N7 - Newlands Cross upgrade

spacetweek wrote: »

AFAIK the proposed new slips at Jct 8 would be bus-only actually.
The idea is to make Parkwest station an access point for a Parkwest-Dublin Airport bus shuttle using the M50. The slips would only allow PW-M50 North and M50 South-PW.
When Parkwest is eventually upgraded to DART this would be very useful, the idea is to capture traffic outside Dublin on the N7 or other corridors and get them to Park-and-Ride to the airport.

It's still very close to the existing interchanges and traffic on the auxiliary lanes are already congested between N7 and N4. The Ballymount is not a particularly busy interchange and yet it's still very notorious for weaving traffic.

The ORR and existing roads is provided for that type of traffic. It's completely unnecessary to build an interchange when the money could be spent on sorting out the Ballymount/Redcow slips.

Tragedy wrote: »

You keep repeating both of those things.

length of aux lane between Ballymount and Red Cow = 500m
length between Red Cow and Cloverhill = ~1600m (and that's being generous).
length between Firhouse and Tallaght is ~850m for comparison.

Distance from Cloverhill roundabout to ORR: 4.2km.

The M50 was built to move north and south and suburban traffic around the city and not through the city. It was not built as an all purpose road to provide for all traffic locally. There are local roads provided with plenty of interchanges that gives the M50 plenty of access from anywhere along the western fringes of Dublin. It doesn't need another interchange. I can't even imagine that some people would even support such an idea.

I also believe the stretch between J7 and J9 is the second largest distance between junctions on the M50 (with the largest being an unpopulated section between Firhouse/Dundrum).

It's still very close by motorway standards and it still doesn't give any good validated reason to build another interchange between the current ones for the sake of the interchanges at that location been more far apart. Local traffic CAN use local roads provided and join the current interchanges with no problem at all.

I don't particularly care about it, but there is an argument that by shuffling everyone from large swathes of palmerstown/lucan/clondalkin onto the N7/N4 to gain access to the M50, it's adding significant congestion to both.

The interchanges are not congested it's the M50 between both. The Red cow has a few problems by having the Luas P+R access and approach roads been very near the current interchange. This is due to bad planning not congestion problems.

Also, I'm not sure how having a junction 8 would increase m50 traffic significantly- surely the vast majority of people who would use it already use J7/J9?

1. It would increase traffic
2. it would slow mainline traffic down
3. The greater amount of interchanges on motorways causes mainine traffic to slow down once the raod tself get's highly trafficked. The M6 in the Uk is a classic exmaple of this

Traffic can grind to a halt on free flowing motorways because of having many interchanges on the network.

My point is, this is really not an issue, the real issue is not having the provided road networks that should be there in the first place. There should be a focus to upgrade the current roads and not funnel more traffic onto existing roads. It's basic common sense. As regards to the Ballymount interchange I would even have the north facing Ballymount slips removed and build a distributor road up by the Luas Park and ride and also have a bridge raised at turnpike, so Ballymount traffic can have free direct access to the redcow Loop instead of merging at Ballymount M50 where the Red cow merges directly off it. The city bound Redcow loop is a lightly traffic slip incomparison to the other movements over the Red cow and it would make more logical sense to have traffic routed onto that slip for M50 NB traffic.

This would mean that the weaving movements would be corrected on the M50
Traffic will move more quickly, efficiently and safely.

spacetweek wrote: »

Where have you been for the last 20 years? The M50 was planned in 1970 as a bypass but the reality is quite different. The road is better thought of as a distributor road where most traffic is local. Hence lots of weaving as most vehicles are only travelling a short distance.

I could say the same to you and wonder why you also haven't seemed to learned from our past mistakes. The M50 does not need another interchange on it because it's already has to much traffic and it has more than enough interchanges on it. So what do you wish to propose waste 50 million on or so on a pointless interchange. It's entirely a waste of time when the reality is the approach roads to the M50 are the problem.

They are not close by *urban* motorway standards, though - which is what the M50 is. For an urban motorway you always place junctions closely otherwise the surrounding network will be swamped as all the traffic tries to merge onto a small number of approach roads. This is why there is such traffic congestion at Palmerstown, Liffey Valley, Newlands Cross and the Long Mile/Nangor junctions.

