M50 upgrade - Phase II

Davy

spacetweek wrote: »

Aagh, but how am I supposed to splurge on stylish furniture now??

I have a Celtic Tiger itch that needs scratching...

I heard today, its still going to open on that date

Ice_Box

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/roadway-hitch-threatens-to--scupper-ikea-store-opening-1766406.html

Roadway hitch threatens to scupper IKEA store opening

FEARS are growing that a new IKEA store -- which will employ 500 people -- will not be able to open on time next month.

The Swedish furniture shop cannot open for business until routes around its north Dublin site are upgraded, but the National Roads Authority (NRA) admitted yesterday it would be a "surprise" if the work was completed by the July 27 opening date.

The off-ramps from the M50 near the Ballymun interchange of the M50 are still under construction, with substantial road works yet to be completed around the massive store -- despite the looming six-week deadline.

However, Fingal County Council, which is responsible for ensuring the network is complete, said yesterday it was confident the works would be completed to allow the store open next month.

Only "minor matters" remained to be addressed, it insisted.

IKEA was not available for comment yesterday, but has previously criticised the delay in completing the roads.

It claims it has lost tens of millions of euro in lost sales, adding that the store was finished last November.

Despite intensive lobbying by IKEA to speed up works, the NRA has repeatedly said its timetable for the works would not be changed to facilitate the company.

An Bord Pleanala granted planning permission for the 30,500 square metre store in June 2007, but on condition it could only open when upgrading works on the motorway and construction of local roads were complete.

Concerns

Yesterday, a spokesman for the NRA said it had concerns about the road network.

"Hopefully, this will come to fruition, but the NRA is still concerned about the traffic impacts," he said.

"It would be a pleasant surprise if it was ready by July. The contractor is not obliged to have works completed on that section until December this year."

Informed sources have said the network is unlikely to be finished until September or October, which will also result in delays in 500 people taking up employment. It would take a "concerted effort" to get works complete by July, the source added.

However, a Fingal County Council statement said: "We are satisfied that substantial compliance with planning conditions is complete or nearing completion and that road/traffic improvement works in the vicinity of the IKEA site in Ballymun, required by condition under the planning permission granted by An Bord Pleanala, will be completed at the time of IKEA opening.

"Minor outstanding matters are the subject of current and ongoing discussions with the relevant parties and are progressing satisfactorily.

"We envisage all required works will be completed by the IKEA opening date."

IKEA opened its first Irish store in Belfast in December 2007 and has said it would consider opening a third branch in Ireland, depending on the success of the Dublin and Belfast outlets.

- Paul Melia

serfboard

Irish Independent wrote:

[IKEA] claims it has lost tens of millions of euro in lost sales, adding that the store was finished last November.

OK, so ask IKEA if they're willing to lob in a couple o' extra mill to pay for overtime for the workers. If it's enough, I'm sure they'd work 24/7.

Otherwise, cut the moaning BS. They were given permission subject to the road being finished. The road is not finished. End of.

Heroditas

Quick question regarding the work on the N3 interchange - from the pictures it looks like the existing Castleknock roundabout will be replaced with a traffic lights controlled crossroads?

Surely that will cause tailbacks on the off-ramps for the M50 and these could end up backing onto the M50 itself. It could end up very similar to the mess we have in Palmerstown every morning but closer to the M50.

Going outbound in the evening, it should help congestion a bit (that roundabout is a menace) but we get this massive freeflow interchange built with a traffic light guarding one of the main entry/exit points to it - very similar to the traffic lights at Turnpike Road near the Red Cow interchange.

Am I looking at the pictures right? I hope not.

davebuck

Quote
Otherwise, cut the moaning BS. They were given permission subject to the road being finished. The road is not finished. End of.

I think you'll find when planning and the date was agreed the NRA gave it the okay for the end of July for Ikea to open.You should really check the Facts first!!!

Davy

Heroditas wrote: »

Quick question regarding the work on the N3 interchange - from the pictures it looks like the existing Castleknock roundabout will be replaced with a traffic lights controlled crossroads? /QUOTE]

Ye, that's the plan, making it a full light junction and remove the roundabout.
Not sure if you have seen, there is a thread just for the N3 junction if your interested: N3-M50 interchange

Heroditas

Davy wrote: »

Ye, that's the plan, making it a full light junction and remove the roundabout.
Not sure if you have seen, there is a thread just for the N3 junction if your interested: N3-M50 interchange

Thanks a million.

