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

SeanW

loyatemu wrote: »

what exactly does that mean though - how do you future proof a road upgrade when it is well established that increased capacity generates increased traffic? No amount of capacity is enough - it's the wrong approach.

Again, can you please explain how replacing a 2 lanes + hard shoulder each way dual carriageway with a 2 lanes + hard shoulder each way motorway would create more room for hordes of evil nasty car commuters?

Because if you'd have us believe that this would be the result, you need to explain it. I submit also that if public transport is such a bad idea that you have to bludgeon people into using it by having a useless, dysfunctional road network as the alternative, then that's a really poor argument for investing in public transport.

Yet if you had ever tried to reach the area around Dublin Pearse or Stephens Green for say 8:45 AM on a Green line luas or literally any of the Irish Rail inner commuter or DART services, you would be aware that there are no shortage of Irish people who actually do want to use public transport. Such people do not, in fact, need to bludgeoned into it by jumped-up mini-Stalins. The problem is lack of investment in public transport and that is to some extent a separate issue, in the sense that it needs to be addressed on its own. I also submit that anyone who is a member/supporter of the Green Party isn't really qualified to condemn road building when Eamon Ryan caused the Metro Link scheme to be cut in half and made sure that the Green Line would never be upgraded to Metro.

Also, do you want to continue leaving a motorway gap on the M11 for no aparent reason? If so, why is it essential that the M11 should have Ireland's equivalent of the Cumberland Gap? And why do you want to leave the mixing of long distance and local street usage (because in places the N11 has features of a street) on such a heavily used, long distance route?

josip

I'm lucky enough to be only occasionally affected by the N11 traffic congestion and not have to face it every day.
The N11 has seen massive investment over the past 30 years and is unrecognisable from the N11 I first drove upon to Dublin.
How much investment has the rail line south of Bray seen in that time?

prunudo

josip wrote: »

I'm lucky enough to be only occasionally affected by the N11 traffic congestion and not have to face it every day.
The N11 has seen massive investment over the past 30 years and is unrecognisable from the N11 I first drove upon to Dublin.
How much investment has the rail line south of Bray seen in that time?

Bar electrifying Bray to Greystones and general upkeep, sfa.

SeanW

machaseh wrote: »

Which ones would it? I've coloured them red. Mind, you I am NOT against building a motorway to increase road safety in the area and get long distance and heavy traffic out of the village. But improving public transportation should be the priority here.

I think most here agree that public transport around Dublin is not up-to-scratch but you might be over-estimating what can be done. The fact that we cannot even get the so-called Green Party to support the Dublin Metro suggests that large scale investment in public transport is going to be a serious problem.

ECONOMY
Fewer commuters on the road, so more space for lorries and long distance traffic.

You'd have to remove a lot of commuters, but the fundamental problem of a national road going through villages, private accesses etc, would still remain. So the actual core problem cannot be solved this way.

Improve connectivity with the wider European market by reliability of journey time between ports and ease of movement Fewer commuters = more space for lorries, as well as more possibilities for freight trains on the railway line and more passenger trains to Rosslare Europort.

Ireland has almost no rail freight because rail freight is best suited bulk loads. Ireland has very few of these without large amounts of heavy industry. Improving the railway to Rosslare will not make it an alternative to trucks. I think there's also some EU rule preventing the government from subsidising rail freight as we did in the past.

Improve resilience of the Irish market by improving connectivity to Rosslare Europort and the wider European market
Fewer commuters = more space for lorries, as well as more possibilities for freight trains on the railway line and more passenger trains to Rosslare Europort.

The Rosslare line has very severe problems for the movement of passengers. It curently takes Irish Rail 3 hours to run a train from Dublin Connolly to Rosslare Harbour, covering a distance of less than 100 miles. In addition, due to increased security requirements in recent years CIE/Irish rail had to give up its integrated station/ferry set up at the port, and built a new "Rosslare Europort" station that was considerably further from the pier. Just another reason why someone going to the UK is better off to fly, or use the bus or private car to the port if they're sailing.

