[Article] Building new roads won't solve M50 traffic problem

Maskhadov

Building new roads won't solve M50 traffic problem




The M50 will continue to be a motorist's nightmare until peak traffic levels are cut, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

The real reason there is so much traffic congestion on the M50 is very simple - it is carrying too much traffic. That's why plans to widen it and reconfigure the junctions were set in motion even before the last section of the motorway was opened last year.

But even after spending €1 billion on these works, the M50 will remain as congested as ever, as the National Roads Authority (NRA) has conceded. Because by then, in six years' time, it will probably be carrying twice as much traffic as the current peak of 100,000 vehicles a day.

Later this year at least 2,000 trucks trundling to and from Dublin Port will be added to the mix after the port tunnel finally opens. And then there's the proposed Ikea superstore next to the Ballymun junction, which will draw hordes of car-borne shoppers on to the M50.

The decision to locate Ikea in an already heavily congested road corridor merely compounds a history of bad planning that has left the motorway littered with huge traffic generators such as Liffey Valley shopping centre as well as miscellaneous retail and business parks.

As a result, the original aim in 1971 of providing a national bypass of the capital for those travelling between, say, Sligo and Wexford has been swamped by commuter belt traffic.

The M50 has become the main street of Dublin's North American-style "edge city".

Its planning was atrocious. The "C-ring" motorway, as it used to be called, was built in four phases, each of which had a different name - Western Parkway, Northern Cross Route, Southern Cross Route and South Eastern Motorway - and took nearly 20 years to complete.

The design was sub-standard, even for a motorway projected to carry 45,000 vehicles a day. Instead of free-flowing "clover-leaf" junctions, which are standard internationally, the M50 got peculiarly Irish "roundabout interchanges" - to save money on land acquisition.

These roundabouts soon had to be supplemented by slip roads to facilitate left-turning traffic.

Traffic lights also had to be installed because drivers here were unaccustomed to the rules of the road for roundabouts, although no motorways elsewhere have traffic lights.

Now the four running lanes are to be increased to six and each of the interchanges remade, in spaghetti-junction style, to cater for the huge volume of traffic; the new overbridge proposed for the Red Cow is reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's crossed-swords bridge in Baghdad.

The West-Link bridge was part of the first phase. In the cash-strapped mid-1980s, with the IMF breathing down our necks, it seemed to make sense to get the private sector to build the bridge and a 3.2km stretch of motorway between Palmerstown and Blanchardstown.

It was George Redmond, then assistant Dublin county manager, and Pádraig Flynn, then Minister for the Environment - both later central to the planning tribunal - who signed off on the deal with the late Tom Roche, founder of National Toll Roads plc.

Under this deal, NTR was to recoup the investment of £29 million (€38 million) over 30 years by charging tolls on its strip.

After it opened in March 1990 a paltry 7,500 vehicles a day were crossing the bridge, not much more than half of the break-even figure of 12,000 a day.

As further phases of the motorway were finished over the following 15 years, traffic levels rose exponentially in tandem with the booming economy and the relentless sprawl of Dublin.

NTR was now coining it from tolls, and the original West-Link bridge needed to be replicated.

That was when the State, through the National Roads Authority, could and should have intervened to buy out NTR's interest. Instead, in 2001 it signed a new agreement under which NTR built the second bridge for €24 million, with the aid of a State subsidy of €6.4 million.

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen has responded to the public clamour over delays at the West- Link toll plaza by pledging to take NTR out of the equation - even though this would now cost at least €600 million - and introduce a system of "open-road" electronic tolling.

Mr Cullen's move is another example of political panic, on a par with predecessor Séamus Brennan's reaction to a belated discovery that the Tallaght Luas line would cross two slip roads at the Red Cow interchange; fortunately, his idea of putting Luas on stilts was binned.

Buying out NTR would mean forgoing an estimated €936 million in revenue from corporation tax, commercial rates, VAT and a steeply rising share of the receipts from tolls over the next 15 years, according to a report by DKM Economic Consultants, commissioned by NTR.

That sum would be nearly enough to fund the entire M50 upgrade, based on its current projected cost.

DKM also calculated that it would eclipse the estimated €616 million that would accrue to its clients in toll revenue between now and 2030, when the original deal expires.

