M11/N11 - M50 (J4) to Coyne's Cross (J14) [options published]

josip

They can't keep putting off the double tracking forever.
The sooner they bite the bullet, the sooner some benefits can accrue from the investment.
It also has to be done in conjunction with a Luas Green Line extension to Bray.
The double tracking will always seem less attractive than any individual road project, but when compared with multiple successive road projects it should stand up to economic scrutiny.

loyatemu

machaseh wrote: »

It also doesn't have to be 2 tracks all the way to wicklow town, it is okay to have stretches of single track when necessary as long as they are laid out carefully so that a good frequency of say one train every 20 mins can be achieved.

Bray Head is the expensive and awkward bit, and Bray-Greystones is where the double-tracking is really needed. By comparison, half of the Greystones-Wicklow section was previously double-track and the whole thing would be straightforward enough (there are also plans for greenway along that section). Having single track sections makes railway operations more difficult and prone to disruption in the case of trains running late, better to do the whole lot.

prunudo

loyatemu wrote: »

Bray Head is the expensive and awkward bit, and Bray-Greystones is where the double-tracking is really needed. By comparison, half of the Greystones-Wicklow section was previously double-track and the whole thing would be straightforward enough (there are also plans for greenway along that section). Having single track sections makes railway operations more difficult and prone to disruption in the case of trains running late, better to do the whole lot.

Every days a school day. Never knew some of it used to be double tracked.

Edit. As a matter of interest which section was it and would it require much work to reinstate or would the base not be sufficient anymore.

hometruths

Went to a public meeting about this tonight organised by the M11 Friday 13th group. Some interesting contributions but overall a bit chaotic I thought.

Like the UK Parliament discussing Brexit, plenty of agreement on what they don't want but impossible to get a consensus on what they do want!

u140acro3xs7dm

schmittel wrote: »

Went to a public meeting about this tonight organised by the M11 Friday 13th group. Some interesting contributions but overall a bit chaotic I thought.

Like the UK Parliament discussing Brexit, plenty of agreement on what they don't want but impossible to get a consensus on what they do want!

What do they not want? Is it a group of locals who don't want any offline routes?

prunudo

Kian Fast Photography wrote: »

What do they not want? Is it a group of locals who don't want any offline routes?

Thats exactly what it appears like, a group of people who don't want offline options going near or through their houses or land without a care for the implications of what an upgrade of the red route will mean for the people along that route.

Macy0161

machaseh wrote: »

It also doesn't have to be 2 tracks all the way to wicklow town, it is okay to have stretches of single track when necessary as long as they are laid out carefully so that a good frequency of say one train every 20 mins can be achieved.

Without being a rail engineer, I've always thought the option might be a looped line from Wicklow off the existing line, or just a re-routing from Bray along the N11 corridor (rather than widening for road), and back in through Bray/ Shankill.

loyatemu

Macy0161 wrote: »

Without being a rail engineer, I've always thought the option might be a looped line from Wicklow off the existing line, or just a re-routing from Bray along the N11 corridor (rather than widening for road), and back in through Bray/ Shankill.

now that is unrealistic. Anything that happens will be along the existing line, we haven't built a new heavy rail line in this country since the British left. Besides more people live along the coast than along the N11 corridor.

AAAAAAAAA

prunudo wrote: »

I came across this link which seems to be from a Kilmacanogue perspective and at least has some interesting alternatives.

https://www.thisroadisadisaster.com

Far more reasonable than the Delgany heads, actual solutions presented.

rd1izb7lvpuksx

AAAAAAAAA wrote: »

Far more reasonable than the Delgany heads, actual solutions presented.

More wishlist than solutions, I thought. Lowering the road 4 meters without building an offline replacement seems on par with "don't built it", realistically.

josip

davemcbuiop wrote: »

Whatever about Kilmacanogue, the Glen of the Downs needs to be preserved. My proposal is to split the motorway north of the Glen, with the Glen itself acting as sort of a huge central median. The two lanes would then meet again south of the Glen. In future years who knows, the existing N11 through the Glen could be dug up and trees replanted there, restoring the Glen to its former glory:D.

Or would this be too sensible for Ireland?

Would you anticipate any long term adverse impact for the Glen by creating this island of biodiversity?

loyatemu

davemcbuiop wrote: »

Whatever about Kilmacanogue, the Glen of the Downs needs to be preserved. My proposal is to split the motorway north of the Glen, with the Glen itself acting as sort of a huge central median. The two lanes would then meet again south of the Glen. In future years who knows, the existing N11 through the Glen could be dug up and trees replanted there, restoring the Glen to its former glory:D.


Or would this be too sensible for Ireland?

it's a terrible idea - you're basically ploughing 2 new roads through the landscape instead of one, also doubling the number of people opposing the project.

nordydan

AAAAAAAAA wrote: »

Far more reasonable than the Delgany heads, actual solutions presented.

