Motorway Redesignation sparks huge complaints

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

Don't forget, some of them are nearly 80 years old! Last time I was in Germany I went on an autobahn near Munich and there were cobblestone median "crossovers" (or whatever those things are called).

Bits of the Naas Road DC are nearly 70 years old and aren't that far off modern standards :P

(they're bits of the detrunked section inside the M50, not the Naas DC itself)

murphaph

tech2 wrote: »

Actually speaking of Autobahn I was looking at a forum on them today, some of them with unresticted speeds are absolutely shocking in terms of narrow emergency lanes and slips. Some of their expressways are very dangerous also.

Define "dangerous"... The roads are as safe as the road users and Germany has far better accident statistics than Ireland (with it's endless head on crashes on runway straight sections of S2 N road).

The Autobahn varies in stadard greatly. The newest bit mear me is the A113 Dresden Autobahn Zubringer (below), a D3M with long slips. Germans expect a variety of exit types and are prepared for the "hair raising" 90 degree ones because they use the deceleration lane or decelerate on the mainline if the deceleration lane is too short. There are accidents on the Autobahn of course, but not many give the millions of passenger kilmotres clocked up on the system everyday.

As for the old ones with hard strips instead of hard shoulders, well, the swiss have decided new Autobahns down there should have no hard shoulders and just regularly spaced emergency laybys. The reasoning is that modern vehicles rarely go hard down and can usually limp to a layby before stopping. It requires less land take and less maintenance. Germany has not opted for this but might.

Edit: picture too big, just google A113 Autobahn or BAB113.

murphaph

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, work started last week.

Happy days. So M6 and no "Athlone Gap" all the way to Galway environs.

Chris_533976

I dont know anything more but it could be just the same as the N18. There are new poles aplenty.

The NRA say they are resigning all national routes REGARDLESS OF MOTORWAY REDESIGNATION. They just wont put up new signs till they hear the yes or no.

Either green or blue could still go up. Exactly the same thing has happened all along the N18, so dont get hopes up yet

Tech3

murphaph wrote: »

Define "dangerous"... The roads are as safe as the road users and Germany has far better accident statistics than Ireland (with it's endless head on crashes on runway straight sections of S2 N road).

The A113 looks a quality autobahn IMO. I've actually been on the Nuremburg to Praha motorway also and I thought that was a good standard. But why have so many old junctions not been upgraded? Only patching over bad surfaces/potholes, short distance to exit off the motorway. But in fairness it would have been a small amount which had poor surfaces but its a lot better than our basic primary routes.

Im just basing the fact that the NRA wouldnt have put these type of roads up for redesignation for 120km/hr never mind unrestricted speeds. The Germans would have given routes like the N18 motorway restriction even the part from Limerick to Shannon.

Tech3

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes, work started last week.

If its just the poles for the new signage it doesnt mean much, Ive seen these all around the country waiting for new signage as the old ones need to be replaced. If you saw the blue signs then were laughing.

BluntGuy

Yeah... the poles issue... it's come up before, refer to this post for the answer:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=59474024&postcount=388

murphaph

tech2 wrote: »

The A113 looks a quality autobahn IMO. I've actually been on the Nuremburg to Praha motorway also and I thought that was a good standard. But why have so many old junctions not been upgraded? Only patching over bad surfaces/potholes, short distance to exit off the motorway. But in fairness it would have been a small amount which had poor surfaces but its a lot better than our basic primary routes.

Im just basing the fact that the NRA wouldnt have put these type of roads up for redesignation for 120km/hr never mind unrestricted speeds. The Germans would have given routes like the N18 motorway restriction even the part from Limerick to Shannon.

I bet a lot of the older tatty section you saw were former DDR sections. They spent almost nothing on maintaining the Reichsautobahnen and they literally fell apart under communist rule. Many sections had to be completely rebuilt after reunification.

I live near a contoversial area because the city of Berlin wants to extend the BAB100 around to the east of the city. Thi will involve some apartment blocks being demolished as well as a heap of allotments. There is widespread resistance to this extension. The ultimate goal is to complete the A100 as a ring, but I doubt this will ever happen tbh.

