Motorways in Ireland
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- PVC King wrote:Darkman read the thread I have already stated that fact]
All these junctions are getting equally major upgrades under the shceme as it is anyway.
Do they have planning consent for that? The only valid EIS considered 3 Junctions receiving heavy segregarion.
The traffic flows aren’t small PVC, i take it your not a regular user !? should they remain, the backup & impact on through traffic has huge knock on implications.
I consider the money spent to be an investment not a waste, it will be sufficient imo to manage traffic flows efficiently.
I’m aware of the budget projections, but given the experience of other years wont be listening to them despite the moderating economic environment, budget neutral i reckon.
Either way money is not the reason for the low priority given to the interconnector, i haven’t heard the insufficient funds excuse used by government for the last 10 years, its all about will … they don’t see many votes in the interconnector because most of the general public don’t have a clue what it is … whereas the words Red and Cow are engrained in everyones psyche.
Its true that the other junctions are getting similar but less extensive upgrades in phase 2 & these were included in the original EIS.
Totally agree that it is about political will; it is about the will to invest in unnecessary facilitation of single junction use of the M50.
Would you use the M50 for less than a mile if measures were taken to reserve it for people using it for 5 junctions plus?
I find your justification of this completelt me fein. There is no interconnector, a stalled metro and Kildare route project scaled back by 65% and you talk about abundent resources.
Farcical
As i’ve said it is the primary access point to n7, i.e the entire south of the country for anyone living on the southside of this city, lights at this point effect the basic functioning of the motorway & would negate benefits from the extra through lanes. If you think lights & at grade luas is ok, thats up to you. We would rue any such decision and spend far more sorting it later, and we’ve done plenty of that in our time.
You know full well the m50 is primarily a distributor road at this stage, thats not going to change, the mistakes are long made & junctions like ballymount cannot be realistically eliminated as they should be. Surrounding local roads are all way past capacity.
The me fein snipe is a load of cak. Its not about money but government policy. The upgrade is essential, you ignore the cost to the city of a congested M50.
At no point did i suggest the upgrade should take priority over or at the expense of the interconnector or other essential rail projects, they’re completely unrelated.
I’ve been banging on about the interconnector for years, written to TD’s, gone to meetings ( and just for the record its fairly unlikely that i will ever directly benefit from its construction ).
There is no reason, but government policy, why essential rail projects can’t be given priority.think we’ll leave it there !
You would say that I come out of the tube and see you’ve thrown in the towel!!!!!!!!!!!
The NRA made a bollox of it the first time leaving Luas at grade: they then spend €200m extra routing free-flow junctions into the city centre to facilitate commuters using a junction here and a junction there. All that was required was to give people from the regions quick access to the airport and national primary network.
What was that expression Ctesiphon used? When €200m is wasted like that you know that Cullen isn’t far away. Any word on che breannan sorting out drinking water for the oaps in Galway?
Priorities
jaysus people that was an awful heated debate over a few bridges and slip roads here and there!!
anyway the great irony is that the Dublin County Engineers in the 1980’s designed all junctions on the M50 as free-flow, only to have their designs shafted by government. All the while Pee Flynn was shaking hands in the next room with NTR on one of the most outrageous deals ever undertaken by any government…
Although I agree with the principles outlined by PVC, we have to be able to accept that things change as projects progress. This is a monster undertaking and there will be more episodes such as this along the way. Hopefully not too many.
However all of the following things are more necessary than the M50 upgrade, and will be more advantageous economically and socially to Greater Dublin, but have been delayed and/or shelved
Metro North
Metro West
Northside radial LUAS
Bray LUAS and Metro upgrade
Interconnector
Kildare Route Project
Tallaght Metro
Second Southside LUAS
Extra busesPersonally, I just do not understand Ireland’s motorway building ‘policy’ at all.
How long are we building now? Yet we must be one of the only countries in Western Europe not to have a direct moroway link between our two main cities (i.e. Dublin and Cork)
The routes make no sense at all, duplication of routings as motorways operate in near parallel out of Dublin following the ancient lines of the old N-Road system instead of building new efficient routings that actually might have regional benefit.
