N8/N25/N40 - Dunkettle Interchange [under construction]

Chris_5339762

Markcheese wrote: »

Saw a fox in the middle of the roundabout, on Saturday afternoon, just watching the traffic... Bunnies won't be there long...

I actually saw him too the other evening... sniffing around in some of the bunny holes. Ive seen about 10 bunnies munching grass in the middle of the roundabout before, so there are plenty for Mr fox to eat.

AugustusMinimus

Scheme email update sent today.

Noted that ground investigation work will soon commence on the central part of the present Roundabout.

Investigation work to continue to mid March.

spacetweek

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Investigation work to continue to mid March.

Ah bad news - so a full kick off won't be till then?

Chris_5339762

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Scheme email update sent today.

Noted that ground investigation work will soon commence on the central part of the present Roundabout.

Investigation work to continue to mid March.

The Dunkettle bunnies won't like that :eek:

AugustusMinimus

spacetweek wrote: »

Ah bad news - so a full kick off won't be till then?

Nothing on kick off dates. This project is gonna be a very slow burner I feel.

kub

The Echo are mentioning that site investigation works will start on the roundabout section on Monday, out of hours.


https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/Gridlock-fears-as-three-major-construction-projects-begin-in-Cork-this-month-4daa4a2b-31af-4656-b2ca-7cb2f99a555c-ds


I hope Mr Fox has his PPE gear because he will not be left on site for his grub, as they scramble from their burrows

AugustusMinimus

kub wrote: »

The Echo are mentioning that site investigation works will start on the roundabout section on Monday, out of hours.


https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/Gridlock-fears-as-three-major-construction-projects-begin-in-Cork-this-month-4daa4a2b-31af-4656-b2ca-7cb2f99a555c-ds


I hope Mr Fox has his PPE gear because he will not be left on site for his grub, as they scramble from their burrows

Their entire front page today is basically a word for word transcription of the update email. Shocking journalism.

kub

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Their entire front page today is basically a word for word transcription of the update email. Shocking journalism.

That particular publication is no longer regarded for its level of ' Journalism '


Did we not see another article on it during the week about Cork Developments done out the exact same way as a fellow poster here thankfully posts up frequently in the Cork Developments thread.


Absolute joke is what it is, apologies if i am off topic.

AugustusMinimus

kub wrote: »

That particular publication is no longer regarded for its level of ' Journalism '


Did we not see another article on it during the week about Cork Developments done out the exact same way as a fellow poster here thankfully posts up frequently in the Cork Developments thread.


Absolute joke is what it is, apologies if i am off topic.

They’re basically copying Snotboogies excellent updates word for word.

Geogregor

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Scheme email update sent today.

Noted that ground investigation work will soon commence on the central part of the present Roundabout.

Investigation work to continue to mid March.

Is it only me who find it strange to do ground investigation on such late stage of the project?

How could they design the junction upgrade without doing ground investigation first???

Kermit.de.frog

marno21 wrote: »

Sisk have filed a pre-application consultation with An Bord Pleanala relating to the Dunkettle Interchange scheme. Doesn't seem to be any further details on it up on their website

http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/303549.htm

Any more news on this?

This seems very important especially in the context of the ground problems. Could be a large change to the proposal.

Markcheese

Geogregor wrote: »

Is it only me who find it strange to do ground investigation on such late stage of the project?

How could they design the junction upgrade without doing ground investigation first???

They were definitely doing soil testing earlier too, because I remember seeing the rig moving around, obviously they're doing a good bit more now.

EdgeCase

I've a feeling that project is going to be longer and more expensive than planned just because of the very complex site. It's more or else in a marsh and has quite a bit of complicated infrastructure to get around including railways and it has to do all of that with minimal disruption to one or the busiest junctions in Ireland.

Geogregor

EdgeCase wrote: »

I've a feeling that project is going to be longer and more expensive than planned just because of the very complex site. It's more or else in a marsh and has quite a bit of complicated infrastructure to get around including railways and it has to do all of that with minimal disruption to one or the busiest junctions in Ireland.

Sure, I get that. But I though the junction is already designed as there were links to drawings here. I assumed they took existing infrastructure to the account and tested the soils before deciding where to put flyovers and other structures.

Maybe I was wrong...

prunudo

Who are the main contractors?

marno21

jvan wrote: »

Who are the main contractors?

Sisk

highwaymaniac

Geogregor wrote: »

Sure, I get that. But I though the junction is already designed as there were links to drawings here. I assumed they took existing infrastructure to the account and tested the soils before deciding where to put flyovers and other structures.

Maybe I was wrong...

It's a preliminary design to get it through planning, there will have boreholes and geophysical surveys done before to make sure it will work but now it is at the detailed design stage it will be a lot more targeted with a view to designing the length and type of piles for bridges etc. This is a design & build contract (NEC with ECI
http://www.neccontract.com/ECI ) so would be normal for the contractors designer to spec the detailed site investigation.