Irish and Proud

murphaph wrote: »

Define "dangerous"... The roads are as safe as the road users and Germany has far better accident statistics than Ireland (with it's endless head on crashes on runway straight sections of S2 N road).

Well the Irish WS2 (like the N9 Timolin Bypass) would make any other S2 look like a boreen - even the S2 Highways in the US - like one traffic lane is a whopping 5m!!! A ridiculous (death trap) 15m pavement for just 2 lanes - sense has prevailed in some way - the WS2 Standard is no more - the NRA decided that for an extra 1.5 metres in road width, a 2+2 road could be provided, and with a divided 4 lane highway, less fatalities should result as head on collisions should be virtually eliminated!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N9_road

murphaph wrote: »

The Autobahn varies in stadard greatly. The newest bit mear me is the A113 Dresden Autobahn Zubringer (below), a D3M with long slips. Germans expect a variety of exit types and are prepared for the "hair raising" 90 degree ones because they use the deceleration lane or decelerate on the mainline if the deceleration lane is too short. There are accidents on the Autobahn of course, but not many give the millions of passenger kilmotres clocked up on the system everyday.).

Not good enough! :mad:

murphaph wrote: »

As for the old ones with hard strips instead of hard shoulders, well, the swiss have decided new Autobahns down there should have no hard shoulders and just regularly spaced emergency laybys. The reasoning is that modern vehicles rarely go hard down and can usually limp to a layby before stopping. It requires less land take and less maintenance. Germany has not opted for this but might.

The Swiss show a complete mis-understanding of what hard shoulders are about - not only are they for stopping in the case of an emergency, they are also for accelarating in order to rejoin mainline traffic safely, plus in the UK, the hardshoulders are made sufficiently wide to act as a running lane in the event of mainline lane closures (road works etc)! In Ireland, the current motorway H/S is 2.5m which is too narrow - in the UK, it's 3.3m - we should go back to the 3.0m H/S standard (same as the US)!

Regards!

gjim

I don't get the fixation with building vast under-utilised hard shoulders. While hard shoulder construction is cheaper than that for regular lanes, it would have to be a fraction of the cost to justify it's construction when 99.9% of it is lying idle for 99.9% of the time. For a small increase in construction cost, building a second lane instead of a hard shoulder provides a massive increase in safety, capacity and speed. I can't see how building endless wide hard shoulders could be anything but wasteful when analysed in terms of cost/benefit with the alternative types of road.

SeanW

That's all great ... until you have a breakdown. I REALLY don't like the idea of having engine trouble or a flat tyre and being stuck on the main line of the road.

You'll be surprised just how much the hard shoulder gets used!

Police and other emergency services always need them to get to the scene of an incident, broken down and crash damaged vehicles are parked there out of the way until recovered.

Without them, certain motorway sections would be prone to more congestion!

Amtmann

gjim wrote: »

While hard shoulder construction is cheaper than that for regular lanes

Is it? It's built with exactly the same materials as driving lanes on all the recent motorway construction schemes I've watched.

gjim

Furet wrote: »

Is it? It's built with exactly the same materials as driving lanes on all the recent motorway construction schemes I've watched.

I dunno to be honest.

Hard shoulders may have provided a bit more utility back in the day when car breakdowns were much more frequent. These days, I'd argue that reserving an entire functioning lane for highly infrequent usage is a chronic waste of infrastructure.

All over Europe there is a vast amount of high quality road of all grades which functions perfectly without hard shoulders. I've had no issue driving on them and have seen the effects of accidents; at worst a DC with no hard shoulders reverts to the capacity of an S2 with hard shoulders - at all other times it offers greater capacity and safety. Many or most of these countries have better safety records than Ireland.

