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M3 Clonee-Kells Motorway construction updates

sdanseo

Is it me or is there no existing thread on this?

How is the project progressing? Any locals with pics or updates for us? Their website isn't particuarly thought-provoking, to be honest.

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Colm R

Silly question: How do they open the Motorway?

Do they wait for a break in the traffic, and pull the cones out of the way?

Do the Gardai stop the traffic further back up for a few minutes?

Amtmann

Colm R wrote: »

Silly question: How do they open the Motorway?

Do they wait for a break in the traffic, and pull the cones out of the way?

Do the Gardai stop the traffic further back up for a few minutes?

Garda cars block the mainline where the new section starts and stand there, beckoning drivers to take the old route until ready. When the mainline is ready to roll, they get into their cars and free up the carriageway.

The junctions also have cars blocking them; these two are removed when the road is ready to open (at least that's how the Cashel to Cullahill M8 scheme was opened at its southern end. I know because I was one of the very first to use it.

kc66

Furet wrote: »

I'm glad the tolls are so low on this; I really think the M8 tolls need to be reduced for HGVs at least.

So low? Its €5.20 return to go from Kells to Blanchardstown, approximately 30 miles each way.

Amtmann

kc66 wrote: »

So low? Its €5.20 return to go from Kells to Blanchardstown, approximately 30 miles each way.

Its only 1.30 per car at a toll plaza though, rather than 1.80 or 1.90 elsewhere. I'd imagine most cars would only be passing through one plaza. If you get caught for two, then fair enough, it gets pricey.

anotherlostie

kc66 wrote: »

So low? Its €5.20 return to go from Kells to Blanchardstown, approximately 30 miles each way.

And it's free if you don't want to use the motorway built as a public private partnership. Your choice. I think the tolling is more equitable than the M4 where there is a single toll of €2.90 for passing one point (or slipping on at others).

PauloMN

Delighted it's open, a decent road (whether motorway or not) was needed to bypass Dunshaughlin, Navan and Kells.

I'm not in the anti-toll camp in general, but I do have to agree with many that 2 tolls on a relatively short stretch is a bit much. Surely many more people would use the road with just one toll? The costs of return daily trips from Kells to Dublin - especially if crossing the M50 toll - almost dictate the alternative for some people i.e. avoiding the M3 and using old roads, driving through towns.

flickarius

You'd think they'd have had an arrangement like the M1.If you go through the toll on the slip road at Drogheda South and then go through the main M1 toll futher up within an hour you don't have to pay the second toll.

Nuttzz

Furet wrote: »

Tara Watch press release:

http://www.tarawatch.org/[/LEFT]

boo f**kin hoo

brandodub

Just driven from Navan South (J8) to Blundellstown (J7) and it really was a dream.Seems to be a high level of landscaping too. Although the trumpet interchange is very impressive at J8 it seems a bit of a way on the link from the Boyne Old N3.

Must say though so far very very impressive:D

Zubeneschamali

Furet wrote: »

Tara Watch press release:
While the M3 motorway is opening today, the controversy will continue for years to come:

There was a controversy about the M3? When was this?

wilsoan

Yes. Office to home (Dunsany to Mullagh) in 35 minutes instead of 1 hour 15 plus. Had the added pleasure of giving abusive gestures to Tara demonstrators on a bridge. I suppose they will now campaign to close the old N3 which is closer to Tara than the M3 and must cause much more distress to the fairies and the spirits of the druids.

Amtmann

A big thanks to CUCINA and GeneHunt for keeping us updated with loads of pictures.

big mce

Avoiding Kells on a Friday of a Bank Holiday, priceless!

Fiskar

Well here it is D Day !

However the initial experience was crap, Toll booth barrier would not raise the barrier for a cashier failure at 4.55 pm! So in tandem with experience from the old M50 barrier days when you gotta honk your horn, you gotta honk your horn in disapproval.
Miso feckers would not let anyone through free given the queues that were building up. Anyway I got to the toll booth switched off the bike, took off the glove, peeled out the 70 cent to a bewildered cashier. Got started and boy did I give it the welly out of that Toll booth

Timings for the not so legal run were as follows:

16.54 reset milometer at Pace junction

17:00 Left toll booth,

17:06 Passed Junction 6 (Dunshaughlin)

17:10 Passed Junction 7 (Skryne, Johnstown) Slight delay due to traffic coppers before the bridge where the tree huggers were hanging out :mad:

17:14 Arrived at roundabout at Old Bridge Kilcarn

Disclaimer: This was not a legal speed run, except for Junction 7 to 8!, there will be plenty of opportunity to enjoy the veiws on another day

Distance travelled 19 miles exactly from booth to roundabout (30.5 KPH)

Distance from Pace slip road (junction 5?) to toll 1.5 miles (2.5 KPH)

Total distance 33 KPH or 3.3 KPH longer than the old N3.

