I hate the M50 [Warning post #222]

marno21

kbannon wrote: »

Your suggestion of a planning process challenge suggests a possible widening of the motorway. This would be a waste of money. There needs to be viable alternatives to the car, not a bigger road. The road isn't the problem, it's users are!

The M50 works perfectly for 20 hours of the day. It's the other 4 that need to be sorted. Even if the M50 was widened, the connected roads & the city centre simply don't have the capability to handle all the extra traffic.

Seth Brundle

marno21 wrote: »

The M50 works perfectly for 20 hours of the day. It's the other 4 that need to be sorted. Even if the M50 was widened, the connected roads & the city centre simply don't have the capability to handle all the extra traffic.

That's my point. Commuters, myself included, need to use other modes of transport.

Idbatterim

kbannon wrote: »

Your suggestion of a planning process challenge suggests a possible widening of the motorway. This would be a waste of money. There needs to be viable alternatives to the car, not a bigger road. The road isn't the problem, it's users are!

It's users are?! No I would suggest no viable alternatives are... Even with MN and du etc. It still won't make a lot of commutes viable by pt!

Seth Brundle

Idbatterim wrote: »

It's users are?! No I would suggest no viable alternatives are... Even with MN and du etc. It still won't make a lot of commutes viable by pt!

The alternatives aren't there because we haven't been shouting for them in earnest!
We've allowed politicians lead the way in terms of infrastructure planning, few of whom use public transport.
And yes, the users choose to drive. I could get two busses to work but I choose not to because it is a pain having to sit beside a stranger. There is a large element of laziness and convenience behind it.

L1011

kbannon wrote: »

That's my point. Commuters, myself included, need to use other modes of transport.

Which need massive extension as the capacity is not there currently.

Seth Brundle

L1011 wrote: »

Which need massive extension as the capacity is not there currently.

I agree but this is largely down to the users choosing car based lives and choosing politicians aligned with the construction lobby.

marno21

L1011 wrote: »

Which need massive extension as the capacity is not there currently.

Exactly this. DART Interconnector, Metro North and the LUAS expansions along with all the electrification will go a long way to taking cars off the road.

It's understandable that so many people commute by car when we have a massively disorganised, inefficient rail network.

Look at Swords for example, no choice but to commute by road, and car especially as the buses have to sit in lots of traffic and are just slow anyway.

kbannon wrote: »

That's my point. Commuters, myself included, need to use other modes of transport.

Apologies, was making a general point and didn't mean to quote your post.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

marno21

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

No need to make it mandatory.

If it takes a quarter of the time on the DART/Metro vs using the car people won't be long switching modes.

PT at present is derided because it offers little advantage over the car. A proper integrated, interconnected public transport system will make it much more appealing to commute using PT.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

magicbastarder

kbannon wrote: »

Your suggestion of a planning process challenge suggests a possible widening of the motorway. This would be a waste of money. There needs to be viable alternatives to the car, not a bigger road. The road isn't the problem, it's users are!

i read that as the planning process input in relation to other ideas, such as the metro and interconnector lines.

Cookie_Monster

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

bike or motorbike?...

marno21

166,099 vehicles on the M50 yesterday at its busiest point between J7 Lucan and J9 Red Cow.

In comparison, the busiest section of the N25 in Cork, between J6 Kinsale Rd and J7/8 Douglas (which is 2 lanes + aux lane in either direction) carried 97k vehicles.

Serious numbers.

Bray Head

marno21 wrote: »

166,099 vehicles on the M50 yesterday at its busiest point between J7 Lucan and J9 Red Cow.

In comparison, the busiest section of the N25 in Cork, between J6 Kinsale Rd and J7/8 Douglas (which is 2 lanes + aux lane in either direction) carried 97k vehicles.

Serious numbers.

There is no engineering solution to this.

It is simply an issue of pricing use appropriately.

The DPT is never jammed because it is so expensive to use at peak times, and not cheap off peak either.

Putting tolls that vary by time at the right locations along the M50 would keep it free-flowing close to 100% of the time.

I appreciate this is politically hazardous. I pay 500 motor taxation however for <10k km per annum.

A shift to more pay-by-use for roads would be fairer and would suit a lot of people too.

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Seth Brundle

Bray Head wrote: »

There is no engineering solution to this.

