M50 to be made even more unbearable

Aard

BoatMad wrote: »

better land use means cheaper buildings, hence more of them , hence rents are more affordable, In Dublin that means high rise, not a popular choice and contary to current development planning

Where in the Dublin City Development Plan does it say that? I'm quite familiar with the document and language used therein so a page number would suffice.

Irish Steve

BoatMad wrote: »

you are obviously completely unaware of the recent massive revamp to the building regulations and the certification process. It was so draconian that it stopped all self build dead in the water

We can't control the housing market, thats done by supply and demand. Or perhaps you'd like to change the constitution as well.

I am well aware of the changes (long overdue) in the building regulations, but it's still relying on certification from people that may not have been near the site, and who will not have any financial liability for things not done correctly without a great deal of aggravation.

The UK system relies on inspections of every stage by the local authority, and they are obliged to come out and inspect. We've seen the results of certification in terms of the abuses that were perpetrated during the tiger years, and that was only the culmination of years of abuse by many different organisations and systems. There were huge numbers of certificates signed by architects who had never even been near the site, let alone the property that they were signing off for.

Changing the rules is a bit like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic, the end result is immaterial, what has to change is the culture of accountability for the quality of the work done. and snagging a property after it's been build doesn't find the stuff that's been hidden by later work, and if the inspections are being done by an agent of the developer, there's no motivation to find fault and get it fixed at that time.

Self build was never the problem, it was the cowboys developers operating large sites with 7 or 8 different shell companies that were the problem, the number of abuses of both customers and sub contractors was massive.

To add to the mix on the overall discussion, this evening's Duncan Stewart programme made interesting watching, huge swathes of the centre of Dublin, (and other major towns) are likely to be rendered uninhabitable if the sea level changes that are being predicted actually happen. That will change the face of Dublin beyond recognition, and maybe, if it's properly planned, what comes out of that scenario might just be more acceptable all round.

Either way, what's becoming clear is that increasing numbers of people are going to be living outside the M50, and given that it's the only high volume crossing of the Liffey outside of the centre of the city, it's no wonder that it's under pressure, given how much Dublin has changed over the last 25 years since the M50 was first laid out.

Like it or not, even if massive fortunes were to be spent on public transport over the next few years, significant extra money will have to be spent on upgrading the orbital routes around Dublin. Every other city of comparable size to Dublin has had to face the same issues, and the M50 was and is an old design that was built 15 years too late, and with too many compromises as a result of poor initial design and subsequent building that prevented the upgrade of the junctions in the way that they should have been upgraded.

Aard

BoatMad wrote: »

I see no issue with a 60 minute commute, thats a typically door to door commute in Dublin,

Ireland is not the USA, its a tiny country, an efficient road system can easily transport people across it quickly,

Lets just leave all the " received" wisdom to one side ( and the utopian stuff ) . explain why a 60 minute commute is " unsustainable" , I suspect it will be a surprise to the 1000s getting home at the moment

The way that averages work is that some will be above average and some below. 60 minutes is at the high end of commutes. We should not plan for that.

monument

BoatMad wrote: »

... in reality rural housing has little effect on traffic, its simply not dense enough

One-off rural housing has, proportionally, a far greater impact on traffic than urban or suburban housing.

One-off housing's affect is less apprent in the Greater Dublin Area but for every one-off house you have you're likely talking about a house where walking, cycling and public transport are not options. There's some hope providing sustainable transport for commuter towns, but very little for houses dotted all over the countryside.

SeanW

BoatMad wrote: »

I'm all for quality of construction, even if the current building regulations enforcement is a mess and is being changed as we speak. The Uk system is much better.

Thats not the point, the point is that better and bigger centre city apartments with green spaces, high quality construction, recycling etc etc etc all raise the price. Already they are beyond ordinary couples , who are forced to seek housing in the greater Dub area. What you suggest will make such apartments even dearer , creating a rich mans ghetto. ( and this is what has happened in Europe )

Not necessarily. During the boom developers charged half a million for the badly built shoeboxes, where you could hear your neighbours toilet movements in detail, for example. Cheap and Nasty don't always go together - you can (and we did) have one without the other.

Calina

BoatMad wrote: »

Purchasing a house in German is a very expensive business, often only undertaken quite late in life. As a result Germans have very poor mobility and often are in one dwelling their whole life. If thats a great area that good, if its not , it can be very difficult to move.

