Road Needs Study (1998)

Mine arrived in the post today:D

murphaph wrote: »

That's a very interesting document. Originally nothing more than mostly S2 was planned for the M9 because they clearly envisaged upgrading the N77 to take traffic from Kilkenny to the M8! while the N20 states that a dual carriageway is required.....hmmmm, poltics intervened there anyway!

Yes I think Kilkenny and the South east got a far better deal than envisaged in 1998. Though an upgrade of the N77 is still hugely desirable and indeed very neccessary, the M9 as it has been built ticks far more boxes as against the 1998 study.
For instance;
- The 3 largest urban centres in the south east are all now/soon will be linked together by motorway. Traffic between these is significant. A road to Dublin via M9 is accomodating all this inter region movement.
- The M9 is shorter for Kilkenny traffic as against link to M8. Not 100% would have chosen this route, whereas for the M9 thye almost certainly will.
- The M9 makes a complete job of road upgrades in the south east. No need to go back and build again like the Moone bypass where the road unfortunately was obsolete when it opened. Though it did serve us very well for a decade.
- Acts a cohesive link running through the centre of the region.

mysterious wrote: »

Traffic on the N9 isn't that significant, I know your from the SE and I know you got your motorway but please.

I don't know cos I don't have the traffic figures to hand. Just from my own observations driving it weekly/daily, the old N9 between Carlow and Kilcullen was one hell of a busy single carriageway road.

don't waffle.

Please drop the condescending tone ta, you loose any respect I might have your argument/opinion.

tech2 wrote: »

Mysterious you may be right with the AADT figures but considering the N9 was very poor many used the N11/M11 so the AADT will rise further once the whole motorway will be completed. Also how much less was it construct a WS2 over a HQDC at the time? Not much I would imagine and the road is future proofed for decades to come.

Traffic between Kilkenny and Waterford will increase substantially once the M9 is complete. I know many people who say that once the road is complete they will travel more between the two centres for both business & pleasure. I have put off trips (and even canceled some) for as long as possible before I have to travel on the N9/N10 as it is one head-wrecking road

I'm sure Mfitzy has heard the same being said in Kilkenny and further afield

Chris_533976 wrote: »

I still think the overall question should be which should have gotten priority.

M20 or M9.

I say that M20 Mallow - Croom should have gotten priority (and been designed years ago)

Say build half the M9 and half the M20, then we'd all be better off.

The fact that the M9 is (nearly) done and the M20 hasnt been touched and wont be pre 2015 is disgraceful.

so we'd end up with two half finished roads instead of one completly finished Inter-urban motorway - a typical Irish solution indeed

wellbutty wrote: »

Yet another great thread hijacked by the "M20 should've been built over the M9" brigade.

I don't recall ever stating that before this thread, so I hope I'm not in this "brigade" you talk about, but it sort of jumps out at you, if you read the document from 1998 that is, that the N9 was never due to receive a motorway as traffic was to be sent along an upgradded N77 to the M8 and along the upgraded N25/N11 corridor but the FF "one for everyone in the audience" policies kicked in somewhere along the line. I'm happy the M9 will exist though, but it wasn't meant to, at least not before the M20.

wellbutty wrote: »

Lucky ye're not in a position of power or else AADT figures would be the only factor in justifying a road schmeme improvement. I drove up and down from Dublin a few times over the weekend, lethal car-breaking potholes that KK county council couldn't be arsed filling in (the location of the "Welcome to Waterford City" sign inside their boundary is far more important), the 19th century horse & carriage alignment, unbelievable width, awful drainage, numerous villages...give me a break lads and sing us a new one.

Apart from the sign thing, that could be the N20 you're talking about. You can't deny that the N20 was seen as a higher priority by the NRA than the southern end of the N9. THAT IS FACT according to this 1998 source. That's all we're talking about, how it's interesting that things can be influenced by politics and so on.

wellbutty wrote: »

The M20 will have its day, we'll have ours in May (assuming BAM come back from the Christmas holidays!).

Not if the Greens have their way, whereas as you say the M9 is a done deal now.

So excuse a bit of agitation in favour of the M20 if you please - I should note that I have nevertheless argued the valid reasons for the M9 (certainly north of N10, but given the amount the existing road inhibits travel, I argued for south of that also) on a number of occasions.

The N20 is at least of similar importance I would argue to the N9, and I would suggest similarly at present inhibits commerce and is detrimental to safe travel.

BTW, this map in fairness does seem to prioritise routes solely on the basis of their state at the time and traffic volume. Those are of course major considerations, but I consider the interurbans first argument as not without merit given the strategic importance and travel time. Nevertheless, it would have been preferable had the originally promised date of 2006 been held to, in order that other routes (such as M20 and things like Newlands and Arklow-Rathnew) could have got a look-in. As far as I can see, the slow start to the interurbans was mainly from artificially limited go-ahead of projects that were artificially small, in order to allow domestic construction industry (FOFF) to gear up to handle most of the jobs. Given the dead end that was jobs-wise, it made no sense bar lining certain people's pockets.