I simply can’t understand how we keep building these little by-passes.
I’ve always suspected that the projects are being drip-fed as otherwise, Irish contractors wouldn’t be big enough to take on an entire motorway project thus “friends of certain political parties” may be left out of the loop…
Whoever though that it was a reasonable sollution to use roundabout junctions on the M50 was clearly living on another planet. It was completely stupid, short sighted and purely idiotic. There’s no insufficient space for proper cloverleaf sollutions which ought to have been built in the first place and even if they weren’t they should have at least reserved the necessary land!!
We’ll now have sort of half-baked cloverleafs that do the job, but in a convoluted stacked way.The signage on the M50, (bar the newest bit) is an absolute digrace and causes chaos at junctions as the M50 commuters mix with those of us who only use the road occasionally. The commuters all know which lane to be in and when someone who’s not quite so familar with the mess that is Blanchardstown’s interchanges you get blasted out of it as you weren’t in lane 8km before a sign which is so small that you can only read it from 50 meters away.
The same applies to a lot of the N roads too.
On other traffic issues (to just diverge slightly off topic)
Dublin *still* seems to have a largely timed traffic light system. Putting in a smart system would actually drastically reduce traffic and queing times at lights. I cannot understand why this hasn’t been given priority. Even Cork has 92 nodes of Siemens’ / Peak’s SCOOT system fully implemented which has reduced queing times and pre-empted traffic growth. 92 nodes covers basically all intersections (each node handles more than a single junction)
Dublin, meanwhile, has gone for SCATS, which is vastly inferior and patchily implemented. SCOOT can actually detect how long queues are, intelligently work out flow patterns etc etc. SCATS can only see cars as they pass the stop line!!! It’s an enormous difference as it means the Cork system can actually tell if there are long queues waiting and work out priorities on all junctions.
SCOOT’s used extensively in the UK e.g. 1600 nodes in London (also 55 nodes in Belfast,)
You can see the difference, Cork traffic lights are setup logically and seem to optimise flow. Dublin’s clearly aren’t.Info on scoot : http://www.scoot-utc.com/DetailedHowSCOOTWorks.php?menu=Technical
Intelligent signage, smart traffic lights, clever use of lane opening/closing and use of hardshoulders at peak times could all help dratically resolve traffic issues in parts of Dublin. I just can’t understand why no one is doing anything about it!!There needs to be something done to really highlight some of the simple issues tha could be tackled to reduce congestion.
There needs to be something done to really highlight some of the simple issues that could be tackled to reduce congestion.
And not once have you mentioned anything to do with Public Transport which is disapointing 🙁
Its not brain surgery, however Irish people, especially Irish politicians have a great difficultly in thinking of anything else except Roads as the solution.
The M3 Motorway is a classic example. To-date there is still no real justification for the Motorway. A Twin rail train to Navan can move more people than the M3 could ever dream of, takes up far less space and bring you straight into the heart of Dublin. The M3 only take you to just outside the M50.
Then theres the M50. Originally designed as the Dublin By-pass, commuters came dependent on it because there was nothing else.The M50 upgrade will do nothing to reduce traffic. It will do nothing to helping commuters getting inside the M50 any better.
How can you seriously reduce traffic congestion by building more and more roads, catering for vehicles and avoiding the fundamental problem, which is currently there is no real alternative than using your car for getting around. Only a decent public transport SYSTEM can give people a real alternative. Rail in particular was designed to move people (not roads with is designed from moving goods & services around) and together with Local Bus network can only reduce traffic (ie stop people from using their cars).
weehamster,
I’m taking the lack of public transport to be a given!
The two issues are parallel and interlinked. Poor public transport’s coupled with very poor road infrastructure planning. There’s little logic to what’s going on.Houses being built with access to neither public transport or road transport.
Not to mention placing vast amounts of housing on unserviced land with no amenities.
Then we wonder why we’re stuck in traffic, have over crowded schools, undrinkable water and eircom’s going we can provide you with broadband in 2018.
