Go-Ahead for New Ross Bypass

NedNew

On Tuesday (23rd December) it was announced on local radio (South East Radio) that the New Ross Bypass had received the official 'go-ahead'. Also the local T.D., Sean Connick, was seen congratulating local shoppers and welcoming the news on the streets of the town.

In the Irish Times it was mentioned that due to the recession that the government was rethinking the recent cut-backs in road construction and the 'N25 in Wexford' would be one of the projects that may be kick-started to provide jobs in the area.

I can't find anything official yet though.

Lennoxschips

Is it the massively over-dimensioned and unnecessarily long variant?

That's insane if it's true.

Credit crunch or no credit crunch, the gombeens are alive and well.

Chris_533976

http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/HA0004.htm

They say decided but no details available.

Good if this is the case, that place is a terrible bottleneck and should be high on the priority list. I'm a little bit unsure about the scale of this, is it overkill? Possibly, but its the only chance they'll get to build it. 2+2 is fair for this scheme. And no, I dont think this will be motorway, nor should it.

Plus I want to see the bridge when its done This should easily be the most impressive scheme in the whole of the roads program.

Lennoxschips

The N25 has been recently upgraded on the Waterford-New Ross stretch and the Rosslare-New Ross stretch. So that's all ready to go.

All they have to do is build a new bridge just to the south of New Ross to take the traffic out of the town and the scheme is finished. A connector road could be built up to the N30.

A 15 km dual carriageway and dual carriageway bridge is highly unnecessary, a waste of money, and makes the massive stretches of recently upgraded and perfectly good N25 completely obsolete.

But we've come to accept insanity as the norm in Ireland. Even in the middle of a credit crunch.

mike65

Tramore House is like stepping back in time to see a future that hasn't happened

http://www.thrdo.com/n25newrossdates.html

road_high

mike65 wrote: »

Tramore House is like stepping back in time to see a future that hasn't happened

http://www.thrdo.com/n25newrossdates.html

Yea, I love the "road opens winter 2007" one. Pure comedy. And there are lots more projects listed there with similar fantasy dates.
Is Tramore House road design an offshoot of Waterford coco with responsbility for the south east region N roads?

mike65

Its the regional office of the NRA.

Good to see invincibleirish didn't let me down

BluntGuy

Usually I don't agree with all of Lennoxschips' ideas for rationalisation of the road network or cutting back on certain schemes.

But in this case I think he is correct.

By all means, bypass New Ross, but really: spending such a huge amount on a bridge that isn't going to carry half the amount of traffic it's designed for. The Waterford Bypass bridge is necessary, and the AADT does justify its expense. But this... I'm really don't think it does.

Now, by all means, if they're going to build a bridge of that scale, it should be DC, it would be further stupidity if they went and built a bridge as long as that as single carriageway. But spending THAT amount of money, something that could get the half the M20 built, or the SRRs done or Newlands Cross - all projects which are, let's face it, more deserving of funding than this one... is it really the right thing to do?

Surely a standard S2 bypass with perhaps a reasonable 2+2 bridge would be a more sensible proposal. There's no point building a 52,000 AADT bridge for something that will hardly to carry 10,000.

As for the bridge, it looks great, but if we must have a bridge like that, build it somewhere where it's truly necessary.

corktina

Lennoxschips wrote: »

The N25 has been recently upgraded on the Waterford-New Ross stretch and the Rosslare-New Ross stretch. So that's all ready to go.

All they have to do is build a new bridge just to the south of New Ross to take the traffic out of the town and the scheme is finished. A connector road could be built up to the N30.

A 15 km dual carriageway and dual carriageway bridge is highly unnecessary, a waste of money, and makes the massive stretches of recently upgraded and perfectly good N25 completely obsolete.

But we've come to accept insanity as the norm in Ireland. Even in the middle of a credit crunch.

sorry I dont agree...this is a Euroroute and connects Waterford and more importantly Cork and South West Ireland with Europe.Infrastructure of a a certain standard is crucial to the SW and New Ross is an awful bottleneck at times

Chris_533976

Details on this have always been thin on the ground, but from what I gather its something similar to this, near Duisberg in Germany.



Doesnt look so ridiculous when you see it elsewhere. Tho I dont think New Ross has quite this much industry

Amtmann

How much is this expected to cost?

BluntGuy

Furet wrote: »

How much is this expected to cost?

I heard one billion mentioned before...

I thought it was way too much at first, but think about it:

Consider that the Waterford Bypass costed 600 million (half of which you can attribute to the bridge), and has a much shorter bridge (the N.R bypass bridge is over three times longer than the Waterford bypass). If the N.R is built to nearly the same spec as the W.B bridge and is three times its length, the cost will mostly likely increase in nearly the same ratio.

