M7/M8 Portlaoise-Castletown-Cullahill Motorway (incl. Abbeyleix Bypass)

Amtmann

For the record, I heard the claim about Midlink having to lift the barriers on The Last Word last Friday. Peter Malone said it.

Stonewolf

They're still carrying on the ridiculous policy of tolling motorbikes. I'll keep on rolling up to the booth, putting it in neutral, taking my gloves off, opening my pocket, fishing the kinder yolk out of my pocket, tipping the change into the persons hand, closing the yolk, putting it back in my pocket, closing the pocket, putting my gloves on, and getting back into gear ...

Toto Wolfcastle

I drove from Dublin to Cork today and since it was mentioned here that it was bumpy I kept an eye out for any bumps. It actually is quite bumpy on most of the new stretch. Still, it took me a lot less time than usual to get home. I'd say it took me 2 hours 15 door to door.

Chris_5339762

I've been roaring and shouting about how it wasnt designed as wide median until the M7/8 split. I reckon thats a decision they'll live to regret. The M7 needs to be D3 as it is up to the M7/9 split and maybe in 20 years we'll need D3 to the M7/8 split.

Short sighted decision IMO, wouldnt have cost that much extra for wide bridges. Though expecting this section to be up to the level of awesomeness that is Galway - Ballinasloe is a tall order

Chris_5339762

Who the hell tagged this thread with "m8 sucks" by the way

Jayuu

Drove the road last Friday and Sunday going to and from Carrick-on-Suir.

I made it from the M7/M9 split, where I'd normally head for Waterford, to Junction 10 (Cahir) on the M8 in a little over an hour and that included some slow driving to try and take some pictures on the way down and a diversion off the road to stop for petrol on the way back. It's a longer way to get to Carrick from Dublin but actually until the M9 is complete its a slightly quicker way.

I was going to post pictures but they are very similar (and not as good) as those posted a few pages back so hardly worth the while.

Amtmann

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Who the hell tagged this thread with "m8 sucks" by the way

Darkman2. My mod powers render me omniscient. Heretics beware. I'm feeling merciful today.

Amtmann

Jayuu wrote: »

I was going to post pictures but they are very similar (and not as good) as those posted a few pages back so hardly worth the while.

Jayuu

Furet wrote: »

OK, I will then. As soon as I work out how to do that.

CrowdedHouse

Rovi wrote: »

By way of a bit of on-the-ground experience of the R445 (the road formerly known as N7) over the weekend, there's certainly a noticeable reduction in westbound traffic but eastbound is more ambiguous.

I was on it (old N7) today from Portlaoise - Roscrea, I thought the motorway was closed Busy as ever in the Dublin bound direction and busier than I expected the other way(school runs maybe? was around 4pm)

Our man in Havana

The poor signage in Borris does not help and many are toll dodging.

phog

Stonewolf wrote: »

They're still carrying on the ridiculous policy of tolling motorbikes. I'll keep on rolling up to the booth, putting it in neutral, taking my gloves off, opening my pocket, fishing the kinder yolk out of my pocket, tipping the change into the persons hand, closing the yolk, putting it back in my pocket, closing the pocket, putting my gloves on, and getting back into gear ...

That's your perogative, if you feel that you want to waste your own time at toll booths then fire ahead....mental note to myself, never pull into a manned toll booth behinf a motorcyslist.

Haddockman wrote: »

The poor signage in Borris does not help and many are toll dodging.

I was heading up to Portlaoise today, got to Borris nice sign for the motorway, up to next roundabout and hey presto the roadsigns have no mention of a motorway or Dublin, just caught sight of the blue motorway signs off in the distance:(

I thought the road surface is very uneven if not rough, other than it' easier to overtake on I'm not too impressed with the new section.

murphaph

phog wrote: »

That's your perogative, if you feel that you want to waste your own time at toll booths then fire ahead....mental note to myself, never pull into a manned toll booth behinf a motorcyslist.

As a former bike commuter who used the M50 barriers, I can assure you that there is no fast way for a biker to pay the silly toll. There is no valid reason to toll bikes on these motorways. They do almost no damage to the surface and are much more road space efficient than a car, even one with 4 occupants. Bikes and biking into work should be encouraged, but it isn't.

Enbee

etchyed wrote: »

Pictures 4&5 show the section beyond J18, which is new and part of this scheme. Obviously it's been built with a narrow median, that's why I raised the point.

Does anyone know how many overbridges there are between J18 and J19?

Sorry, my bad, misread the junction number in your post.