Generate positive economic benefits to road users:
Reducing journey times; and Trains could be sped up by several orders of magnitude getting people from country wicklow into Dublin much quicker. Even remaining road users will face less congestion and thus better journey times.

I'm not sure that you are aware what an order of magnitude is? Simply put, an order of magnitude is a power of 10. To increase something by an order of magnitude is to multiply it by 10, 2 orders of magnitude is by 100, 3 orders means multiply by 1000 etc. And the same reduce by reducing X by Y orders of magnitude, e.g. if you owed €1m in debt but reduced that by 3 orders of magnitude, that would be awesome because you would only owe €1,000.

If you do actually have a public transport plan that will cut Wicklow commuter times by a factor of 100, or 1000 (2 or 3 orders of magnitude) then I'd imagine there would be plenty of people that would like to hear about it!

Improving journey time reliability.
Fewer train delays due to lack of capacity on the railway line, and less congestion on the road due to less commuters.

I may have a copy of the Strategic Rail Review from 2003, but IIRC the problems with the Rosslare line in terms of upgrading were the most serious. It has a number of very serious problems that will make the type of upgrades you are referring to very difficult and expensive - bordering on unfeasible if not outright so.

1. The section it shares with the DART is heavily congested and has serious speed restrictions, e.g. around Dun Laoghaire.
2. Line hugs the coast making many upgrades difficult.
3. Line has to deal with mountains and other rapid changes in elevation.
4. Had problems with curvature owing to the above factors, it is slow and indirect.

That's not to say that things cannot be done, for example the single track between Bray and Greystones is in danger of being washed away by the sea and even as it exists only allows a very restricted service to points South of Bray given that it's single track that cannot be doubled. To fix those problems would require a new twin-track tunnel further inland at the cost of hundreds of millions - but that would only fix the lines problems between Bray and Greystones. Actually making the Rosslare line competitive again for long distance users would basically involve rebuilding it almost from scratch. And if that kind of money was available, there would be much better uses for it in the short to medium term, Dart Underground, Dublin Metro and so on).

The rest there is all predicated on solving the same problems, but of course would do nothing about the fact that the existing road would still be peppered with online villages and private accesses and so on. No matter how much money you spend on railways, Kilmac will still be a mess, that garden centre will still be a mess and there will still be a Cumberland Gap in the M11.

josip

SeanW, you seem preoccupied with improving the rail line to Rosslare, whereas most people on here who are suggesting improvements to the rail line are only considering to just beyond Wicklow town.

Nothing of what needs to be done is impossible, just expensive.
We seem to have developed a fear of tunnels in Ireland for some reason.
Maybe it's chronic short-termism, but its very limiting whatever the reason.

Nobody seems to know the actual estimated cost of tunnelling Bray Head, but yet you'll find many references saying "prohibitively" expensive and "uneconomical".

loyatemu

josip wrote: »

Nobody seems to know the actual estimated cost of tunnelling Bray Head, but yet you'll find many references saying "prohibitively" expensive and "uneconomical".

tunnelling costs discussed here

prunudo

One thing that seems to being ignored is the knock on effects of dumping 100s or 1000s of extra rail users onto an already stretched Dart line. Same goes for the people on fb who suggest an extension of Luas to run parallel with n11 with little thought for the effect further along the line.
The more I look into this upgrade its so more complex than the sound bite ideas people and politicians are throwing out without a care or thought for the engineering and real life implications involved.

donvito99

prunudo wrote: »

One thing that seems to being ignored is the knock on effects of dumping 100s or 1000s of extra rail users onto an already stretched Dart line. Same goes for the people on fb who suggest an extension of Luas to run parallel with n11 with little thought for the effect further along the line.
The more I look into this upgrade its so more complex than the sound bite ideas people and politicians are throwing out without a care or thought for the engineering and real life implications involved.

And yet doubling the road capacity onto unchanged N11s and M50s is also ignored.

