N6 - Athlone Bypass Upgrade works

whyulittle

Here, take a screen grab while you can!

Westmeath Co Co wrote:

The works will be carried out by Wills Bros Ltd and will take approximately 7 months between the start of February and the end of August 2011. The works will be carried out in 11 stages of approximately 3 weeks each.

http://www.wccprojectoffice.ie/new/article.asp?newsId=96&backURL=%2Fnew%2Farc_cat_news.asp%3Fcat%3D16%26amp%3BnewsCat%3DN6+ARR%26amp%3Byear%3D2011%26amp%3Bmonth%3DFeb

veryangryman

Dont know if mentioned before, but Coosan fans get their eastbound off slip back this weekend.

Coversely, they lose their eastbound on slip but i couldnt give a fiddlers. I can only imagine the commute will be easier during this phase (couldnt get worse)

veryangryman

veryangryman wrote: »

Dont know if mentioned before, but Coosan fans get their eastbound off slip back this weekend.

Coversely, they lose their eastbound on slip but i couldnt give a fiddlers. I can only imagine the commute will be easier during this phase (couldnt get worse)

The loss of the Eastbound off slip for the town centre is a biggie! :eek::mad:

veryangryman

Deleted User wrote: »

The loss of the Eastbound off slip for the town centre is a biggie! :eek::mad:

In my own greedy way, im not worried. I only goto town in Evenings and in that case im westbound.

Cones from near J13 all the way to near J10 is a joke to upgrade 1 stretch by the way. I hope this crap isnt repeated in the next phase

angrylady

the Works on the bypass at present are a f*cking joke delayed at least 25 mins to make it from 1 exit to another and all drivers are getting very angry and fustrated its a serious loss of business to the town and is only to get worse, traffic managment plan my ass:mad:

veryangryman

angrylady wrote: »

the Works on the bypass at present are a f*cking joke delayed at least 25 mins to make it from 1 exit to another and all drivers are getting very angry and fustrated its a serious loss of business to the town and is only to get worse, traffic managment plan my ass:mad:

This morning was particularly bad.... :mad:

For one reason or another i had to do 2 eastbound and 1 westbound run.

25 mins exit to exit is a bit of an exageration though - 25 mins max to traverse the bypass.

Im not looking forward to tomorrow evening. An open letter to Mr Idiot Truck Driver who will break down - Im coming to get you :mad:

Oh_Noes

I wish people on this road actually paid attention to the speed limit signs and no overtaking signs. The last two days (at non-peak hours) I've had cars coming and overtaking at 140 kmph just around Garrycastle, despite the fact that the road merges into one lane. They need to have signs much further back than 800 metres to signal that the road is merging.

I know peak time is the real problem but I'm losing count of the amounts of near-misses I've seen where people don't merge into the single lane until the last second, and at high speed.

Whatever crowd are doing the works seem to be doing a terrible job of keeping it in order.

Zubeneschamali

Oh_Noes wrote: »

The last two days (at non-peak hours) I've had cars coming and overtaking at 140 kmph just around Garrycastle, despite the fact that the road merges into one lane.

One problem is that they just stuck 50 km/h road works signs up on the whole bypass day one, instead of signage telling you when you were actually approaching the works.

So people got used to the situation where there was a 50 k limit for the first 3 exits but no actual works until, say, after the shannon bridge, so they got used to ignoring the signs.

Then the works move, and ahhh! panic!

munchkin_utd

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

One problem is that they just stuck 50 km/h road works signs up on the whole bypass day one, instead of signage telling you when you were actually approaching the works.

So people got used to the situation where there was a 50 k limit for the first 3 exits but no actual works until, say, after the shannon bridge, so they got used to ignoring the signs.

Then the works move, and ahhh! panic!

the problem (maybe mentioned elsewhere in the thread) is that the limits can only be changed by bye law, so to allow for any delays on a certain section, they just have 50 over the entire stretch.

I encountered the very same heading south from Monaghan towards castleblaney last year (which is why the anomoly sticks in my head!).
I stuck to the 50-ish signed limit on a section that was already completely finished and annoyed the hell out of the other poor unfortunates who wanted me to break the law.

Now, if TDs spent less time on local matters such as sending letters getting criminals out of jail and getting planning permission strokes for people to build in areas of nature conservation, you wouldnt have such laws that any muppet on the street would know needs changing (should it be pointed out to them)
But the TDs are really too busy pulling local strokes to get re-elected, to be worrying about making laws for the better of the country.

so long and the short of it anyhow, the stupid limits are to stay
(although if a half dozen get killed in the meantime, maybe the politicans would then be arsed bringing forward legislation on more copped on speed regulations for roadworks)

billbond4

The biggest problem is motorists stopping to allow drivers to merge, this would not happen in Dublin, as they know what people in the fast lane are doing!!
Queue like everyone else.

