Overcrowded Cork South Ring Road?

Amtmann

Just came out of the tunnel a half an hour ago (it's a Sunday afternoon) and the traffic on the SRR was unbelievable. The ramps leading to and from Mahon Point (I despise that horrible place) were jammed as usual, with tailbacks spilling back several hundred meters.

Relative to its size, from the Sarsfield Roundabout to the Mahon ramp, the SRR must be almost as busy as the M50. It does its job quite well considering it's fairly old, cracked in places and has no shoulder around Douglas.

What upgrades would you make to this road?

Chris_533976

Close down Mahon point shopping centre and torch the whole thing. That is a desperate traffic generator and whoever approved it should be shot.

I'd fully upgrade Dunkettle to freeflow, do the Sarsfield Road and Bandon Road upgrades. Then I'd slap motorway restrictions on the whole thing to get tractors, cyclists and other **** off it. 100kmh limit from Bandon Rd Roundabout to Kinsale Road Roundabout and 80kmh from Kinsale Road Roundabout to Mahon Point.

Jimbo

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Close down Mahon point shopping centre and torch the whole thing. That is a desperate traffic generator and whoever approved it should be shot.

I'd fully upgrade Dunkettle to freeflow, do the Sarsfield Road and Bandon Road upgrades. Then I'd slap motorway restrictions on the whole thing to get tractors, cyclists and other **** off it. 100kmh limit from Bandon Rd Roundabout to Kinsale Road Roundabout and 80kmh from Kinsale Road Roundabout to Mahon Point.

Yea the junction going into Mahon Point is a disaster and often overflows into the South Ring Road. How, in this day and age, they didn't forsee that hapenning is beyond me.

Another lane wouldn't go amiss near the Douglas exits, but I don't think there is any easy way of doing that

AugustusMaximus

Sounds very bad for a Sunday afternoon. Usually wouldn't be that bad.

A few things to do though.

1. Fully free flow junction for the Dunkettle Interchange. This is an absolute must. Traffic goes back as far as the Rochestown Park Hotel for 30 minutes each evening

2. Flyovers for both the Sarsfield and Bandon Road roundabouts.

3. Signs everywhere to tell people to stay in the inside lane when driving. People driving in the overtaking lane causes havoc on the SRR. It is the worst stretch of road in Ireland for it happening.

4. Widen the overpass over douglas to ensure 3 lanes both way between the Mahon junction and the Kinsale Round Roundabout. May be difficult to do.

Amtmann

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

Sounds very bad for a Sunday afternoon. Usually wouldn't be that bad.

A few things to do though.

1. Fully free flow junction for the Dunkettle Interchange. This is an absolute must. Traffic goes back as far as the Rochestown Park Hotel for 30 minutes each evening

2. Flyovers for both the Sarsfield and Bandon Road roundabouts.

3. Signs everywhere to tell people to stay in the inside lane when driving. People driving in the overtaking lane causes havoc on the SRR. It is the worst stretch of road in Ireland for it happening.

4. Widen the overpass over douglas to ensure 3 lanes both way between the Mahon junction and the Kinsale Round Roundabout. May be difficult to do.

I fully agree with your point 3. I don't know what it is about that road, but people on the inside often chug along well below the speed limit causing faster drivers to hog the over-taking lane. Dangerous and rapid bunching then occurs whenever there's a tractor or cyclist on the road (which, bizarrely, there often is).

AugustusMaximus

Furet wrote: »

I fully agree with your point 3. I don't know what it is about that road, but people on the inside often chug along well below the speed limit causing faster drivers to hog the over-taking lane. Dangerous and rapid bunching then occurs whenever there's a tractor or cyclist on the road (which, bizarrely, there often is).

Indeed. Motorway restrictions are needed badly. Madness for any cyclist to be on that road.

There's enough people chugging around in the overtaking lane at 80kph blissfully unaware that there's a line of traffic behind them too.

Amtmann

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

Indeed. Motorway restrictions are needed badly. Madness for any cyclist to be on that road.

There's enough people chugging around in the overtaking lane at 80kph blissfully unaware that there's a line of traffic behind them too.

Yesterday I saw two gob****es (a man and a woman) wheeling their bicycles on the SRR over the Douglas bridge, which has NO HARD SHOULDER. They should have been arrested. Similarly, tractors are a huge hazard during busy times. I know they are technically allowed to use it, but tractor drivers with even a modicum of sense should avoid it.