This country is no different to any other country in the world, and adding more roads will not relieve traffic. Nor will a motorway standard road for a few kilometres have any material impact on the economy or safety worth the enormous expense and opportunity cost.

hometruths

prunudo wrote: »

One thing that seems to being ignored is the knock on effects of dumping 100s or 1000s of extra rail users onto an already stretched Dart line.

Indeed, and anybody thinking of upgrading capacity on the Dart line needs to think about the provision for parking these extra cars in Greystones and the effect of the traffic coming off the mainline into Greystones all at the same time.

Once they have solved that problem they would do well to pause and consider the benefits of this arrangement vs a motorway that can handle in the region of 2000 cars per hour per lane.

donvito99

schmittel wrote: »

Indeed, and anybody thinking of upgrading capacity on the Dart line needs to think about the provision for parking these extra cars in Greystones and the effect of the traffic coming off the mainline into Greystones all at the same time.

Once they have solved that problem they would do well to pause and consider the benefits of this arrangement vs a motorway that can handle in the region of 2000 cars per hour per lane.

It's actually incredible that some here dismiss the public transport solution because of capacity constraints beyond Greystones and Brides Glen and ignore the existing road capacity constraints north of where this new alignment will end rejoin the M11...

hometruths

donvito99 wrote: »

It's actually incredible that some here dismiss the public transport solution because of capacity constraints beyond Greystones and Brides Glen and ignore the existing road capacity constraints north of where this new alignment will end rejoin the M11...

You quoted my post but I am not sure you address the point I made in it?

And if you read my previous posts you will see I am in support of a new motorway section precisely because i believe it will allow the best improvement to public transport solutions by providing them on the existing N11.

SeanW

donvito99 wrote: »

And yet doubling the road capacity onto unchanged N11s and M50s ...

Who is proposing to do that?

prunudo

donvito99 wrote: »

And yet doubling the road capacity onto unchanged N11s and M50s is also ignored.

This country is no different to any other country in the world, and adding more roads will not relieve traffic. Nor will a motorway standard road for a few kilometres have any material impact on the economy or safety worth the enormous expense and opportunity cost.

Where is the evidence that they are doubling the capacity? The upgrade is primarily about improving the safety of the road by separating mainline and local traffic. Of course the impact on the m50 should be looked but people are shouting public transport as if its a magic unicorn that once implemented every commuter will give their car up for.

Chris_5339762

prunudo wrote: »

Bar electrifying Bray to Greystones and general upkeep, sfa.

Plus the odd rerouting when a bit collapses.


Dual track to Greystones at least, possibly Arklow. Now. Full tunnel right through to Bray. Any other country would have done it by now.

donvito99

prunudo wrote: »

Where is the evidence that they are doubling the capacity? The upgrade is primarily about improving the safety of the road by separating mainline and local traffic. Of course the impact on the m50 should be looked but people are shouting public transport as if its a magic unicorn that once implemented every commuter will give their car up for.

Well they are sticking in a 2 + 2 road to bolster a 2 + 2 road...

And as for public transport being a magic unicorn... where roads are empty people will drive, so much so that they will soon fill up. The only known way to increase the amount of people entering the city centre in less time does not involve the private motor car. It's true for every other city and Dublin and the GDA is no different.

prunudo

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Plus the odd rerouting when a bit collapses.


Dual track to Greystones at least, possibly Arklow. Now. Full tunnel right through to Bray. Any other country would have done it by now.

I don't know what the reluctance to do it or the very least to survey it to see is it possible and what it would cost.

Pete_Cavan

prunudo wrote: »

I don't know what the reluctance to do it or the very least to survey it to see is it possible and what it would cost.

While there is an incredibly expensive road replacement project on the cards, the incredibly expensive rail replacement on the same corridor won't get a look in. Given the costs involved both can't be justified when just about every other part of the country is crying out for infrastructure investment. The road is a distraction from real solutions.

prunudo

But the road upgrade is a relatively new endeavor. Even over the last 10 years there's been little to no mention of them even looking into increasing capacity south of Bray. Its as if Irish rail aren't interested.

