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

Was digging through old photos today and found this old one of the tunnel under construction.

I THINK it was two coming out of the tunnel that immediately widened to three for that short stretch..... then got widened a few years later to the current setup.

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

Sadly for the latter we would need a lot of radical thinking. CMATS did not provide really anything at all of interest for East Cork. If they wanted to provide extra "capacity" to Dunkettle other than the increase they planned in the rail frequency, they should have a spur of the Cork-Luas to Little Island and have a big P&R or interchange there.

But sadly, CMATS said "do nothing apart from double the frequency of the railway" for anywhere east of Dunkettle. And whilst that would be a good thing, it really wouldn't help THAT much.

I live on Cobh island and it is 27 minutes to drive to work at the moment in Wilton. It takes 25 for the train from Cobh to Cork, not to mention the time to get to the station (5 - 10 minutes), and the time to get from Cork to Wilton (God knows on the bus). Its not an easy problem to solve, but I'd happily take the commute to say, 40 minutes, 45 maybe on public transport.

With CMATS East Cork is getting a DART style upgrade. Double tracking to Midleton and electrification of the line which will allow for faster trains and a much higher frequency, potentially every 10 mins for Cobh and Midleton and every 5 from Glounthaune to Kent. As there's no on street running this is superior to a Luas service. Extra stations also.

Not till 2040 though which is the major downside.

Markcheese wrote: »

Yup a dart style train to East cork (CART ?? ) would be great ,(although extra stations on the current service now would be better )
But it's not really great for anyone other than east cork , if the cork tram were to go ahead .. and go ballincolig / midleton with a couple of stops in Tivoli (the hopefully soon to be redeveloped South docks ) a park and ride stop at dunkettle,( hopefully with easy access to glanmire ) and either stopping in little island , diverting through little island ( and it's industrial estates ) or even continuing on to midleton ( and stopping in carrigtohils industrial estates , )
Then cobh could be through to mallow (and intermediary stop in blackpool/ monard ect ,either as heavy rail or tram ,
None of it's high speed line ,(well maybe to mallow ) lots of new dart style stations are expensive with over bridges ect. and the increased schedule at level crossing could be a pain... ( I'm bias here I always seem to be waiting at the level crossing in midleton )
Wouldn't be down grading so much as increased flexibility..

It's due to connect with the Cork Luas at Kent which would in turn make whole areas of the city accessible by either light or heavy rail. Travel time from Cobh to Ballincollig would be well under the hour mark.

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

But outside of traffic it can be driven in 30 minutes. Even in morning traffic you can do it in 45-50 and thats before Dunkettle gets done. Now yes, that isn't the complete picture, but in Dublin the DART can beat cars at rush hour fairly handily. Any plans for Cork don't come close. And with more stations on the line (Carrigaloe, Dunkettle) its going to be SLOWER than it is at the moment.



They are planning DART style service (although I firmly believe that won't happen, not with CIE in charge, they're just not interested), but they need a huge increase in P&R capacity which has never really been mentioned or talked about. I don't think CMATs addresses any of that either.


I don't have a magic solution, but I just feel CMATs is sorely lacking for anywhere east of Dunkettle.

Commute time by car is only going to increase though. Probably double by 2040. I don't see light rail offering any advantage over heavy rail. If anything it's probably slower.

What would you suggest for east of dunkettle that would be superior to or add to CMATS?

You may be correct about CIE. No real interest in Cork.

Markcheese wrote: »

Would I walk some distance in little island or the new south docks ,to wait for a train to Kent to transfer to a cork luas to get to Washington Street ... Probably not ...

If in the south docks you'd hop on a Luas and go straight to Washington street. No transfer needed, if the mock ups in CMATS are to be the future. Going off topic here a bit.

When is the slip road N8 (East) to M8 (North) due to open?

I see the first piece of new road as part of this scheme has opened. A new roundabout just before the start of the old N25 road.

Cork Trucker wrote: »

Is a new slip road being built between the Tivoli and Dunkettle roundabouts?

