M9 - Waterford motorway construction updates

rayc

I think it will be highly dependent on time of day, but with no traffic I'd imagine both would be pretty similar. At 9am I'm definitely choosing option B though.

fricatus

MisterCrown wrote: »

Would be interested in opinions on the following. If I were to travel from North of Kilkenny city to Waterford, would it be faster to go ...

A - On the new road at the Hebron junction on the ring road, which heads east until it hits the new part of the M9 where it goes west again towards Danesfort.
B - Stay on the ring road and head to Danesfort the usual way.

It seems, from OpenStreetMap, that A may be longer distance but may be a shorter time as you won't get stuck behind a lorry full of logs.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=52.6084&lon=-7.1624&zoom=13&layers=B000FTF

Am I missing something here?

As far as I understand it, route A isn't open yet, and won't be until late summer... As things stand, N77-N10-M9 is the only viable route (unless you want to try a maze of back roads).

MisterCrown

fricatus wrote: »

Am I missing something here?

As far as I understand it, route A isn't open yet, and won't be until late summer... As things stand, N77-N10-M9 is the only viable route (unless you want to try a maze of back roads).

Yes it won't be open until late summer. The question was for when it does open.

Stark

From what I can see, if you take route A, you'll have to go all the way to Paulstown to turn around. Also, the new Kilkenny link road wll be single carriageway, so you're not saving yourself much single carriageway driving in that respect.

dougal

MisterCrown wrote: »

Yes it won't be open until late summer. The question was for when it does open.

Route A will be the better route in my opinion.

The link road will be almost the same distance as Dansefort to the Waterford road roundabout also that will reduce back to 80km/h when M9 completed. So the time gained will be the diference between the two junctions and going across the ring road which already has speed limit restricted to 60km/h in parts.

lotie

Mainly posting as 5 days without a post is too long for such an excellent forum!

Maybe we've forgotten the reason for this forum now that Castledermot bypass and Waterford - Kilkenny is now open. However we need to keep the pressure on the remaining section.

Therefore simple ask - any news on progress and latest on completion?

emfifty

lotie wrote: »

Mainly posting as 5 days without a post is too long for such an excellent forum!

Maybe we've forgotten the reason for this forum now that Castledermot bypass and Waterford - Kilkenny is now open. However we need to keep the pressure on the remaining section.

Therefore simple ask - any news on progress and latest on completion?

a bit of ash might be distracting people!;)

lotie

emfifty wrote: »

a bit of ash might be distracting people!;)

As long as it doesn't distract Roadbridge!

Little obvious activity at Kilkenny end - any news from further up the road?

MisterCrown

Went on the bike and took a spin up the spur between Hebron and the motorway yesterday. No pics I'm afraid. Surfacing needs to be done on some parts but it's coming along nicely.

redalicat

From the Leinster Leader today:

CALLS have been made to publish a safety audit performed on the new M9 motorway, but Kildare County Council is uncertain as to whether it can make the audit public. The news come in the wake of yet another crash on the stretch of road which runs from Kilcullen to Carlow.

tramor

How can all these people be crashing. Even if they are just not used to driving on motorways (as was the case when the Naas dual carriageway opened, lots of crashes as people overtook without looking in their mirror), there isn't that much traffic on this motorway. The motorway itself seems to be perfectly safe. I'm wondering how would you engineer an unsafe motorway, even if you wanted it to be unsafe. Maybe short lead ins and exits to the motorway at junctions. This isn't the case here. Maybe blind hills. I don't think this is the case here either. Narrow lanes, sharp bends. These don't apply either.
Certainly, if you had a fenderbender, you would'nt want to leave your car exactly where the impact left it until the cops arrived to take insurance details (as seems to be the case for even the most trivial of bumps, blocking all the traffic). Definitely it would be advisable to get into the hard shoulder ASAP.

L1011

The surface on that section is "interesting"* to say the least but I've driven it loads of times, in three different vehicles, in many different conditions and never found it to be any more dangerous than another road.


*the groaning noise you get from your tyres at about ~85km/h being the main thing...

flop

I can't understand it either. I driveon the M9 once a week and i noticed a car had crashed throught the barrier between junction 3 and 4.

I thought to myself how could that have happened. ?

Either way it will be very difficult to prove that the road is at fault.