Again NO, there is traffic congestion on the approach roads because traiffc has to stop at traffic lights at those particular locations with such close proximity to the M50.

I don't agree that that was bad planning and the problems at the Red Cow are due to the traffic light intersection with Turnpike Rd (which should be closed) and Newlands Cross not being grade separated, not the intersection itself.

I am sure most Irish road planners would agree with you. Sigh.

Without J8 more traffic is funnelled onto the N4/N7 in order to access the M50. Having more junctions distributes traffic in the motorway's vicinity better as the nearest junction is closer.

Traffic joining and leaving the M50 at both locations is not a problem, it's the approach roads and lack of upgraded roads in the vicinity of the M50 approaches. The big problems are Palmerstown, Nangor road, Longmile road junction, Adamstown roads Newlands cross etc.

At least Newlands cross is now been sorted out.

How about splitting the difference and only building more off-ramps?

More suggestions that this will go ahead next month but nothing concrete

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/construction-to-begin-on-two-road-projects-29146894.html

WORK IS expected to get under way next month on two key road projects that have been stalled due to a lack of funding.

Construction is expected to start on the upgrade of Newlands Cross in south Dublin and the Arklow to Rathnew dual carriageway in Co Wicklow in April. The €180m project is being funded by the European Investment Bank and private sector under a public-private partnership.

The upgrade will see the 16.5km section of roadway between Arklow and Rathnew upgraded to four lanes, while a new junction will be built at Newlands Cross.

Minister of State at the Office of Public Works, Brian Hayes, said 13,000 jobs would be created under a €2.25bn stimulus package, of which €1.4m would come from the private sector.

April starting with how long of the works been carried out? A year almost? This is going to be a pain in the hole for regular commuters. It will only remind me of the snarl ups of Mad cow days and pre M50 upgrade.

This is going to just make the bottleneck worse at the Naas globe ball interchange once Newlands is upgraded. Travelling times will not improve despite Newlands been grade separated.

BuzzFish wrote: »

Firstly there is also a project planned to upgrade the 2+2 from Naas north to the M7/M9 interchange to 3+3 lanes and I understand this may get going sooner rather than later with the added interchange as Osberstown. (Kerry Group are pushing this already as they see the impact of the first 180 people on site in the park). Agreed that the bottleneck "may" get worse at Naas north until then...

However with far more traffic leaving the carriageway than joining between Newlands Cross and Naas North this is not a given. Many think that this joined to the fact that the traffic will be more eventually distributed will actually help the flow of the road. There will be no more "bursts" of traffic leaving Newlands cross with gaps in between as we have with the lights.

Having seen the results of what they did at the Newcastle Lights on the N4, this will benefit the area in the long run.

The Osberstown junction layout I saw was a large roundabout with two bridges...one either side of the existing farmer's access bridge if I remember correctly. The existing bridge (which is no longer used due to bridge strike) would be demolished. The Sallins bypass that hooks up with the Osberstown junction would be nice too...

Will the government and council ever get their finger out and start this road. They had hoped to start around March/April in recent reports. It's now April and 4 years overdue since it was first mooted to start. It's been on planning for more than 5 decades. It's getting beyond ridiculous now.

So when is it starting?

pistolpetes11 wrote: »

I was driving home on Wednesday about 12PM to Newbridge and just after coming across Newlands cross coming from the M50,

There was a Swan Rental truck parked in the hard shoulder , he had an excavator and dumper on board and had the green hoarding on the left hand side open and seemed to be dropping them off in there.

Wonder would it be the preparation works about to start or may just a short route into the golf club,

Wasn't in Dublin today but will take a look tomorrow when I am up

So it's obviously not a march start.
Now not an April start.
How about a may-be?

This is getting pathetic.

As part of the announcement of a different tender, the NRA seem to have recommitted to getting this up and running shortly:

There is one major scheme currently being procured as a PPP:

The N11 Arklow – Rathnew and Newlands Cross scheme involves the construction of 16.5km of dual carriageway on the N11 route together with taking over operation and maintenance obligations in relation to 32km of existing road plus a major junction upgrade on the N7 at Newlands Cross.

This scheme is at an advanced stage of procurement with financial close expected in April 2013.

Once the contract is signed they usually start within 1 month.