N4-M50 Junction Upgrade

ipodrocker

yeah it would be great if them do the mainline widening first it would slower the waiting times and have less impact on the mainline traffic. but its unclear what the status is as on m50.ie there is no mention of upgrades to the interchanges just the wider m50 from n3 - m1 and sandyford to m11.

does anyone have info on this?. like they published what the n4,n7 & ballmounts interchanges would be like when finished

ardmacha

The useful m50.ie website related to the Phase 1 contractor. You need www.m50concession.ie for information on the current work. This website says a lot about planning in this country.

whosedaddy?

ardmacha wrote: »

The useful m50.ie website related to the Phase 1 contractor. You need www.m50concession.ie for information on the current work. This website says a lot about planning in this country.

Indeed. And about the level of professionalism of these guys. We the tax-payer pay them .. and yet, they can't be bothered to provide ANY information. I emailed them a couple of times - never got an answer. Maybe they don't speak English - but only Spanish.. the site is hosted on a Spanish system with Spanish admin contact.

But back on topic.. @jmkennedyie - any new pictures?

darkman2

Irish and Proud wrote: »

BTW, the median works on the Northern Cross Section are well underway - yet, there's not much sign of any new structure associated with the proposed interchange upgrades - I wonder are the contractors going to open all the mainline lanes first so as to ease congestion on the M50 as a whole ASAP?

Again, we'll just have to wait and see!

Regards!

Actually construction has started on the flyovers at the M1 - take a peek to the right the next time your on the slip for M50 - M1 north.;) The M1 and N2 interchanges are to be done first.

On another point the graffitti on phase 1 is really, really bad!

BTW I also think its rediculous that work has started and the website is not up and running yet. It will have to be up soon when they start changing the lanes again.

Irish and Proud

darkman2 wrote: »

Actually construction has started on the flyovers at the M1 - take a peek to the right the next time your on the slip for M50 - M1 north.;) The M1 and N2 interchanges are to be done first.

I must do so the next time - I remember seeing some activity there a little while ago.

darkman2 wrote: »

On another point the graffitti on phase 1 is really, really bad!

Firstly, it should be made a criminal offence for a pedestrian to set foot within the bounds of any motorway. Secondly, certain areas within public spaces should be designated for proper graffiti art which would be commissioned by the local authority/residents associations. Such art would be renewed every month or so. Any graffiti outside of this should be made a criminal offence - casual graffiti is absolutely disgusting and gives the city an undeserved bad reputation. Dublin is a nice city, but obviously, a minority would like to taint it somewhat. Though I'm not a Dub - I say "As Dublin is our capital city, it is our national pride - therefore, it deserves better than what the anti-social minority is doing to it" (mind you, anti-social behaviour is far from being merely a Dublin problem)! Now I must get back to the topic...

darkman2 wrote: »

BTW I also think its rediculous that work has started and the website is not up and running yet. It will have to be up soon when they start changing the lanes again.

Well what makes it even more crazy is that www.m50concession.ie has been advertised along the M50 for months now - guess they didn't know when April's Fool Day would occur! :rolleyes: - I think we (the public) need to start kicking up - it's ridiculous! :mad:

Regards!

murphaph

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Firstly, it should be made a criminal offence for a pedestrian to set foot within the bounds of any motorway.

It already is an offence for an unauthorised pedestrian to enter the motorway.

Victor

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Firstly, it should be made a criminal offence for a pedestrian to set foot within the bounds of any motorway. Secondly, certain areas within public spaces should be designated for proper graffiti art which would be commissioned by the local authority/residents associations. Such art would be renewed every month or so. Any graffiti outside of this should be made a criminal offence - casual graffiti is absolutely disgusting and gives the city an undeserved bad reputation. Dublin is a nice city, but obviously, a minority would like to taint it somewhat. Though I'm not a Dub - I say "As Dublin is our capital city, it is our national pride - therefore, it deserves better than what the anti-social minority is doing to it" (mind you, anti-social behaviour is far from being merely a Dublin problem)! Now I must get back to the topic...

Both are already offences under the Road Traffic Acts and the Litter Act / Criminal Damage Act.

There are some professional graffiti street artists about - South Richmond Street and Docklands Station being examples.

Irish and Proud

I know that setting foot on a motorway, and writing graffiti are both offences, but making them criminal offences would act as a far bigger deterrent - Some would still persist in their activities, but I guess others would think twice! Remember, an individual’s employment prospects (especially in light of an economic downturn) will largely depend on having a clean record – this is certainly the case for a career in the public service. I believe it's also the case for getting work in countries like the USA.

