{"id":212961,"date":"2025-12-03T10:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/212961\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T10:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:03:08","slug":"m50-congestion-can-only-be-fixed-through-government-policy-change-says-tii-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/212961\/","title":{"rendered":"M50 congestion can only be fixed through Government policy change, says TII \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transport Infrastructure Ireland<\/a> (TII) has said it has \u201cdone everything we can do\u201d to alleviate traffic congestion on the M50<\/a>, with capacity now \u201cbeyond Celtic Tiger numbers\u201d.<\/p>\n

TII\u2019s director of corporate communications, Sean O\u2019Neill, said investment and redesign to alleviate worsening congestion and commute times has been \u201cmaxed out\u201d, and any remedy would have to be decided by the Government<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actually beyond the Celtic Tiger numbers; we\u2019re at capacity. We can\u2019t make it any wider, and you can\u2019t make it a double-decker,\u201d he told RT\u00c9\u2019s Prime Time on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve added lanes, we\u2019ve elongated merging corridors, which means it gives you safer time and more distance to get into an interchange and out,\u201d he said, noting such interventions have been \u201cmaxed out\u201d by TII.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe upgrade, overall, has been a success, but we\u2019ve done everything we can do and anything additional would have to be a significant policy decision by Government. That wouldn\u2019t be for us to decide,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The only way capacity can be expanded in the short to medium term is by reconsidering an eastern bypass, according to Aisling Reynolds-Feighan, a professor of transport economics at University College Dublin.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland\u2019s most expensive toll road journeys costing \u2018the better part of \u20ac100 a week\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

A circular motorway around Dublin city<\/a> was first proposed in the 1970s to allow drivers to bypass to the east and west.<\/p>\n

The western side of the circle was built in the form of the M50, which was completed in sections, opening from 1990 to 2010.<\/p>\n

The eastern side, however, which would have required a tunnel under or bridge over Dublin Bay, never went ahead. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were to complete the ring, it would give an alternate east or west bypass of the city,\u201d Prof Reynolds-Feighan said.<\/p>\n

There has been a 17 per cent increase in the population since the M50 was completed in 2010, which, alongside a \u201cvery buoyant economy\u201d has fuelled increased volumes of traffic, she said.<\/p>\n

Housing shortages, meanwhile, have led to an increase in people commuting to work in Dublin from surrounding counties.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Drivers to face higher tolls on M50 and Dublin Port Tunnel from JanuaryOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) has said it has \u201cdone everything we can do\u201d to alleviate traffic congestion on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,52,18,13,14,3428,6,19,17,11,12,90928,15,16,5,7,8,53919],"class_list":{"0":"post-212961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-dublin","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-government","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-m50","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-transport-infrastructure-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115655069302150297","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}