Also confirmed... Upgrade works wont be finished until end of October
As they only started at end of January and will take 8 months to complete.

Also the website only shows works to the EB and WB carriageways but does not include the median works. so laneclosures are not as clear cut.

veryangryman

billbond4 wrote: »

The biggest problem is motorists stopping to allow drivers to merge, this would not happen in Dublin, as they know what people in the fast lane are doing!!
Queue like everyone else.

Zip merging - it has been proven to work.

http://www.stuartdalby.co.uk/driving/zipmerging.php

As a "was blind but now can see" motorist, Ive come around to this (thanks Dolanbaker).

Oh_Noes

billbond4 wrote: »

The biggest problem is motorists stopping to allow drivers to merge, this would not happen in Dublin, as they know what people in the fast lane are doing!!
Queue like everyone else.

I don't understand this point. You want everyone to sit in the inside lane and leave the overtaking lane empty? The problem is motorists not getting into the overtaking lane so that it moves at the same speed. If it's moving faster, people will get into it, and aggresively trying to block people from merging at the end will cause an accident.

angrylady

This morning was the worst i seen so far was at Ganleys roundabout @ 8.15 and got into work @ 8.40 better things i could be doing than sitting in the car for 25 mins. It is going to be really bad on Coosan exit or garrycastle from next week...........

flazio

With no cones or lighting I'm surprised no one has scraped the lane mergers on either side, East bound it's currently right on the first bend to the left and west bound although it's currently half way down between the Garrycastle and Ballymahon Road exits (9 and 10?) where you would see it coming in daylight,I'd imagine they'd be easy to miss at night if a driver didn't have their wits about them.

billbond4

yeah its fine during the day.but there should be a illimous strip along the temporary concrete barrier so car headlights would light it up during the night and the curves would be better visible

billbond4

Oh_Noes wrote: »

I don't understand this point. You want everyone to sit in the inside lane and leave the overtaking lane empty? The problem is motorists not getting into the overtaking lane so that it moves at the same speed. If it's moving faster, people will get into it, and aggresively trying to block people from merging at the end will cause an accident.

I mean that motorists should follow the signs if for example eastbound traffic from galway at j13 stayed in slow lane and traffic merged properly from j13 slip road traffic would flow better as opposed to cars from slip road and galway going all the way to the where the two lanes merge. Anyway traffic should be down to one lane well before the elan exit to allow for proper merging of traffic

veryangryman

billbond4 wrote: »

I mean that motorists should follow the signs if for example eastbound traffic from galway at j13 stayed in slow lane and traffic merged properly from j13 slip road traffic would flow better as opposed to cars from slip road and galway going all the way to the where the two lanes merge. Anyway traffic should be down to one lane well before the elan exit to allow for proper merging of traffic

Agreed but i think the guys only have remit over the bypass. So until Elan theres sod all they can do.

FYI - Barriers gone on J12-J11 Eastbound. Also VMS now says that J10 will be closed from Tuesday for 3 weeks.

One delay after another. Fun fun fun...

Would really have rathered they spent the money on a couple of roundabouts. The surface is getting pretty bad but even if it was left untouched wed still at least have a functioning (and fast moving) bypass. Worse roads out there

billbond4

At least the contra flow is gone today,so hopefully that will speed up the friday traffic with people braking for a lane crossover.

angrylady

with the opening of the Roscommon road to bypass this morning the traffic flow was great no delays at all:D. unfortuantely we will have more from tuesday again....:mad:

billbond4

I didnt spot that the Roscommon Slip was back open

billbond4

i spotted the roscommon slip road opened at lunch time when two cars didnt bother to yield to me on the road.They must have thought the temporary lane arrangement for them was still in place.

veryangryman

Still pretty god awful this evening

Had to do some semi-courteous things...

1.Hard shoulder indicating left from very early on from J9-J10. Taking that exit
2.Drive past Arcadia rat run style and back on at Coosan.
3. Zip merge past a dozy lorry driver who was hesitant (to put it politely) about letting me in.

Bad i know but sometimes local knowledge is your only man.

KevR

veryangryman wrote: »

Still pretty god awful this evening

Had to do some semi-courteous things...

1.Hard shoulder indicating left from very early on from J9-J10. Taking that exit
2.Drive past Arcadia rat run style and back on at Coosan.
3. Zip merge past a dozy lorry driver who was hesitant (to put it politely) about letting me in.

Bad i know but sometimes local knowledge is your only man.

Rather than getting on at J9 like I usually would, I did a rat run the whole way to the Coosan exit. Traffic was backed all the way up to J9. Probably saved 15 mins by going the way I did..

