Kinsale Road Roundabout - Flyover Construction

Flyover Construction

Recent traffic counts have shown that there are in excess of 85,000 vehicles using the roundabout daily. The straight-through movement between the east and west sides of the South Ring Road was the highest recorded traffic movement at the roundabout and represented approximately 40% of the total traffic using the roundabout. As such, there was an urgent need for grade separation.

In the determination of a preferred scheme solution a number of options were developed and evaluated in terms of environmental impact, safety, constructibility, cost, aesthetics, disruption to traffic during construction and land take. These options included:

• A flyover carrying the N40 South Ring Road over the existing roundabout
• An underpass carrying the N40 South Ring Road under the existing roundabout
• A flyover carrying the N27 Airport Road/South Link Road over the roundabout
• An underpass carrying the N27 Airport Road/South Link Road under the roundabout

Having compared and evaluated the four options it was considered that a flyover carrying the N40 South Ring Road over the existing roundabout was the most suitable solution.

Construction on the flyover started in mid-2005 and finished in late 2006. Effective traffic management throughout the duration of the project was vital as the same volume of vehicles used the roundabout during construction as they did before construction. From public opinion, traffic management was put in place effectively and major delays were rare.