M1

aquascrotum

I'm spending 40mins of my day, every day, sitting at a standstill on a road that to my knowledge was only opened 5 years ago (2003).

Why on earth was the M1 not built as 3 lanes, at least from Donabate to the airport/M50? The N2 is 3 lanes for a good proportion of its length and (I'd be fairly certain) it serves a significantly smaller population.

The M1 serves the entire east coast commuter belt, where there has been practically unrestricted development in Lusk, Balbriggan, Laytown, Bettystown, Drogheda, not to mention Dundalk. There are plans for development in the medium term to effectively triple the size of Drogheda town with massive development to the south and north of the town in the northern environs and southern environs area plans - that this will be delayed/cancelled due to the economic crisis is a blessing in disguise.

I'm just at a loss as to how utterly short sighted the design seems to be. They clearly knew that 3 lanes would be required at some stage due to the wide median. Are/were there any plans to upgrade this road on the approach to Dublin? The problems dont even seem to be affected by the M50 works as the stretch from the airport - M50 is generally quite clear.

L1011

I think the reason the Airport->Balbriggan bypass link section wasn't built triple was that it would have required tripling the 1980s 'original' M1 - before the M50 was done and during the DPT works.

However, they could have built and cordoned off a third lane to save later construction costs, but that would have made far too much sense for Ireland...

Isn't much of the delay caused by the Airport spur merge and the the M50/M1 junction being under capacity though?

ardmacha

it would be better to locate some jobs in Drogheda rather than have everyone there careering up and down the M1.

from the airport - M50 is generally quite clear

exactly the problem is the M1 M50 junction with its stupid traffic light.

Carawaystick

I think some of the problems stem from the extremely short merges going from the Airport to M1S and M50 to M1N and Airport to M1N.

When the new junction to Holywell was opened, there should have been 3 lanes between the Airport junction and the Holywell junction to reduce the amount of weaving.

The main problems are the fact the M1 ends at a roadblock of Either traffic lights at the M50/N32 roundabout, the Lights at whitehall or the EUR12 toll for the tunnel. When the freeflow junction M1->M50W opens, then some of the delay here should improve.

but look up standing waves in traffic to see why the delays appear to have no direct cause and don't appear to be where that root causes of the delay are.

BrianD

Apart from rush hour, I would have thought that the M1 was under utilised? Granted, I never use it other than the odd trip north.

Where does the jam start?

I do recall that last time I drove in rush hour on the M1 was the obvious inability of Irish drivers to drive correctly in a m-way (keep left unless overtaking). Consequently, you have people slowing up overall progress by driving in and around 100K in the overtaking lane.

KevR

aquascrotum wrote: »

I'm just at a loss as to how utterly short sighted the design seems to be. They clearly knew that 3 lanes would be required at some stage due to the wide median.

Can never understand why they put in a wide median with a view for a future additional lane. To me it would make a lot more sense just to build the extra lane from the start, it's only an extra 3.5m of tarmac in each direction. Rather than leave it until the motorway becomes extremely congested and pay for an upgrade which is costly, difficult to construct (because there is a live traffic flow on the road) and cause lots of disruption during construction. Would surely be a lot cheaper and lot less hassle in the long run to include the extra lane in the original building of the road.

Bluetonic

The build up and subsequent heavy traffic beings at M1 junction 4 (Lissenhall) where you have Swords north, Skerries, Rush, Lusk and Donabate traffic entering the motorway.

I wonder would a controlled motorway help here? You have traffic meeting heavy traffic merging at 120km and subsequently a lot of breaking, lane hopping, and general stopping and starting. If the speed limit was reduced (and obviously speed checks were in place) to 80km or 60km at times of heavy traffic do people think that would easy the flow of traffic? Of course we don't have alternating speed on motorways here so thats all pie in the sky.

Either way with the upgrade of the M1/M50 junction and Metro North :rolleyes: traffic should ease.