Regards!

Seth Brundle

whosedaddy? wrote: »

Indeed. And about the level of professionalism of these guys. We the tax-payer pay them .. and yet, they can't be bothered to provide ANY information. I emailed them a couple of times - never got an answer. Maybe they don't speak English - but only Spanish.. the site is hosted on a Spanish system with Spanish admin contact.

Take a look at the source code for the "page"

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

<title>:::::::: M 50 Highway ::::::::</title>
<meta name="title" content="M50 Concession Limited" />
<meta name="Description" content="M50 Concession Limited's Website" />
<meta name="author" content="[B][COLOR=Red]voxelstudios (www.voxelstudios.es) disenador(jose A.Garc&#237;a Montes)[/COLOR][/B]" />
<meta name="robots" content="all" />
<meta name="revisit-after" content="10 day" />
<meta name="Keywords" content="[COLOR=Red][B]Haighway[/B][/COLOR],Ireland,concession,m50,dublin,road" />
<link href="css/estilos.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

<body>
<div id="contenedor">
<div id="titM50"><h1 class="h1titulo"><span>M50 Concession Limited</span></h1>
<div id="imgcentral"></div>
<div id="mail">Contact mail: <a href="mailto:information@m50concession.ie">information@m50concession.ie</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Whats a Haighway? :rolleyes:

darkman2

http://www.nixers.com/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=722016


Two different adresses? It says Dublin 4 on the website. Dublin 18 if you want a job......its a conspiracy:eek::D


At this stage the signs on the M50 should read - 'Visit the Website under construction too'

Irish and Proud

darkman2 wrote: »

http://www.nixers.com/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=722016


Two different adresses? It says Dublin 4 on the website. Dublin 18 if you want a job......its a conspiracy:eek::D


At this stage the signs on the M50 should read - 'Visit the Website under construction too'

...and it should be ready to coincide with the opening of the motorway itself! :D:D

...sure, they may as well synchronise the two projects together, isn't it sensible planning! :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

...erm, well NO! :p:p

...it's time they got their act together! :mad::mad::mad:

Carawaystick

murphaph wrote: »

It already is an offence for an unauthorised pedestrian to enter the motorway.

except where a pedestrian needs to enter a motorway to cross the road at the newly installed temporary traffic light controlled pedestrian crossing.
as seen last at the exit off the m50 south of the Liffey, where the end of motorway was about 4m south of the pedestrian X-ing.....

whosedaddy?

Just noticed this morning the 100km/h speed limit signs were unwrapped on M50...

No more 60 km/h restrictions southbound. (not that anyone stuck to it anyway..except me, of course )

Anyone gone northbound this morning? is it same there?

Seth Brundle

****!
So much for it being 120km/h as per the head of the NRA on Today Fm last week!

Most will do 120 anyway!
Yesterday evening, I was doing 100 northbound and more were going faster than me than slower...

ipodrocker

so is the 100km/h on the m50 between the n4 & n7 junctions?

My understanding is it will eventually be 100 for the entire length, as the 3 + 1 lanes are narrower than the standard for 120 speed limit.

whosedaddy?

It was from N4 all the way past Ballymount.

http://www.sdublincoco.ie/index.aspx?pageid=939&pid=14245

ROAD WORKS SPEED LIMIT ORDER

M50 (340m South of Greenhills Road Overbridge and the County Boundary with Fingal County Council

Notice is hereby given that South Dublin County Council in exercise of the powers vested in it by Section 10 of the Road Act 2004 have made a Road Works Speed Limit Order for a speed limit of 100 km/h on the M50 mainline between a point 340m south of the Greenhills Road overbridge and the County boundary with South Dublin County Council/Fingal County Council, both directions to facilitate the M50 upgrade, from Tuesday 8th April 2008 until Tuesday 7th April 2009.

I wonder what happens after April 2009... maybe 120 km/h...

Didn't notice them between N3 and N4. (which is Fingal CoCo and they don't have advert section on their website - at least I haven't found it yet)

ipodrocker

well thats some improvment now with the increase in speed, it will be interesting will happen after april 09

mackerski

whosedaddy? wrote: »

I wonder what happens after April 2009... maybe 120 km/h...