But they have a lot of mobility while they are renting and if they do that until late in life, I'm not sure what your problem is. We similarly have had massive mobility issues courtesy of negative equity in particular for the sector of society - young staff up to about 45 - where mobility would be most useful.

BoatMad wrote: »

personally I would say that urban European housing has as many problems as we have ,just they are different.

They support public transport more effectively though.

BoatMad wrote: »

What we have however is an extra-ordinary level of house ownership that is the envy of many other countries . despite our criticisms , we also have quite an exceeding good standard of accommodation and space in the typical 3 bed semi.

I strongly disagree. I've lived in apartments in France, Germany, Belgium and the UK. Our standard of accommodation, to put it mildly, is variable and there is a monumental lack of trust in both the sales and rental markets.

BoatMad wrote: »

We are too quick to think we havent it as good as the next fellow, when in reality we have it better.

Some things are better and some things are worse. Home ownership in Dublin will be a pipe dream unless something is done to sort out supply issues. The apartments which were built are not sustainably designed as in people should be able to live in them for life but can't.

Our tenancy legislation is better than the UK (this would not be hard right now) but worse than that of France, Germany and Belgium.

The other issue is services availability. If you talk to people with children of school going age, it doesn't really matter if they own a house when they have issues getting kids into schools.

Brendan Bendar

TheChizler wrote: »

I'm not sure we're on the same page here. Why call it a motorway if you take away the primary advantage of a motorway, the increased speed limit? Why call it a motorway if it has 50 km/h sections? And soon to (possibly) be 60 km/h?

A motorway is a road structure which no access from the side,graded entrance and exit ramps.

That's it, speed has nothing to do with it.

bonerjams03

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Of course they did.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w15376

It has been empirically proven that adding lanes does not solve any problems with congestion.

To deride an organisation that has been consistently correct regarding our woeful planning decisions because you blindly think more lanes will solve a problem is a terrible attitude to have.

Irish Steve

IRcolm wrote: »

http://www.nber.org/papers/w15376

It has been empirically proven that adding lanes does not solve any problems with congestion.

To deride an organisation that has been consistently correct regarding our woeful planning decisions because you blindly think more lanes will solve a problem is a terrible attitude to have.

It would be helpful if you were slightly less selective with your quotes. the report you cite states

We investigate the relationship between interstate highways and highway vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) in US cities. We find that VKT increases proportionately to highways and identify three important sources for this extra VKT: an increase in driving by current residents; an increase in transportation intensive production activity; and an inflow of new residents. The provision of public transportation has no impact on VKT. We also estimate the aggregate city level demand for VKT and find it to be very elastic. We conclude that an increased provision of roads or public transit is unlikely to relieve congestion.

If one was to be pessimistic, their conclusion is that there is NO solution to congestion, Perhaps the solution is to demolish Dublin and start again with a different concept, but I suspect that's unlikely to be an acceptable option, for a whole range of reasons.

The other alternative is to make the "place of work" more flexible, by using more home based facilities, but that too will require some fundamental culture shifts, both for workers and management, as well as a much more resilient and capable infrastructure for things like broadband.

mrbike

Irish Steve wrote: »

If one was to be pessimistic, their conclusion is that there is NO solution to congestion. Perhaps the solution is to demolish Dublin and start again with a different concept.

I think you missed the entire point. Roads will always be congested no matter how many you build. We know there is no solution to congestion. The idea is to make public transport the quickest method of travel in and out of cities. You allocate the limited space available in cities to public transport. E.G. Bus lanes, or the new LUAS line.

The vast majority of road space in Dublin city is allocated to the most inefficient method of transport - single vehicle commuters.

Dublin would grind to a halt without bus, rail and LUAS services.

Irish Steve

mrbike wrote: »

I think you missed the entire point. Roads will always be congested no matter how many you build. We know there is no solution to congestion. The idea is to make public transport the quickest method of travel in and out of cities. You allocate the limited space available in cities to public transport. E.G. Bus lanes, or the new LUAS line.

The vast majority of road space in Dublin city is allocated to the most inefficient method of transport - single vehicle commuters.

Dublin would grind to a halt without bus, rail and LUAS services.