Carawaystick

Heroditas wrote: »

Quick question regarding the work on the N3 interchange - from the pictures it looks like the existing Castleknock roundabout will be replaced with a traffic lights controlled crossroads?

Surprising as it may seem, a traffic light controlled crossroads has a higher throughput of traffic at peak times than a roundabout. Obviously causes more delays off peak as you wait for the light to go green.

Heroditas

Carawaystick wrote: »

Surprising as it may seem, a traffic light controlled crossroads has a higher throughput of traffic at peak times than a roundabout. Obviously causes more delays off peak as you wait for the light to go green.

Well certainly anything is better than the traffic-controlled roundabout monstrosity that is currently there. However, this is exaccerbated by the traffic lights about 50m further up at the M50 interchange.
Anyway, can't wait until it's finished.

spacetweek

Heroditas wrote: »

Well certainly anything is better than the traffic-controlled roundabout monstrosity that is currently there. However, this is exacerbated by the traffic lights about 50m further up at the M50 interchange.
Anyway, can't wait until it's finished.

Not sure why you think the Castleknock roundabout will cause problems. The main traffic movements in this area are between the M50 and the new N3 section. The area where the Castleknock roundabout is currently located will only be taking N3/M50 to Blanch Village traffic, which I'm sure is a small minority.

The upgrade isn't perfect, but the road, rail and canal layout in this area is very complex and it's hard to shoehorn the new roads in. I think they've done a good job. The only reservation I have is that the new N3 section bypassing the roundabout freeflows west, but not east. The canal is in the way though.

mysterious

spacetweek wrote: »

Not sure why you think the Castleknock roundabout will cause problems. The main traffic movements in this area are between the M50 and the new N3 section. The area where the Castleknock roundabout is currently located will only be taking N3/M50 to Blanch Village traffic, which I'm sure is a small minority.

The upgrade isn't perfect, but the road, rail and canal layout in this area is very complex and it's hard to shoehorn the new roads in. I think they've done a good job. The only reservation I have is that the new N3 section bypassing the roundabout freeflows west, but not east. The canal is in the way though.

Blame the corrupt T.Ds and developers for making the sprawl around this interchange, and now an expensive upgrade to build around the mess.

Carawaystick

There's 2 layers of tarmac down on the ramp from the M1S to the bridge over the N32 which will loop across to the M50 westbound.

There is also load of work going on on the M1S between the Airport junction and the M50 junction, seems to be an extra lane going in in the median.
Dunno if they are going to add an extra lane here Northbound too, to make the merge from the M50 smoother, instead of the sharp, short merging lane at present.

cargo

Carawaystick wrote: »

...

There is also load of work going on on the M1S between the Airport junction and the M50 junction, seems to be an extra lane going in in the median.
Dunno if they are going to add an extra lane here Northbound too, to make the merge from the M50 smoother, instead of the sharp, short merging lane at present.

Yeah anything that can help here at the merge North towards the airport can only help even if is is just adding another aux lane from the slip or another main carraigeway lane. At least it'll add a few more holes to try slot into

Davy

The last piece on the New 'M50 northbound' bridge that will take you into the tunnel was put in last week. Finishes off the bridge seen in Post 141




Best thing about the pic is the sky today

serfboard

davebuck wrote: »

Quote
Otherwise, cut the moaning BS. They were given permission subject to the road being finished. The road is not finished. End of.

I think you'll find when planning and the date was agreed the NRA gave it the okay for the end of July for Ikea to open.You should really check the Facts first!!!

You will find that IKEA was given planning permission subject to conditions such as:

Prior to the first occupation or use of the proposed development for trading, the following improvements to the Ballymun Interchange shall have been fully completed to the satisfaction of the planning authority

et al.

Carawaystick

this planning authority wasn't fingal county council was it? the people who obviously told ikea the work'd be done to their satisfaction by their announced opening date.....

cargo

Supports for new gantries at along the M50 mainline towards the M50 - M1 junction been installed currently. They had a crane getting ready to lift there last night and there was a few already up around the place.

It's only stubs at the minute but I'd imaine they are for overhead signage.

Davy

cargo wrote: »

Supports for new gantries at along the M50 mainline towards the M50 - M1 junction been installed currently. They had a crane getting ready to lift there last night and there was a few already up around the place.

It's only stubs at the minute but I'd imaine they are for overhead signage.

