[Article] M50 upgrade means five more years of driver hell

loyatemu

from today's Indo

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M50 upgrade means five more years of driver hell

DUBLIN motorists could face up to five more years of traffic chaos next year when construction begins on the M50 motorway - already a byword for tailbacks.

The works will see the motorway changed into a three-lane highway, with five new "looped" interchanges being built to allow traffic direct access on to the new road system which runs from Dublin airport to Sandyford in south Dublin.

Extensive road works are involved in the scheme, which will allow up to 140,000 vehicles to use the 32-km road network daily. The scheme will take up to five years to complete.

The works are being carried out by the four Dublin local authorities and the National Roads Authority.

Preliminary estimates put the revamp at €650m, and work will be carried out in phased stages from the airport to Sandyford.

A spokesman for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council - the lead authority on the scheme - said yesterday that due to an unprecedented rise in traffic volumes in recent years the existing motorway had to be upgraded earlier than previously thought.

The widening of the motorway to allow three lanes of traffic formed the "less elaborate" part of the upgrading he said, and construction on the new interchanges is set to begin next spring.

The design team is currently finalising the motorway plans and carrying out traffic modelling, and it is hoped that an Environmental Impact Statement and an order to commence construction will be presented to An Bord Pleanala by June.

A public hearing is likely to take place, which is expected to happen by early autumn before work begins early next year.

The spokesman said: "Traffic volumes grew during the Celtic Tiger years at a faster rate than was predicted when it was planned in the 1980s."

The scheme was originally designed to allow around 20,000 vehicles to use the road system daily.

It currently carries around 80,000, and when complete up to 140,000 - seven times the original design capacity - will have access.

The five new interchanges will be built on a phased basis and will replace the current congested systems at the Ashbourne, Blanchardstown, Galway, Naas Road and Ballymount interchanges.

Some land will have to compulsorily acquired before work can commence.

"The idea is for the traffic making strategic manoeuvres would not meet crossing traffic," the spokesman said.

"There'll be extensive road works involved, as bridges will have to be built at each interchange.

"When you're passing through roadworks there will be speed restrictions but we would hope to minimise chaos. We would be keen to get value for money, but the objective is to maximise the capacity of the M50."

He added that there would be a need for some work to be carried out at night, but that contractors would be aware of residential areas.

The motorway will include traffic signs which will give up to date information based on the volumes of traffic on a particular day. It will cater for traffic growth for up to 15 years.

Paul Melia
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this means that they are starting the upgrade work before the SE motorway is finished so it will be another few years before we actually have a finished M50.

Great.

Andrew Duffy

Actually, the M50 won't be finished until the Eastern Bypass is built, linking the Sandyford interchange on the SE Motorway to the port Tunnel, and the junction between the M50 and M1 is rebuilt to prioritise traffic going between M50 and the port tunnel. The port tunnel will be called the M50 when it opens, but the bit of M1 between it and the rest of the M50 may not be renamed. Also, the entire South Eastern motorway will be called M50, even though nearly all of it is actually the M11. That may not be renamed even if the Eastern Bypass gets built, which is unlikely.

Confused?

luckat

In Malaysia they built a 1,000km superhighway in four years. They did it by putting it out to tender, and telling the companies tendering that the project would last 30 years, and they could start taking tolls as soon as it was built.

Victor

They will always be adding more - it will never be finished ..... until we run out of oil.

Link to article http://home.eircom.net/content/unison/national/2371717?view=Eircomnet

joemomma

They will always be adding more - it will never be finished ..... until we run out of oil.

Or until somebody takes control of land use planning to stop massive retail and employment centres cropping up all along the M50. Remember that this was supposed to be a national road - I'd be interested to know what percentage of the 80,000 daily users are commuters.

Kaner

Whoever designed the M50 needs to be shot........didn't they ever hear of "open architecture" where interchanges are designed to be easily modified to cope with increased traffic?

Yes, they can say that when the motorway was designed, they did not expect the traffic volumes that are on the road today, but look at the design of the Sandyford interchange? It is not even finished yet, and is already obsolete. It is eventually supposed to be a motorway-to-motorway interchange when the Eastern Bypass is built. It looks like it will cost as much, or more, than the Red Cow junction to fix.

How can they get away with this kind of incompetence, and keep their jobs?

Andrew Duffy

What's wrong with the Sandyford interchange? A fairly low-traffic motorway like the M11 terminating on a roundabout is fine, and there is room there to upgrade it if required. The EIS for the southern motorway mentions that the interchange has been designed to allow the Eastern bypass to continue from it.

Tommy Vercetti

I don't understand why they are building a two lane road now, surely it would cost relative peanuts to make that section three lane now instead of in a couple of years time, since they will be leaving plenty of space in the central reservation fr the extra lane

Victor

Originally posted by Tommy Vercetti
I don't understand why they are building a two lane road now, surely it would cost relative peanuts to make that section three lane now instead of in a couple of years time, since they will be leaving plenty of space in the central reservation fr the extra lane

The South Eastern Motorway is parallel to the exisitng N11 (6 lanes) and will carry less traffic than the Tallaght - Airport section.

Kaner

Tommy is right.......why don't they just put in the 3 lanes now, instead of having road works on the motorway for 6 months to a year later on? 3 lanes should be standard on all motorways around Dublin, and get rid of the roundabouts....they are useless and putting traffic lights on them makes them more useless .....build freeflow interchanges and stop copying the Brits....their roads are a nightmare.

If you ask me the M50 should have 4 traffic lanes. This is probably impossible now, but I think they should at least have 4 lanes between the Red Cow and Palmerstown junctions. Otherwise there will be a choke point on the motorway north of the Red Cow and traffic will be reduced to a crawl every rushhour. The West Link bridge is not the problem, its the crappy junctions that cause the jams.

