Warning! Massive delays on M50, M11 southbound

Alun

Due to some emergency works on the M11 around Bray due to a burst water main or something, there are massive, massive tailbacks on the M50 and N11/M11 southbound. Alternative routes over the Scalp and through Shankill are totally bunged up too apparently. My missus left work from Leopardstown at about 6pm, and she isn't home yet (Bray)!!! Worse still, the works are scheuled to go on until at least 7pm tomorrow!!!

spockety

Leopardstown to Bray, 4 hours and counting?

OUCH.

Supercell

I was caught up in this for a couple of hours earlier (on the 10 min part of my normal trip).

Why on earth are there facility's like water/electricity running under the M50 main road?

How many thousand's of commuters spent hours stuck in commuting hell waiting to get to their families because of this tonight??, why oh why couldn't this be off the main road?????

Mitch Connor

Took me 5 hours to get from CityWest to Bray today.

I will get a bus into work tomorrow, and then a bus/dart home tomorrow night after going to see a movie or something. The 'road works' are expected to last til 7pm tomorrow, so i am simply not going to risk the same crap tomorrow night. Late night shopping/movie in town is a lot more appealing then being stuck in traffic again.

Its an absolute disgrace that one lane closure for 100yards can cause 5 hours worth of delays.

Alun

The missus has just rung me up ... 10.30pm and she's only just reached the Bray North exit I reckon another hour at least!

Creamy Goodness

took me an hour to get from shankill to bray on the 145. the journey was peachy before that though.

admiralofthefleet

that might explain why the rock road (already bad with the works) all the way to the point, up the coast road was crazy, it took me nearly 3 hours to get to raheny from blackrock.

Hotblack Desiato

spockety wrote:

Leopardstown to Bray, 4 hours and counting?

OUCH.

Get a bike

Hotblack Desiato

Longfield wrote:

Why on earth are there facility's like water/electricity running under the M50 main road?

Because you can't run an overground power line without some knob end objecting to it, and while you can run a water main over a motorway you're still fecked if it springs a leak.
There's no way you can have a ring road like the M50 without services crossing it.

Calibos

Thought I was in the middle of this but looks like I got off easy. Left Vincents Hosp. at 5pm and got home to Bray at 7:30. Old man left Vincents at 6pm and got home at 10:20pm

John R

It was just about the worst tailback I have ever seen in this country. Luckily I forgot my CDs and had the radio on, I found about it just in time to take to the backroads which must have saved me hours.

I was surprised that I got through quick enough, I suppose very few people know the roads. I haven't needed to use that shortcut since before the M11 Bray bypass opened.

It just highlights how insane the level of long distance car commuting into Co. Dublin is.

John_C

There was even a soccer match between UCD and Bray called off because the UCD team was stuck. The drive took me an hour and a half for a journey I can cycle in 30 mins and listening to some people on here I didn't get the worst of it.

mukki

always takes me 40-45 minutes to get to and from work, the joys of never touching the city

fletch

Wow...and I thought my commute can be bad....never been held up for anything like 5 hours....I have on occasion pulled over and gone asleep though, but obviously you can't do that on the M50/M11.

Wishbone Ash

Tauren wrote:

The 'road works' are expected to last til 7pm tomorrow,

They finished early this morning.

El Stuntman

Alun wrote:

My missus left work from Leopardstown at about 6pm, and she isn't home yet (Bray)!!!

are you complaining or happy?

mathie

Did anyone notice that the works were on the hard shoulder and that the land closed off was having nothing done to it?

Was it reduced to one lane to slow traffic down on purpose?

Either way what a bunch of idiots. Surely this could have waited until outside rush hour.

Mitch Connor

Wishbone Ash wrote:

They finished early this morning.

DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN!

I didn't drive in today cause i thought i would be caught in traffic on the way home! BUGGER!

Alun

El Stuntman wrote:

are you complaining or happy?

LOL!

Anyway, she eventually got home about 11pm, so a good 5 hours from Leopardstown.

I'm wondering though .. isn't the place where this water main burst suspiciously close to where they were doing the bridge works a few months ago when there were roadworks for weeks and weeks as well? Sloppy workmanship maybe?

smash

Sandyford 4:30 - home at 10:20

Tabnabs

mathie wrote:

Either way what a bunch of idiots. Surely this could have waited until outside rush hour.

They were "emergency roadworks" and so couldn't wait, ah allegedly.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2006/1123/traffic.html

Most people listening to Live Drive 103.2 FM seemed to get the message and stay clear.

holly_johnson

I feel really sorry for any of you that were stuck in that chaos last night. That's a disgrace.
What about people who had to get to creches etc? I wonder what happened there.

dubgirl

Just heard works have started again and tail backs to Cherrywood already:mad:

spareman

dubgirl wrote:

Just heard works have started again and tail backs to Cherrywood already:mad:

I just drove from lepardstown to cherrywood on the M50 didnt notice anything.

