€36b ... and nothing for Limerick?!?!

limerick_man

WTF?

Galway and Cork are getting urban rail services! They are opening up the old west rail corrider, but stopping at the station before Limerick .. Ennis!
New rail and roads are going in around the country .. but not Limerick!

The only mention of Limerick is that the road to Dublin would be dual carraigeway by 2010... but on the Limerick side, we are done!!!!!!

How can so much be spent and the countries 3rd city be completly overlooked?
Was Willie O' Dea out for the day!!!!

ballooba

Don't you mean 4th city?

http://www.cso.ie/statistics/popofeachprovcountycity2002.htm

billy the squid

what exactly were you expecting, or better still, what exactly were you hoping for.

Mr E

Limerickman - the rail line between Limerick and Ennis opened recently, so the western corridor will reach all the way to Limerick.

In Limerick, we already have our ring road, linking the Cork road to the Dublin road. In the next few years, that road will be linked underground to the Shannon road.

What else are you looking for? Extra buses?

limerick_man

Well more than likely the parkway station is out of the question! Limerick already has some tracks around ... so opening an urban rail service for the city wouldn't be too hard here, seeing as some tracks are already in place!
Extra buses would be nice, dual carraige way into the city.... its not like Limerick doesnt have problems

iguana

I think a rail line from Limerick to Shannon is vital. With a stop at the airport, the industrial zone and Six Mile Bridge. An awful lot of people from Limerick have moved to Six Mile Bridge and commute each day. And there is a lot of Limerick people working in Shannon and vice versa.

The public transport in Ireland has to be the worst in any developed country in the world.

bazz26

limerick_man wrote:

WTF?

Galway and Cork are getting urban rail services! They are opening up the old west rail corrider, but stopping at the station before Limerick .. Ennis!
New rail and roads are going in around the country .. but not Limerick!

The only mention of Limerick is that the road to Dublin would be dual carraigeway by 2010... but on the Limerick side, we are done!!!!!!

How can so much be spent and the countries 3rd city be completly overlooked?
Was Willie O' Dea out for the day!!!!

Most of these projects will end up like the Luas, take twice as long to complete and cost twice as much as originally thought.

Also we are probably the only country in Europe that doesn't have a train/metro network link from our cities to our airports (including the big pale) so don't be too surprised about Limerick being partially overlooked with other projects.

As for the N7 being upgraded to dual carriageway, well they had an option to make the Nenagh bypass a dual carriageway but they decided to take the slightly cheaper option of single carriageway instead. Now they are going to have to do it anyway.

On the plus side the new southern ring road is a bonus and the new Shannon crossing will be a welcome but do we really need a tunnel? Would a decent dual carriageway bridge crossing do the job just as well and cost alot less in time and money meaning there is less need to put a toll on it?

billy the squid

There is to be a feasability study carried out into the possibility of a rail link between Shannon and Liemrick. so while there is a possibility that we might get it, it would seem that it will 2015 by the time the first sod is turned.

As for Willie O Dea. His problem is that he is the victim of his success. His supporters are sheep, they will vote Fianna Fail because grandad got the dole back in 1940-whatever. and while getting the aliminium windows in for Mary in southill or getting her little bold bastard back into a school after he's been expelled might be good for getting a vote for Willie, id does sod all for the community at large.

If Willie's Dail seat were under some sort of threat, I guarantee that Limerick would have benefited more from this NDP rehash.

gaf1983

billy the squid wrote:

As for Willie O Dea. His problem is that he is the victim of his success. His supporters are sheep, they will vote Fianna Fail because grandad got the dole back in 1940-whatever. and while getting the aliminium windows in for Mary in southill or getting her little bold bastard back into a school after he's been expelled might be good for getting a vote for Willie, id does sod all for the community at large.

If Willie's Dail seat were under some sort of threat, I guarantee that Limerick would have benefited more from this NDP rehash.

You're spot on there.

bazz26 wrote:

Also we are probably the only country in Europe that doesn't have a train/metro network link from our cities to our airports (including the big pale) so don't be too surprised about Limerick being partially overlooked with other projects.

