Roads that could be closed/downgraded

marmurr1916

Thanks to nordydan for the thread suggestion:

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Maybe we should get together and find local roads that could be downgraded to paths (i.e not suitable for motorised traffic)?

I'm sure there must be several hundred kms of very lightly used local roads that don't serve anywhere that anybody needs to drive to.

A good cull of all road types is needed.

nordydan wrote: »

Indeed, might be an idea for a new thread, instead of clogging the n3 one. There are about 100,000km of road in ireland. We can afford to lose 1-2% of this easily

My first suggestion is that the N87 be downgraded to regional road status.

The N87 runs from Belturbet in Co. Cavan to Ballyconnell then on to Swanlinbar. North of Swanlinbar, it becomes the A32 (non-primary) after it crosses the border in Co. Fermanagh and continues north to just outside Enniskillen.

The only reason this road is a national secondary road is because the bridge at Aghalane on the direct N3/A509 route between Cavan town and Enniskillen was blown up during the Troubles.

Part of the R200 and part of the R202 were redesignated as the N87, presumably to compensate for the fact that there wasn't any national road between Cavan and Enniskillen.

Now that the bridge has been rebuilt and that the N3/A509 route has been reopened in full, there's no need for the N87 any longer.

IMO, the N87 should be downgraded back to regional road status, as it was before.

One section of it can be redesignated as part of the R200, the other section as part of the R202.

Carawaystick

the N82. Why?

The N26 is it really a primary route?
and it breaks the system
the N27 and N29 short stubs, that aren't really primary routes.
The east/west stub of the M1 between the mainline and Dublin Airport- why have 3 ends to a route?

The N2 from Ardee south to Dublin. re-route it over the N33 to the M1.
and...
the N52 from Ardee to Dundalk, finish the N52 there and send Dundalk traffic via the "N2" to the M1 and on to Dundalk.

There'd be very few roads that could be closed, unless a parallel improvement was built.

Sponge Bob

These are all surplus national roads. None would be closed, rather renumbered as R or even L roads. We did this exercise only a few months back in this thread here

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055723885&highlight=soup

marmurr1916

This thread isn't intended to be just about national roads. It would be good if people could post up details of local roads that they feel could be closed to motorised traffic, effectively abandoned as roads and downgraded to paths/trails.

There are a number of bog roads around here that were tarmaced at some point in the past but have since been abandoned, they still show up as roads on the maps even though some are now impassable with four wheels.

The process appears to happen naturally anyway, if a road has residents at the end of it then it must be maintained, lobbying councillors makes sure of that.

There are a couple of roads through the flood plain that should be let go, but the alternative route needs to be upgraded first, it's currently single file with passing places.

L1011

N74 doesn't need to be national

One of the N62 and N75 needs to be declassified as they effectively both serve the same purpose - connecting Thurles to the M8.

MYOB

MYOB wrote: »

One of the N62 and N75 needs to be declassified as they effectively both serve the same purpose - connecting Thurles to the M8.

Difficult, as one links north and the other links south!

L1011

Deleted User wrote: »

Difficult, as one links north and the other links south!

But they link to a high speed road, its not like you're saving any appreciable time using one over the other. Pick the one that's in best nick, downgrade the other. Simples...

Max Power1

marmurr1916 wrote: »

This thread isn't intended to be just about national roads. It would be good if people could post up details of local roads that they feel could be closed to motorised traffic, effectively abandoned as roads and downgraded to paths/trails.

I would suggest O'Connell street in dublin.

Stark

Deleted User wrote: »

The process appears to happen naturally anyway, if a road has residents at the end of it then it must be maintained, lobbying councillors makes sure of that.

By rights, if you build your house at the end of a road in the middle of nowhere, you should be responsible for maintaining that road from your house to where it meets the trunk. Having the taxpayer maintain your private road is a disgrace and a disease of our parish pump political system.

Jayuu

The N32 must be the most pointless national route. It only exists for a few miles and its has a 50km speed limit for its entire length.
Why does this need to be classed as a national route? It is because it has a junction with a motorway?

SeanW

The N32 actually has a Motorway section, believe it or not! Given the "all roads leading unavoidably to a Motorway must themselves be Motorway, the N32 is technically the M32 between the M1/M5 junction and its first roundabout. Agree about detrunking the N2 between Dublin and the N33 and reclassifying the N33 as N2 - but theres a Motorway section between the M5 and the top of Ashbourne that should ideally be maintained. I think the law allows a Regional road to have a Motorway section, M222 anyone? (Assuming of course that there isn't an R222.)

