M9 - Waterford motorway construction updates

road_high

Think that will be chaos if not managed properly; the N78 is a busy road as it is, would be very hard for N9 traffic to have to cross it at two points even temporarily.
May I suggest they put in temporary roundabouts perhaps at both points to keep traffic moving....

Sully

Any ideas what the roadworks are on the N9 past Mullinavat? Lots of cones on the side of the road last night, wondering is their any connection with the motorway development?

Star Spangler

mfitzy wrote: »

Think that will be chaos if not managed properly; the N78 is a busy road as it is, would be very hard for N9 traffic to have to cross it at two points even temporarily.
May I suggest they put in temporary roundabouts perhaps at both points to keep traffic moving....

I suggested that to them but they said the volume of traffic would be the same as that which comes off at the current Kilcullen exit which is a T junction and has currently no backups. I suppose it is a fair point if they are not planning on taking the main N9 traffic that way and only the Kilcullen/Newbridge stuff.

If you are heading north currently you will see the temporary signage is already in place just before the link road.

road_high

Star Spangler wrote: »

I suggested that to them but they said the volume of traffic would be the same as that which comes off at the current Kilcullen exit which is a T junction and has currently no backups. I suppose it is a fair point if they are not planning on taking the main N9 traffic that way and only the Kilcullen/Newbridge stuff.

If you are heading north currently you will see the temporary signage is already in place just before the link road.

Oh OK, I figured north and southbound traffic from the N9 was being diverted. That is not too bad then, they plan on keeping 2 lanes (one north, one south) open on the current N9 til the tie in is finsihed. Will be hard to do but they know best. Pity it could have been done while schools were off though.,

Star Spangler

mfitzy wrote: »

Oh OK, I figured north and southbound traffic from the N9 was being diverted. That is not too bad then, they plan on keeping 2 lanes (one north, one south) open on the current N9 til the tie in is finsihed. Will be hard to do but they know best. Pity it could have been done while schools were off though.,

It seems they are going to great lengths to ensure the bulk of the traffic is not diverted. It will involve changing from motorway to two-way further up the current M9 though to line the traffic up.

rameire

yup, saw all the signs there on the way home.

Star Spangler

They will start using the link road to divert Newbridge/Kilcullen traffic off the N9 on Friday 21st or Monday 24th August as the current off ramp will be closed for the duration of the tie-in process. This process is scheduled to take 8 to 10 weeks. Roadbridge officially say that the M9 from Kilcullen to the Carlow by-pass will open to the public in the second half of November 2009.

road_high

Star Spangler wrote: »

Roadbridge officially say that the M9 from Kilcullen to the Carlow by-pass will open to the public in the second half of November 2009.

Sweet

tramor

What a performance, over a year ahead of the date on the NRA web site.

road_high

Sisk/Roadbridge are also back working busily away on the Carlow-KK section now again. There is a crane putting beams in place over the Barrow and they are working on the tie to the M9 at Powerstown.

I guess there will be a roundabout put in place near Timolin where the link road to the R747 to M9 joins to the current/old N9/R448. They probably will leave this 'til last. Or even when the M9 itself opens, would minimise delays on the current N9 if they did that.

Rabidlamb

mfitzy wrote: »

I guess there will be a roundabout put in place near Timolin where the link road to the R747 to M9 joins to the current/old N9/R448. They probably will leave this 'til last. Or even when the M9 itself opens, would minimise delays on the current N9 if they did that.

I thought this too at the time but they have deliberately mis-aligned this new junction with the Arklow/Baltinglass junction which is only 100 yards away.

I'm gussing it will be one of these staggered crossroad arrangements as is the style of the times. There'll be bugger all traffic on it anyway.

Great news from SS about Roadbridge & mid-November.
As a Castledermot resident that travels the N9/M7 everyday this will be a wonderful early Christmas present.:D

Munurty

I took a good few photos from the air this evening.

Went north of Kilkenny as far as Kilcullen then across to Portloaise.

