TII Motorway Service Areas (MSA) Progress Thread

ClareVisitor

Are there plans for services on the M7 at all? It would be useful to be able to have a pit stop on the way to and from Dublin.

NFD100

sdonn wrote: »

It's an absolute disgrace that the places close down at night. Sure half the truckers in Ireland are doing night runs.

Ludicrous and completely unacceptable behaviour on the part of the NRA. Stupid, stupid, STUPID.

No they don't, they are open 24 hours for toilets and fuel.

Jayuu

The 24 hour toilet facilities aren't great actually. I stopped northbound at Castlebellingham around two weeks back not knowing that the main plaza was closed. I was directed around to the side where there are two toilets. The lights weren't working in either of them making for a rather uncomfortable pit stop.

Even a few vending machines outside, one for hot and cold drinks and one for sweets/crisps would be an improvement. Can anybody tell me what the exact opening hours of the main building are?

MidlandsM

Jayuu wrote: »

Not true. Firstly there are services on the N7 into Dublin once the motorway ends. And then you have the M1 services once you head towards Belfast.

Don't get me wrong. I think there should be services on all the motorways but you've picked a bad example.

The m1 services are relatively new, so yes, I have chosen a bed example. You're referring to filling stations on the N7.........not services. No where to pull up to rest for law required rest stops,showers,full catering etc.

swoofer

... but the M50 revolves around dublin , tfft.

and now I have N7 for one pitstop and then the M1. AAAHHH

gb--

Jayuu

MidlandsM wrote: »

The m1 services are relatively new, so yes, I have chosen a bed example. You're referring to filling stations on the N7.........not services. No where to pull up to rest for law required rest stops,showers,full catering etc.

This is not like the continent where you can drive on motorways for hours upon end and so there the absolute necessity of online services is obvious. You can drive the length of the M7 (or any of Ireland's motorways) in around 2-3 hours.

It's a pity they weren't planned as part of the original build phase but realistically we can get by for the moment without them.

murpho999

Whilst I agree that services are nice to have I don't agree that the lack of them should just heed to bad comments about the new road.
After all you can always exit off motorway if you are stuck.

Also, in the US, the entire Interstate system has no services so you can drive from New York to LA and there will be no petrol stations or toilets, doesn't mean they are bad roads, just a different system!

trap4

MidlandsM wrote: »

The world does not revolve round Dublin FFS.
If you drove from Limerick to Belfast using the M7 as part of the road trip, there are no online services, thats my point.
Ask any truck driver:rolleyes:

Jeez, the Midway foodcourt in Portlaoise is just barely off the motorway,.... how much convenience do we need? :rolleyes:

Amtmann

trap4 wrote: »

Jeez, the Midway foodcourt in Portlaoise is just barely off the motorway,.... how much convenience do we need? :rolleyes:

It's not 24-hr and as yet you can't get fuel there.

It is sheer backwardness and a lack of empathy to state that we don't need proper motorway service areas. Accidents happen, people of all ages can suddenly become ill, fatigued, or hungry. Nature can call at any time. People may be in a rush and don't have time to eat or fill up before a journey - oh yes, some will sneer at that, but the point is, thousands of people make journeys every day, and therefore there are thousands of factors to consider regarding whether or not a portion of them will require online services during a long-distance journey. A journey from Cork to Dublin on the M8 can originate at 4am in Bantry.
It is not good enough to tell people, who might include children, the elderly, or other vulnerable people to use the loo before they go. The fact is that services are required, as indicated by the business being done on the M4 and M1 service areas, and by the amount of complaints we hear about the lack of services on the other motorways.

Stark

Had to travel down at a not unreasonable hour last night (left at 9pm). By the time I got as far as Portlaoise/Urlingford, everywhere was closed. Even the 24hr service station near Fermoy only had a hatch open for coffee/fuel, you couldn't use the toilets or anything there.

Even services that opened until midnight would be a massive improvement over the current situation.

trap4 wrote:

Jeez, the Midway foodcourt in Portlaoise is just barely off the motorway,.... how much convenience do we need?

