The Failed Waterford Bypass and Toll System

pjq

Bards wrote: »

€400m was for the Milau Viaduct alone

€500 was for the complete bypass 23Km long including land acquisition costs. about €200m excluding land costs

Suir bridge cost in the region of €30m

so please compare like with like - I think our tolls are relatively cheap vis-a-vis our European neighbours

Wow , now I get it , a fair price for a short , low bridge €30m and only €470m for 23km of road ,,,, a bargain!

Thsi is from Bertie nomics and aritmatik

fbrophy

Master and commander wrote: »

Someone mentioned the council making the quays more pedestrian friendly and less traffic friendly -WTF, so in their wisdom they plan to make a bad traffic situation even worse by sticking in loads off ped lights and traffic islands. What idiots.

anyway the bypass was doomed from day 1. Its based around drivers from one side of the city using the bridge to access the other side of the city. The actual number using it for going Cork-Rosslare are tiny, not may people do that journey nowadays, only trucks - and trucks won't pay the ripp off toll, they'll just go they quays and they do. Just look at the way the signage suggests you go if you are coming in from the new ross side and want to go to tramore road say (waterford south). The signs suggest you drive all the way (4ish miles) up to the suir bridge, SHELL OUT, then drive all the way back into town on the southern side. What person in their right mind would make a 5 minute journey into a 15-20 minute one and burn up to 2 litres of fuel driving the best part of 10 miles - Let alone then actually PAYING OUT for the privilage of doing so. No, i like everyone else just keeps my money and fuel and takes the rice bridge/quays route and get there in 1/3 of the time.

Its too oversized anyway. It a fecking motorway standard road (in effect if not in name). There was no need for that monumental project. This is fecking Waaaawturfud, not los angeles FFS.

It would have been quite sufficient to have a high standard single carriageway, with a brigde linking newrath to the billberry/gracedeiu area, and then continuing out through carrickpeerish/gracedeiu to link up with the old n25 out by butlerstown somewhere, with a few interchanges/roundabouts along the way so people could actually use it without having to drive half way across the county to access it. A separate single carriageway bypass could have been built around kilmeaden as the waterford/kilmeaden N25 was just fine as it was.
A nice plain, cheap and cheeful 70's style precast concrete and low deck single carriageway bridge would have been perfectly adequate, no need for the monstrous phallus that we now have scarring the skyline for ever more.
Low deck - lets face it there no longer is nor will there ever be any kind ships going upstream of waterford, there is a small oil depot in fiddown but shure i don't even know if its still open, and if it is it won't be for long - its a very small and very old and decrepid Morris Oil depot.

I suppose its just a symtom of the sort of mania that gripped the place over the past decade.
That bridge is an awful awful piece of work. It blights the skyline from as far away as mullinavat. Any chance someone would blow it up and do waterford a favour:D

What a load of arse gravy.

If you don't like the bridge don't use it. Personally i think the structure is fantastic, it is a beautiful and elegant bridge.

Master and commander

fbrophy wrote: »

What a load of arse gravy.

If you don't like the bridge don't use it. Personally i think the structure is fantastic, it is a beautiful and elegant bridge.

its a horrible, monstrous eyesore that sticks out like a sore thumb. I don't see what would've been wrong with a more restrained design - a low deck, sigle cariage way made from precast conc. It would only cost a fraction of the price and still be perfectly adequate.
My proposal would have then been linked from newrath to the n25 east of waterford by a single cariageway going along the mullinabro area and then joining into the existing N25 east somewhere beyond where the ferrybank ALDI is now.
With this sytem, you might not even need a toll. Sound better now? and it could be used for access to the other side of the city, freeing up the quays and that because you dont have the 10 mile round trip that you have now. The current bridge is fecking miles away, and access is so restricted nobody bothers with the hassle of using it, they'd rather sit in traffic for 20 mins. The proof of this can be seen on any morning at 8-9AM.

wet-paint

Did you submit such a proposal at any stage, when the tenders were being submitted?

If not, everything is just armchair refereeing, and bitching after the fact.

Master and commander

wet-paint wrote: »

Did you submit such a proposal at any stage, when the tenders were being submitted?

