Post-IMF Road Design Standards

L1011

blacktopper wrote: »

You get nothing MYOB.

My original premise was we must find a road we can support we must start to work in partnership and compromise we must work for the economic good and possibly accept less than what we would previously.

I pushed hard to get sanction on that but had to achieve certain goals for an acceptablility.

Luckily you guys are not the final arbiters on this. But if your anything to go by your to closed minded and stuck in the boom to be of any use. A few years in the budgetary wilderness may change you. The economics of this is, due to recession we only need to keep up a small amount of investment in roads to actually come out of this without an infrastructure deficit like the 80's. To get investment road methods will have to become more pragmatic, gold plated schemes affecting one county won't pass the test. I hope those with the real power not you or I are more realistic because your attitude is just the sort of stuff that will get road projects side-lined for 10-15 years. Think about it will you. You've seen the picture above, that is the fashion. If you want that keep on spouting the same old dogma. If you think road investment is still the answer for this Country change how you work. I shall not be tempted to post again MYOB I humbly ask you to reconsider that is all, I'm sorry I failed to persuade you I will accept defeat on that. I will not give up so easily on the Country my fight is elsewhere. Goodbye.:)

We found a road standard that everyone except you agreed on. A 2+2 is not "gold plated", as everyone else agrees on; and its absolutely hilarious that you're claiming to be humble in any way, shape or form.

As I said - troll.

dubhthach

<<Mod!>>

Folks not to sounds like anyone's mother, but can we avoid namecalling. If you have specific issues please report them to the relevant moderators. I'm tempted to close this thread as Sponge Bob suggested as it's descending into a slanging match.

--Edit--
Closed on request of original contributor.

blacktopper

kill it.

Amtmann

This is from a document co-written by one Miles Deas - who posted here recently - loftily titled "Briefing for the Incoming Government 2011"

Proper Road Design

Road design needs to embrace best international practice. The NRA has unduly confined its menu of interventions so as to exclude options available in every other European country – and this has been done in favour of building motorways.

Prior to 2007, in line with the UK, a number of road layouts were available with the presence of the mid-range options such as wide single carriageways and 2+1 roads. In the 2007 revision, the wide single was dropped and the 2+1 fell from favour with "Type 2 Dual Carriageway [being] the preferred road type". No literature was published to justify this decision.

No attempt was made to ascertain whether any shortcomings with mid-sized roads could be redressed with education or public awareness campaigns. Instead, at the height of the boom, mid-range roads were simply eliminated from the set of options to be considered by road design engineers. With no mid-sized options available, the resulting gap saw planned routes with only modest levels of traffic constructed as expensive 4-lane roads.

Re-introduction of road types for mid-range traffic flows is warranted in the absence of peer-reviewed literature pointing to the contrary. The introduction of a sparse 2+1 road layout, as in Sweden, and the reintroduction of the wide single lane carriageway and 2+1 for new builds and will provide for more cost-effective solutions.

Ireland’s road design parameters are out of line with the rest of Europe. Irish estimates of how much traffic a road can handle are roughly half that of other European countries. The proposed Oilgate to Rosslare (N11/N25) scheme is based not only on rapid traffic growth but the idea that at 11,600 vehicles on a single carriageway (i.e. a road with one lane in each direction) has reached its maximum capacity. Yet a similar road in Northern Ireland can accommodate 21,500 vehicles under the design parameters used all across the UK.

Upward revision of maximum capacities would naturally lead to the cancellation of many projects and serious consideration of cost-effective road layouts designs for many others. To leave unchanged the notion that a road in Ireland can only take half the traffic of our European neighbours is to continue to justify otherwise untenable projects at the cost of billions of euro.

Some inter-urban routes warrant two different road types along their length. The NRA seeks to justify the building of 4 lane roads throughout a route - disregarding traffic levels - on the basis of “consistency of driver experience”. Yet the UK manual used by the NRA, the DMRB, states that “sustaining a particular carriageway standard along an entire route is not normally acceptable if this is at the expense of foregone economic or environmental benefits”.

Between 2001 and 2009 the motorway system expanded 430% and we can now boast 2.5 times more kilometres of motorway per head of population than our nearest neighbours in Britain. The NRA now faces new challenges to provide a high quality service that fits our future needs.

An independent expert review of the design criteria applied by the NRA, such as provided by the 2007 Nichols Report, Review of Highways Agency’s Major Roads Programme, in the UK should be considered. This review produced fundamental changes to minimise costs and maximise value in UK Highways Agency practice. Also in train is the merger of the NRA with the RPA, as recommended by the McCarthy Report, and the review can inform this.


Accurate Traffic Measurement
More traffic counters are needed to see where investment is warranted. Both the NRA and the CSO publish traffic flow volumes. Both agencies have limited data with which to work with when providing robust, meaningful indications of present national traffic. Modest investment in additional counters would allow for better data.

Traffic forecasts must be continually updated and recognise oil price rises in the longer term. Ireland’s traffic model dates to 2002 and hasn’t been updated since. Road schemes are being designed on the basis of traffic growth of 2-3% year on year – the figure forecasted back in 2002.

Analysis of the NRA's own traffic counters shows that traffic fell by 7% over the two years to July 2010. The CSO Road Freight Transport Survey 2009 showed a 40% fall in road freight carried from the previous year, falling back to levels last seen before 1999.