51 photos







Kilkenny to Carlow bypass looks good, all going to plan nothing to be worried about. Most structures are nearly complete and all heavy excavation done. I'd guess northern end opening summer 2010.(very likely to have two seperate opening dates)

Carlow bypass to Kilcullen looks fantastic. The first few kilometres looks like its finished just yellow lines to go. Towards the northern end theres a few km of central barrier to do but other than that, a sweep and lines would go along way. November 2009 looking likely

Really gets you thinking about the Waterford to Knocktopher scheme. I'd put money on it going into 2010. I've heard rumors of Easter being more likely than November 2009.

Star Spangler

Great stuff Munurty - thanks!

Carawaystick

great to see a freeflow junction at the M9/N10. Why O why wasn't something like this built at the Waterford end....
or aren't they planned for the Cork ring road...

Chris_533976

M9/N10 looks inescapable to me.

M10??

road_high

Thanks again Munurty. If ever a picture told a 1,000 words there would be a case in point!

As regards the new M9/N10 junction, I'm a bit confused as to the exit for Kilkenny off the M9. I can figure all other options, that escapes me from the photograph...


....Just looked up the EIS for the scheme on the N9/N10 website and the junction drawing is clear, photo makes sense now

road_high

Anybody down south know how Knocktopher-Waterford section has been coming along these days? i.e. the two unfinished and relatively shorts sections near Mullinvat?

Zoney

M9/N10 junction EIS drawing: 4.131 Dunbell Junction Plan Layout (~1.5 MB pdf).

Either the N10 will have to be M10 between the M9 junction and the first roundabout or that section will have to simply be a spur of the M9 (like M20 J3 except 3x longer). Otherwise there will be pointless start of motorway reg signs (M9) halfway down the slips on the junction well beyond the point of no return.

You can see the rest of the N10 from the other EIS drawings (link, specifically 4.46 – 4.50 Scheme Layout Sheet Kilkenny Link 45 to 49 of 49 - PDF 11MB).

road_high

Will be interesting to see will the N78 be downgraded between athy and Kilcullen once Kilcullen-Carlow M9 is completed. Anybody know
Would seem a bit silly to have built a new link road to Athy off the M9 and yet have Athy remaining to be signed at Kilcullen onto the N78...not that I would be in favour of downgrading, the more 100 kmh roads the better I think!

rameire

mfitzy wrote: »

Will be interesting to see will the N78 be downgraded between athy and Kilcullen once Kilcullen-Carlow M9 is completed. Anybody know
Would seem a bit silly to have built a new link road to Athy off the M9 and yet have Athy remaining to be signed at Kilcullen onto the N78...not that I would be in favour of downgrading, the more 100 kmh roads the better I think!

saw the workers for the first time in weeks working at the athy end of the link road, at around 5.30pm.
they were moving muck basically.

also not sure if im right but starspangled you might have a better knowledge of this.
it looks like the southbound slip road onto the n9 at the kilcullen junction will be closed, this meaning all traffic wanting to go south from the n78 will have to use the new n9/n78 junction to join the current n9.
ive just noticed a couple of signs on the n78 pointing down the new road, but havnt stopped to take a look at them,

rameire

mfitzy wrote: »

Will be interesting to see will the N78 be downgraded between athy and Kilcullen once Kilcullen-Carlow M9 is completed. Anybody know
Would seem a bit silly to have built a new link road to Athy off the M9 and yet have Athy remaining to be signed at Kilcullen onto the N78...not that I would be in favour of downgrading, the more 100 kmh roads the better I think!

just spent the evening looking through all the documentation for the m9 and athy link and eventually found this
"The single carriageway
Athy to R747 Link Road has been designed to a National Road standard with a
design speed of 100 kph."