However, in the short term, I do think that the local authorities could take significant pressure off by applying a little intelligence ot the road network i.e. smart lights, proper traffic management, lane management, car pooling, ensuring junctions flow etc etc
It’s a bit like using Mr. Muscle drain unblocker on a backed up sewage system. It might not solve the problem in the long term, but things have to keep moving!
Roads are important, so is public transport. However, the money being spent on the roads is justified.
Lets face it, the roads are in a shambles and heavy investment is needed to DC all the major interurbans and sort out the bottlenecks. Even the M3, IMO is needed for future proofing, with the exception that one toll is enough, two is a thundering disgrace.
Public transport does need a lot more investment though.
Agreed that the road network needs serious investment but projects such as the M3 have had a serious opportunity cost as the hamster points out above a rail line could carry more people and cost a lot less.
4 Tracking the Kildare line to Kildare would allow for the population of many interevening towns to grow sustainably; the kids could have new schools as opposed to damp mouldy prefabs if proper planning were introduced to link growth with resources. The M3 was Noel Dempseys reward for his time in roads it has no cost benefit analysis justification. It is a prime example of ‘he who screamee loudest gettee road.’
MrX …
SCATS is widely used across Dublin.
Interurban motorways are all under construction & due for completion by end of 2010.
IMO N6, N7 & N8 are necessary. The money being poured in to the M3 is questionable although the gov. seem to have their eye on completing the motorway through northern ireland as the main link to the north west & will be paying for it in total.This government clearly has no real will to implement major public transport projects. One does not have to happen at the expense of the other.
It does you either have a tax and spend economy or a low tax economy; by investing you increase debt and create ongoing interest liabilities as well as repayment at expiry of the note period.
The M3 and M9 / N9 HDC will defer tax cuts or prevent other more grounded projects such as the Interconnector or Oranmore Rail route being completed in a timely manner; there is no coincidence that the third last minister for environment (when DoELG managed the Moterway programme) and the current transport minister have both signed off highly questionable projects to appear like a sop to their home cummans.
But as you rightly say their City colleagues don’t fight for public transport in the same way; there is no will to prevent a Motorway to the bustling metropolis of Kells and ensure that the residents of the megalopilis of Enniskillen and World Financial Hub that is Blacklion don’t sit in traffic for a few minutes on the few days a year that their teams make it to Croker. This is the same administration that is putting how many hundred million into the Western Rail Corridor that will probably shuttle 200 passengers a day on all services?
I’ve noticed on the M50 upgrade page that the new N4 junction will be a ‘full free flowing interchange’ while the N7/Red Cow junction will be ‘partial free flow interchange’. What does this difference mean in practical terms? I can’t see much physical difference between the two junctions myself, besides the luas bridge on the latter.
The plan for the N7 interchange has been revised several times & will now from what i can see be almost completely free flow (including luas).
One set of traffic lights may remain on the n7 outbound to allow traffic from turnpike road filter through, its not clear at all however if this is the case as this area has been conveniently chopped out of almost every photomontage available.
Actually some of the N7 content on the m50.ie website is out of date and refers to a time when LUAS was going to cross some of the lanes and therefore require traffic lights for some movements. That design was replaced by this design http://www.m50.ie/pages/pressarea-n7-interchange.htm which was then improved with this one: http://www.m50.ie/pages/pressarea-n7-interchange2.htm.
So, I believe both junctions will be completely freeflow now, however, it is still unclear to me what the traffic coming out of the Red Cow Hotel(?) will be able to do. If they want to go M50N it seems they have some dodgy stop-starting to do according to the design in the first link above. 2nd Link above does not show that junction.
Anybody else know what is planned there?
Edit: Doh. Peter beat me to it. Glad to see I’m not the only one confused 🙂
@jmkennedyie wrote:
Anybody else know what is planned there?
Edit: Doh. Peter beat me to it. Glad to see I’m not the only one confused 🙂
Can’t see any solution to it really, its either lights or a dash for your life across six lanes.
Perhaps traffic from red cow & turnpike (which is very busy) will be limited to accessing m50 southbound & the u-turn city bound lanes (via current luas bridge) that way lights might not be required.
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