It closes quite early in the evening (about 8 or 9pm I think). Not sure what time it opens at in the morning.

veryangryman

Stark wrote: »

Had to travel down at a not unreasonable hour last night (left at 9pm). By the time I got as far as Portlaoise/Urlingford, everywhere was closed. Even the 24hr service station near Fermoy only had a hatch open for coffee/fuel, you couldn't use the toilets or anything there.

Pull into a local in a small village. P1ss there. Move on.

Seriously what did you end up doing there? You lived to tell the tale. Same as people did in Europe in the days prior to services being open there also.

To say that "the current motorway setup is unacceptable" is bordering on laughable. They are not a "necessity". People travel huge distances (and did before) in this country without services. How did your folks ever do a trip from Dublin to Cork 20 years back? I bet there was not one of them whinging about a lack of services.

More services (and further ones from Dublin to break up most journeys beter) would be a nice luxury. So would a Playstation 3 and HD TV. Not needed - ill never be convinced that they are. If your stuck for petrol, get off the Motorway/use your Sat Nav/take a drive a mile down the road offline - 99 times out of a hundred there will be one open. If your driving at 4am, thats really your own sillyness and even then there are places to facilitate.

Part of having a drivers license is that the driver is supposed to be responsible and adaptive to the conditions out there.

Worst case scenario...If i had to travel Bantry-Giants Causeway at 4am, id

...Evening before top up the fuel, check tyre pressure, water and oil
...In morning start by a good breakfast then taking a slash and bring a flask of coffee plus cash and atm card
...Tear it up as far as Rathcoole services. Quick pee and perhaps a scone and a coffee. If
...Back on the Motoway as far as Belfast. Another short break at any of the many stations in the North
..Continue onto the Causeway

Should the car break down, ive got AA cover

See how handy it is with a bit of planning?

swoofer

Planning, that is the key word and as long as we settle for second best thats exactly what we will get, ie second rate roads, hospitals, public services, solicitors, estate agents, tradesmen etc etc and of course third rate politicians.

We are one hour from the uk and years behind. It would have been a doddle to plan rest areas on all the motorways and then we would be in line with the rest of the world. We are supposed to be a country that lends itself to tourism, do you honestly believe a tourist travelling from dublin to cork by motorway is going to assume there are no services and plan accordingly! They will visit once and never return.

You do realise the pennny has dropped after the event and we will have rest areas eventually, as usual they will probably be second rate but we will have them.


gb--

Scottie99

Jayuu wrote: »

realistically we can get by for the moment without them.

Tell that to the HGV driver who required by law to take a break

IngazZagni

GBCULLEN wrote: »

Planning, that is the key word and as long as we settle for second best thats exactly what we will get, ie second rate roads, hospitals, public services, solicitors, estate agents, tradesmen etc etc and of course third rate politicians.

We are one hour from the uk and years behind. It would have been a doddle to plan rest areas on all the motorways and then we would be in line with the rest of the world. We are supposed to be a country that lends itself to tourism, do you honestly believe a tourist travelling from dublin to cork by motorway is going to assume there are no services and plan accordingly! They will visit once and never return.

You do realise the pennny has dropped after the event and we will have rest areas eventually, as usual they will probably be second rate but we will have them.


gb--

I highly disagree with you. You have to put things into perspective. The UK has a population of 62 Million people. Of course they are going to have lots of high density roads with things like services because there is a huge demand for it. ROI is a small nation with only 4.5 Million people. The fact that we have 750km of motorway plus more hqdc for such a small pop is quite phenomenal. Our roads are vastly superior than Eastern EU which have much bigger pops and quite honestly much better than France too where almost every km of motorway is tolled and quite heavily too. The traffic volumes on mainland Europe are going to be vastly bigger than Ireland anyway.