Their conclusion was more fundamental, that even with MORE public transport, congestion will not be resolved, regardless of the quantity provided, and in Dublin's case, there is a woeful lack of transport that meets the needs of the vast numbers of people that don't work inside the canal ring, as the vast majority of the public transport system is focussed on providing services into the centre of the city, and there is a massive lack of provision for the outer areas from other outer areas.

There are fundamental issues with the manner in which public transport and private vehicles are integrated. In way too many places, when a bus stops, nothing else can move until it moves again, and due to the total inefficiency of the manner in which exit, boarding and fare collection is managed, the dwell time at stops is significantly greater than it should be, with the result being huge delay to all traffic for that period of time.

The phasing of many traffic lights just does not work, and there's no coherent strategy to have groups of lights sequenced to provide better throughput. There's no coherent strategy for lane usage, and that also is a cause of massive delays at junctions.

Long distance coaches should interline with local services at a suitable location in the area of the M50, and then run non stop to Busaras or the Airport, with the local services providing the drop off and collect at intermediate points. In the same way, some of the services from the outer suburbs should run limited stop to the centre, rather than stopping at every stop on the route, and interchange between services should be facilitated with a much more structured zone system, with the interchange between all forms of transport (DART, LUAS and buses) being transparent to fares.

Proper sensible size and affordable park and ride facilities are needed in some of the suburban towns, with non stop or limited stop feeder services into Dublin, that keep the centre of those towns free of all day parkers, so that the local services can still function. Park and ride that then only uses slow stopping services is not the answer to getting people out of their vehicles into public transport.

yipeeeee

Ahhh can't take it anymore, contains collision does it ever end, worst nation of drivers.

Banjoxed

Calina wrote: »

In my failed experiment to use public transport, I used the 46A route southbound leaving city centre. It was generally packed and often could not pick me up in the city centre because it was packed. There's no point in howling about all the SUVs on the road if in fact, the alternatives are packed. I can't speak for any of the other options from experience but I@m not sure I've seen anyone suggesting those DART trains and those Luas trams and goddammit all those buses on that QBC are actually empty. You'd have a point if they were; my experience says they probably aren't.



The Drumcondra corridor, Malahide corridor and Phibsboro corridors could not possibly be described as having mostly infrequent bus based transport. What they tend to have are serious bunching problems rendering it unreliable for people across great swathes of those arteries.

At this point, there does not need to be a stick. There will be a stick because construction of new infrastructure tends to cause disruption. But right now, even in those areas where there is semi-developed levels of public transport, the system is creaking. The issue - in my view - is that to get decent rail based public transport built, we might need to look at levelling some buildings.

I can't see it happening.

Congestion charging was discussed (and dismissed) in the old Dublin South East constituency as far back as the 1992 General Election. I'm willing to wager we still won't have a fully comprehensive rail and tram network - dismissing "QBCs" and "BRT" as cosmetic fixes - in another twenty three years in 2038 to politically justify congestion charging, given the glacially slow movement on rail projects; and the persistent cheerleading for buses in sections of our car driving society.

I would like to be wrong about this though.

BoatMad

Irish Steve wrote: »

I am well aware of the changes (long overdue) in the building regulations, but it's still relying on certification from people that may not have been near the site, and who will not have any financial liability for things not done correctly without a great deal of aggravation.

Actually the new system here, puts too much reliance on private certification and is making those certifiers nervous.

The UK system relies on inspections of every stage by the local authority, and they are obliged to come out and inspect. We've seen the results of certification in terms of the abuses that were perpetrated during the tiger years, and that was only the culmination of years of abuse by many different organisations and systems. There were huge numbers of certificates signed by architects who had never even been near the site, let alone the property that they were signing off for

.

That they can't do now, as they are financially liable

Changing the rules is a bit like shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic, the end result is immaterial, what has to change is the culture of accountability for the quality of the work done. and snagging a property after it's been build doesn't find the stuff that's been hidden by later work, and if the inspections are being done by an agent of the developer, there's no motivation to find fault and get it fixed at that time.

I think taken as a whole , house standards are not too bad in ireland.