Ye, thats right. They had a fill truck load of them, and dropping 2 off every so often. The lads on the M1 interchange are doing a good job in my opinion, where the guys on the main carriageways seem slow enough. their is a huge amount to do at finglas and barely anyone working at it. Ballymun junction is straight forward but still loads to do, and with ikea open in a month they should have more manpower i think, and loads of people looking for work that would love to get the chance

Carawaystick

the deck panels are almost all on on the overbridge across the M1 at the M1/M50 junction, there were a few gaps, but it was just the steel beams yesterday.

Davy

this junction is really doing well, a lot has been done in the past few weeks. The majority of hte groundwork has been finished, like on the left of this picture, and behind the bridge is done.

Chris_533976

Good god that slip is steep and tight. Look at it in comparison to the current one!

Chris_533976

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Good god that slip is steep and tight. Look at it in comparison to the current one!

Great "chicane" for budding racing drivers to test their skills out on.

Carawaystick

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Good god that slip is steep and tight. Look at it in comparison to the current one!

I don't think it's close to as steep or tight as the M50-N4 slip though.

Chris_533976

Could just be the photo but what sort of clearance is there? What height of load do you have before you smash into the bridge? A lot less than the mainline, thats for sure.

Davy

Its really not as bad as it lucks, the photo makes it look worse.

Maldini2706

You can see the temporary ramp from the N3 to the M50 northbound now, it goes from Scott's r/b towards the N3 at the back of Total Fitness. Traffic from the N3 outbound will have to loop around Scott's r/b which will probably cause a fair amount of congestion for traffic in both directions on the approach to the r/b. It's due to open on July 13th and will remain in place until early December.

Carawaystick

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Could just be the photo but what sort of clearance is there? What height of load do you have before you smash into the bridge? A lot less than the mainline, thats for sure.

The bridge height over the mainline is very high, there's a good ramp up to that bridge across the M1 from the start of the slip from M50 -> M1

There's loads more room to play with here, there's no Gym or housing estate or tramline in the way....

Carawaystick

Carawaystick wrote: »

The bridge height over the mainline is very high, there's a good ramp up to that bridge across the M1 from the start of the slip from M50 -> M1

So high in fact, that it's installation disrupted some microwave radio links between the airport and north Dublin telco sites.

Davy

Maldini2706 wrote: »

You can see the temporary ramp from the N3 to the M50 northbound now, it goes from Scott's r/b towards the N3 at the back of Total Fitness. Traffic from the N3 outbound will have to loop around Scott's r/b which will probably cause a fair amount of congestion for traffic in both directions on the approach to the r/b. It's due to open on July 13th and will remain in place until early December.

You might be interested in the N3 junction thread:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055395842

And yes its from july 13th till dec 4th. Coming from from trim direction it will be fine, the problem will be coming from city going northbound, a U-turn around the roundabout will be required to access the slip

Maldini2706

Yes but the increase in traffic using the r/b will surely have an impact on traffic coming from the N3inbound as well. They'll have to augment the lights to prevent meltdown on the N3 outbound which will in turn take time away from the N 3 inbound.

Random

Maldini2706 wrote: »

Yes but the increase in traffic using the r/b will surely have an impact on traffic coming from the N3inbound as well. They'll have to augment the lights to prevent meltdown on the N3 outbound which will in turn take time away from the N 3 inbound.

A lot of inbound traffic goes to the M50 anyway so Northbound traffic will be filtered away (free flow I assume) and not be stopped at the Blanch roundabout.

Maldini2706

Random wrote: »

A lot of inbound traffic goes to the M50 anyway so Northbound traffic will be filtered away (free flow I assume) and not be stopped at the Blanch roundabout.

That's a pretty big assumption given the way things usually operate here They'll still need to give about the same amount of time to inbound traffic (which has become a problem in the evenings in recent months) whilst increasing the outbound time. I think it'll be fine in the morning when there's very little outbound traffic but the problems will arise in the evening. We'll have to wait and see.

Davy

Random wrote: »

A lot of inbound traffic goes to the M50 anyway so Northbound traffic will be filtered away (free flow I assume) and not be stopped at the Blanch roundabout.

Maldini2706 wrote: »

That's a pretty big assumption given the way things usually operate here

No, thats the way i believe its going to operate. Look at this picture thats in the N3 thread, you can see the slip to the m50 is ready well before the roundabout


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60833468&postcount=80

Davy wrote: »

N3 Inbound - Inside the barrier is cleared where the new inbound N3 lanes will be.