I think the "nightmare mental picture" used to justify hard shoulders - of being rear-ended at 100km/h having broken down is a boogeyman. I certainly have never seen it mentioned in stats on road deaths. If you've broken down to a complete stop then the existence of a hard shoulder is of little use while if you can trundle on at all, it is only a matter of convenience that you have to go a few hundred meters to pull off the road.

I suspect also that 95% of the time that hard shoulders are actually used, it's for people to take a a rest stop - chat on the phone, go for a leak, stretch the legs, etc. The solution should be to provide more properly laid out stopping areas.

Carawaystick

the N4 has a decent length of D2 with no hard shoulders. What are the accident/collision statistics for that between Newtown Forbes and the Dromod end?

I'd assume these would only go down as familiarity improves with this type of road.

Narrow windy S2 would have this issue only with the risk of oncoming traffic as you pass stopped traffic....

L1011

Carawaystick wrote: »

the N4 has a decent length of D2 with no hard shoulders. What are the accident/collision statistics for that between Newtown Forbes and the Dromod end?

I'd assume these would only go down as familiarity improves with this type of road.

Narrow windy S2 would have this issue only with the risk of oncoming traffic as you pass stopped traffic....

That section was built as the experiment for the format. Clearly its been a success of else they wouldn't be proposing to use it as the lowest standard for all future scheme... that type 2 DC has become the new WS2.

They're only used in areas where traffic is low enough that a DC with a lane blocked with a broken down vehicle doesn't become a hazard, but where long periods with no overtaking opportunity become a traffic hazard in themselves. In terms of land beside the road taken for access during construction I'd be surprised if T2DC takes any land more than WS2 at all actually...

Tech3

Carawaystick wrote: »

the N4 has a decent length of D2 with no hard shoulders. What are the accident/collision statistics for that between Newtown Forbes and the Dromod end?

I'd assume these would only go down as familiarity improves with this type of road.

Narrow windy S2 would have this issue only with the risk of oncoming traffic as you pass stopped traffic....

You are referring to the 2+2 ot type 2 dual carriageway on the N4. I havnt actually been on it myself but it must be a success as the Castleisland Bypass was only meant to be constructed WS2 but now its going to be 2+2. I plan on driving the 2+2 from dromod to roosky in the next few weeks to see what its like.

The idea came from Sweeden who constructed many of these in the 90's and this has made their roads a lot safer when the had windy S2 before.

Capt'n Midnight

gjim wrote:

I think the "nightmare mental picture" used to justify hard shoulders - of being rear-ended at 100km/h having broken down is a boogeyman. I certainly have never seen it mentioned in stats on road deaths. If you've broken down to a complete stop then the existence of a hard shoulder is of little use while if you can trundle on at all, it is only a matter of convenience that you have to go a few hundred meters to pull off the road.

I suspect also that 95% of the time that hard shoulders are actually used, it's for people to take a a rest stop - chat on the phone, go for a leak, stretch the legs, etc. The solution should be to provide more properly laid out stopping areas.

+1

Converting a single lane + hard shoulder to a dual lane sounds like a good idea. Lay by , which we used to have on the old Trunk roads should cover most breakdowns. How many people have died because of overtaking on single lane roads when it could have been safely done on on with an overtaking lane.

Irish drivers are terrible for driving at the white line even when the lane is wide enough for two cars and there is a hard shoulder with a dashed line that they are allowed to pull into as well :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

Chris_533976

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

+1

Irish drivers are terrible

Fixed

Tech3

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

+1

Converting a single lane + hard shoulder to a dual lane sounds like a good idea.

Many roads with hard shoulders will be hard to squeeze a 2+2 onto. I wonder how much it would cost to upgrade a WS2 to 2+2. Was dromod to roosky a WS2 before construction or was it just a normal twisty S2?

Heres a picture of the N4 2+2 on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:N4_Dromad-Roosky.jpg

bk

tech2 wrote: »

Many roads with hard shoulders will be hard to squeeze a 2+2 onto. I wonder how much it would cost to upgrade a WS2 to 2+2. Was dromod to roosky a WS2 before construction or was it just a normal twisty S2?

