N11 Park and Ride

Boaty

I had an idea for a park and ride beside the N11 at Ashford or Newtown which would be ideal if the N11/M11 had a bus lane from Ashford on.
I did a bit more research and the idea was submitted to Wicklow County Council for the County Development Plan 2016-2022 .
A bus lane from Ashford to the m50 on the Northbound lane ONLY would be possible if the existing hard shoulder was widened to accommodate a bus although this would leave no hard shoulder like the N11 from Loughlinstown on.The existing exits/entrances would require realigning but a quick look shows there to be less than 10.

The proposed bus lane which would consist of 14km of road could travel times during rush hour by up to 25 minutes.
I estimate that it could be done for about 15million euro. Based on 6 lanes costing 10 million per kilometer.

Comments?

loyatemu

something needs to be done - traffic is backed up to Newtown on weekday mornings. As you say the space is there on the road (they could narrow the median too). There are plans to widen the M11 to 3x3 from the M50 merge as far as J7.

Boaty

Any N11 widening is a decade down the line, at least a bus lane could be relatively easy to do and cheap, it would also assist in taking the strain off the m50 and N11 from Loughlinstown in.

loyatemu

Boaty wrote: »

Any N11 widening is a decade down the line, at least a bus lane could be relatively easy to do and cheap, it would also assist in taking the strain off the m50 and N11 from Loughlinstown in.

N11 widening is actually quite high up the list of priority projects for TII (report here)

There's also a thread on N11 widening in the infrastructure forum here

From a public transport point of view, I think there's a risk that if they do widen the road without making provision for bus priority, the road will just fill up with traffic again and we'll be back at square one. The bridges are all wide enough for an extra lane (by narrowing the median) but maybe not an extra lane + a dedicated bus lane.

sdexter

If the government is serious about reducing congestion in Dublin all the park and ride should be free parking and €1 bus/luas/train ticket into town.
It will never happen.

Macy0161

I'm a firm believer in this type of approach.

The existing options are taken up - the train car parks in Greystones and Wicklow are overflowing and need parking restrictions around them and villages like Ashford have to have parking restrictions due to the numbers attempting to park and ride to the current bus service. As making the rail line south of Bray two lanes isn't a realistic proposition, bus is the next option.

A separate hard shoulder would be ideal, but is it necessary? A few National routes have replaced the hard shoulder with a bus lane (N31, and even N11 Loughlinstown to Foxrock). After Coynes Cross the route isn't officially motorway again until Fassaroe.

loyatemu

Macy0161 wrote: »

A separate hard shoulder would be ideal, but is it necessary? A few National routes have replaced the hard shoulder with a bus lane (N31, and even N11 Loughlinstown to Foxrock). After Coynes Cross the route isn't officially motorway again until Fassaroe.

I think the long term plan is to upgrade the Fassoroe - Cullenmore section to motorway, but I don't see why a motorway can't have a bus lane (obviously it can't have stops).

I'm not sure if full hard-shoulder is a requirement for motorways either (the port tunnel doesn't have one, nor do some bridged sections).

Boaty

Whitmore calls for an N11 park n ride, let's hope other councillors row in behind her.
http://wicklownews.net/2017/02/whitmore-calls-for-commuter-park-n-rides-on-n11/