N7 - Newlands Cross upgrade

L1011

antoobrien wrote: »

I wouldn't hold my breath, look forward to what happened at Lucan happening there.

At Lucan, after a few weeks traffic actually ran better on the mainline than it did before and only got better from there on in. Was through it 2x-4x a day every single day during the entire process.

Was, from memory, a nightmare on the Newcastle Road though.

Aquarius34 wrote: »

The N7 is a nightmare on fridays! Newlands cross needs to grouped with the Naas bypass widening. Travelling times won't make a pile of difference until both schemes are done.

I've seen people on here commenting that the M7 widening to M9 Junction will be part of the Kerry Group R&D centre project, but I've only seen it on here.

It'll reduce travel times for anyone not going beyond Naas, and for every other day of the week / time of Friday.

Aquarius34

NEDDURC wrote: »

I personally think the widening may not be such an issue if Newlands was upgraded. It is what creates the bottleneck in the evenings which then manifests into a bottleneck where the 3 becomes 2 in Naas. If removed the traffic in theory should flow better.

As I work quiet close to Newlands I'm not looking forward to the build phase. Hopefully, they come up with some good solutions to keep the thing moving until complete.

Have you seen the tailbacks that occur past Naas? It's a slow pace the whole way to the M9 turn off. THe M9 turn off is getting very dangerous as car users are trying to merge lanes and since the road is not able to handle the capacity of traffic it currently uses, everything slows down and grinds traffic down to a snails pace. Anytime I've been on the Naas road in the evenings its pretty slow and It will get worse when the Newlands cross scheme is upgraded which is why I feel both schemes need to go ahead at the same time. Otherwise travelling times won't change.

Chris_5339762

MYOB wrote: »

I've seen people on here commenting that the M7 widening to M9 Junction will be part of the Kerry Group R&D centre project, but I've only seen it on here.

AFAIK thats the CURRENT upgrade of the M9N to M7E movement, from 1 to 2 lanes. No plans to do the Naas Road to M9 junction as part of the R&D center project. No idea what the current state of the widening is

BuzzFish

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

AFAIK thats the CURRENT upgrade of the M9N to M7E movement, from 1 to 2 lanes. No plans to do the Naas Road to M9 junction as part of the R&D center project. No idea what the current state of the widening is

Knowing where Kerry is locating in Naas I'd be surprised if the junction between Naas North and South isn't seriously considered now. Traffic on the Monread road is a standstill already most of the day so entry from that side (Naas North) is a no-go imo. Then there is Naas South which does not have the capacity for any big increase in traffic leaving the motorway due to the junction at the top of the ramp.

Aside from this the opening of the new junction would make the millennium park far more attractive for any future development now that the area will be anchored by Kerry and Volvo.

anyway... all off topic really and separate to the Newlands Cross project which I can't see changing at this late stage to be coupled with something else.

Chris_5339762

Local rag "Bizblitz" has a walloping great front page article (full of filler) that does say contract signing on the 7th March, with work onsite starting in the first week of July.

It doesn't mention whether that all includes the M11 gap.

spacetweek

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Local rag "Bizblitz" has a walloping great front page article (full of filler) that does say contract signing on the 7th March, with work onsite starting in the first week of July.

It doesn't mention whether that all includes the M11 gap.

July - that is horrific - months late! Supposed to be April.

NEDDURC

Hard to understand what the dealy from March to July would be. I'm sure they've been expecting this to start for a long time and surely should be ready to go with it. Maybe there is a technical reason or are they waiting for schools to be finished to lessen the initial impact?

Packet

Don't get your hopes up yet.

Chris_5339762

I'm not **too** worried about the April - July delay, but if the contract DOES get signed on Thursday then thats a major step forward. Fingers crossed....

spacetweek

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

It doesn't mention whether that all includes the M11 gap.

The two schemes are a package so it must include it. The rag probably just didn't mention it cause it seemed off-topic.

starviewadams

Was a meeting hosted by a PR hungry FG TD a few weeks back about the Newlands Cross upgrade.Was nobody from SDCC/KCC or the NRA in attendance though,and the TD said he was ''hopeful'' the contracts would be signed by the 7th of March.

This seemed to be where Bizblitz got their info from.This TD was an idiot,more interested in looking concerned in the 1000's of photos his advisors took of him,so I would not take anything he said too seriously.

The meeting descended into the usual NIMBY,and ''what about my property value?'' farce so I left before the end.

spacetweek

So this is the 8th March, it wasn't signed then?

BuzzFish

Interesting few posts here with all the artist pics of the finished scheme:

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=101040452

rameire

Nice to see the final result pictures. Incase people are wondering. There is a massive space parallel to the south that is boarded up that will be used for the temporary road during construction

spacetweek

rameire wrote: »

Nice to see the final result pictures. Incase people are wondering. There is a massive space parallel to the south that is boarded up that will be used for the temporary road during construction

No, in fact I think that space is for the final southside ramps.
Likely they'll build those first, move the westbound main lanes onto them, build the northside lanes, move eastbound onto those, then begin work on the flyover structure.

NEDDURC

spacetweek wrote: »

No, in fact I think that space is for the final southside ramps.
Likely they'll build those first, move the westbound main lanes onto them, build the northside lanes, move eastbound onto those, then begin work on the flyover structure.

No idea what that means! There is a recent post on the linked website above that talks about the phasing of the project and that the latest update is that it will start in end April or early May.

Not sure there is loads of space behind the green barriers as the golf course is right behind them once you go through the crossroads so don't think there is much room there.

spacetweek

NEDDURC wrote: »

No idea what that means! There is a recent post on the linked website above that talks about the phasing of the project and that the latest update is that it will start in end April or early May.

