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

And I think it’s strange that some people here misrepresent what others write. You’ve portrayed my criticism of the dangerous driving as trying to “absolve” the bad signage. There are two prerequisites to almost all of the bad driving at the Dunkettle Interchange. The first is its sub-standard design, including the truly appalling signage. The second is drivers being self-centred muppets who display complete disregard for the safety of others.

I believe in personal responsibility. This means being a grown-up and dealing with life’s minor inconveniences on one’s own without turning them into everyone else’s problems too.

Fully agree that the signage is appalling. But I hope we can also agree that the gantry signs on approach to the tunnel (see below) do at least give a strong hint that the right hand lane might, on balance, be a better bet than the left hand lane.

It’s this lack of basic cop-on in some drivers that drives me nuts. I’m imagining the inner dialogue of some DKI virgins. “Hmm…beats me what might be meant by that M8 sign pointing right…I’ll stay over here on the left.” What utter lack of intuition does that require?

On the motorway around Bilboa heading towards France, on a motorcycle. Wet day, overtaking a truck, in the left lane (near the median) & realised that it was the exit lane for the city. Unusual, as expectation on the continent would be exiting on the right; it may have been poor signage or poor observation by me - can't say. However I out ruled a last minute kamikaze manoeuvre (motorcycle V truck 😱) & opted for an unscheduled & unwanted diversion into Bilboa.

The converse of the right lane demerge. If I ever get back there I'll check the signage but I'm open to the possibility that it was my inattention that led me to assume that the lane I was in headed to France.

Interestingly enough this type of signage is used in Dublin as well at the N7/M50(N) outbound route. Just drove it today and was suprised because again it's not entirely clear to people who wouldn't be sure about the route. I do know where I'm going so I would always be in the right hand lane if I'm heading northbound.

And actually the sign above is the last notice you get until the road splits below. It really is bad design and worse unnecessary design.

There was a time in the evenings (when there isnt even an incident) heading from the south ring to the Tunnell that the traffic would have you backed up beyond the kinsale roundabout flyover to kearys garage.

Thankfully now that the €216 million has been spent that traffic on an average evening rush hour is only as far as Smyths toys.

The next €600 million on the ringaskiddy road will undoubtedly improve this situation even more.

Such exceptional bang for your buck.

In all seriousness, second crossing yes, West of the city. Throw in a pedestrian&cycle tunnel at Dunkettle too while they're at it. If we're doing dream infrastructure…

the Cost of the M28 hasn’t gotten to its inevitable BAM-Cost-overrun phase yet which will surely add an extra 30/40% onto the €450 million price tag.

So those costs onto the Dunkettle works and we could have spent very close to €1 Billion and not any improvement to traffic on the south ring.

Same Company.

Different department.

I would never have assumed otherwise! You're always right of course kermit!

Seriously though, there is some merit to the things you're saying. The throughput at the tunnel has reached capacity and we need to change some things. Obviously I of all people am not saying "roads are the only answer", but I do think we need the N40 North and it's going to be a huge battle to get traction on it.

ultimately so.

By the time M28 is completed the capacity of the South ring won’t have increased and 1 Billion or so will have been spent and it’s only benefit is to make breakdowns flow better?

If the increases in traffic volume as reported above are true then both projects are already Redundant because they never future proofed the roads and are already past capacity.

If you had taken that money and increased the capacity of the bottle neck at the tunnel and done nothing else the entire south ring would have been better off

use it everyday.

the bottleneck in douglas is far from the only one.
nobody every sat in their car the far side of little island waiting to go through the tunnel because of not having a hard shoulder by douglas.

Do you work for TII or BAM or someone like that?

That bottleneck is the tunnel itself though, aside from Kermit's suggestion above there's not a lot can be done about that.

We do need the DKI project and the M28 project, the problem is a lack of progress on parallel sustainable projects. Roads projects are still needed but improvements are quickly being undermined. That doesn't really mean we shouldn't do the roads projects, and it's kinda frustrating that we're always talking about "either or".

I'm kind of pleased the DKI wasn't a "silver bullet" if I'm honest, because many people are now finally talking about more holistic solutions.