Self build was never the problem, it was the cowboys developers operating large sites with 7 or 8 different shell companies that were the problem, the number of abuses of both customers and sub contractors was massive.

correct , but the new regs stopped self builders

To add to the mix on the overall discussion, this evening's Duncan Stewart programme made interesting watching, huge swathes of the centre of Dublin, (and other major towns) are likely to be rendered uninhabitable if the sea level changes that are being predicted actually happen. That will change the face of Dublin beyond recognition, and maybe, if it's properly planned, what comes out of that scenario might just be more acceptable all round.

eco nonsense

Either way, what's becoming clear is that increasing numbers of people are going to be living outside the M50, and given that it's the only high volume crossing of the Liffey outside of the centre of the city, it's no wonder that it's under pressure, given how much Dublin has changed over the last 25 years since the M50 was first laid out.

Like it or not, even if massive fortunes were to be spent on public transport over the next few years, significant extra money will have to be spent on upgrading the orbital routes around Dublin. Every other city of comparable size to Dublin has had to face the same issues, and the M50 was and is an old design that was built 15 years too late, and with too many compromises as a result of poor initial design and subsequent building that prevented the upgrade of the junctions in the way that they should have been upgraded.

Indeed a proper outer ring is needed , not a rat run alternative that the M50 was designed as

BoatMad

monument wrote: »

One-off rural housing has, proportionally, a far greater impact on traffic than urban or suburban housing.

One-off housing's affect is less apprent in the Greater Dublin Area but for every one-off house you have you're likely talking about a house where walking, cycling and public transport are not options. There's some hope providing sustainable transport for commuter towns, but very little for houses dotted all over the countryside.

Given that less then 20% use public transport where it jus available, I don't see any justification that one off rural housing causes excessive traffic

Aard

Aard wrote: »

Where in the Dublin City Development Plan does it say that? I'm quite familiar with the document and language used therein so a page number would suffice.

Hi BoatMad, you might have missed this question of mine a few posts ago, but was just wondering if you could point to where in the development plan it states that "high rise is contrary to current development planning"? Cheers.

patrickbrophy18

BoatMad wrote: »

Indeed a proper outer ring is needed , not a rat run alternative that the M50 was designed as

I think the rise in demand is a major opportunity to invest in a proper orbital Rail/BRT system. If done right, I definitely think it could work. As someone who drives to and from Citywest, Monday to Friday, I would definitely switch to public transport if a fast, direct, frequent and reliable alternative was put in place. It's clear that we need to curb the rise in demand for private transport in favor of more sustainable means. Investment in an outer ring road would exacerbate the process exponentially. Instead, we need to provide proper and attractive incentives to switch to other modes. The outdated method of traveling to the city only to come out the other side is time consuming (about 2 hours each way) and unattractive.

Dial Hard

M50 southbound a complete and utter clusterfcuk yet again this morning. Took over an hour to do J4 to J7.

Is it really just volume causing all these issues? It seems to be getting worse on an almost weekly basis.

positron

^^^^ I was on a motorbike on M1/M50 this morning, and there were two crashes on M50 around 9 - one near N3 blocking on lane and another after J10, blocking two lanes. The amount of people letting their cars crawl along while they look stare at their phones and not realizing their car drifting inches close to other lane was unreal. It made filtering really hard this morning.

BoatMad

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

I think the rise in demand is a major opportunity to invest in a proper orbital Rail/BRT system. If done right, I definitely think it could work. As someone who drives to and from Citywest, Monday to Friday, I would definitely switch to public transport if a fast, direct, frequent and reliable alternative was put in place. It's clear that we need to curb the rise in demand for private transport in favor of more sustainable means. Investment in an outer ring road would exacerbate the process exponentially. Instead, we need to provide proper and attractive incentives to switch to other modes. The outdated method of traveling to the city only to come out the other side is time consuming (about 2 hours each way) and unattractive.

public transport is unfortunately no solution to congestion, it merely actually becomes part of the problem

Furthermore Rail systems in themselves are capacity constrained as IR now finds to their cost especially with lines north of Connolly. on road trams have severe speed limitations etc.

In reality there is no comprehensive solution, but there are certainly wgineering changes that could be done to the M50 to improve things, removing local traffic being a priority, the western section has simply way to many closely spaced exits and this is a primary cause of its problems

cdebru

BoatMad wrote: »

public transport is unfortunately no solution to congestion, it merely actually becomes part of the problem

Furthermore Rail systems in themselves are capacity constrained as IR now finds to their cost especially with lines north of Connolly. on road trams have severe speed limitations etc.

