NRA have this morning advertised for engineering consultancy to design medium to long term solution to the junction!
:):)
Construction of the last embankment has begun. This is just south of the existing roundabout for the N25 West to M8 North movement to facilitate traffic coming off the existing bridge outside the tunnel entrance.
How till traffic coming from Dublin head for Cork City once it's complete? Under the flyover as currently the case or a new route?
Entirely different route (you'll find all the new movements documented here: https://www.dunkettle.ie/Dunkettle-Interchange).
Goes East towards Little Island, around the new Little Island interchange and then heads West to the Dunkettle roundabout. A few of us have been going on about it in the previous few posts.
If only I had a penny for every time this was asked.
Looks like the embankment /loop for City to Tunnel is now complete. Barrier / surfacing to be completed.
Anyone know if they have started to progress again on the Tunnel to City slip?
Nope.
When the City to Tunnel loop opens, I reckon N40N to M8N traffic will be redirected under the other (Eastern) bore of the DKI soon after, unless I'm missing something. They can work away then on the N25W to M8N flyover. Would be a big enough change that might be little more than a few weeks away.
Edit - I am missing something; the M8S to City movement isn't completed. Don't mind me.
I think we’re a bit of time away from that happening. A number of other movements will need to be taken car of. I think a lot of the new links to the south-east of the current roundabout will need to be open before the north bound carriageway moves to the east underpass of the current N25.
Anyone know when they'll open the M8S-City road movement? Great to see the loop is almost complete, get a great view of it when sitting in the traffic on M8 southbound.
It’ll be some time. The current N25 West entrance to the roundabout will need to be closed with traffic directed into the new alignment. At that point, they’ll finish work on the slip carrying traffic off the dumbbell to go towards the city.
I would say at least 3 or 4 months away.
Suspect we won’t get any drone shots today owing to the wind.
EDIT: I was wrong.
When that loop is finished, will they be able to allow existing m8s to tunnel/city go as far as under the existing flyover before lights are there? Or is it a case of they'll just leave the lights where they are?
I think they’ll have to leave lights at the presentation location to help loop traffic merge with mainline.
The only other way to work it would be to reduce M8 South to a single lane to go under to the tunnel. Loop in left lane and M8 traffic in the right.
Makes sense. Was only a thought when saw the barriers almost creating a segregated lane.
Looks like Link B works will restart soon, hopefully they'll do it as fast as the loop.
I don’t understand the constant messages that the driving lane has switched from the right to the left lanes going over the existing roundabout.
I wouldn’t have thought it needed to be announced at all. It’s just causing confusion. People online cannot understand what it means and are noting they cannot see any change.
It's down to a single lane is it not? While not exactly clear in the messaging, it is only using the left lane. Likely something to do with if heading towards city from east, you're told to stay in right hand lane, then suddenly you're in left hand lane after the diverge
It’s been a single lane for weeks now as they are resurfacing and doing drainage works. The only change is that they have moved the traffic from the right to the left lanes. No need to even mention this. Only causing confusion with motorists expecting to see big changes and in reality not even noticing the change.
DroneHawk April 2023 Update Video:
He must be taking a months holidays.
The roads coming from the East are really coming along, the video from about 30 sec in shows how complex the series of crossovers were.
The completed bits (N8 -> East) are nicely bedding in with the grass too. Plans are for trees on all of that eventually isn't it?
Latest update.
Lots of progress here, but a lot more to do, but you can see the shape of how things are going to pan out. Id imagine this Spring and into the early Summer, all of this bit will be done and open to traffic.
My laymans guess, this part will be open before August, sometime in July if not before.
I’d say all movements except N25 East to M8 North will be open by July/Aug. The embankment needs to the built for that movement. Foundations are in place but nothing more.
That movement will likely require people to continue to Dunkettle Roundabout and double back on themselves to take M8 north.
Really interested to see if trees are to be planted. The grass embankments so far look really good. Only issue is that they’ll require regular maintenance.
DEN TV March Update
Barriers going up on the City to Tunnel loop.
Open in next 2 weeks so do you think?
Not sure. Progress has stalled a bit over the past few weeks.
I have the east-facing webcam open in a window on my work computer constantly and there’s been steady work all the time. Completing the interface between the bridge and the new embankment was fairly tricky, and even though not much appeared to change day to day, there were up to 10 workers active in that very small area at times. I could also see them doing a lot of electrical work on the part of Link F visible from the north-facing camera too. I’m assuming there will be electronic signage and/or overheight vehicle detectors there.
Just looking at the N25 East camera and it seems that the slip from the N25 westbound to the tunnel is closed for night works, as is the N25 westbound over the bridge.
Diverted traffic exiting the R623 onto the slip heading for the tunnel and the city is queuing behind red lights at that junction. Why are those lights not switched off, or at least have a bag over them to help traffic flow, after all, there is no traffic coming down the slip from the N25.
So when this is finished am i correct in thinking that to keep this junction free from traffic lights then M8 and m25 traffic into the tunnel will funnel into a single lane each?
:):)
