N6 - Athlone Bypass Upgrade works

billbond4

I would say any junction improvements got shelved as they have to move the utility cables from the median to the side of the bypass

whyulittle

Athlone Bypass is not to get motorway designation, as it "would prohibit pedestrians and cyclists from using the road and also affect vehicles unable to maintain a speed of 50 km/h or more, such as agriculture vehicles especially those towing large trailers and machinary".

Stated in a letter from Noel Dempsey to Athlone Town Council.

Source: Westmeath Independent

veryangryman

whyulittle wrote: »

Athlone Bypass is not to get motorway designation, as it "would prohibit pedestrians and cyclists from using the road and also affect vehicles unable to maintain a speed of 50 km/h or more, such as agriculture vehicles especially those towing large trailers and machinary".

Stated in a letter from Noel Dempsey to Athlone Town Council.

Source: Westmeath Independent

Is there ANYTHING Dempsey says or does that doesnt p1ss people off. The man just has a gift...

whyulittle

whyulittle wrote: »

Athlone Bypass is not to get motorway designation, as it "would prohibit pedestrians and cyclists from using the road and also affect vehicles unable to maintain a speed of 50 km/h or more, such as agriculture vehicles especially those towing large trailers and machinary".

Stated in a letter from Noel Dempsey to Athlone Town Council.

Source: Westmeath Independent

At the end of the day it makes sense for the tractors as they have no realistic alternative route, pedestrians and bikes should be banned!

oddiot

whyulittle wrote: »

Athlone Bypass is not to get motorway designation, as it "would prohibit pedestrians and cyclists from using the road and also affect vehicles unable to maintain a speed of 50 km/h or more, such as agriculture vehicles especially those towing large trailers and machinary".

Stated in a letter from Noel Dempsey to Athlone Town Council.

Source: Westmeath Independent

Ironically, a motorway designation hasn't stopped cyclists occasionally going onto some of the other sections of the M6!

Tech3

oddiot wrote: »

Ironically, a motorway designation hasn't stopped cyclists occasionally going onto some of the other sections of the M6!

Yeah I'm seeing this alot lately aswell on all motorways around the country. Garda stopped one cyclist on the M18 a few days ago, about time.

NFD100

Quite right too. Cycling on a motorway is very dangerous. As is stopping. There is going to be an outcry when the first major fatality happens. Guards need to clamp down

KevR

Deleted User wrote:

At the end of the day it makes sense for the tractors as they have no realistic alternative route, pedestrians and bikes should be banned!

A man (pedestrian) was killed near the Monksland junction a few months ago. Pedestrians and cyclists should be banned.

If they are not going to do something to ban pedestrians and cyclists, they should definitely put streetlighting along the whole bypass as part of this upgrade. It's a busy high-speed DC and it should be properly lit if pedestrians and cyclists are going to be on it (it's dark when people are travelling to/from work during the Winter months).

I wouldn't walk along the Athlone Bypass if you paid me!!

emfifty

veryangryman wrote: »

Is there ANYTHING Dempsey says or does that doesnt p1ss people off. The man just has a gift...

Well I was so pi**ed off with this decision I had to put finger to keyboard...:)

Dear Mr. Dempsey,

I am very disappointed to note the N6 bypass of Athlone is not being upgraded to Motorway status. The reasons given for not doing so are nothing short of ridiculous.
You have now made a serious mis-judgement and have promoted the continued use of the bypass by cyclists, pedestrians and tractors on a national inter-urban road.
This is highly dangerous and instead of promoting road safety you have indulged in more 'looking after the locals' instead of the strategic interests of the route.

The NRA have already put in place plans to upgrade the road. So your decision makes this upgrade meaningless.

The recent edition of the Westmeath Independent states 'all the councillors present at the meeting were delighted with the decision'. Why does this not surprise me.

Again you have made another decision in the local interest, not the national.

Fianna Fail's days are numbered.

Yours Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxx

whyulittle

You'd hope they'd at least upgrade the lighting to the same standard as all the other exits on the motorway, i.e. on approach, right through, and after the junction.