I'm guessing that they will draft a new set of bye-laws covering all South Dublin area sections of M50 once all upgrade work is completed. And based on information to date, this would be a 100 limit throughout.

triple-M

anyone see page 42-43 of todays daily mail ,really good double page picture of completed m50-n4 junction probaly taken from a helicopter

darkman2

Several papers apparently have had aerial images but ive never seen any. If anyone has a scanner......;)

This pic was uploaded on flickr of the N7 interchange looking south

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rothar/2402151162/sizes/l/

triple-M

i hav a scanner @ home prob is its about the size of an A2 page its massive,so i'll try work out someway of scannin it wen i get home:)

darkman2

triple-M wrote: »

i hav a scanner @ home prob is its about the size of an A2 page its massive,so i'll try work out someway of scannin it wen i get home:)

You read the Daily Mail? :eek::p Thanks!:)

triple-M

heres the pic from the daily mail i was talking about,The quality is kinda crappy tho

It's all so new! it almost looks like the photo-montage on the website

mackerski

triple-M wrote: »

heres the pic from the daily mail i was talking about,The quality is kinda crappy tho

Yes, and the image is a little blurred too

darkman2

Thanks Triple M:)


Yes, not bad - not bad at all. Now just the N7 to go on phase one.

jimmycrackcorm

It looks like the new bottleneck in the evenings on the N4 West is at the Newcastle Road junction. It used to back up as far as Woodies, now it goes back as far as Liffey Valley.

If they had any sense until this junction is completed, they should get rid of the median crossing and force the traffic from the arterial roads to follow the same way as the traffic flow and they could double back as appropriate at the near flyovers. i.e. Leixleip / celbridge west and woodies east.

L1011

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

It looks like the new bottleneck in the evenings on the N4 West is at the Newcastle Road junction. It used to back up as far as Woodies, now it goes back as far as Liffey Valley.

If they had any sense until this junction is completed, they should get rid of the median crossing and force the traffic from the arterial roads to follow the same way as the traffic flow and they could double back as appropriate at the near flyovers. i.e. Leixleip / celbridge west and woodies east.

I suspect this will happen shortly - as they to tunnel out the middle - but theres merge ons from Newcastle/Lucan Village aren't freeflow so it'd still require the lights sequence.

Johnny08

Hey all. sorry if this has been brought up already. I use Dublin bus and travel this route daily. All of a sudden the cars going down onto the M50 Northbound at the N4 (just at liffey valley) are using the bus lane as a lane? what the hell is goin on? its adding 15 mins to the journey time and from looking at the road markings it appears the bus lane is still there. why are the guards not looking after this. to make matters worse it looks like there will be only single line traffic going down onto the M50 northbound. From the Pic it clearly shows it as 2 lanes. Anyone any ideas or info on this. there used to be a buslane and now idiots are driving in it.

prod_igy

I use bus eireann and we stop at that bus stop alot. I think the probelm is that the buses have to cross a lane of traffic within about 100yards in order to get back in lane and onto the N4 eastbound. I havent seen any cars using the bus lane, this seems pointless if they do cause that lane is closed after the bus syop and doesnt seem like it will ever be a traffic lane.

lynchie

Johnny08 wrote: »

Hey all. sorry if this has been brought up already. I use Dublin bus and travel this route daily. All of a sudden the cars going down onto the M50 Northbound at the N4 (just at liffey valley) are using the bus lane as a lane? what the hell is goin on? its adding 15 mins to the journey time and from looking at the road markings it appears the bus lane is still there. why are the guards not looking after this. to make matters worse it looks like there will be only single line traffic going down onto the M50 northbound. From the Pic it clearly shows it as 2 lanes. Anyone any ideas or info on this. there used to be a buslane and now idiots are driving in it.

I watched in disbelief about two weeks ago as I watched a garda car drive in the bus lane behind a whole load of cars too at about 8:30 one morning.

Doesn't help though when they have the sign for the M50N pointing down on the bus lane either though

Victor

Talk to the engineers and the local gardaí - they might not know there is a problem.

Ice_Box

Its not a bus lane as there are no signs up. The delay is caused by the toll plaza which will be gone in August.

jkgvfg

What is the view on a non-operational bus lane. Obviously it is not illegal to be in it but at the end of the bus lane, where you would enter if it was operational, who should have the right of way - the person who stays out of the lane or the person in it?

At this stage, two lanes are being blocked up but it should quieten down for the summer and be better by September so it is probably just for the month of May.