In contrast, the UK re-runs its traffic model annually with predictions continually refined to increase accuracy. UK data shows small falls in road traffic over the last 3 years while its forecasts (from the 2009 model) predict a modest 0.5% annual growth in road traffic with an acceptance that further falls in traffic could occur. Oil price rises are implicit in the UK acknowledgment that traffic may fall.


Using scarce funding fairly
Vast amounts of money are being wasted within Road Design Offices designing schemes based on Celtic Tiger specifications. Design teams continue to work towards planning permission and land acquisition using out-dated criteria to specify their size.

For example, in Wexford the Rosslare-Oilgate road scheme is a four-lane new road proposal to supplement a relatively new and safe existing bypass of Wexford town. The automated traffic counts on the present road ― even using the hopelessly excessive 2-3% present annual growth rate ― would not meet the artificially reduced ‘maximum’ capacity of the present layout for more than 30 years.

Such schemes can no longer be justified by the rationale of completing a road with a width that has been built to a certain point, nor on the grounds of it being a European Route. From the ferry port at Fishguard, motorists take a standard single carriageway lane until close to Swansea (E30 Route). If there is no compunction on the UK to construct expensive 4-lane highways on all its Euro Routes, from where does the case stem in Ireland?

Government must move quickly to rationalise Regional Road Design Offices (RRDO). Staff must be re-trained to work on sustainable transport projects. If further waste is to be avoided a programme for re-training staff to deliver sustainable transport and their reassignment to local councils needs to be put in place immediately.


Regional Equity
Regional inequity in transport infrastructure is increasing. More appropriate road construction would allow a more even distribution of good roads across Ireland. Again, a good example is the proposal from Oilgate to Rosslare to parallel the existing high quality 2-lane bypass (which was built in part with European funding) to dual carriageway.

The route is already well served, and holding out the hope a high cost scheme - which could only be continued at a very slow pace for funding reasons - will leave some counties waiting for years for road upgrades. Rolls Royce schemes, serving very few counties, are no substitute for a coherent approach.


Part 2 – Adopt the simple low cost solutions quickly

Remove accident blackspots first
Removing accident blackspots saves more lives than building motorways. Future spending on transport infrastructure must better address the unacceptable international safety rating of our total stock of roads, particularly the secondary roads that we use every day.

The weak link in terms of road safety is the existing non-motorway road stock. Four lane roads with median barriers do have the best levels of safety but this comes at a very high economic cost. In fact the benefit to cost ratio in terms of safety of motorways is poor and significantly below 1 (0.15-0.35), conferring less benefit than cost.

In other words, tackling accident blackspots save the most lives per euro spent.

The latest European Road Assessment Programme (EuroRAP) report on Irish roads scored approximately 50% of non-motorway Irish roads at the lowest “1 Star” safety rating. This compares with our nearest neighbours in Britain of approximately 2% “1 Star” roads and Northern Ireland of approximately 5%.

To continue to focus on high cost four-lane road investment considering the abysmal state of our non-motorway road network and continued emphasis on major four-lane road construction on the grounds of safety is wrong and a mis-allocation of funds.

The Low Cost Safety Improvement Works Programme has only ever received meagre funding, with annual budgets less than the cost of constructing a single kilometre of motorway. The programme’s funding has been cut by 14 per cent, a reduction that remains in place for 2011. Yet this targeted remedial approach to identified accident blackspots produces exceptional results in terms of lives saved and economic return.

These schemes have shown an average annual rate of return of 502%. It is these targeted high-yield projects that need to be undertaken in the coming years.

There are certainly nuggets of wisdom scattered in there, but you're completely deficient on detail.

You define absolutely nothing. You advocate eliminating accident blackspots on the non-motorway network, but you fail abysmally to realise that, effectively, the entire length of the N24 and N28 (for instance) are black 'spots' and that they both warrant a complete, offline 2+2 type 2 DC solution (type 1 in the case of the N28).

You mention AADT as an argument against improvements, but fail to recognise that primitive geometries and alignments, as well as bypass provision and private access removal detract from a road's level of service, conferring less import on AADT consideration in the process. We've tried to explain all this to you, but you just won't listen.

I find it astonishing that you think you're in a position to brief anyone - let alone a government! - about roads given that you manifestly did not know the difference between type 2 dual carriageway and type 1 dual carriageway until you were informed about it here. Imagine if we hadn't helped you out on that one! Your report would be appalling if it had contained such a grievous example of ignorance.

Your report is lacking in professionalism as well. It's scant on detail and devoid of substantive referencing. You casually use phrases like international best practice but fail to back any of it up, or even define what you mean. I'm sure you will be politely received at the Department of Transport. Upon your departure, however, I suspect that much of your report will find its way into a secretary's shredder.

I have a clear example of what a report on road improvements should look like though. It should be a feast of detail for one thing, like any good EIS is. You should list every single proposed NRA upgrade and go through each one with a fine-toothed comb, whittling them down until you've about fifteen left. That's right. See? I'm in favour of scaling back on road projects too - I'm just more nuanced and balanced about it than you seem to be. You reveal your true colours by engaging in name-calling here, by the way (calling the community here 'road trolls' for example). This bodes ill for your upcoming meeting with Leo, who might appreciate a link to this thread and others.