Kermit.de.frog

When will we see the revised design?

It's possible they could revert to an alternative that were laid out in the EIS.

One or two great looking full freeflow designs there.

AugustusMinimus

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

When will we see the revised design?

It's possible they could revert to an alternative that were laid out in the EIS.

One or two great looking full freeflow designs there.

I didn’t think any of the designs were fully freeflow. The red option chosen probably had the highest percentage of movements freeflow.

Chris_5339762

Two Dunkettle bunnies out munching grass this evening in the middle of the roundabout.

On a more serious note, I was quite worried about the lack of an M8(S) to Tivoli freeflow and whilst I do think one should be considered rather than using the Little Island West junction, a vanishingly small amount of traffic actually does this movement so I don't think it'll be bad. (This is just me watching traffic while sitting at the junction in the mornings)

Kermit.de.frog

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Two Dunkettle bunnies out munching grass this evening in the middle of the roundabout.

They must be breeding like rabbits.

AugustusMinimus

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Two Dunkettle bunnies out munching grass this evening in the middle of the roundabout.

On a more serious note, I was quite worried about the lack of an M8(S) to Tivoli freeflow and whilst I do think one should be considered rather than using the Little Island West junction, a vanishingly small amount of traffic actually does this movement so I don't think it'll be bad. (This is just me watching traffic while sitting at the junction in the mornings)

Plus this traffic movement will have priority most of the time at both roundabouts.

Chris_5339762

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

They must be breeding like rabbits.

They're certainly digging like them, the "earthworks" next to the bridge under the roundabout is getting worse and at this rate will bring the entire bridge down unless the Dunkettle Fox has his way.

hans aus dtschl

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

I was quite worried about the lack of an M8(S) to Tivoli freeflow and whilst I do think one should be considered rather than using the Little Island West junction, a vanishingly small amount of traffic actually does this movement so I don't think it'll be bad. (This is just me watching traffic while sitting at the junction in the mornings)

You were watching at the wrong junction then: most of the North Cork to City Northside traffic is exiting the M8 at Watergrasshill and heading to the City Northside via Rathcooney or Glanmire. Those roads are bumper to bumper from quite early every morning. R639 or R616.
There's a near constant stream of cars exiting the M8 at Watergrasshill to avoid Dunkettle. Another large volume of traffic exits at Glanmire.
In short, the poor usability of the Dunkettle interchange is undermining the M8 itself, south of J17.

It's similar to the way the M20's poor usability sends traffic via Caherconlish: it reduces the visibility of the problem.

Markcheese

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

You were watching at the wrong junction then: most of the North Cork to City Northside traffic is exiting the M8 at Watergrasshill and heading to the City Northside via Rathcooney or Glanmire. Those roads are bumper to bumper from quite early every morning. R639 or R616.
There's a near constant stream of cars exiting the M8 at Watergrasshill to avoid Dunkettle. Another large volume of traffic exits at Glanmire.
In short, the poor usability of the Dunkettle interchange is undermining the M8 itself, south of J17.

It's similar to the way the M20's poor usability sends traffic via Caherconlish: it reduces the visibility of the problem.

Never thought of that...
But for those guys the dunkettle free flow will make precious little difference... Because the tailbacks at tivoli and the lower glanmire road will be so much worse..

hans aus dtschl

Markcheese wrote: »

Never thought of that...
But for those guys the dunkettle free flow will make precious little difference... Because the tailbacks at tivoli and the lower glanmire road will be so much worse..

I think if the destination is Glanmire (not Riverstown), Mayfield, Tivoli, then a freeflow Dunkettle Interchange can still suit at peak time.

Peak traffic is only around 4 or 5 hours a day, something like 20% of the time, maybe 50% of the traffic by overall volume. Outside of that the traffic to all of the City Northside should have no Tivoli tailbacks and could use Dunkettle, but this new detour will potentially be a further deterrent, adding on approx. 2-3 minutes or so.

A real problem here I can tell you anecdotally is that people come off the M8 and try to maintain the speed on those two roads R616, R639, sometimes with disastrous consequences. Probably what's needed is further passive traffic calming measures on both roads.

marno21

This mornings update from this project team states that the targeted construction period in Summer 2019 to Summer 2022

Kermit.de.frog

Now TII has lodged a consultation for amendments to the scheme

http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/303684.htm

Geogregor

Are there much prep works still to be done or are we now in waiting game for the approved changes to the design?

AugustusMinimus

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Now TII has lodged a consultation for amendments to the scheme

http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/303684.htm

When will we find out what the potential changes are? I hope these are just structural changes and not reducing the capacity of the design.