One billion is an unacceptable amount to spend on a single bypass that will only carry around 10,000 vehicles.

One billion would pay for the entire M20! It would pay for the SRR upgrades and Newlands Cross and could probably get most of the money for the N11 scheme in there too...

If the New Ross bypass had a 40,000 AADT, yes, go for the bridge. But I'm sorry a 52,000 AADT capacity bridge that will carry less than 10,000 on many days. Insanity... !!!!

I've also heard a 350 million euro figure mentioned before. Perhaps, in that case, it isn't so questionable. But if it does turn about to be one billion, you can forget about it!

Amtmann

If it costs even one quarter of a billion, I think it's too much, and not really justifiable. An M20 is much more important.

Bards

Lads , you all way off the mark. The whole M9 Motorway from Kilcullen to waterford is not costing €1bn

the waterford city bypass is costing somewhere in the region of €300M (The National Roads Authority estimates that if it were to undertake itself all the design, construction, maintenance, operation and re-investment tasks that are being required of Celtic Roads Group the cost would be in the order of €600m over 30 years)

as of 2005 the New ross Bypass is budget to cost €95M

http://www.wexford.ie/wex/Misc/Notices/Current/Name,887,en.html

FYI the Boyne bridge cost €35M
http://www.roughanodonovan.com/boyne%20bridge.htm

BluntGuy

Bards wrote:

the waterford city bypass is costing somewhere in the region of €300M (€600M inc land land and preliminary design costs was mooted if the state were to construct it)

Incorrect Bards...

NRA Website wrote:

The Authority estimates that if it were to undertake itself all the design, construction, maintenance, operation and re-investment tasks that are being required of Celtic Roads Group the cost would be in the order of €600m (excluding land and preliminary design costs) in 2006 values.

Because of the way the PPP mechanism works, we will end up paying roughly 2 billion euro for the Waterford Bypass over the next 30 years.

95 million for the New Ross bypass seems like a very conservative estimate...

mike65

Well it didn't cost 2 billion to build, only to use.

Lennoxschips

corktina wrote: »

sorry I dont agree...this is a Euroroute and connects Waterford and more importantly Cork and South West Ireland with Europe.Infrastructure of a a certain standard is crucial to the SW and New Ross is an awful bottleneck at times

I'm not saying New Ross isn't a bottleneck that doesn't need to be bypassed, put that straw man away. Just that all it needs is a more suitable bypass to connect up the existing N25 on both sides of New Ross. This is a road which is well up to the job and has been recently upgraded!! Why make it obsolete?!

Just because a road is a "Euroroute" doesn't mean it should be a motorway. A road should be a motorway if the traffic volume justifies it.

BluntGuy

Lennoxschips wrote: »

Just because a road is a "Euroroute" doesn't mean it should be a motorway.

Indeed. There are plenty of euroroutes across Europe which are good quality S2 as well as DC.

This one should be no different, a good quality S2 road with a 2+2 bridge (and not the enormous proposed one either) would suffice methinks.

Sponge Bob

Dudes, the go ahead may be from an Bord Pleanála not from the exchequer .

Bards

Even the DOOR is est to cost €1B. I just don;t know where you came up with 1B for the New Ross Bypass????????

BluntGuy

Bards wrote: »

Even the DOOR is est to cost €1B. I just don;t know where you came up with 1B for the New Ross Bypass????????

I've heard it cited a few times, even on these boards...

When I find the link I'll post it here...

Lennoxschips

What is a 2+2 bridge needed for? That's where the massive and unnecessary costs are being incurred .

A single carriageway bridge is (way) more than sufficient for the traffic intensity.

Perhaps, in 20/30 years, there'll be a need for a dual carriageway bridge. Then you build an identical single-carriage way bridge right next to it, and you have two single carriageway bridges right next to each other. Then you have a dual carriageway crossing.

BluntGuy

Lennoxschips wrote: »

What is a 2+2 bridge needed for? That's where the massive and unnecessary costs are being incurred .

I don't agree with the current bridge proposal, but to only build a single-carriageway bridge would be just as daft and would show a complete lack of foresight.

A relatively small 2+2 (two lanes each way, no hard shoulder) bridge to tie into the rest of the S2 bypass would be good idea because if the time ever came that the rest of the bypass did need to be dualled, it would be a relatively painless tie-in job.