Bluetonic

SeanW wrote: »

The N32 actually has a Motorway section, believe it or not! Given the "all roads leading unavoidably to a Motorway must themselves be Motorway, the N32 is technically the M32 between the M1/M50 junction and its first roundabout.

Not anymore, the old M50 J3 roundabout is now an N-road, N32 there the M32 is no long M, it's N as you can traverse around the roundabout without going onto any M.

Map

Stark

SeanW wrote: »

The N32 actually has a Motorway section, believe it or not! Given the "all roads leading unavoidably to a Motorway must themselves be Motorway, the N32 is technically the M32 between the M1/M5 junction and its first roundabout.

It was downgraded from M to N status after the junction upgrade though. I'm not sure why it was M in the first place given that you could escape by doing a U-turn at the roundabout. It's also quite odd that the N32 stops at the Malahide road. I think that violates the rules for N road designations which says that an N road must terminate at another N-road or a port. (Hence the N77 being extended to the M7 at Portlaoise when the N8 gets detrunked). In order to keep within the rules it would either need to be detrunked or else extended to Malahide or Howth.

SeanW wrote: »

Agree about detrunking the N2 between Dublin and the N33 and reclassifying the N33 as N2 - but theres a Motorway section between the M5 and the top of Ashbourne that should ideally be maintained. I think the law allows a Regional road to have a Motorway section, M222 anyone? (Assuming of course that there isn't an R222.)

Worth doing just for the nerdy cool factor!

murphaph

Stark wrote: »

It was downgraded from M to N status after the junction upgrade though. I'm not sure why it was M in the first place given that you could escape by doing a U-turn at the roundabout. It's also quite odd that the N32 stops at the Malahide road. I think that violates the rules for N road designations which says that an N road must terminate at another N-road or a port. (Hence the N77 being extended to the M7 at Portlaoise when the N8 gets detrunked). In order to keep within the rules it would either need to be detrunked or else extended to Malahide or Howth.

Do you have a link to the instrument that downgraded the M32 to N32?

Jayuu

All of the above proves that its completely unnecessary for the N32 to be a N route. Is it the only N route that has a restricted speed limit along its entire length? Another one for the "oddities of Irish infrastructure" thread?

Iwannahurl

Pardon my ignorance of this topic, but what would be the advantages of downgrading or closing roads?

I understand that many such roads have been superseded by new roads of much higher quality and greater transport efficiency, but presumably the lesser ones are still in use to some extent. After all, we have in Ireland what someone rather euphemistically described as a "distributed society".

On repeated trips to France I have noticed that smaller local roads are often extremely quiet. This means they are ideal for tourist use, for example, something we need very badly here right now.

Max Power1 wrote: »

I would suggest O'Connell street in dublin.

Not sure if that's irony, but in truth O'Connell Street was originally built to cater for pedestrians, horses, carriages and cows.

Jayuu

I guess the advantage of downgrading (as opposed to closing) roads is that lower speed limits can then be applied to them. So if a road goes from a N route to an R route, the speed limit tends to be lowered to 80kph.

Iwannahurl

Jayuu wrote: »

I guess the advantage of downgrading (as opposed to closing) roads is that lower speed limits can then be applied to them. So if a road goes from a N route to an R route, the speed limit tends to be lowered to 80kph.

Given the widespread disregard for speed limits evident in this country (or on Boards at least) that would be a hard sell.

I can't see such a systematic regrading being done any time soon, but if such a programme were implemented then a nationwide review of speed limits would be well worth doing at the same time. I have been told that the default limit of 80 kph was applied to all regional/local non-residential roads for reasons of administrative simplicity, therefore the various roads authorities would have to be persuaded or forced to make any recommended changes.

Jayuu

Jayuu wrote: »

So if a road goes from a N route to an R route, the speed limit tends to be lowered to 80kph.

that's where this country gets it so wrong, the speed limit should be appropriate for the type of road not its classification.
Type; as in width, straightness, number of private entrances etc.

L1011

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Pardon my ignorance of this topic, but what would be the advantages of downgrading or closing roads?

Money. We have the highest amount of roads per capita in all of the EU.

Roads which just serve a few houses should be removed from the council's property and given to those who live on them to maintain; certain N roads shouldn't be in NRA hands and hence funding (unless the NRA is to become like the NIRS and control *all* roads); certain regional roads are regional solely because some councillor in the past lived on them and so on.

