where is the tunnel

What? :confused:

port tunnel , where the hell is it? rumour has it that it is on the northside. I have seen lots of photos of county councillers in a tunnel, so apparently is does exist. Will we ever see it ?

I was thinking about that the other day – wasnt it due to open later this year? Apparently its a nice drive – on dry days:D

i suspect it has to do with the council not wanting to give the construction company any of the extra money it demanded. I think the company has all but closed down , keep only the smallest cohort to finish at their leisure.

I have gone by the roads works a few times over the last few months and it is moving painfully slowly.

At the northern end the planting looks really well , it the whole thing could be fab if it ever opens …

As far as i know they have fixed the contracts for big schemes so that it is in the interest of the company to finish asap.

Is there even an opening date yet ? Surely the builders must know when they will finish at this stage.

I was going to provide a link to my favourite hoax web site, on the atlantic tunnel, but its closed down 🙁 🙁

It says on the port tunnel website that it is going to open in Summer ’06. That should mean fairly soon I guess 😉

the tunnel is pretty much finished, required 3 months testing / safety checks going on at the moment ….
still some exterior work to do, its due to open in September …

It is a credit to DCC that they faced the contractors down in this instance

As far as I know, the northern end is more or less finished and the gantries are being installed at the moment. The south end, at Fairview, is being held up because of an investigation into the soil being used to in fill the part dug using cut and cover. As Peter said, when it is done, it’ll be another 3+ months so everything can be tested, bedded down and people like DFB go through training for tunnel emergencies.

Outrage as opening of €800m tunnel is put on hold

PERSISTENT leaks have put the opening of the €800m Dublin Port Tunnel on indefinite hold.

The project is now more than two years overdue and it has missed at least four separate completion deadlines.

But the National Roads Authority (NRA) insisted yesterday: “It will take as long as it takes.”

The authority claimed the delay was due to the need for more safety checks.

However, the Irish Independent can reveal that a team of workers is still battling to repair what appear to be an endless series of leaks.

There was outrage from politicians last night at the news that a final opening date for the tunnel was as uncertain as ever.

A team of specialist Spanish engineers, called Setco, flew in at the start of the year to repair leaks. They were originally expected to leave in a matter of weeks, but they are still working hard on other leaks four months on.

The indefinite delay is bound to cause further embarrassment to the Government and Transport Minister Martin Cullen.

The embarrassment will be all the more acute this week as they announce a so-called super-transport authority for the greater Dublin area.

Last night Fine Gael’s Dublin spokesman Brian Hayes branded the delays as “absolutely shocking”.

He said it was a “bad sign” that, after two years of delays, work on the tunnel is still incomplete. “We’d be wondering if there are more structural problems with this that they’re not letting on about,” he said.

Labour Party transport spokeswoman Roisin Shortall sharply criticised Mr Cullen over the delays.

“Whenever Martin Cullen is questioned about this, he kicks it to touch and blames Dublin City Council or the NRA,” she said.

A joint inspection report on the tunnel completed at the end of May revealed several areas were leaking, and in more than one spot. One area had three leaks in the space of one square metre, while other sites had leaks in sections 20 metres wide.

The amount of water emerging in the tunnel ranged from “minor” to “very wet”, according to the report.

The centre of the tunnel stretches under the Alfie Byrne Road in the Whitehall area, which is the worst affected.

The report also found that the total extent of cracks in the tunnel – a major cause of the leaks – at that time added up to 491 metres.

This report was completed jointly by Setco along with the NRA, Dublin City Council and the main contractor on the tunnel, Nishimatsu Mowlem Irishenco.

Many of these leaks have been repaired since May, including a major leak which took several months to repair.

It is also understood that an 800-metre-long stretch of the tunnel that was tarred less than two weeks ago will have to be pulled up and redone.

This follows concern that the tar did not set correctly in the tunnel, which has already had to have work redone twice or even three times in a number of areas, such as at Fairview Park.

Work on the tunnel has also been hit by an ongoing row in which the tunnel builders are seeking more money from Dublin City Council.

The extra cost is believed to be in the region of €200m – down from an initial claim for €444m.

However, the city council still insists the taxpayer will not be paying any of this and the tunnel will cost €752m.

A spokesman for the NRA did not refer to ongoing problems in the tunnel but said safety checks, which began in June, were the final step in the massive project.

He said: “It will take as long as it takes.”

He added: “We are at a critical stage of completion by going through a full safety training measure and safety testing.

“We are looking to make sure safety is paramount. How long it will take is determined by what the safety requirements.”

A Dublin City Council spokesperson could not be reached for comment on other reasons for the delay.

TIm Brick was on 2FM denying the above yesterday, and insists that the tunnel will open in October.

Is that from the Indo?