If not, everything is just armchair refereeing, and bitching after the fact.

my excuse to that one is that i was probably doing my junior cert at that time and lived in tipperary, so didn't give a damn anyway. But anyway it would be 1) way way cheaper, 2. less obtrusive with less env. impact and 3. more accesible and useful, due to there being no restricted access.
cheap and cheerful does not nesecarily mean bad.

fuzzy dunlop

Master and commander wrote: »

my excuse to that one is that i was probably doing my junior cert at that time and lived in tipperary, so didn't give a damn anyway. But anyway it would be 1) way way cheaper, 2. less obtrusive with less env. impact and 3. more accesible and useful, due to there being no restricted access.
cheap and cheerful does not nesecarily mean bad.

Does not necessarily mean good either. The design was seen as the most adequate and as far as ascetics goes it's fine. The toll is the problem here not the demand for it. The exact same problem exists with the M50 in Dublin. If a single carriageway design with no toll was implemented it could well be beyond capacity even now with the possibility of an upgrade being next to impossible.

Bards

Master and commander wrote: »

its a horrible, monstrous eyesore that sticks out like a sore thumb. I don't see what would've been wrong with a more restrained design - a low deck, sigle cariage way made from precast conc. It would only cost a fraction of the price and still be perfectly adequate.
My proposal would have then been linked from newrath to the n25 east of waterford by a single cariageway going along the mullinabro area and then joining into the existing N25 east somewhere beyond where the ferrybank ALDI is now.
With this sytem, you might not even need a toll. Sound better now? and it could be used for access to the other side of the city, freeing up the quays and that because you dont have the 10 mile round trip that you have now. The current bridge is fecking miles away, and access is so restricted nobody bothers with the hassle of using it, they'd rather sit in traffic for 20 mins. The proof of this can be seen on any morning at 8-9AM.

It is a bypass, not an urban road. Building it too near the city will in a short time be at capacity and the need for a further bypass will be required. Dungarvan,clonmel etc. Taking a wide arc will allow the city to grow inside the bypass without needing another bypass in the medium term

It is a cable stayed bridge and bridges like this can be seen all Over the world.

Master and commander

Bards wrote: »

It is a bypass, not an urban road. Building it too near the city will in a short time be at capacity and the need for a further bypass will be required. Dungarvan,clonmel etc. Taking a wide arc will allow the city to grow inside the bypass without needing another bypass in the medium term

Whats wrong with dungarvan and clonmel? i think they both function very very well, with the possible exception of the Fethard R'about in clonmel at peak times. They divert the flow not needing to use the town and also allow quicker access to certain areas, which is not the case with N25. There is nothing wrong with a road being at capacity, sure isn't that what its designed for? overdesigned stuff like the N25 is just wasteful and will never be paid for nor used at any where near its full capacity. Waterford is not growing at all, nor will it any time in the medium term. It is a small city.

It is a cable stayed bridge and bridges like this can be seen all Over the world.

Because all over the world cities are much larger with very high population densities so a large bridge like this can be justified. Doing it in waterford is madness. It is only a medium sized town by european or even UK standards.
Anyway, SC or DC, a monstrosity like this is unwarranted, I think a more restrained design like the one below would work out at a fraction of the price and not spoil the skyline. Bland and boring, yes. But it will do the job just as well and is cost effective. Architechts are given too much freedom these days, thats why stuff is soo expensive. Maybe we should get in ex. soviet engineers from some ukrainian city full of tractor factories to build some drab functional contrete infrastructure!

wmpdd3

Get them to design to bridge that will be needed for a river at passage.

Bards

Master and commander wrote: »

Whats wrong with dungarvan and clonmel? i think they both function very very well, with the possible exception of the Fethard R'about in clonmel at peak times. They divert the flow not needing to use the town and also allow quicker access to certain areas, which is not the case with N25. There is nothing wrong with a road being at capacity, sure isn't that what its designed for? overdesigned stuff like the N25 is just wasteful and will never be paid for nor used at any where near its full capacity. Waterford is not growing at all, nor will it any time in the medium term. It is a small city.



