Traffic Gridlock Mayhem Extravaganza December 3rd

jamesbere

Who's actually in charge of traffic management in the city? There doesn't seem to be any coherent plan in place if the tunnel gets backed upped. Yesterday was a shambles because of lack of action.

Balmed Out

marno21 wrote: »

Did anyone decide not to bother going home, park up in the hard shoulder, spend the night and just turn around at the next junction for work tomorrow?

I went to the gym then the pool and eventually went home very late but not too bad with conditions.

kooga

jamesbere wrote: »

Who's actually in charge of traffic management in the city? There doesn't seem to be any coherent plan in place if the tunnel gets backed upped. Yesterday was a shambles because of lack of action.

nothing to do with City Hall, All national roads under the authority of the TII who have awarded the maintenance contract to EGIS Lagan

Who are Egis Lagan Services?
Egis Lagan Services was established in 2013 to undertake motorway maintenance and renewals work on the Irish motorway network on behalf of the National Roads Authority. Our responsibility extends some 330km of mainline carriageway across designated sections of the M7, M8, M9 motorways and the N25/N40 road network in the Cork City environs.

What are Egis Lagan Services key functions?
Egis Lagan Services are responsible for all operation and maintenance activities on the relevant sections of the primary motorway network. Key activities include winter maintenance, emergency and incident response, inspections and patrolling, defect remedial works, traffic management and stakeholder liaison.

CHealy

It was absolute mayhem, I've never seen the likes of it. Luckily I was going to Tramore Road from Little Island so I dodged Kinsale Road and went the back way from the Wilton turn off. But I went for a stroll over by St.Finbarrs at about 8 o'clock and the South Link was at a standstill in both directions, Turners Cross was a car park aswell.

Clamball

Hubby left home at 6.45 in Ballinlough to be at work in Ringaskiddy for 8 pm. Finally got to work at 8.30 pm, first time in 20 years he was late for his shift.

BionicRasher

Cross River ferries put on the 2nd ferry also and it helped alleviate queues in Monkstown / Passage however people left work at 5 pm in Ringaskiddy and didnt get home until 6.30/45.
Journey would normally take 30-35 mins via the ferry

If they hadn't put the 2nd ferry on I imagine people would have waited 90 mins to board the ferry in the queue
I have never seen it this bad

Ron Burgundy II

Surely the Gardaí could have called on the Fire Dept to pump the flood water over the ditch into the playing fields?? Surely the club who own the facilities would have agreed, who is training this time of year and also on a day like yesterday they would have ruined the pitch training.

From the photos it does look like a blocked drain and pumping would have been the best solution. Rather than spending the time placing cones and causing chaos around the city.

But really the big issue Cork City Council have to resolve is the fact that this road and tunnel can't handle the volume of traffic, every morning and evening the north bound bore is backed up well past Mahon, and with Christmas fast approaching traffic in the area around Mahon Point is only going to get worse. Causing longer delays for commuters trying to get home.

spillcoe

Gardai could surely have done more to help. Took me nearly 2 hours to go from Blackrock to the city and not a single garda anywhere trying to calm things down and smooth the flow of traffic. It will really start to affect the quality of life in Cork if something isn't done to improve the traffic situation.

whisky_galore

Loads of cars stretching from tunnel to nearly the Rochestown road exit at about 9pm last night. Why people couldn't take a nearly empty road through Mahon/town and out the other side rather than wait gormlessly in traffic is beyond me.

BionicRasher

Reports of lights not working at Tunnel tonight. Mayhem again I would imagine.
Large queue at the ferry also.

Roar

BionicRasher wrote: »

Reports of lights not working at Tunnel tonight. Mayhem again I would imagine.
Large queue at the ferry also.

Passed through dun kettle roundabout at 3pm and they were out then

marno21

Funding has been allocated for the upgrade of the Dunkettle Interchange yet no movement on it yet

jamesbere

There is going to be very heavy rain hitting cork in the next day or so, hopefully there won't be a repeat

etoughguy

haha ye bunch of langers with yer **** roads delighted it happened!!

Oh wait I was caught in it too. Never seen anything like it to be honest. But thankfully only for a short while some people were hours in it, what a dose

TheChizler

whisky_galore wrote: »

Loads of cars stretching from tunnel to nearly the Rochestown road exit at about 9pm last night. Why people couldn't take a nearly empty road through Mahon/town and out the other side rather than wait gormlessly in traffic is beyond me.

Empty? Took me 40 minutes to get from City Gate to Supervalu. Traffic was literally bumper to bumper from Mahon Point to to the end of the Well Road both directions. Looking at Google traffic Boreenmanna and Blackrock Roads were the same.

Missyelliot2

whisky_galore wrote: »

Loads of cars stretching from tunnel to nearly the Rochestown road exit at about 9pm last night. Why people couldn't take a nearly empty road through Mahon/town and out the other side rather than wait gormlessly in traffic is beyond me.