Aquitaine

Im hearing conflicting news about this but are the works finished now or will it be the same caos tonight?

sliabh

AA Roadwatch are reporting the following as of 13:07:

*WICKLOW* Roadworks at the jct of Old Connaught Ave and Thornhill Rd in Bray, have been causing a lot of disruption to traffic. Emergency roadworks which took place yesterday on the M11 at Valerie's Bridge, Fassaroe have finished up however some taring/asphalt laying will be taking place today and tomorrow on the hard shoulder but this should not cause any disruption for traffic.

LarMan

I drove past there at 12:50 and there were no delays, it looked like there was some work going on in ht ehard shoulder but this was not causing any delays

spank_inferno

Central park, Leopardstown 20:10hrs ---> Wicklow town 21:15

took the back roads ballyogan -> Kiltiernan -> Enniskerry -> N11

Crazy with the rain and everything, reminds me how awful rural signage is.

TBH I know everyone was massively inconvenienced but I heard on newstalk that the co council adv the AA on tuesday about this, the work had to be done. Its not entirely the fault of dublin/wicklow co co's that the public were largely unaware.
There were also county engineers out on the enniskerry road too checking on pipes. A police officer directing traffic between Kiltiernan/enniskerry too.

I think they did a tough job as well as they could.

Mushy

I'm wondering though .. isn't the place where this water main burst suspiciously close to where they were doing the bridge works a few months ago when there were roadworks for weeks and weeks as well? Sloppy workmanship maybe?

Yes, its about 100 yards away MAX. Was a disgrace. Heard it took some people 7 hours to get home:eek:. Luckily I had a half day from school, but even from 9 o clock in the morning, the traffic into Bray from Shankill end was outrageous. By 1 o' clock it was nuts, but I think it had died down a bit by then naturally enough. But between schhols, work, everything converging at once, it doesnt surprise me.

Do they not have alternative plans for emergencies like these? And even then, the work was been done in the hard shoulder, could have easily kept two lanes open.

AlekSmart

Spank Inferno appears to have been lucky in escaping across the mountains.
However,listening to Liveline today revealed a vast number of folks who were not so lucky.
What appears to be a major part of yesterdays occurrences is,once again a total absence of communication or understanding between the "Statutory Bodies" and everybody else....ie You and I.

The central issue of any functionary accepting responsibility or,God forbid,apologizing for a system failure on their watch is totally alien to the Irish Public Administration phsyche.

The Gardai also experienced a poor reaction phase which left them,not for the first time,trying to explain away their percieved absence and inaction.

It`s also quite interesting that even with 24 hours notice none of the the responsible bodies felt it worthwhile to perhaps advise Irish Rail/Dart or Bus Eireann- Bus Atha Cliath of the potential for disaster to any scheduled public transport services.

Do any of the Statutory Bodies consider it worthwhile to resort to heavily Publicising such works as yesterdays ?
Did any of these "Professional" planners consider at any point the potential benefit of providing some form of Prioritized Free Public Bus /Train services in order to allow at least some commuters to leave ther cars at home for the duration of the work ?

There really is little point in Government Ministers puffing their chests out about grandiose "Programmes" such as the NDP 200-2006 and it`s successor T21 when single ill-planned and uncohesive events such as last nights can reduce a huge swathe of the south-eastern seaboard to chaos.

I have the greatest of difficulty with allowing the present cast of Irish Civil Administrators and their syncophantic so-called professional advisors to have anything to do with spending the €36 Billion supposedly earmarked for T21.

I really hope the Comptroller and Auditor General can seek some form of Certificate of Sanity from these individuals BEFORE allocating any more funds to them.

mike65

I've been listening to talk radio all day but hav'nt heard a single word from "The Powers That Be" explaining thier stupidity.

Mike.

Wishbone Ash

mike65 wrote:

I've been listening to talk radio all day but hav'nt heard a single word from "The Powers That Be" explaining thier stupidity.

Mike.

An official from DCC was on Six One News. (I know that's not the radio though!)

Navan Junction

Irish Times, 24th Nov 06

Systems that didn't work; professionals who didn't act. Tim O'Brienlooks at what went wrong on the N11 on Wednesday.

Wednesday's traffic jam on Dublin's M50, and tailback gridlock over much of south Dublin which led to delays of up to five hours, was astonishing not just for the scale of disruption caused but also the breadth of system failures that allowed it to take place.

What happened was spectacularly bad timing for a traffic authority that only one week earlier had been showing off its multi-million euro Intelligent Traffic Management Systems, a state-of-the-art camera-based network aimed at proving that just such a traffic jam would not happen when Dublin's Port Tunnel opens next month.