Your idea:

Lennoxschips wrote:

Perhaps, in 20/30 years, there'll be a need for a dual carriageway bridge. Then you build an identical single-carriage way bridge right next to it, and you have two single carriageway bridges right next to each other. Then you have a dual carriageway crossing

... it works as well, but it makes the tie-in job more painful in the future and will incur needless expenses and waste materials. Do the bridge correctly first time around and it's there for a good 50 years or more.

But don't get me wrong, I think the current bridge proposal is ludicrously over-spec and needs to be downsized.

Bards

Lennoxschips wrote: »

What is a 2+2 bridge needed for? That's where the massive and unnecessary costs are being incurred .

A single carriageway bridge is (way) more than sufficient for the traffic intensity.

Perhaps, in 20/30 years, there'll be a need for a dual carriageway bridge. Then you build an identical single-carriage way bridge right next to it, and you have two single carriageway bridges right next to each other. Then you have a dual carriageway crossing.

AADT in 2004 was between 15,000 and 18,000 vehicles per day. there is no up to date data on the NRA site. This is sufficient to require dual carriageway now and would be a disaster to under engineer a solution

https://nraextra.nra.ie/trafficcounterdata/html/N25-13A.htm

Lennoxschips

Firstly, that's measurements at the existing bridge itself, so that includes local New Ross traffic. A bypass would only carry the traffic bypassing New Ross, while local traffic would remain on the existing bridge at New Ross. For example, if the new route was laid out properly, traffic going to New Ross itself from Waterford would get off the bypass before the new bridge and carry on into the town over the old bridge. So the traffic being carried on the new bridge will be less.

However, even if the bridge did have to carry 16,000 vehicles a day (that's in both directions, 8,000 each way), I don't see how that warrants a dual carriageway. What norm and/or regulation do you base that on?

The data you show is broken down into traffic per hour. The maximum per direction shown is 915 movements per hour at peak time (evening rush hour). A single carriageway road can handle up to 1,500 movements per hour per direction. So the peak traffic is well within the design limit of a single carriageway road, let alone off-peak. And that's not even taking into account that a lot of local traffic (Waterford commuters) will continue to use the old bridge...

Bards

Those figures are from 2004, the figures sfrom 2003 & 2002 show about 1,000 less per day per year, so if we assume a growth of 1,000 AADT per year this will give us a figure of 19,000 to 22,000 AADT in today's terms

bearing in mind that the bridge will not commence until 2010 at the earliest and will take three approx years to construct then it is safe to assume that by the time the bridge will be completed the volume for a single carriageway in each direction will be surpassed

Lennoxschips

How is that safe to assume? You are assuming that every single vehicle on the old bridge will be moved onto the new bridge. You are ignoring the fact that local traffic can and will continue to use the old bridge.

Secondly, traffic growth in recent years has been due to large housing projects being built in out of town locations and the encouragement of commuting. The house building boom is over, so that kind of growth is finished. And one would hope that any new houses built in the future will be built closer to the centre of our commercial centres, so that such traffic growth on roads will be avoided. Why should we build a larger bridge to benefit developers? I'm not holding my breath though. A dual carriageway bridge will be built, housing will be built on the other side of the bridge and marketed to Waterford commuters, and we'll all be told how the larger bridge turned out to be necessary in the end.

corktina

make your mind up..is the boom over OR will housing be built to benfit developers?

Lennoxschips

You've missed the point.

The current boom is over.

However, housing will be built again in the future, the question is whether this will be done in a sustainable manner or if new roads will be misused to build out of town developments. Looking at years of Fianna Fail gombeen policy you'd have to say the latter. But should we be building roads now large enough to take into account the corrupted planning of the future...

corktina

lots of people like to live out of town, who are you to say they shouldnt?

murphaph

This crossing is much more important than people seem to believe. It's not just a bypass for New Ross (a town I couldn't give a monkies about tbh) or the South East, it's about providing a decent route from Waterford/Cork/Limerick and possibly Galway as well as the south Midlands to Rosslare.

In my opinion the N24 should be higher priority than parts of the Atlantic Corridor because of the way it slices across to Rosslare.

We all accept I think that a bridge is required at least. People are suggesting that the proposed cable stayed bridge is over-spec and it should be a scaled back 2+2. Knowing little as I do about the proposal or the lay of the land around there, why do people think they are opting for an 'over spec' 2+2 cable stayed bridge instead of a more straightforward design 2+2 bridge? (I totally refute the notion of building any large river crossing as an S2 in this day and age-that would be pure folly)

Is the lay of the land not determining the position and hence the design choice in this case?

If we are ever to recover our position as an exporter we need to make sure our goods can get to port efficiently and I believe the long-term objective for the N24/N25 should be at least 2+2.