Random

Looking at this diagram again it would appear that there is free flow N3 inbound before the Blanch roundabout onto the M50 North. There will also be an option to get onto this sliproad from the roundabout, presumably for traffic coming from Blanch / outbound.

darkman2

Aerial of M1/M50 interchange - don't know who it is by though but it's a good shot.

Heroditas

Awesome! It's really coming along. It's hard to judge how much the work has progressed when you use the intersection yourself but from that picture, it looks easily more than 50% complete!

Davy

Heroditas wrote: »

Awesome! It's really coming along. It's hard to judge how much the work has progressed when you use the intersection yourself but from that picture, it looks easily more than 50% complete!

I would say closer to 80%. They are ready for tarmac on most of it. They have even started laying tarmac on the main line north and southbound on the m50.

Heroditas

Any ideas when this interchange will be open?
I'd almost be inclined to not open the M1 -> M50 part of it until more of the M50 work southbound is finished. Otherwise, it would simply funnel a large bottleneck of traffic onto the unfinished M50 and cause chaos in the mornings.

Heroditas

Heroditas wrote: »

Any ideas when this interchange will be open?
I'd almost be inclined to not open the M1 -> M50 part of it until more of the M50 work southbound is finished. Otherwise, it would simply funnel a large bottleneck of traffic onto the unfinished M50 and cause chaos in the mornings.

I don't think that it would be too much of a bottleneck, the third lane to Ballymun would open at the same time.

That photo was from the northern side of the junction, which is more advanced than the southern & western ends.

Work on constructiing the embankments for the M1S -> M50S after the bridges hasn't even started yet, same could be said for the M50N -> Port Tunnel road.

Still a good four-six months at a guess.

mysterious

Guy's I asked this question before.

What is the Cross section median width of the M50 from M1 to N3 blanch.

It varies I think of 15metres?? The actual grass section. Someone told me that its widest from The M1 to the N3 and its slighty narrower from the N4 the whole way down the M50.

Carawaystick

there's no grass anymore, only a jersey barrier.

MICKEYG

darkman2 wrote: »

Aerial of M1/M50 interchange - don't know who it is by though but it's a good shot.

Great shot, It might be the angle of the photo but the new routes do not look angled. They would need to be angled to cope with 100km/h speeds. It would be silly if they were flat and everyone had to crawl around the junction.

Bluetonic

MICKEYG wrote: »

They would need to be angled to cope with 100km/h speeds. It would be silly if they were flat and everyone had to crawl around the junction.

Is that a presumption that the limit will be 100km/h or factual?

I very much doubt the limit will be 100km/h considering the M50 south of this (old M1 & Port Tunnel) is 80km/h and the M1 north of this is also 80km/h.

Carawaystick

The existing roundabout can be driven at 50, so the larger radii of these freeflow junctions will be easier to drive at speed. The M1 and M50 is 80 at the minute on the mainline beneath the junction, I'd say the junction will have 60 limit.
There's gonna be a lot of weaving from this junction to the tunnel, as trucks will need to change two lanes right to get to the tunnel, as the existing onslip will still be there for the N32 traffic.

JupiterKid

Actually if you look closely at the new bridges at the M1/M50 junction, they are indeed angled to cater for the traffic that they will carry.

KevR

JupiterKid wrote: »

Actually if you look closely at the new bridges at the M1/M50 junction, they are indeed angled to cater for the traffic that they will carry.

Yeah when you're driving past you can see the bridges are angled. Not sure about the rest of the junction apart from the bridges but I presume it will be slightly angled also if the bridges are.

Davy

Davy wrote: »

Davy wrote: »

JupiterKid wrote: »

Actually if you look closely at the new bridges at the M1/M50 junction, they are indeed angled to cater for the traffic that they will carry.

The bridges do have a camber on them. Its hard to see on the pictures, but in these two of both sides, you can see the underneath looking north, where you cant looking south.

LEIN

I hear that when the upgrade is complete that the speed limit will be just 100kph.

Can anyone confirm this?

jlang

Yes, it's in the official docs. They had to settle for lower sight distances and lane widths to fit the extra lanes in without taking extra land at the edge of the road (some of which wouldn't have been easily available anyway).

Davy

Looking at the mainline from M1 junction nearly to the ballymun slip today, and their is a lot of work done lately. Its extremely wide at the m1 end, all asphalt down apart from the top layer. I can see them opening it till they catch up around ballymun and finglas.