On the point of bridges, however, is the number of cuttings and embankments also a potential issue?

corktina

murphaph wrote: »

As a former bike commuter who used the M50 barriers, I can assure you that there is no fast way for a biker to pay the silly toll. There is no valid reason to toll bikes on these motorways. They do almost no damage to the surface and are much more road space efficient than a car, even one with 4 occupants. Bikes and biking into work should be encouraged, but it isn't.

maybe it would be easier to confine bikes to the old roads then.....

phog

murphaph wrote: »

As a former bike commuter who used the M50 barriers, I can assure you that there is no fast way for a biker to pay the silly toll. There is no valid reason to toll bikes on these motorways. They do almost no damage to the surface and are much more road space efficient than a car, even one with 4 occupants. Bikes and biking into work should be encouraged, but it isn't.

But there is now, doesn't all toll plazas now have a easy pass lane?

Stark

You can't really stick a toll tag to a motorcycle windscreen. Also, it would get nicked in no time.

Our man in Havana

You can remove it form the holder and put it in your pocket when not in use.

Jayuu

Haddockman wrote: »

You can remove it form the holder and put it in your pocket when not in use.

Believe me this is just as bad.

I spent a couple of minutes waving my toll tag like mad at a automatic lane in the Port Tunnel a year or two back. In the end I had to give up, back out, drive to a manned booth, stop the bike, remove the gloves and find cash to pay.

I agree that bikes shouldn't be tolled or they should find a mechanism that works better for them.

Stonewolf

I so far haven't been able to find any information on m/c specific toll tags which means afaik I would have to pay the same charge as a car which is ridiculous. Tolltags are also notoriously unreliable when used with motorcycles.

As for the long method described above, that's pretty much as short as it gets. There are no cubbies on the vast majority of bikes for the quick storage of change, it's pockets only and in my case (with a fairly typical jacket) that means velcro and a zip and not practical for access whilst wearing gloves. The kinder yolk is something I actually started using to decrease toll time as previously I'd have to drop exact change into a pocket and then try to fish out all the coins at the booth, I'm not sure what I'm going to do now that there are multitoll journeys.

L1011

Stonewolf wrote: »

I so far haven't been able to find any information on m/c specific toll tags which means afaik I would have to pay the same charge as a car which is ridiculous.

Tags can be configured for any tolling class. I've got the same physical model on my car and my van, which are charged differently.

limklad

phog wrote: »

I was heading up to Portlaoise today, got to Borris nice sign for the motorway, up to next roundabout and hey presto the roadsigns have no mention of a motorway or Dublin, just caught sight of the blue motorway signs off in the distance:(

I thought the road surface is very uneven if not rough, other than it' easier to overtake on I'm not too impressed with the new section.

I headed up to Dublin Last Tuesday from Limerick (pre bypass) and Friday (Opening day).
I found no difference in time going up and that included travelling slow (70kph) on the old road behind bad drivers on Tuesday. I used my iPhone to track my route and times on both days. On Friday I had little delay on the Toll booth, I had €1.80 in my hand as I open the window and straight through. I made sure before I started my journey to have the Toll ready to hand over to minimise delay. I had plenty of experience of Toll booths in other countries.

On the motorway, I did get hit lots of loose stones between the Cork junction and the Toll bridge on the way up to Dublin by Trucks. It is not a great road for a new Motorway on opening day. The Road to Shannon looked good in comparison, and that road is like trying to balance yourself on a ship, been swayed left and right, while been thrown up and down.

Tipp Man

I used the new road on Sunday evening from Cahir to Dublin, not the smoothest motorway in the world but way way way better than having to come off for the nightmare that is Abbeyleix

I have a question though, in miles term is it longer from Cahir to Red Cow with the new motorway or before they opened it? when i was driving it on sunday I felt like i was taking a long way round to get to Portlaoise exit but time wise it seemed to knock at lest 20 mins of my door to door time

So was it just my imagination or is it actually longer??

no1beemerfan

Tipp Man wrote: »

I used the new road on Sunday evening from Cahir to Dublin, not the smoothest motorway in the world but way way way better than having to come off for the nightmare that is Abbeyleix

I have a question though, in miles term is it longer from Cahir to Red Cow with the new motorway or before they opened it? when i was driving it on sunday I felt like i was taking a long way round to get to Portlaoise exit but time wise it seemed to knock at lest 20 mins of my door to door time

So was it just my imagination or is it actually longer??