Pete_Cavan

prunudo wrote: »

But the road upgrade is a relatively new endeavor. Even over the last 10 years there's been little to no mention of them even looking into increasing capacity south of Bray. Its as if Irish rail aren't interested.

Irish Rail get a few scraps from the table, hardly surprising that they are not ambitious. Roads get all the money. Until we stop looking at massive road projects to solve congestion and put that money into public transport, nothing will change.

josip

I think (rightly or wrongly) that Wicklow has been reluctant to allow itself become a commuter county for Dublin and wants to retain its own identity.
North Wexford has been less reluctant however and at the end of the Celtic tiger era a lot of affordable starter homes were constructed in Gorey and Enniscorthy that are now occupied by commuters.
So despite, or even because of its efforts, to not become commuterville, it now has a very significant problem around Kilmacanogue.
But is there political-will in Wicklow to address the problem?

Why hasn't any in-government North Wicklow TD of the last 20 years been able to secure budget for double tracking to Greystones?
Brendan Howlin got a €230m bypass for 12,000 daily vehicles through New Ross as well as getting the Enniscorthy bypass prioritised.
Is there a reluctance to improve the transport infrastructure to Dublin because Wicklow people fear they will go the same way as Kildare/Meath/Louth?

sideswipe

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Irish Rail get a few scraps from the table, hardly surprising that they are not ambitious. Roads get all the money. Until we stop looking at massive road projects to solve congestion and put that money into public transport, nothing will change.

Irish rail is not presently set up to roll out a massive overhaul/upgrade on the rail network. It is a money pit. If people think you could give them the money to double track and electrify the line south of Bray and hey presto......there’s no need to do anything with the n11 they are deluded.
The line from bray to howth is slow and congested with numerous level crossings that bring motorists, buses, pedestrians and cyclists into conflict for priority of movement along it’s path. Irish rail made announcements asking commuters to stagger their journeys in the mornings to take the pressure off the network....basically asking users to go to work/school/college early or late.
These issues need fixing but I’ll say it again- so does the road.

prunudo

Was doing a bit of digging regarding traffic numbers on the road. Have a look through the link below for the year so far. Its a complete myth that the road is only used by commuters. The total day time figures are over 3k/hr (just shy between 10-11am) and extend to over 4k in the evening rush.
The morning northbound figures are interesting though, as they are lower than the evening southbound yet the congestion is always worse in the morning. Could this congestion be caused by local journeys by people joining and exiting after only 1 minor junction?
Or it also be that with so many extra vehicles joining further ahead between jn8 and jn5 its causing a back log further south and restricting the flow.

https://www.nratrafficdata.ie/c2/tfhourdirection.asp?sgid=ZvyVmXU8jBt9PJE$c7UXt6&spid=NRA_000000020112&reportdate=2019-01-01&enddate=2019-12-07

Another thing I noticed is that on the other counters the traffic rises to 71k after jn6 and 79k after jn5.

Edit: just to add the data I linked to was from a counter between jn8 and jn9. But as jn9 isn't heavily used the figures would be pretty similar through the Glen.

Pete_Cavan

prunudo wrote: »

The morning northbound figures are interesting though, as they are lower than the evening southbound yet the congestion is always worse in the morning.

Most likely due to the N11 traffic feeding into already congested roads on approach to Dublin. There just isn't space for all these cars. This is why extra lanes into Dublin will make little or no difference, as the N7 has proven.

prunudo

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Most likely due to the N11 traffic feeding into already congested roads on approach to Dublin. There just isn't space for all these cars. This is why extra lanes into Dublin will make little or no difference, as the N7 has proven.

