M7 - Nenagh to Limerick

slinky2000

nice one, I'll look forward to driving this after work on my way to dublin!

Now I've just to wait for the other sections to open to dublin :P

luohaoran

clon wrote: »

couple of articles on M7 birdhill-limerick bog section and M7 motorway service area which I knew nothing about on front page and page 21 of online edition of Nenagh Guardian.Artist's impression of service station on page 6.

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Olive/ODE/NenaghGuardian/

Well, that page 21 article IS bad news.
I cycled that section last weekend and can confirm that it looks rather like no significant work is taking place, in the subsided area.
I've also heard that the Portuguese workers have all gone home. I know personally of one, who finished up a couple of weeks ago.

Living in Castleconnell, this section is the only section of Motorway in the country that I'll never have cause to drive. And the only section that I'd really like to see open, to take the load off the old N7 , our main access road.
Bummer!

I wonder if the plan is to mothball this section to see if it deteriorates further? Or have the contractors just given up?
With hindsight, how much experience do Portuguese road builders have with building roads over bogs?

Anyone out there with a good engineering solution for this mess???
I can't think of anything.

Perhaps its all part of the governments new strategy for "What to do about Limerick?". A big new road that stops just before you get there.

lukejr

Article form the Nenagh Guardian on the M7 Birdhill to Limerick section, depressing reading.

Sierra Oscar

"All further construction work on the road has now been phased down until issues regarding the design and engineering are resolved . . . "

slinky2000

crikey.... an abandoned motorway before it was even finished!! :P

Sponge Bob

It is not abandoned. However there are 'issues' between Bernard McNAMAra and his geotechnical consultants and these issues shall not be resolved with any great haste!!

D.L.R.

Pouring our money into bottomless pits seems to be all the rage right now...

Tefral

Drove the opened section this morning, its mad to see the surroundings from a different point of view.

The road itself has lovely straights and graduated bends.

emfifty

luohaoran wrote: »

Well, that page 21 article IS bad news.
I cycled that section last weekend and can confirm that it looks rather like no significant work is taking place, in the subsided area.
I've also heard that the Portuguese workers have all gone home. I know personally of one, who finished up a couple of weeks ago.

Living in Castleconnell, this section is the only section of Motorway in the country that I'll never have cause to drive. And the only section that I'd really like to see open, to take the load off the old N7 , our main access road.
Bummer!

I wonder if the plan is to mothball this section to see if it deteriorates further? Or have the contractors just given up?
With hindsight, how much experience do Portuguese road builders have with building roads over bogs?

Anyone out there with a good engineering solution for this mess???
I can't think of anything.

Perhaps its all part of the governments new strategy for "What to do about Limerick?". A big new road that stops just before you get there.

my guess is they will have to go back to the drawing board with this stretch. looks like they have finally realised they can't beat the bog. Some sort of suspended deck traversing the bog for about 500m might be one solution. how much it would cost and who would pay is anyone's guess!

limklad

Lexar wrote: »

It has been designated as a Motorway since last year. I heard also that it is opening today at 4 pm.

There is a technicality fault in your statement. It has been designated to be a Motorway, but it still private property until the NRA take control of the Road under Irish Law. Until then it not a motorway, It is a building site until the road officially opens and only then it is officially a motorway provided that it is builted to Motorway standards and all the sign off have been completed. Only the stretch of Road from Birdhill to Nenagh as of 1st April 2010 is now a motorway as the NRA have taken control of the road and all parties involve have sign off on it. But the Road from Annacotty (Newport Roundabout) to Birdhill is still a building site therefore it is not a motorway.

The Road Contractors can prosecute anybody who is not authorised to be there for trespassing while the road is under construction. Technically under Irish Law the road/land is under their control not NRA.

limklad

D.L.R. wrote: »

Pouring our money into bottomless pits seems to be all the rage right now...

You should be used to it by now. We been doing it for Decades now with the Irish Government is all the various government bog department and agencies and companies that were created by them.
But at least we can make use of this road when it opens. I have no doubt even ofter this stretch of road opens, it will be close at some future date to deal with any subsidence that has not been accounted for. They are still learning in how to deal with Bog issues on all roads. Anyone who travel on any bogs road for decades know that the roads continues to sink and shift over time.

cnocbui

My prediction is that this final section of motorway may never be completed and opened and that the only further activity on the project will occur in the courts.