Because all over the world cities are much larger with very high population densities so a large bridge like this can be justified. Doing it in waterford is madness. It is only a medium sized town by european or even UK standards.
Anyway, SC or DC, a monstrosity like this is unwarranted, I think a more restrained design like the one below would work out at a fraction of the price and not spoil the skyline. Bland and boring, yes. But it will do the job just as well and is cost effective. Architechts are given too much freedom these days, thats why stuff is soo expensive. Maybe we should get in ex. soviet engineers from some ukrainian city full of tractor factories to build some drab functional contrete infrastructure!

have a read of the EIS for the Waterford City Bypass. A Low Level bridge design was ruled out very early on due to the impact on the environment. Hence a Cable Stay design was chosen due to no support pillars needed in the river and allowing water traffic to pass underneath without hindrance

most of our New Roads/Motorways are designed for traffic in 25 years time while still allowing for additional growth.

At capacity roads require new roads to be planned in order that the said road is not over capacity before the new one comes on stream.

Why build a road for current traffic volumes and not allow for any growth - that is a complete waste of resources.

Max Powers

I think the new bypass and bridge is a a magnificent structure, in fact any friends or relatives visiting are really impressed by it, i used to use it a bit when i had a car/better job, but only sometimes now when I get the missus's car. I guess that just shows you the situation a lot of people are in. It will be busier when the economy recovers, just like the M50 in dublin, it was underused at first. Added to that, Irish people will probably have to get used to paying the odd toll.

wellboytoo

Master and commander wrote: »

Someone mentioned the council making the quays more pedestrian friendly and less traffic friendly -WTF, so in their wisdom they plan to make a bad traffic situation even worse by sticking in loads off ped lights and traffic islands. What idiots.

anyway the bypass was doomed from day 1. Its based around drivers from one side of the city using the bridge to access the other side of the city. The actual number using it for going Cork-Rosslare are tiny, not may people do that journey nowadays, only trucks - and trucks won't pay the ripp off toll, they'll just go they quays and they do. Just look at the way the signage suggests you go if you are coming in from the new ross side and want to go to tramore road say (waterford south). The signs suggest you drive all the way (4ish miles) up to the suir bridge, SHELL OUT, then drive all the way back into town on the southern side. What person in their right mind would make a 5 minute journey into a 15-20 minute one and burn up to 2 litres of fuel driving the best part of 10 miles - Let alone then actually PAYING OUT for the privilage of doing so. No, i like everyone else just keeps my money and fuel and takes the rice bridge/quays route and get there in 1/3 of the time.

Its too oversized anyway. It a fecking motorway standard road (in effect if not in name). There was no need for that monumental project. This is fecking Waaaawturfud, not los angeles FFS.

It would have been quite sufficient to have a high standard single carriageway, with a brigde linking newrath to the billberry/gracedeiu area, and then continuing out through carrickpeerish/gracedeiu to link up with the old n25 out by butlerstown somewhere, with a few interchanges/roundabouts along the way so people could actually use it without having to drive half way across the county to access it. A separate single carriageway bypass could have been built around kilmeaden as the waterford/kilmeaden N25 was just fine as it was.
A nice plain, cheap and cheeful 70's style precast concrete and low deck single carriageway bridge would have been perfectly adequate, no need for the monstrous phallus that we now have scarring the skyline for ever more.
Low deck - lets face it there no longer is nor will there ever be any kind ships going upstream of waterford, there is a small oil depot in fiddown but shure i don't even know if its still open, and if it is it won't be for long - its a very small and very old and decrepid Morris Oil depot.

I suppose its just a symtom of the sort of mania that gripped the place over the past decade.
That bridge is an awful awful piece of work. It blights the skyline from as far away as mullinavat. Any chance someone would blow it up and do waterford a favour:D

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm a budding engineer methinks, all function and no design, go wayyy out of it boi, stick to the civils at least there buried, Dungarvan and Clonmel are classic examples of ring roads that were undersized before they were completed, added to the fact that local planners allowed developments to access onto them willy nilly.
You amaze me in your knowledge that we will never ever ever need to send a ship up river again, ever,I think you should go back to the Simms and keep building.