Bottom line DCC have forced the NRA to face the contractors head on; this is in the taxpayers interest and it will also give DCC time to consider what they will do with the city quays and some measured actions as outlined in Dubinspirations could really compensate for another few months of HGV activity within the City.

NRA chief says port tunnel to open soon
By Fiona Gartland

The Dublin Port Tunnel is expected to finally open within 14 weeks and is not leaking, the National Roads Authority has said.

Speaking on Morning Ireland yesterday, the chief executive officer of the NRA, Fred Barry, said they expected to open the tunnel within 13 or 14 weeks.

Construction work on the tunnel has been completed and it is now being put through safety checks. Training is also to begin for garda

Still though..2 years late and it is still leaking, The overspends on this, the Luas, the M50 etc adds up to one hell of a disgrace..Can’t believe they didn;t plan for extra lanes on the M50 when it was first built. You would think someone would have thought that the volume of traffic may increase over time. The budget overspends on large Dublin projects like these would probably have sorted out the rest of the countrys infrastructure problems.
The Metro should be an interesting one.

with respect to the other projects mentioned it is difficult to defend the government. But with respect to the tunnel things are going remarkably well.

Almost every tunnel ever built has taken longer than expected to build . That is because each one is completely unique and requires a totally new indivual approach to every aspect of it’s design. The wikipedia article (which may be acurrate) points out that there are in fact several different tunnels built which links up .

Secondly every ,every single tunnel leaks and is meant to . The idea that they are going over the entire tunnel checking every crack should reasure not alarm.

Tunnels can continue to crack for their whole lifetime , requiring continual repair.

fourthly the fire brigade have never had to manage such a ‘building’ , it would not surprise me if they required more time than expected to train. They are afterall using completely new equipment.

This is no mickey mouse tunnel , it is considerable larger than say the big dig in boston.

regarding cost. well the is no way to accurately cost the tunnel without building it, because you simply cannot foresee all the problems.

In typicall irish form , all the negativity will disappear the day it opens.

Well done a boyle. Sick of the “Typical Irish” bad-mouthing by people with itchy fingers and a lack of imagination

oh give me a break. What are we supposed to say! “well done lads ye’re doing a great job” for projects that are years late and over budget. The rest of the country suffers while Dublin overspends billions of the tax payers money!
Thats exactly whats wrong with this country. Not enough people giving out about badly managed projects.

In fairness that is what Dublin City Council did when they effectively took the NRA out of the process by instructing legal counsel

The amount overspent on the Luas alone would have probably paid for the re-opening of the Western Rail corridor or most of it. It would have easily paid for a spur line to Shannon Airport for the Ennis-Limerick rail line which would be a huge boost to that region. And the Luas still has problems.
I cannot accept that money is not being wasted by poor management of large projects on the east coast. Look at the M50 and the N7. Primary routes into/around Dublin city and nobody thought to have extra lanes for a country/city experiencing huge growth ??? How long ago was the M50 “completed”?The fact that “super” trucks can’t use the tunnel is also a complete disgrace!

Have ye travelled the main roads from Cork – Limerick – Galway recently. I do regularly and in some parts you are lucky if there are two lanes never mind a slow lane. And this between the 2nd/3rd and 4th largest towns in what we are told is one of the richest countries in Europe.
To get a train from Cork or Limerick to Galway you have to go do Dublin first and then get a train to Galway.

And yet money is being pissed away on every large project that has taken place in Dublin in the last few years!

I am all for developing the capital city and this is not an East/West argument but we need balanced infrastructural devlopment and so far it is most certainly unbalanced. So this kind of crap from “the Denouncer” is a load of horse do do!

“Sick of the “Typical Irish” bad-mouthing by people with itchy fingers and a lack of imagination”

jeez vkki i think we’d all support developement of the west if you weren’t all so pompous. i’ll tell you what, let us get our gas out of rossport and you can a railway to tuam or whatever.

ducks.

@vkid wrote:

To get a train from Cork or Limerick to Galway you have to go do Dublin first and then get a train to Galway.

No need to go to Dublin, you can change at Portarlington.

The Ennis-Athenry section is due to open in 2008, so that will allow Cork-Limerick Junction-Limerick-Athenry-Galway. How many passengers will it get?

@vkid wrote:

Look at the M50 and the N7. Primary routes into/around Dublin city and nobody thought to have extra lanes for a country/city experiencing huge growth ??? How long ago was the M50 “completed”?The fact that “super” trucks can’t use the tunnel is also a complete disgrace!

