Limerick transport and travel projects

No, because there quite simply isn't a motorway from Limerick to Shannon. There will never be any public transport to Shannon from the Raheen side of town that doesn't use the R445 or similar alignment in the case of a train, so if you don't use the R445 at present, you'd have to go to town first before you catch the magic train adding even more time to your journey. Public transport from Raheen to Shannon just isn't viable.

waterwelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119903270#Comment_119903270

What are you being so silly for?

The speed limit for buses is 100km/h so whether it's called a motorway or dual carraigeway buses will still get to Shannon in the same transit time.

A time that will always be faster than a train journey that starts off in the direction of Waterford for about 2 miles then goes in a big meandering route.

Regarding Raheen, a bus from Mallow, Charleville, Croom, Mungret etc. to Shannon would be far more useful than a slow train.

Poxyshamrock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902716#Comment_119902716

The Limerick to Galway service is bursting at the seams these days. It’s nearly always standing room only so the rhetoric that’s been pushed about for the last 10 years is fairly outdated at this stage.

The numbers would no doubt grow even more if the services on the line were a) faster and b) more frequent.

Poxyshamrock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119869468#Comment_119869468

Counted dwell time at Sixmilebridge this evening out of curiosity. 46 seconds in total.

Cookiemunster

The final draft of the LSMATS has been published.

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/limerick-shannon/

After a quick glance, the main take out I can see related to the above discussion is that outside of the Ennis line, no other commuter services (ie the Foynes line) will be opened pre 2040 as the population density is too low. Moyross station will be built (which we already know) and they may add a station at the Parkway in the future. Ennis services should be 3 an hour (can't see that happening tbh).

A Shannon spur is aspirational, but it's not in the current plan.

They say that a new station with park and ride should be built at Ballysimon where the Dublin line crosses the N24 and that the line to the junction should be double tracked.

Bus wise they propose removing all private car traffic from O'Connell St and Sarsfield bridge, turning each into a two way bus corridor. I honestly don't see how this works without the NRR, but Ryan personally had that removed from the plan. Hopefully it gets revisited in two years time when he's out of office.

Cookiemunster

After a bit of further reading, they're proposing bus park and rides at M7: Newport Roundabout, M20/N21: Raheen, N18: Ennis Road and ƒN24: Ballysimon (rail and bus). I'm delighted with this as I been calling for it for years.

They're proposing a 10 minute frequency on the Raheen to UL via city center route and a 15 minute frequency on other routes. They'll need a lot more busses and drivers along with physical route improvements to get anywhere near that.

They're also fully behind the delivery of the M20 and the Limerick to Foynes road.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119944324#Comment_119944324

Its a good plan in regards to buses but will tough to implement.

Upgrading what is currently the 306 to 15mins will be great if they are also intelligent enough to put stops at the 2 hospitals neither of which have a stop on the inbound side.

pigtown

Some points of interest-

It's intended to entirely remove private cars from Sarsfield Bridge and provide high quality cycling infrastructure alongside bus lanes, it's also intended to make the cycle lane on the Shannon Bridge permanent, as well as build a new pedestrian and cycle bridge between the two.

Both O'Connell Street and Sarsfield Bridge projected to facilitate 3 buses every 2 minutes as two way bus corridors.

New train stations at Moyross and Ballysimon. 2 trains per hour on the Nenagh line, 3 per hour on the Ennis line.

Pedestrian bridge on Thomond Weir.

phog

Dream big, deliver small

Without completing the LNDR most of this won't happen.

I posted this on another forum and thought it might be of interest it, its my (very high level) review of the LSMATS, note I don't go down to the level of specific projects

The full document is available at

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/limerick-shannon/

Summary

The core measures are

• Improved frequency of public transport services to regeneration areas;
• The provision of safe and secure cycling facilities;
• The provision of pedestrian linkages to surrounding areas;
• Public realm improvements;
• Reducing the need to own a car and car dominance
• and Managing the movement of Heavy Goods Vehicles

Current mode share breaks down as follows with the planned shares listed also

• Public transport - 4% grow to 13%
• Walking - 23% grow to 33%
• Cycling - 3% grow to 10-15%
• Car - 70% reduce to 41%

The mode share %'s for PT and cars are not called out the same way so its hard to say what the post implementation % is aimed to be e.g. for bus it states "156% increase in AM peak bus passengers between 2016 & 2040". There are also totals for each of the above called out in various sections which conflict so the %'s are a bit of a mess to be honest but the overall picture is clear regardless of which source in the doc you pick, cars are getting squeezed out and sustainable modes are getting prioritised.