Love the NRO proposals tab with the [URL="kttps://static.wixstatic.com/media/b58106_7c9b458b328341f68089a66fb95a6700~mv2_d_5184_3253_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_734,h_465,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/Collage%20of%20Road.webp"]CRAP[/URL] lorry at the back

marno21

nordydan wrote: »

Love the NRO proposals tab with the [URL="kttps://static.wixstatic.com/media/b58106_7c9b458b328341f68089a66fb95a6700~mv2_d_5184_3253_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fill/w_734,h_465,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/Collage%20of%20Road.webp"]CRAP[/URL] lorry at the back

An elevated fully lit motorway across the side of a mountain with ~40% traffic being HGV. Very reasonable alright.

josip

marno21 wrote: »

An elevated fully lit motorway across the side of a mountain with ~40% traffic being HGV. Very reasonable alright.

And not a silver car in sight.
How do these people expect to be taken seriously?

Skyfloater

schmittel wrote: »

Went to a public meeting about this tonight organised by the M11 Friday 13th group. Some interesting contributions but overall a bit chaotic I thought.

Like the UK Parliament discussing Brexit, plenty of agreement on what they don't want but impossible to get a consensus on what they do want!

Incorrect. There was general agreement and frustration that the far simpler and cheaper options of improving the frequency of the 133 bus route and addition of new routes, along with park and ride along the N11 corridor is being completely ignored. Also, there seems to be no plans to increase the number of trains south of Greystones either.
As for not getting the finer details of the suggested alternative through Kilmacanogue up to your standards, these are ordinary people not road engineers! They're just trying not to have their homes bulldozed.

sideswipe

Skyfloater wrote: »

Incorrect. There was general agreement and frustration that the far simpler and cheaper options of improving the frequency of the 133 bus route and addition of new routes, along with park and ride along the N11 corridor is being completely ignored. Also, there seems to be no plans to increase the number of trains south of Greystones either.
As for not getting the finer details of the suggested alternative through Kilmacanogue up to your standards, these are ordinary people not road engineers! They're just trying not to have their homes bulldozed.

This whole 'put more buses on' is not going to solve the N11/M11 problems. I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, of course public transport needs to be improved, perhaps even focused on to become a viable option for people. But the road itself is simply not fit for purpose and needs to be sorted. This thread is primarily about the different options to upgrade the N11 to the M11 between J14 and J4 and in so doing sort out the pinch points of GOTD's and Kilmac.

Perhaps a new thread in relation to the mess that is the bus and rail services that is forcing people into their cars would be useful.

loyatemu

there's already a separate thread on the Bray-Greystones line.

whilst the public consultation pays some lip-service to public transport, it does seem mostly focussed on "how do we upgrade the road" when it should be "how do we move Wicklow commuters more efficiently" because ultimately it's commuters we're talking about here. The existing road is more than sufficient to serve Wexford and Rosslare apart from about 2 hours a day in each direction. No amount of extra lanes will fix the commuting issue without a focus on public transport as well.

Macy0161

sideswipe wrote: »

This whole 'put more buses on' is not going to solve the N11/M11 problems.

Public Transport is the solution to traffic issues.

Widening for more private vehicle lanes is not even a medium term solution - more lanes equals more traffic. 10 years after "motorway" standard through GoD, we'll be back having the same discussion.

In between, there would be threads how to "solve" the issues from the merge to junction 14 on M50 (which is already an issue, even with traffic slowed in GoD to Bray).

prunudo

sideswipe wrote: »

This whole 'put more buses on' is not going to solve the N11/M11 problems. I'm not saying it shouldn't happen, of course public transport needs to be improved, perhaps even focused on to become a viable option for people. But the road itself is simply not fit for purpose and needs to be sorted . This thread is primarily about the different options to upgrade the N11 to the M11 between J14 and J4 and in so doing sort out the pinch points of GOTD's and Kilmac.

Perhaps a new thread in relation to the mess that is the bus and rail services that is forcing people into their cars would be useful.

This is it in a nutshell. A lot of the people throwing out ideas, alternatives or just objecting to the scheme on fb seem to be missing the main reasoning behind this upgrade. There is too much interaction between local traffic and mainline traffic.
Yes public transport is needed, but simply turning hard shoulders into buslanes will only exasperate the situation and make it even more dangerous for all users.
Local people think this is their road, they've used it for decades, they forget that its a main route and don't see it in the same context as the other inter urban motorways.

sideswipe

The road is a main artery to an ever growing area of the country yet it has been ploughed through a nature reserve and splits a village in half. You literally have people’s drive ways exiting directly onto it. Speed limits range from 120 to 60 and the road is overly twisty as a number of trees had to be saved in the glen.

Of course public transportation needs to be improved but not instead of fixing the road, it needs to be done In tandem with it- not just for now, for 10- 20+ years time.

Jayuu

I may have missed it but is there a link somewhere to the route options? Couldn't seem to find anything when searching for it.

SeanW

loyatemu wrote: »

there's already a separate thread on the Bray-Greystones line.

whilst the public consultation pays some lip-service to public transport, it does seem mostly focussed on "how do we upgrade the road" when it should be "how do we move Wicklow commuters more efficiently" because ultimately it's commuters we're talking about here. The existing road is more than sufficient to serve Wexford and Rosslare apart from about 2 hours a day in each direction. No amount of extra lanes will fix the commuting issue without a focus on public transport as well.