BluntGuy

I agree with all the previous posts.

The mahon point exit...

I just want them to blow it up and start again because it's a catastrophe. You can be anywhere from half-an-hour to an hour sitting on those god-awful slip roads.

As for the rest of it... yes... complete the SRR upgrades and the get the motorway restrictions on it as quickly as possible.


As for good ol' Dunkettle. Free-flow would be nice. But I honestly don't know how they're gonna do it...

Stark

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Close down Mahon point shopping centre and torch the whole thing. That is a desperate traffic generator and whoever approved it should be shot.

+1

Amtmann

BluntGuy wrote: »

I agree with all the previous posts.

The mahon point exit...

I just want them to blow it up and start again because it's a catastrophe. You can be anywhere from half-an-hour to an hour sitting on those god-awful slip roads.

As for the rest of it... yes... complete the SRR upgrades and the get the motorway restrictions on it as quickly as possible.


As for good ol' Dunkettle. Free-flow would be nice. But I honestly don't know how they're gonna do it...

Can you check the wiki m8 discussions page Bluntguy, I have a suggestion and would like your opinion.

AugustusMaximus

BluntGuy wrote: »

As for good ol' Dunkettle. Free-flow would be nice. But I honestly don't know how they're gonna do it...

It is possible. Would take a bit of work. Someone on here before drew a map to scale of how it could be done.

invincibleirish

Forget the M50 the SR encapsulates from start to finish everything that has been wrong with official policy over the past 20 years.

DWCommuter

The SRR is great more times than the M50 but......(and I may repeat what ahas already been said)
First problem is the Dunkettle interchange. Its prehistoric for a recent build, but it looks like the team behind the N25 never spoke to the team behind the JL Tunnell and SRR. It causes woefully unneccessary congestion at peak hours.
While the old Kinsale road roundabout was identified as a critical problem and upgraded, the other roundabouts are now making a laughing stock of much of the SRR. I mean how daft does it look to drive from the tunnell, all is well over the Kinsale road and then whack, it turns back into a 70s style dualer through a housing estate. Onwards we go and suddenly we round Ballincollig on a HQDC! Bizzare, but its not in the M50 league or even close, in terms of problems. Take out every at grade junction from the N25 onwards and we're in business.

As for Mahon Point....Im not from Cork, only there regularly, so I didn't witness it today. From descriptions, its sounds like the regular Sunday set up at Liffey Valley and Blanchardstown SC in Dublin. As much as we like to blame the road design, we should add in the horrendous public transport, disasterous rersidential planning and the Irishmans love affair with the car. We can upgrade this already grade seperated junction at Mahon Point by pouring even more concret into it, but why? In similar sized cities in the UK, there are 100s of Mahon Points beside roads like the SRR and Ive never witnessed what I witness in thois country. Sunday seems to now be the day to shop.

Lennoxschips

Forget the M50 the SR encapsulates from start to finish everything that has been wrong with official policy over the past 20 years.

Yup.

Dunnes next to the Bandon Road roundabout, Woodies and Harvey Norman next to the Kinsale roundabout, and Dunnes and Tesco in Douglas next to the SRR, and then Mahon Point smack bang on the SRR.

The SRR is the new Pana.

I smell the smell of something brown. In the shape of an envelope.

What's the point of upgrading the road? Some moron in the county council will just take advantage of it to build some new shopping centre next to it. Or some new sprawling estate that spills straight onto the SRR.

The road was built with taxpayers money to serve the people, but it has only been used to enrich developers.

BluntGuy

Lennoxschips wrote: »

Yup.

Dunnes next to the Bandon Road roundabout, Woodies and Harvey Norman next to the Kinsale roundabout, and Dunnes and Tesco in Douglas next to the SRR, and then Mahon Point smack bang on the SRR.

The SRR is the new Pana.

I smell the smell of something brown. In the shape of an envelope.

What's the point of upgrading the road? Some moron in the county council will just take advantage of it to build some new shopping centre next to it. Or some new sprawling estate that spills straight onto the SRR.

The road was built with taxpayers money to serve the people, but it has only been used to enrich developers.

Agreed.

That is why I'm glad the NRA is requesting motorway restrictions to be put on many of its roads.

Amtmann

BluntGuy wrote: »

I agree with all the previous posts.

