Traffic on Rock Road / Strand Road / Merrion Road

Zascar

Is it just me or has the traffic in this area got significantly worse of late? It seems the strand road going south in the evening is slower than ever, and Merrion road too. I heard George hook say that it's because of the new layout at the bottom of Newtownparkavenue and Monkstown road. Any time I've tried to go all the way out that direction its a nightmare. Anyone eles go through this?

coylemj

Yes there is now a serious bottleneck for outbound traffic going through the junction at the bottom of Newtownpark Ave. From the fork at Monkstown Road to the bottom of Newtownpark Ave. there used to be two outbound lanes, the left lane for traffic going straight ahead and the right lane for people intending to turn right into Newtownpark Ave.. The addition of an outbound cycle lane reduced the road to one lane for motorised vehicles and this continues to the traffic lights where there's only one lane for all outbound traffic so one car turning right would hold up all of the outbound traffic. The 'fix' for this is that inbound and outbound traffic now have separate parts of the cycle at those lights so when outbound traffic gets the green, it's red for inbound and v.v. Previously both streams had green at the same time and anyone turning right could simply wait for a gap in the inbound traffic or wait for the filter, now that's gone and outbound traffic gets a shorter run at it. The effect is to strangle the junction and the resulting backlogs were all too predictable.

The effect on inbound traffic is pretty much the same and they lost the lane for turning left into Newtownpark Ave. to make space for an inbound cycle lane and the shorter cycle on the lights often results in a long queue even at quiet times of the day.

schemingbohemia

Simple solution is to have no right turn heading southbound.

the groutch

I think that was the original plan, and divert that traffic onto the link road up by Stradbrook Hill.

Zascar

It seems like every time they try to fox things they make it worse. They did something similar in sandyford a while back and it caused chaos. Why is no one doing anything about this? Bloody nightmare for anyone living out past that direction

schemingbohemia

Their initial solution was to butcher the cycling infrastructure they had just spent thousands on bringing in! That, quite rightly, was unacceptable so now they're looking again. Hopefully they'll come up with the obvious solution this time.

Seaswimmer

Zascar wrote: »

Is it just me or has the traffic in this area got significantly worse of late? It seems the strand road going south in the evening is slower than ever, and Merrion road too. I heard George hook say that it's because of the new layout at the bottom of Newtownparkavenue and Monkstown road. Any time I've tried to go all the way out that direction its a nightmare. Anyone eles go through this?

George Hook is wrong. The traffic between Booterstown Avenue and Mount Merrion Avenue always flows freely outbound in the evening.

While I completely accept the points about the new junction layout at Newtownpark Avenue the delays on Strand road and Merrion Road have nothing to do with what is happening there. Just sheer volumes and the lights at Tara Towers Hotel and Booterstown avenue.

Chopper Dave

What's frustrating is this problem was so obvious to begin with. There's now quite a blockage there even in relatively quiet off-peak times

Seaswimmer

Chopper Dave wrote: »

What's frustrating is this problem was so obvious to begin with. There's now quite a blockage there even in relatively quiet off-peak times

The junction nearby at Deansgrange Road/Brookville Park seems to be much better managed in that once traffic has cleared the junction the lights go orange and red and next road gets green. The lights seem to cycle quite quickly and are rarely green for any road with no traffic.

Newtownpark Avenue lights seem to be on a timer where each leg of the junction gets a green even when no traffic is flowing through it.

the groutch

they've changed the light sequence at Newtownpark Avenue now, so that it's gone back to the old way of traffic getting a green in both directions at the same time.

how that will pan out with cars turning right up NTPA not having a seperate lane/box is yet to be seen, will be interesting to see what happens when the schools are back next week.

coylemj

the groutch wrote: »

they've changed the light sequence at Newtownpark Avenue now, so that it's gone back to the old way of traffic getting a green in both directions at the same time.

That will benefit inbound traffic big time. It was totally crazy to be kept waiting for 5 minutes to get through the junction in the middle of the day.

the groutch wrote: »

how that will pan out with cars turning right up NTPA not having a seperate lane/box is yet to be seen, will be interesting to see what happens when the schools are back next week.

One outbound car waiting to turn right into Newtownpark Ave could potentially hold up all of the traffic behind it thanks to there being only one outbound lane to make way for a cycle lane. I suspect that part of the cycle during evening rush hour will give green to outbound traffic only to alleviate this potential bottleneck.

Heisenberg1

coylemj wrote: »

That will benefit inbound traffic big time. It was totally crazy to be kept waiting for 5 minutes to get through the junction in the middle of the day.



One outbound car waiting to turn right into Newtownpark Ave could potentially hold up all of the traffic behind it thanks to there being only one outbound lane to make way for a cycle lane. I suspect that part of the cycle during evening rush hour will give green to outbound traffic only to alleviate this potential bottleneck.

It wasn't just waiting the 5 minutes for the lights to go through the sequence, it was that the northbound lights only let 5 cars through at a time. For the turning right on to NTPA cars need to position better pull out on to the junction rather than just sit at the lights and allow southbound traffic in rear a gap to move.

Seaswimmer

Heisenberg1 wrote: »

It wasn't just waiting the 5 minutes for the lights to go through the sequence, it was that the northbound lights only let 5 cars through at a time. For the turning right on to NTPA cars need to position better pull out on to the junction rather than just sit at the lights and allow southbound traffic in rear a gap to move.

I see they have put a right turn box for NTPA very far into the junction almost to the other side so this should help the cars trying to go straight. Cycled through it last night heading south and there didn't seem to be any major hold ups in either direction.

Larbre34

It is an improvement alright, hopefully will go some way to dealing with the chronic problems of the last few months.

Its very frustrating though, this kind of stuff should be picked up in the modelling during the design process, or by whoever calls themselves an engineer looking at it. Who is vetting and approving these designs? Bloody DMURS anyway...

schemingbohemia

Is it possible to model for ignorance? Like can you categorise the numbers likely to ignore the yellow box?

coylemj

Heisenberg1 wrote: »

It wasn't just waiting the 5 minutes for the lights to go through the sequence, it was that the northbound lights only let 5 cars through at a time. For the turning right on to NTPA cars need to position better pull out on to the junction rather than just sit at the lights and allow southbound traffic in rear a gap to move.

Which sadly won't always happen, even with a large rectangle painted at the junction showing where people should wait if turning into NTPA. Today at about 12:30 p.m. I was driving inbound from Deansgrange towards Blackrock and we got a good go at the lights - about 15-20 cars ahead of me got through. When passing through the junction, I noticed an old geezer in an outbound car waiting to turn into NTPA but his left wheels were outside the box and because of his bad positioning and the plastic poles protecting the cycle lane, the rest of the outbound traffic behind him was blocked and none of them could move.

This is going to be a problem with SUVs and older drivers, the box for outbound traffic waiting to turn right isn't very big and people will need to position themselves properly or there will be no room to pass them on the inside.