Limerick Northern Distributor Road Plan

pigtown

Whatever about solving Corbally's traffic issues, the fact that there is no park and ride servicing the university and industrial estate is a terrible reflection on everyone in authority. UCC operate their own one and Cork city council have a very useful and reliable service.

johnnyryan89

Posted by Frankie Daly on Facebook, provisional road map.

Mc Love

That is going to cost a fair amount given the amount of river crossings!

marno21

Good idea to tack that onto Finnegans roundabout. Free flowing junction with lots of excess capacity.

John_Mc

zulutango wrote: »

I think even at that the merit is questionable given that there is a way around the city already. The apparent justification is little more than to solve a traffic congestion problem in UL and Corbally, but I'd argue there are much, much less expensive ways to do that. On that basis alone it isn't justifiable. And then, further to that, it will have a huge negative impact by promoting sprawl and pulling growth away from the city. Sprawl will kill Limerick's and the Midwest's chances of being a major growth area, and car-centric infrastructure like the NDR goes hand in hand with sprawl.

In other posts you're talking about closing down traffic lanes within the city to make it nicer, despite the fact that there are no alternative routes for motorists.

For example, a person living in Corbally and working in Raheen has no choice but to go through O'Connell street.

And now you're arguing that traffic shouldn't be routed around the city because it will kill the city.

zulutango

John_Mc wrote: »

In other posts you're talking about closing down traffic lanes within the city to make it nicer, despite the fact that there are no alternative routes for motorists.

For example, a person living in Corbally and working in Raheen has no choice but to go through O'Connell street.

Firstly, we can reduce the number of motorists. In fact it is government policy to do so. Secondly, there are alternative routes for the remainder who must drive, i.e. Gerald Griffin Street, Childer's Road, Thomondgate or any road outside those. In any case, the NDR is a bloody expensive solution for this particular problem.

John_Mc wrote: »

And now you're arguing that traffic shouldn't be routed around the city because it will kill the city.

Routing traffic around isn't a good solution. Reducing traffic is far more beneficial.

Mc Love

John_Mc wrote: »

In other posts you're talking about closing down traffic lanes within the city to make it nicer, despite the fact that there are no alternative routes for motorists.

For example, a person living in Corbally and working in Raheen has no choice but to go through O'Connell street.

And now you're arguing that traffic shouldn't be routed around the city because it will kill the city.

They can turn off by Pa Healys road and go to Raheen that way - thats the way I'd be going if I was going to Raheen from Corbally

Summerrose75

johnnyryan89 wrote: »

Posted by Frankie Daly on Facebook, provisional road map.

That Map is on Limerick.ie and falls under the heading of 'projects and initiatives'.Not sure how long ago it was undated, but it seems to me, they are confident that it will eventually dock at the Mackey round about

johnnyryan89

Mc Love wrote: »

They can turn off by Pa Healys road and go to Raheen that way - thats the way I'd be going if I was going to Raheen from Corbally

I'd avoid that way because you never know how bad the traffic is until you reach Musgrave junction and you can't turn back. Take the left turn at the church, up John St and head towards traffic lights at Horse and Hound.

Think the lights have improved lately so more than 3 cars get through now.

zulutango

A question for those doing the Corbally - Raheen journey daily, how good would a bus service need to be for you to decide to take it?

For example, would you get the bus if it was 20 min duration, 20 min frequency and €2 each way?

Can you spell out the level of service that would be required for you to leave the car at home and take the bus instead?

marno21

zulutango wrote: »

A question for those doing the Corbally - Raheen journey daily, how good would a bus service need to be for you to decide to take it?

For example, would you get the bus if it was 20 min duration, 20 min frequency and €2 each way?

Can you spell out the level of service that would be required for you to leave the car at home and take the bus instead?

If it was 20 minute duration, I would take it if I was in that situation.

The issue in Limerick for buses, in addition to journey times, is the lack of reliability when it comes to journey times. I know people who have commuted to Raheen from Castletroy and had to be on a bus before 8am to be guaranteed to be in work for 9am. You can comfortably make it in a car leaving at 8:40am. There's no incentive to take public transport if that's the case.

adaminho

zulutango wrote: »

A question for those doing the Corbally - Raheen journey daily, how good would a bus service need to be for you to decide to take it?

For example, would you get the bus if it was 20 min duration, 20 min frequency and €2 each way?

Can you spell out the level of service that would be required for you to leave the car at home and take the bus instead?

Going from Mulgrave Street to the Crescent SC @ 7.45 gets me in at 8.20 for €2.30 mainly cause the 7.45 bus on the app doesn't exist! I can actually walk there faster, also there are two bike stations at the end of the road if wanted to go as far as the mount.