For the last time:

1. Not all roads - including motorways - are built to facilitate commuters. This can be verified by looking at a road map of Ireland for 5 seconds.
2. So far as I am aware, no-one is claiming that a new motorway route is going to fix everything. As far as I am aware, most on this forum do see the need for and are in support of public transport.
3. In places the current route tries to be both a long distance road and village street. It fails as both. Just look at Kilmacanoge. This is why a motorway bypass is/should be considered.

Again - and it seems necessary to repeat the point - this is about more than commuters. Again, look at this mess and explain - in the context of that - why a bypass should not be considered.

SeanW

Jayuu wrote: »

I may have missed it but is there a link somewhere to the route options? Couldn't seem to find anything when searching for it.

Yes, prunudo posted a link from their website in an earlier post:

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=111752791&postcount=296
which in turn linked to here:
https://n11m11.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/265455-ARP-GEN-SWI-DR-CH-001_PC2_Corridor-Options.pdf

Basically, red route is online upgrades with other colours suggesting new offline motorway in parts.

Skyfloater

The realignment of the N11 and creation of a separated lane for the South bound filling station at Kilmac was supposed to start this month. Has this been shelved now, anyone know?

prunudo

Skyfloater wrote: »

The realignment of the N11 and creation of a separated lane for the South bound filling station at Kilmac was supposed to start this month. Has this been shelved now, anyone know?

Still going ahead afaik, think there some concerns about the design from cycling groups.
Any upgrade of jn4-14 is a long way off so this will be a welcome medium term relief.

loyatemu

SeanW wrote: »

Again - and it seems necessary to repeat the point - this is about more than commuters. Again, look at this mess and explain - in the context of that - why a bypass should not be considered.

A bypass of Kilmac may be an option (my main concern is the plans around GotD). I think Kilmac could also be fixed with a rebuild of J8 and new link roads - there's ample space to the south of the current flyover to build a proper junction. As I've said in previous posts, most of the unnumbered accesses could be closed tomorrow - the 3 at Kilpedder for example as all those roads can be accessed from J11. Quill Road LILO could be closed - it's accessible from J8 and J9. etc.

Any proposals to widen the road to 6 lanes all the way to Ashford is absolutely about commuters. 6 lanes to J7 is probably required to resolve the merging problems with the M50 (and there is a plan for that dating back years), but beyond that it would just be catering to suburban sprawl.

Macy0161

prunudo wrote:

Still going ahead afaik, think there some concerns about the design from cycling groups.

And resident access. But cyclists completely left out of the design, and actually put in a more dangerous position, with a lack of realistic alternatives.

loyatemu wrote: »

Any proposals to widen the road to 6 lanes all the way to Ashford is absolutely about commuters. 6 lanes to J7 is probably required to resolve the merging problems with the M50 (and there is a plan for that dating back years), but beyond that it would just be catering to suburban sprawl.

It's totally about commuters. Outside of rush hours, N/M11 is fine both ways and can more than cope with volumes, unless there is an incident.

sideswipe

loyatemu wrote: »

Any proposals to widen the road to 6 lanes all the way to Ashford is absolutely about commuters. 6 lanes to J7 is probably required to resolve the merging problems with the M50 (and there is a plan for that dating back years), but beyond that it would just be catering to suburban sprawl.

Macy0161 wrote: »

And resident access. But cyclists completely left out of the design, and actually put in a more dangerous position, with a lack of realistic alternatives.


It's totally about commuters. Outside of rush hours, N/M11 is fine both ways and can more than cope with volumes, unless there is an incident.

There is a strong argument for doing it correctly now. It may be fine outside rush hour now but will only get worse. People are being forced to buy/rent/commute from further and further out, what will it be like in 20 yrs?

Of course people will say building more roads will only make traffic worse but building decent roads has a big part to play along with public transport.

Another thing that should happen is an Leinster orbital route further out from the M50 to link M1, M2, M3, M4, M7 and back around to the M11 to give traffic an option of avoiding the M50 altogether. Ah sure while I'm at it move Dublin port to access this new road north of Dublin, free up Dublin port for housing with light rail connections so people can live close to work and give people tax breaks to use public transport and car pool:cool::D:p

prunudo

loyatemu wrote: »

A bypass of Kilmac may be an option (my main concern is the plans around GotD). I think Kilmac could also be fixed with a rebuild of J8 and new link roads - there's ample space to the south of the current flyover to build a proper junction . As I've said in previous posts, most of the unnumbered accesses could be closed tomorrow - the 3 at Kilpedder for example as all those roads can be accessed from J11. Quill Road LILO could be closed - it's accessible from J8 and J9. etc.

Any proposals to widen the road to 6 lanes all the way to Ashford is absolutely about commuters. 6 lanes to J7 is probably required to resolve the merging problems with the M50 (and there is a plan for that dating back years), but beyond that it would just be catering to suburban sprawl.

Are you proposing this new junction to be built on the marshy wetlands just to the south west of the current junction?