Vanquished wrote: » The existing Croom bypass is to be reconfigured with only a short new build section skirting around the Maigue bridge. That road is WS2 and only dates from 2001 so it would be madness not to utilise it!
Cookiemunster wrote: » Remember that that was the last plan which also had the Adare bypass joining the M20 South of Adare. That plan has now been binned. There is to be a completely new planning process so the route could change.
Vanquished wrote: » We'll get a clearer picture when the preferred route for Limerick to Foynes is released.
zulutango wrote: » Seems they have their sights set on upgrading the N69 rather than the N21. Madness.
Cookiemunster wrote: » It's not madness. The EU are paying to replace the N69 as part of their 10T program. It's not coming from government funds and the EU has said that it has to be done. Cleverly though 2 of the proposed routes for the N69 upgrade a large section of the N21 and 3 of them bypass Adare.
zulutango wrote: » Not having looked closely at the route, how necessary is the tunnel through the Galtees, and how long would that tunnel be? I think your points are very good. Do you know if this route was looked at during the planning stage and if it was, do you know why it wasn't the favoured route? We seem to have a habit in Ireland of building motorways along existing routes. It's as if we see them as upgrades of these old roads, when in reality they should be so much more than that.
zulutango wrote: » There's tunnels all over Europe linking places that aren't big population centres. In any case, we should really be asking why Limerick and Cork aren't big population centres at the moment. Arguably the woeful connection between the two is one of the major reasons, coupled with, of course, the very myopic all roads lead to Dublin policy pursued by every government in the history of the State. Further to that, if we have any sense of planning in this country we should be looking at developing other population centres and the motorway network should be built with that in mind. Seeing it simply as a road improvement between two small cities is just all wrong.
bk wrote: » Yes, when I hear tunnel, I hear $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Tunnels are expensive, they only build tunnels in the Alps because they have no other choice, but they still end up costing big money. I have no proof, but I wouldn't be surprised if tunnelling it would end up costing more then just building two separate motorways. Specially when you consider you still have to bypass Mallow, Buttevant, etc. Another thing to consider is that by having two separate roads, you can have two separate projects, thus you can string them both out over a longer period of time. For instance two separate cheaper roads build one after the other over 10 years, versus one more expensive project (due to tunnel) built over 5 years. The former is much easier on the capital budget. I'm not saying it isn't a good idea, but I would really want to see the costings of the two different options. But to be honest, I'd rather they forget about delaying things for years and just get started on the bloody M20.
Chris_5339762 wrote: » AFAIK Foynes port has to have a roads upgrade as part of Ten-T. They are upgrading the N69 to do this, but in an extremely rare bit of common sense, all of the proposed routes (apart from one) are basically an Adare bypass with a spur heading off to Foynes.
tippsean wrote: » I agree, in any case the tunnelling that would be required through small parts of the Galtees would be minimal. Moreover, that composition of the rock in the Galtees is nothing like the solid material of the Pyrennees. The Galtees are made up of broken stone. The tunnels that would be required would be in the region of .5km and 1km. And again, there are already minor road networks in place through the Galtees that could be developed.
Subpopulus wrote: » T Anyway, if you were building a motorway toward Limerick from Mitchelstown, you could build it over the piddling hills south of Ballylanders on the surface at far less trouble and expense than tunnelling under said piddling hills. But ultimately, why do you lads keep hammering on with the argument that: a) It's necessary to build motorway tunnels 'under the Galtees'. b) This tunnelling would be fairly straightforward. c) This tunnelling would make financial sense. Do you just want to have tunnels built for the hell of it or something? Because otherwise the argument doesn't really make sense....
tippsean wrote: » We have to ask ourselves about why in the first place the towns of Mallow, Buttevant, Charleville etc have to be bypassed, isn't it because of all the traffic currently going through them that would be removed by a motorway. So if motorways were built from Mitchelstown to Limerick instead of an M20, then the traffic that is causing the problems in the towns would be gone.....would big bypasses still be necessary, maybe, but not nearly as big or as expensive as the ones being discussed her.e
bk wrote: » Hmm... But the vast majority of the cost of building roads is buying land. So really it wouldn't matter greatly if it was a "big bypass" or a "smaller bypass" you would need to purchase almost as much land either way, so no major savings there. I'm sorry, but you really haven't given any convincing evidence that tunnelling would be cheaper. The average cost of building motorways in Ireland is €8 million per KM. By comparison, lets look at you example of easy tunnelling in Switzerland, the Swiss government are planning a new tunnel under the Alps. It will be 4 lane, 17 km long and cost €2.65 billion! That is €156 million per km!!!!!!!https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Road_Tunnel Looking at Irish examples, the Dublin Port Tunnel is 5.6km long (4.5km tunnel) and cost €752 million, that is €136 million per km!!! In other words tunnelling is about 20 times more expensive then a normal motorway per km. So I find it hard to believe that it would be cheaper.
loyatemu wrote: » nobody is going to be tunnelling. the only possible scenario for tunnelling in Ireland would be for the Dublin ORR if they ever wanted to connect the N11 to the N7/N9 but even that's pretty far fetched.
bk wrote: » Hmm... But the vast majority of the cost of building roads is buying land.
AugustusMinimus wrote: » The N7 heading into Dublin should also be a lesson of why not to combine arterial routes into a single road heading into a city. All roads leading to Dunkettle is not a good idea. We'll have it just upgraded and we'll be faced with Limerick traffic going through it as well.
zulutango wrote: » The solution is to build better junctions rather than extra roads ...
AugustusMinimus wrote: » No. The solution isn't to upgrade junctions and then clog them up straight away by dumping a load more traffic through them.
marno21 wrote: » Any traffic going from the N20/Limerick to another side of the city should use the ringroad anyway, meaning Dunkettle will have to foot that traffic at present. No point in driving all this traffic through the city centre.