It is simply an issue of pricing use appropriately.

The DPT is never jammed because it is so expensive to use at peak times, and not cheap off peak either.

Putting tolls that vary by time at the right locations along the M50 would keep it free-flowing close to 100% of the time.

I appreciate this is politically hazardous. I pay 500 motor taxation however for <10k km per annum.

A shift to more pay-by-use for roads would be fairer and would suit a lot of people too.

If you price people away from the M50, where will they go?

GreatDefector

Bray Head wrote: »

There is no engineering solution to this.

It is simply an issue of pricing use appropriately.

The DPT is never jammed because it is so expensive to use at peak times, and not cheap off peak either.

Putting tolls that vary by time at the right locations along the M50 would keep it free-flowing close to 100% of the time.

I appreciate this is politically hazardous. I pay 500 motor taxation however for <10k km per annum.

A shift to more pay-by-use for roads would be fairer and would suit a lot of people too.

Or , you know, analyse the traffic and find out where they came from and where they're going and why public transport is letting them down and actually fix the issue

I live near work (less than 10k) and no bus goes to work from mine

This crap of public transport heading into the city centre and hoping your going somewhere along the way has got to stop. Travel between say north and Southside is dire to say the least

Traffic was bad but never as bad in the boom. Public transport fares and routes are the problem big time

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

Bray Head

GreatDefector wrote: »

Or , you know, analyse the traffic and find out where they came from and where they're going and why public transport is letting them down and actually fix the issueI live near work (less than 10k) and no bus goes to work from mine

The issue is that there is no public transport solution (even Metro West) that can take anything other than small volumes off the M50.
It moves perfectly smoothly 145 or so hours a week.
If you introduced pay-by-use you would see people:

• Travelling at different times
• Not travelling at all
• Modal switch
• Using other routes (I fully admit)

But in return for paying you would have a piece of infrastructure that doesn't jam up, and that is something worth paying for.

An analogy: when it's dinner time in December (peak electricity demand_, high volume industrial electricity users are priced out of use so that the rest of us can make a cup of tea. Would it make sense for all of us to suffer blackouts so that they can maintain production at all times?

People need to start thinking about transport infrastructure in the same way. Price is a very useful tool for managing demand.

Charles Babbage

The point is the that effect of traffic increases is not linear. Adding 10% of traffic might have a much greater effect on travel time. Consequently, removing 10% might make a real difference.

This might be be achieved, not by one big measure, but by some smaller measures in combination.
- make a real effort to ensure that buses exist with a travel time on outer routes that are somewhat comparable with a car. Stop jecking up bus fares.
- stop trying to drive all the traffic on the M50, ensure the likes of the R113 is fit for purpose and not festooned with ridiculous traffic calming as if it was a housing estate, and build a bridge on the Liffey.
- maybe revisit some previous ideas about taxing parking spaces.
-toll the entire M50 and a tariff like 1-50 off peak, 5 peak. Maybe provide a discount for people actually entering the national road network.
- do the variable speed limits now, there was plenty of time to plan this since 2009.

Sleeper12

The long term plan for the m50 is to toll each entry and exit. Barrier free of course. Or possibly toll several points of the m50. The idea behind it is to stop people hopping on for one or two stops. You can travel from lucan to bray for free right now.
I wouldn't object to the new tolling if the westlink toll was reduced at the same time

marno21

Extending the R136 as far as the N3 corridor would be a big help.

Of course traffic is going to be encouraged onto the M50 if there isn't any suitable Liffey crossing in west Dublin bar the Westlink

L1011

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

^ this is the kind of commuter where a stick approach is needed; but right now there isn't anywhere for people to *go* - trains are full, buses are full, Luases are full and even then there's huge areas with effectively no coverage.

Quite a lot of carrot is required before any more stick (e.g. tolling schemes)

LeinsterDub

Charles Babbage wrote: »

.
5 peak.

Jesus why don't you just cut out the middle man and make people unemployed! That toll would not be affordable to many.

_Kaiser_

L1011 wrote: »

^ this is the kind of commuter where a stick approach is needed; but right now there isn't anywhere for people to *go* - trains are full, buses are full, Luases are full and even then there's huge areas with effectively no coverage.