The mahon point exit...

I just want them to blow it up and start again because it's a catastrophe. You can be anywhere from half-an-hour to an hour sitting on those god-awful slip roads.

As for the rest of it... yes... complete the SRR upgrades and the get the motorway restrictions on it as quickly as possible.


As for good ol' Dunkettle. Free-flow would be nice. But I honestly don't know how they're gonna do it...

Scroll down on this link to Victor's second post and see his attachments for two possible Dunkettle freeflow interchanges: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055324603&highlight=Dunkettle

marmurr1916

jimbo78 wrote: »

Yea the junction going into Mahon Point is a disaster and often overflows into the South Ring Road. How, in this day and age, they didn't forsee that hapenning is beyond me.

Another lane wouldn't go amiss near the Douglas exits, but I don't think there is any easy way of doing that

You'd have to replace the flyover bridges in Douglas with wider bridges.

There is a possibility of building an exit slip from the westbound carriageway to near the Douglas Court SC, but it would require taking land from the shopping centre and even then might be too close to existing buildings.

If it was possible to build this exit slip, it would allow westbound traffic to exit for Douglas without having to travel along the Rochestown Road or down the Skehard/Well Roads.

That might relieve some of the pressure on the Mahon Point/Rochestown exits.

dmeehan

Furet wrote: »

Scroll down on this link to Victor's second post and see his attachments for two possible Dunkettle freeflow interchanges: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055324603&highlight=Dunkettle

thanks for this, here is the direct link to the post: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=56573886&postcount=12


does anyone have any data for which movements happen the most? ie. is the tunnel to/from N8 the biggest traffic producer or isit the N25 east/west etc.
?

serfboard

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Close down Mahon point shopping centre and torch the whole thing. That is a desperate traffic generator and whoever approved it should be shot.

Mahon Point was developed by one Owen O'Callaghan. And we now know how he manages to win friends and influence people.

And are the people of Cork (or anywhere else in this country) going to turf out those who were the recipients of his largesse, and the perpetrators of criminally bad planning like this? Of course not.

Gauge

I've always wondered what would happen in a scenario where there was an emergency in Mahon Point during peak times. How would a fire engine or an ambulance get to it? The roads are 100% bumper to bumper.

Typewriter

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055406087

I just saw this thread in the Cork forum. Going to pick someone up from the airport later so ill check this out for sure.

BluntGuy

Are they sure this has happened?

Rebeller

jimbo78 wrote: »

Yea the junction going into Mahon Point is a disaster and often overflows into the South Ring Road. How, in this day and age, they didn't forsee that hapenning is beyond me.

Ask Mr. O' Callaghan

BluntGuy

The Mahon Point exit is torture and an upgrade to free-flow would be incredibly expensive, time-consuming and disruptive.

Amtmann

Yes. And I'm not in favour of helping the fruits of dodgy planning to grow even fruitier. As it is, a lot of people probably don't go to Mahon Point because of the traffic. Making this freeflow would only encourage more cars to drive to the awful place, and would enrich and embolden the developers.

If a freeflow junction were to be built, the developers should foot the bill (untolled). No such junction should be constructed, however. Much more frequent and faster public transport is the answer to this existing problem (of course the best solution would be to flatten Mahon Point. I'm all in favour of some iconoclasm when it comes to these so called 'cathedrals of consumerism' - and monuments to bad planning).

Chris_533976

I'd be 100% in favour of demolishing the lot (except maybe B&Q which is useful).

Having the Ballincollig bypass (and Dunkettle-Carrigtwohill) as 120kmh is idiotic IMO without motorway restrictions. Sure, lets have tractors mixed with 120kmh traffic. I hope theres a third tranche of motorway reclassification.

Actually, thinking about it yesterday, the whole of the South Ring shoud be motorway really. If the Athlone bypass gets it, give it to the South Ring, but keep the 100kmh limit, or even 80kmh between Kinsale Rd and Mahon.

ParkRunner

I live in Dublin (Blanchardstown) but am a regular visitor to Mahon. The traffic there is pretty chronic alright and reminds me of Blanchardstown. Having one lane turning left and one lane turning right for cars going into Mahon Point is just a disaster from both directions. Given the size of the shopping centre and the exapanding population of Cork the planners must have realised that traffic would be absolutely chronic with the roads they way they are. Another issue is that it leads to risk taking on the roads and inevitable collisions..