In other words, the divvy-up of future toll revenue breaks down 60-40 in favour of the State.

It would be insane for the Government to give up such largesse, merely for the populist cause of turning NTR into a whipping boy for the failure of the M50 to perform its proper role.

Whatever happens, tolls will continue to be necessary. An Bord Pleanála made its approval of the upgrade last May conditional on the adoption of "demand management measures" - code for congestion charging - within three years of the scheme being completed.

Meanwhile, work is proceeding on the construction of an Outer Ring Road, or "M50 bypass".

This will provide a new link between Tallaght and Lucan, but may not continue northwards into Fingal. There are also tentative plans for another ring, crossing the Liffey at Leixlip.

But with yet more motorways due to feed into the M50 - including the controversial M3 - any relief is likely to be temporary. The "solution" now being canvassed is an Outer Orbital Route, running from the M1 at Drogheda towards Navan, Naas and possibly even round to Wicklow.

In effect, more roads are being thrown at the traffic problem. The M50, as it stands, has already cost around €1.6 billion. Another €1 billion is to be spent upgrading it, plus some €70 million for the partial Outer Ring Road and a further €1 billion for the proposed Outer Orbital Route.

What about public transport? According to Mr Cullen, the proposed Metro West line linking Tallaght with Clondalkin, Blanchardstown and Ballymun, will also help to relieve the M50. But the bizarre thing is that there isn't even a bus service between these places at present.



© The Irish Times

I totally agree with the above article. Any new roads that are built will help alleviate traffic congestion for 5-10 years but after that you will be back to where you started. I also read in the Daily Irish mail that people were commuting from places like Dundalk, Athlone, Tulamore, Portlaoise, Carlow, Arklow, and Gorey. It’s beyond farcical.

What we need in Dublin is High Quality High Density apartments (HQHD). Why is there still semi detached and terraced houses in the capital? Depending on your sense of humour you may find it hilarious (and stop to take a photo) or very annoying. Terraced houses are a very poor use of space and the government or private sector should be knocking them all down.

If we had HQHD apartments in the centre (between the canals) people could go to work without needing a car. They would also not have to spend ridiculous amounts of time sitting in traffic jams and travelling from ridiculous distances.

Next on the list is a city wide METRO. I know we have a couple of METRO lines planned but we really need a lot more coverage. Only something like a subway is going to help alleviate traffic congestion in a city like Dublin.

In the meantime the government can place an order for new buses for Dublin buses and offer new routes like the West line linking Tallaght with Clondalkin, Blanchardstown and Ballymun as mentioned above.

The Dublin centric planning has cost this nation dearly. Every single road in the country of consequence leads to Dublin and everything is built around the motorcar in this island.

Even the port and port tunnel is a disaster. If there were any intelligence in government circles they would not are trying to add 2,000 Heavy Goods Vehicles to an overly crowded M50. They should simply put a cap on future expansion of the port by 2008 and begin to move port facilities out of Dublin.

That reclaimed land would make a serious difference in accommodation prices in Dublin and the Port Tunnel could be used as an eastern bypass of the city.

corktina

Maskhadov wrote:

I totally agree with the above article. Any new roads that are built will help alleviate traffic congestion for 5-10 years but after that you will be back to where you started. I also read in the Daily Irish mail that people were commuting from places like Dundalk, Athlone, Tulamore, Portlaoise, Carlow, Arklow, and Gorey. It’s beyond farcical.

What we need in Dublin is High Quality High Density apartments (HQHD). Why is there still semi detached and terraced houses in the capital? Depending on your sense of humour you may find it hilarious (and stop to take a photo) or very annoying. Terraced houses are a very poor use of space and the government or private sector should be knocking them all down.

If we had HQHD apartments in the centre (between the canals) people could go to work without needing a car. They would also not have to spend ridiculous amounts of time sitting in traffic jams and travelling from ridiculous distances.

Next on the list is a city wide METRO. I know we have a couple of METRO lines planned but we really need a lot more coverage. Only something like a subway is going to help alleviate traffic congestion in a city like Dublin.

In the meantime the government can place an order for new buses for Dublin buses and offer new routes like the West line linking Tallaght with Clondalkin, Blanchardstown and Ballymun as mentioned above.