In reality there is no comprehensive solution, but there are certainly wgineering changes that could be done to the M50 to improve things, removing local traffic being a priority, the western section has simply way to many closely spaced exits and this is a primary cause of its problems

No poorly funded public transport with little to zero policing is not a solution to congestion, properly functioning public transport is a solution.

You can reengineer roads, make junctions free flowing, increase or decrease speed limits but you will still end up back where you started because demand for the road will grow to meet the supply add new lanes and it will flow better which will attract more people to drive on it and fill up the space you created till you are back where you started.
Private cars can not be accommodated in the numbers that want to use them they just can't all fit into the space they want to go into at the same time that's it, public transport that just mixes with those private cars are not a solution, single rail lines that mix long distance, commuter and local services all on a single line are not a solution, but that is lack of planning and investment not that rail doesn't work or separated road based public transport doesn't work.

BoatMad

cdebru wrote: »

No poorly funded public transport with little to zero policing is not a solution to congestion, properly functioning public transport is a solution.

You can reengineer roads, make junctions free flowing, increase or decrease speed limits but you will still end up back where you started because demand for the road will grow to meet the supply add new lanes and it will flow better which will attract more people to drive on it and fill up the space you created till you are back where you started.
Private cars can not be accommodated in the numbers that want to use them they just can't all fit into the space they want to go into at the same time that's it, public transport that just mixes with those private cars are not a solution, single rail lines that mix long distance, commuter and local services all on a single line are not a solution, but that is lack of planning and investment not that rail doesn't work or separated road based public transport doesn't work.

Millons and millions has been put into a poorly performing rail system, commuter rail in dublin is incredibly hampered by lack of space and 19th century town planning concepts. Nor was it ever planned to be a commuter service.

Hence any heavy rail projects will be underground at simply enormous costs as Metro North has shown, yet will still be on little benefit to suburban commuters.

There is NO rail orientated policy that can help the situation. Thats a pipe dream.

Hence this is a surface road issue, We can certainly remove bottlenecks, reduce engineered in congestion spots

For example, there are several major congestion spots on the M50 , primarily one at the Western side and M50/N/M11 the rest of the road runs " reasonably well". Both these congestion's are not a fundamental failing of road based commuting, they are a designed in engineering fault that needs to be fixed.

After all , one can only drive one car at a time, hence car usage is ultimately constrained.

Calina

BoatMad wrote: »

In reality there is no comprehensive solution, but there are certainly wgineering changes that could be done to the M50 to improve things, removing local traffic being a priority, the western section has simply way to many closely spaced exits and this is a primary cause of its problems

Where do you expect that local traffic to be removed to? Do you imagine things will actually get better if you send traffic from Tallaght through the city centre to get to Blanchardstown as you are "taking local traffic off the M50"?

Calina

BoatMad wrote: »

Millons and millions has been put into a poorly performing rail system, commuter rail in dublin is incredibly hampered by lack of space and 19th century town planning concepts. Nor was it ever planned to be a commuter service.

Hence any heavy rail projects will be underground at simply enormous costs as Metro North has shown, yet will still be on little benefit to suburban commuters.

There is NO rail orientated policy that can help the situation. Thats a pipe dream.

Hence this is a surface road issue, We can certainly remove bottlenecks, reduce engineered in congestion spots

For example, there are several major congestion spots on the M50 , primarily one at the Western side and M50/N/M11 the rest of the road runs " reasonably well". Both these congestion's are not a fundamental failing of road based commuting, they are a designed in engineering fault that needs to be fixed.

After all , one can only drive one car at a time, hence car usage is ultimately constrained.

But it's an inefficient way of moving lots of people around, even you have to admit that.

In the meantime, what might be an option is to level parts of the city to facilitate comprehensive replanning of the city. Oh I know it's not palatable in the short term but there would then be improvements. Plus it would kick start the economy even more.

Idbatterim

the eastern bypass would improve things... I understand that there may not be funding for all of the fixes we need right now, but eventually everything that has been planned in the fairly recent past, is going to have to be part of the solution...

Irish Steve

BoatMad wrote: »

public transport is unfortunately no solution to congestion, it merely actually becomes part of the problem

Furthermore Rail systems in themselves are capacity constrained as IR now finds to their cost especially with lines north of Connolly. on road trams have severe speed limitations etc.