Another problem with this slip lane is at the end where it merges with the M50. All lorries seem to want to enter the inside lane whether there is traffic in it or not ("You were in my blind spot" is mentioned every time they crash) and half the cars from the N4 seem to think the Eazypass lane is the only one for them. Sorting that out would free it up as much as removing the toll barriers.

ardmacha

Trucks have to pass the toll on the left, while the express car lane is on the right. This will all disappear in August, so things should stabilise then.

whosedaddy?

Ice_Box wrote: »

The delay is caused by the toll plaza which will be gone in August.

I wouldn't bet on that. Once the toll is gone all that traffic will hit the roadworks at Blanch (3>2 lanes and speed restriction). Which is hardly a mile up from the toll. Not sure what the average toll tailback on the M50 is in the mornings, but I'd bet all lanes will be full all they way back to the N4->M50N merge still causing delays on the N4... only because the toll is gone the cars are still there and the next bottleneck is up the road.

jkgvfg

ardmacha wrote: »

Trucks have to pass the toll on the left, while the express car lane is on the right. This will all disappear in August, so things should stabilise then.

Trucks do not have to be in the left most lane, that is supposed to be dedicated for N4 traffic, who themselves aren't supposed to leave that lane either until after the toll booth. The Stay-in-Lane markings and the solid white lines, if observed, would make the queue disappear from the N4. But it's "the grass is greener in the other lane" mentality that causes the blockage at the entrance to the M50 from the N4 slip rather than 500M up the road.

Victor

jkgvfg wrote: »

What is the view on a non-operational bus lane. Obviously it is not illegal to be in it but at the end of the bus lane, where you would enter if it was operational, who should have the right of way - the person who stays out of the lane or the person in it?

The person changing lane should yield.

aishling99

I emailed the address on the m50 page and got a reply back saying, they're aware of the problem and have notified the guards as its a matter they have to deal with!!! I seen a guard stopping someone there this morning but didn't look like it was to do with driving in the bus lane as it was backed up as far as liffey valley.

surely they have to see its designed incorectly, the m50 traffic shouldn't have to change lanes, they lane they are in should go straight down to the m50.

bazzer

I've heard that Dublin Bus drivers on the Lucan Road are getting very agitated about this dangerous scenario and are threatening not to serve the stop unless something is done about it.

Similarly on the opposite (outbound) side, bus drivers are also having difficulty changing lane to pull into the stop because the speeding traffic coming off the slip road from the M50 refuse to let buses in.

whosedaddy?

They could install traffic lights ..... :rolleyes:

rameire

mysterious wrote: »

If there was no room, it would be difficult to insert goofy's image, it's at the right scale. the lanes have not been altered.

Luas track will be moved further northwest, and the outbound lanes have more width.

There is room!

https://us.v-cdn.net/6034073/uploads/attachments/38010/56213.jpg

just had a quick look at the pic in the shortcut, and there is no flyover as you would like
but if you look closer, there does seem to be a stop sign that gives you the option to get into the lane to go m50 northbound.

AlekSmart

Quote Bazzer :

"I've heard that Dublin Bus drivers on the Lucan Road are getting very agitated about this dangerous scenario and are threatening not to serve the stop unless something is done about it." End.

There is something deeply unsettling beginning to materialize on several aspects of the M50 upgrade.
The very existance of situations where serious danger vis a vis Bus vs On/Off M50 Traffic occurs points to piss-poor planning and design.

Similarly the Ballymount/Belgard junction is showing all the signs of the infamous "Back of an envelope" design scenario.

The issue of the M4/M50 Bus Stop is being highlighted by Bus Drivers initially due to Bus Atha Cliath`s recently upgraded Grievance and Disciplinary procedures which can and does see Busdrivers facing disciplinary charges even where they are not held liable for an accident/incident.

This new dotting of the i`s policy ensures that whatever flexibility may have existed in the past to overcome such little difficulties as traffic conflicts or madcap design has now evaporated.

I for one find it unsettling that SO much has been spent on the M50 Upgrade project yet we continue to see far too many compromises and fudges in the finished product.

kida

Has buslane opened yet on N4 inbound. There is road marking and a road sign but cars are still quing for M50 in it.

Some cars are obeying the bus lane and its a free for all where the actual lane meets the bus lane.

A-Train

Yeah the bus lane is meant to be opened since last Thursday I think but as you said all the traffic is still using it.

SeaSide

they have reduced the on ramp from one lane to two. IMO it would be better to have adouble queue on the on ramp and keep the N4 clear.