M7 - Naas/Newbridge Bypass Upgrade [Junction 9a now open]

markpb

SoupyNorman wrote:

As a daily commuter too, I agree with your sentiment to a point but in terms of driver behaviour I think the horse has bolted. How would it be possible to reign in such behaviours at this stage? It’s like the wacky races until the M9 junction.

Enforcement would go a long way. Put a few traffic corp cars on the road issuing tickets for bad driving. Combine it with the usual media campaign and recurring enforcement in the future and you're onto a winner.

SoupyNorman wrote:

3 lanes are the only solution I can see which will alleviate the issue.

What happens when bad driving means that three lanes isn't enough? Should we spend another few hundred million euro building two more lanes?

munchkin_utd

SoupyNorman wrote: »

As a daily commuter too, I agree with your sentiment to a point but in terms of driver behaviour I think the horse has bolted. How would it be possible to reign in such behaviours at this stage? It’s like the wacky races until the M9 junction.

3 lanes are the only solution I can see which will alleviate the issue.

a variable limit would also reign in that horse.
A lot of the problem is folks think that the 120 is a viable target despite the chronic traffic. So they get impaitent and start acting the maggot in the traffic, displaying acts of muppetry that are verging on causing an accident (and then how quick would they be getting home in their range rover to their ranch in Kildare?)

Traffic jams are caused by congestion and in particular cascading breaking action. If you go fast then in heavy traffic its inevitable you will catch up with slower traffic and break. In heavy traffic the lad behind will break and so on, till everything increasingly slows, and eventually stops.
If you slow the traffic then folks can keep their distance more steadily without breaking and causing that chain reaction that eventually ends up with someone stopping - and a proper traffic jam.
And a constant 60 observed by everyone is quicker than most doing 70 to 100, with some lads carving about the place trying to get up to 120.
I did a calculation before and limiting the stretch from Naas to the M9 to 60 kph would only cost a few minutes over a full 120, but would still be quicker than if the traffic is at a standstill

The overhead gantries on the M50 are put in so that this principle of variable limits at peak times can (sometime in the next century or 2) be applied there.

munchkin_utd

actually,
heres the figures that a variable 60 for peak times on a 2lane actually is not really much slower than a fixed 100 (as per M50) on a 3 lane.

munchkin_utd wrote: »

further to my post above proving theres no need for an upgrade based on traffic levels, I've done some calculations on what effect a (dynamic) speed limit would have to your journey time on the 14km section between Naas and the M9 interchange
speed km/h duration min
60 14
80 10.5
100 8.4
120 7
After an upgrade like the m50 with narrower lanes you would probably see a max of 100km/h so thats the reference of what the NEW road could deliver. The days of 120km/h will be over if the new road is built!

Should the current road get a dynamic limit at peak times of 80kmh you loose only 2min on a crowded but well managed 2 lane compared to a faster flowing 100km/h 3lane over the 14km.

Should the current road get a dynamic limit at peak times of 60kmh you loose only 4min 40sec on a crowded efficient 2 lane compared to a 100km/h 3lane.

SoupyNorman

markpb wrote: »

Enforcement would go a long way. Put a few traffic corp cars on the road issuing tickets for bad driving. Combine it with the usual media campaign and recurring enforcement in the future and you're onto a winner.

Yep, I fully agree but I do 160kms a day up and down the M7/M9 and I saw zero cops this week. On a typical week I'd see 1-2 patrolling.

Get more cops out on the road and I also believe it would help alot but is that going to happen?

markpb wrote: »

What happens when bad driving means that three lanes isn't enough? Should we spend another few hundred million euro building two more lanes?

Build 8 lanes?

In fairness, the 3 lanes on the N7 cope quite well with the heavy volumes of traffic. I'm on it near enough to peak time and it flows fine on most days. It's Naas which is the choke point...people dont like to stay in the correct lane, of course it makes much better sense to speed up the left lane then cut in just before the Naas slip. This is where I would love to see a guard forcing drivers to leave the road into Naas.

cgcsb

Irish people cannot drive on 3 lane roads, indeed many drivers struggle with the 2 lane motorways. Spend the money on modern public transport.

Deedsie

cgcsb wrote: »

Irish people cannot drive on 3 lane roads, indeed many drivers struggle with the 2 lane motorways. Spend the money on modern public transport.

Casual racism aside, Irish people have never been educated or tested on how to drive on a motorway or 3 lane dual carriageway.