In reality there is no comprehensive solution, but there are certainly wgineering changes that could be done to the M50 to improve things, removing local traffic being a priority, the western section has simply way to many closely spaced exits and this is a primary cause of its problems

The problem with trying to find a way to "get rid" of "local" traffic is the absence of coherent design in the crossing of the Liffey, there is no high volume crossing over the Liffey outside the city centre area other than the M50, I am very sure that if it existed, there would be massive numbers of drivers who would be only too happy to use an alternative, but it doesn't exist, with the exception of the M50, all of the bridges over the Liffey between Islandbridge and Maynooth are only suitable for low volume light traffic, with narrow, poor and unsuitable access routes to them.

So, the M50 has no alternative other than to be the local traffic crossing point as well as the long distance crossing for all the motorway traffic that's trying to get long distances. If the R136 were to be extended over the Liffey to join with the M3, you can be sure that it would be very busy, but the absence of the link over the Liffey means that the M50 has to take the pressure.


For the M50/M11 area, an extra lane southbound, with the southbound carriageway then split before the 2 motorways join, the right 2 lanes for M50 to M11 only, and the left lane would then take an overpass bridge over the M11 traffic, and then feed in to the left hand side of the carriageway, to be used for Bray /R119 (Old N11) only, with a hard barrier between the right most 2 lanes until after the exit for Bray. Just the flyover to the Bray exit would help, but without the barriers, there would still be too many people that would be in the "wrong" lane, and pushing through the M11 traffic across all 3 lanes to exit, which is what causes most of the problems with that area at present.

Francie Barrett

Dial Hard wrote: »

M50 southbound a complete and utter clusterfcuk yet again this morning. Took over an hour to do J4 to J7.

Is it really just volume causing all these issues? It seems to be getting worse on an almost weekly basis.

The M50 has gotten so awful these last few weeks that I would happily pay an extra Euro if the congestion could be made to go away.

BoatMad

but without the barriers, there would still be too many people that would be in the "wrong" lane, and pushing through the M11 traffic across all 3 lanes to exit, which is what causes most of the problems with that area at present.

as a regular traveller on this route I would argue that the sped restrictions at Kilmac are a bigger source of the problem.

Macy0161

BoatMad wrote: »

as a regular traveller on this route I would argue that the sped restrictions at Kilmac are a bigger source of the problem.

I think studies (that admittedly can't link to) have shown it to be the Bray South turnoff that's the ultimate cause of the problems on the M/N11 southbound which feedsback. There's been a few proposals to deal with this, which haven't got much past planning stage.

The design of Kilmac, regardless of speed limit must also play into this somewhat, given it's proximity and the kamikaze/ ignorant manoeuvres that people make exiting the petrol station. The design of the petrol station/ junction/ dual carriageway interaction beggars belief really for such a relatively recently built junction.

I don't think it's Bray North turnoff itself - the traffic doesn't pick up usually until past the onslip - if it was the off slip causing the issues it'd pick up before that.

StickyMcGinty

What about implementing a car pool lane on the M50? Isn't the crux of the issue the fact that there are simply too many cars on the M50 during the morning/evening?

Could further incentivise car pooling by reducing the toll for CP users

BoatMad

StickyMcGinty wrote: »

What about implementing a car pool lane on the M50? Isn't the crux of the issue the fact that there are simply too many cars on the M50 during the morning/evening?

Could further incentivise car pooling by reducing the toll for CP users

what remove lane capacity, yes thats a solution !!!!!!:p

Dravokivich

StickyMcGinty wrote: »

What about implementing a car pool lane on the M50? Isn't the crux of the issue the fact that there are simply too many cars on the M50 during the morning/evening?

Could further incentivise car pooling by reducing the toll for CP users

There's already an issue with lane usage in general as it is.

trellheim

The economy is recovering, more people back at work who drive.

There is only a limited number of cars that can fit down the M50.

Either less people drive, more people share, or people go elsewhere

otherwise build more lanes ( unlikely ).

Aard

trellheim wrote: »

otherwise build more lanes ( unlikely ).

The build-more-lanes mentality is a funny one (not saying that its a view you hold, just the mention of it got me thinking). What happens when those lanes fill up? Build more? And those lanes? Maybe the answer *is* in fact a 12 lane ring road....

Idbatterim

a ring road would be a start, i.e. complete the eastern bypass, would take a lot of traffic off m50 and out of city centre...

