The route for a £140 million motorway between Nenagh and Limerick will be recommended next month by a consultancy team which now has two main options to choose between.
At a meeting in Killaloe the public was given details of the two proposed routes, both of which have two variants. About 400 landowners will be subject to compulsory purchase orders in Co Limerick and Co Tipperary. Greater sums are expected to be paid for the richer farmland if the northern option is chosen.
Under the National Development Plan there will be toll charges on the new 17-mile section of the M7, which will replace the existing national primary route.
It will be connected with the newly completed Nenagh bypass and Limerick's Southern Ring Road which is under construction.
The motorway, which will run to the east of Birdhill, is expected to be completed by 2006.
"We expect that the decision for it will be completed by about September. It will go to An Bord Pleanala at the end of the year. We would hope construction would begin in 2003," Mr Ciaran Hegarty, a senior engineer with Limerick County Council, said.
He added that the two-lane Nenagh bypass, which opened earlier this year, would be widened and an interchange for Thurles installed. "It is now proposed to turn it into a dual carriageway by putting a barrier down the centre and using the hard shoulders as a second lane." A northern and southern option are being considered and, although running in parallel with each other within a few miles, will have varying effects on traffic flows.
Mr Yvon Colin, project manager with the French consultancy group Scetau route, said the existing section of the N7 takes 12,000 vehicles daily, a figure expected to grow to 17,000 by 2005. If the 16.5-mile northern motorway option is chosen, it would take 18,000 vehicles daily by 2025 and the N7, 7,000 vehicles. This option would also use the entire Nenagh bypass and would be more attractive for motorists wishing to enter Limerick at Castletroy. According to estimates, the 19.5-mile southern option, which runs through poorer agricultural land, would take 13,000 vehicles daily in 2025, with the N7 taking 12,000 vehicles. But Mr Hegarty said it would be "an easier route in terms of community impact". Mr Colin said the N7 would take on the status of a regional road which could open it up for residential development. Two alternative tolling systems are being considered. In one, motorists would pay at point of exit for the distance travelled.
In the other, motorists would pay a flat fee. With the proposed Shannon tunnel also toll-paying, motorists travelling from Nenagh to Shannon Airport would pay twice on a 30-mile trip.