SoupyNorman

Deedsie wrote: »

Casual racism aside, Irish people have never been educated or tested on how to drive on a motorway or 3 lane dual carriageway.

It's simple really:

RIGHT = Fast

LEFT = Slow

MIDDLE = Texting

Middle Man

markpb wrote: »

Enforcement would go a long way. Put a few traffic corp cars on the road issuing tickets for bad driving. Combine it with the usual media campaign and recurring enforcement in the future and you're onto a winner.



What happens when bad driving means that three lanes isn't enough? Should we spend another few hundred million euro building two more lanes?

I would certainly agree that enforcement would go such a long way. Given how many man hours are lost due to accidents and other delays caused by bad driving, investing in a proper traffic corp for the Dublin region would pay for itself in no time - that means a dedicated autonomous force with a base and HQ of its own. Of course, the fleet would be dedicated too as would the training - not just a few regular Garda cars with 'Traffic Corp' stickers as is currently the case. Such a measure would surely relieve congestion on the motorways.

Middle Man

cgcsb wrote: »

Irish people cannot drive on 3 lane roads, indeed many drivers struggle with the 2 lane motorways. Spend the money on modern public transport.

The motorways need a proper traffic corp and Dublin needs an underground like yesterday...

cgcsb

Deedsie wrote: »

Casual racism aside, Irish people have never been educated or tested on how to drive on a motorway or 3 lane dual carriageway.

We've also never been trained on how to correctly operate a door knob but most manage. It is pretty basic, in fact most people are aware of the rules and just chose not to follow them.

AugustusMinimus

cgcsb wrote: »

We've also never been trained on how to correctly operate a door knob but most manage. It is pretty basic, in fact most people are aware of the rules and just chose not to follow them.

Some people will simply do the opposite to what is the law.

If I had my way, I'd use the overhead camera gantries to pick out middle lane morons and 3rd lane hoggers and fine them in the post. Do a few hundred per day for a few weeks and things would change quite quickly.

road_high

cgcsb wrote: »

We've also never been trained on how to correctly operate a door knob but most manage. It is pretty basic, in fact most people are aware of the rules and just chose not to follow them.

A major part of it is if one slow moving car hogs the overtaking lanes for miles on end then it results in dozens other stuck behind doing the same waiting for them to pullover (and that rarely happens as they are off in they're own little world usually!).

road_high

cgcsb wrote: »

We've also never been trained on how to correctly operate a door knob but most manage. It is pretty basic, in fact most people are aware of the rules and just chose not to follow them.

I agree. I never got the complication. Overtake on the right lane then always move back to left and yield to faster traffic behind that may want to overtake you..even if this were part of the test I think it'll make scant difference. It seems more behavioural in my experience.

Sam Russell

road_high wrote: »

I agree. I never got the complication. Overtake on the right lane then always move back to left and yield to faster traffic behind that may want to overtake you..even if this were part of the test I think it'll make scant difference. It seems more behavioural in my experience.

The problem arises in some cases because drivers are travelling close to the speed limit say 110 km/hr in a 120 km/hr zone. The car in front is doing 107 km/hr and the one behind wants to go at 125 km/hr. Result - frustration on everyone's part.

The other day I was on the M4 and had a small white van up my tail pipe peppering to pass me. His lights were flashing to get me out of the way. I was travelling behind a car doing 110 km/hr. I let him through and he overtook the car in front on the inside and cut in front of it. He left the motorway less than 3 km later and could arrived at exactly the same position on the exit lane if he had remained behind me. This is stupid behaviour on his part, and it is not unusual.

No amount of training will correct this. The driver need a chill pill or a heavy fine.

cgcsb

road_high wrote: »

I agree. I never got the complication. Overtake on the right lane then always move back to left and yield to faster traffic behind that may want to overtake you..even if this were part of the test I think it'll make scant difference. It seems more behavioural in my experience.

In fairness the Itallians are just as bad for it, worse even. But like the Irish, they are fully aware of how to overtake correctly. Education campaigns aren't needed, enforcement is needed to correct the problem.

road_high

Sam Russell wrote: »

The problem arises in some cases because drivers are travelling close to the speed limit say 110 km/hr in a 120 km/hr zone. The car in front is doing 107 km/hr and the one behind wants to go at 125 km/hr. Result - frustration on everyone's part.

The other day I was on the M4 and had a small white van up my tail pipe peppering to pass me. His lights were flashing to get me out of the way. I was travelling behind a car doing 110 km/hr. I let him through and he overtook the car in front on the inside and cut in front of it. He left the motorway less than 3 km later and could arrived at exactly the same position on the exit lane if he had remained behind me. This is stupid behaviour on his part, and it is not unusual.