MilfordBud

marno21 wrote: »

If it was 20 minute duration, I would take it if I was in that situation.

The issue in Limerick for buses, in addition to journey times, is the lack of reliability when it comes to journey times. I know people who have commuted to Raheen from Castletroy and had to be on a bus before 8am to be guaranteed to be in work for 9am. You can comfortably make it in a car leaving at 8:40am. There's no incentive to take public transport if that's the case.

My commute is 10-15 mins on the bus in the morning. Get the bus just after 7 on Mulgrave St and normally at my desk in Castletroy around 7.20 at latest.

In the evening you can be waiting up to an hour at least once a week during term time for a bus so I often get a lift home off someone driving. I have a car but prefer to use the bus and/or cycle but I'm starting to move more towards taking the car due to the inconsistency of bus services and the fact that if I cycle I need to shower at work making my commute 25 mins longer give or take.

OfTheMarsWongs

zulutango wrote: »

A question for those doing the Corbally - Raheen journey daily, how good would a bus service need to be for you to decide to take it?

For example, would you get the bus if it was 20 min duration, 20 min frequency and €2 each way?

Can you spell out the level of service that would be required for you to leave the car at home and take the bus instead?

I take the bus from Corbally to town (on occassion) even though I have a car. Saves me having to park. Never had an issue with traffic except for 8.30 to 9ish in the morning.

phog

zulutango wrote: »

A question for those doing the Corbally - Raheen journey daily, how good would a bus service need to be for you to decide to take it?

For example, would you get the bus if it was 20 min duration, 20 min frequency and €2 each way?

Can you spell out the level of service that would be required for you to leave the car at home and take the bus instead?

Life for most isn't so simple, you can see car usage drops at peak times when schools are closed. Parents use their cars for more than just driving from home to work.

Some would be looking at a bus service that would drop their youngest child to the child minders, possibly to another family member then drop the another child to primary school and possibly another child to secondary school before dropping themselves to work. Then you have the after school activities where kids have to be dropped to or collected from.

mdmix

phog wrote: »

Life for most isn't so simple, you can see car usage drops at peak times when schools are closed. Parents use their cars for more than just driving from home to work.

Some would be looking at a bus service that would drop their youngest child to the child minders, possibly to another family member then drop the another child to primary school and possibly another child to secondary school before dropping themselves to work. Then you have the after school activities where kids have to be dropped to or collected from.

you have a fair point here, but i would disagree with your opening point "life for most isint so simple". i know plenty of people need a car for dropping their children to school, creche activities etc - they all live in the country tho. in caherdavin for example, primary and secondary schools are walkable for the majority. younger kids need to be accompanied, but i would argue nobody needs to be driven. same with after-school activities. In my experience, those who spend their free time chauffering their kids around in cars usually do so because they chose to live in isolation.

Summerrose75

Reading the latest posts, it's obvious that an efficient and reliable public transport system is needed to relieve the traffic problems around the city and suburbs. Limerick is the 3rd largest city in the country , with a growing population, more and more people are buying houses on the suburbs, so you would think that a park and ride would be an option to take congestion off of the routes into the city , corbally, Dublin road, raheen etc, but no yet again another example of bad planning, lets build another urban dual carriageway, desimate a country village( parteen), put a bridge across the widest part of the river shannon, put this dual carriageway onto a recognised flood plain, destroy prime agricultural land, demolish people's homes and plough all that traffic onto an already gridlocked Mackey round about , oh and let's not forget the compensation that will have to be paid to the toll as the tunnel will be affected.There are always solutions and alternatives but as usual in this country money will be wasted

kilburn

Out of curiosity anyone know how much it would cost to buy out the toll contract?

Surely that would help a bit with the citys traffic congeztion

zulutango

The operator's contract runs until 2030 and the NDR isn't likely to be built until mid to late 2020's so not very much probably. I'm not sure if it is intended to become toll-free after 2030 though.

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

The operator's contract runs until 2030 and the NDR isn't likely to be built until mid to late 2020's so not very much probably. I'm not sure if it is intended to become toll-free after 2030 though.

It's a 30 year PPP, so 2040 before the contract runs out.

zulutango

Cookiemunster wrote:

It's a 30 year PPP, so 2040 before the contract runs out.

You sure about that?

apc

zulutango wrote: »

You sure about that?

https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/405m-paid-by-state-to-toll-operators-since-2010-447473.html

This article states 2041

zulutango

Cheers.

topper75

zulutango wrote: »

A question for those doing the Corbally - Raheen journey daily, how good would a bus service need to be for you to decide to take it?

For example, would you get the bus if it was 20 min duration, 20 min frequency and €2 each way?

Can you spell out the level of service that would be required for you to leave the car at home and take the bus instead?