Carawaystick

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Not sure if that's irony, but in truth O'Connell Street was originally built to cater for pedestrians, horses, carriages and cows.

Maybe Drogheda Street was designed for that, but O'Connell street was designed long after motor vehicles were around Dublin.

challengemaster

MYOB wrote: »

Money. We have the highest amount of roads per capita in all of the EU.

Roads which just serve a few houses should be removed from the council's property and given to those who live on them to maintain; certain N roads shouldn't be in NRA hands and hence funding (unless the NRA is to become like the NIRS and control *all* roads); certain regional roads are regional solely because some councillor in the past lived on them and so on.

To be completely honest with you - if ALL the roads were left to everyone bar the council to maintain, they'd probably be of a much better quality.

With the state of most of the roads in the country, I'd say you could downgrade just about everything shy of a motorway.

Iwannahurl

Carawaystick wrote: »

Maybe Drogheda Street was designed for that, but O'Connell street was designed long after motor vehicles were around Dublin.

Oh dear. The interweb is such a waste in so many ways.

Brief history of Sackville Street aka O'Connell Street:

O’Connell Street and the North Ward in which it is situated are relatively late in date, having been reclaimed from tidal flats from the 17th Century onwards. In the following centuries city development moved eastwards downriver, where a formal Georgian city emerged, incorporating key public buildings, residential squares and imposing streetscapes. The Georgian period also witnessed the Wide Streets Commissioners develop the powerful civic and commercial streets in the city centre, including Dame Street, Westmoreland Street and Parliament Street. In terms of layout, O’Connell Street is also part of this heritage.

The upper end of O’Connell Street was first laid out and developed towards the end of the 17th Century. Because the new street was built on land owned by Henry Moore, 3rd Earl of Drogheda, it received the name Drogheda Street. The Earl of Drogheda’s name survives today in Henry Street, Moore Street and North Earl Street, all of which were called after him. In the late 1740s, Luke Gardiner demolished Drogheda Street and rebuilt what is now Upper O’Connell Street, making it 160 feet wide and containing a planted mall 48 feet wide, forming an elongated residential square that was called Sackville Mall. In 1784, Sackville Street (now Lower O’Connell Street) was formed by extending Sackville Mall to the River Liffey. Carlisle Bridge, later to become O’Connell Bridge, was built in 1790.

It was another century before the invention known as the automobile appeared:

[M]id-19th Century attempts to build a self-propelled road vehicle were plentiful. While Americans were working their way west through the Cumberland Gap, inventors in Switzerland, France and England were strapping clumsy first-generation internal combustion engines—often powered by hydrogen and oxygen—to existing carriage frames in hopes of taking to the open road. Although most of these vehicles could only be described as ambitious failures, they still set the stage for the breakthroughs soon to come.

It was three Germans who finally got the modern automobile up and running. In 1885, Karl Benz invented a three-wheeled Motorwagen powered by his own patented gasoline-powered internal combustion engine. A year later, partners Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach created a four-wheeler built around their own petrol-powered engine design. The Benz and Daimler companies both produced cars in limited quantities—often fewer than 100 per year—throughout the late 1800s, finally popularizing their products through mass production following the turn of the century. (In 1926, the Benz and Daimler companies finally merged to form—you guessed it—Mercedes-Benz.)

corktina

MYOB wrote: »

Roads which just serve a few houses should be removed from the council's property and given to those who live on them to maintain; .

thats such nonsense. If you followed throuigh that thinking, all such roads would have gates on them and noone else would be allowed to use them. Isolated homes in the countryside were the norm before Cities and if people still want to live that way, its not up to some townies to say they cant.

dubhthach

corktina wrote: »

thats such nonsense. If you followed throuigh that thinking, all such roads would have gates on them and noone else would be allowed to use them. Isolated homes in the countryside were the norm before Cities and if people still want to live that way, its not up to some townies to say they cant.

Isolated homes in the country was never the historical means of how Irish people lived. We lived in nucleated villages called clacháns, look at the ordance survey map from the 1830's/1840's when the population was close on 8 million. You don't see one-off houses you see clusters of clacháns. This was connected to the rundale system of agriculture which was the predominant system until after the famine.

The only people who lived in "isolated houses" were landlords and others of the "landed classes"

Iwannahurl

corktina wrote: »

thats such nonsense. If you followed throuigh that thinking, all such roads would have gates on them and noone else would be allowed to use them. Isolated homes in the countryside were the norm before Cities and if people still want to live that way, its not up to some townies to say they cant.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Irish politics and public policy have been going for decades.