I do agree that there should be more service areas. I don't believe it's planning. It's more a funding/lack of interest by companies to set up shop. I stopped at the M4 service area near Enfield the other week (in between cold spells) at about 11.30pm. There wasn't a soul in sight, just me and the guy behind the counter who was watching TV. It tells me that if they can't get good business here, what hope is there on a road like the M9 which on a side note, this surely has to be one of the least busy motorway status roads in Europe? (Carlow-Waterford stretch anyway)

I lived in Florida for a year and you would be surprised how poor some of the highways where. Fierce bumpy in places and this was the main I95, Miami-New York Highway. Service areas didn't exist. You had to physically leave the highway to get at them albeit they where well signposted.

Anyway your comments about all our services lacking behind other Countries is generally not true. The grass is not always greener on the other side. You need to get that out of your head and also put things into perspective.

Tell that to the HGV driver who required by law to take a break

Breaks are required every 4.5 hours. There are very few places on this island that are more than 4.5 hours from the port and places that are, well you are bound to pass some suitable area for rest (plenty of lay-by areas) and petrol stations.

Edit: It will be the new year before I need to use this road but I'm looking forward to driving on it

knipex

MidlandsM wrote: »

The world does not revolve round Dublin FFS.
If you drove from Limerick to Belfast using the M7 as part of the road trip, there are no online services, thats my point.
Ask any truck driver:rolleyes:[/QUOTE

Open your eyes.

There is a petrol station just before the M50 junction that does nice coffee and an Esso station and few miles before that. Then you have the M1 services and the option of the Outlet centre just over the border.

The longest stretch without services is from Limerick to the M50 juntion which is less than 2 hours.

Furet wrote: »

It's not 24-hr and as yet you can't get fuel there.

It is sheer backwardness and a lack of empathy to state that we don't need proper motorway service areas. Accidents happen, people of all ages can suddenly become ill, fatigued, or hungry. Nature can call at any time. People may be in a rush and don't have time to eat or fill up before a journey - oh yes, some will sneer at that, but the point is, thousands of people make journeys every day, and therefore there are thousands of factors to consider regarding whether or not a portion of them will require online services during a long-distance journey. A journey from Cork to Dublin on the M8 can originate at 4am in Bantry.
It is not good enough to tell people, who might include children, the elderly, or other vulnerable people to use the loo before they go. The fact is that services are required, as indicated by the business being done on the M4 and M1 service areas, and by the amount of complaints we hear about the lack of services on the other motorways.

Furret

We do not NEED motorway service stations. They would be nice but we do not NEED them.

There are multiple exits along the motorways that would allow easy quick access to a town or vilage.

I agree that at 3am its virtually impossible to get a coffee or meal but outside of that its realistically not a big problem.

Chris_5339762

knipex wrote: »

MidlandsM wrote: »

The world does not revolve round Dublin FFS.
If you drove from Limerick to Belfast using the M7 as part of the road trip, there are no online services, thats my point.
Ask any truck driver:rolleyes:

Open your eyes.

There is a petrol station just before the M50 junction that does nice coffee and an Esso station and few miles before that. Then you have the M1 services and the option of the Outlet centre just over the border.

The longest stretch without services is from Limerick to the M50 juntion which is less than 2 hours.




Furret

We do not NEED motorway service stations. They would be nice but we do not NEED them.

There are multiple exits along the motorways that would allow easy quick access to a town or vilage.

I agree that at 3am its virtually impossible to get a coffee or meal but outside of that its realistically not a big problem.

We do NEED them because at 3am its virtually impossible to get petrol. Having 24 hour services is needed for that alone.

That said, the whole plan of having them every 60km (30 minutes) is silly.

One set on the M1 at Castlebellingham, one set at Athlone on the M6, one on the M7/8 at Portlaoise and possibly another one near Cahir, and one just south of Carlow would be perfectly good enough.

Amtmann

We do need them because a fatality on the back of not having them is inevitable.

• Fatigued hauliers? Check.
• Cars parked in emergency lanes so occupants can stretch their legs and pee? Check.
• Lorries and cars parked in laybys and then re-merging with insufficient merging lane length? Check.
• Kids and people in general picnicking in said laybys, metres from 120km/h traffic? Check.
• People scrambling up and down embankments at said laybys to urinate etc? Check.

Now, this rubbish about people being able to exit the motorway and use facilities. Take the M8 from Cork to the M7 as an example.

