M6/4 Motorway Galway to Dublin (for discussing completed sections)

L1011

Sponge Bob wrote: »

This is the SECOND big resurface since it opened circa 1987

It was completely resurfaced with asphalt instead of bitmac circa 1998 as well

If we are gonna spend €7m on every 6km of Dual/Motorway every 12 years on average we will be bankrupt in no time :eek: It will still not be good for any more than 100kph .

The resurfacing job clearly wasn't great - the original surface of the (higher traffic) M4 L/M/K bypass is 16 years old and has required partial patching in one area only for instance. The Newbridge BP is on its original too is it not? Also 16 years old and higher traffic.

Sponge Bob

MYOB wrote: »

The resurfacing job clearly wasn't great - the original surface of the (higher traffic) M4 L/M/K bypass is 16 years old and has required partial patching in one area only for instance. The Newbridge BP is on its original too is it not? Also 16 years old and higher traffic.

Fair enough, it was about 1 foot of pure asphalt and nothing denser layered underneath and certainly feck all CBM

Big contraflows coming up lads but hould yeer collective whists unless they are in situ for the Races

Tech3

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Fair enough, it was about 1 foot of pure asphalt and nothing denser layered underneath and certainly feck all CBM

Yeah the CBM makes a massive difference to the way the road surface holds up. Any project starting in the early 90's and after that seems to have held well with a good foundation underneath the wearing course. But I agree with you it will be some bill to pay in 30 years time when all our motorways need to be resurfaced. We might strike oil off the coast by then hopefuly.

billbond4

They also resurfaced from the towncentre to Coosan exit last November, and there was v bad traffic delays.
So it probably be same bad traffic delays when they start resurfacing.

Would I be correct in thinking that any resurfacing works would be one lane at a time as the concrete barriers are difficult to remove and replace because they are cast in-situ, with the exception of the Athlone section that uses precast sections.

KevR

Irish and Proud wrote: »

That's good!

They should modify the LILOs - probably won't though...

They should at least lengthen the deceleration and acceleration lanes - shouldn't be too difficult. Don't think they will able do anything about the tight bends though.

They have no excuse for not lengthening the slips at Monksland. The Roscommon exit isn't as bad.

I hope that some of the money is used on improving the junctions where they meet the existing roads, sometimes it's very difficult to turn right at the end of the exit lane into the town centre from J10.

billbond4

Yeah they could do with putting a roundabout at some of the busier exits

KevR

Deleted User wrote: »

I hope that some of the money is used on improving the junctions where they meet the existing roads, sometimes it's very difficult to turn right at the end of the exit lane into the town centre from J10.

Yeah J9 is a nightmare turning right too. Also, if you're heading East on the Bypass, come off at J9 and want to turn left at the top of the ramp it can be difficult - 2 lanes always form at the top of the ramp, one for turning left and one for turning right; it can sometimes be really difficult to see oncoming traffic if turning left.

They should put in mini-roundabouts or an intelligent set if traffic lights.

veryangryman

KevR wrote: »

Yeah J9 is a nightmare turning right too. Also, if you're heading East on the Bypass, come off at J9 and want to turn left at the top of the ramp it can be difficult - 2 lanes always form at the top of the ramp, one for turning left and one for turning right; it can sometimes be really difficult to see oncoming traffic if turning left.

They should put in mini-roundabouts or an intelligent set if traffic lights.

They=NRA.

Terrible habit we all have in this country mentioning "they" which could conceivably refer to that crazy man on the moon.

Im guilty of it myself sometimes

billbond4

Nope, They = Westmeath County Council

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

Would I be correct in thinking that any resurfacing works would be one lane at a time as the concrete barriers are difficult to remove and replace because they are cast in-situ, with the exception of the Athlone section that uses precast sections.

The concrete barriers on all newer schemes have occasional removable, not actually concrete (metal) sections that match in profile so you don't nessacerily notice them and they don't reduce the effctiveness of the barrier. These can be taken away to allow for contraflows.

Its been suggested here that the sections of Armco on the Athlone-Ballinasloe scheme that have yellow painted poles are removable too.

KevR

KevR wrote: »

They should put in mini-roundabouts or an intelligent set if traffic lights.

Given the choice, I'd much prefer mini-roundabouts, simply because the traffic flows through these junctions isn't high enough to justify traffic lights.

veryangryman

Deleted User wrote: »

Given the choice, I'd much prefer mini-roundabouts, simply because the traffic flows through these junctions isn't high enough to justify traffic lights.

Agreed. I wonder if there is room to put them there though. The needless development of the Sports Centre Roundabout, of no benefit to any N6 traffic other than westbound merge may make it realistic also. I dont know if people would be happy with 3 roundabouts in a row. Tullamore Church Road/Tesco area is kinda like like that and Im not a big fan of it

veryangryman

veryangryman wrote: »

Agreed. I wonder if there is room to put them there though. The needless development of the Sports Centre Roundabout, of no benefit to any N6 traffic other than westbound merge may make it realistic also. I dont know if people would be happy with 3 roundabouts in a row. Tullamore Church Road/Tesco area is kinda like like that and Im not a big fan of it

If the lanes over the bridges are made single, then there is plenty of room for two mini-roundabouts.

The roundabouts will not cause any real delay to north-south traffic but would benefit greatly traffic joining and leaving the bypass. Putting roundabouts on these junctions would simply bring them in line with almost all the other junctions on the newly constructed sections of the M6.

Amtmann

Some images of the M6 east of Moate are now available on Google Earth. Image date: 19-03-2009.

Zubeneschamali

veryangryman wrote: »

The needless development of the Sports Centre Roundabout, of no benefit to any N6 traffic other than westbound merge may make it realistic also.