I was driving J10 to J11 the other night and the first light you see is actually on the offramp.

flazio

emfifty wrote: »

Well I was so pi**ed off with this decision I had to put finger to keyboard...:)

Dear Mr. Dempsey,

I am very disappointed to note the N6 bypass of Athlone is not being upgraded to Motorway status. The reasons given for not doing so are nothing short of ridiculous.
You have now made a serious mis-judgement and have promoted the continued use of the bypass by cyclists, pedestrians and tractors on a national inter-urban road.
This is highly dangerous and instead of promoting road safety you have indulged in more 'looking after the locals' instead of the strategic interests of the route.

The NRA have already put in place plans to upgrade the road. So your decision makes this upgrade meaningless.

The recent edition of the Westmeath Independent states 'all the councillors present at the meeting were delighted with the decision'. Why does this not surprise me.

Again you have made another decision in the local interest, not the national.

Fianna Fail's days are numbered.

Yours Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxx

Well if you have a better cheap idea on how to get agricultural vehicles across the Shannon so they can keep producing the food on your table without bringing the town of Athlone to a stand still then I'd love to hear it.
As it is today, between the two rush hours there is always a line of traffic backed up heading east bound on that bridge from the lights at the AIB back to the roundabout outside the P&P Cathedral and sometimes in rush times, this can be backed up along the river all the way to the railway bridge.
You want to add to that misery, just so some over worked rep can get back to his Maynooth crib 5 minutes quicker?

Personally I couldn't give a fiddlers whether it's a motorway or not. I'd be a lot more upset if they don't improve the junctions as part of this upgrade, it's a right pain trying to get onto any of the main roads from the N6.

whyulittle

Trees cut back in front of the big sign between J9 and J10 westbound this evening, with the structure for a new sign nearer the J10 offramp erected.

whyulittle

whyulittle wrote: »

Trees cut back in front of the big sign between J9 and J10 westbound this evening, with the structure for a new sign nearer the J10 offramp erected.

Erect the "correct signs" first then dig up the road to rebuild it (risking damage to the signs) that's great planning! :rolleyes:

whyulittle

€7m bypass overhaul to commence next month

Athlone Advertiser, September 17, 2010.

By Triona Doherty

The overhaul of the Athlone Relief Road (bypass) will cost in the region of €7 million and may take up to 40 weeks to complete.

The facelift of the seven kilometre stretch of dual carriageway will include a new surface to reduce noise levels, the upgrade of safety barriers, tree cutting, and the removal of Eircom, Broadband, and BT connections from the centre to the verges of the road, a task that alone will cost in the region of €1 million.

There are plans to increase the capacity of the off-ramps along the stretch, while the necessity for roundabouts or traffic lights at the Garrycastle, Coosan, and Ballymahon interchanges is also being examined.

More at Athlone Advertiser.

KevR

I'm glad to hear that they are looking at how some of the junctions can be improved. I assume that Garrycastle is J9; if so, they badly need to do something with this because right turns can sometimes be a nightmare. Longer acceleration/deceleration lanes at J13 (Monksland) are a must also.


Another bit from the article:

The council has promised to liaise with the NRA to improve signage on the bypass, with several councillors calling for signs on either approach to Athlone indicating that there are six separate exits off the bypass for the town. It is also hoped brown signage can be erected to indicate the presence of major tourist attractions.

Kilmartin's Service Station should be properly signposted. It's open 24hrs and the M6 MSAs were scraped..

whyulittle

Garrycastle is J9, Ballymahon (Road) is J10 and Coosan J11.

veryangryman

whyulittle wrote: »

More at Athlone Advertiser.

Oh god please no traffic lights :eek:

The idea of upgrading the journey is to speed up the journey, not slow it down

veryangryman

veryangryman wrote: »

Oh god please no traffic lights :eek:

The idea of upgrading the journey is to speed up the journey, not slow it down

+100
Mini-roundabouts please

flazio

I hope you don't mean a Big white dot in the middle of the road because that would be a disaster. The Garrycastle exit is the one that's signposted for Blyry Industrial estate and yes that junction can be a nightmare on a weekday morning so some progress would be nice on that junction, unfortunately I can't see a full size roundabout being able to fit there.
A mini roundabout wouldn't do beacuse the HGVs and the Unimogs of the ESB would have trouble getting around them, and also, unless they can adjust the route of the Mount Temple road to become an exit of the roundabout, that existing junction could be very dangerous and tricky to do a right turn out of.