As for the N7 being upgraded to dual carriageway, well they had an option to make the Nenagh bypass a dual carriageway but they decided to take the slightly cheaper option of single carriageway instead. Now they are going to have to do it anyway.

I don't think a metro link to Dublin Airport is really that necessary. Was anyone listening to Michael O'Leary yesterday on Morning Ireland? He was saying that only 25% of the passengers that use Dublin Airport are coming from the city centre. Already they have 2 competing bus companies running regularly on bus lanes out to the airport. I know that whenever I've had to go from the city centre to the airport there hasn't been a problem with traffic. Basically he was saying how he thought the astronomical money that the metro will inevtiably cost would be better spent on infrastructure projects for the 75% of Dublin Airport users who don't travel from the city centre. I'd be inclined to agree with him, especially seeing as we know from past experience that the cost overruns are going to be huge, coupled with the disruption to business in the city centre caused by construction.

Neither Prague nor Lyon have a metro link from the airport to the city centre either, and both are the same size or bigger than Dublin. Instead they just have a decent bus service to and from the city - this is what Dublin has at the moment, and all it needs. Granted they both have excellent metro systems within the cities, so maybe the money the government is planning to spend on the metrolink could be better served on public transport projects within Dublin or in the growing commuter belt around the capital, or even better, around the rest of the country.

Regarding the calls for a dual carriageway all the way from Dublin to all the major cities, I would consider these to be a bit of an unnecessary expence too. I think a three-lane road, such as the Nenagh bypass, would be a more economical and sensible, solution. Have a three lane road where for 5km or so the left hand side of the road has two lanes and then for the next 5km the right hand side has it - this would be much cheaper, and would be sufficient for the likely volume of traffic around Ireland. Many accidents happen when cars try to overtake each other, but with this system with alternate double-lanes on either side of the road would allow cars do this in safety.

Here's Martin Turner's response to the plan:

limerick_man

See I'm not alone... front page of todays Limerick Post has the same viewpoint! And by the looks of it most of Limerick's politicans are speaking out!!!
It turns out that recently Mary Harney was brought around the rail tracks surrounding the city by Tim O'Malley! And yet even though cheaper to build in Limerick and proabably more economical.. Galway are the 3rd city to get a light urban rail service!
Once again the city council says that this was because the government overlooked the fact that the suburbs are not within the city! .... I'm just thinking .. if they overlooked that, ... should we really trust them to spend €35b????

mysterious

When listening to the the news about the tranport plans, Limerick was a never mention, only when the fantasy of a Atlantic highway was talked about, naturally it goes through an important city called Limerick.

The fact is Limerick is bigger and more economically driven than Galway, yet the seaside town gets the mention of a Galway Athenry commuter service, let's get real here.

The Shannon-Limerick spur is only a small job by literally branching off at Sixmilebridge, which has a station already and will only only involve with laying a few kilometres of new track to the Airport from the main line,The cost would more or less minimal, well not astronimical anyway.
Limerick by statistics is at least 20,000 more people than Galway.
Not mentioning Its surrounding suburbs like Annacotty or Patrickswell etc.
Limerick hinterland population would make Galway cringe.
It makes more sense to invest in the Shannon rail link first and give more attention to the Midwest for once.

The population of Shannon is 3 times that of Athenry
The working population of Shannon is at least 10,000 much more significant than Athenry.
And of course Shannon has an international Airport, and It was nearly thougth that Shannon airort would have had a rail link before Dublin Airport, but now that is not the case, btw Mary Harney looks like a female version of Barney, sorry for offending anyone, but she is so crooked, she should wake up and smell the grass, she is so false. She goes on a tour on the railways talking about investing them with tim O malley??? what does she take the midwestern region for, fools??


Does it not make more sense to deal with matters that are more nessesary??

Victor

bazz26 wrote:

On the plus side the new southern ring road is a bonus and the new Shannon crossing will be a welcome but do we really need a tunnel? Would a decent dual carriageway bridge crossing do the job just as well and cost alot less in time and money meaning there is less need to put a toll on it?

FAir enough, close the docks then.

iguana

mysterious wrote:

The cost would more or less minimal.

No. The cost should be more or less minimal. Unfortuanately if the government ever get round to doing it, the costs will be astronomical. Because it's Ireland and that is the way it goes in Ireland.

