Dublin's new West-Link Bridge, which opens to traffic from today, will have little effect on chronic traffic tailbacks around the M50 /M6 junction, it has emerged.
The number of traffic lanes on the pivotal West-Link is set to increase from four to six over the coming months as the second bridge, known as West Link Two, is brought into service at a cost of about €25 million.
However, while the two bridges between them will have potential for eight lanes of traffic, National Toll Roads (NTR) which built and operates the West-Link, has pointed out that the traffic will ultimately have to reconfigure into two lanes in each direction north and south, as that is the current capacity of the M50 motorway.
Both NTR and the National Roads Authority expect the situation at the M50/N4 junction to worsen in the coming years, particularly in 2005 when the Dublin Port Tunnel opens and traffic crossing the West-Link increases by an estimated 6,000 lorries per day.
Plans have been drawn up to improve the capacity of the M50 by adding a third lane and redesigning the roundabout junctions, but the cost at €700 million has not been included in the National Development Plan, which itself is now expected to take until 2013 to complete.
According to the NTR's West-Link director, Mr Tony McClafferty, the current heavy congestion at the bridge is not caused by cars slowing at the pay booths, but by cars slowing at the bridge.
The addition of the new bridge will provide a third lane and a hard shoulder in each direction, which taken with the existing 13 lanes of toll booths, will considerably speed traffic through road space under NTR's control. But the pinch point southbound will occur within a matter of yards of the bridge as southbound traffic reconfigures into either two lanes on the M50 or slows on the approach to the light controlled roundabout leading to the M4.
From today, traffic will be diverted onto the new bridge while NTR takes up the median on the existing bridge and redesigns the traffic flow. Speed restrictions and traffic diversions will be in place.