The Dublin centric planning has cost this nation dearly. Every single road in the country of consequence leads to Dublin and everything is built around the motorcar in this island.

Even the port and port tunnel is a disaster. If there were any intelligence in government circles they would not are trying to add 2,000 Heavy Goods Vehicles to an overly crowded M50. They should simply put a cap on future expansion of the port by 2008 and begin to move port facilities out of Dublin.

That reclaimed land would make a serious difference in accommodation prices in Dublin and the Port Tunnel could be used as an eastern bypass of the city.

hm...little boxes made of ticky tacky ....bit short sighted knocking down the Ballymun flats wasnt it.....:cool:

Maskhadov

High Quality as opposed to Low Quality. Ballymun failed because of a whole load of reasons : http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4640

Some example have were given, Abandondment, Decay, Bad timing, No jobs in Ballymun.

Many cities around the world have got HQHD right and we can too.

corktina

butis people want to live in the sticks and commute into the city, why shouldnt they?

mackerski

Frankie is talking through his hat again, at least where his knowledge of motorways is concerned. Traffic lights are very common on off-motorway roundabouts in the UK, and not unheard of on motorway roundabouts like the two signal controlled ones we have on the M1. Furthermore Cloverleaf junctions have been considered suboptimal for a long time.

But the fundamental notion that the M50 design was way undercapacity is correct.

Dermot

DerekP11

As a "newbie" here and predominatly railway head, let me take my railway hat off and don my road cap.

A few thoughts on the M50.......

It was planned in the very early 70s when its route traversed farmland. No money was available to build it.

When it began construction in 1987, west Dublin was alive and well, but car ownership was low and work opportunities were even lower. Even then, the Toll of 50p was despised with people bypassing it on local roads. Originally the redcow roundabout had no lights.

When the airport/M1 section opened, it offered a good deal on time saving. This happened as the celtic tiger/maverick pussy cat took off. Banks and finance companies had recovered from the Larry Goodman debacle and credit was dished out as employment increased, so new cars came streaming onto our roads. The cars kept coming and the M50 grew into an outdated concept very quickly, but onwards we went with extensions.

So today we have a city ring road thats mainly used for local traffic and stifled by a toll bridge, which does nothing to help the gridlock cause. Add to this, the fact that the road was built "on the cheap" and we arrive at the current problem. Believe it or not the M50 was actually meant to go over the N7/Naas road, with connecting ramps and similar junctions were planned elsewhere.

Bottom line, no future proofing was applied to the build. No anticipation of extreme increases of traffic flow were taken into account. It was planned and built to far apart. A toll was introduced in the middle. Junctions were under specified and quite frankly it was built about 10 miles to near the city on the basis of what its meant to be - a ring road.(even in the 80s) Thats why the NRA/Gov are now talking about a further bypass.

Who should take the blame?

The current FF gov, as they should be brave enough to own up to the mistakes of their predesessors.

But then I reality check and note that they don't even realise that mistakes were made. Things change is what they say. But in my book, the word "planning" is meant to take account of the future, without a crystal ball.
Even without the so called celtic tiger, this road was a disaster from day one.

Bad planning.

Maskhadov

corktina wrote:

butis people want to live in the sticks and commute into the city, why shouldnt they?

I dont think we should really be trying to facilitate people who want to live in the countryside and drive into the city centre every day. Not many other developed nations would try such a riduclous policy.

Most other EU countries try to have a mix of (medium/high) dentisty accomodation, office and retail in the one area. So people can live and work in the city centre. Its a planning no brainer.

Terraced and semi detached housing between the canals is the worst use of space possible. We should adopt the Continental european model of development. Until we do the M50 / new outer ring road is always going to be a car park.

corktina

i said commute, not drive......

Capt'n Midnight

Residential and Industrial areas should be in spearate zones.

But Residential and non-polluting industry can be mixed, call centres, shops, offices and the sorts of places that most commuters travel to.

Look at Clondalkin-Lucan. 80% of the commuters there travel outside the area. This means they have to cross or travel on the M50, the Galway Road and/or the Naas Roas. If there had been more offices/service industry there less roads would be needed. If the average commute was halved then the roads would be less congested.

If as much attention was paid to reducing the traffic that enters the M50 as to upgrading it then perhaps the upgrade won't be instantly filled.