Bullseye1

I recently drove to Kinsale and used the Waterford by-pass. Fantastic stretch of road and a very nice bridge. Then you get to the Dungarven. God I couldn't wait to get away from those bloody roundabouts. It's a nightmare.

Fugs!!

The bridge being too big for a town like waterford is a load of rubbish. There are bridges like this dotted all over the world. Even in Croatia which is a poor country camparibly has about 20 of these. I've seen them.

You also must keep in mind that its half private funded and those people need to get there money back so the government are contractirally obliged to make people pay the toll and use this bridge. putting tolls on Rice bridge is money for the government and not part of the contract so thats out of the question.

Now in saying all this I do think the toll price is a little high. I think they should lower it for a trial period. Say €1 for 6 months and see if they can make more money.

Has anyone ever driven through France? It makes the Suir bridge seem like pennies to pay for.

strokle

I use this bypass and toll bridge every Monday morning on my way to dublin from youghal and back on a friday. I find the bypass very handy even though i am paying 1.80 to go on a half a mile stretch of road on a monday as i turn off on to the m9 just after the bridge. There is a huge number of vehicles that turn off before the toll and they pass me on the m9 motorway after travelling through the city. This astonishes me as it would surely cost 1.80 in fuel to travel through the city. The one thing i think that should be changed is that the stretch of road between the toll and the roundabout in kilmeaden should be changed to a 120km/hr road as it is as good if not better than the m9. Some of the midleton dual carriageway in cork was re-classified as 120km/hr and that road is not in as near a good condition as the road between the toll and the kilmeadan roundabout.

Master and commander

wellboytoo wrote: »

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm a budding engineer methinks, all function and no design,.........

you hit the nail on the head! I'm soon to qualify as a civil engineer. Us engineers are constantly at loggerheads with those annoying architects. All they want is bits of glass and lumps of stainless steel sticking out at all sorts of crazy angles. (Literally, e.g. the tax office in the glen) whereas us engineers prefer boring, square concrete stuctures that are easier to design and cheaper and faster to build. We look at building from completely different perspectives. For the archies its about art and expression, for us its about function and efficiency.

wellboytoo

Master and commander wrote: »

you hit the nail on the head! I'm soon to qualify as a civil engineer. Us engineers are constantly at loggerheads with those annoying architects. All they want is bits of glass and lumps of stainless steel sticking out at all sorts of crazy angles. (Literally, e.g. the tax office in the glen) whereas us engineers prefer boring, square concrete stuctures that are easier to design and cheaper and faster to build. We look at building from completely different perspectives. For the archies its about art and expression, for us its about function and efficiency.

The prosecution rests.......
As a btw are you not worried that I a complete stranger could spot what your chosen profession was down to the specific part of that profession, just from your posts? I mean talking about fulfilling stereotypes, I personally would be worried if I was in your shoes, but in dealing with engineers for the last thirthy years I am sure your enormous confidence will just wash over it.
I have always found them the hardest to deal with, in that they are (feel) supreme in their knowledge, the book says it ergo it must be true. Yet have not a wit of common sense, and are by and large unprepared to listen to some one who is not a fellow engineer. So if we ever meet at a site meeting , you will know me cos I'll be the fellow breaking your balls six ways from Sunday , because your an engineer.
love and big glass box's
Wellboytoo

merlante

wellboytoo wrote: »

The prosecution rests.......
As a btw are you not worried that I a complete stranger could spot what your chosen profession was down to the specific part of that profession, just from your posts? I mean talking about fulfilling stereotypes, I personally would be worried if I was in your shoes, but in dealing with engineers for the last thirthy years I am sure your enormous confidence will just wash over it.
I have always found them the hardest to deal with, in that they are (feel) supreme in their knowledge, the book says it ergo it must be true. Yet have not a wit of common sense, and are by and large unprepared to listen to some one who is not a fellow engineer. So if we ever meet at a site meeting , you will know me cos I'll be the fellow breaking your balls six ways from Sunday , because your an engineer.
love and big glass box's
Wellboytoo