Aard

Only for it to fill up again.... There is endless demand for the M50 between the N7 and N4.

Idbatterim

the thing is aard, how many hours on a typical monday-friday is the m50 choc a bloc? maybe 4 hours, the eastern bypass would take traffic off m50 and out of town, 24 hours a day...

Dublin needs a DU and MN asap! Pity they didnt build it before things reached crisis point, buy hey nothing has been learned, I would expect nothing less... A luas being proposed to service the swords and the airport now, the airports passenger numbers are exploding, traffic is insane again and I can see a lot of emigrants returning to Ireland in the short term...

We hear we dont have the money to sort the infrastructure issues, how many "planners, consultants and other hangers on are we paying, to propose crap and not fit for purpose, at capacity before opening "solutions"

zetalambda

They need to discourage local traffic from using it. Perhaps an extra/increased toll for D reg vehicles?

Aard

Yes and then when the western side of the M50 is freed up, it will soon fill up again with commuters from west of Dublin at rush hour.

Idbatterim

ok aard, what is the solution, we have arrived here due to multiple failings, what do you propose to sort the issue? People are in their cars because public transport is appalling for the most part... It is simply not viable to take for a huge amount of people, we all know the issues if you arent going into an lar...

Irish Steve

Aard wrote: »

Only for it to fill up again.... There is endless demand for the M50 between the N7 and N4.

Probably because the bridges over the Liffey are the only ones with any capacity between Islandbridge and Maynooth, which is a crazy situation given the number of people and industrial complexes that are either side of the Liffey in the areas that don't have appropriate cross river bridging.

One possible relatively cheap option would be to build a second level above the existing carriageway of the M50 that would only be available to through traffic from Valleymount to Blanchardstown, though there might be some problems with the Liffey Valley intersection and then the Liffey crossing and getting over the Blanchardstown intersection would be a nighmare, given the crazy geography of that area, I still find it incredible that a motorway intersection was built with a railway and a canal going through it, given how much open space there was in that area when the original design was put forward.

In the long term, like it or not, there will have to be another ring road further out from the M50, which will help to spread the load, but that's not going to solve the problems of a dire design and a city that won't face up to the issues of providing adequate routes with the capacity to cope with the demands of a modern society.

In the very long term, moving Dublin port and creating a proper Eastern bypass with a proper link from the port tunnel to the M11 and making the port area into a high density residential area might also help, but there will be some serious issues relating to sea levels to consider with that concept

positron

Anyone know if M50 Port tunnel is operating to capacity on peak hours?

If not, if they could introduce some sort of variable pricing based on the amount of vehicles in it real time, that might take some (small) amount of traffic out of M50. But more importantly, it will give more value for money for all parties involved!!

Calina

positron wrote: »

Anyone know if M50 Port tunnel is operating to capacity on peak hours?

If not, if they could introduce some sort of variable pricing based on the amount of vehicles in it real time, that might take some (small) amount of traffic out of M50. But more importantly, it will give more value for money for all parties involved!!

The key objective of the tunnel is remove large trucks from the streets of the city centre. Its success should be measured in those terms specifically.

In addition, I'd be grateful if you could explain how more traffic through the Port Tunnel would alleviate traffic volumes on the rest of the M50. I'm not quite seeing it myself.

markpb

Irish Steve wrote: »

In the very long term, moving Dublin port and creating a proper Eastern bypass with a proper link from the port tunnel to the M11 and making the port area into a high density residential area might also help, but there will be some serious issues relating to sea levels to consider with that concept

What advantages would moving the port have? It's not blocking an eastern bypass at all, the preserved marsh at Booterstown is a far bigger problem. 50% of all the goods coming into the port are destined for inside the M50 so moving it outside the M50 would only make traffic worse.

Irish Steve

markpb wrote: »

What advantages would moving the port have? It's not blocking an eastern bypass at all, the preserved marsh at Booterstown is a far bigger problem. 50% of all the goods coming into the port are destined for inside the M50 so moving it outside the M50 would only make traffic worse.

The problem with the port as it presently operates is that all the HGV traffic has to use the DPT to get in to it, regardless of where it originates or is going to, and 50% (your figure) is going outside the M50, and ends up using the M50.

