[Article] Dual Carriageways to be re-classified as Motorways

Bards

From:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/motorists-can-go-20kmh-faster-890888.html
=====================================================
Motorists can go 20kmh faster
Speed changes on major inter-city roads will make them safer

Go By Treacy Hogan
Friday June 29 2007


DRIVERS will soon be able to go 20kmh faster on the main inter-city roads.


The country's dual carriageways, stretching more than 800 kilometres, are to be re-classified as motorways.

This means that the speed limit on these roads will increase from the current 100kmh to 120kmh.

The move was revealed yesterday by Transport Minister Noel Dempsey who said the decision was being taken for safety reasons.

He said there was now little or no physical difference between dual carriageways and motorways.

The National Roads Authority has however been alarmed at the level of housing and commercial 'ribbon' developments permitted alongside dual-carriageways. When these developments are being built new access slip roads and junctions are also created.

New NRA research has shown that 26pc of road deaths and 50pc of all crashes occur at junctions where drivers are making right-hand turns off roads and this is a growing problem on dual-carriageways where planning permissions are granted for developments with access roads to the dual-carriageway.

Legislation is to be passed next week which will clear the way for the NRA to re-classify the country's dual-carriageways as motorways.

The NRA said yesterday it would move "very quickly" on the reclassification as soon as it gets the green light next week from the minister.

The Irish Independent has learned that it will will involve all of the dual carriageways on the main Dublin to Cork , Limerick, Galway, Wexford and Waterford roads.

The Atlantic corridor between Limerick-Ennis-Tuam will also be affected.

Up to 800km of dual-carriageway will be involved in the changeover due to be completed by the end of the year.

Mr Dempsey said yesterday that there were major differences between the access and development controls that apply to the two road types.

Development beside and access to motorways was far more stringently controlled than in the case of dual carriageways.

The Minister said he intended to make orders declaring certain high quality dual-carriageways to be motorways. This was needed to protect the investment being made in the national road network and to help prevent premature obsolescence of the network by developments alongside the roads. At the moment a road can only legally be a motorway if it has gone through the planning process under a Motorway Scheme.

The new legislation will create a straightforward process where a minister can declare that dual carriageways are now motorways. There will be a public consultation process before the reclassification takes place.

"The key consideration is safety here because of inappropriate development along dual-carriageways which created multiple access points," an NRA spokesperson said yesterday. "The more access points you have on dual-carriageways, the more accidents you have."

seamus

It's good news, but I'm assuming that they're going to start modifying all those crazy crossroads into slip roads?
Otherwise we're just going to have a series of roads where you're on motorway for 5km, then it changes to DC for 1km while there's a junction, then MWay again. Payday for the Speed cameras, but a nightmare for motorists.

Doodah7

To be welcomed. Now if the NRA/Co Co's would redesignate former N roads that are now R roads back to 100km/h, we would be moving in the right direction.

talkingclock

Great. What about the L drivers?
More L drivers need to remove their L plates "temporarily" then just to go from Limerick to Shannon.

tampopo

Thought it was April 1st for several moments...

Stark

talkingclock wrote:

Great. What about the L drivers?
More L drivers need to remove their L plates "temporarily" then just to go from Limerick to Shannon.

If they manage to get the test waiting times down to 10 weeks or less as well, then the L-drivers shouldn't be a problem. There'll have to be alternative routes in any case to facilitate everyone else who can't use the motorway.

Chris_533976

Good. At least they're pushing it seriously now.

Do we even have 800km of DC though?

jjbrien

Does this mean the N4 dual carrigeway around Mullingar will be made into the M4. If it is there is no other route for L drivers to get to Mullingar.

E92

Fantastic news. About bloody time too.
I hope we won't see a repeat of what happened when Cork County Council tried to change the speed limits on some of the Dual Carriageways to 120 km/h. Though in fairness I can perfectly understand why the NRA didnt want to let them be upgraded to 120 km/h when this was in the planning.

I could never understand why we built Motorways or Roads that through all intents and purposes are Motorways, and then not call them Motorways.

Please God we will finally be legally allowed to go at a speed that is still not that fast by European standards on a road that is said to be 7 times safer than a single carriageway.

E92

jjbrien wrote:

Does this mean the N4 dual carrigeway around Mullingar will be made into the M4. If it is there is no other route for L drivers to get to Mullingar.