I think the recent 140,000 capacity estimate I saw for the 3 lanes upgrade on the M50 is bull****, unless of course they mean a 3 lane car-park! I don't want to see 5 years of road works and hundreds of millions spent on the M50 result in daily traffic jams, but you know that is probably what will happen.

As for the Sandyford interchange, it really is a horrible piece of design. Sorry Andrew.. it looks to me like the M11 will will not terminate on a roundabout, it continues south directly from the M50 at Sandyford. I don't agree with you that the M11 will be a low traffic volume road - I think that the traffic volume has yet again been under-estimated by our peerless road designers.

The problem with the Sandyford interchange is that the Eastern Bypass and the Leopardstown road terminate on the roundabout. I would presume that the Eastern Bypass will have an interchange with the N7 south of UCD (and if not why not?), so you can bet it will be a high volume road. High traffic volumes mean endless delays at the roundabout. It not that it is impossible to fix, its just that it may cost 100 million to fix (which is the estimate to do a full fix on the Red Cow interchange).

So the question is who is accountable for the fact that a 100 million fix will be required. They know a fix will be needed, but they are going ahead and building it anyway. If the designers had used open architecture in the design of this junction it might cost 30 or 40 million for a full freeflow upgrade. Open architecture is used in Holland, Germany the US and other countries. Why are they not using it here?

It would have made more sense to build the Leopardstown Road interchange now, and build the Eastern Bypass interchange later. But no lads.....lets design and build another pathetic excuse for an interchange now, and everyone can pay through the nose to fix it later......sure no one will lose their job over it

I know that there are political and financial considerations that constrain road designers. But at this stage it should be obvious to even the dumbest politician that doing the job right first time, for 1.5 times the cheapo solution cost, will save money in the long run.

I could go on about this all day.......

WezzyB

I use the N7 from Limerick to Dubln regularly coming from Charleville on the N20.

Its a bit of an Irish thing to put a roundabout in between the existing Limerick by-pass and the new by-pass (Southern Ring Road, Phase 1), at Rossbrien, to be opened sometime this year, why can't they just make it into a regular interchange!

Speaking of this road, the other end of this road at Annacotty looks like a real mess, they've had road works there for the past few months, its a pity they couldn't create a roundabout in a shorter amount of time.

Does anyone know when Limerick Council going to fix that bridge near the Parkway bypass???!!!! :mad:

Tommy Vercetti

Originally posted by Victor
The South Eastern Motorway is parallel to the exisitng N11 (6 lanes) and will carry less traffic than the Tallaght - Airport section.

This prediction is based on what?

They haven't had much success in that department in the past.

Even if they believe that it is suffiecient until, say 2015, why not simply build it anyway to prevent the obvious mayhem it will cause in 2015?

Andrew Duffy

When (if) the Eastern bypass is built, either the M11 will terminate on the roundabout or the junction will be completely rebuilt, in which case building a cheap temporary interchange is probably sensible. If the Sandyford interchange had been built in its final form now, all the M50's traffic would have to traverse the interchange even if it were continuing South.
A big problem will be the M1-M50 interchange, if it isn't completely overhauled before the Port Tunnel opens.

LFCFan

you'd wonder is there a lot of backhanders going on with road design. Pay a company 100 million to do a 2 lane motorway now in the knowledge that there will be a 100 million fix due in a few years garaunteed to the same company???? Nothing would surprise me anymore with our dutiful politicians and councilors.

Kaner

Yeah you are right about the M50/MI interchange Andrew, I think its on the upgrade plan, but who knows when it will be done - it looks like the Red Cow and Palmerstown interchanges are going to be the priorities.

Has anyone noticed how narrow the road is under the Blanchardstown interchange - I wonder how they are going to widen the road there to 6 lanes and still keep the hard shoulder?

Also...has anyone seen plans for the Red Cow or M1/M50 interchanges. I've seen the plans (or at least plan photos) for the rest, but not those two.

I dont know why I obsess about this s***, I dont even live in Dublin.

projectmayhem

Originally posted by LFCFan
you'd wonder is there a lot of backhanders going on with road design. Pay a company 100 million to do a 2 lane motorway now in the knowledge that there will be a 100 million fix due in a few years garaunteed to the same company???? Nothing would surprise me anymore with our dutiful politicians and councilors.

judging by this countries track record, that's not far fetched at all. we're a mess of a nation...

Tommy Vercetti

Originally posted by project-mayhem
judging by this countries track record, that's not far fetched at all. we're a mess of a nation...

Nah we're fine until it comes to choosing who we allow to run the place;)

Victor

http://www.dlrcoco.ie/M50new/front.HTM

The M50 will be open from Ballinteer to Sandyford and from Shankill/Bray ByPass to Wyattville Interchange in late August 2005.

Subject to the early resolution of the Carrickmines Castle issues the Motorway proper will be open in its entirety by September 2005

i.e. it would take a month to complete the Carrickmines section.

Victor

Map of Sandyford section with detail of junctions at bottom.

http://www.dlrcoco.ie/M50new/MAP1.HTM

Note the navigation is messed up, but you can get all the files at http://www.dlrcoco.ie/M50new/

Tommy Vercetti

morning Victor:)

Victor

Morning!

Andrew Duffy

That's a pretty complicated interchange by Irish standards. I like the section that has six parallel carriageways! Any guesses as to how the Eastern Bypass will escape that? Mine is that it will steal the sliproads to the Leopardstown road and dive underground in the empty space at the extreme right of the map.