Kind of sad the two disciplines are so disconnected really. One the one hand, all buildings have to stay up, no matter what; on the other hand every building has a social function that it was funded and built for. So some of the constraints are engineering constraints and others are social, legal, artistic and functional constraints. Seems to me the architect designs based on future use and human wellbeing and the engineer has to validate that the building will stay up and obey health and safety regulations. No real case for any superiority here.

wellboytoo

merlante wrote: »

Kind of sad the two disciplines are so disconnected really. One the one hand, all buildings have to stay up, no matter what; on the other hand every building has a social function that it was funded and built for. So some of the constraints are engineering constraints and others are social, legal, artistic and functional constraints. Seems to me the architect designs based on future use and human wellbeing and the engineer has to validate that the building will stay up and obey health and safety regulations. No real case for any superiority here.

I hope I did not come across as arrogant, annoyed is the emotion, I agree with your assertions entirely, but dislike intensely the attitude portrayed by the above contributor, and it is a reality in the business that I used to have to deal with daily, (not much happening these days) but some humility is noticeable at the few site meetings one doe's attend lately!
PS I am not an Architect.

merlante

wellboytoo wrote: »

I hope I did not come across as arrogant, annoyed is the emotion, I agree with your assertions entirely, but dislike intensely the attitude portrayed by the above contributor, and it is a reality in the business that I used to have to deal with daily, (not much happening these days) but some humility is noticeable at the few site meetings one doe's attend lately!
PS I am not an Architect.

I think it's a general problem with hard sciences looking down on soft sciences, which appears to be getting worse, to the detriment of all concerned.

ex_infantry man

Master and commander wrote: »

you hit the nail on the head! I'm soon to qualify as a civil engineer. Us engineers are constantly at loggerheads with those annoying architects. All they want is bits of glass and lumps of stainless steel sticking out at all sorts of crazy angles. (Literally, e.g. the tax office in the glen) whereas us engineers prefer boring, square concrete stuctures that are easier to design and cheaper and faster to build. We look at building from completely different perspectives. For the archies its about art and expression, for us its about function and efficiency.

are you a spawn of brendan McCan't????

Master and commander

wellboytoo wrote: »

The prosecution rests.......
As a btw are you not worried that I a complete stranger could spot what your chosen profession was down to the specific part of that profession, just from your posts? I mean talking about fulfilling stereotypes, I personally would be worried if I was in your shoes, but in dealing with engineers for the last thirthy years I am sure your enormous confidence will just wash over it.
I have always found them the hardest to deal with, in that they are (feel) supreme in their knowledge, the book says it ergo it must be true. Yet have not a wit of common sense, and are by and large unprepared to listen to some one who is not a fellow engineer. So if we ever meet at a site meeting , you will know me cos I'll be the fellow breaking your balls six ways from Sunday , because your an engineer.
love and big glass box's
Wellboytoo

us engineers take great pride in our hubris and arrogance. But were not the only ones - i remember when the archies were here in WIT, jeez they really liked the smell of their own farts. Narcissism is not the word. At least engineers just want to get the job done efficiently whereas the archies just babble on about aesthetics and use of space. yawn. There was constant jibes at eachother when we passed in the corridors of the T-block. I remember one lecturer deliberately ensured we overheard him telling a student that engineers were ignorant by nature.

well break our balls all ye want. at least we know what will and what will not stay up. Some of the models built in the archie dept are bonkers and are more akin to a Klingon Space station than buildings.

tonc76

Master and commander wrote: »

us engineers take great pride in our hubris and arrogance. But were not the only ones - i remember when the archies were here in WIT, jeez they really liked the smell of their own farts. Narcissism is not the word. At least engineers just want to get the job done efficiently whereas the archies just babble on about aesthetics and use of space. yawn. There was constant jibes at eachother when we passed in the corridors of the T-block. I remember one lecturer deliberately ensured we overheard him telling a student that engineers were ignorant by nature.

well break our balls all ye want. at least we know what will and what will not stay up. Some of the models built in the archie dept are bonkers and are more akin to a Klingon Space station than buildings.