It can only be reclassified a Motorway if there is an alternative route available. Hence why the 3 lane section of the Naas Dual Carriageway was not reclassified to Motorway when they changed it to 3 lanes last year, even though it is a Motorway standard road. There is no alternative route till the road switches back to 2 lanes, at which point the Road becomes a Motorway.

jjbrien

E92 wrote:

It can only be reclassified a Motorway if there is an alternative route available. Hence why the 3 lane section of the Naas Dual Carriageway was not reclassified to Motorway when they changed it to 3 lanes last year, even though it is a Motorway standard road. There is no alternative route till the road switches back to 2 lanes, at which point the Road becomes a Motorway.

Ahh thats good then. I was driving on the N2 last night from ashbourne and it is a motorway in my mind the speed limit is 120kph but its called the n2 i found this really daft.

MLM

Great news! At last.

E92

Of course just because a Road is a Motorway doesn't mean that it will have a Speed Limit of 120 km/h. Similarly it is perfectly possible to have a speed limit of 120 km/h on a non Motorway as well, which is one of the big benefits of having the Metric Speed limits. (it wasn't possible to do this when we had miles per hour limits)

Skyhater

jjbrien wrote:

Ahh thats good then. I was driving on the N2 last night from ashbourne and it is a motorway in my mind the speed limit is 120kph but its called the n2 i found this really daft.

Yea, I've mentioned that in a couple of posts here. It's crazy.
Coming from Dublin, the N2 should have "N" classification as far as J2 (St. Margaret's Turnoff) and 100km/h speed limit. After that it Should have "M" status with 120km/h speed limit.
(This is because the OLD N2 is still intact after J2, thus providing an alternative rout)

Hope this is included in the change!!!!

Irish and Proud

E92 wrote:

It can only be reclassified a Motorway if there is an alternative route available. Hence why the 3 lane section of the Naas Dual Carriageway was not reclassified to Motorway when they changed it to 3 lanes last year, even though it is a Motorway standard road. There is no alternative route till the road switches back to 2 lanes, at which point the Road becomes a Motorway.

The Naas DC is nowhere near motorway standard - it's can only be described is a grade separated DC - not even HQDC. There are two reasons for this:

1) Some of the interchanges are of a compact configuration thereby meaning that the slip-roads are totally sub-standard - they're just LILOs like other junctions on the same road - none of which should exist on a motorway.

2) There are still a number of entrances to private premises directly off the mainline, even though many of such were relocated to service roads during the upgrade.

Even if an alternative route was provided and the above two issues resolved, the motorway would have to stop before Newlands Cross. This junction is in the early stages of planning for grade separation - hope it will be something like the Kingswood GSJ etc, but certainly not like the Steelstown or Castlewarden GSJs.

Cheers!

mike65

Minister in common sense shocker - greens furious!

Mike.

Zaph

E92 wrote:

Of course just because a Road is a Motorway doesn't mean that it will have a Speed Limit of 120 km/h.

True, there's that ridiculous 100km/h stretch on the M50 from Dundrum to Cookstown. Hopefully they'll change that as part of this review.

Skyhater

zaph wrote:

True, there's that ridiculous 100km/h stretch on the M50 from Dundrum to Cookstown. Hopefully they'll change that as part of this review.

Na!!! Infact the remainder of the M50 is due to have a 100km/h speed limit when the extra lanes are added..... This is to compensate for the narrower lanes (and extra lanes).

There is nothing wrong with this though!!! Just because a road has "M" classification, doesn't mean it is safe to drive @ 120km/h.
Vol of traffic, road conditions, number of lanes, etc. should all be taken into account.
Some Motorways should have 130km/h speed limits, with others a 90km/h would be more appropriate.

If it were up to me, i'd have different speed limits for different road conditions (just like France - 120km/h in the dry, and as low as 80km/h in the wet)

"Logical Speed limits, then enforce them with high fines"!!!!!!!!!

Fratton Fred

I don't see the point in this, why not just go about upgrading the dual carriageways and then reclassify them?

Does this mean the N11 through stillorgan will be a motorway, or the N7 from Naas to the Red cow?

If it gets the learners and the lorries out of the outside lane then great, but I can't see this making much of a difference at all.

Stark

Fratton_Fred wrote:

Does this mean the N11 through stillorgan will be a motorway, or the N7 from Naas to the Red cow?

No, it just paves the way for making some of our dual carriageways into motorways. The article gets a bit mixed up in places.

