What is going on with the Athlone bypass bridge?

flazio

They coned it off into one lane on Friday morning and left like that all weekend, it was havoc on Friday evening and I'm sure at some other peak times over the weekend. There was no warning or anything.
What's going on?

Eireann

Flazio, its only getting worse. They're applying to the council to close that stretch of road for SIX MONTHS. Reported about it in the paper. So now there are two seperate stretches down to one lane, and possibly bringing back the mayham that happened the last time they closed the Monksland turnoff.

roosterman71

The by-pass between Coosan and Roscommon exits is down to one lane for "emergency works".

Must have been a cat killed or something

blast05

Wait for another few weeks when all Galway bound traffic will be directed off the dual carriageway at the Monksland exit and then directed straight through the new roundabout there on to the new road that will bring them back out on to the main Dublin Galway road at the new small roundabout a few hundred metres after the end of the dual carriageway.
Moate on a Friday evening for westbound traffic will have been nothing compared to what this will be like for the 6 months or so that the dual carriageway will be closed.
Its all to facilitate the linking in of the Athlone - Ballinasloe motorway on to the end of the existing Athlone by-pass.

veryangryman

blast05 wrote: »

Wait for another few weeks when all Galway bound traffic will be directed off the dual carriageway at the Monksland exit and then directed straight through the new roundabout there on to the new road that will bring them back out on to the main Dublin Galway road at the new small roundabout a few hundred metres after the end of the dual carriageway.
Moate on a Friday evening for westbound traffic will have been nothing compared to what this will be like for the 6 months or so that the dual carriageway will be closed.
Its all to facilitate the linking in of the Athlone - Ballinasloe motorway on to the end of the existing Athlone by-pass.

Hmmm... That section doesnt join until 2KM up the road. TBH the cynic in me thinks that they just leave the cones there for the laugh :rolleyes:

Eireann

Its so dangerous. They have a few kms of one lane, then open to two for another few kms, and then back to one lane again.

The amount of people trying to overtake a long line of traffic in the two lane section before coming on the cones is crazy.

roosterman71

I am 1 of those people. I was driving from blyry to the Roscommon exit last night, and from before the Coosan exit people were all in the left hand lane, even though the right hand one was still open in that section. I carried on in the right hand lane for another km or so and a nice lady in a BMW let me pull back in.

Just a note, I wasn't one of the numerous knobjockies that fly down the open lane and then barge into the queue. I was very nice about it and waited to be let in. I was in good form yesterday apparently

Eireann

Rooster, I dont mean people who act nicely, I mean the people who think its ok to take cones and all with you!

Driving past the bridge works the other day, it appears to be an expansion joint failure.

JupiterKid

I have a niggling feelijng that the Athlone bypass Shannon bridge is the problem here, and not the tie in with the forthcoming Athlone-Ballinasloe section of M6.

I've been told that the bypass bridge over the Shannon was rather poorly built in the first place and has had a litany of structural problems, some of which emerged only a few short years after its 1991 opening. Not good.:(

JupiterKid

JupiterKid wrote: »

I have a niggling feelijng that the Athlone bypass Shannon bridge is the problem here, and not the tie in with the forthcoming Athlone-Ballinasloe section of M6.

I've been told that the bypass bridge over the Shannon was rather poorly built in the first place and has had a litany of structural problems, some of which emerged only a few short years after its 1991 opening. Not good.:(

That's right, it's the bridge, not for the first time in recent years either!
Don't like the sound of "poorly built" one bit!

jamesd

Are they even working on the bridge? All I see is cones and no workers and its causing big delays each evening for traffic.

Going past this morning, I had another quick look and all I can see is a steel plate over part of the expansion joint.

Maybe they're waiting for replacement parts.

veryangryman

Deleted User wrote: »

Going past this morning, I had another quick look and all I can see is a steel plate over part of the expansion joint.

Maybe they're waiting for replacement parts.

Who do you call to make a complaint about this? The cones should be removed until ACTUAL work is going on

Eireann

Roscommon CoCo I guess?! I believe its them thats allowing all this work, as it is on the Rossie side of Athlone.

veryangryman

veryangryman wrote: »

Who do you call to make a complaint about this? The cones should be removed until ACTUAL work is going on

Probably the NRA as this is a national road, or at least they'll be able to direct you to the correct authority.

whyulittle

They could do with moving the cone & sign they have sitting at the B&Q exit. If you're heading from the the Ballymahon Road exit to the B&Q exit, you can obviously stay in the on/off lane, but right at the end you now have to jump out into the slow lane to avoid the cone & sign.

cazmcco

JupiterKid wrote: »

I have a niggling feelijng that the Athlone bypass Shannon bridge is the problem here, and not the tie in with the forthcoming Athlone-Ballinasloe section of M6.

I've been told that the bypass bridge over the Shannon was rather poorly built in the first place and has had a litany of structural problems, some of which emerged only a few short years after its 1991 opening. Not good.:(

its not technically the actual structure of the bridge that is at fault. its the engineering qualities of the soil that its built upon. settlement of the ground that both of the bridges (the shannon and the railway/roscommon road) will take place for years to come, although it will reduce over time. it is for this reason that patching is always carried out at either end of the bridge - when noticable settment has developed.
listen the next time your driving over the bridges and you will hear a "thump" sound as you drive over the roscommon end of the shannon bridge, this indcates a difference of surface levels between the bridge and road structure. it is not as noticable at the other three joints at the moment.

veryangryman

cazmcco wrote: »

its not technically the actual structure of the bridge that is at fault. its the engineering qualities of the soil that its built upon. settlement of the ground that both of the bridges (the shannon and the railway/roscommon road) will take place for years to come, although it will reduce over time. it is for this reason that patching is always carried out at either end of the bridge - when noticable settment has developed.
listen the next time your driving over the bridges and you will hear a "thump" sound as you drive over the roscommon end of the shannon bridge, this indcates a difference of surface levels between the bridge and road structure. it is not as noticable at the other three joints at the moment.

Aye...can be like a speed bump at times.

I see all the "coneage" is back in place!
At least now they appear to be actually replacing the expansion gap.

cazmcco

ye they were at it yesterday i think it was when i was passing. they seem to be replacing the expansion joint or something to do with that anyways. hopefully they will have it finished by rush hour on friday !!!

About an hour ago, they were working on the other lane installing the new expansion gap.

jamesd

At 4pm they were gone, all the cones left each side of their work and major delays to the traffic