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

Chris_5339762

They arent. Its narrow median. If they want to put an extra lane in, they will have to replace every single bridge or else have no hard shoulder under bridges.

Its not an absolutely massive deal or the end of the world, but it was shortsighted not to make it wide median to the M7/8 split. Just think of the M6 from the future Rathmorrisey to Galway. All the bridges are wide enough for 3x3, as is the median.

Mc Love

Haddockman wrote: »

The ANPR on the toll lanes keeps picking up my car as a 44 tonne truck. Cue much annoyance from those waiting behind me.

Happened me wed night, the screen showed up half my number plate and classed me as a truck. Luckily there were no cars behind me

slinky2000

Mc Love wrote: »

Happened me wed night, the screen showed up half my number plate and classed me as a truck. Luckily there were no cars behind me

happened me too, pressed the help button and only took 20 secs to sort out

Our man in Havana

20 seconds is a long time when there is a queue of angry people waiting behind you honking their horns.

The same thing happened on the way back also.

GeneHunt

This is interesting that a car is mistaken for a “44 tonne truck”, when I saw the first post of this nature, I just presumed that the number plate was maybe damaged, dirty, non-standard text or a fixing screw in a location which is causing the surrounding digit to look like another. Maybe this is the case and other drivers are passing through the toll plaza and they are being misread as a similar vehicle as the one they are in and are none the wiser and it’s only comes to light here because of the higher cost of trunks to use the toll plaza! It could also be the computer system has a default setting for a misread plate, set as a trunk (max toll) so people will fix their number plates.

Maybe the cameras can’t read the number plates because the cars are bouncing too much from the bumpy new road surface!!!:D:D:D

I haven’t travelled the M7 south of the J19, but the M7 from before J18 to J19 southbound is really terrible considering it’s a new motorway. The new M8 section (which also opened on 28th May) is a lot better, which is strange as it was all done be the one contractor.

Our man in Havana

The reg number displayed on the screen does belong to a 44 tonne truck. A quick check on cartell.ie shows this. So it is not a default for unreadable plates. I have no idea why they even need to have such an ANPR system in place in the first place. Also it would be interested to know if they are retaining the ANPR info for any length of time.

Jayuu

Drove Dublin > Cork on Saturday (2 hours from Newlands X to Dunkettle without a stop) and Mitchelstown > Dublin this morning.

A couple of things I noticed.

The bumpy section seems to me to be on the southbound carraigeway of the road from what I noticed. Was this the last bit done? I'm wondering if it was a rush job at the end to meet some sort of deadline.

I had no problems with any of the tolls and my tag.

Why in all the work that they are proposing for the Cork SSR are they not considering an upgrade of the Dunkettle Roundabout? Its the meeting point of two national routes and a major interface point. Its seem crazy that this hasn't been upgraded to some form of freeflow (or partial freeflow) by now. It was very frustrating that after two hours of hassle free driving I spent around ten minutes trying to get past this section of the road.

Coming back I came to the M8 via the N73. When you reach Mitchelstown you end up on a section of the old N8 which according to OpenStreetMap is now classified as the N73 until you reach the motorway at Junction 12. However when you reach the first roundabout at Mitchelstown all the signs still say N8 and there's no reference to the motorway on any of them at all. Its really bad form that none of these signs have been corrected given that this section has been open for a very long while. I don't know who has responsibility for signage on secondary N routes but somebody really should be hassled about this. I followed the signs for Dublin and yes they did bring me eventually to Junction 12 but after the first mile of two I began to doubt if I was on the correct road. I can only imagine how a tourist might deal with this.

Also one small point. On one section of the M8 the road confirmation signs seem to be in a different font from the standard motorway font. How did this ever happen?

brainyneuron

Jayuu wrote: »

Why in all the work that they are proposing for the Cork SSR are they not considering an upgrade of the Dunkettle Roundabout? Its the meeting point of two national routes and a major interface point. Its seem crazy that this hasn't been upgraded to some form of freeflow (or partial freeflow) by now. It was very frustrating that after two hours of hassle free driving I spent around ten minutes trying to get past this section of the road.

They are, but doubt it'll happen for ages considering the recession etc :rolleyes:

Amtmann

Jayuu wrote: »

Why in all the work that they are proposing for the Cork SSR are they not considering an upgrade of the Dunkettle Roundabout? Its the meeting point of two national routes and a major interface point. Its seem crazy that this hasn't been upgraded to some form of freeflow (or partial freeflow) by now. It was very frustrating that after two hours of hassle free driving I spent around ten minutes trying to get past this section of the road.

The NRA is hatching a plan to redesign Dunkettle, but no plans have been made public yet.

Coming back I came to the M8 via the N73. When you reach Mitchelstown you end up on a section of the old N8 which according to OpenStreetMap is now classified as the N73 until you reach the motorway at Junction 12. However when you reach the first roundabout at Mitchelstown all the signs still say N8 and there's no reference to the motorway on any of them at all. Its really bad form that none of these signs have been corrected given that this section has been open for a very long while. I don't know who has responsibility for signage on secondary N routes but somebody really should be hassled about this. I followed the signs for Dublin and yes they did bring me eventually to Junction 12 but after the first mile of two I began to doubt if I was on the correct road. I can only imagine how a tourist might deal with this.

Fair points. It is shambolic. And the NRA, I would imagine, are responsible for remedying the signage on the N73.

Also one small point. On one section of the M8 the road confirmation signs seem to be in a different font from the standard motorway font. How did this ever happen?

This is a 40km section (the Cashel-Cullahill scheme) and the signer got the fonts wrong. The signs on this section are also a different shade of blue at nightime than all other M8 signs. They're not as good in my opinion.

And with that, I think I can close this thread. All M8 discussion can now be picked up at the general M8 thread for discussing COMPLETED sections.