It would need to be a type of dumbell layout, not individual mini-roundabouts.
The prime reason for improving the junctions is to allow traffic leaving the bypass equal rights to pass as that traffic on the main road

whyulittle

I see they did a better job trimming back the trees on the J8 to J9 section. They literally cut them down on the section approaching J10, giving you a 'nice' view into the back of Brawny.

Also I was out at Kimartin's this morning around 9. Couldn't believe the traffic. It was backed up from their roundabout, to the roundabout onto the N/M6. Loads of traffic heading into town, and I'm sure it must have been well backed up out the old N6. Is it always that busy? I'd never been in that part of town at that time of the morning .

flazio

I presume you mean around 9 o clock, where you have IDA estate employees, college students and general shoppers all converging in that spot? Yep it is, not a lot that can be done about it though

flazio

flazio wrote: »

I presume you mean around 9 o clock, where you have IDA estate employees, college students and general shoppers all converging in that spot? Yep it is, not a lot that can be done about it though

Staggard starting times for the affected businesses would help a lot.

whyulittle

Traffic chaos fears voiced

by Adrian Cusack

Work on €7m bypass upgrade to take 40 weeks

Motorists using the Athlone relief road could face significant traffic disruption for close to a year once work on the €7m overhaul of the road gets underway next month.

Lane and interchange closures will be implemented as part of the project, which will involve resurfacing more than 7km of road and relocating telecommunications and broadband cables beneath its surface.

It prompted local councillors, whilst welcoming of the project, to express fears at the impact of the traffic disruption to local businesses, particularly around Christmas.

Front page news this week, but mainly just councillors complaining. However, it does state that there will not be any upgrade of lighting at the exchanges.

Full story at Westmeath Independent.

Oops just noticed that they haven't actually put the whole story on the site, they forgot to link to page 5! Like I said, not much to it anyway.

From the same story.

A shortlist of seven companies had been drawn up for the project, he said. The successful contractor would be chosen within a fortnight and work would then start in October. Discussing the duration of the project, Mr Kelly said, "Up to 40 weeks is being allocated for this work. It's possible it could take longer but that is unlikely."

Why has it taken so long to do this, and do they mean the beginning or end of October.

KevR

whyulittle wrote: »

However, it does state that there will not be any upgrade of lighting at the exchanges.

Really disappointing in my opinion. It's a busy high-speed road and if it's going to remain DC (i.e. - pedestrians/cyclists/slow moving vehicles allowed on the bypass) then the whole bypass should get streetlighting, even improved lighting at interchanges wouldn't be good enough.

Wild Bill

KevR wrote: »

Really disappointing in my opinion. It's a busy high-speed road and if it's going to remain DC (i.e. - pedestrians/cyclists/slow moving vehicles allowed on the bypass) then the whole bypass should get streetlighting, even improved lighting at interchanges wouldn't be good enough.

Similar blind spot by the NRA on the M11 Bray bypass. 1km dark stretch in a continuously lit Motorway/DC stretching from north of Swords to the Glen of the Downs (40 miles).

Already one child killed here on a dark November evening (about 2 years ago) - kids run across the motorway regularly - it severed an estate from playing fields and the NRA/Local Authority refused to build a footbridge.

This section has poor road markings which are never refreshed (since 1992!!), no studs, crap on/off ramps (worse than anything on the Athlone bypass).

Yet the NRA ignore all requests to light up the section. :mad:

whyulittle

Thought I'd get some shots pre upgrade work.

J8E


J8W


J9E


J9W


J10E


J10W


J13E


J13W


A long line of tractors joined at J13, and then promptly stopped a couple of hundred yards down the HS, random wheels sticking into the driving lane.

dubhthach

whyulittle wrote: »

J13E


J13W


A long line of tractors joined at J13, and then promptly stopped a couple of hundred yards down the HS, random wheels sticking into the driving lane.

Must be some of the 10k tractors a day that Mysterious use to talk about!