Victor

Maskhadov wrote:

Terraced and semi detached housing between the canals is the worst use of space possible.

Actually, a lot of the terraced housing, especially the 3-4 storey ones aren't too bad as many have no front garden and small rear gardens / years.

A much greater sin is elderly couples living in 3/4/5 bedroom houses.

Maskhadov

Well there is lots of terraced houses in Dublin with gardens out the back. That was fine back in the 19th and 20th century but its criminal in this day in age with sky high rents and people commuting from Dundalk. A city should have lots of small parks and people should be getting used to the idea of not having any gardens.

In Germany there is generous sized apartments for families along with apartments for single people and couples at reasonable rent prices. Most people live in the center and cuts down on the need to commute. We need to adopt that model.

The whole commuter thing out to satellite towns might not be the smartest of moves unless the government intends to relocate jobs out there. Either way having everyone in the centre of a city is a far better idea.

No I just wonder why nothing has been done in the last decade of development. This is all to do with accomadation in the city centre more that it has to do with adding extra lanes on the M50.

Maskhadov

Absolutely shocking !!! No wonder we have sky high house/apartment prices in Dublin. This for me is one of the most disturbing pictures I have seen of Dublin.

corktina

Maskhadov wrote:

Well there is lots of terraced houses in Dublin with gardens out the back. That was fine back in the 19th and 20th century but its criminal in this day in age with sky high rents and people commuting from Dundalk. A city should have lots of small parks and people should be getting used to the idea of not having any gardens.

In Germany there is generous sized apartments for families along with apartments for single people and couples at reasonable rent prices. Most people live in the center and cuts down on the need to commute. We need to adopt that model.

The whole commuter thing out to satellite towns might not be the smartest of moves unless the government intends to relocate jobs out there. Either way having everyone in the centre of a city is a far better idea.

No I just wonder why nothing has been done in the last decade of development. This is all to do with accomadation in the city centre more that it has to do with adding extra lanes on the M50.

sorry that made me laugh....talking about taking away peoples gardens and then talking about Germany in the next para......whats next? concentration camps....? sorry, but i thought it was funny....

skywalker_208

corktina wrote:

sorry that made me laugh....talking about taking away peoples gardens and then talking about Germany in the next para......whats next? concentration camps....? sorry, but i thought it was funny....

yea then we could build a big wall (Berlin) round the M50 (on the inside) to stop those culchies coming up and taking our jobs!

then what we need to do is take everyone out of the suburbs and dump them in highrises in the city centre! Coz those people dont deserve their 3 bedroom houses and they certainly dont deserver the 6ft sqaure patch of grass they have out the back that they work so hard for!

Maskhadov

the 6foot square patch of grass out the back is just plain tacky and makes the city look scummy. Along with being a very poor use of space.

We need more of the following - height wise. This should be the norm height wise. It really baffles me why the planning agencies knock stories off buildings and refuse developers to build upwards.

corktina

Maskhadov wrote:

the 6foot square patch of grass out the back is just plain tacky and makes the city look scummy. Along with being a very poor use of space.

We need more of the following - height wise. This should be the norm height wise. It really baffles me why the planning agencies knock stories off buildings and refuse developers to build upwards.

hope I didnt offend you Masky....you are entitled to your opinion and i shouldnt have laughed.....it's just I had "john Cleese" visions at the time....

Archeron

Maskadov. Why do you find that picture so shocking? Apart from the obscene lack of high rise, it shows a cityscape typical of European industrial cities the age of Dublin. Whereas I 110% agree that we NEED high rise immediately, it should not be done at the expense of those parts of the city that are already developed, in one way or another. As buildings finish their useful lives, then tear them down and rebuild highrise, where appropriate, but blanket destruction of the city centre to replace it with towers is no answer either.
I do think that clustered high rise is required in Dublin, but unfortuantely phrases such as
"well, i oppose that high rise tower, because you can see the top two floors of it from merrion Square, and it ruins the whole feel of the area" pop up in almost every half decent application for planning in this city. We have always had this weird aversion to high rise that I never understood. I welcome Heuston Gate and the new Tara st Station, and I hope more of this happens, but not at the expense of the cities heritage. Like everything, there has to be a proper balance, but for some reason, our fine country seems to always go to one extreme or another. Like they say, its a hell of a lot easier to travel down 50 floors than to drive in 30 miles. On the same note though, buildings such as the fine houses on the NCR, and the fine houses all over the city are still beautiful in their own right, (OK, some are in sh*te condition, but you know what i mean), and add to Dublins character. Out of interest, I believe there is a planning application in at the moment for a 42 story tower in Cherry Orchard in Ballyfermot. Anyone have any links to the design, artists impression for that?

