (as it can't happen) on access controlled D2 roads.

Sam Kade

moyners wrote: »

Grade separation makes a huge difference for one. It's lethal for traffic trying to get onto the main road or turn right. People have been killed and people will be killed until they sort it out (I'm not referring to yesterday's incident).

Part of the problem is they're not doing anything at all. Everybody's assuming the motorway will be built eventually so TII and the councils are reluctant to spend anything making small improvements like passing lanes.

I see people every day coming onto that stretch of the mallow cork road, no such thing as stopping and looking at junctions just boot it out onto the margin to get onto the main lane.

Calina

Sam Kade wrote: »

It's two lanes all the way apart from slip roads and margins. The roads aren't dangerous it's the people driving on them.

I beg to differ. There are stretches of the N20 which have twist and camber issues. Many stretches of it have no hard shoulder. The road surface is hardly perfect either.

I will admit there are a lot of inadequate drivers around. This is why we design cars and roads with safety in mind. It's not an argument against building the M20.

Schadenfreudia

cgcsb wrote: »

Excessive speed and human error accounts for almost all road accidents. Poor road design rarely accounts for or contributes to any accidents, much less fatal accidents, almost all of which are caused by excessive speed.

Complete nonsense.

If cars drove at 2mph all the time there might be no fatal accidents :rolleyes:

Sam Kade

Calina wrote: »

I beg to differ. There are stretches of the N20 which have twist and camber issues. Many stretches of it have no hard shoulder. The road surface is hardly perfect either.

I will admit there are a lot of inadequate drivers around. This is why we design cars and roads with safety in mind. It's not an argument against building the M20.

I was referring to the stretch of road into mallow not between mallow and cork.

Sam Kade

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

Complete nonsense.

If cars drove at 2mph all the time there might be no fatal accidents :rolleyes:

So roads cause accidents :rolleyes:

Schadenfreudia

Sam Kade wrote: »

So roads cause accidents :rolleyes:

If you drive at 40mph...they certainly do :cool:

Cookiemunster

Sam Kade wrote: »

So roads cause accidents :rolleyes:

Lets deal with reality. Human beings will always speed, drive dangerously, make mistakes etc. It doesn't matter what the roads are like, these things are going to happen. Making the the roads safer means that accidents due to poor/bad driving are reduced.

marno21

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Lets deal with reality. Human beings will always speed, drive dangerously, make mistakes etc. It doesn't matter what the roads are like, these things are going to happen. Making the the roads safer means that accidents due to poor/bad driving are reduced.

Humans will always speed etc but it would be much less catastrophic if this speeding was done on a 120km/h grade seperated motorway than on a busy bottlenecked stretch of urban road, where there are pedestrians and cyclists about.

Sam Kade

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Lets deal with reality. Human beings will always speed, drive dangerously, make mistakes etc. It doesn't matter what the roads are like, these things are going to happen. Making the the roads safer means that accidents due to poor/bad driving are reduced.

How would you make the roads safer to aid poor bad driving?

marno21

Sam Kade wrote: »

How would you make the roads safer to aid poor bad driving?

The way the number of road deaths/annum has been cut drastically in the last 10 years by virtue of the fact that head on collisions on the N1, N3, N4, N6, N7, N8, N9, N11 & N18 don't happen anymore. GRADE SEPERATION.

Sam Kade

marno21 wrote: »

The way the number of road deaths/annum has been cut drastically in the last 10 years by virtue of the fact that head on collisions on the N1, N3, N4, N6, N7, N8, N9, N11 & N18 don't happen anymore. GRADE SEPERATION.

Driver error is the cause in over 90% of all accidents.

dr.fuzzenstein

Sam Kade wrote: »

Driver error is the cause in over 90% of all accidents.

Motorways are safer. Is it not better to improve every possible of safety? Better roads and better driver training, along with enforcement are the obvious answers.
And the Limerick to Cork road is an abomination that belongs in the 1950's or Africa. Not in a 21st century European country.
The Irish always seem to have such good arguments against investing money in infrastructure, healthcare and education, other countries sink a lot of money into those, even if they don't have a lot of money. Because these things HAVE to be invested in.

Sam Kade

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Motorways are safer

Because there is less chance of driver error,

dr.fuzzenstein

Sam Kade wrote: »

Because there is less chance of driver error,

Oh there is driver error. But the road is straight, wide and separated, so head on collisions are not as much a factor. I need to do some digging, but I seem to remember head on collisions being the biggest factor in road deaths.

Cookiemunster

Sam Kade wrote: »

Driver error is the cause in over 90% of all accidents.

There will always be driver error, but if you create conditions that minimise the outcome of these errors (ie. grade separated roads with central barriers) you reduce the amount of accidents that driver errors can cause.

It's not exactly difficult to understand.