Quite a lot of carrot is required before any more stick (e.g. tolling schemes)

Why should he be "forced" out of his car? He's already paying more than enough in tax, fuel duty, NCTs, VAT on maintenance etc (as well as income tax etc on top of that of course) to be entitled as anyone else to use the state-funded/provided infrastructure.

I agree with him too.. Public transport is slow, wandering, expensive, uncomfortable to use at peak, and completely inflexible when it comes to congestion - at least in a car you can often re-route around it. Add in the unnecessary detours through the City Centre and like him I'd take my car everytime (in my case though it's also out of necessity as I now commute from 2 counties over thanks to the property crisis in Dublin - it's 2006 all over again! :rolleyes:)

However, if you want (Dublin-resident) people to move off the M50 then get rid of the obsession with running everything through An Lar and setup a LUAS or underground service that runs parallel to the M50 through the major locations people are getting on/off at (Sandyford, Ballymount, N7, N4, N3/Blanch, Finglas, M1/Ballymun - even that "core" stretch would do) with extensive P&R at those locations and you'd see things change dramatically. If they had THAT I probably would leave the car at the P&R, IF it wasn't more expensive or time-consuming to do so (and the answer there isn't to jack up motoring costs to the same level incidentally).

But if someone still then chose to drive (many wouldn't however as most Irish people drive out of necessity or because it's just much easier - even with the cost and traffic - rather than desire) then that's their choice and as above they're already paying handsomely for it.

I won't hold my breath on the PT solution though.. like renting, it's seen as the option for those with no better choice, and for the same reasons that we have a crisis in housing now, is an afterthought to those who make the decisions on where to spend OUR hard-earned money.

L1011

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Why should he be "forced" out of his car?

Because we need people - particularly single occupant commuters - to move to more sensible modes of transport. Except we haven't got any currently.

Charles Babbage

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Charles Babbage wrote: »

.
5 peak.

Jesus why don't you just cut out the middle man and make people unemployed! That toll would not be affordable to many.

I'd have the bus fare at 2.50, so people have the choice.

Things are kicking off today

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/monday-morning-traffic-chaos-as-m50-motorists-warned-of-twohour-plus-delays-35003566.html

LeinsterDub

Charles Babbage wrote: »

I'd have the bus fare at 2.50, so people have the choice.

Things are kicking off today

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/monday-morning-traffic-chaos-as-m50-motorists-warned-of-twohour-plus-delays-35003566.html

People aren't sitting in 2 hours of traffic for the laugh .They have no other choice

_Kaiser_

L1011 wrote: »

Because we need people - particularly single occupant commuters - to move to more sensible modes of transport. Except we haven't got any currently.

"Sensible" for who? It might make more "sense" to you for him to spend an hour or two on a bus/train instead of that same time in a car, but it wouldn't make much sense to him (or me) or the tens of thousands of others who would be affected. As said above, people aren't sitting in/causing traffic problems for fun.. they do it because it's the only way they can get to/from where they NEED to be reliably.

We don't have what you're looking for, and I'd be fairly confident (having lived/worked in Dublin for 40+ years) that we'll never have it. Where things have improved like LUAS (if you happen to live along the 2 lines) or the M50, they've been massively overshadowed by the cost of living in the city, or getting affordable property, or getting from A-B without a detour via C(ity)

As I said above, public transport is the poor relation of the infrastructure world in Ireland and it'll never change IMO.

The only way to address the problems in Dublin are to resolve the housing crisis (and reform the rental sector so long-term renting in properly sized apartments is viable), improve infrastructure outside the city so that not everyone has to trek to work there every day, and indeed companies themselves don't necessarily have to be there either (most office-based jobs for example can be done anywhere these days with the right telecoms), and improving the services we DO have (DB for example has never performed to what it could).

But in a country still massively obsessed with buying semi-D's in the suburbs (or failing that, the middle of nowhere) and already taking significant amounts of money from the motorist, I won't hold my breath on REAL changes.

starshine1234

Self driving cars are on the way.

Once they arrive, and it's reasonable to expect that within five to ten years, there'll be far fewer cars on the road. Roads will be far less congested, and self driving cars will be much better at driving than some humans, so accidents should also reduce.

Most of the traffic is likely to be caused by a small number of human road users.

There may be less crashes with self driving cars but if they are hacked there could be huge losses.