Any local authority can have a burst water main on a main road. Such an event should not, to use National Roads Authority parlance, become "a show- stopper". Work on the water main at Silverbridge near Bray, just south of where the M11 becomes the N11, mirrored work just a few yards away that was carried out over several weeks during the summer.

That had been carried out, not without major disturbance, but without the enormity of Wednesday's disturbance. On Wednesday those responsible for repairing the pipe did not put in a contra-flow system which would have used a lane of the northbound carriageway to ensure that two lanes southbound were in operation at all times.

That was mistake number one.

High on the fifth floor in Dublin City Council is the traffic centre, the heart of the supposedly cutting-edge information technology designed to manage traffic in the event of congestion. Some 150 cameras in and around the city relay live images to a wall of television screens and an amphitheatre of desk-mounted screens and operators. The M50 and M11 motorways were built with these cameras in place but also with in-the-ground loops that provide information on the number of cars in each lane, as well as their speeds.

The traffic centre also controls a range of roadside and overhead electronic signs that alert drivers to anything on the road ahead that should prompt them to modify their driving. A secondary range of temporary and mobile variable messaging systems controlled by the traffic centre is also available to be used as needed.

Motorists are also alerted by AA Roadwatch radio broadcasts. And to top it off Dublin City Council has its own studio in the traffic centre that broadcasts to motorists on 103.2FM

So how did the impression get out that there was nobody in charge on Wednesday? In theory it should have gone like this: a contra flow should have been agreed with all relevant authorities, as happened in the past.

When M11 southbound traffic started to build - as it did from about 8am on - it should have been seen, via cameras, in the Dublin City Council traffic centre and overhead or roadside messages should have warned drivers of the length of delays, giving them the option to leave the motorway at the nearest exit, as has happened in the past. Gardaí should have been asked to close access points to the motorway at Loughlinstown, diverting southbound traffic along the old N11 through Shankill and Bray or Rathmichael.

In the late afternoon and early evening, as queues stretched to Firhouse, gardaí should have been asked to close the M50 access points at Cherrywood, Leopardstown, Ballinteer, Knocklyon and Firhouse and warn drivers there was no point in joining a tailback. What happened instead was that, in the absence of a contra flow at the incident site, two motorways - the M50 and M11 - merged southbound into a single line of traffic through a road works and a single-lane bottleneck.

When the traffic centre started to broadcast on 103.2FM at 4pm, the situation was already critical. The mobile, temporary virtual messaging systems were not connected, as they are supposed to be, to the traffic centre; the nearest permanent virtual messaging system that was working was at the Firhouse junction, of no use to all who joined the motorways between there and Bray.

The in-the-ground loops are installed but do not yet report to the traffic centre, but to the National Roads Authority. Gardaí were not asked to restrict traffic joining the motorway or to advise motorists to leave the motorway and take an alternative route.

But most surprising of all is that the overhead cameras along the M50 to the M11 junction were working all the time. Those in the traffic centre must have watched the whole thing develop throughout the day and up until at least 10pm.

Where was the level of response that would give us any confidence that the other end of the M50, where the M50 meets the M1, will fare any better when the Port Tunnel opens in four weeks?

jd

Who is responsible for the carriageway where the waterworks were taking place? WCC, SDCC, or DLRCC?

Alun

jd wrote:

Who is responsible for the carriageway where the waterworks were taking place? WCC, SDCC, or DLRCC?

The bridge repair works that took place a few months ago at virtually the same spot were advertised on the WCC website, so I assume that they were responsible.

Macy

Alun wrote:

I'm wondering though .. isn't the place where this water main burst suspiciously close to where they were doing the bridge works a few months ago when there were roadworks for weeks and weeks as well? Sloppy workmanship maybe?

The one's that had big flashing signs saying how great it was that it had finished ahead of schedule. Maybe we know why now.

We were lucky that we heard of the chaos early and went the top road (spank inferno - shh ). Luckily I think we were just ahead of most on that route, however, plenty of road works on that route too.

Due to going the top road, I didn't see the actual works, but I'm lead to believe that there was no work going on in the main carriageway at all, and that the actual blocking of the main carriageway was caused by the site workers parking in the hard shoulder, forcing the plant into the first lane. :rolleyes:

Victor

Silverbridge would appear to be in Wicklow, but I can't find a map.

Alun

Victor wrote:

Silverbridge would appear to be in Wicklow, but I can't find a map.

It's exactly where the article says it is ... just a little bit south of where the M11 becomes the N11, where the River Dargle goes under the carriageway. There's an entrance to a halting site just before that IIRC. Driving over it you wouldn't really notice if there was a bridge there or not TBH.

Seth Brundle

Longfield wrote:

Why on earth are there facility's like water/electricity running under the M50 main road?

I don't know but I was wondering the other day why there were large concrete pipes in one part of the M50 roadworks!