J19 - Cork City: terminus; services available
J18 - Glanmire: services available if you go back to Glanmire, none available once these close.
J17 - Watergrasshill: no filling station
J16 - Rathcormac: restricted junction, no access.
J15 - Fermoy: 24 hr petrol available at far side of town, about 6km from junction. Apart from private signs, you would not know this was here. No toilet facilities available from 11.30pm - 7.30am
J14 - as above, albeit 1km from junction.
J13 - Mitchelstown: I have heard 24hr petrol is available somewhere in Mitchelstown. This would be a shot in the dark for me if I were driving.
J12 - Mitchelstown: as above
J11 - Cahir: no services after c. 10pm, approx. 5km from junction.
J10 - no services
J9 - Cashel, no services after closing
J8 - no services (yet); one would have to cruise around Cashel and none available within 10km after closing
J7 - as above
J6 - drive 9km to Thurles and you might find something open out of regular hours, but prob not
J5 - no access
J4 - not 24 hour
J3 - no services
J1 - no services

And I know the M8 better than most. Most people haven't the foggiest about what lies beyond motorway exits. Their sense of geography is skewed by motorways, by their grade separation, the lack of landmarks, their artificialness, even in our case by the fact that they aren't drawn properly on most road atlases just yet.

I haven't a clue what is on or off the M7, and there's no website that can actually tell me. Most people wouldn't know either. The advice given to Clarevisitor that he could use the Midway could have been detrimental to him if he took that to mean he could also fill up there, which would not have been an unreasonable assumption for him to make.

And for those who say journey planning is key, you are displaying no empathy for those who must make impromptu journeys, for those who are vulnerable, for those with kids or elderly passengers, for those driving to a deadline, or for those with a different lifestyle to you, i.e. those who MUST leave Bantry or some such place at unusual hours. You also seem to assume familiarity with the junctions and a knowledge of the places where fuel can be bought.
It's a pity the NRA didn't plan things a bit better though, I'll give you that. Even their new brown signage is ineffective, leading you as it does, nine times out of ten, to a closed down filling station outside of regular hours or, worse, to some lonely stretch on an N- or R-road several kilometres from a town or village.

Motorway service areas are an integral design feature of all decent motorway networks in this part of the world, not some optional extra. To not have them is shambolic; we built motorways to bypass towns and to get people speedily and safely from a to b. Think about those three aims:

• bypass towns
• speedy transport
• safe journeys

These aims are all compromised by the lack of MSAs. That lack undermines our investment and detracts from the level of service provided by the motorway.

In any case, this is a pointless argument: the case for MSAs has been won, and they will slowly be built. Better late than never.

Frank Black

• Cars parked in emergency lanes so occupants can stretch their legs and pee? Check.
• Lorries and cars parked in laybys and then re-merging with insufficient merging lane length? Check.
• Kids and people in general picnicking in said laybys, metres from 120km/h traffic? Check.
• People scrambling up and down embankments at said laybys to urinate etc? Check.

It's probably worse than that, the 'Emergency Layby's' will have gates installed in front of them as they are dangerous for the reasons you have outlined. They are being re-designated as ' Garda Enforcement Areas' - basically an area that the gaurds can pull truckers into. Whether they will be used at all is doubtfull - the gaurds would need to carry keys with them and unlock the gates prior to pulling anyone in.

runway16

The situation on the M7 is somewhat better - I know of a few places to get off, but thats because I know the old N7 like the back of my hand.

The NRA gets all the blame for this, but they did plan MSA's for all the interurbans but were ordered not to proceed by government as a cost saving measure.

runway16

ClareVisitor wrote: »

As a tourist now, where you don't go through towns any more you would want things to be easily accessible and open 24 hours, these should have been planned with the road. You can't expect people who don't know the places along the motorway to get off the road and drive around searching for petrol and food, that's not the way to get tourists coming back again and again.

They were planned with the roads. The government prevented the NRA from going ahead with construction in order to save cash.

rainbowdash

runway16 wrote: »

They were planned with the roads. The government prevented the NRA from going ahead with construction in order to save cash.

