M40 motorway redesignation and demand management system [works ongoing]

Well they've spent lots of money overnight re-lining the lanes at the Bandon Road Roundabout. It looks much better but sadly there is no mention of N40 on any of the lanes; instead they've used N25 everywhere.

Oh dear.

kub wrote: »

Maybe the County Council are having a laugh before they hand over this area to the City Council at the end of this month?

Geez lads. Ye lost the boundary war, get over it.

I can only presume the instructions said "put an extra layer of paint on the markings that are currently there" and that meant touching up the old N25 markings. :rolleyes:

What's the story with that re-designation? Happening, in progress or what?

marno21 wrote: »

I was heading east on the N40 Monday evening at 6pm when I saw a cyclist coming up the on ramp at J4 Sarsfield Road with no reflective gear on at dusk. This is a 3 lane dual carriageway with no hard shoulder and an extremely narrow lane east of the Togher exit due to cones on the verge.

Motorway classifications can't come quick enough.

This is aside from the usual debauchery with tractors causing rolling roadblocks frequently at peak times.

+++++

This road is so very very far beyond its core design capacity and rating.

Driving N40 West->East last week on the section before Mahon Point exit, an ould lad (think Jackie Healy Rae) bopping along on a seriously big tractor pulling a even bigger high sided trailer filled with loose grass/hay and no tarpaulin top. Behind him a long line of red lights, multiple last minute lane changes sans indication, and an utter blizzard of the crap that was in his trailer being spewed over all three lanes. You simply cannot have a road with a 100km speed limit that is catering for 50,000-100,000 vehicle movements per day, also catering for cyclists, L-drivers and fully laden tractors/trailers zooming along at 38.5kmph. The sooner this road goes all blue the better, irrespective of the downside consequences. And hopefully it happens before a 10/20/50 multiple death accident occurs.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

As a cyclist and a motorist I fully agree.


The "downside consequences" of routing HGV's through the city are deaths and injuries. That's without discussing concepts like air quality and the "liveability" of the city. You're conflating two things: a requirement for a road and a requirement for high speed.

So yes, fully agreed that there needs to be segregation, ASAP. But not agreed at all that high-speed vehicles are the priority movement.

We've discussed this at length on the thread, simply making the road M status won't solve all problems, just hide them. Every few weeks there's a multi-vehicle crash on Harpers Island, which is a straight section of motorway-quality road with no junctions whatsoever.
You're suggesting that slow moving cyclists and HGV's are the cause of high speed crashes. This can not be possible, because only high speed vehicles can crash at high speeds. NTA/TII made the same mistaken assertion in their assessment of the scheme.

Unless there's a secondary route, simply "banning" the vehicles that get in your way is a very short-sighted idea.

which HGVs would be banned by redesignation?

loyatemu wrote: »

which HGVs would be banned by redesignation?

Well maybe I'm wrong in describing them simply as "HGV" but some of the commercial vehicles that I've seen doing less than 35kmh on the N40 are:
Cranes, tractors, special-Load vehicles, such as those transporting bits of turbines or heavy equipment, side-loaders, back-hoe excavators, etc.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

The "downside consequences" of routing HGV's through the city are deaths and injuries.

I absolutely did not propose banning HGV’s from the N40 and instead routing them through the city.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Whether you propose it or not, TINA (there is no alternative).

Unfortunately a lot of these vehicles rely on the N40 at present. It's why I get stuck behind the same bloody manitou so often at rush hour.

Here, I'm not saying that we need to keep allowing bicycles in the overtaking lane of the N40, which is the current ugly situation. I'm just saying the solution needs to be more involved than the M-status.

Do you actually know what a HGV is ?

turbine blades are an unusual load and usually require some sort of Garda escort so could use the motorway anyway (probably at night).

Combine harvesters, JCBs etc definitely shouldn't be using main roads - if they need to travel any distance they should be on low-loaders.

Hibernicis wrote: »

Not sure whether you are bring deliberately disingenuous or simply trying to draw me into some pointless pedantic argument. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and try to explain my point in simple terms. For clarity let me restate that I never suggested or proposed banning HGVs from the N/M40.

