N19 - Shannon Airport Access Road [design and planning underway]

marno21

http://www.clare.fm/news/infrastructure/process-upgrade-shannon-airport-access-road-begins/

2.2km of new road between the end of the DC at Drumgeely and the end of the N19 at Knockbeg

Listen to the recording above and judge for yourself how much of a priority this actually is

Chris_5339762

Ridiculous. 2.2km of road could do a desperately half-assed bypass of Castlemartyr or the Claregalway Inner Relief Road or something far more deserving than this.

Paddico

marno21 wrote: »

http://www.clare.fm/news/infrastructure/process-upgrade-shannon-airport-access-road-begins/

2.2km of new road between the end of the DC at Drumgeely and the end of the N19 at Knockbeg

Listen to the recording above and judge for yourself how much of a priority this actually is

I dont think its "new".
Think its just upgrading, perhaps resurfacing etc

marno21

Nope, it's a plan to extend the N19 dual carriageway into Shannon Airport.

The necessity of such is rightly questionable.

Limerick74

The road surface requires substantial improvement so it makes sense to consider improving capacity (or at minimum designing for future widening) if reconstruction is required. Our Airports abd Ports are critical infrastructure and they should be considered appropriately.

Limerick74

Limerick74 wrote: »

The road surface requires substantial improvement so it makes sense to consider improving capacity (or at minimum designing for future widening) if reconstruction is required. Our Airports abd Ports are critical infrastructure and they should be considered appropriately.

If it's an existing road fair enough, but the airport itself is about half its peak activity. Shannon used to be a major bottleneck before the significant road improvements.

marno21

Limerick74 wrote: »

The road surface requires substantial improvement so it makes sense to consider improving capacity (or at minimum designing for future widening) if reconstruction is required. Our Airports abd Ports are critical infrastructure and they should be considered appropriately.

Fair enough. It is quite rough on the road going in.

Presumably there will be minimal CPO around there, a lot of the land must already belong to Shannon Group?

BelfastVanMan

marno21 wrote: »

Fair enough. It is quite rough on the road going in.

Presumably there will be minimal CPO around there, a lot of the land must already belong to Shannon Group?

Looking at Earth View, that seems to be the case.
Although, that's just having a quick peek on my phone... :-D

JupiterKid

Road access to airports and ports is a key part of both govt and EU road investment policy.

However, given that Shannon airport is operating well below its design capacity and that DC access into the airport was greatly improved in 2002/3 via the N19 - and the urgent need to address capacity bottlenecks elsewhere, I would question the priority of this scheme over other locations.

SeanW

But realistically, what could be done in place of this? It looks like a very short project as much of the N19 is DC anyway, and there's green space by most of the single carriageway.

It's all well and good to say this is needless, which may be valid, but what would one do instead for the money?

Chris_5339762

Castlemartyr relief road (a very half assed version can be done for less than a mile of road)
Feasibility study for widening the Douglas Viaduct on the N40

SeanW

Your "very half assed version" would almost certainly require construction of a new road through greenfield. Hardly the same. Besides, half assed bypasses, tend to be, as the name suggest, half assed, and they tend to cause more problems than they solve in the long term. In particular they tend to become Stroads or Street/Road hybrids. The "best" (or worst, more accurately) example of this is Carrick on Shannon up in Leitrim. A new road of sorts was built along the Shannon river some decades ago, and it solved an immediate problem of the N4 Dublin-Sligo road going through the towns main street. But it also separated the town from its amenities on the Shannon river by a wall of traffic and then the town grew towards the East anyway so more of the N4 is inside the town today. Plus the N4 is still reliant on a narrow, centuries old bridge over the Shannon - great for trucks and buses.

It was admittedly better than nothing and it may have been all that could be done in the 1980s and 1990s, but it's far from ideal to say the least and there's no excuse for doing it now. Proper bypasses that keep long distance traffic well clear urban environments should in all cases be preferred to false-economy street-road hybrids or half baked bypasses that are likely to become street-road hybrids as the town grows.

As for the feasibility study on widening the Douglas viaduct, people can't drive on a feasibility study. They'd still have to build the damn thing! And that won't be cheap.

Deedsie

Better use of any money spent here would be a feasibility study to reroute the Limerick - Ennis railway line via Shannon Airport.

Should have happened 60 years ago.

Limerick74

Deedsie wrote: »

Better use of any money spent here would be a feasibility study to reroute the Limerick - Ennis railway line via Shannon Airport.

Should have happened 60 years ago.

A reliable bus system would be far cheaper and have some chance of presenting a business case. LSMATS should confirm that when published.

hans aus dtschl

SeanW wrote: »

But realistically, what could be done in place of this? It looks like a very short project as much of the N19 is DC anyway, and there's green space by most of the single carriageway.

It's all well and good to say this is needless, which may be valid, but what would one do instead for the money?

If the expenditure didn't need to be on roads, perhaps they could increase the funding for other transport modes? Speaking with my "Cork" perspective, almost none of CMATS has been done yet. I'm certain there are plenty similar sustainable transport projects in the Limerick/Shannon/Clare area crying out for funding.

At this point, considering the fines we're receiving for our carbon emissions, and the disparity between expenditure on roads versus sustainable transport, the NTA are making the greens look correct for protesting all the big roads projects. This one would be a drop in the ocean, granted, but it'd be something.

