NRA's data shows motorway unnecessary |
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Case study: N9N10 |
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In 1995 the daily traffic from Grannagh to Mullinavat was 5,500 vehicles. From Kilkenny to Paulstown it was about 6,000 vehicles per day and from Carlow to Castledermot it was 8,000. The NRA has not announced how big a motorway they plan to build. The new N9N10 could have a capacity of anything from 34,600 to 81,200 vehicles per day. The figure of 55,000 vehicles per day had been chosen as an intermediate value. If a conservative volume of 12,000 is taken for the existing N9N10 then the combined capacity in the year 2019 would be 67,000 vehicles per day. But the NRA, in its National Road Needs Study of 1998, projects that in 2019, the daily traffic from Grannagh to Mullinavat will only be 11,500, from Kilkenny to Paulstown between 10,500 and 16,000 vehicles per day and from Carlow to Castledermot 17,000 vehicles per day. According to the NRA, at no stretch of the new motorway will traffic reach much more than 25% of capacity in 20 years time. At many places traffic will be about 12% the capacity of the combined road network. Even if the a dual-carriage way is assumed, the capacity of which is given in the National Roads Needs Study as 34,600, traffic in 20 years time is estimated to be only about a third of total road capacity. Below is data extracted from Annex 2 page 2 of 8 of the National Road Needs Study (July 98)
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