I would have thought they would be quite lucrative as money spinners?

Amtmann

runway16 wrote: »

They were planned with the roads. The government prevented the NRA from going ahead with construction in order to save cash.

No they weren't planned with the roads. Contrary to standard practice, the NRA decided they weren't necessary. They were told to revisit that decision by Martin Cullen in 2007 and have been belatedly trying to fix their mistake ever since.

dubhthach

Furet wrote: »

No they weren't planned with the roads. Contrary to standard practice, the NRA decided they weren't necessary. They were told to revisit that decision by Martin Cullen in 2007 and have been belatedly trying to fix their mistake ever since.

Indeed I believe the official NRA opinion at the time was "Sure people can get off at a junction for a local town and find services there" :rolleyes:

Jayuu

I know the whole MSA discussion is slightly off track (maybe the posts can be relocated to the MSA thread?) but I should point out that while the existing MSAs may be open for petrol 24 hours a day and they do have an outside toilet if you get caught short, the actual buildings themselves are shut sometime before midnight.

I attempted to get a coffee at the northbound Castlebellingham MSA at midnight a month or so back and couldn't. It was just like any other service station at that time of night. This is why I don't regard the lack on them on other roads as such a disaster.

runway16

Furet wrote: »

No they weren't planned with the roads. Contrary to standard practice, the NRA decided they weren't necessary. They were told to revisit that decision by Martin Cullen in 2007 and have been belatedly trying to fix their mistake ever since.

In that case, I stand corrected! But I had thought the recent order to not proceed with them had come from Government, or am I also mistaken on this point?

And Jayuu, I have to agree. I used the Lusk MSA last night. The "pay at pump" was out of Order. So were half the pumps themselves. In the end, I couldnt even pre-pay because the card terminal wasnt working, so I had to get Petrol elsewhere. No cafe or anything open. EUROPEAN STANDARD SERVICES MY ARSE!

Amtmann

runway16 wrote: »

But I had thought the recent order to not proceed with them had come from Government, or am I also mistaken on this point?

No, you are correct on that. Timeline:

• NRA plan motorways with no services (2004-2006)
• Hauliers point out that this is silly (2006/2007)
• Martin Cullen instructs NRA to plan service areas (2007)
• NRA draws up an MSA policy for the motorway network (2008)
• NRA publishes EIS statements for the M1 and M4 MSAs (2008)
• NRA publishes EIS statements for Athlone (M6), Kilcullen (M9), Gorey (M11) and Cashel (M8) MSAs, and starts construction on M1 and M4 MSAs (2009)
• Plans to publish the EISs for the M7 MSAs and the other M8 MSA are shelved (late '08/early 2009) by government because of economic downturn, and plans to build other MSAs (with exception of M11 Gory) are put on ice, though planning approval is granted at end of '09
• Indications are that some MSAs will proceed (November 2010)

runway16

What a ****ing catalogue of disaster....

That said, given the sort of "standards" we can expect from the MSA's, as I pointed out above, I question whether they really provide any benefit at all....

Im sorely disappointed with the experience so far!

L1011

dubhthach wrote: »

Indeed I believe the official NRA opinion at the time was "Sure people can get off at a junction for a local town and find services there" :rolleyes:

It was more along the lines of "sure, we'd put the lads in the towns out of business if we did anything...". Which is happening anyway, cause there's a lot of spending on food and the like that just ain't happening now.

Berty

MYOB wrote: »

It was more along the lines of "sure, we'd put the lads in the towns out of business if we did anything...". Which is happening anyway, cause there's a lot of spending on food and the like that just ain't happening now.

With progress it is inevitable some will be left behind. Some will be missed, many will not.

blackwarrior

The thing that's different about motorways in Ireland is the traffic volumes - a fraction of major roads in the UK and Europe. I don't believe that motorway services are viable on most routes here, hence they weren't planned for.

As a taxpayer, I have enough. I'll take the motorways with gratitude; but I'm not subsidising truckers' midnight lattes, people going for leaks or frantic parents trying to change nappies.