D'Peoples Voice

Bards wrote:

From:
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/motorists-can-go-20kmh-faster-890888.html
=====================================================
"The key consideration is safety here because of inappropriate development along dual-carriageways which created multiple access points," an NRA spokesperson said yesterday.

Anyone else feel that we are coming at this problem backwards?
I'm neither for or against this move,
but I think the explanation given is a bit misleading.

A simple regulation made by a Green Minister for the Environment & Local Government to An Bord Planeala to prevent such developments being allowed through should be a simpler solution.

Fratton Fred

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

A simple regulation made by a Green Minister for the Environment & Local Government to An Bord Planeala to prevent such developments being allowed through should be a simpler solution.

and take away a steady source of income for TDs/local planning officers/councillors?

(Alledgedly)

mike65

NRA chap was just on Last Word and this came up, he said/implied that ungrading to M standard would mean no chance of ribbon development.

I presume he was talking on his own behalf, it could have been interpreted as a little dig at Evironment dept for not making sure ribbon development does'nt happen.

Mike.

Zaph

Skyhater wrote:

Na!!! Infact the remainder of the M50 is due to have a 100km/h speed limit when the extra lanes are added..... This is to compensate for the narrower lanes (and extra lanes).

If it were up to me, i'd have different speed limits for different road conditions (just like France - 120km/h in the dry, and as low as 80km/h in the wet)

I acually don't have a problem with either of these, it just bugs me on the M50 that the speed limit changes for no apparent reason even though the quality of the road is unchanged. If they make it 100km/h for the whole road at least it would be consistent.

For the variable speed limits we'd need a better system of electronic road signs. Other than that obstacle, which knowing this country would take years to overcome, it make perfect sense when you see some idiot driving at high speed in a downpour.

Idbatterim

I drive down to Athlone regularly and you can take the motorway for about 70km from Dublin, then you have to travel at 100km on the dual carriageway which is too slow for the road and people do 120km on it anyway, unbelievably its a good logic decision!

icdg

Its not really even an announcement - this bill was published way back before the election and has already passed all Seanad stages. It was well flagged before then.

First of all, the roads will have to be of motorway standard. What we're talking here is HQDCs like Finglas-Ashbourne (although something will have to be done about J1-J2 there) or Kinnegad-Kilbeggen. Not the N7 Naas Road (or even the N4 Lucan Road post-upgrade), as this isn't a HQDC - its good quality, but still has a number of minor exits, private accesses, and other things which mean it can never be reclassified (which is why the original plan was to build a motorway from Naas to the M50 on a new alignment).

Roads you can probably expect upgraded to motorway:

N6 Kinnegad-Kilbeggan, and future Kilbeggan-Athlone, Athlone-Ballinasloe, and Ballinasloe-Galway schemes. With a small bit of work, the Athlone Bypass also.

N7 Annacotty-Limerick, and future Castletown-Nenagh, Nenagh-Annacotty, and Limerick bypass schemes.

N8 Cashal bypass and all future schemes.

N9 the entire route.

N25 Waterford City Bypass.

Roads which might be upgraded to motorway given circumstances:

N2 Finglas-Ashbourne
N4 Mullingar bypass - but not McNeads Bridge (Kinnegad-Mullingar) scheme unless majorly upgraded and an alternative route provided.
N18 future N7 junction-Galway (but needs a bit of work in places).
N20/N21 Limerick-Adare (although its so quiet I don't see the point)

spacetweek

Stark wrote:

No, it just paves the way for making some of our dual carriageways into motorways. The article gets a bit mixed up in places.

Agreed - for example, it says that the "entire" route from Dublin to Wexford will be motorway. The Wicklow-Gorey section is a possibility, but definitely not Bray-Wicklow: even the new sections of the N11 along there are not up to full spec.

Examples of duallers which could not be reclassified include N4 at Mullingar (too narrow), N7 Dublin-Naas and N4 Lucan (access not controlled), N1 north of Dundalk (original route gone), N11 Bray-Wicklow (below spec and access not controlled), N11 within Dublin and N81 Tallaght BP (waaay below spec).

It's likely that roads like the N3 at Blanch, the new N18 and the Cork Southern Ring could be motorways if you wanted, maybe after some minor modifications.

Zaph, the M50 changes speed limit to 100k on the Southern Cross because it becomes very twisty. 120 would be dangerous here.

I added the total network up once, HQDC, motorway, and potential duallers, for present and future, and got 921 km. Pretty decent network length for a country our size.