No such service will match a car because the car takes the kids to sports at weekend and does runs to the shops. It goes to Kilkee or even more remote beaches on a hot day and facilitates visits to the aunt in hospital. People aren't robots. Car ownership is a given and capacity needs to be increased to accommodate it.

The idea that needs of people are limited to getting to and from work is the school of thought that built Shannon Town centre and the USSR.

This all reminds me of the brutally simple Frank Zappa quote on communism failing: "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." People will insist on owning a car and as long as it is sitting in the driveway and the sunk heavy costs of insurance and tax are considered, they are going to sit into it on a miserable morning and drive it rather than walk to the bus stop and get soaked.

zulutango

topper75 wrote: »

Car ownership is a given and capacity needs to be increased to accommodate it.

That's at odds with the evidence.

https://www.themotorreport.com.au/car-article/more-data-confirms-car-ownership-is-declining-86461.html

Summerrose75

topper75 wrote: »

No such service will match a car because the car takes the kids to sports at weekend and does runs to the shops. It goes to Kilkee or even more remote beaches on a hot day and facilitates visits to the aunt in hospital. People aren't robots. Car ownership is a given and capacity needs to be increased to accommodate it.

The idea that needs of people are limited to getting to and from work is the school of thought that built Shannon Town centre and the USSR.

This all reminds me of the brutally simple Frank Zappa quote on communism failing: "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." People will insist on owning a car and as long as it is sitting in the driveway and the sunk heavy costs of insurance and tax are considered, they are going to sit into it on a miserable morning and drive it rather than walk to the bus stop and get soaked.

Nobody is arguing with the fact we are all entitled to own a car and most people like myself depend on a car to even go to a local shop because of where we live, and that's fine,my choice, I don't complain.i also don't disagree with the need for the LNDR, but I do have a problem with the location, bad planning and wasting of tax payers money.I also believe there are a lot of measures that could be implemented to alleviate the current traffic problems experienced on major routes every morning and evening but the local authority would prefer to let this problem fester even more,to justify the need and secure funding for the LNDR.

Glenomra

Summerrose75 wrote: »

topper75 wrote: »

No such service will match a car because the car takes the kids to sports at weekend and does runs to the shops. It goes to Kilkee or even more remote beaches on a hot day and facilitates visits to the aunt in hospital. People aren't robots. Car ownership is a given and capacity needs to be increased to accommodate it.

The idea that needs of people are limited to getting to and from work is the school of thought that built Shannon Town centre and the USSR.

This all reminds me of the brutally simple Frank Zappa quote on communism failing: "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff." People will insist on owning a car and as long as it is sitting in the driveway and the sunk heavy costs of insurance and tax are considered, they are going to sit into it on a miserable morning and drive it rather than walk to the bus stop and get soaked.

Nobody is arguing with the fact we are all entitled to own a car and most people like myself depend on a car to even go to a local shop because of where we live, and that's fine,my choice, I don't complain.i also don't disagree with the need for the LNDR, but I do have a problem with the location, bad planning and wasting of tax payers money.I also believe there are a lot of measures that could be implemented to alleviate the current traffic problems experienced on major routes every morning and evening but the local authority would prefer to let this problem fester even more,to justify the need and secure funding for the LNDR.

Exactly. Why don't 1. Clare county council widen the Gillogue road to its width of the early 1990s when over a thousand vehicles a day accessed burlington factory and build a bridge over the canal 2. UL build a car park on the Clare side to take the Gillogue traffic.
Within a few months and at a cost of a few million euros much of the corbally traffic could be eliminated. No, all parties want to go for the Vanity Project which because of the floodplain can never be built imo.

Summerrose75

Glenomra wrote: »

Exactly. Why don't 1. Clare county council widen the Gillogue road to its width of the early 1990s when over a thousand vehicles a day accessed burlington factory and build a bridge over the canal 2. UL build a car park on the Clare side to take the Gillogue traffic.
Within a few months and at a cost of a few million euros much of the corbally traffic could be eliminated. No, all parties want to go for the Vanity Project which because of the floodplain can never be built imo.

I agree entirely, but looks like flood plain or not this road will be built and sooner than we think, too much time and effort put into getting this onto the county development plan in May 2017.

zulutango

The variation in the County Development Plan was more about restricting any development along the route. It's a long way to go before planning is complete and then financing becomes the issue. Governments have spent money on similar misadventures in the past but perhaps the NTA will go against them on this one. If it can be shown that it's a colossal waste of taxpayers money, etc, then it may never see the light of day.

phog

zulutango wrote: »

That's at odds with the evidence.

https://www.themotorreport.com.au/car-article/more-data-confirms-car-ownership-is-declining-86461.html

Ireland?

https://www.cso.ie/multiquicktables/quickTables.aspx?id=tha10_1