The majority of the Luas green line was built on existing track but that still took about a hundred years to complete and cost way more than it's original over-priced estimate.

billy the squid

Out of curiosity, does anyone know where i can find a map of the limerick-ennis railway line? or have an idea of which areas it goes through?

1huge1

billy the squid wrote:

Out of curiosity, does anyone know where i can find a map of the limerick-ennis railway line? or have an idea of which areas it goes through?

www.iarnrodeireann.ie will have it

Amazotheamazing

When will people realise that O'Dea is just a spoof merchant? He's all talk, indeed Clare Councillor Cathal Crowe has stated O'Dea is against the boundary extension, something which O'Dea has confirmed. This man is a disgrace and should be kicked out of office. He has yet to do one great thing for the city. An absolute failure as a TD for Limerick, sure he's great at medical cards etc but he's standing-by while Limerick dies.

billy the squid

Amazotheamazing wrote:

When will people realise that O'Dea is just a spoof merchant? He's all talk, indeed Clare Councillor Cathal Crowe has stated O'Dea is against the boundary extension, something which O'Dea has confirmed. This man is a disgrace and should be kicked out of office. He has yet to do one great thing for the city. An absolute failure as a TD for Limerick, sure he's great at medical cards etc but he's standing-by while Limerick dies.

you know i would agree with this 100 percent.

at least michael noonan managed to get renovations done on the hospital when he was minister for health.

O'dea is an evil little man who acquired votes from people by getting them things that they were entitled to anyway. I seriously dislike the man.

1huge1

Ya i would'nt be a big fan of willie dea myself like come on just because he's from limerick dos'nt mean he's good
he's the minister for defence of ireland big deal

mysterious

Well said amazoamazing.
I get so annoyed of even thinking about that lamb! he is a hypercrite, a waste of space, everytime he is in a fianna fail meeting he sits there like a ornament, you might get a reaction when someone says a negative comment on Limerick just to get a response out of the lap dog like " ah no don't sayyyy thattttt:o , he is so weak..... hes all talk no action!
I thought he said he was for the boundary extension.:rolleyes: for gods sake of all people they put the most easily led person into the Dept of Defence it makes all sense when we don't have a proper defence force,
describes his role perfectly:D

Anyone related to him, my apologies,:D

invincibleirish

i think limerick has already done well out of the NDP, and i would say that limerick probably has the best infrastructure of any city outside of Dublin.consider this:

3 commuter lines (ennis,limerick junction and nenagh(due for an upgrade granted) galway/waterford has not got one yet,cork will only get its third line when midleton line re-opens.

road infrastructure: the southern ringroad is an excellant road,the northern ringroad will be open just after waterford gets its first ringroad and long before corks north ring is built(both arguably more urgently needed then limerick northern ringroad)

the N7 to portlaoise is a lot better developed then the N8 after Fermoy and a hell of a lot better then the waterford road to Dublin.

as for buses ,in my own opinion, after living in limerick for a year it certainly has a far better city bus service then Cork,i always found limericks bus service to be more efficient.

limerick_man

See people!!!! I keep saying it, but here we are.... an outsider has spoken and proved my point! The NDP has been great for Limerick, between business and social life changes, and of course infrastructer! Every city bus has been bought through the sceme, thats millions!!!!
The only real arguement against the NDP was that in many cases we were catching up! Going into Galway city dual carraigeway brings you into the city centre, in Limerick the new plan is to have dual carriage way past the suburbs and then from there back to 2 lanes, but with a bus lane! BUT THE NDP WAS GREAT FOR THE CITY!!!!!