Victor

icdg wrote:

N25 Waterford City Bypass.

I suspect part of the original routes will be obliterated, leaving no alternative route.

N18 future N7 junction-Galway (but needs a bit of work in places).

No alternative route from Limerick to Shannon.

spacetweek wrote:

N3 at Blanch,

No alternative.

Cork Southern Ring

Parts of this are very mediocre. Limited sight lines, lanes that just disappear, not hard should in places.

mike65

Nearly a 1000 km would be good! Finland has 653, Portuagal 1,700, Sweden 1,428, Netherlands 2,235 and erm Germany 11,980.

Mike.

mike65

I suspect part of the original routes will be obliterated, leaving no alternative route.

Whaaaaa? Waterford City shall remain in place, the N25 from Kilmeaden to Slieverue will be a R standard with 80 kph max which is of absolutly no importance as no-one has done more than that along most of that section for some years!

Mike.

Victor

I said "part of the original routes will be obliterated". I'm not obliterating the city. http://www.thrdo.com/pdfmap/waterfordbypass2.pdf

Its actually parts of the N9 and N24 will be changed. So they are obliterating Kilkenny.

mike65

Thumbs up!

Mike.

Solair

From an environmental perspective that might make some sense too as most cars are designed to be optimally efficient at about 120km/h i.e. normal motorway driving speed.

Now all we need is service stops on the motorways!!

mike65

Indeed

/me off to check the NRA website for mention of same.

...and finds! here and here (pdf)

Mike.

Skyhater

zaph wrote:

For the variable speed limits we'd need a better system of electronic road signs. Other than that obstacle, which knowing this country would take years to overcome, it make perfect sense when you see some idiot driving at high speed in a downpour.

Yea, Ideally all Motorway speed limit signs would be electronic (especially on busy motorways - like the M50), with the flick of a switch 120km/h could become 100 or 80 ,etc depending on the conditions.
However we could implement something OK straight away (....after appropriate Legislation), using the existing electronic warning signs on the M50.

In parts of France the don't even use electronic signs; they have one speed limit with a Sun symbol beside it, and the other with a Raining Cloud beside it. Of course this could never work in Ireland, can you imagine the arguments in court!!!

Chris_533976

Victor wrote:

Parts of this are very mediocre. Limited sight lines, lanes that just disappear, not hard should in places.

Plus the SRR has been set in stone for a while as an arterial route around the city. Would not be practical IMO to make it motorway. The restrictions on L drivers etc would just encourage ratrunning through estates.

Stark

Victor wrote:

Parts of this are very mediocre. Limited sight lines, lanes that just disappear, not hard should in places.

Ballincollig bypass would be a good candidate though I reckon.

I think part of the N25 heading east from Dunkettle and the N8 coming off the Fermoy bypass towards Dunkettle would also be good candidates.

Stark

spacetweek wrote:

N3 at Blanch,

Victor wrote:

No alternative.

I was going to suggest through Blanchardstown village, Mulhuddart and Damastown, although I think the Damastown road is private. In any case, wouldn't be worth the hassle for such a short stretch of dual carriageway I reckon. There are some dodgy slip road exits/entrances as well. The one at Mulhuddart on the southbound section would definitely be the one that causes the road to get denied motorway status I reckon.

Niall1234

Nice to see that common sense is starting to prevail.

Having the likes of cyclists and tractors travelling on interurbans at scandalously slow speeds is quite ridiculous.

Will Naas to Dublin be classified as Motorway but with a 100kph speed limit.

If you ask me, a 110kph speed limit should be brought in for DC which aren't up to the 120kph limit.

I would imagine the Cashel bypass won't get 120kph limit either.


On another note. I actually found it hard to believe that people were complaining about this. Hysterical stuff on the radio. People complaing about not be allowed to walk, cycle and extraordinarily even bring horses onto an Interurban. !!! Horses!!!

On the learner driver issue. A learners driver licence, is what it says it is. A licence given to a person to allow them to LEARN to drive. I'm sure that the number of learner drivers will have to be reduced before this N to M conversion en-masse will happen.

murphaph

There's also 2 private access just prior to that LILO heading southbound and across the road at roughly the same spot. The southbound (eastbound?) onslip from Damastown/Clonee trundles down with an almost immediate private access then almost immediately that LILO junction to Mulhuddart. Not up to par but if they removed the private access it would be superior to many urban motorways in the UK. I don't believe the N3 there will ever be reclassified as Fingal are tough on planning and the NRA don't have much to worry about wrt more private accesses (the two on it currently date from way back when the road was built under Dublin County Council IIRC).