No amount of training will correct this. The driver need a chill pill or a heavy fine.

Nah it's the clueless ejet in front of you doodling away at 110kmh who was at fault here. No excuse for him not pulling over and letting both of you past.

Schadenfreudia

Even if a guy is doing 160kph he should not be in the overtaking lane if he ain't actually overtaking someone....

Sam Russell

Can we get back on topic please.

guylikeme

Sam Russell wrote: »

Can we get back on topic please.

Alot of the discussion here (albeit guffawing/arguing) does indeed highlight the need for widening.

Sorry for the backseat mod, but i read the thread title and see relevant comments.

Sam Russell

The last twenty posts or so are discussing driver behaviour and training which has nothing to do with the M7 and its width. It is more appropriate in the motoring threads. As you said, you do not want to be back seat modding.

cargo

Sam Russell wrote: »

The last twenty posts or so are discussing driver behaviour and training which has nothing to do with the M7 and its width. It is more appropriate in the motoring threads. As you said, you do not want to be back seat modding.

Is there any chance a thread could be split off for actual design / construction info and leave the rest here? The title is "The NEED for widening" so info on the scheme is not really relevant in here. At least then I can unsubscribe to this guff...

gilly0512

Middle Man wrote: »

The motorways need a proper traffic corp and Dublin needs an underground like yesterday...

Having lived in the UK, I've been saying for years that we need variable speed limits on our motorways, it never fails to amaze me how you can have torrential rainstorms, visibility is quite poor, yet some lunatics are still trying to drive at 120Kph if not more. We need overheard gantries on our motorways, that not only display the current speed limit as set for the current conditions, but also have digital speed cameras for those who still refuse to drive appropriately for the conditions. For god's sake they have had variable speed limits in the UK since the 80s, yet here we are almost in 2016, and we're still talking about it. We also need motorway traffic cops, who are dedicated to the motorways between say the hours of 7am and 7pm. Finally an underground in Dublin would be amazing, but there's two chances of it ever happening, slim and none.

spacetweek

gilly2308 wrote: »

For god's sake they have had variable speed limits in the UK since the 80s, yet here we are almost in 2016, and we're still talking about it.

If people won't drive at an appropriate speed during a torrential rainstorm what difference would variable speed limits make? I'd say the speed cameras couldn't read your license plate in heavy rain either.

spacetweek

spacetweek wrote: »

? I'd say the speed cameras couldn't read your license plate in heavy rain either.

With multiple images from the camera and some overlaying software, no problem.

Sam Russell

You can also use entry and exit cameras to compute average speed on the motorway and excessive speed equals fine in the post.

gilly0512

spacetweek wrote: »

If people won't drive at an appropriate speed during a torrential rainstorm what difference would variable speed limits make? I'd say the speed cameras couldn't read your license plate in heavy rain either.

Well if it was the case that cameras couldn't read reg plates in heavy rain, the M50 would lose a fortune with people getting away with not getting tolled in heavy rain.

Conba

Last year I drove the M50 during the worst deluge I've ever driven in, in heavy traffic (going at ridiculous speed, throwing up a wall of water). I was convinced that there was no way the toll cameras would be able to read my plate, but they did. I was highly impressed.

Schadenfreudia

cgcsb wrote: »

Education campaigns aren't needed, enforcement is needed to correct the problem.

Indeed - but not so sure that education isn't needed; the driving test doesn't involve motorway driving.

Trick of the Tail

So anyway - whenever I travel south from the N7 to the M9 junction, the traffic just slows to a crawl from before Naas to the Newbridge junction.

When you get to that junction, there appears to have been no cause for the crawling, and the traffic just speeds up again.

It's obviously silly that the 3-lane N7 compresses the traffic into a 2-lane M7 motorway, so it does need to be three lanes, at least until the M9 turn off.

There's enough space in the central reservation to do this I think.

There. Back on topic.

Deedsie

Trick of the Tail wrote: »

So anyway - whenever I travel south from the N7 to the M9 junction, the traffic just slows to a crawl from before Naas to the Newbridge junction.

When you get to that junction, there appears to have been no cause for the crawling, and the traffic just speeds up again.

It's obviously silly that the 3-lane N7 compresses the traffic into a 2-lane M7 motorway, so it does need to be three lanes, at least until the M9 turn off.

There's enough space in the central reservation to do this I think.

There. Back on topic.

That is the topic :-)