9x% of HGVs (and realistically 99.x% of them) would be permitted on the road were it operating under motorway restrictions. The exceptions would be standard motorway exceptions, e.g. wide loads, slow moving vehicles etc. These are few and far between and there are special arrangements available for the special cases, e.g your turbine blades can be transported on a motorway (and frequently are) with special escorts at times of low demand.

I did not suggest that a motorway designation for the N40 is in any way ideal. It’s little more than a sticking plaster. But a very necessary sticking plaster to address a very dangerous situation. The long term solutions required to reduce the volume of traffic on the N40 back to levels that are safe for a standard urban dual carriage way are years away (North Ring, M28, Dunkettle, local distributor roads, junction improvements, etc). In the meantime the N40, which is carrying traffic well in excess of the threshold for designation as a Motorway, should be so designated, on safety grounds if nothing else.

I think that's a reasonable response from you. And no, I'm not being disingenuous with this or previous posts.

Here's the point: slow moving vehicles mixed with fast-moving vehicles on the N40 is a problem (it's a problem on any road): I suspect that we can both agree this?

I'm saying we want slow moving vehicles to take a different route. Again I suspect that we can both agree this. It seems reasonable. The N40 would be wasted on slow traffic, it's designed for higher speeds.

You're saying that the M-status is one attempt/route to achieving this. I don't have a major problem other than to say that this cannot work as we would like, because lots of the other slow moving vehicles will stay using it. Things like tractors that are technically capable of 50kmh but won't achieve that with a load. Things like slow moving JCB's and side-loaders. They're all going to still be on the M40, as it would be recategorised. Most of these won't have garda escorts. I fully accept that some will, and let's ignore those because it's a whole different category.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, and we both agree on the long term required solution.

But I'm saying that putting the reclassification in isn't going to do the necessary for us. Because I genuinely expect that we will still see cyclists and slow moving farm traffic on the M40. The reason being: I can't imagine cycling on it at present, but some people are choosing to do so. Mostly these people are NOT oblivious to safety issues, but rather are making a calculation that it's "safe enough" and more convenient (and in some cases safer) than their alternative route. So I'm saying that we need to improve or provide the alternative routes ASAP.

I'm saying that if our objective is to remove slower-moving traffic from the N40, it's gotta go somewhere. And that we're now doing a kind of window-dressing exercise pretending that the slow-moving traffic won't be on that road. But cranes etc are still going to pootle along it at 40kmh, so the safety objective won't actually be met. Does that make sense?

I'm also saying that slow-moving traffic either will use the N40 or go through town, in the M40 scenario. That's a whole other point.
Edit: I'm not accusing you of wanting heavy slow traffic through town, but at the moment there's no real alternative, it's N40 or town. If we want it off the N40, then some has to go through town.

Most High speed tractors are able to travel motorways, combines, jcbs, loaders (including that manitou), bicycles and learners aren't..
The drama with the N40 /m40 isn't really any of those vehicles (though they don't help), it's traffic volume... And junctions...
And it is what it is... There isn't really a (viable) public transport alternative to the N40,

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I'd say that bicycles and learners aren't a significant issue: learners can go through town, bicycles can be accommodated in other ways.

But on the rest of your message, are you sure you're right? I'd thought cranes, harvesters, digging vehicles and loading vehicles are technically allowed on the M-status roads, as long as they can do 40kmh, according to the commercial vehicle test? Or are category S vehicles not allowed? In which case, those guys are going through town, I guess.

Most loaders and harvesters can't do 40 kph, so they'll be stuck on a low loader towed by a tractor.... So driving along the motorway at 40ish...

marno21 wrote: »

I'd also say it's imperative that blue signs should go from Ovens to Carrigtwohill East. Whatever about the N40, having cyclists on the N22 and N25, at 120km/h with clear useful alternative routes is daft.

'Daft' how exactly? It's the same reason people drive on the N22 and N25, it's the quickest. Also the hard shoulder on the N22 is by far the safest part of any cycle I do. I'm not sure why an extra 20 km/h makes any tangible difference in your mind, if your on a bike and hit at 100 or 120 km/h the outcome is going to be the same.