Victor

Limerick - Ennis

Amazotheamazing

The point of transport 21 is to build new infrastructure, Limerick's infrastructure is already being well planned for, and the train lines already exist. We need trains to put on these lines, not too many new lines.

mysterious

I have to dissagree with the Corkgirls comments on that Cork is in more need of a northern ring road than Limerick , total bull and bases on a personal opinion,

Cork has a dual lane road from sourthern ring right to the city centre unlike any town in Ireland,
Not to mention the ongoing improvments to Kinsale Roundabout the
Ringgaskiddy access aand Jack lynch tunnel and so on

Limerick is more choked with thru traffic than Cork will ever be.
Limerick has a large percentage of through trafiic whether its Galway Cork , Wateroford Galway vise versa, Cork does not have this extra traffic.
Our Airport traffic still has to go through the city so i do think the ring road should be more important than a bloody northern ring road in Cork, when there is already one there, just outside the suburbs!:rolleyes:

The other day passing through Limerick was a nightmare 1000s of cars are trying to get from one side of the city to another , the Bridges itself accross the Shannon are becoming very choked.

I can't understand this arguement saying Limerick is way head of the rest of the cities, the southern ring road has been going on since the early 1990s and still isn't finished and its still the same road so this stuff going on , Limerck is well ahead of the rest of the country is a joke, look at a map of Cork and a map of Limerick ,

Limerick is even lucky to have a new N7 road before 2010 when this route was even less favoured than the bloody Waterford route:mad:

As for Galway it had the state of the art road going around the city when Limerick had the messed up Childers road to go around with:rolleyes:
Now Galway is to get a second bypass come on people I could go go and on

We have infastructure in place to use the cities railway lines yet not funded the Shannon rail link was supposed to go ahead to but yeh that hardly even go ahead when giving a 2015 deadline, laughable, bloody laughable!

Limerick will be tolled , hmm should i go on more, nope

limerick_man

Well even though Cork has all that infrastructure it obviously still isnt working, every mourning the area around the Jack Lynch tunnel comes on! About once a week Limerick is mentioned as a traffic blackspot! 10mins is not a black spot, thats bad timing please notice the difference!

1huge1

limerick_man wrote:

Well even though Cork has all that infrastructure it obviously still isnt working, every mourning the area around the Jack Lynch tunnel comes on! About once a week Limerick is mentioned as a traffic blackspot! 10mins is not a black spot, thats bad timing please notice the difference!

ya but at least there doing something about corks traffic problem and its about time they made a flyover for the kinsale roundabout its a mess spent 25mins waiting in line coming from the cork airport side (kinsale side)

invincibleirish

mysterious wrote:

I have to dissagree with the Corkgirls comments on that Cork is in more need of a northern ring road than Limerick , total bull and bases on a personal opinion,

Cork has a dual lane road from sourthern ring right to the city centre unlike any town in Ireland,
Not to mention the ongoing improvments to Kinsale Roundabout the
Ringgaskiddy access aand Jack lynch tunnel and so on

Limerick is more choked with thru traffic than Cork will ever be.
Limerick has a large percentage of through trafiic whether its Galway Cork , Wateroford Galway vise versa, Cork does not have this extra traffic.
Our Airport traffic still has to go through the city so i do think the ring road should be more important than a bloody northern ring road in Cork, when there is already one there, just outside the suburbs!:rolleyes:

The other day passing through Limerick was a nightmare 1000s of cars are trying to get from one side of the city to another , the Bridges itself accross the Shannon are becoming very choked.

I can't understand this arguement saying Limerick is way head of the rest of the cities, the southern ring road has been going on since the early 1990s and still isn't finished and its still the same road so this stuff going on , Limerck is well ahead of the rest of the country is a joke, look at a map of Cork and a map of Limerick ,

Limerick is even lucky to have a new N7 road before 2010 when this route was even less favoured than the bloody Waterford route:mad:

As for Galway it had the state of the art road going around the city when Limerick had the messed up Childers road to go around with:rolleyes:
Now Galway is to get a second bypass come on people I could go go and on

We have infastructure in place to use the cities railway lines yet not funded the Shannon rail link was supposed to go ahead to but yeh that hardly even go ahead when giving a 2015 deadline, laughable, bloody laughable!