Cookiemunster

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

If the expenditure didn't need to be on roads, perhaps they could increase the funding for other transport modes? Speaking with my "Cork" perspective, almost none of CMATS has been done yet. I'm certain there are plenty similar sustainable transport projects in the Limerick/Shannon/Clare area crying out for funding.

At this point, considering the fines we're receiving for our carbon emissions, and the disparity between expenditure on roads versus sustainable transport, the NTA are making the greens look correct for protesting all the big roads projects. This one would be a drop in the ocean, granted, but it'd be something.

There may be loads of sustainable transports projects, but we're still waiting for the LSMATS to be published, so nothing will happened until that happens.

hans aus dtschl

Cookiemunster wrote: »

There may be loads of sustainable transports projects, but we're still waiting for the LSMATS to be published, so nothing will happened until that happens.

Yes I suspect you're right, in that LSMATS will be the only show in town, like CMATS is now.
The next problem then will be in getting any of it implemented!

But even offhand, I imagine small projects like expansion of the Limerick share bike scheme, bus lanes, etc are crying out for funding. That's certainly the case in Cork anyway.

marno21

https://www.clareecho.ie/shannon-airport-approach-road-a-sore-thumb/

Update there.

serfboard

marno21 wrote: »

https://www.clareecho.ie/shannon-airport-approach-road-a-sore-thumb/

From that article:

The Clare Echo wrote:

the first phase ‘scheme concept and feasibility’ is nearing completion. Phase two, ‘options selection’ is to commence in the coming weeks, this will see alternative routes analysed to determine a preferred option for the scheme by the end of 2020. “Phase three will deal with the detailed design and environmental issues with planning permission expected to be lodged thereafter”.

Holy God - you'd swear 'twas the Great Wall of China they were building. It's 2K, FFS.

Chris_5339762

Enhancement works could include a dual carriageway, Lenihan replied. “It is not simply just an overlay, it is a major capital scheme”. He continued, “There is no pre-determined notion that it will be an upgrade of the single lane carriageway”.

Rubbish!

hans aus dtschl

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Rubbish!

What am I missing here: surely this is an extremely straightforward upgrade?

spacetweek

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

What am I missing here: surely this is an extremely straightforward upgrade?

I think Chris meant that the statement from Lenihan that “There is no pre-determined notion that it will be an upgrade of the single lane carriageway” is nonsense because of course it will be. Where else would the upgrade go?

hans aus dtschl

spacetweek wrote: »

I think Chris meant that the statement from Lenihan that “There is no pre-determined notion that it will be an upgrade of the single lane carriageway” is nonsense because of course it will be. Where else would the upgrade go?

Sorry if there's any confusion, I fully agree with you both, I'm asking what on earth they're at!!!

Chris_5339762

spacetweek wrote: »

I think Chris meant that the statement from Lenihan that “There is no pre-determined notion that it will be an upgrade of the single lane carriageway” is nonsense because of course it will be. Where else would the upgrade go?

Yes kind of, but I'm more annoyed that this piddly little scheme has come from nowhere when there are probably about 100 projects you could list that are far more important than this. It is absolutely in no way a "Major Capital Scheme" nor should it be treated as such.

marno21

Route options published

https://www.shannonaccess.ie/_fileupload/N19%20Brochure%20Public%20Consultation%20Brochure%20V8.pdf

Nothing major at all planned here.

hans aus dtschl

marno21 wrote: »

Route options published

https://www.shannonaccess.ie/_fileupload/N19%20Brochure%20Public%20Consultation%20Brochure%20V8.pdf

Nothing major at all planned here.

I love that the first bit of text I read on the brochure after seeing your post was "This is a major infrastructure project
for the Mid-West Region." in massive letters!

Pete_Cavan

What do they want to achieve here - basic dual carriageway, add bus and cycle lanes, get rid of roundabouts? Each option seems to have a different objective!

Cookiemunster

All they need to do is resurface the road and add some footpaths and cycle lanes. A Part 8 would have done the job, I've no idea why it's going through the same process as a major road. It wasn't even a choke point when the airport was at it's busiest a decade ago, never mind now. The vast majority of traffic on the N19 is heading into the Industrial Estate and going nowhere near the airport.

pajoguy

Preferred Option now online

https://www.shannonaccess.ie/updates/update-no-10-22-november-2021-public-display-of-the-preferred-option

hans aus dtschl

Obviously, the whole project is a bit mad, but on pure design alone I'm slightly underwhelmed.

With no space constraints they've put in a mixed footpath/cycleway. I don't understand how this keeps happening. The slow, steady creep of "greenways" into transport infrastructure is frustrating to me. The two modes don't mix well, and it's not hard or expensive to do it right. We don't even need to reinvent the wheel, just copy what they're doing in the Netherlands. Anyway, nice to see some money being spent on infrastructure.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/115410146#Comment_115410146

I'm going to quote what I said a year ago. It's a pointless waste of money on a road that wasn't busy in the airports heyday. There is no need for the bus lanes, as there isn't traffic (never mind congestion) to slow the buses down. Just resurface the current road and add the cycle lane and footpath. As for replacing pretty much free flowing roundabouts with traffic light controlled junctions 🙄 The mind boggles.