The off-ramp at that junction should obviously go directly to that roundabout. Put a roundabout at the other side, linking in the road to Coosan. Close J9 altogether (the Garrycastle/Ericsson/Blyry junction).

veryangryman

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

The off-ramp at that junction should obviously go directly to that roundabout. Put a roundabout at the other side, linking in the road to Coosan. Close J9 altogether (the Garrycastle/Ericsson/Blyry junction).

Impossible - that would involve going across the road that leads to Brawny/SC/Athlone Town FC

As for closing J9, i think you might find that this junction is used by

- Ericsson
- FAS
- ESB
- 3/5 of the towns school kids
- AIT
- Blyry Industrial Estate
- Tyco

And many more. Basically half of the town uses it as rush hours.

And yes i know the whole "Naas has only 2 junctions etc" argument

But i say Fukc Naas. And i dont care whether thats tribal/gombeenist. Its one of the reasons i choose to live in Athlone. Brilliant, convenient and ideal

And if you have to close a junction, it should be Coosan (J11) - very underused. The rest are all necessary IMO

Chris_5339762

Its one thing building a bypass with two junctions, its another thing entirely to shut junctions on an existing bypass. I dont think it would be fair on the people of Athlone to start closing the things.

I dont think the junction spacing is a huge issue. Eat the hard shoulder and make an auxiliary lane between some junctions. Its the curvature that some of the junctions are on and the general curvature of the bypass thats the problem.

Also, its the fact that the 100kmh limit isnt advertised well enough (it needs gantries on either side of the bypass with 100kmh in big letters). And also, the M6 on both sides of Athlone hasnt got that much traffic then all of a sudden you meet a ton of traffic on the Athlone bypass on a very sharp bend.

KevR

They should have sharp bend warning signs on the 2 sharp bends (one between J8 and 9 and the other just East of the Shannon) along with much more obvious 100kmh speed limit signs.

I agree with veryangryman about junction 9. I used to use it everyday during both rush hours and it was always hectic. It's too busy to close, in fact it should be improved in my opinion.

Zubeneschamali

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

And also, the M6 on both sides of Athlone hasnt got that much traffic then all of a sudden you meet a ton of traffic on the Athlone bypass on a very sharp bend.

That's the problem: the N6 is being used as a local road by all the Athlone traffic. Close a few of those junctions, get local traffic back onto local roads and the M6 will be safer and quicker, which is the whole point.

Now, we need to be able to use the bridge to cross the river, but we don't need to go from the Ballymahon road to J9 without leaving the LILO lane. Send that traffic out the N55 via Cornamaddy. Sort out the bridge at Garrycastle and send traffic from the East off at Kilmartins.

I'd agree that we could close the Coosan exit too (there's a parallel local road on BOTH sides of the bypass between J10 and J11), except that the service station at B&Q is actually useful to M6 traffic.

kiwipower

KevR wrote: »

They should have sharp bend warning signs on the 2 sharp bends (one between J8 and 9 and the other just East of the Shannon) along with much more obvious 100kmh speed limit signs.

I dont understand why they dont do what is done in the Southern Hemisphere. As well as big roadside signs telling changes in speed limits, they PAINT onto the Road surphase the new Speed limit! Less chance of motorists missing them that way! As most people are looking at the road NOt the side of the road!

KevR

kiwipower wrote: »

I dont understand why they dont do what is done in the Southern Hemisphere. As well as big roadside signs telling changes in speed limits, they PAINT onto the Road surphase the new Speed limit! Less chance of motorists missing them that way! As most people are looking at the road NOt the side of the road!

They used to have that in some places when we were using the imperial system for speed measurement but it's quite rare now since we went fully metric.

Stark

Or have advisory speed limits before a bend rather than downgrading an entire stretch of road on account of one bend.

flazio

Does Glendeer have a problem with keeping their animals in the park area? Cos the stretch of motorway around Drum from the Tuam exit as far as the railway cross over has had a load of Deer signage put up. Now i know these deer signs are used to indicate wildlife in general, not just deer.
Is anyone aware of any road kill problems on this stretch?
(Also heading east bound watch out for a more up standing warning about the wildlife. :P )

Chris_5339762

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

That's the problem: the N6 is being used as a local road by all the Athlone traffic. Close a few of those junctions, get local traffic back onto local roads and the M6 will be safer and quicker, which is the whole point.

That is the issue with the bypass. It was built as a local distributor road and I dont think the rest of Athlone can suddenly handle the extra traffic, especially the river crossing.

I still think it should be motorway, but I think an extra bridge for the town itself needs to be looked at and it may be better to spend the €7 million on that rather than just retarring the bypass.

EurasiaEndtoEnd

I have never driven the Athlone bypass, so I am ready for this idea to be shot down before long, but how about dividing the lanes into a collector (and town distributor) lane on the left side and an Express lane (but still not called M6) on the right hand side? It would at least separate the long distance from local traffic. The divider could be the length of the entire bypass so that traffic does not drift in and out. It might feel narrow for long distance traffic, but nothing to stop them using the left-hand lane either.

L1011

That'd cause absolute and utter hell due to removing all overtaking opportunities for a number of kilometres. Consider the idea shot down.

billbond4

Its not too bad of an idea but say you have someone coming from Dublin and they want to get off at the last exit of the bypass that would mean they would have to travel in the "local lane" of the entire length of the bypass.
And the same is true for anyone that want to get off any of the slip roads.

veryangryman

billbond4 wrote: »

Its not too bad of an idea but say you have someone coming from Dublin and they want to get off at the last exit of the bypass that would mean they would have to travel in the "local lane" of the entire length of the bypass.
And the same is true for anyone that want to get off any of the slip roads.

Yeah and it would encourage local East-West traffic to go through town also - not a good idea. I work in east and live in west of town, so while i appreciate the innovative thinking, i will have to say no