Pro's - it is quick to get to Navan

Con's - Road is muck, it's no M2 thats for sure, the cambers between junction 6 and 7 are tight, as a result it will be speed trap for the traffic cops on the exit round that bend.
Bend at junction 8 Navan is pure muck before your have the long run at 50 KPH! to the kilcarn roundabout.
The barrier toll will be a disaster especially in the morning

Overall, the road will be used by me but I do not like it.

marmurr1916

The total tolls from Dublin to Kells are €2.60 one-way - not too bad compared to tolls on other m'ways.

I presume the toll barriers will have to be lifted if queues build up?

veryangryman

Anyone else feel like this guy needs a box?

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/toibin-condemns-m3-in-co-meath-2208147.html

meercat

clonee bypass-maghera(north of carnaross) 45mins at 4oclock today,a bank holiday weekend.worth it today but 2 tolls at 2euro(van) will work out at 2grand a year.i will be selective about using this motorway.

Fiskar

marmurr1916 wrote: »

The total tolls from Dublin to Kells are €2.60 one-way - not too bad compared to tolls on other m'ways.

I presume the toll barriers will have to be lifted if queues build up?

Are ya mad or what, see my post previous page, they broke down on all stations, kept the barrier up and forced people to stop and pay. It will be a disaster come Tuesday morning.

marmurr1916

Fiskar wrote: »

Are ya mad or what, see my post previous page, they broke down on all stations, kept the barrier up and forced people to stop and pay. It will be a disaster come Tuesday morning.

I'm assuming that was a on-off because it's opening day.

All other motorways operate under rules that force them to open toll barriers if queues build up.

Fiskar

marmurr1916 wrote: »

I'm assuming that was a on-off because it's opening day.

All other motorways operate under rules that force them to open toll barriers if queues build up.

Define a queue, enforce a rule.

Can you find out the rules for this motorway in relation to this as it would be useful to know?

bauderline

wilsoan wrote: »

Yes. Office to home (Dunsany to Mullagh) in 35 minutes instead of 1 hour 15 plus. Had the added pleasure of giving abusive gestures to Tara demonstrators on a bridge. I suppose they will now campaign to close the old N3 which is closer to Tara than the M3 and must cause much more distress to the fairies and the spirits of the druids.

Yes... I too gave a hand signal... and I wasn't turning right...

Whitegate <--> Clonee working out at almost bang on 30 minutes travelling in an around 120 kph.... it's a good enough road but feels a little narrow for a motorway....

gernon

veryangryman wrote: »

Anyone else feel like this guy needs a box?

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/toibin-condemns-m3-in-co-meath-2208147.html

anyone else think he is really Homer Simpson ?

Hoof Hearted

We drove the whole motorway...Great drive. When I saw the bridge with the protesters on it coming up I couldn't resist but to open the sunroof and stick my really pale Irish ass as high as I could, while my buddy driving honked his horn 10 times to make sure we had gotten all the protesters' attention on approaching the bridge. I guess they got more "Hill of Tara" scenery today than they bargained for. My buddy said they kept staring longer than he had expected, but that doesn't surprise me <snip>

P.S. I bet you didn't know how cold going 120 kph can feel. But refreshing all the same.:)

Infracted for sheer offensiveness [/mod]

marmurr1916

Fiskar wrote: »

Define a queue, enforce a rule.

Can you find out the rules for this motorway in relation to this as it would be useful to know?

Send them an email customerservice@eurolink-m3.ie

or phone them

01 6910450 - Monday to Friday between 09:00 and 18:00

These are the rules for the M4 toll, I'm not aware of any queuing problems there.

The Minister stated that lessons have been learned and applied from the West-Link experience and strong safeguards have been built in to prevent PPP companies earning super-profits and to ensure a high level of toll plaza performance. "The fact alone that the Kilcock/Kinnegad toll concession was only awarded following a strongly competitive procurement process contributed substantially to a good outcome from a value for money perspective."

"The performance criteria ensure that the tolling facilities will provide an efficient method of toll collection and that there will be little if any delay to users", he said.

The PPP agreement provides that:

each automated toll collection express lane will allow unhindered passage of a vehicle with a valid transponder;

for each direction of approach to a toll station, the average queue of vehicles calculated across all lanes will be no greater than 6 vehicles; and

the queue of vehicles waiting in any toll lane shall not exceed 12 vehicles at any time.

