NRA warned council about M50 chaos

This story by Ian Kehoe in the Sunday Business Post was hardly unexpected, but it is still galling.

The National Roads Authority (NRA) warned Dublin City Council 12 months ago that its plan to ban heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) from the city centre was based on poor research and could lead to chaos for commuters on the M50.

The National Roads Authority (NRA) warned Dublin City Council 12 months ago that its plan to ban heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) from the city centre was based on poor research and could lead to chaos for commuters on the M50.

The NRA wrote to the council last February stating that there was a ‘‘significant knowledge gap in the decision-making process’’ in relation to the council’s HGV policy. It asked for the ban on trucks to be implemented on a phased basis over a number of years.

From February 19, all trucks with five axles or more will be banned from the city centre from 7am to 7pm, seven days a week. From then, the trucks will be forced the use the Port Tunnel and drive onto the M50 to access routes to the west or south of the country.

According to the NRA, the new policy is ill advised and will lead to a greater number of HGVs than expected using the M50, already one of the busiest roads in the country. In the letter, seen by The Sunday Business Post, the NRA said that it was not aware of any research or traffic-modelling that had been done to predict truck flow in the tunnel.

Furthermore, the state agency said that no assessments had been carried out on the impact that the corridor would have on M50 traffic.

‘‘The exact effects of the HGV management proposals on the tunnel itself and on the M50 motorway have not been assessed,” the letter states.

The NRA believes that HGVs will now be heading to a point where traffic is already being held up by a major upgrade project underway between the N81 and N4 junctions. Another major upgrade project is due to get underway next year.

Meanwhile, despite the government’s plans to go ahead with the purchase of the West Link toll bridge, barrier-free tolling is not due to come into operation until next year. With these problems on the M50, the NRA is warning that a blanket ban on HGVs using a southern access route - particularly to the South Port - would risk creating traffic chaos on the motorway.

A spokeswoman for the council said it still believed that the M50 ‘‘will be manageable’’.

She said that traffic modelling was not required and that the council had carried out its own research.