Road standards (1944 style)

L1011

Was checking on the Dail debates for a post on SABRE and found a debate with the proposed classes of road for 'after the Emergency' from 1944:

Class 1 roads would be of the dual carriageway type, having two 24 ft. carriageways, a 14 ft. central strip and two 14 ft. verges flanked by cycle tracks and footpaths on each side.
Class 2 roads would have a 24 ft. carriageway, two 14 ft. verges and two cycle tracks and footpaths
Class 3 roads, a 20 ft. carriageway, two verges 10 to 12 ft. wide, and one cycle track and footpaths
Class 4 roads, an 18 ft. carriageway and two 6 ft. verges

Might be of interest to some on here, but where on earth did the cycle tracks vanish to for 50 years? Only started seeing them being built in the 1990s really...

The original search was to try and find when the DC through Bluebell was built, didn't manage to find that but did find that by February 1958 politicians were claiming its surface was a 'menace to traffic'!

Lennoxschips

24 ft carriageway, not bad. That's 7.3 metres.

Victor

MYOB wrote: »

The original search was to try and find when the DC through Bluebell was built, didn't manage to find that but did find that by February 1958 politicians were claiming its surface was a 'menace to traffic'!

I think sometime in the 1940s - I think someone posted an image of a postcard of it under construction.

GerardKeating

Lennoxschips wrote: »

24 ft carriageway, not bad. That's 7.3 metres.

I presume that's two 12ft (3.65m) lanes...

Run_to_da_hills

The first dual carriageway was the Naas Rd and which was completed in 1968.

L1011

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

The first dual carriageway was the Naas Rd and which was completed in 1968.

Out by at least a decade and a half. The Nass DC was NOT the first DC.

Firstly, some components of it were open in the early 1960s - Kill Bypass section for instance.

Secondly, the N7/Twhatever further in to the city was dualled at Bluebell sometime in the 1940s/1950s as was part of the current N11.

Run_to_da_hills

MYOB wrote: »

Out by at least a decade and a half. The Nass DC was NOT the first DC.

Firstly, some components of it were open in the early 1960s - Kill Bypass section for instance.

Secondly, the N7/Twhatever further in to the city was dualled at Bluebell sometime in the 1940s/1950s as was part of the current N11.

I stated that the Naas DC was completed in 1968.

Wikipedia N7 wrote:

"The N7 is noted for two firsts in the history of Irish roads - the first substantial length of dual carriageway in the Republic of Ireland, running 26 km (16 mi) from Dublin to Naas which was completed in 1968 and also the Republic of Ireland's first section of motorway, the 8 km (5 mi) Naas Bypass, opened in 1983 bypassing the original route through the town".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N7_road

L1011

And absolutely none of that provides a shred of evidence for your claim it was the first DC. Which is blatantly untrue, as a quick search of the Dail debates of the 1950s shows.

Run_to_da_hills

MYOB wrote: »

And absolutely none of that provides a shred of evidence for your claim it was the first DC. Which is blatantly untrue, as a quick search of the Dail debates of the 1950s shows.

The N7 was the first substancial DC which was completed in 1968, go ahead and edit the WC. :rolleyes:

L1011

You didn't use the word 'substantial' in your post, so its still wrong.

Zoney

I've actually come across relevant Dáil debates to the dual carriageway at Bluebell, but stupidly, I didn't bookmark them. I might have details written down somewhere though. It's not part of the Naas Road DC project, even if that expanded the continuous stretch of DC out from the city.

The Dáil debates are a fantastic resource to have online. Not so long ago when I was an undergraduate in college people were still searching the hard way through tomes of books in the Uni library for past Dáil debates. Combine it with the Irish Times archive, and while not entirely definitive or giving the whole picture, it covers a *lot* of material and is a pretty decent source for date/fact checking.

Anyway, it is not correct to say that the Naas Road dual carriageway was the first in the State. Wikipedia does in fact need editing (as is often the case - it's as reliable as the Irish weather - regardless of whether print encyclopaedias are just as unreliable).

Links:
Dáil Éireann - Volume 165 - 13 February, 1958
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Bluebell (Inchicore) Dual Carriageway
Road was planned in 1941.

Dáil Éireann - Volume 171 - 30 October, 1958
Ceisteanna—Questions. - Condition of Bluebell (Inchicore) Carriageway.
City-bound carriageway surface particularly bad.

Dáil Éireann - Volume 179 - 11 February, 1960
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Inchicore Dual Carriageway.
Bad enough road surface that a situation is described where cars use just one carriageway (probably hyperbole, but not necessarily).

Newspapers:
(related to main thread topic): Times Pictorial, Apr. 6, 1946, p. 9, "Plan for Standard Roads". Repeats the details posted here about carriageway types.
(earliest DC): Irish Times, Jan 8, 1952, p. 5, "Noted Features of Irish Roads". A Mr. D. Herlihy speaking at Institute of Civil Engineers in Ireland general meeting. Earliest examples of DC in Ireland between Donnybrook and Bray, 1.7 miles approx. Study performed on fatalities and injuries on the route between 1946-1949 (less on DC than on the remainder of route to Bray). No cycle lanes

Run_to_da_hills

MYOB wrote: »

You didn't use the word 'substantial' in your post, so its still wrong.

I wouldnt exactly call a few hundred yards of median devided road a DC. :rolleyes:

Zoney

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I wouldnt exactly call a few hundred yards of median devided road a DC. :rolleyes:

1.7 miles (part of the now N11), although short, is enough to qualify as a dual carriageway.

If one does take the short distance of the initial Naas Rd. dual-carriageway near Bluebell into account as being a candidate for first dual carriageway (it appears to be about 1km on Google Maps):

(Irish Times, Feb 22, 1944) By-Pass Road Cost £43,000

Naas Road bypass opened by Lord Mayor. From Junction of Robin Hood Road to near Bluebell Cottages [note: modern day Bluebell Luas stop. Old Naas Road marked on Google Maps]. Work was started in Sept. 1941, finished in Jan 1944 apart from planting.

L1011

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I wouldnt exactly call a few hundred yards of median devided road a DC. :rolleyes:

Whatever your definition of it is, that is precisely what a dual carriageway IS.