A strict performance regime is provided for in the PPP contract to ensure compliance with these requirements. Defaults in performance by the PPP Company lead to the imposition of a financial penalty together with the award of points under a penalty points system which may trigger increased levels of monitoring at the PPP Company's cost and ultimately contract termination. "These provisions while not requiring the barriers to be lifted, clearly incentivise the operator to maintain a high level of service", said Minister Cullen.

JupiterKid

I hope to try out the new motorway next week.:)

GeneHunt

larryone wrote: »

Any chance you have a GPS device capable of collecting a trace??
We only have partial surveys on OSM...
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=53.6462&lon=-6.6878&zoom=12&layers=B000FTF

Hi folks,

I was out on the new M3 today, travelled the entire length of it, and collected a trace and updated OSM site this evening, I've still a little bit of work on it to do i.e. tagging the route. I got out on it at Kells at about 2pm and travelled east towards Dublin, the west side didn't open for a good 40 minutes later.

Great to see this road finally open. Its very strange to drive on a newly opened road, seeing the local people standing on the bridges or at the fences along side the motorway waving. I totally agree with Furet that RTE should have made a programme or two about the new motorways opening. I saw a programme on BBC Four a few months back about their motorways opening in UK in the 60's. It was good.:o

I also saw the Tara Protesters today in Navan before the road opened. Then they moved to one of the overbridges later.

The Express lanes in the toll plazas are very swift to react to the windscreen tag, however I didn't push it today, I drove through the plazas slowly - I think the M7-M8 and now the M3 toll plaza express lanes are very good. The M1 express lane is a lot slower IMO.

I found the surface on the M3 mainline to be good... a little bumpy in places, but not as bad as the new section of the M8 Portlaoise-Cullahill Motorway (Didn't travel on the new M7 section yet).

The dual carriageway north of Kells is a little bumpier with more tyre noise IMO.

The Navan Link road has a great junction (better that the J3 on the M2 feels bigger or something) however, the surface of this road is piss poor, very bumpy and feels rough under the car, LOTS of tyre noise IMO :mad:

I was in Dunshaughlin at about 8pm, it was so quiet with only an odd car passing down the street.:D

DWCommuter

Goodbye Navan Railway Line!:D

oddiot

Well I took a spin out from the M50 to the end of the M3 and back this evening. Very impressed overall to finally see this project completed. The toll of 1.30 as far as Navan is reasonable in my opinion - isn't this the cheapest toll in the state? As for the route itself, for the most part, I thought it was pretty well constructed; a number of people have mentioned the road being quite bumpy. I found this to be mainly an issue north of Navan/N51, in fact some parts of this section were perhaps the bumpiest bit of motorway I've driven so far in Ireland.

The route seemed noticably 'curvier' than most other motorways, in that for a lot of the time you can't see more than 500-1000 meters in front of you. This wasn't an issue for sightlines, and in a way it made the route more interesting to drive.

There were literally hundreds of donut skid marks along the entire route northbound, which is a shame, as it took away from the newness of the surface. As a fortnightly visitor to Galway, I think that the surface layer of the road is of a similar material to that of the Ballinasloe to Galway - not in terms of its smoothness, but in terms of the noise of the friction between the tyres and the road surface. i.e. it's pretty quiet, and you'll notice this heading southbound as you rejoin the Clonee bypass where the 'louder' road surface returns.

The final junction with the N51 seems to have been planned with a view to continuing the route between the dumbell roundabouts at some date in the long term.

Finally, I tried tracing the route with an iphone app I hadn't tested before, and that was a mistake. So for the return journey, I used instamapper instead, and I've attached a kmz file of the route which if you play with the time sliders in google earth, it will show you a marker every 15 secs, including the speeds I was travelling.

larryone

While I am a roads enthusiast, I am 100% behind the protesters on this one. Another route could have been chosen that would have saved time, money, and the damage done. It really takes away from the feeling of seeing another fantastic piece of infrastructure being added.

Chris_5339762

veryangryman wrote: »

Anyone else feel like this guy needs a box?

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/national-news/toibin-condemns-m3-in-co-meath-2208147.html

Yes but he is right about this bit though.

"The real kicker is yet to come, when traffic levels will show that the taxpayer will start paying millions of euros every year to the toll company, because traffic fails to meet the traffic guarantee which was secretly written into the M3 contract by the NRA."
However Transport Minister Noel Dempsey, who officially unveiled the motorway, which bypasses Dunshaughlin, Navan and Kells, said it was one of the biggest road projects to open in Europe this year.

That contract thing was a terrible display of idiocy.