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M50 thread

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Comments

  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,257 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    M5 :P

    My keyboard often misses a character.




  • My keyboard often misses a character.
    I kno I'm only pulling your le. ;)


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,257 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Mod: A troll post removed plus those that replied to it. Sorry to those that replied.



  • Registered Users Posts: 27,038 ✭✭✭✭blanch152


    Back in the day, the moped licence was also given when you passed the car driving test, I have one but I believe they dropped it many years ago.

    You are correct, and I got one too, despite never having sat on a moped before. Not currently commuting and got rid of the moped when I stopped, but I used one for over a decade. Great for getting in and out of Dublin.


  • Registered Users Posts: 260 ✭✭csd


    Folks,

    Some of the new electronic gantry signs that have started to go up on the M50 as part of the EMOS project. So far they only seem to be up on the northern section between the N3 and M1 interchanges.

    1. Integrated into an existing direction sign gantry.
    51165222327_7ab42534df_b.jpg

    2. Large sign + lane controls
    51166988425_e3c33e4fe7_b.jpg

    3. The third style.
    51166121378_bdf2aa3e7a_b.jpg

    /csd


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  • WOW, only took 10 years after the gantries were erected!


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,647 ✭✭✭✭punisher5112


    Starting to look like the UK now....

    Unreal that's took so long....

    Even outside Dublin there are huge single type ones which have never been fitted with the screen.


  • Posts: 7,712 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    It’s really getting to the stage where they need to Holland off the exit lanes anoint 1.5 to 2km before the exit junctions. Especially N7 southbound, N3 southbound, and N4 northbound. Massive needless delays being caused by people squeezing in late every day.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,784 ✭✭✭Alkers


    It’s really getting to the stage where they need to Holland off the exit lanes anoint 1.5 to 2km before the exit junctions. Especially N7 southbound, N3 southbound, and N4 northbound. Massive needless delays being caused by people squeezing in late every day.

    That will just move the problem?


  • Posts: 7,712 ✭✭✭[Deleted User]


    Alkers wrote: »
    That will just move the problem?

    It will still give a clear run to the exit from that point. Failing that, a sniper.


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,257 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    It’s really getting to the stage where they need to Holland off the exit lanes anoint 1.5 to 2km before the exit junctions. Especially N7 southbound, N3 southbound, and N4 northbound. Massive needless delays being caused by people squeezing in late every day.

    In France they mark off lanes two and three before the junction, so you have to be in lane one to exit - so exit drivers must get into lane one long before the exit.

    Of course, this all goes to nought without any enforcement.

    They need average speed cameras, and include NCT and Tax, and insurance into them.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,459 ✭✭✭jlang


    Part of the weaving problem is also exiting traffic trying to push into the aux lane immediately it joins after the previous junction, not giving the traffic coming down the onramp any space to comfortably join into lane 1.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,461 ✭✭✭vickers209


    Anyone know why they moved the toll point/ cameras further north towards blanch?



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,228 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    It's mad with all the bluff about reducing emissions and promoting alternative modes of transport that there isn't even any talk of building a public transport/walking/cycling alternative to the M50, the state's busiest road. Even the most motivated of avid walkers, cyclists and public transport users are more/less forced to make all North-South journeys by car on the M50.

    There is basically no practical alternative for any north-south journey between lucan and chapelizod and neither of them are exactly direct routes between trip generators. A short journey between Clondalkin and blanch must be completed by getting in a car and driving on the country's busiest road, absolute bonkers planning and utterly laughable for any modern state.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,201 ✭✭✭ongarboy


    You realise 1000s of motorists go from Lucan to Chapelizod via Strawberry Beds and as many more from Blanchardstown to Clondalkin via the Clonsilla/Clonee/Lucan back roads every day? Not the smoothest of alternatives sure but still fairly practical. In fact I've often timed journeys from the M7 to Clonsilla (and vice versa) in a shorter time going via Grange Castle and Lucan rather than going all the way into a gridlocked tolled M50 and back out onto a gridlocked N3.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,228 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    I think you missed the point. Walking, cycling or taking public transport for North-south journeys in West Dublin is very difficult, the only crossing point are chapelizod and lucan, fine if you are in a car but not very practical otherwise.