Here is what I plan to submit to the council later this week, please feel free to (constructively) comment

N6 Athlone Relief Road Overlay and Rehabilitation Phase 2

With Reference to the proposed upgrade to the junctions along the Athlone Relief road, I would like to make the following observations.

The use of traffic signals at almost every junction is undesirable for the following reasons.

• Signals are expensive to install, operate and maintain.
• They will cause frustration as motorists are forced to wait for them to go through their sequence during periods of light traffic.
• Vehicles waiting at lights for unnecessarily stop (no traffic in other lanes) periods waste fuel and produce excess CO2.
• None of the junctions are sufficiently busy enough to warrant full time active traffic management.

The main problem at most of the junctions is the fact that the traffic on the roads (Roscommon Rd, Ballymathon, Coosan rd & Garrycastle) crossing the N6 has priority over all turning traffic both leaving and joining the N6. Because of this priority, there are frequent queues of traffic exiting the N6 during peak times.
This is particularly bad for traffic leaving the N6 and turning right at the end of the slip road, this is because they have to wait for traffic to clear in both directions before joining the main road.

Mini teardrop roundabouts would solve this issue by sharing the priority, this is achieved by ensuring that turning traffic needs only yield to vehicles coming from the right, vehicles crossing over the N6 must yield to traffic leaving and joining the N6 at the first roundabout, but have priority at the second roundabout.
As there will be a pair of mini teardrop roundabouts either end of the overbridge/underpass they effectively act as one large dumbbell roundabout. The use of the roundabouts also ensures that speeds are kept low to allow to and from the entry and exit slip roads.

The advantages of using roundabouts over traffic signals;

• Passive traffic management, equal sharing of flows through the junction.
• Lower installation and maintenance costs.
• Low running costs.
• Passive regulation of traffic flows, no unnecessary queuing.

In the current economic climate, the most expensive solution is not realistically the best solution.

Therefore I suggest that the junctions be constructed as shown by the (rough) sketches attached.

The Roscommon eastbound LILO will also have a mini roundabout where it joins the Roscommon road. (no drawing)



The Coosan junction will be a simple pair of mini teardrop roundabouts, where traffic leaving the exit slip roads need only to yield to traffic coming from the right, traffic on the Coosan road will need to yield to right turning traffic leaving the N6.








The Ballymathon road will have two mini roundabouts and the eastbound slips will connect via a teardrop roundabout

Westbound traffic will be steered south where it will merge with southbound traffic from Ballymathon to the main roundabout, where it can either go straight for the town or U-turn for Ballymathon.

As an alternative, this junction could also be a teardrop roundabout, to avoid forcing northbound traffic exiting the N6 to have to U-turn at the main roundabout.

Traffic leaving town wanting to go east would use the right hand lane over the bridge and turn at the teardrop, southbound traffic will need to yield. Traffic leaving the eastbound slip will need to yield to traffic leaving town.


The Garrycastle junction will be a simple pair of mini teardrop roundabouts, where traffic leaving the exit slip roads need only to yield to traffic coming from the right, traffic on the Garrycastle road will need to yield to right turning traffic leaving the N6.

billbond4

I wrote them something similar, i.e no traffic lights put mini roundabouts where possible.
Also a simple part of the solution to the garrycastle slip road, would be to reduce the speed along the road up to Cornamaddy Ind Est to 50kph, the reduction in the speed of vehicles would allow more time for right turning vehicles to exit.

You should also say that the ongoing maintenance cost associated with Traffic lights would be another reason not to use them as part of the traffic management

billbond4

veryangryman wrote: »

Still pretty god awful this evening

Had to do some semi-courteous things...

1.Hard shoulder indicating left from very early on from J9-J10. Taking that exit
2.Drive past Arcadia rat run style and back on at Coosan.
3. Zip merge past a dozy lorry driver who was hesitant (to put it politely) about letting me in.

Bad i know but sometimes local knowledge is your only man.

Grrr drivers like you made me :mad:
I did the exact same thing, local knowledge is great sometimes

KevR

Looking East from J10 yesterday evening

Click thumbnails for full size images

billbond4

Yeah they are working on the medians now and tarring them, so when they switch to working on the westbound carraigeway work should move faster as the medians are already tarred

billbond4

billbond4 wrote: »

Yeah they are working on the medians now and tarring them, so when they switch to working on the westbound carraigeway work should move faster as the medians are already tarred

Looks like the new runway for midlands international airport!

Amtmann

Thanks for the pics Kev. Been a while since we had a few of those

KevR

Tremelo wrote: »

Thanks for the pics Kev. Been a while since we had a few of those

I would taken a photo looking Westbound as well had I not been walking home from the train station (35 min walk) with a big heavy bag..

whyulittle

I'll get some.

whyulittle

Click through for larger images. J9 is there as well, not much to see there yet though.