Now, a contender in Dublin should be the rollercoaster Chapelizod Bypass. Not suitable for peds or cyclists IMO.

Stark

Niall1234 wrote:

On another note. I actually found it hard to believe that people were complaining about this. Hysterical stuff on the radio. People complaing about not be allowed to walk, cycle and extraordinarily even bring horses onto an Interurban. !!! Horses!!!

You'll always find someone to complain about something. Next it'll be increased emissions from cars going faster. Not to mention the children.

jd

Niall1234 wrote:

On another note. I actually found it hard to believe that people were complaining about this. Hysterical stuff on the radio. People complaing about not be allowed to walk, cycle and extraordinarily even bring horses onto an Interurban. !!! Horses!!!
.

What show was this?

Niall1234

Matt Cooper yesterday. He was reading out texts. I don't think he would possibley leave anyone to speak on air with such views.

No wonder progress is so slow in this country when a percentage of the people hold such strange views.

Next we'll have road safety activists complaining about the speed limit going up on roads which were originally built to the higher speed limit.

In fact, HQDC's were built to 130 kph standard and no just 120 kph standard.

mike65

You can tell there is no driving culture here yet.

Mike.

jd

spacetweek wrote:

Agreed - for example, it says that the "entire" route from Dublin to Wexford will be motorway. The Wicklow-Gorey section is a possibility, but definitely not Bray-Wicklow: even the new sections of the N11 along there are not up to full spec.

Even the "New" Asford/Rathnew section? I thought it was built to HQDC standard, what is the problem with it?

Chris_533976

I guess what they might do is reclassify the lot as motorway, but put 100kmh limits on the older bits that arent up to HQDC, but which dont have local access and have an alternate.

Niall1234

Chris_533976 wrote:

I guess what they might do is reclassify the lot as motorway, but put 100kmh limits on the older bits that arent up to HQDC, but which dont have local access and have an alternate.

That's what I'm hoping they'll go with the whole bloody lot. Every DC where possible. Will keep the likes of tractors and cyclists off the roads which IMO, are mostly a driving hazard.

Victor

Stark wrote:

I think part of the N25 heading east from Dunkettle

No meaningful alternative from the (old) Dunkettle roundabout to Little Island.

and the N8 coming off the Fermoy bypass towards Dunkettle would also be good candidates.

Lots of vehicles have trouble gaining speed on the long, steep slopes of the Glanmire Bypass. Having some Rocket Man up their rear may not be good.

Stark wrote:

I was going to suggest through Blanchardstown village, Mulhuddart and Damastown, although I think the Damastown road is private.

There is also the matter of the interchange with the M50.

Niall1234 wrote:

That's what I'm hoping they'll go with the whole bloody lot. Every DC where possible. Will keep the likes of tractors and cyclists off the roads which IMO, are mostly a driving hazard.

Hmm, thats a peculiar way to put it.

How many 'boy racers' wrap a tractor around a lamp post at 3am?

Niall1234

Tractors hold up the outside lane of a DC. This cause long tailbacks in that lane under heavy traffic.

The traffic will try to overtake him cause a lot of traffic into the inside lane.

Due to this, people in the outside will try to merge into the inside lane. Considering the amount of cars prob wanting to do so, there would be high chance of an accident, especially if a frustrated driver could not get into the inside lane.

BTW, I haven't heard of many boy racers having big ones on DC's or Motorways.


On the glanmire bypass. There is no way that that section of road will ever be given a 120kph speed limit. If it were given Motorway status (which I hope it will), it will almost certainly be given a 100 kph limit.

BTW, why is a rocket man up your back, maybe doing 120 when your doing 100, more dangerous than a 100 kph coming up to a 35 kph tractor ?

Chris_533976

Victor wrote:

No meaningful alternative from the (old) Dunkettle roundabout to Little Island.

The roundabout at Dunkettle to the tunnel roundabout - theres no **real** alternative to that bit... unless you take a colossal detour through Glanmire. But from tunnel roundabout to Little Island to Carrigtwohill there is reasonable alternatives.

flogen

Just wanted to check something - the old Swords road / Dublin Road which runs kind of parallel with the M1 from the airport onwards to Balbriggan - would that be made into a motorway too?