New service station on M4

T Corolla

Anyone know when the new M4 service station is to be completed

L1011

No dates have been made public, the NRA says all 3(x2) sites are to open by late 2010.

As is stands they've only started the Westbound site on the M4 as far as can be seen from the road.

Bluetonic

MYOB wrote: »

No dates have been made public, the NRA says all 3(x2) sites are to open by late 2010.

The two on the M1 at Ballough will be ready to open in August 2010, thats the site handover at least.

BrianD

There was some commentary in the press that each service area will have the services duplicated on either side of the carriageway. Is this the case? I presume rhat this is avoid the cost of a bridge. Surely building a bridge and having all the services on one side of the carriageway would be both more cost effective and environmentally friendly?

L1011

Its to avoid the cost and disruption of a bridge - but its very short sighted. Single sided services can provide a higher level of service for the same running costs, less staff costs, etc.

darkman2

Is the M4 even busy enough to sustain double sided services

amacachi

Doubled-up services? Christ.

Metrobest

It's common in Europe - but the bigger ones may have pedestrian bridges to link to the restaurant or whatnot

L1011

darkman2 wrote: »

Is the M4 even busy enough to sustain double sided services

Its 20-21,000 AADT at the point where the services are going in. The hope may be to steal further traffic from the R148 around here, there'd be a fair few long distance travellers that skip the toll and get meals in Mother Hubbards or the other various food outlets / pubs along the ex-N4 along here.

The M1 is ~28k and ~52k at the northern and southern services points respectively. But of course the southern one already has an Applegreen just off the next junction down!

evoke

Does anyone know where you can get the plans for the buildings?

i have the plan for what they are doing here:
http://www.nra.ie/Publications/EISPublications/file,15152,en.pdf

I wonder if they have a 3d video of what it will look like?

Chris_5339762

About half of the MSAs (if they get built) will be single sided with bridge, the other half will be dual sided.

Single sided ones are fine in most cases.

L1011

single sided would be fine in all cases, really. I think they just don't want to build bridges over existing motorways.

df1985

i dont know if its true but i heard burger king are going into the m4 one? any truth?

veryangryman

Anyone else think its financial suicide to place the service area on the tolled route?

As mentioned earlier, people not in a hurry will avoid the toll. If they are hungry, they will pop into Mother Hubbards in Moyvalley.

The M4 was built to speed people up en route to/from the smoke. Stopping at a service area negates the benefit from driving the tolled route

Service area should have been near Kinnegad (Galway side). True youd lose the Mullingar/Sligo/Carrick/Longford customers, but seriously the road was built for Galweigans anyway.

Also Enfield is FAR too close to Dublin for one to seriously consider grabbing lunch there. Indeed the whole D-G journey is now too short to stop barring that your a fatty or your kid/auntie needs changing.

One of the great things about the new roads in the lack of need to stop/take a break. I did Athlone-Cork in 2 and a half hours last week without stopping. Yes was quite fatigued by the time i got there but still not too bad

JHMEG

veryangryman wrote: »

Anyone else think its financial suicide to place the service area on the tolled route?

Probably not, but time will tell. If it's running at a loss it won't be subsidised by the tax-payer so I don't really care!

As stated before, people who need a wiz or need petrol will have no choice but to use it.

Chris_5339762

Realistically these MSAs dont need restaurants as all the motorways are a 2 1/2 hour drive max. What you do need them for is petrol and toilets. And the fact that canning the rest of the MSA projects adds up to cancelling 10 petrol stations, 10 toilets and 10 restaurants is ridiculous.

Bluetonic

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Realistically these MSAs dont need restaurants as all the motorways are a 2 1/2 hour drive max. What you do need them for is petrol and toilets.

Of course they don't need restaurants but without the restaurants they wouldn't be commercially viable.

L1011

df1985 wrote: »

i dont know if its true but i heard burger king are going into the m4 one? any truth?

Yes. All of them will have Burger King's. Applegreen are also rolling this out to some other branches.

Applegreen appear to have started stripping the Wimpy branding from their existing stores (Urlingford is now "Fill N Grill" or similar, its the exact same food as before, just unbranded) and their website has a massive recruitment thing for Burger King on it.

Taking a wild guess at this, I'd think the Wimpy counters will remain as "Grill N Fill" and the branches with segregated Wimpy 'restaurants' like Rathnew will become BK.

Carawaystick

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Realistically these MSAs dont need restaurants as all the motorways are a 2 1/2 hour drive max. What you do need them for is petrol and toilets. And the fact that canning the rest of the MSA projects adds up to cancelling 10 petrol stations, 10 toilets and 10 restaurants is ridiculous.

You're assuming that people are going from Dublin to somecity and not counting traffic on journeys like Drogheda - Gal/Lim/Ork
Or traffic from say Clare to Dub
or West Cork to Dub

Plus truckers are only supposed to go at 80 so their journeys should be longer than car drivers......

The nra/rsa bang on about fatigue being as dangerous as drink driving, even if it's only half as bad, a few resources to preventing this danger won't be money wasted.

cc

Carawaystick wrote: »

You're assuming that people are going from Dublin to somecity and not counting traffic on journeys like Drogheda - Gal/Lim/Ork
Or traffic from say Clare to Dub
or West Cork to Dub

Plus truckers are only supposed to go at 80 so their journeys should be longer than car drivers......

The nra/rsa bang on about fatigue being as dangerous as drink driving, even if it's only half as bad, a few resources to preventing this danger won't be money wasted.

very true, I do Cork-Belfast 2-3 times a year so the 1st station on the M1 would be an Ideal pit stop

sireedisson

I feel on the M4 there is a lack of services especially between junctions 11 and 3.

According to this directory there are only 16 across the whole stretch, but I find this hard to believe.

http://findnetone.co.uk/motorway-service-stations/motorway-service-stations

SeanW

We are discussing the M4 in Ireland, you are thinking of the M4 in the United Kingdom. At least we were, last year which is when this thread last had postings.

Furthermore, FindNetOne.co.uk seems to be a very new/unknown website, so I have to wonder why you posted a link to it in your first post.

http://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/findnetone.co.uk

sireedisson

Apologies, I thought it was the M4 in the UK. I was just searching through Google for a full listing of service stations and this website appeared I was not aware that it had no ratings.

Losty Dublin

sireedisson wrote: »

Apologies, I thought it was the M4 in the UK. I was just searching through Google for a full listing of service stations and this website appeared I was not aware that it had no ratings.

Did the mention of Irish place names not hint otherwise?

n97 mini

Give the guy a break...

Some Irish place names are in fact English, e.g. Enfield.
The M4 also runs through Wales, which has lots of non-English place names.
Even England has some place names which are Gaelic in origin, e.g. anything with Avon in it.