Heres a picture of the N4 2+2 on wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:N4_Dromad-Roosky.jpg

That doesn't look any wider then a standard WS2 + hard shoulder, while giving much greater functionality and safer.

Actually it looks much nicer then most WS2's. However I'm surprised they used wire rather then a concrete divider. I thought concrete was cheaper and safer?

Tech3

bk wrote: »

That doesn't look any wider then a standard WS2 + hard shoulder, while giving much greater functionality and safer.

Newer one yes, older version no. Im all for 2+2 the sooner all the WS2's are replaced, the better.

Actually it looks much nicer then most WS2's. However I'm surprised they used wire rather then a concrete divider. I thought concrete was cheaper and safer?

Agree it looks a lot better, The wire rope cable barrier system has been proved to be very safe.

L1011

tech2 wrote: »

Was dromod to roosky a WS2 before construction or was it just a normal twisty S2?

Its a new build. Was going to be S2+1 until part way through construction at that.

AugustusMaximus

Here's hoping for more 2+2. Being able to pass easily is an enourmous benefit.

murphaph

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

Here's hoping for more 2+2. Being able to pass easily is an enourmous benefit.

Couldn't agree more. The 2+2 (or what the brits just call a dual carriageway!) is absolutely fine and adequate for many national routes. Removing the frutration of being unable to pass slow moving traffic will have obvious benefits. I'd like to see the N24 eventually upgraded to 2+2 throughout. I think it's an ideal candidate.

AugustusMaximus

murphaph wrote: »

Couldn't agree more. The 2+2 (or what the brits just call a dual carriageway!) is absolutely fine and adequate for many national routes. Removing the frutration of being unable to pass slow moving traffic will have obvious benefits. I'd like to see the N24 eventually upgraded to 2+2 throughout. I think it's an ideal candidate.

Yep. N24 would be perfect. As it stands its almost impossible to pass people on long stretches of it. Obviously HQDC would be overkill.

SeanW

I saw the pic of the N4 2+2 ... don't like it. It has all the hall marks of make-believe motorway. From the lack of a hard shoulder to the cable barriers that act like graters when for example a motorcyclist or small car hits them, but are not substantial enough by the looks of them to stop a runaway lorry or whatever, it strikes me as a "make do" option that presents serious problems under adverse conditions (breakdown, any type of accident, etc.
Foliage and/or high concrete barriers also have the advantage that the light from the other carriageway is effectively blocked, so as a car driver you can leave your high beams on at night, which is a big benefit when you're doing 100kph (or more in some cases).

SeanW

SeanW wrote: »

I saw the pic of the N4 2+2 ... don't like it. It has all the hall marks of make-believe motorway.

That road's a long way short of being a motorway, any road built as a dual carriageway in this format could never be redesignated as a motorway.
It's a good compromise between wide single carriageway and motorway-HQDC.

Zoney

Poles placed along the N20 Limerick-Patrickswell - they haven't been embedded in the foundations yet. At least three types of poles in use - ordinary large tubular (taller than the existing signs), H beams (at least double the height of existing signs) and collapsable girders (about the height of the H beams). I think the latter are used where the signs are unprotected - many of the sign placements happen to be protected due to barriers for bridges, edge of embankment, etc.

Blue signs within the month?

Tech3

Zoney wrote: »

Poles placed along the N20 Limerick-Patrickswell - they haven't been embedded in the foundations yet. At least three types of poles in use - ordinary large tubular (taller than the existing signs), H beams (at least double the height of existing signs) and collapsable girders (about the height of the H beams). I think the latter are used where the signs are unprotected - many of the sign placements happen to be protected due to barriers for bridges, edge of embankment, etc.

Blue signs within the month?

Saw them myself they look very high. The signs will be a lot better visibly than the old ones regardless if its redesignated or not. Cant see any reason why it wont get redesignated.

The NRA and Dempsey would want to hurry up. Sick of this rubbish it doesnt takes months to examine these redesignations they should know about the routes already before putting them up for the second tranche f**k sake.:mad: