Budget cuts:An NRA meeting will decide how soon work can begin on the junction, writes Tim O'Brien
THE POSSIBILITY of moving the proposed upgrade of Dublin's Newlands Cross junction up the list of National Roads Authority (NRA) priorities is to be discussed by the board of the authority next month.
The move to remove the junction from a list of six key road schemes Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said would have to be deferred due to Budget cuts comes amid concern that work on the nearby Red Cow interchange is running at least six months late.
The Red Cow interchange links the M50 - the State's busiest road, with about 100,000 vehicles a day - with the N7, the State's second busiest road. The sprawling Red Cow interchange is being upgraded to freeflow status, but the two-year contract, which began in mid-2006, has already missed its deadline.
Senior NRA figures are concerned the proximity of the Red Cow interchange to the Newlands Cross junction means work on one will most likely affect the other. They are keen to revisit the list of priorities to ascertain if construction at Newlands Cross could begin next year as originally planned.
A senior NRA source told The Irish Timesa board meeting to review the roads programme would be held in mid-November and the authority would be keen to maintain the pace on the improvements to the congested road network spanning from the M50 so as not to hamper the benefits of completing the inter-urban motorways by 2010.
Phase one of the upgrade of the M50 was originally scheduled for 2007 under Transport 21. While then minister for transport Martin Cullen turned the first sod on the works in January 2006, work did not begin until July that year. Mr Cullen told the Dáil on at least two occasions the work would be completed by "mid-2008".
This week the NRA website gave the completion date as the third quarter of 2008 but NRA communications manager Sean O'Neill confirmed the contract was running six months over. The best possible date would be "the end of December" he said. The project website, www.m50.ie, maintained by South Dublin County Council, now gives "the end of the year" as the completion date.
While the Red Cow interchange is behind schedule, delaying the completion of phase one of the M50 upgrade, work on phase three between the West-Link bridge and the N3 is complete.
The authority is coming under political pressure to have the Ballymun interchange for Ikea - part of phase 2 - open by 2009, almost a year ahead of schedule.
However it is understood that if the authority insists on an early completion extra payments may be incurred. Negotiations are said to be delicate.