My biggest peeve with this country without a doubt is the transport situation.  It seems to me that the people in charge can't get the simplest of things right, from 1-way streets going the wrong way to motorway intersections costing 100s of millions from the tax payer’s money. 
During an upgrade of any transport problem I used to think that the employed road designers always gave us the bare minimum but after years of observation I realise that's not the case, they just give us something better than what was there before.
Then there’s the fiddle (let’s not mention the M50 toll bridge here) but where the hell does the money go?  Why does a bridge estimated to cost 3 million euro cost us 9 million?  How in experienced are these people at their jobs when making the estimate or is it the Politicians saying “oh look it doesn’t cost so much”?  Not according to Minister Seamus Brennan that openly admitted when he was Minister for Transport that these huge projects are estimated on the back of an envelope over lunch and a couple of drinks in a pub.

This time around for me it's the new M50 Intersections.  What a waste!  It's a waste of our time to put up with the road works, it's a waste of OUR taxpaying money and it’s a waste of labour, resources and materials.  It’s another substandard design that will in time have to be pulled down and reworked again just as the current diabolical design is.  What is wrong with Irish Road designers that they have to keep reinventing the wheel?  Are they so stupid that to think that this is the first time for these problems to be addressed?  Are they so small minded?  I’m of the opinion that if they we’re asked to build a wheel they’d come up with a square and then they’d think “but we can cream off more profits if we just use 3 lines and make a triangle!”.  Instead all they have to do is go into another country and ask “How did you fix this problem.”  Then say “I’d like one of those please”.

So here’s the old N4 – M50 intersection looking its usual tatty self.   There’s so little traffic on it I’m thinking the picture was taken at dawn on a Sunday morning.
Picture 1
 
Ok so the first design was really the joke of Europe.  “A round-a-bout with traffic lights on it”.  Yes people in Iceland outright refused to believe me when I told them about it.  I had to show them a photograph which of course resulted in hysterics followed by sympathy for us as motorists.  The German’s that drove here with me said that it was truly unbelievable too.  I’m sure Mary O’Rourke thought they looked pretty when she gazed at the model that would be part of her legacy but I wonder what she thinks it now. 
So not much needs to be said of this design and how obviously stupid it was to build it.  But where were the public complaints about it at the time?  And what of the designers?  Why would you design and build something like this?  How stupid do you have to be?  How did you get the job?  How did you get the job signed off?  ...but hey the past is the past...

And here’s the new spaghetti clumsily designed junction looking glorious.  Note how few cars are using it and how free flowing and relaxed the country is.  Probably because everyone is preferring to use back roads than run the gauntlet of having to navigate this thing.  Thank the makers!!!
Picture 2
 
Or should we?  What’s the point of this junction in the first place?  It’s to get maximum amounts of traffic unhindered though the junction.  And will this design do that?  I mean let’s not be so gracious and accept whatever they throw at us so blindly (although it’s too late now).  Let’s take a thorough look at what’s going on down there.  Let’s make a Positives Vs Negatives list so we can see how they’re doing.

Positives:

1. No Traffic Lights – Imagine! No traffic lights on a motorway intersection – Genius!
2. Left only lanes – Wow they figured it out! (Ok I told them that about 10 years ago – yeah really I did, about 2 years later they started to appear)
3. It’s better than it was before.  Yay (they really really really tried this time.)

Negatives:

1. The junction is not symmetrical – drivers must re-learn the junction as they approach it from every direction. This is further compounded by the fact that every junction (N4, N7, N3 etc) is different from each other.  So 4 surprisingly new roads for every junction = NO CONSISTENCY IN DESIGN (other than its backward minded now and always has been).  If a driver has any difficulty understanding the road layout he will slow down, this affects  traffic throughput. 
   Sometimes a driver bares left to change direction sometimes he must bare right.  Look at N4 East to M50 N+S, for both directions you must bare left.  Now look at N4 West to M50 N+S, you bare left for North and right for South.
   Wait until you see the N7 junction, the left most lane is for turning right and the next lane in is for turning left.  That’s diabolical.  I did point it out to them before the build started and I think it may have been corrected.  We’ll wait and see.
   
2. Drivers on the N4 not changing direction must navigate the junction and be hindered by the dangerous swerving bends.  In real life it’s even worse as N4 East to West through the junction is bearing left right down left up merge (not shown in the model). This adds to driver concentration work load, fatigue and stress.  Why not simply a straight road for drivers not changing direction?  (See Picture 3 below)
   
3. Traffic on N4 driving West (bottom left to top right) is reduced to single lane.  This reduces throughput (Note: Increasing throughput was the point of the new junction – duh!)
   
4. Traffic on N4 East (bottom left) wishing to change onto the M50 are locked into a corridor that:
   a. Denies forgiveness – If the driver makes a mistake he cannot rejoin the N4 which is further punished by Point 5 below
   b. If M50 South backs up for any reason it jams this corridor so drivers wishing to travel M50 North cannot proceed.
   
5. Drivers may only proceed in 3 directions – Left / Straight Ahead / Right -.  You may not effectively complete a 180 degree U-Turn regardless of your approach.  This is the same for the N7 junction, so an error made on one junction cannot be corrected on the next junction.  That is to say: If a motorist mistakenly goes N4 to M50 South (but wanted North) then you would think to correct the error you would simply drive to the next junction and turn around and correct the error – This is not possible.  In this scenario a motorist making a mistake on the N4-M50 junction could find himself lost several miles away in Newlands Cross or Walkinstown etc.
   
6. Driving M50 to N4 East you’ll find yourself in a rather daunting high walled canal that turns blind left and then suddenly splits East and West with 2 huge blue motorway signs above that unwittingly cause drivers to be cautious, stop, double check and indirectly cause traffic to back up.  Yes some people actually stop in the junction and who’d blame them, a completely blind bend at 60km then out blasts this huge startling sign?  It’s like it was deliberately placed to startle people.  Also this isn’t shown in the planning picture above.  It should be in the bottom right but you’re dealing with pure slop-heads here so they didn’t even bother putting it on the model.  So assuming there’ll never be an accident here the very fact that traffic has to slow down will affect throughput which once again defeats the purpose of the junction.

So what’s the solution?  This is...

This is a typical motorway intersection.  You'll find thousands of them around the world.

1. Traffic not changing direction is not affected, not slowed down, always prepared for merging from the same side.
2. You can travel away from the junction in all directions – N/S/E/W
3. Junction is the same from all approaches; you always veer left to change direction/enter the junction.  You always enter new road on your right.
4. It’s been done before!!! No reinventing the wheel, just point and say “I want one of those please” This will save us about 900 million Euros of taxpayers’ money on planning.

So is it too late now?  Yes of course it is, but I did make these points known to the people at www.m50.ie before a single sod of grass was over turned and they hushed away with the words "oh we'll consider them for future designs" and they went ahead and built junk anyway.  I guess too many brown envelopes had already changed hands.  Can we stop anymore junctions of misery like this being built in the future - Let's do our best.

Cheers!

The Hogg.