NRA have this morning advertised for engineering consultancy to design medium to long term solution to the junction!
:):)
I see that pillar too. That pillar is completely out of place compared to all available drawings though.
The bridge is final I think. The way it interacts with the roundabout is not final though. The roundabout will be ripped up with both north south lanes continuing under the N25 in the east most underpass. I suspect this section of the current roundabout will be raised up significantly compared to present.
That does not look the final configuration regarding the bridge and sliproad to me that you see in the videos?
...and that bridge kinda clips on to the side of the new one. If you look closely (much easier on-site due to the angle of the camera), there is an un-used pillar sticking up.
i don’t think so. Traffic on the new bridge itself is in its final configuration. The only remaining significant change to the Tunnel - M8 mainline flow is for Tunnel - M8 traffic to go anti-clockwise around the present roundabout instead of clockwise.
My thinking is how will all needed movements be catered for when the roundabout basically ceased operation in this junction. That cut-over will be the biggest change of all.
The present bridge has 4 lanes, 2 in either direction. It’s basically finished. One more very small lane is to be added just west of the new bridge to cater for the N25 East to M8 North movement.
More of interest is that the current northbound setup will persist until July/August. Interested to see what will happen then.
The new opening has Northbound traffic using what will eventually be the M8 Southbound carriageway, so it can’t be permanent. My guess is that they’re hoping to have the old M8 bridge gone and the second new one built, and then route Northbound traffic onto its proper carriageway.
That link can only be connected once the M8 northbound was moved to the new bridge.
Construction team have noted that this will likely occur in late February
More of interest is that the current northbound setup will persist until July/August. Interested to see what will happen then. Surely they can’t move to the final Tunnel - M8 mainline movement that early?
Great spot with the new Dronehawk video by the way.
I think that link could only get done after today's change, so likely/hopefully in the next few weeks it'll be done.
Nice new video showing the latest changes in layout from "DroneHawk" on youtube so thanks to him or her for that!
The link from Glanmire to M8 northbound has not been connected yet as some speculated on here. It's just the new M8 north over the new bridge for now. But still it's a very impressive pace of works that are ongoing there nonetheless.
My apologies but I cant save a link here to the video as the boards website says I haven't posted enough yet or whatever!
Northbound lane over the bridge is presently being lined.
Wow, that's impressive in fairness. Good progress being made.
Video for todays update email. Commentary on video indicates that the M8 northbound will transition to the new bridge, this Sunday (13 Feb).
Newstalk reporter was onsite other day. Not a bad report. Engineer said they were 2 months ahead of schedule and could be done by Feb ‘24 as opposed to April (24).
Taken earlier today from the dunkettle traffic cam. Speed of change is impressive.
Yes they were working on it at 11pm last night so it seems to be a round the clock operation. This weekend wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. No Ibis slip to worry about either.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the change over could happen this weekend given progress made.
Can you see, in the background they're preparing the Glounthaune slip too. There will be tar on that soon, too.
The FOV is wider than what is displayed when you click on the video. Its really annoying.
First layer of tarmac going down to link roundabout to new M8 north.
For some reason the feed from the web cam is frozen at the moment. It’s strangely gives a wider view when frozen than when the picture is flowing.
Super video, thanks for linking. The high level view shows two things very clearly;
If you look REALLY closely at the images and their drone videos, at the southern end of the new structure on the western side there is an unused pillar. As far as I can work out, this will be where the N25W to M8 north will merge northbound onto the new structure. There isn't a second bridge to be built here I don't reckon.
They may be able to use part of the bridge for the old M8.
2 new bridges will definitely be required however to carry traffic over the N8 to Glounthaune and N40 to N25 East movements.
I didn't realise there was a new bridge over the railway. I thought the N25 West were merging with the N40 North onto the now-finished new structure, but I think you're right.
https://www.dunkettle.ie/media/1338/traffic-movements_from-n25.jpg
They're actively digging out the M8 South now by the looks of it.
On the junction itself. I don’t think they are far from moving the M8 northbound onto the new bridge. Switch over date is to be announced on Friday. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened on Sunday 27 Feb.
We could see an early March opening for the Tivoli to M8 slip then.
final piece of the jigsaw in that area will be to dig out the existing M8 and to build one final bridge structure over the railway to carry the N25 west to M8 north movement.
The one benefit / drawback from Dunkettle is that traffic flow will be more spaced out on the N40. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing for traffic capacity and merging on the N40 itself.
Think of it as a passive form of ramp metering.
There was an incident on the N40 West just after Bloomfield this morning blocking one of the lanes. It was moved to the hard shoulder after a while but not before there was a significant backlog on the N40 West.
It was reported by 96FM’s airborne traffic updates but I didn’t see it reported elsewhere.
Bloomfield is the classic location for this. I suspect it will be more frequent when Dunkettle is free-flow. Douglas and Bloomfield will be pinch points and driving behaviour is already poor. Obviously the long-term best solution will be to try and get some short distance commuters off the N40, but I suspect we'll get more N40 projects instead. There seems to be little energy at all going into delivering much of CMATS, sadly.
Yeah traffic felt heavier this morning, but there was a "coming together of cars" shall we say, at Bloomfield this morning which made it much worse.
Yep there literally isn't a person or piece of machinery on that M8 North ramp now, it must be near ready alright.
I think they will need to demolish the old M8 bridge, and I don't know how they'll do that with the train operational. But IÉ have no works listed as being scheduled yet.
:):)
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