There have been roadworks going on for years now on the M50 & more recently on the N3 so expect the same for the N25 because after 12 years now since the Blanchardstown shopping centre opened the money has been spent on roadworks trying to sort out the mess. If the metro ever gets built that would help a lot but a rail connection should have been put in at the start, similarly, there should be a rail connection to Mahon Point.

Lennoxschips

Chris_533976 wrote: »

I'd be 100% in favour of demolishing the lot (except maybe B&Q which is useful).

Having the Ballincollig bypass (and Dunkettle-Carrigtwohill) as 120kmh is idiotic IMO without motorway restrictions. Sure, lets have tractors mixed with 120kmh traffic. I hope theres a third tranche of motorway reclassification.

Actually, thinking about it yesterday, the whole of the South Ring shoud be motorway really. If the Athlone bypass gets it, give it to the South Ring, but keep the 100kmh limit, or even 80kmh between Kinsale Rd and Mahon.

Motorway restrictions are a good idea, but I'd put an 80 km/hr limit all the way from Mahon to the Greyhound stadium, for noise pollution reasons.

There should be proper sound barriers erected as well, and low-noise road surfacing.

invincibleirish

Anyone have AADTs for the South Ring itself? the NRA has counters at the Tunnel and the Ballincollig BP. Would be very interesting to compare and contrast numbers for the older sections of the SRR against numbers for proposed schemes deemed more important then the SRR & Midleton/Carrigtwohill N25 upgrades.

BluntGuy

Damn it, they'd want to get a move on with those schemes to stop the N25 (or M25 as the case should be) becoming an M50.

Amtmann

green_jesus wrote: »

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055406087

I just saw this thread in the Cork forum. Going to pick someone up from the airport later so ill check this out for sure.

Confirmed. Ludricous to have this at 120 km/h when motorway restrictions don't apply. I passed two cyclists there.

Typewriter

Oh yeah sorry went jazzing last night.:cool::D

Yes as confirmed also by Furet it is in fact 120km/ph but only after the first exit.

BluntGuy

They need to shove motorway restrictions on that section as soon as possible...

It wasn't safe for cyclists at 100 km/h and it certainly isn't safe at 120.

Hogzy

Council would probably use the excuse that putting motorway restrictions on such a short stretch of road would be silly and to wait for the 2 other flyovers to be developed! not my opinion but its probably what they would say.

Does anyone one know why the bandon and sarsfield flyovers werent constructed at the start?

invincibleirish

Hogzy wrote: »

Does anyone one know why the bandon and sarsfield flyovers werent constructed at the start?

AFAIK the flyovers (inc. Kinsale Rd) were originally not constructed when the SRR was being built in a piecemeal manner due to costs, fair enough i guess in the cash strapped times of the 20th Century.

In the Celtic tiger times the projects were mothballed despite being due to begin immediately after the Kinsale Flyover was built due to the Government prioritising to complete the already long promised Interurbans (like the famous M9;)) ahead of other projects, excellent politics on behalf of FF if i may so say myself.

Hogzy

God this government is great isnt it. So inefficient all you hear all the bloody time is how the government made stupid decisions that lead to money being spent in the wrong areas and not having important issues tackled firstly.

AugustusMaximus

The South Ring Road in Cork is prob the worst stretch of road in Ireland for people driving in the overtaking lane.

An absolute joke. I've had people try to race me after I've undertaken them. Seen people go absolutely mad due to me undertaking them, as if they had a right to hold up everyone else. Madness.

(And yes I know, undertaking is against the rules of the road).

BluntGuy

The SRR is a disgrace and I wouldn't have minded parts of the M9 scheme or even parts of the M8 (which I regularly use) being put on hold just to fix that horrible mess.

But again, it's hard for me to guage the importance of each scheme relative to another. ALL of the proposed schemes are important, even the sometimes contested M9.

mysterious

What they need to do, is separate mainline traffic from local traffic. This method is very popular in main cities where important routes cater for all modes of traffic.

Take example the A6 comming into Paris.

Its a normal 6 lane motorway. With a separated carriegway on the veres to cater the local traffic, weaving and closely nit junctions to get from A to B.