All I can say on the question is it longer is that today I reset my trip meter and from Roscrea to Newbridge going on the motorway its now 3 miles longer. I thought it would be more! Knocks a good 10-15 minutes at least off the journey.

Not sure on the M8 though.

spacetweek

Irish and Proud wrote: »

That is right mate! AFAIK, the bridges on the new section are only wide enough for the current spec, but that the verge (2m) must be carried through as well. So that's clearance for 21.6m (pavement) + 4.0m. If the hard shoulder is dropped, then the requirement for D3 would be (my estimate that is):

2 x 1.0m Verge Strips (2.0m in total);
6 x 3.65m Traffic Lanes (21.9m in total);
1 x 2.60m Central Median;
2 x 1.0m Verges (absolute minimum - 2.0m in total);

Total Platform Requirement = 28.5m!
Total Clearance Available = 25.6m! :(:(

Well the choices look pretty stark for un upgrade:

But you could just drop the HS through bridges. I've seen this on the British M62, amongst others.

Does anyone here really think we'll need D3M as far as the split within our lifetimes? I don't.

Irish and Proud

spacetweek wrote: »

But you could just drop the HS through bridges. I've seen this on the British M62, amongst others.

Does anyone here really think we'll need D3M as far as the split within our lifetimes? I don't.

...well I don't think that any upgrade will be needed for a very long time, which is just as well. I have allowed 1.0m for both the verge and median strips, plus just 1.0m for the verges themselves, so the total platform requirement comes to 28.5m. If I drop the 4 strips to 0.5m, I would still be 0.9m short which could be offset by reducing the lanes to 3.5m. The carriageways would then be 11.5m each - the same as WD2. However, the speed would probably have to be reduced to 100kph which would be very lousy for a major euroroute motorway.

IMO, we shouldn't be measuring ourselves by the way of the British - I regard them as rather lazy when it comes to roads - they will have only double our motorway total with about 14 times our population - also, there are not that many A roads up to motorway standard AFAIK. There is the A34, A3, A55 etc which are near enough, but still not quite the same (2 x 9.3m c/w with LILOs galore) as even our narrow median motorways (2 x 10.5 c/w with few LILOs). Our wide median motorways would be a slightly higher spec than their D2M standard (2 x 11.5m c/w to 2 x 11.3m c/w), while our M50 (which we regard as a D3) is generally a lot bigger than their D3s due to the aux lanes (M50 carriageways are 17.5m compared to around 15m for British D3s). The Naas Road is also slightly bigger at 2 x 15.25m (AFAIK). Our standard D3 might be similar though.

In short, we must set our own standards and this thing of dropping hard shoulders on a 120kph motorway is simply not acceptable and not safe. Just because the British do it does not make it OK. AFAIK in the US, the entire thing would be ripped out and done again.

Regards!

L1011

spacetweek wrote: »

But you could just drop the HS through bridges. I've seen this on the British M62, amongst others.

And our M7 Nenagh BP, and sections of the M1 (Estuary bridges), M18 (NoF->Ennis bypass tie in) and indeed the entire length of the port tunnel....

sdanseo

MYOB wrote: »

And our M7 Nenagh BP, and sections of the M1 (Estuary bridges), M18 (NoF->Ennis bypass tie in) and indeed the entire length of the port tunnel....

And the M50 Liffey bridges to boot. No harm over relatively short distances!

ardmacha

The narrow median spec motorways have been built where Ireland had not originally intended to build motorways and where traffic density would not warrant a motorway in other countries. These roads are being built in 2010 when car ownership and travel is already a high level. This is quite a different propositon from countriies like Germany or even Britain where motorways were first built when car ownership still had some way to increase and where many vehicles were not comfortable for long fast trips. Future proofing is fine but it is difficult to put forward any reasonable proposition for a huge increase in traffic in locations relatively distant from major population centres.

etchyed

ardmacha wrote: »

The narrow median spec motorways have been built where Ireland had not originally intended to build motorways and where traffic density would not warrant a motorway in other countries. These roads are being built in 2010 when car ownership and travel is already a high level. This is quite a different propositon from countriies like Germany or even Britain where motorways were first built when car ownership still had some way to increase and where many vehicles were not comfortable for long fast trips. Future proofing is fine but it is difficult to put forward any reasonable proposition for a huge increase in traffic in locations relatively distant from major population centres.

I realise this, but it just seems incongruous to have a huge stretch of motorway built to wide median standard and then build the last few kilometres (I'm not sure of the exact length but it's 15 at most) as narrow median. I suppose you could argue that all that wide median motorway is a sunk cost but it still just doesn't seem right.