N8/N25/N40 - Dunkettle Interchange [open to traffic]

Thanks guys, I wonder will the freeeflow result in a bit of a log jam in the tunnel and/or people exceeding the speed limit in it. Perhaps it will be increased anyway

Yep backups will be near the N28 (Bloomfield interchange) and no increase in speed limit, if anything a reduction to 60kmh on sections of the interchange.

Yeah sorry I wasn't clear enough, the issues will be somewhere between around Bloomfield and around Douglas West for the medium-term and possibly long-term future.

Absolutely. And when the M28 is opened, I still think it'll be one of the biggest bottlenecks in the country, if not the biggest. Delays during the day for longer than rush hour.

It IS possible to widen the viaduct, there actually is space without much/any demolition, but realistically I don't think it'd happen. People would go ballistic thesedays. With NIMBYISM taking on the douglas valley bridge (part of the southern distributor) it does not bode well for doing anything much about it.

Would the North Ring help? Not as much as people think, I don't reckon.

I'm convinced if they put blocked the view into Douglas village heading west it would prevent some of the slow down. Once vehicles have passed the flyover everyone speeds up again. Otherwise as mentioned already it'll get worse once traffic volumes increase. Plus the regular collisions on that stretch of road.

Just accidentally ended up on first page of this thread and 2nd comment is praising the news of works and saying to expect it in 10 years....that was in 2009. Finny and sad!

Does anyone know if the slip from n25w to the interchange is going to be raised? There's the edge of a structure right beside the existing off-ramp, and it seems to be much higher than the road as it currently is. I think its st04 which will seemingly have beams in place over the next month or so. Or is it just that this link is for little island to city and so is the same height as the main carriageway?

I do think in this case that the primary reason for slowing is the perceived narrowing of the road.

It probably contributes to some of the congestion. Drivers slowing will create waves of stop start flowing backwards through traffic from the flyover which gets worse and worse with increased traffic.

I did think when it was screened for the Douglas Shopping Centre renovations that it seemed to flow better (All of Douglas flowed better but thats a different discussion!, with some decent design you could screen it and make it seem more open. Plenty architectural tricks for that with shapes and light.

Unbelievable, those markings should have been left to fade away to nothing and not touched up. It's not as if there aren't enough other signs in place to inform drivers what road they are driving on.

Have a look here https://www.dunkettle.ie/media/1776/dki-labels.jpg zoom in and you will see there will be total free flow. M8-bound traffic exiting the tunnel will be going under the eastern section of the present fly-over.

Feb 24 would be slightly ahead of schedule I think. As you say, I think the links will all be open ahead of this. The later work will be landscaping / surfacing work etc to bring it up to final standard.

Tunnel to City link to be opened by end if Feb 23. Assume free flow which will greatly help with the left lane going through the tunnel.

Had requested if an overview of proposed link openings coukd be provided in the weekly emails, but it got pushed back as there's so many moving parts/unexpected delays.

What did come back was that Link I should open early February, with Link B by end of February. Nothing then until hopefully Q3 where Links A, D (northbound & southbound), F, K, L, J and M will open at the same time. Final Links (P and C - so n25w to m8n and little island to m8n) will be by end of year. Not all links will be 100% final alignment, so may be some smaller adjustments afterwards.

Going to be sone change at 1 point in time.

The are due to start work on a new retaining wall structure (RW03) on the right as you come out of the JLT northbound. This is just across that little works area from where the soil is stockpilled so I'm guessing it's going to be used as infill for the retaining wall when it goes up. The wall was mentioned in this weeks newsletter as it involves some lane restrictions in the area.

I deny ever making that statement above!!! :-)

There's a fella in a Hitachi after taken into that mound this morning and flattening it... In fairness he did move a good bit of it over to the other side of the space. it looks like it's been used to raise the area.

Almost every opening someone's thought "there'll be problems with...", one day of teething problems and it's grand

I notice that there is still a lot of last-minute barging going on by drivers using the M8 lane up to the roundabout and wanting to go to the N25 East lane.

The M8 lane from before the south entrance to the tunnel should be marked M8 ONLY and a row of these https://www.google.ie/maps/@51.9051724,-8.2851601,3a,75y,149.53h,78.89t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTKzU1Z5lAlX1wjgtZ9r0WA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en bollards fitted from the north end of the tunnel to the roundabout.

Any driver wanting to get to the N25, after exiting the tunnel, can then do a circuit of the roundabout and emergency vehicles can still do an emergency lane change if using blues & twos

Nice video on todays progress update.

There’s going to be a big difference in height between those two links (tunnel ends at ground-level, M8 North stays high, crosses the southern part of the interchange, then dips under the bridge before rising again to cross the N25-East link (already open) and eventually merge with M8, so giving them separate exits allows that height divergence to happen as soon as possible. Like you, I thought it was one exit, and I had wondered how they were going to manage this.

Appears to be big progress being made on the City to Tunnel loop. Could be open within a few months I suspect.

I'd say they're focusing on the jobs that will alleviate traffic the most, Tunnel to City is a fairly light one and won't save people much time

There are as a plan to add left turn slips onto several arms back around 2005 but that was shelved and the present scheme investigated instead.