Not sure there is loads of space behind the green barriers as the golf course is right behind them once you go through the crossroads so don't think there is much room there.

OK fair enough
As for the golf course, you can see in Google maps that there is plenty of vacant space behind those wooden boards for the future road.

Interesting note: The Skyscrapercity article says 120,000 vehicles use that junction daily. Presume this is all movements (not just N7 straight-through) as 120k would need 10 lanes but they're only providing 6.

Geogregor

Here is stuff which user kreator1984 from Skyscrapercity posted:

I just got a call from Mr. Sean O`Neill from NRA and I have couple of news. First of all I can confirm what I found out yesterday, N7 Newlands Cross Junction improvement is a part of the N11 Arklow to Rathnew PPP Contract. The contractor is BAM PPP Ireland.

The construction is going to start in late April / beginning of May - Mr. O`Neill said.

There is the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for this project :

http://www.eib.org/attachments/pipel...77_nts2_en.pdf

Phasing of the construction is as follows from the page 58.

Quote:

The Overpass option would be constructed in seven stages as follows as depicted in Figures
4.10 – 4.16 inclusive:

Stage 1:
Temporary traffic diversions will be constructed offline and to the south of the proposed overbridge location. This will include the construction of as much of the permanent works as is feasible. The temporary diversions will facilitate the diversion of the Naas Road (N7) from its current alignment and enable c
onstruction works to commence to the north of the scheme. Temporary traffic lights and road markings will also be installed for traffic management purposes at this time.


Stage 2:
The abutment walls and the bridge piers in the central island will be constructed.
Reinforced soil approach embankments will also be constructed at this time.


Stage 3:
Precast beams will be lifted into place during a series of overnight road closures.
Glass fibre reinforced concrete permanent form work will be placed between precast beams, to enable the construction of the deck slab to proceed above the live traffic on the Fonthill/Belgard Road (R113) beneath.


Stage 4:
The Reinforced Concrete deck slab and parapet edge beams will be cast. Deck
surfacing, lighting and drainage will be added to the overbridge structure
The road pavement on the approach embankments will be constructe
d together with the drainage, lighting, noise barriers (where required) and central reserve vertical concrete barrier.


Stage 5:
Traffic will be redirected onto the overbridge structure. The temporary westbound
diversion to the south of the overbridge will be removed and the final highway arrangement for the westbound merge and diverge lanes will be
constructed. The highway arrangement to the north of the overbridge structure will also be constructed.


Stage 6:
All remaining highway upgrade works will be completed including the landscaping,
lighting and drainage elements.

Stage 7:
Final Highway Scheme Arrangement

__________________

rameire

I will link to the drawings I was looking at last year. As what I said above was my interpretation of those drawings.
Will be tonight though.

rameire

I assume the above link shows what I meant

antoobrien

spacetweek wrote: »

Interesting note: The Skyscrapercity article says 120,000 vehicles use that junction daily. Presume this is all movements (not just N7 straight-through) as 120k would need 10 lanes but they're only providing 6.

It'd have to be all movements, the NRA traffic counter nearest to NX had traffic traffic at Kill/Johnstown at in the region of 67k-75k for the two months they operated the counter in 2008.

rameire

page 10 to 16 of the link below show how the road layout should go

BE AWARE this is a large pdf doc,

http://www.sdcc.ie/sites/default/files/publications/chapter-04.pdf

mydiscworld

spacetweek wrote: »

So this is the 8th March, it wasn't signed then?

Anyone hear if the contract was signed yet?

antoobrien

mydiscworld wrote: »

Anyone hear if the contract was signed yet?

It will be in the papers when it is signed and the thread title will probably change to indicate that the contract has been signed.

Geogregor

rameire wrote: »

page 10 to 16 of the link below show how the road layout should go

BE AWARE this is a large pdf doc,

http://www.sdcc.ie/sites/default/files/publications/chapter-04.pdf

Thanks.
It is all clearly shown and explained. Now all we have to do is wait for the actual start of the construction.

Tragedy

If Junction 8 of the M50 had have been built, north/south traffic at newlands cross could be closed off for the duration of the building works and people shifted on to the Outer Link Road/M50 making construction much simpler.
Shame!

L1011

Tragedy wrote: »

If Junction 8 of the M50 had have been built, north/south traffic at newlands cross could be closed off for the duration of the building works and people shifted on to the Outer Link Road/M50 making construction much simpler.
Shame!

If J8 on the M50 had been built as planned, there'd be an M7 from there to Naas, meaning that Newlands Cross would likely never have been upgraded.

Tragedy

MYOB wrote: »

If J8 on the M50 had been built as planned, there'd be an M7 from there to Naas, meaning that Newlands Cross would likely never have been upgraded.

DCC have wanted to build J8 as local access to Cloverhill for a very long time.

L1011

Tragedy wrote: »

DCC have wanted to build J8 as local access to Cloverhill for a very long time.

That's not what the junction number was reserved for, though.

As an aside, isn't it amazing how oddly pretty the prison looks from the air...

Aquarius34

Tragedy wrote: »

DCC have wanted to build J8 as local access to Cloverhill for a very long time.

Oh God no, that's just another recipe for a disaster if it were ever to be built. There is the ORR road and upgraded Nangor road there, The M50 has to much traffic on it now. The M50 has to many junctions and adding more would only aggravate the existing traffic flows. Ballymount is also a nightmare at times due to dangerous weaving by been so close to the Red cow interchange.