There were no empty roads through town/Mahon - this 'gormless' driver tried them all;)

j8wk2feszrnpao

whisky_galore wrote: »

Loads of cars stretching from tunnel to nearly the Rochestown road exit at about 9pm last night. Why people couldn't take a nearly empty road through Mahon/town and out the other side rather than wait gormlessly in traffic is beyond me.

You'd make a disastrous Sat Nav.

clerk

It was gridlocked from Mahon Point all way to the City end of the Borreenmana Road. Which is phenomenal stuff - never seen anything like it.

Blackrock Village and all that area was all totally gridlocked towards the City too and it's very narrow in parts down there.

I notice in the last 6 Months a lot of cars using Blackrock village as a rat run from Mahon Point and the roads can't handle it, Blackrock village is becoming a brutal bottleneck these Days in the mornings and after work. Of course they've been promising they'll widen the road for the last 10 years and counting. Whoever went that way on Thursday ran into an absolute disaster.

A Tipp man in work was gridlocked at 6pm, pulled into Mahon Point to get grub and do some shopping, came out at 8pm thinking it would be long gone and said it was brutal.

I genuinely don't understand why more people going towards the City on the Boreenmanna Road didn't simply park the car and go to a pub for a couple of hours (for a mineral/paper) or go for a walk because you were literally going nowhere. I could tell passing it that you were talking hours of waiting the way it was moving.

Another lad in work said he was 40 minutes at the lights at the City end of Boreenmanna Road between 5 and 6. Total gridlock coming from the magic to town. Scary stuff.

pwurple

People did abandon cars around Beaumont and ballintemple. People were showing up in the lavanagh centre saying they had left their cars on the Blackrock road and walked down.

There was also a guy who had parked on double yellows on Victoria Ave, and basically jammed the whole place, as it narrowed the road so much a small truck couldn't get past.

I suspect those talking about how simple that tunnel problem is don't realise the breadth of that issue. The guys who were maintaining it for the city council for decades were let go, and this new company brought in. The tidal flood valves have not been maintained at all since, and the city has no control over it anymore. The valves are now immobile with barnacle growth etc. a scuba team would have been needed to clear that at the time, or they wait for the tide to go out. When you cut the day to day maintenance on a major piece of infrastructure, small problems become big problems very quickly. I can see nothing except more of the same coming up for the tunnel.

clerk

pwurple wrote: »

There was also a guy who had parked on double yellows on Victoria Ave, and basically jammed the whole place, as it narrowed the road so much a small truck couldn't get past.

interesting about people parking cars up, by the way I was recommending parking and not abandoning. Sure there are parks all over the gaff in Blackrock that they could have parked in for a couple of hours.

What the person did there is madness and just adds to the madness but people lose the plot in these conditions.

pwurple

clerk wrote: »

interesting about people parking cars up, by the way I was recommending parking and not abandoning. Sure there are parks all over the gaff in Blackrock that they could have parked in for a couple of hours.

What the person did there is madness and just adds to the madness but people lose the plot in these conditions.

Well we all know double yellows are a free for all around there. Ever been near the silver quay "bike lane"?

clerk

pwurple wrote: »

Well we all know double yellows are a free for all around there. Ever been near the silver quay "bike lane"?

Yes indeed, but you have large pub with food, restaurant, chipper, bookies, chemist and parking for what maybe 25/30 cars cue parking all over the gaff.

Same in Blackrock village now at the Sunday markets. In fairness to them there is little or no proper parking available.

Same outside the Garden of Eden on Convent Road, where some arsehole planner signed off on 1 parking spot per apartment per, in this Day and age, so they're all parking all over the gaff now as well.

Common denominator of it all, one word, 'greed'.

pwurple

People use it as a park and ride for the bus into town too rather than walk 200 metres from their house.

run_Forrest_run

I was told there is going to be an investigation/meeting into the whole affair. That will be interesting, I'd say it will be a masterclass in shirking responsibility.

mire

were there many deaths/casualties during Cork's traffageddon last week?

brevity

There are accidents every single day on the link/ring. It's so bloody frustrating. That 6 car pile up the other day caused tail backs past the Glanmire turn off on the Dublin Road.

curiosity

run_Forrest_run wrote: »

I was told there is going to be an investigation/meeting into the whole affair. That will be interesting, I'd say it will be a masterclass in shirking responsibility.

Hmmm, lets hope some lessons are learnt. More severe weather could have blocked both lanes?

GavRedKing

Freak weather brought it all up but it goes to show how close to the limit the citys roads are operating on if a storm can flood one of the main roads, go untreated and then cause mayhem for hours aorund the city and suburbs.

run_Forrest_run

GavRedKing wrote: »

Freak weather brought it all up but it goes to show how close to the limit the citys roads are operating on if a storm can flood one of the main roads, go untreated and then cause mayhem for hours aorund the city and suburbs.

this in my opinion was the problem.

GavRedKing

run_Forrest_run wrote: »

this in my opinion was the problem.

I can imagine theres probably some health and safety red tape with workers on the road but being honest, the outside lane seemed to be moving at such a slow pace that anyone working to clear the drain, with adequate signage up back the road, would have been in little danger.

Leaving it clear itself or tending to other blocked drains was a real over sight by the council.