Have ye travelled the main roads from Cork – Limerick – Galway recently. I do regularly and in some parts you are lucky if there are two lanes never mind a slow lane. And this between the 2nd/3rd and 4th largest towns in what we are told is one of the richest countries in Europe.
To get a train from Cork or Limerick to Galway you have to go do Dublin first and then get a train to Galway.

with regard to the super trucks this is simply not an issue. the tunnel in cork is the same height as the one in dublin and one being built in limerick is the same height again (a standard , which incidently the rest of europe uses to). There is a low bridge at port loias on the motorway , and there are hundreds acrross the country whereever you see a railwayline. Second you were complaining about cost and delays . well for every metre (3feet) you add in height you add more and more in volume, a rough calculation trying to add an extra metre clearance would have meant digging an extra 44% , so nearly half again. Do you think these 100 odd trucks are worth 350 million ?

you are right to be annoyed about the motorway network . yes it is indeed silly that all the main routes in the country lead into one single road, which also has to cater for commuter. And yes a better approach would have been to follow germany’s approach 1 motorway from galway to cork , 1 motorway from belfast to waterford/wexford, 1 motorway starting halfway between limerick and cork heading straight acrross the country just skirting the south of wicklow. and one motorway starting halfway in between galway and sligo and heading straight across the country before arriving at the M1 about 20/30 miles from dublin.

But you voted for fianna fail , and that means every town and village has to get it’s piece of pork. so what did you expect ? ??

This is no mickey mouse tunnel , it is considerable larger than say the big dig in boston.

Surely this isn’t the case. :confused: They relocated an entire motorway network from overground to underground with the Big Dig in Boston. Bearing in mind that they had to work around/beneath a metro system, an ancient sewage network, and that they penetrated the river / sea flood defence system in the process.

Without having any figures to hand, the Port Tunnel from my understanding, can’t be anywhere vaguely close to that scale of infrastructural project. Not in terms of disruption to a city or locality (the Big Dig was, for the most part, quite successful at keeping this to a minimum) Nor in terms of cost.???

@DJM wrote:

Surely this isn’t the case. :confused: They relocated an entire motorway network from overground to underground with the Big Dig in Boston. Bearing in mind that they had to work around/beneath a metro system,

did you forget that the port tunnel passes directly underneath the dublin the belfast line. as a result a completely seperate tunnel had to be designed for this small section ?
@DJM wrote:

an ancient sewage network, and that they penetrated the river / sea flood defence system in the process.

our tunnel was lower to pacify the locals and so runs under the water table !
@DJM wrote:

Without having any figures to hand, the Port Tunnel from my understanding, can’t be anywhere vaguely close to that scale of infrastructural project. Not in terms of disruption to a city or locality (the Big Dig was, for the most part, quite successful at keeping this to a minimum) Nor in terms of cost.???

the tunnels are not as long ,yes but they are subtantially bigger. and incidenttally the big dig recently caved in ,killing one motorist . so i think it is a case of skimping rather that keeping to budget!

finnally there is a tunnel website (i don’t know how accurate it is ) that ranks the port tunnel as the ninteenth longest road tunnel in the world

Lads the boston ‘big dig’ is 5.6km long & cost 14.6 billion dollars, the most expensive road project ever in the US, taking 13+ years to construct.

ah but sure delays & over runs only happen in Ireland.

The port tunnel has been reasonably well executed, delays are inevitable with projects of this scale.

Half of the stuff in the indo article is complete bull shit & its about the 3rd time they’ve done it with regard to the port tunnel. How they continually get away with publishing straight up lies, i don’t know.

And they do it all the time, it is such a shit paper. Couple of weeks back they published a story, with usual large sensationalist headline stating that the dublin cork motorway would be delayed by 5 years, so on i went to read the article, which contradicted the headline, stating the exact time line for completion of each section, all of which are on schedule to be finished in late 2010. Bit of an agenda there i think.

Construction of continuous motorway / dual carriage way from dublin to the main cities is underway, all scheduled to be finished by end of 2010, will have to wait and see on that one.

wasn’t much of the big dig cut and cover; hence dig meaning the length was more visible and the disruption greater?

yeah very messy job notjim, most of it is cut & cover, its much closer to the surface than our own port tunnel.
wikipedia.com is great by the way, check it out ! do a search for ‘the big dig’ …

there has been huge problems with the boston big dig
it was only on the news here last wk or so, a section of roof collapsed killing a woman
apparently there is to be federal investigations or something!
i heard the quality of concrete was not up to standards – cowboy builders who folded the company before they finished. fraud on a large and dangerous scale

the nice part of the plan, though not implimented yet, is that, since the tunnel replaces existing motorway, the old roads are to be turned into avenues with linear parts along the middle and one or two lanes for local traffic at the edge. place really needed it, even after the big dig, it is such a car city, lots of vistas you’d expect to be nice are just autoscapes with cars wizzing at different levels in different directions.

there is some analogy with our situations, we have our port in the middle of town, they have their airport there, connect by tunnels, some of which now link to the big dig tunnels. the really fun fact for us is that, though the airport is really close and though they had the first subway in north america, the airport isn’t attached to the rail network, they have something called the silver line marked on maps to look a bit like part of the t, but its actually a qbc.