L1011

corktina wrote: »

thats such nonsense. If you followed throuigh that thinking, all such roads would have gates on them and noone else would be allowed to use them. Isolated homes in the countryside were the norm before Cities and if people still want to live that way, its not up to some townies to say they cant.

Isolated homes in the country were never the norm until the rise of the private motor car. Normal people lived in clusters of houses; only the landed gentry who supplied everything themselves lived in isolated houses.

My parents house which is very much "in the country", is a ~200 year old cottage, heavily extended IN one of said clusters, there are as many houses within a 2 minute walk as you'd find in a 1980s/90s posh detached housing estate.

One off housing is a blight on the country and "townies" who have to subsidise the huge expense of providing water/power/post/sewerage/transport/broadband/healthcare/end-of-life-care to the selfish me-feiners who insist on living like that have every right to complain, and insist the process stops. All of those listed cost FAR more to provide to single houses than they do to a cluster of any reasonable size - even 6 or 7 houses - and are subsidised by those to whom providing them costs far less.

Aidan1

Isolated homes in the country was never the historical means of how Irish people lived. We lived in nucleated villages called clacháns, look at the ordance survey map from the 1830's/1840's when the population was close on 8 million. You don't see one-off houses you see clusters of clacháns. This was connected to the rundale system of agriculture which was the predominant system until after the famine.

Kinda. Rundale and Clachan was characteristic of the Western Coastal Fringe and some other parts in the 19th century, but other parts of the country (particularly those that were heavily Norman influenced) had a different tradition of formal villages and towns, with an increasing emphasis on a network of market towns from the 17th century onwards. They also had a tradition of a more formal manorial structure, and so clusters of habitation around the dwellings of 'strong' farmers were common too (due to the larger farm sizes). There was undoubtedly a break from the 1780s onwards though, as higher commodity prices incentivised the breakup of larger units and the parcelling out of land in some regions to smaller tenants - leading to the construction of smaller 'out farms' - this was limited to a small number of areas though.

All of which largely makes your point of course, until the 1880s, Irish people primarily lived in rural clusters, be they clachans, villages, farms or even more formal manorial arrangements. It took the advent of peasant ownership of land to cement the process of population dispersal, and it was really only in the 1960s and particularly the 1970s that urban generated rural housing became prevelant - bungalow blitz was a 1970s term after all. It was the car and cheap oil that made it possible (that and a permissive planning environment).

corktina

chicken and egg though. If the road was there, whats wrong with someone building a house and living there? Surely noone builds a house in a field and expects the council to build them a road? By building and living on that road they are actually making it more cost effective to maintain. There may be only a handful of homes on that road but its primary purpose is probably for agricultural access,

PS I live in a Town....

Solair

Without the advent of the private motorcar, none of this ultra low density sprawl could have happened.

The major problem with Irish infrastructure is that it's spread ridiculously thinly.

I know a few people who live in what is basically rural Co. Kildare who continuously tell me that I live "down the country", a short walk from the centre of Cork City and that they live in Dublin and they wonder why they can't get broadband even though they're basically in a small housing estate that's about 20 miles from civilisation (a small town!). Meanwhile, "down the country" in Cork City I can get 100mbit/s broadband without any difficulty and can stroll into work without any need for a car.

Clearly they're delusional, like the Irish planning system.

While the banks may have facilitated the bubble and collapse of our economy, the planning process and the way that people insist on spreading investment so thinly across the country is also a huge part of what happened here.

Instead of creating viable hubs, we spread housing and development in rural areas thinner and thinner. Every local authority and village / farm seemed to think it could just throw up houses and make money out of them.

This complete lack of reality is very much part of the collapse in our economy.

Who in their right mind thought that all of this rural housing that is now ghost estates would ever have a market? It never did and it's now all sitting in NAMA and rotting.

Most of these housing developments are too far from urban centres, they have no employment opportunities in reach of them and they will just never sell.

There are times when I really wonder about this country's ability to organise anything. We plan everything based on some kind of GAA-shirt / parish football team mentality and it is costing us a bloody fortune.

We seem to have no ability to think regionally or to consider that perhaps the traditional 26 counties are not even a viable model through which to deliver services. Most of them are far too low population and should be merged.

The whole country roads and everything else needs radical rationalisation.

