The road-building archive thread: a record of a changing Ireland

Furet wrote: »

In decades to come, the first few years of this century will be looked back on by Irish people as truly transformative, not least in terms of the dramatic improvements made to road transport connectivity across this island.

Boards.ie has played an important role in recording that transformation as it happened. The interurban motorways were built one section at a time, and, for various reasons, many people felt a compunction to catalogue construction works textually and pictorially on these forums. The threads they created and added to record something of the zeitgeist of our times - and they document the remaking of the physical geography of Ireland in the process. Because of the relative disinterest shown by RTÉ and the print media in the road-building enterprise, the posts found here on Boards.ie take on a greater significance and don the mantle of a cultural archive.

Furet wrote: »

It is my intention to close and preserve those of the most important threads which have now, in September 2009, fulfilled their primary purposes. The road schemes whose construction progress they documented are now complete.

Furet wrote: »

Road Needs Study (1998) attached.

Can existing Roads be Widened to Provide Motorways?
As a result of the design features of high quality dual carriageways and motorways, the option to build the new route along the line of the existing road network is usually not feasible.The reasons for this are:
• The new road design standards adopted by the NRA to meet the NDP policy objective could not be accommodated within the existing road reservations.

It would be necessary to acquire adjoining land and demolish property, including numerous private residences for the full length of the new schemes.

• Access would no longer be permitted onto the new dual carriageway national route from property and farms located along the existing road. One-off properties with frontage onto the existing national primary road would
require new access roads to the nearest county or regional road thereby increasing the footprint of the road network.

• Properties and homes remaining in situ would in many cases be closer to the upgraded road network with consequent implications for quality of life (air, noise, etc.) and safety.

• By-passes of villages and towns along the existing road would be required resulting in the ‘rosary bead’ alignment.

• Community impact would be greater for ribbon type development as there will be no access permitted across the new road.

• The construction phase of on-line projects would involve extensive and complex traffic management in order to seek to maintain live traffic flows
on the national routes concerned.This would result inevitably in longer construction periods, additional costs and increased journey travel
times for the public for the duration of the works.

• The significant disruption to traffic movements on national routes over extensive sections of the network would have serious implications for economic activity and the efficiency of the network, as well as creating
safety hazards for both road users and road construction personnel.

• The development of the new routes off-line means that the existing roads can be used for incident and emergency responses, particularly when it becomes necessary to divert traffic off the main line.This is a common procedure used in most countries for the management of major incidents and emergencies.