Limerick will be tolled , hmm should i go on more, nope

i am not a girl.

i dont base the need for the northern ring road on personal opinion, i base it on cork city & county councils decision to focus development on the northside & east of the city,i base it on the huge housing developments taking place in blarney,mallow and the various townlands, i base it on the CASP which identified the need for a northern ring road, and i base it on the the fact that the current northern ringroad is permenantly choked with traffic.

the southlink road you mention, as well as the flyovers are/were well needed but if you live on the northside of cork city or north cork it means feck all if you do not need to pass by there.

you may or may not have noticed the south ring is resembling a carpark, a northern ringroad(which will also be tolled, as will the fermoy bypass,and there are proposals to toll the tunnel) will help alleviate pressure on this and the tunnel, but i digress, im not saying limerick doesnt need a northern ringroad, it does but i believe cork and waterford have a better case for their bypasses, apoligies if that offends you.

also can i just add it makes no sense for shannon to get a rail link, its a dubious case as to whether dublin airport should get a metro or not never mind shannon with roughly 1/6 the passenger numbers as dublin getting a spur. and as i mentioned limerick has the best rail service already of any city in the state outside of dublin.

mysterious

invincibleirish wrote:

you may or may not have noticed the south ring is resembling a carpark, a northern ringroad(which will also be tolled, as will the fermoy bypass,and there are proposals to toll the tunnel) will help alleviate pressure on this and the tunnel, but i digress, im not saying limerick doesnt need a northern ringroad, it does but i believe cork and waterford have a better case for their bypasses, apoligies if that offends you.

also can i just add it makes no sense for shannon to get a rail link, its a dubious case as to whether dublin airport should get a metro or not never mind shannon with roughly 1/6 the passenger numbers as dublin getting a spur. and as i mentioned limerick has the best rail service already of any city in the state outside of dublin.

Firstly,
I don't think Its right saying "well this and that towns have better cases for a bypass" etc, that is a personell perspective :rolleyes: . Limerick needs a bypass whether you think other towns such as Waterford and Cork are favoured.
If Limerick is yet again pushed aside on infastructure investment,
The existing bridges would choke.
The city centre wont be pedstrainised,
H.G.V will have no choice but to still use the city centre to get to other areas like Clare and Shannon from Dublin etc..
Unlike Cork Limerick is a throughfare city with a lot of passing through traffic. from the N7 onto Clare/Shannon and Kerry, Cork Traffic has to go via Limerick enroute to Galway and likewise Galway to Waterford. Without a bypass in the future, It would be a total disaster. Corks Northern Ring is as you said more suited to the local and growing population of the North City. Limerick's Shannon ring is primarily national primary traffic, big difference.
Luckily Kerry traffic is now bypassed.:)



Patricks street does not have National primary route traffic trundling the streets. Limerick city centre has to face heavy traffic on its main throufghfare O'Connells Street.Cork has probably benifited most in developing new roads in their area than most other cities in Ireland.
You mentioned the Fermoy bypass, Did you know that the Limerick to Nenagh Motorway was mooted long before that road and was supposed to start before the Fermoy bypass, but yet the fermoy bypass went ahead while the N7 is now degraded to Dual status and from been the first ever inter-urban motorway route to be built to be now one of the last streches of new inter urban route to be built on the national inter urban route plan :rolleyes:



Secondly I don't feel guiilty about your opinions nor does it offend me , lol, I just think its comes across like a compartive sterotyping.

Limerick Colbert station is a kip, seriously. On the positive side I do agree that Limerick has one of the best serviced railways in Ireland, but only because once again Limerick is a strategic bridging point between all the other Towns and having to cross the Shannon. Cork is totally different where most routes leave and enter the city via Kent station.
And of course the Kent station is getting a total makeover. What happen to Colbert Station when the new Galway Limerick service come on stream ???

that all I have to say:)

Victor

mysterious wrote:

Firstly, I don't think Its right saying "well this and that towns have better cases for a bypass" etc, that is a personell perspective :rolleyes: . Limerick needs a bypass whether you think other towns such as Waterford and Cork are favoured. If Limerick is yet again pushed aside on infastructure investment, The existing bridges would choke. The city centre wont be pedstrainised, H.G.V will have no choice but to still use the city centre to get to other areas like Clare and Shannon from Dublin etc.. Unlike Cork Limerick is a throughfare city with a lot of passing through traffic. from the N7 onto Clare/Shannon and Kerry, Cork Traffic has to go via Limerick enroute to Galway and likewise Galway to Waterford. Without a bypass in the future, It would be a total disaster. Corks Northern Ring is as you said more suited to the local and growing population of the North City. Limerick's Shannon ring is primarily national primary traffic, big difference. Luckily Kerry traffic is now bypassed.:)

Eh, you seem to be forgetting something. http://www.midwestroads.ie/LSSR2/Route%20Selection.htm This is progressing before the 9-year plan.

