New Road markings at the M50 toll bridge

Stimpyone

Has anybody noticed the new road markings at the M50 toll bridge northbound?

On the Lucan roundabout ramp heading onto the M50 two large signs have been erected proclaiming "stay in lane", there are also traffic cones extending from the ramp as far up as the bridge.

Continuous white lines have been painted on the road as has the message "stay in lane" every few meters or so. This extends almost as far as the toll booths themselves. The centre lane is now as wide as two lanes and the eazypass lane remains the same.

My grip is that this is causing sizeable delays back up on the Lucan road:mad: . It is also now impossible for anybody with an eazypass thingy to use it in the appropriate lane if your coming from that direction.

Does anybody ever think these things out?

MrPudding

That is a bit of a hassle to eazypass users alright. I think when you are dealing with something as badly thought out as the M50 toll plaza anything you do will have to be a compromise. There is simply no way to improve things for everyone (don't start about removing the toll.) What they have done now might be a bit more hassle for people coming from Lucan but the majority of traffic does not come from there so if it imporves the lot of drivers already on the M50 then it is an improvment.

On a slightly related note. They have remove the stupid barrier on the €toll lane on the M1 toll plaza. It is now barrier free. Nice. This might be old news but I haven't been there in a while.

MrP

murphaph

Sounds like the Clyde Tunnel in Glasgow. It's to stop waving movements slowing down traffic flow. They should possibly add another Eazypass express lane for Lucan customers on the far left of the plaza. As MrP says, it's all a bit of a mess so compromises will abound until barrier free arrives in only 2 years :eek:

Stimpyone

MrPudding wrote:

That is a bit of a hassle to eazypass users alright. I think when you are dealing with something as badly thought out as the M50 toll plaza anything you do will have to be a compromise. There is simply no way to improve things for everyone (don't start about removing the toll.) What they have done now might be a bit more hassle for people coming from Lucan but the majority of traffic does not come from there so if it imporves the lot of drivers already on the M50 then it is an improvment.

On a slightly related note. They have remove the stupid barrier on the €toll lane on the M1 toll plaza. It is now barrier free. Nice. This might be old news but I haven't been there in a while.

MrP

To be honest I don't see the compromise. NTR are just pushing the queues up the Lucan road instead of down the M50. The new lay out as far as i can see has actually slowed traffic down alround.

Trucks are unable to pull over to the truck tolling booths on the left until the last moment which to be honest is slightly worrying from a saftey point of view, as some truck drivers like to throw their weight around so to speak.

Also the enlarged middle lane ( twice as wide now ) seems to have a lot of people confused and unsure of where exactly they a supposed to be.

I understand that there was traffic weaving going on previously but it's worse now as the room to maneuver has been dramatically reduced.

Bad idea alround imo

Stimpyone

FYI......I received the mail below in responce to my inquiry.


Dear Mr. XXXXXX,



Many thanks for your email forwarded to me by Gareth Browne (Westlink General Manager).



As you have outlined in your email the Northbound approach lane layout at the West Link Toll Plaza is in the process of being changed.



These changes will address a number of issues that Westlink have identified on the Northbound approach to the Plaza.

These are:

Mainline traffic is using the dedicated Eazy Pass lane to queue jump before cutting back into the slower cash lanes.
Mainline traffic veering left on the bridge makes access to the Plaza from the N4 on-ramp difficult and dangerous
The overall weaving and lane changing taking place on the bridge creates what traffic engineers term “traffic turbulence”. Typically drivers stop the lane they are leaving and must also stop the lane they are entering as they swap lanes. Happening on a wide scale this adversely effects traffic flows so much so that Southbound throughputs consistently outperform Northbound throughputs by as much as 10% during the peaks.


A number of Independent traffic consultants were engaged to review what could be done to reduce the turbulence given that Westlink could only work within their existing footprint.



Westlink have decided to change the current Northbound alignment which has 3 lanes plus a hard shoulder and create four traffic lanes all the way across the bridge.



As part of this re-alignment they will introduce a deflection island before the bridge which will safely move M50 mainline traffic on to the two centre lanes of the bridge. This will leave a lane on the left hand side for N4 traffic and a lane on the right for the dedicated Eazy Pass traffic.



The improvements we anticipate will be

Better access onto the M50 from the junction for N4 traffic
Reduced weaving, lane changing and accidents on the bridge.
Reduced queue jumpers by cash customers using the Eazy Pass lane.


These changes will be introduced incrementally in the coming week with all work taking place at night.



These improvements will effectively mean that N4 Eazy Pass customers will not be able to access the Express Eazy Pass lane. However, all N4 customers will be benefit from improved access to the M50 from the N4 due to the dedicated N4 lane.



We would ask you to bear with us while the works are completed and then we will evaluate and assess the impact of the changes.



Yours sincerely,





Don O’Connell

Customer Services Manager

Litcagral

murphaph wrote:

Sounds like the Clyde Tunnel in Glasgow. It's to stop waving movements slowing down traffic flow. They should possibly add another Eazypass express lane for Lucan customers on the far left of the plaza. As MrP says, it's all a bit of a mess so compromises will abound until barrier free arrives in only 2 years :eek:

I thought there was an Easypass lane on the left, primarily for customers with large vehicles but available to any Easypass holders. (I'm open to correction on this).

Bluetonic

Litcagral wrote:

I thought there was an Easypass lane on the left, primarily for customers with large vehicles but available to any Easypass holders. (I'm open to correction on this).

You can use easypass on ANY of the lanes, but theres no didicated lane on the left travelling northbound.

daymobrew

Stimpyone wrote:

FYI......I received the mail below in responce to my inquiry.

Dear Mr. XXXXXX,

Many thanks for your email forwarded to me by Gareth Browne (Westlink General Manager).

I just got off the phone with Mr Browne. He explained the removal of the hard shoulder, the deflection island and narrowing of the northbound EasyPass lane.
He hopes to have the markings laid down this weekend (25 March), weather permitting.

I mentioned boards.ie and this thread to him. I told him to be careful if he decided to get involved

MrPudding

Sounds good. It will be interesting to see the effect.

MrP