Then again i drove home on Tuesday evening this week and i encountered three crashes two on M7 (J4 and J9) and one on the N9 just before the long man. The first two looked lke drivers changing lanes without indicating, the 3rd on the N9 looked like a speeding problem car came around a bend too fast and broke through a fence.

Flop

Irish and Proud

flop wrote: »

I can't understand it either. I driveon the M9 once a week and i noticed a car had crashed throught the barrier between junction 3 and 4.

I thought to myself how could that have happened. ?

Either way it will be very difficult to prove that the road is at fault.

Then again i drove home on Tuesday evening this week and i encountered three crashes two on M7 (J4 and J9) and one on the N9 just before the long man. The first two looked lke drivers changing lanes without indicating, the 3rd on the N9 looked like a speeding problem car came around a bend too fast and broke through a fence.

Flop

Maybe it's a safety audit of the M9 Drivers we need! :mad:

Wonder what the demographic profile is for M9 motorists?

...and the general level of IQ? :rolleyes:

Wasn't on the M9, but when the M1 Balbriggan Bypass (near me) opened, there were a lot of crashes on the northern end of the bypass, and again, there was no apparent reason why there were so many bad accidents - there was at least one where people had to be cut from a vehicle. IMO, this is not down to road design, it's down to drivers. No amount of money should be spent on modifying a road on account of bad driving, just on extra prison spaces! :mad:

Regards!

hi5

On the last section of M9 southbound just before you come to Powerstown there are currently tyre marks where the 'lads' have been doing doughnuts,yes on the motorway:eek:.
Maybe they should investigate that?

Dummy

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Maybe it's a safety audit of the M9 Drivers we need! :mad:

Wonder what the demographic profile is for M9 motorists?

...and the general level of IQ? :rolleyes:

Wasn't on the M9, but when the M1 Balbriggan Bypass (near me) opened, there were a lot of crashes on the northern end of the bypass, and again, there was no apparent reason why there were so many bad accidents - there was at least one where people had to be cut from a vehicle. IMO, this is not down to road design, it's down to drivers. No amount of money should be spent on modifying a road on account of bad driving, just on extra prison spaces! :mad:

Regards!

I completely agree with you. Motorway driving in Ireland is an experience. Some of the things I encounter on a daily basis include:

1. Excessive speed.
2. Tailgating.
3. Drive immediately from Motorway on-ramp over to overtaking lane.
4. Drive immediately from overtaking lane to off-ramp.
5. Using mobile phone while driving.
6. Mobile phone users sending text messages while driving.
7. No indication.
8. Tractors on the motorway.
9. Towing cars on the motorway.
10. Throwing empty tin cans from moving cars on motorway.
11. Driving at too low a speed.
12. Hogging the overtaking lane & not moving to the left lane.

I could go on & on, but basically, there are a lot of people out there that take absolutely no pride in their driving, and put themselves and other road users at risk.

As for the M50 - that's another days work.:eek:

D.L.R.

Agreed. Pig ignorance on our motorways is causing most of these crashes, not the new roads themselves. But this has to be expected, since the national experience of motorway driving is limited.

Others have suggested a motorway awareness tv campaign, a very worthwhile idea imo. But its not just education - you'll always have those aul lads who NEVER indicate.. think they're too important or somethin :rolleyes:

Motorway discipline will have to work itself out over time. Western Europe has good discipline because they've had em for decades.

GeneHunt

Dummy wrote: »

10. Throwing empty tin cans from moving cars on motorway.

OR even a mattress if you're on the M2:eek:

W.B. Yeats

Saw an overturned car on the M9 last night around 8pm around Ballitore exit Southbound
Can't understand how you would overturn a car on that stretch
Anyone else see it?

Zoney

D.L.R. wrote: »

Agreed. Pig ignorance on our motorways is causing most of these crashes, not the new roads themselves. But this has to be expected, since the national experience of motorway driving is limited.

I don't actually agree with this. I think a lot of it is selfish ignorant behaviour that is not acceptable in society generally that is causing issues. People who do in fact know they shouldn't be acting as they are, and *DON'T CARE*.

It's unpopular but I've come to conclusion that when it comes to law and order here in Ireland, there isn't anything that works but the "stick" approach. Actually enforce the law severely and even in minor cases and with penalties.

No doubt this won't happen in the area of motorways until there's been some truly horrendous accident of major proportions. And even then...