Walking

• Priority at junctions
• Increased permeability
• Improved accessibility measures in line with universal access standards
• Multiple audits of areas over the lifetime of the strategy to identify further opportunities for improvement

Cycling

• Bike lane network consisting of primary, secondary and feeder lanes with quality & safety level decreasing the further you move off primary
• Expanded bike share scheme
• Priority at traffic signals
• Increase in parking provision
• Inter-urban and greenway networks completed

Public Transport

Bus

• 4 P&R locations proposed(Ennis rd, M20 raheen, N24 Ballysimon & M7 Mackey)
• Bus connects
• Roll out priority measures at multiple junctions
• Higher frequency
• More routes

Rail

• Dual tracking between colbert & limerick junction
• upgrade Ballycar line
• Improve commuter rail
• New stations at Moyross and Ballysimon
• Increase frequency
• Upgrade existing stations

Cars

In terms of demand management for cars, theres a lot planned

• New developments, removal of parking requirements for near city and significantly reduced requirements for parking provision in suburbs
• Maximum parking provision will be applied in future
• Undeveloped residential on well served routes must be high density with low parking provision
• car-free area within 800m of Limerick city center
• A steady reduction in on-street parking until it is no longer provided (with a few exceptions e.g. blue badge spaces)
• Increase parking costs
• Increase costs of parking permits
• Alternatives to car ownership e.g. bike share, car clubs, bike storage, PT provision, P&R's
• Traffic signal optimization towards walking, cycling & PT and lower priority for main car lanes
• If the above does not lead to a significant modal shift congestion charges will be brought in to further discourage the use of cars in the city

One of the main drivers behind the measures planned is the strategy is now required to meet the national emissions reduction target of 50% emissions by 2030. The document as it stands states it can achieve a 35% reduction. It lists 3 options to achieve the last 15%

• Increase fuel prices to discourage the use of petrol/diesel
  • Ruled out as not feasible as it is controlled at a national level
• Increase the amount of emission free vehicles (cars & LGV & HGV) to include battery and hydrogen
  • Possible to do by working with the likes of delivery stakeholders and setting up hubs for last mile low emission delivery modes
  • Not likely to achieve the desired reduction though
• Implement a congestion charge/low emission zone/tolls
  • A feasible option which can significantly reduce the volume of emissions
  • Not for implementation, yet, but not ruled out for later application

More Pretty Pictures

There's loads I haven't covered and its about 150 pages long so feel free to waste a morning going through it yourselves

apc

What forum did you post this to? Would have thought it was only here and skyscrapercity that this could be relevant to

pigtown

A consultation on the proposed active travel scheme linking Colbert Station to the Park Canal will be held in the UL city campus on Wednesday 26th.

Will be available to view online that day too

https://www.innovision.ie/wickham2clarest

Cookiemunster

Will be interesting to see the proposals for this. The Leader have this image, which to me looks like the corner of Wickham St and Upper Gerald Griffin St.

I've said before that I'd love to see Wickham Street closed to traffic, but unfortunately that doesn't look like the plan. Roll on next Wednesday when all is revealed.

pigtown

I read somewhere that it's proposed to close a section of High Street to traffic which would be welcome.

LeoD

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120499502#Comment_120499502

We'll have to see the wider plan but I think you could drastically reduce the motor traffic volumes on Wickham St if you removed through traffic routes between William St and Parnell St but still allowed local traffic access for the businesses around here (filtering & local one way systems). That section of Wickham St in the image above I'd have as a one way exit onto Lwr Gerald Griffin St/Parnell St. Lwr Gerald Griffin St becomes 2 way again.

Vanquished

The image from the Council indicates a reversal of traffic flow on Wickham Street from Thomas Street to the junction with Gerald Griffin Street. It also looks like access from Parnell Street, Gerald Griffin and Sexton Street to Wickham Street is being extinguished. This would all suggest that the section of Wickham Street to William Street could be pedestrianised to accommodate a bi-directional cycle lane towards High Street and the canal.

Realistically there is no value in keeping any traffic on Wickham Street as the access provided is duplicated elsewhere. I imagine they're only doing it to placate the owners of that ugly surface car park at the top of Thomas Street. Although access to this can easily be facilitated via Roches Street, Anne Street and Thomas Street. You could then close the section of Thomas Street between Catherine Street and Anne Street to traffic (in addition to the obvious pedestrianisation of the stretch between Little William Street and Little Catherine Street). That also means that there would be little impediment to closing the portion of Catherine Street from Roches Street to Thomas Street to traffic also. Except of course for Limerick Council's devastating lack of ambition and vision. It would create a nice little pedestrianised cluster though.