Metrobest

What's wrong with Ireland is that high-density has never been done properly. On the one hand we've had badly-designed tower blocks like Ballymun; on the other bungalows and semi-D houses with driveways. Some choice :rolleyes:

I'm in Singapore at the moment. This tiny urban island houses a population of 4m in an area smaller than Dublin county. I'm very impressed with the quality of development. The CBD is a glorious cluster of modern office buildings, each well over thirty storeys high. It makes Dublin's IFSC look like a halting site!

I'm staying on the 20th floor of a high-rise building in a high-rise cluster. The apartment looks onto communal gardens and recreational spaces. Nearby is a metro station which takes you all over the city, comfortably and quickly using the city's public transport "smart card". While this is high-rise utopia, I doubt such a living trend would be popular in Dublin. The European model of 5/6 storey apartment buildings, sustained suburban density, and proper transport solutions like metros are the answer.

Another thing. Singapore has Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) which basically is a toll on all cars entering the city on highways or busy commmuter roads. The gantrys deduct the toll from a chip that drivers must have in their cars. (this is what will be on the M50 I supppose) Drivers must have a special license to enter the CBD.

I wish Ireland's jobsworth urban planners would send a delegation out to Singapore and other cities like Bilbao and Rotterdam and find out what should, could be done for Dublin.

LFCFan

Metrobest wrote:

What's wrong with Ireland is that high-density has never been done properly. On the one hand we've had badly-designed tower blocks like Ballymun; on the other bungalows and semi-D houses with driveways. Some choice :rolleyes:

I'm in Singapore at the moment. This tiny urban island houses a population of 4m in an area smaller than Dublin county. I'm very impressed with the quality of development. The CBD is a glorious cluster of modern office buildings, each well over thirty storeys high. It makes Dublin's IFSC look like a halting site!

I'm staying on the 20th floor of a high-rise building in a high-rise cluster. The apartment looks onto communal gardens and recreational spaces. Nearby is a metro station which takes you all over the city, comfortably and quickly using the city's public transport "smart card". While this is high-rise utopia, I doubt such a living trend would be popular in Dublin. The European model of 5/6 storey apartment buildings, sustained suburban density, and proper transport solutions like metros are the answer.

Another thing. Singapore has Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) which basically is a toll on all cars entering the city on highways or busy commmuter roads. The gantrys deduct the toll from a chip that drivers must have in their cars. (this is what will be on the M50 I supppose) Drivers must have a special license to enter the CBD.

I wish Ireland's jobsworth urban planners would send a delegation out to Singapore and other cities like Bilbao and Rotterdam and find out what should, could be done for Dublin.

The current government can't even get their head around Credit Card style licenses so I wouldn't hold my breath about something like this.

Maskhadov

not at all corktina

I find the pictures so shocking because people have to commute from places like Dundalk, Navan and other places. Plus the cost of living on this island is riduclous. Why is this the case when we have tons of space in Dublin??.

It would be far better for everyone invovled if we had as much high quality high density rise as possible between the canals. The docklands looks like they missed out on a golden oppurtunity. Its over hyped, mundane and we could have done with buildings twice that height.

Of course we cant go crazy and knock all the crappy semi d's and 19th century styled terraced housing around Dublin but a lot of new development around Dublin is vertically challenged. None of the planners can think big and everything is controlled by the NIMBYs.

Only smithfield, Hueston Gate and maybe Tara st Station are anyway buildings of vision. Of course they are all too small but its an improvement.

It goes without saying, all future development within the M50 should be based entirely on apartments and at least 6 stories. Generous family sized apartments along with smaller apartments are still a far better use of space that a house.

If the government presses ahead with the Metro they will need this kind of density where ever the metro goes. Its about time the government set out regulations on minimum dentisty and minimum height allowed in the city.