• Rural housing issues.
• Sewage in lakes/rivers due one-off-housing & lack of control.
• Poor broadband roll out.
• Excessively huge road system.
• Duplicated/Quadruplicated/Sextuplicated schools - due to archaic religious patronage system that has become a sacred cow and parents who will not cooperate i.e. umpteen varieties of primary school serving single town for no logical reason other than snobbery / weird notions that boys and girls shouldn't mix and old-fashioned religious bigotry.
• Umpteen non-viable airports that are located in stupid places instead of several good quality hubs.
• Sporting organisations that won't cooporate so we have umpteen crappy stadia in most urban areas instead of a few decent metropolitan stadiums. I'm thinking of Cork and Galway in particular in that regard.
• Crazy hospital system e.g. having lots of small hospitals in Dublin and Cork instead of a couple of large medical campuses. Again, vested interests that will not budge.
• Crazy GP system where GPs won't cooperate and form decent medical centres. So, instead of going to a properly facilitated hub, you go to a guy/woman who basically has a pokey office and no equipment and charges you €50 for the privilege of a chat.
• Urban planning that just ignores its own rules and created unpleasant sprawl for no logical reason and in such a way that public transport can't function properly i.e. weird ribbon developments instead of actual dense urban build. If you look at Dublin from a satellite view, the actual urban development ceased in the 1950s and the new development's largely just ribbons along roads / motorways that has no depth.

I don't mean to moan about Ireland too much, it has some positives. However, we need to get our act together and start cooperating and not just bending to every single vested interest as it is just destroying the country.

What we are doing is simply not viable. We have to get realistic about planning and infrastructure or we will never get out of this financial hole that we've dug ourselves.

corktina

you cant spread housing thinner and thinner unless you are actually knocking places down. Building houses in the countryside is increasing the density.:D

Solair

corktina wrote: »

you cant spread housing thinner and thinner unless you are actually knocking places down. Building houses in the countryside is increasing the density.:D

Not if you're building in the middle of no where instead of building in towns.

We can all be smart and pedantic!

The point is that Ireland's pattern of development from the 1970s onwards is largely economically unsustainable, even in the short to medium term due to lack of density.

Iwannahurl

Solair wrote: »

Without the advent of the private motorcar, none of this ultra low density sprawl could have happened.

The major problem with Irish infrastructure is that it's spread ridiculously thinly.

I know a few people who live in what is basically rural Co. Kildare who continuously tell me that I live "down the country", a short walk from the centre of Cork City and that they live in Dublin and they wonder why they can't get broadband even though they're basically in a small housing estate that's about 20 miles from civilisation (a small town!). Meanwhile, "down the country" in Cork City I can get 100mbit/s broadband without any difficulty and can stroll into work without any need for a car.

Clearly they're delusional, like the Irish planning system.

[...]

Hear hear.

I've never understood why the (perhaps uniquely Irish?) process of make-it-up-as-you-go-along house construction is called "Planning".

It really should be called Building Permission, since there is rarely any coherent plan involved.

The National Spatial Strategy, which wasn't much of a plan to begin with, was usurped by its creators as soon as the ink was dry. If we can't even plan at national level, how on earth can the local government gombeens be expected to do better?

corktina

Solair wrote: »

Not if you're building in the middle of no where instead of building in towns.

We can all be smart and pedantic!

The point is that Ireland's pattern of development from the 1970s onwards is largely economically unsustainable, even in the short to medium term due to lack of density.

just to be smart and pedantic...please note the

murphaph

corktina wrote: »

chicken and egg though. If the road was there, whats wrong with someone building a house and living there? Surely noone builds a house in a field and expects the council to build them a road? By building and living on that road they are actually making it more cost effective to maintain. There may be only a handful of homes on that road but its primary purpose is probably for agricultural access,

PS I live in a Town....

Agricultural access doesn't require metalled roads that are maintained at taxpayers' expense.

corktina

murphaph wrote: »

Agricultural access doesn't require metalled roads that are maintained at taxpayers' expense.

no? Try driving a Milk Tanker up one! Or an Artic delivering bulk feed....

corktina

corktina wrote: »

no? Try driving a Milk Tanker up one! Or an Artic delivering bulk feed....

Whipped cream!
I would imagine that haulage companies would charge wxtra to drive on such roads.

murphaph

corktina wrote: »

no? Try driving a Milk Tanker up one! Or an Artic delivering bulk feed....

Sorry crossed wires...the farm yard itself may well need a metalled road. I was referring to access to fields by the farmer himself.