You mentioned the Fermoy bypass, Did you know that the Limerick to Nenagh Motorway was mooted long before that road and was supposed to start before the Fermoy bypass, but yet the fermoy bypass went ahead while the N7 is now degraded to Dual status and from been the first ever inter-urban motorway route to be built to be now one of the last streches of new inter urban route to be built on the national inter urban route plan :rolleyes:

Define "mooted long before". Realise that the Fermoy Bypass will be the only motorway outside Leinster.

Limerick Colbert station is a kip, seriously. On the positive side I do agree that Limerick has one of the best serviced railways in Ireland, but only because once again Limerick is a strategic bridging point between all the other Towns and having to cross the Shannon. Cork is totally different where most routes leave and enter the city via Kent station.

The only real difference between Colbert and Kent is that Colbert is a terminal station for 4 lines and Kent is a combined terminal / through station for one line.

And of course the Kent station is getting a total makeover. What happen to Colbert Station when the new Galway Limerick service come on stream ???

I don't know, but realise that:

* All trains stations are gradually being updated.
* Limerick doesn't have as many train passengers as Cork.
* Limerick "idiots" (not pointing fingers but looking at Limerick City Hall an both Clare & Limerick County Halls) have deliberately not built next to the railways, preventing a meaningful urban / suburban services.
* Limerick will have direct Intercity services to Galway, Waterford / Rosslare, Dublin and Ballybrophy. Cork will only have direct Intercity services to Tralee and Dublin.
* Historicly, Limerick has lost the West Limerick line (part) and the Cork-direct line. Cork has lost the Limerick-direct line, Youghal, Crosshaven, Kinsale, Bandon / West Cork, Macroom and Carberry lines.

invincibleirish

Limerick needs a bypass whether you think other towns such as Waterford and Cork are favoured.

yes i know in fact i already said so

im not saying limerick doesnt need a northern ringroad, it does

Unlike Cork Limerick is a throughfare city with a lot of passing through traffic. from the N7 onto Clare/Shannon and Kerry, Cork Traffic has to go via Limerick enroute to Galway and likewise Galway to Waterford. Without a bypass in the future, It would be a total disaster. Corks Northern Ring is as you said more suited to the local and growing population of the North City. Limerick's Shannon ring is primarily national primary traffic, big difference.
Luckily Kerry traffic is now bypassed.

the cork northring will indeed handle "local traffic" as well as national traffic, i'd assume the same criteria you apply to limerick applies to cork, ie there would be traffic from waterford/limerick/galway, by size alone as the second largest city we would get more traffic then limerick, thus, more national traffic+local traffic(the north cork county and city is about 100,000+) means the northring is far more needed in terms of numbers

limerick to nenagh motorway is not vital, nenagh has been bypassed (its a fine bypass may i add) fermoy is the worst bottleneck in the country outside of Dublin, it suffers as it is handling both national traffic(the busiest road in the country and commuter traffic), motorway is not about status its about the need(i believe 55,000 a day is what is needed)

i dont think cork has been advantaged when it comes to roadbuilding, in fact due to the fact that the southring was built in the mid 90's it disadvantaged it ditto the N20 from mallow-blarney, as in today with all the money sloshing about there is no way the southring would have 3 roundabouts, the airport road would be fully dc as would mallow-blarney, even the tunnel might have been different(its now operating at full capacity)

invincibleirish

Victor wrote:

* Limerick "idiots" (not pointing fingers but looking at Limerick City Hall an both Clare & Limerick County Halls) have deliberately not built next to the railways, preventing a meaningful urban / suburban services.

to echo this, as a onetime public administration student, clare co.co and limerick co.co have written the book on how not to handle building population densities on local rail-lines and bus lines, with a bit of foresight limerick could have the best public transport in the country in relation to size with what is already in use by irish rail and bus eireann in terms of rolling stock and staff if a bit of cop on was had.