It seems that even with 120km of piles they can't get a firm foundation. Ripping the whole thing up and going back to scratch would surely see the contractor not making a cent of profit on the project and possibly a huge loss. Throwing their hands up and walking off in the direction of the courts might well be the cheaper option for them.

I'm not an engineer, but I suspect the only way they could build a motorway over that bog would be to have a lightweight deck supported on sealed floatation cells, like a pontoon bridge. In other words, have the motorway float on the bog.

The trouble now is that the mess of road works at the Limerick end has actually made the flow of traffic into limerick on the N7 far worse than it was prior to the construction of the ring road. So with the motorway possibly never being finished, Limerick looks like being saddled with a significant and perpetual traffic flow problem that makes things worse than they were previously.

limklad

SomeGuyCalledMi wrote: »

Will be driving down that way tomorrow. What towns are bypassed? How much time will it save?

No towns/villages are bypassed, but yes you will save time as you will not be behind a convey of slow drivers as you can now pass them out with ease on the Motorway.

knipex

D.L.R. wrote: »

Pouring our money into bottomless pits seems to be all the rage right now...

The risk is with the contractor.

The job is being done for an agreed price, any issues are to be resolved by the contractor at their cost.

marmurr1916

The engineers should have listened to the locals! I suspect we're going to end up with dc/motorway from Dublin to Birdhill (when the Portlaoise - Nenagh section is finished) for a long time to come...

Berty

marmurr1916 wrote: »

The engineers should have listened to the locals! I suspect we're going to end up with dc/motorway from Dublin to Birdhill (when the Portlaoise - Nenagh section is finished) for a long time to come...

As a college/uni educated Professional would you listen to a local telling you rumours of tractors vanishing into the bog.

They have obviously been a little impetitious with the go ahead and testing of the area.

As somebody who has worked on Infrastructure projects I will say that I do not envy their position and have no experience in bog's, who does?

This section of the nations infrastructure will not end well. :mad:

clon

taken from todays Irish Times, NRA are confident that solution can be found to the bog section and road to be completed by end 2010.see link for full article.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0402/1224267556153.html

The move extends motorway standard road from Nenagh to Birdhill in Co Tipperary, and removes about 10,000 vehicles a day from a high collision location around Yellow Bridge.
The 16km is part of an overall 28km Nenagh to Limerick section of the M7 which was to have opened late last year. However, the project ran into difficulty in crossing the Annaholly Bog south of Birdhill in Co Tipperary, where pilings have been sinking.
As efforts continue to find a solution to the problem the National Roads Authority made a surprise announcement that it was opening the completed 16km of the road yesterday afternoon.
Barriers on a further 10km of the Nenagh bypass have also been removed, extending motorway standard road from Nenagh to Birdhill.
The authority said it expected a solution to the problem at Annaholly Bog would not delay the opening of the entire M7 by the end of the year.

Sponge Bob

clon wrote: »

taken from todays Irish Times, NRA are confident that solution can be found to the bog section

I think that an engineered solution can be found and that the rest depends on precisely who is supposed to PAY for it and whether they can afford to pay for it.

From what I can make out only 1km of Road actually crosses the Mire of Gloom in Annaholty starting about HERE ( the road is part marked on the map and marked further north/northeast if you pan.).

North of the Mire of Gloom is 4km or so of solid ground to the Birdhill interchange and south of it is 3km of solid ground to the northern fringe of the Bog of Doom.

lukejr

knipex wrote: »

The job is being done for an agreed price, any issues are to be resolved by the contractor at their cost.

That idea only works if the contractor doesn't go bankrupt. Hopefully they won't.

knipex

lukejr wrote: »

That idea only works if the contractor doesn't go bankrupt. Hopefully they won't.

At which point there are bonds in place and the contractor would not have received full payment.

dergside

Re. the cost risk being with the contractor, that is a wise clause that was belatedly put in to infrastructure contracts to prevent cost over-runs to the state. Its only a comfort though if the contractor has the funds to absorb the additional costs.

