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New Gort to Tuam motorway to begin before end of year
Updated: 18:39, Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Funds cleared for construction by Department of Public Expenditure
Work on the construction of new motorway between Gort and Tuam in Co Galway is to begin before the end of the year, after funding was approved for the project.
The Department of Public Expenditure has approved the allocation of money to cover the Exchequer element of the scheme.
The National Roads Authority says it will now re-engage with the preferred private contractor to complete the new N17/ N18 route.
The construction of a 57-km motorway - part of the so-called Atlantic Corridor on the west coast - will take thousands of vehicles out of Clarinbridge, Claregalway and Tuam each day.
It will be constructed as a Public Private Partnership project.
There will be no tolls on the route. Instead the State will pay the private contractors an annuity over 25 years.
The NRA says hundreds of jobs will be created during the construction process.
It is expected the motorway will take up to three years to complete at a cost of €550 million.
An environmental assessment of the proposed route has already been done, along with an archaeological review.
In addition, compulsory purchase orders required to develop the road have been completed.
The project stalled in 2010 when the bidders first selected as the private contractor were unable to secure funding to carry out the work, due to the economic downturn.
The contract was subsequently awarded to Direct Route - a group made up of several contractors including Lagan, Roadbridge and Sisk.
That consortium has already been involved in the construction of the Limerick Tunnel.
A spokesperson for Direct Route said this afternoon they were ready to start work on the Gort to Tuam motorway, pending completion of the procurement process.
I remember doing the economic assessment on it, way back when*.
*(When the Republic had money for highway schemes)
Might have been 2008? This scheme has not been on the table that long.
I think it's very important news because it illustrates that the economic situation has improved to the extent now where the private sector is able to engage with the state to kick start these projects again. They couldn't do that even 12 months a go. I'm pleased there will be no tolls on this road incidentally. Surprised.
What was the outcome of your economic assessment of the scheme btw?
Well going by that brochure I linked to, it might have been between 2003 and 2006 (when the Route Selection Report and Cost Estimate were first produced, and the Supplementary Route Selection report was published).
The M17 part of the scheme was approved by way of Motorway Order so it at least will be motorway unless they want to start the whole process again. The N18 part is not but presumably can and will be declared one under the Roads Act 2007.
The entire route - from Gort to Tuam - will be motorway. Between Gort and the junction with the M6 at Rathmorrisey it will be an extension of the existing M18 and from Rathmorrisey to Tuam will be the M17 motorway.
There has been no indication that the scheme has been downgraded from motorway to DC. The news about the scheme going ahead is very welcome indeed.
Slightly off topic , but what happened to the Western Rail corridor reopening.
I thought Fort was a station stop there . Wasn't it meant to go further or is this now sidelined for the road?.
I'm impressed that this is going ahead. Very good news not only for Ireland but also the construction industry. Is this the one where a roundabout interchange was proposed where it crosses the M6? Is that still the plan?
RE: Western Rail Corridor. Some of it is open but I have no idea of the status of it. Perhaps someone in the west is better placed to tell us.
On the M17/18/6 interchange - the contract is design and build so the consortium could well change it. Most new mway schemes proposed have large freeflow junctions at other mway/dc interchanges now - some have been rebuilt - on the M50, for example, junction designs were changed after the contract was awarded. So it does happen. Have to wait and see.
Services are proposed at that interchange which leads me to believe it could be changed because otherwise it simply would not work.
odlum wrote:RE: Western Rail Corridor. Some of it is open but I have no idea of the status of it. Perhaps someone in the west is better placed to tell us.
It is open between Limerick and Galway (the section between Limerick and Ennis was only briefly closed anyway) but north of Ennis doesn't pull in any sort of numbers - only 95 a day.
Apparently it would be cheaper to taxi them all. This has more or less killed any prospect of any further sections reopening though for political reasons the bit already open is likely to remain open.
Great news. As this is design and build I wonder how much contractor design has still to be done. Any indication of when we could see earthworks starting?
There are small stubs of the future sliproads on the M6 for the Rathmorrisey interchange, so any new junction design would probably try to use these and limit the amount of work on the M6. However if a freeflow junction saves money on expensive structures over a 3 level stack (at least 5 bridges) then modifications to the existing carriageway might not be out of the question.
For a motorway with relatively low flows I've seen the 'double trumpet' type used often in France, many with toll booths on the connecting dual carriageway. Not sure but there might be one somewhere with a service area too.
Ennis-Athenry is under threat, I think, together with Limerick Junction-Waterford and Limerick-Ballybrophy via Nenagh. The political situation is very serious for the three quiet lines there.
odlum wrote:RE: Western Rail Corridor. Some of it is open but I have no idea of the status of it. Perhaps someone in the west is better placed to tell us.
On the M17/18/6 interchange - the contract is design and build so the consortium could well change it. Most new mway schemes proposed have large freeflow junctions at other mway/dc interchanges now - some have been rebuilt - on the M50, for example, junction designs were changed after the contract was awarded. So it does happen. Have to wait and see.
Services are proposed at that interchange which leads me to believe it could be changed because otherwise it simply would not work.
The services at the M6/M17/M18 interchange weren't given planning permission by An Bord Pleanala, so won't be built.
The interchange itself is a three-level stacked roundabout, rather than an at-grade roundabout (in case anyone was confused!). At least the mainlines will be free-flowing, and I'm guessing the level of turning traffic isn't going to be high enough to cause congestion. Someone on boards.ie wrote to the NRA design office responsible for the design, berating them for the interchange choice. I recall they received a reply with forecast traffic levels for each of the turning movements that seemed to indicate that a roundabout was plenty good.
csd wrote:I recall they received a reply with forecast traffic levels for each of the turning movements that seemed to indicate that a roundabout was plenty good.
I've had the exact same conversation with Roads Service about their decision to keep the at-grade roundabouts on the Toome Bypass despite the roads to either side due to be upgraded to Category 6 dual-carriageway, and despite the Public Inquiry inspector recommending that they be replaced with a GSJ.
I could quite believe that they are right that a three level stacked roundabout would be sufficient to handle the flows. But that in and of itself should not be the last word on the matter. There's also the matter of general driver experience and journey speed. On a rural motorway-to-motorway crossover interchange I don't think it's unreasonable for drivers to expect to make a movement like that without stopping. Would it really cost much more to build a parclo? A three level stacked roundabout requires up to 12 bridges, if each carriageway is separate, so it's not as if it's a comparatively minor piece of work. A common problem with parclos is that they take up a bit more land, but that's hardly going to be in issue in rural Connacht. They require only half the number of bridges, and don't soar so high into the air. Three level stacks are very hard to improve if future traffic flows go up (inevitably getting saddled with traffic lights and left-turn jet lanes) and, despite planning being refused, sooner or later someone will succeed in getting an access onto the roundabout at which point all hope for freeflow will be lost for the decades to come. The NRA failed to learn from the experience of the rest of Europe when building the M50, adding loads of roundabout junctions that were never going to work long term, and this looks like a similar sort of decision.