True although another factor must be all the local journeys that are taking place for school runs. These short journeys on the n11 where people join and exit are effecting the flow of mainline traffic.

loyatemu

prunudo wrote: »

True although another factor must be all the local journeys that are taking place for school runs. These short journeys on the n11 where people join and exit are effecting the flow of mainline traffic.

they're probably not helping, but I wouldn't overestimate the effect of the school run. The vast majority of the kids going to school in places like Newtown and Ashford live in or near those towns, or up the hills behind them. They're probably not using the N11 to get to school.

Most of the schoolkids in cars on the N11 in the morning are probably being dropped to private schools closer to town by parents on the way to work.

As I've said earlier, they certainly should close the unnumbered junctions and build service roads to remove some of the local traffic. I don't think it will have a dramatic effect on peak-time traffic, but it will make the road safer overall and flow better off-peak.

Reati

loyatemu wrote: »

they're probably not helping, but I wouldn't overestimate the effect of the school run. The vast majority of the kids going to school in places like Newtown and Ashford live in or near those towns, or up the hills behind them. They're probably not using the N11 to get to school.

Most of the schoolkids in cars on the N11 in the morning are probably being dropped to private schools closer to town by parents on the way to work.

I absolutely would disagree. I have commuted this route for far too long and each year like clockwork I can see my commute shorten drastically when the schools are off vs when they are in.

prunudo

Reati wrote: »

I absolutely would disagree. I have commuted this route for far too long and each year like clockwork I can see my commute shorten drastically when the schools are off vs when they are in.

Yeah, agree. See it every day, numerous cars with school kids joining at Drummin and exiting Barry's bridge, bringing the kids from Kilpedder and Willow Grove to schools in Delgany or Greystones. Same joining at Kilmacanogue and exiting at Kilcroney to go to Bray schools. The short local journeys are playing havoc with flow.

loyatemu

Reati wrote: »

I absolutely would disagree. I have commuted this route for far too long and each year like clockwork I can see my commute shorten drastically when the schools are off vs when they are in.

when the schools are off, every teacher, 3rd level student, lecturer etc is also off, and many families take their holidays at this time. It's always massively quieter on every route.

I'm not saying there aren't kids being dropped to school on the N11, the question was whether schools were generating short trips (e.g. from one junction to the next) that could be removed with local link roads.

I can't think of an example where a village or area is in the catchment for a school in another area that would necessitate using the N11. e.g. kids in Kilpedder would have to use the N11 to go to school in Newtown, but that's going against the traffic. Secondary school kids in Newtown probably attend schools in Kilcoole and Greystones, neither of which require using the N11 (and a lot of them would get the bus anyway).

loyatemu

prunudo wrote: »

Yeah, agree. See it every day, numerous cars with school kids joining at Drummin and exiting Barry's bridge, bringing the kids from Kilpedder and Willow Grove to schools in Delgany or Greystones. Same joining at Kilmacanogue and exiting at Kilcroney to go to Bray schools. The short local journeys are playing havoc with flow.

if they're going to Greystones it would make more sense to use J11 and the R774. If they're going to Delgany NS then it might be quicker via Barry's Bridge alright - closing the minor junctions and forcing all Kilpedder traffic to use J11 would stop that.

Kilmac, you have a point, a link rd from J8 to J7 could take some of the traffic, but they might decide to use the N11 anyway. A rearrangement of the mess at Kilmac could encourage Bray traffic to use a new link road.

Better organised school buses for these villages that don't have their own schools should be considered, I think at the moment kids are expected to use scheduled Dublin Bus services.

prunudo

Sense and theory are all well good but in practice that isn't the way people travel. You have to remember that there was huge local opposition to closing the Drummin median back in 2003 as the Willow grove residents felt they were being cut off from their village (Willow Grove is technically Delgany). Until these minor road junctions are closed people will continue to use them.
But alternatives need to be provided as all you end up doing is cutting off communities even further. Due to the design of this stetch of road plus no real other routes we have a high capacity national route thats doubling as a local road. But it seems that any upgrade is for the benefit of mainline route (righly so because that's with it is) but at the expense of the communities it goes through.