Given the fact that some of the partners in the contractor are being stretched by finance issues on other aspects of their businesses and that some are foreign, with few assets contribute in this juristiction, I would imagine that the enthusiasm and ability of the partners to continue to sink money in to this scheme is probably wearing thin (pardon the pun). Even if they are still owed money, it might still be easier for them to walk away. Loans taken on by the contractor to finance the job? More "assets" heading for NAMA - perhaps?

I wouldn't be surprised if the contractor walked off the job and forced the NRA to either negotiate a cost split with them or engage another contractor to finish the job (can't imagine another contractor bidding low for this).

Anyone guess how much it would cost at this stage to realign the relevant section to a new route around the bog areas, maybe using one of the other route options that they had at the outset?

Sponge Bob

dergside wrote: »

Anyone guess how much it would cost at this stage to realign the relevant section to a new route around the bog areas, maybe using one of the other route options that they had at the outset?

The alternatives all seem to be about 10km long.

If the Bog of Doom section survives a robust load test then in an absolute worst case scenario all that would remain to do is to skip around the Mire of Doom and most likely to the west or through the west of that bog. Maybe a 2 or 2.5km sectionette.

Route Options.



Preliminary Route Options

Chris_5339762

It would take several years as you'd need new public open-days, new investigation, a new EIS, new tenders (probably an 18 month PPP as the government cant pay). It'd be like starting up a whole new road plan.

Also, Irish Times editors are idiots.

Yesterday’s opening now leaves just two sections of the M7 to be completed by the end of this year. These are a 12km section between Birdhill and the Limerick Southern Ring Road, and a 34km section between Castletown and Nenagh.

So according to them the M7/M8 scheme is finished.

cnocbui

Surely an alternate route would require more compulsory land acquisitions, environmental and archaeological surveys etc?

All that would take years to achieve, even before a single digger bucket hit the ground.

mox54

like all things in Ireland today it's another great example of absolute ineptude when putting together public spending projects, this bog is a very well known feature of the local area and why! didnt the geological survey (assuming there was one) discover this and deal with it......at least its part open and will drive it sunday when going to work and look forward it.

Bloody country is an absolute joke though and every week just confirms it more and more but why moan!!!, wont get anywhere.:eek:

JupiterKid

It's a big pity that this section of the M7 motorway has been held up for so long but during the breakneck pace of new MIU route building over the past decade IMO there were bound to be one or two major engineering problems encountered. This is one such problem.

The "bog of doom" issue does makes me worry - could other sections of the new motorways be prone to structural problems down the line?:(

If the Anaholty Bog problem turns out to be severe and long-term, could the NRA build two temporary motorway terminals for the M7 between Birdhill and Annacotty so that the unaffected unopened sections of the new M7 could at least be used?

Sponge Bob

mox54 wrote: »

like all things in Ireland today it's another great example of absolute

Remember what the Geological Society in London were told about this stretch and its two bogs over 2 years ago.

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/webdav/site/GSL/shared/pdfs/specialist%20and%20regional%20groups/TVGS_IGS_presentation_Jan2008.pdf

They contain.

"some of the most extreme ground
conditions in the U.K. & Ireland"

dergside

cnocbui wrote: »

All that would take years to achieve, even before a single digger bucket hit the ground.

Absolutely.

But in a worst case scenario, where the current contractor bailed out and took their losses, the NRA probably couldn't get another contractor to bid to finish the remaining section on a fixed price contract (because there would probably be huge contingency fund requirements and future uncertainty).

The bigger issue is the risk, including risk of further undermining of the road in the coming years, not just finishing it today. One way to create some certainty might be to give in, go back to the drawing board and go around rather than over the obstacle.

Re. the mess at Finnegan's roundabout, if any of the above came to pass, you might find that they cut a link from the current N7 on to the road leading up to the flyover, maybe somewhere south of Herberts pub (where the 2 roads are close to one another) as an interim measure to clean up Finnegans.

Jumpy

If they do abandon it, I wouldnt mind them leaving it open as a cycle track

123easy

Any plans to abandon it and chose a new route i would imagine would be ferociously resisted bt the NRA. It would take 4 to 5 years to go bak pick a route drive it through the statutory process and then build it.

Anybody hear what the precise geotechnical problem is, secondary consolidation? negative skin friction?

The whole thing will probably end up like Eyre Square did in Galway. Would it not be that the contractors geotechnical engineers PI Insurance is going to get a big hit.