GeneHunt

Zoney wrote: »

It's unpopular but I've come to conclusion that when it comes to law and order here in Ireland, there isn't anything that works but the "stick" approach. Actually enforce the law severely and even in minor cases and with penalties.

If enforcement is the approach needed, well that's what we should have - but the Liveline lines will be inundated with calls of unfair enforcement of the laws by the gardai...

D.L.R.

Zoney wrote: »

I don't actually agree with this. I think a lot of it is selfish ignorant behaviour that is not acceptable in society generally that is causing issues. People who do in fact know they shouldn't be acting as they are, and *DON'T CARE*.

Right, so what aren't you in agreement about?

Zoney

DLR,
That limited experience in motorway driving is a major factor. I think plenty of people even if they don't know the technical rules know that their behaviour is not acceptable but don't care.

redalicat

Honestly, I think this is a mix of inexperience and don't care, saw it in the States loads. I've driven the Southern California motorways regularly, and despite safety campaigns, education, etc., you're still going to have those who flout the law/don't care. We had our fair share of American nuts doing things wrong on what we called freeways, and when you adjust American road fatalities per capita, it's much worse there than in Ireland.

As someone who's been driving for over half my life (and I'm under 40), I can say that because of the Irish weather and some of the crazy smaller roads, driving here is very, very challenging. You have to keep on your toes when a hairpin turn, frost, and a loose sheep could just be around the corner. On a pitch black night with no street lighting. One thing that I have noticed that's different here is that there seems to be a greater number of people, regardless of age, that have only been driving a handful of years, meaning that lack of experience would contribute to difficulties when driving, especially on motorways.

emfifty

less hysterical chit chat and more pics!!:D

flop

I am currently studying Statistics and Probability, to answer the questions posed by the posters what are the factors of causality in traffic accidents, you would need to conduct a number of cases studies using one factor as the exposure (say speeding) at the time, along with a control group.

After a number of studies have been conducted with the most popular exposure items (speeding, mobile phone use, age, not indicating etc) you would be able to see which exposure group exhibits a higher risk (either Relative risk or Odd Ratio).

Only then would you be able to determine what are the casual factors of traffic accidents.

Of course these tests would need to be bias free or as close as possible to bias free, but that is another post in itself.

The RSA and CSO should be trying to answer these types of questions.

Flop

Irish and Proud

Dummy wrote: »

I completely agree with you. Motorway driving in Ireland is an experience. Some of the things I encounter on a daily basis include:

1. Excessive speed.
2. Tailgating.
3. Drive immediately from Motorway on-ramp over to overtaking lane.
4. Drive immediately from overtaking lane to off-ramp.
5. Using mobile phone while driving.
6. Mobile phone users sending text messages while driving.
7. No indication.
8. Tractors on the motorway.
9. Towing cars on the motorway.
10. Throwing empty tin cans from moving cars on motorway.
11. Driving at too low a speed.
12. Hogging the overtaking lane & not moving to the left lane.

I could go on & on, but basically, there are a lot of people out there that take absolutely no pride in their driving, and put themselves and other road users at risk.

As for the M50 - that's another days work.:eek:

Even if my life depended on it, I don't think I could disagree with any of the above - some people just don't care - there is no pride in this country!

Regards!

Irish and Proud

Zoney wrote: »

I don't actually agree with this. I think a lot of it is selfish ignorant behaviour that is not acceptable in society generally that is causing issues. People who do in fact know they shouldn't be acting as they are, and *DON'T CARE*.

...you've just said it mate!!! :mad:

Far too much apathy!

BTW, people who feel apathetic towards the country should just leave - they are one of the reasons why TDs and their cronies can do what they like and are therefore a liability. The remainder of us should take back our country and sack every single party TD in the Dail, abolish all existing parties and form new ones subject to new terms and conditions...

...no more bloated salaries, multiple pensions, career politicians etc (I've been working on models for this, but that's another story!). Imagine an Ireland with no more FF, FG, Labour, Greens etc...

Regards!

BluntGuy

I don't know if this has been pointed out, but I noticed something when I was down in Waterford.

Kudos to the local council for ensuring that all the old N25 signs were removed. However, there is a problem with the new signs. Half of them say "(M9)", the other half say "(N9)" and it is completely random and chaotic. Some of these signs are virtually next to each other! It really is a complete mess and makes the whole affair unnecessarily confusing.

Chris_5339762

Unfortuantely its the (N9) ones that are correct