    Why talk about reducing emissions from transport if there is almost no non-car alternative to the country's busiest road.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,201 ✭✭✭ongarboy


    Sorry I did misinterpret you. I didn't realise you were specifically referring to non private car options. There is a Dublin bus that goes from Blanchardstown to Liffey Valley via Lucan but not much other options. Cycling on those windy narrow back roads is lethal too.



  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 24,056 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sully


    This appears to have more or less stopped, unless their not doing the full length of the M50.



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,643 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    the gantry signs on Saturday were warning of traffic at J14 for the horse racing - this was as I was driving north past Tallaght with Leopardstown many miles behind me.



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,219 ✭✭✭markpb




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  • Registered Users Posts: 9,219 ✭✭✭markpb


    "The system will begin this autumn with variable speed limits being displayed on overhead gantries, as guidance only, until motorists are familiar with the signs."

    That seems like a recipe for disaster!



  • Registered Users Posts: 80,798 ✭✭✭✭Atlantic Dawn


    €50 million seems a lot or does that include a Chinook on permanent standby to lift away any cars blocking traffic?



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,219 ✭✭✭markpb


    IIRC the gantry and equipment for the original M50 barrier-free toll was over €20 million. If you have to install some gantries, equipment on all the gantries, network from each of the gantries to the back-office and some software to manage the whole thing, you'd easily run up an eye watering bill. Paying people to work on/over the motorway is expensive, road closures are expensive, etc.

    I suspect the Chinook would be more cost effective and useful :D



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,380 ✭✭✭KrisW1001


    I don’t think people realise how much these structures cost. Even a road-sign gantry across a motorway costs about €250k: that’s for nothing except the structure and the signs on it. If you want electronic equipment mounted onto a gantry, you need maintenance access behind it, as well as the expected electrical and data connections, and that greatly increases the size and cost.

    As for phasing in the VSL, how hard is it going to be? Run ads on radio/internet for three months up to and a month afterward telling people that the limits will change throughout the day and they should follow the signage. Those signs themselves will display the current speed-limit as a big number with “km/h” written under it, inside a red circle. Anyone who doesn’t grasp what that means needs to hand back their licence.

    We swapped from MPH to km/h speed-limits practically overnight in January 2005, with no phase-in period - this is far less of a shift.



  • Registered Users Posts: 574 ✭✭✭Aontachtoir


    Your point about the miles to kilometres switch is well-made. One of the helpful matters in making the switch was that the Gardaí were clear that people would be fined for breaches of the new speed limits, and that claims of ignorance would not be accepted as an excuse. The news stories that I remember from the time focused heavily on the "be ready, no excuses" aspect, especially the Garda enforcement side.

    Isn't there a very real risk in teaching M50 motorists that they can safely ignore the speed limits they see on the gantries if they are lower than 100 km/h? Surely a publicity campaign and an immediate, visible Garda enforcement of new limits would be much more effective in getting the message out that the new speed limits matter and must be obeyed? How many people need to learn what a speed limit sign on a gantry looks like?



  • Registered Users Posts: 6,647 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Surely this will only cause more problems when the speed limits displayed go from "guidance only" to enforced? I mean, I think it more reasonable to claim "well we were told these limits were guidance only, I wasn't aware that they are now the legal limit" than to claim "I saw the numbers with kph displayed on those big signs, I just didn't know what it meant".

    This guidance only thing is only going to create more ambiguity and confusion.



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,811 ✭✭✭Chris_5339762


    Oh they grasp it alright, they just willfully ignore it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 4,037 ✭✭✭afatbollix


    Like the UK, without a camera attached to it everyone ignores them.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,326 ✭✭✭crazy 88


    This is like bus connects. Making a big PR success fanfare out of something that should have existed already. In some other countries it's a days work.

    Post edited by crazy 88 on


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