You come across as an immature twat, not an engineer. "Us engineers", "our", "we" etc is all BS considering you haven't even finished college and as such haven't a leg to stand on never mind the imaginery soapbox that you have perched yourself on top of.

Fugs!!

strokle wrote: »

I use this bypass and toll bridge every Monday morning on my way to dublin from youghal and back on a friday. I find the bypass very handy even though i am paying 1.80 to go on a half a mile stretch of road on a monday as i turn off on to the m9 just after the bridge. There is a huge number of vehicles that turn off before the toll and they pass me on the m9 motorway after travelling through the city. This astonishes me as it would surely cost 1.80 in fuel to travel through the city. The one thing i think that should be changed is that the stretch of road between the toll and the roundabout in kilmeaden should be changed to a 120km/hr road as it is as good if not better than the m9. Some of the midleton dual carriageway in cork was re-classified as 120km/hr and that road is not in as near a good condition as the road between the toll and the kilmeadan roundabout.

Out of curiosity, How much time do you reckon your saving by using the by-pass as apposed to driving through the city. For somebody like yourself it does seem very handy.

wmpdd3

From grannagh to wit takes 15 mins through the city, without trafic and 8 mins on the way over the toll bridge, had to do a round trip around around 11am tuesday morning.

merlante

The quay is still a four lane racetrack, even with the extra set of lights they've put up near the plaza. They need to reduce the whole quay to single carriageway, whilst adding proper loading bays where needed. People use half the road as a carpark anyway, so not much of a loss. They also need to go ahead with the two roundabouts; this should fix that appalling junction outside the Bowery, where the timings of the lights are wrong and people do what they like anyway. You could take away the right turn from the Mall going onto Lombard street for a start.

Turn the quay from a busy road back to a city street and that will make the run through the city less tempting for would-be bypass users. Waterford city centre has fallen a lot way from its 18th century pomp by giving over quay and the Mall to traffic. Thankfully this is changing.

Speed checks on the Carrickpherish and old Kilmeaden roads would soon make that avenue less tempting as well, where 90+% of traffic do not stick to the 50 limit -- which is why it's seen as nice and quick.

merlante

Incidentally, the lights added outside WIT have made the Cork rd a lot more congested as it is.

wmpdd3

merlante wrote: »

The quay is still a four lane racetrack, even with the extra set of lights they've put up near the plaza. They need to reduce the whole quay to single carriageway, whilst adding proper loading bays where needed. People use half the road as a carpark anyway, so not much of a loss. They also need to go ahead with the two roundabouts; this should fix that appalling junction outside the Bowery, where the timings of the lights are wrong and people do what they like anyway. You could take away the right turn from the Mall going onto Lombard street for a start.

Turn the quay from a busy road back to a city street and that will make the run through the city less tempting for would-be bypass users. Waterford city centre has fallen a lot way from its 18th century pomp by giving over quay and the Mall to traffic. Thankfully this is changing.

Speed checks on the Carrickpherish and old Kilmeaden roads would soon make that avenue less tempting as well, where 90+% of traffic do not stick to the 50 limit -- which is why it's seen as nice and quick.

Quay, what Quay? (!)

Going to the WIT, straight on at the bridge, right on to Grace Dieu rd, left onto Carrickpherish, Along the Knockhouse Rd, in to the old Kilmeaden rd. through the roundabout at B&Q, into college. I dont break the speed limit. I often pass the cops and the van up there esp theOld Kilmeaden rd.

I never use the Quay unless I'm parking on the Quay car parks.

The quay and the mall are given over to traffic because the rest of the town is either a lane or pedestrianised.

If yo make the Quay 2 lane and make loading bays, idiots will still park in the only left lane.

Sully

PLEASE GOD don't make the quay one lane. Otherwise we will get absolutely nowhere.

Fugs!!

Sully wrote: »

PLEASE GOD don't make the quay one lane. Otherwise we will get absolutely nowhere.

Agreed. The quay is still a major urban route. Making it one lane is crazy. As for people driving whatever way they like at the bowery ... I have yet to see this.

If your afraid to drive up the quay than you should not be driving. I find nothing wrong with it.