N8/N25/N40 - Dunkettle Interchange [open to traffic]

If the fixed charge notice referenced the 100 special limit, it had nothing to do with the roadworks. You were clocked further out the M8. The entire Glanmire Bypass is a "special limit" because the normal motorway limit is 120.

Wasn’t talking about sbmayo’s speeding fine. Was about the reduced sight lines on the N25 off ramp due to the new hump in the road.

You would put it down the ramp if it’s for metering in order to not block the roundabout.

I don't have any answers for you I'm afraid: I just know that the whole thing is supposed to be free-flow at the end with no traffic lights anywhere, so any traffic lights are for some other abnormal traffic flow of some kind. The only thing I can think of is tunnel shutdowns, like the maintenance shutdowns. Link K and L go to the tunnel, so my thinking is that for urgent tunnel stoppages/blockages, they'd try and stop the traffic out here where it's 60kmh and try and clear the residual traffic via the tunnel escape route. I'm honestly only speculating.

I'd hazard a guess its all part of the new overheight tunnel system. Stop traffic on the various link roads rather than having everyone piling into a heap at the tunnel entrance.

I can’t understand why a separate bridge to facilitate pedestrian and cyclist movement from Glounthaune to Little Island wasn’t included. It’s all a bit of a mess.

The active travel components are one of the few bright spots in a planning system that's decayed into useless ruins.

I'm just back from three weeks in the UK and Average Speed Checks are very common over there and also generally used at road works.

NOBODY drives over the posted speed limit in such places, it's quite amazing to see two, three, or four lanes of traffic all traveling along at 50mph (or whatever the posted limit is) for miles and miles and not one driver ducking and diving to get ahead.

I could never understand why such technology, which must be in use for over twenty years 'over there', isn't widely used here. Drivers who observe the posted speed limits at road works here a just a tiny minority and seem to draw the ire of those who consider the limit does not apply to them.

There seems to be an awful lot of love for those variable message gantry signs.

There's one for each approach to one of the dumbbell roundabouts in that latest video, see below, and on nearly all major routes of the new interchange. I'm still not overly convinced they really add that much value, do others find the ones on the N40 useful?

Yeah mostly a waste of money. If there's variable speed limits brought in they'll become useful

As I've said many times before in this forum, those signs are an incredible waste of money. I've literally not met a single person in the real world who thinks they add any value whatsoever. Does anyone even look at the them? I reckon we just filter them out of our consciousness and they're part of the background. And if anyone does happen to look at them, a message like "J4 5 mins" is meaningless if you don't know what J4 is. Even though I drive on the N40 almost every day and would generally be known as a details guy, I have no idea what the junction numbers are. In any case, there is almost no benefit advising of a delay when there is is no practicable alternative route and you have to just sit in the traffic anyway. This isn't LA or the Bay Area with a wealth of freeways providing alternate routes. Warnings about fog or heavy rain are equally pointless and bordering on ridiculous...I find that looking ahead through the windscreen gives me a fair indication if visibility is reduced.

Much of the N40 is unlit and is quite dangerous on dark wintry nights, at least to my mind. I suspect that a fraction of what was spent on the let's-pretend-Cork-is-a-metropolis electronic signage could have delivered a fully lit N40 from tunnel to Ballincollig. This would have been actually useful.

I think the point of all the variable message signs is to be able to warn drivers that the tunnel is closed. I've noticed that there is at least one on every road that will be aproching the tunnel. I'd guess that they are a replacment for the old rotating prizm road signs that used to be there.

But the N40 already is lit for the 9.5km from its western extremity to Douglas East. It's only the 4.5km from Douglas East to the tunnel that is unlit. The ADT on the unlit section between Mahon and the tunnel is roughly 50% higher than the ADT between Ballincollig and Curraheen. So the inconsistency of the lighting doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.

The UK started switching off motorway lighting many years ago but there has since been a re-think and a rowing back on that. Studies in various European countries provide strong evidence that lighting significantly reduces the accident count - a Google Scholar search will find them if you're curious. Regarding light pollution, there are ways to reduce that without ripping out the lights altogether.