Avoiding M50 traffic

SD_DRACULA

Recently started a new job which involves driving from the lucan exit to the airport/M1 exit on the M50 and the hours are something like 9-17:30 but do have some flexibility.
So far I have found those times to be extremely bad for traffic, not so much for the way over in the morning (20-25 mins) but the way back is crawling.
What is the sweet spot to leave work at in the afternoon to avoid the crawl?

dar_cool

You need to be on the m50 before 5 so probably means leaving at 16:45. It will still be heavy but will be flowing

listermint

Motorbike

Del2005

I know it's not the answer to your question but a motorbike isn't affected by traffic.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

appledrop

Your lucky enough. Northbound in morning not too bad but as you have discovered evening time is the problem. If you can go in earlier + be on motorway before 5 should be a bit better.

SD_DRACULA

Bike is not really an option or I would have went for it.
I was thinking about the toll bypass road Lucan-Blanch but everyone else probably does the same if google maps traffic is anything to go by.
This week the kids were off school so I am only guessing it will be much worse next week too

magicbastarder

well, that was a weird night on the M50. picked my folks up at the airport, dropping them to blanchardstown; left the airport at about 00:45 and got to blanch at 1:30am. roadworks had the road down to one lane (despite very little work seeming to be taking place) between the ballymun and finglas junctions, and traffic was at a standstill; we passed one accident in the queue, a car had merged in front of an artic clearly far too late and got the rear passenger door and rear wheel stove in, and the M50 was closed under the blanchardstown interchange - could not see why, except there were lots of blue flashing lights.
then at the top of the exit ramp, a guy in a UPS lorry decided to take a left off the roundabout, out of the *right* hand lane, cutting across me and missing me by about six inches.
must be something in the air.

Victor

https://twitter.com/DubFireBrigade/status/1004123927147417601

magicbastarder

what a pileup (pun intended) of issues so - the roadworks were a bit further along the road. it's possible that accident was also due to people merging hastily due to the extensive layout of traffic cones.

markpb

The roadworks last night were a mess. I was on the M50 southbound around 11, just after the first accident happened (multi-car pileup in lanes 2 + 3). At first only the hard shoulder was closed which was fine. Shortly after, the HS + lane 1 were closed but there was no advance notice, just the cones gradually moving into the lane. Further on (immediately after the crash), the lane closures moved to lanes 2 and 3 but again, there was no advance notice, just cones in the middle of the road. The Finglas exit was where the real fun happened. The lane closures moved to the middle, so traffic exiting the motorway had to take the aux lane and traffic remaining on the motorway had to be in lane 3 but because of the previous lane closures, everyone was in lane 1 so staying on the motorway required a nifty 3 lane swerve in a very short amount of space. Nice little detour up the N2 for me! To add insult to injury, there was no work going on anywhere in those lane closures. Normally I'd assume the work hadn't started yet but there were no work vehicles in the area at all. Meanwhile the VMS helpfully said that there were 'roadworks', even after the motorway was down to 1 lane because of the crash and recovery efforts.


Normally I'm impressed with how road work and maintenance is handled on the M50 but not after last night. I'm not surprised the accident was as bad as it was.