At the moment their building a slip between Dunkettle roundabout to travel north on the M8. This should be opened before the main scheme does I think.

marno21 wrote: »

Surfacing on this N8 outbound to M8 link is to begin shortly. Will be opened well in advance of the main scheme.

Any timeframe for opening Marno? I think it’s one of the few pieces which will benefit traffic flow until the full scheme opens?

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Think the cycle lane leads from Dunkettle roundabout to the old N25. A welcome addition if correct.

I remember people raising issues with the proposed cycle lanes for the Dunkettle scheme and how they were suboptimal, has that been addressed since?

Markcheese wrote: »

The current works at the glanmire roundabout seem to include traffic lights ,
So that'll be fun ..

I thought all the works was about those traffic lights.

Yes, the Glanmire roundabout is being signalised.

The current works, basically, are that, the freeflow N8 outbound to M8 north slip (easy to build) and a slip connecting the N8 outbound directly to the old Glounthaune Road plus a roundabout along there. Also, a roundabout on Little Island and diversion of services including a massive water main.

The roads being build as part of the current works I am guessing without any evidence can be used to divert traffic somehow away from the Dunkettle Interchange during what I think will be many, many nighttime closures over the next few years.

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

This sounds horrendous. The junction prob needs some sort of upgrade to make it more bicycle friendly but that’s it.

Traffic lights appear to be the solution for everything in Cork.

Yeah the bicycle-friendly part of the design is a "get the out of here" slip lane, and dedicated beg buttons and islands. It's pretty pathetic to be honest.

marno21 wrote: »

Loads of room along there for a segregated pedestrian/cyclist facility. It's lunacy there isn't one there given where Little Island is and its proximity to the city.

Surely this'll become even more of an issue when the Tivoli redevelopment starts gathering pace.

It's an issue now tbh. The Silversprings/Dunkettle area is very unattractive for pedestrians and cyclists.

I don't think the council and TII really appreciated how bad their new design at Silversprings was, and maybe thought people were being "hysterical" about it. But most of the new protective wands (which were in-turn protected by raised kerbs!) have been destroyed within the first few months. They need a short-term plan to sort this whole area out. The money will be available, the space is available, it's really low-hanging fruit.

For their part, the NTA's stated solution when asked last Autumn was for everyone to get the train, which is unrealistic and ridiculous.

The long-term plan is - using the Tivoli redevlopment as a driver - to provide a route through what's now the Port, via a dedicated bridge over the Glashaboy river, south of the existing bridge. This would connect Tivoli (where the cars are stored) and the Tunnel Management building road. The causeway there is currently walkable, but I believe the plan is to go next to the railway tracks. This obviously isn't viable as a short-term solution. So again, they need a short-term plan to sort the area out.

Between us all on here we could probably think of four or five short-term solutions offhand, but there's nothing on the drawing board right now I'm afraid.

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Having a look at the plans for the junction, I see that a separate slip off the N8 East to M8 North slip road goes under the M8 and onto the new roundabout at the beginning of the old N25. That’ll take a bit more pressure off the main roundabout until full construction starts.

Anyone know if they are planning to open this with the slip road itself?

My understanding is that they're not.

This one would be the road I'll personally benefit most from. You can imagine it would make the most logical sense for a pedestrian/cycle routing too, and I've no idea why they don't use it accordingly.

But this will need a new structure (bridge) to be created so that this slip road can pass under the M8, exactly the same way the railway currently does. The disruption on the M8 will be significant. I don't think it's happening until the main scheme.

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Ah ok. Wasn’t sure if there was a pre-existing bridge or they just troubled up the existing area for the M8.

It would make huge sense to do a 2 way cycle path on the side of this. It would still need full segregation from motor traffic however, given the slip would split half way along it.

Their original design was for the segregated cycle path to travel on the North side of this, and then swap over to the south, but they had no safe crossing. The design was a "dash" across the multi-lane slip ramp for pedestrians, which obviously wouldn't do.

Unfortunately there isn't a pre-existing bridge. They bulldozed earth onto the old road for the creation of the M8/Dunkettle interchange. The old road surface likely still exists underneath!

As I say, I'm waiting for this particular slip road more than the others.