If the port area was residential, with a terminal retained for cruise ships, to make it attractive as a cruise destination, the requirement for commuting would be reduced, and it would be a lot more attractive to the cruise ship operators, at present, the cruise facilities are pretty depressing to come in to for a visitor.

Much of the port was designed and laid out in a time when the requirement was very different, with rail being a much more significant factor than it is now, and with the demise of the Stena fast ferry, there's even more traffic coming through the port, with the present tunnel tolling system being loaded against tourists using the tunnel, due to the times the ferries operate.

If the recent predictions aired on RTE by Duncan Stewart are right, and they are by no means certain, Booterstown Marshes will be changed beyond recognition by nature, regardless of what man does to the area, and that will probably resolve the problem about putting a road through the area.

A very long time ago, London built the M4 on stilts over the A4, and provided a feeder road into the city, and maybe our road designers need to look at a similar concept for Dublin, with the exception of the N11, which is almost reasonable, the other feeder roads inside the M50 are a planning disaster, with pinch points and restrictions that make moving significant volumes of traffic almost impossible, the most glaring being Drumcondra.

It's taken a long time to get into the mess that it now is, and it's going to take a long time to fix it, due to the manner in which Dublin has evolved, and what's been only too evident is that there was NO coherent planning or
strategy for managing the growth of the city, and we're now paying the price for a century of parish pump politics, where all too often, the noisiest drum was the one that got the attention, regardless of the validity of the case being proposed. Now, we're in an even bigger mess, as the political system is still just as broken, there's been a couple of generations (at least) of corrupt practise that has made the problems worse, and there's still the parish pump mentality that prevents real infrastructure issues from being addressed.

L1011

positron wrote: »

Anyone know if M50 Port tunnel is operating to capacity on peak hours?

If not, if they could introduce some sort of variable pricing based on the amount of vehicles in it real time, that might take some (small) amount of traffic out of M50. But more importantly, it will give more value for money for all parties involved!!

It's not but the road network around East Wall is fairly full and liable to get wise m worse when construction resumes

positron

Calina wrote: »

The key objective of the tunnel is remove large trucks from the streets of the city centre. Its success should be measured in those terms specifically.

In addition, I'd be grateful if you could explain how more traffic through the Port Tunnel would alleviate traffic volumes on the rest of the M50. I'm not quite seeing it myself.

I am not challenging that fact, merely suggesting it might be beneficial to all if they can attract more traffic to with some clever usage based / real-time variable pricing to make sure that everyone gets the best use of the tunnel infrastructure. It's to no ones benefit if the tunnel is under used.

And no, it doesn't do much to reduce the congestion on M50. It would however help some people (like myself) who come down M1 and need to get office in and around Blackrock, Sandyford etc. I agree that there isn't much capacity south of tunnel to handle excess traffic, but perhaps it could be made available, as most of the traffic South of the river usually goes in the opposite direction on peak hours?

Pete_Cavan

positron wrote: »

I am not challenging that fact, merely suggesting it might be beneficial to all if they can attract more traffic to with some clever usage based / real-time variable pricing to make sure that everyone gets the best use of the tunnel infrastructure. It's to no ones benefit if the tunnel is under used.

It benefits HGVs going to/from the port, this is the purpose it was built for. Extending the madness of the M50 into it, clogging the tunnel up and overloading the East Wall area benefits no one as those who shorten their journey by going through the tunnel would find themselves stuck in worse traffic when they come out the other side. We should not be facilitating commuters driving into the city centre.

Irish Steve

Rather than facilitating fat cats that are prepared to pay a higher premium via their company expense accounts to get to their office a bit quicker, a better use of any spare capacity on the tunnel would be to offer RoRo ferry car users a reduced rate for their trip, as they have to access the port, and a significant number of ferry crossing timings mean that using the tunnel would be at peak rates.

The ferry companies know the registration of the vehicles they are going to be carrying, so a data interchange between them and the tunnel operators so that ferry passengers can get a reduced rate would be a good tourism bonus, and also make things pleasanter for drivers who are probably going to be covering significant distance, or have already covered significant distance before arriving in Dublin.

trellheim

Come on - this is an M50 thread not the port tunnel. Would tolling the M50 help at say a fiver a trip between any exits ? Would this discourage users ?

Its unlikely we'll see any extra ring road for another 5-10 years so what's the better answer. Any transport cash is going on BXD Luas so DU and MN is unlikely to be funded this or the next government.