http://www.n9-n10kilcullen-waterford.ie/EIS/pdf/Non-Technical-Summary.pdf
page 6

tramor

I went to Dublin on Saturday and did a time/distance measurement from the end of the Carlow bypass to the start of the Kilcullen motorway. Measured distance 16.6 miles. Time 21 minutes. Average speed 47.3 mph.
Distance according to NRA of new motorway 25Km=15.6miles. At 74mph should take 12.6 minutes. Time saving about eight an a half minutes. And that was on a good day!! There was almost no hold-up in Castledermot. I'd say it would be safe to say the time saving will be about 10 minutes, and much greater on a Friday afternoon going south.
However, without a doubt the greatest time saving per mile of motorway will be on the Waterford to Paulstown section. I would'nt be surprised if it was a full half hour for that section of the Journey. This would make the journey time from the new Waterford bridge to Newlands cross under one hour thirty minutes. If the distance is 100 miles, at a speed of 74mph, the time should be one hour 21 minutes. That would probably require a third lane from where the Cork/Limerick traffic joins Waterford up to Naas.

tramor

I just noticed I got the NRA distance wrong. It should be 27.5 Km=17.2 miles. My time saving number is out by about a minute.

Munurty

Mullinavat picture update





Not much progress but at least most of the water is gone.

deiseman21

unless they get a small (or big as the case maybe)army working on this it wont be open this year

L1011

tramor wrote: »

That would probably require a third lane from where the Cork/Limerick traffic joins Waterford up to Naas.

Thats planned. The scheme details have a habit of vanishing off the NRA website frequently though... there's a thread on here about it with much arguing about whether the bridges can take it without replacement - which is an important factor in whether it could be done in the current environment or not!

Eventually they'll need a third lane all the way to Castletown where the M8 branches off but due to a design oversight its narrow median for last 10km or so from Portlaoise = expensive to upgrade.

NedNew

tramor wrote: »

I went to Dublin on Saturday and did a time/distance measurement from the end of the Carlow bypass to the start of the Kilcullen motorway. Measured distance 16.6 miles. Time 21 minutes. Average speed 47.3 mph.
Distance according to NRA of new motorway 25Km=15.6miles. At 74mph should take 12.6 minutes. Time saving about eight an a half minutes. And that was on a good day!! There was almost no hold-up in Castledermot. I'd say it would be safe to say the time saving will be about 10 minutes, and much greater on a Friday afternoon going south.
However, without a doubt the greatest time saving per mile of motorway will be on the Waterford to Paulstown section. I would'nt be surprised if it was a full half hour for that section of the Journey. This would make the journey time from the new Waterford bridge to Newlands cross under one hour thirty minutes. If the distance is 100 miles, at a speed of 74mph, the time should be one hour 21 minutes. That would probably require a third lane from where the Cork/Limerick traffic joins Waterford up to Naas.

Erm, haven't thought in miles since my granny last mentioned them. That all sounds very confusing. So keeping in kilometres, the distance from Waterford to Kilcullen is 110km. That should be easily doable in an hour considering the speed limit is 120 km/hr.

The new Carlow-Killcullen section is 27km which will take 13.5 minutes at 120 km/h.

Waterford to Newlands Cross is exactly 150 km which all going well could be done in 1hr 20 minutes. Simple.

road_high

Thanks for those pics Munurty. I presume they are very recent? Still lots of work to be done there alright.

Star Spangler

rameire wrote: »

saw the workers for the first time in weeks working at the athy end of the link road, at around 5.30pm.
they were moving muck basically.

also not sure if im right but starspangled you might have a better knowledge of this.
it looks like the southbound slip road onto the n9 at the kilcullen junction will be closed, this meaning all traffic wanting to go south from the n78 will have to use the new n9/n78 junction to join the current n9.
ive just noticed a couple of signs on the n78 pointing down the new road, but havnt stopped to take a look at them,

Yes they are closing both the northbound exit at Kilcullen and the southbound off from Kilcullen in the direction of Carlow to allow for the tie-in works. Therefore heading towards Carlow from the N78 will mean taking the new link road.

Munurty

mfitzy wrote: »

Thanks for those pics Munurty. I presume they are very recent? Still lots of work to be done there alright.

Yep, taken and uploaded on monday the 17th of August