J10, Looking West




J10, Looking East

whyulittle

And a crop of the work approaching J10.

That centre piece of tarmac appears to be the temporary crossover for the next contraflow.

flazio

Was it my imagination or was there ever any barriers between the rail over bridge and the Shannon bridge east bound on the left, it's only just struck me how easily a vehicle that has lost control could end up in a big river with very little hope of rescue.

Zubeneschamali

The barrier started a short distance back from the Shannon bridge. You could drive right off the embankment and fly into a field, but I don't think you could reach the river withough going through a barrier. Check out Google Street View here and here.

flazio

The stone fence in your first link has been removed entirely and the edge is now completely open as far as where the metal barrier starts in your second picture where they have replaced that with a stronger barrier. There is still a bit of potential for a nasty accident if a car falls off the carrigeway, and while the possibility of ending up in the drink is small enough, the field a car will fall into is prone to flooding in the winter so IMO any piece of raised carrigeway should have barriers on the sides to stop any out of control vehicles falling off over the edge regardless of what's over the edge.

veryangryman

Why arent traffic diverted onto J11 for the latest works. Only J9 is suffering here. I see the cops in keeping it flowing (which in fairness is working quite good sofar) but surely diverting those who dont know the local roads onto the Coosan roads would be overall better for all.

Say let eastbound traffic use J11, westbound J9?

whyulittle

For those of you who have travelled it, but never seen it!

This is the Athlone Bypass Bridge over the Shannon. As you can see in the second pic, there were road guys in working under it on the Roscommon side.

Zubeneschamali

veryangryman wrote: »

Why arent traffic diverted onto J11 for the latest works.

It is. 7 pm yesterday, there was a big electric sign diverting Eastbound "Athlone Town Centre" traffic off at J11, and sending them up through Arcadia to the Ballymahon road.

veryangryman

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

It is. 7 pm yesterday, there was a big electric sign diverting Eastbound "Athlone Town Centre" traffic off at J11, and sending them up through Arcadia to the Ballymahon road.

Yeah i spotted that this morning. Who says my good ideas dont go un-noticed.

Lets see how it all unfolds Friday.

Alot of eejits this morning in lane 1 queing about 2 miles short of where the 1 lane merge is. i felt like a king as i cruised past them all and jumped in at the bridge

veryangryman

veryangryman wrote: »

Yeah i spotted that this morning. Who says my good ideas dont go un-noticed.

Lets see how it all unfolds Friday.

Alot of eejits this morning in lane 1 queing about 2 miles short of where the 1 lane merge is. i felt like a king as i cruised past them all and jumped in at the bridge

Some people will never understand the logic of zip merging, even if you advertised it.

whyulittle

I just noticed there today that they have removed the big 50 km/h signs from J8, and moved them further along to J9.

So you can now do 100 km/h along a section where there is no work going on.

hmmmmm....sensible......

veryangryman

whyulittle wrote: »

I just noticed there today that they have removed the big 50 km/h signs from J8, and moved them further along to J9.

So you can now do 100 km/h along a section where there is no work going on.

hmmmmm....sensible......

Was anyone really taking that seriously? Been doing ~100 on most sections where there is not a car in front of me.

Without enforcement, why bother wasting precious seconds of your life on meaningless limits.

I say this as one of 99% of people who do similar. The only time we slow down is for tractor drivers and/or Grannies in front

ardmacha

Without enforcement, why bother wasting precious seconds of your life on meaningless limits.

You are a banker, perhaps.

Oh_Noes

Could someone sum up exactly what the situation is now? I've had a week off and have to get back on it tomorrow. Been avoiding it like to the plague for just runs around town and the like.

Also, I hate to be a pain I'd be grateful for a summary of what the junctions are called (J8, J13 etc) I live in the town so have always just had informal names for them. Cheers.

whyulittle

J8 is Kilmartins
J9 is Garrycastle
J10 is Ballymahon Road
J11 is Coosan / B&Q
J12 is Roscommon Road
J13 is Monksland / Elan

Everything is open at the minute, bar:

Eastbound on-ramp at Coosan / B&Q, and eastbound off-ramp at the Ballymahon Road.

Jimbojimbo

Does anyone know of a sensible bypass route to avoid the N6 roadworks going from Dublin to Galway. I don't mind skirting around the town, if the delays can be avoided.

Jimbojimbo

Jimbojimbo wrote: »

Does anyone know of a sensible bypass route to avoid the N6 roadworks going from Dublin to Galway. I don't mind skirting around the town, if the delays can be avoided.

Not really, the congestion is only for peak periods, just been through a few minutes ago and no delays at all.

To avoid that section of road would involve going a very long way off route the next river crossings are about 20 miles away.