Having a 4 lane carrieway for the N25 then building two carriegwways on either side of the expressway, allowing all the traffic from Kinsale, Douglas, N28 and N27 to move more efficiently without overcrowding or getting into any conflict with the mainline N25 at all. There is far to many interchanges closely nit together, that I don't see any other option but to have a local D.C built to cater for the movements, that currently cloggs up to N25 right now


This would be the best solution

Go onto livemaps, and zoom in on the A6 coming into Paris, and this will be a clear example of such type road. There are very effiecient, and helps to get traffic moving much more effieciently than a really wide motorway with many lanes and many interchanges etc.

Lennoxschips

Hmm... Paris is a great deal larger than Cork.

Chris_533976

There will be Collector/Distributor lanes (effectively) between Bandon Rd and Sarsfield Rd roundabouts when they eventually do that scheme. More C/D lanes would be nice, but there really isnt space on the Douglas viaduct

BluntGuy

The Douglas viaduct is really holding back the overall efficient upgrade of this route.

But I can't think of feasible way to widen it short of building a new parallel viaduct. And where the heck are they gonna find the space to do that?

AugustusMaximus

BluntGuy wrote: »

The Douglas viaduct is really holding back the overall efficient upgrade of this route.

But I can't think of feasible way to widen it short of building a new parallel viaduct. And where the heck are they gonna find the space to do that?

Tunnel and sell off the land made available by putting the road underground.

BluntGuy

A tunnel? Now that I hadn't considered...

But how expensive would it be?

They can't do a cut and cover job as that requires the old viaduct to be removed first. They'd have to do a deep-bore job which would be incredibly expensive. Also, where would it tie in with the existing route?

It's certainly an idea... but a very difficult, and incredibly expensive one.

Colm R

BluntGuy wrote: »

A tunnel? Now that I hadn't considered...

But how expensive would it be?

They can't do a cut and cover job as that requires the old viaduct to be removed first. They'd have to do a deep-bore job which would be incredibly expensive. Also, where would it tie in with the existing route?

It's certainly an idea... but a very difficult, and incredibly expensive one.

Perhaps double decking the viaduct might be an option. Say between the Bloomfield Junction and the Kinsale Flyover side of the Douglas West Junction, have one side of the road go up a level thus allowing both sides to have ample space. I would have the side going west go on top as there is no exit here anyway.

Engineers: would it be possible to build such a project whilst keeping the existing road open except for obvious night work.

Or am I talking complete pie in the sky.

Solair

The major problem is the signalised roundabouts at Dunkettle, Wilton and Bishopstown. They really ought to have been removed years ago.

Mahon Point certainly causes chaos, there needs to be a re-examination of the traffic management on the site. The shopping centre possibly needs direct access without that right turn across the lough mahon road.

The viaduct is just a short 4-lane section and the exit lanes into Douglas are largely non-blocking and quite sensible. I don't think the viaduct is all that much of a problem.

Typewriter

Colm R wrote: »

Or am I talking complete pie in the sky.

I think you all are.:rolleyes:

All that you'd need to do is replace the top of the existing viaduct in Douglas with a new one with cantilevered hard solders then do some minor alterations to the Douglas exits to facilitate the newer width of the road.

dmeehan

could they build a parrallel viaduct on pylons, that would still leave some space for the carpark below (granted some spaces will be lost)

i dont see the need to fill in the space between the road deck and the ground, as per the existing viaduct, when it can be built "on stilts"

murphym7

I'm sorry if I go off track here a little bit. I want to go back to some of the earlier comments about tractors on the SRR. Take a close look at most of the tractors on the road these days. They are mainly builders/developers/construction companies transporting plant and building machinery around the city cheaply. They use agricultural diesel and save a fortune by using tractors instead of the trucks they are meant to use. I can see a serious accident occuring soon. Why are these builders etc... not being pulled up for misuse of the agricultural diesel?? They are not allowed use this diesel for transporting plant but can use it in plant on building sites. I'm getting frustrated looking at this abuse each day. They are certainly not dragging crops around the city!!!! Any thoughts?

Solair

Fianna Fail donations??

They are the political wing of the irish property developers collective afterall.

Typewriter

Just for people who may not have seen these already.

Hear are pictures of the propose SRR upgrades and what it is like at present.

"We are currently waiting on funding to proceed towards construction stage. The estimated time for construction of the works is approximately 2 years."

Two years to build!!! :eek: And that's only when they get the funding.

Might be a long while before we see the view from these flyovers.:rolleyes: