M50 Motorway (Ireland)

M50 Motorway (Ireland)

The M50 motorway (Irish: Mótarbhealach M50) is a motorway in Ireland running in a C-shaped ring around the north-eastern, northern, western and southern sides of the capital city, Dublin. The northern end of the route is located at the entrance to the Dublin Port Tunnel. Anti-clockwise it heads northwest through the tunnel and then veers west at a junction with the M1 motorway. It crosses the dual West-Link toll bridges over the River Liffey in west Dublin, and forms a loop around the south-east of Dublin to meet the M11 route (running south to Wexford) at Shankill, County Dublin. Between Junctions 3 to 13 the road forms part of European route E01.

The M50 was first proposed in the Dublin Transportation Study of 1971. Construction began on the first part of the M50, the Western Parkway, in 1987. This section of the M50, between Junctions 6 (Blanchardstown) and 11 (Tallaght), opened to traffic in 1990. This was followed in 1996 by the Northern Cross section between Junctions 6 and 3 and the Southern Cross between Junctions 11 and 13 which opened in 2001. The completed M50 motorway was formally opened on 30 June 2005, and later the Dublin Port Tunnel, which was opened on 20 December 2006, was included as part of the route.

Work commenced in early 2006 on upgrading earlier sections of motorway. Many of the grade-separated signal-controlled roundabout interchanges were replaced with free-flowing junctions and the road from the M1 junction to Sandyford was widened to three lanes in each direction with a fourth auxiliary lane provided between junctions.

On Sunday 7th Feb 2010, the M50 Southern Cross was opened up to 3 lanes in each direction from J10 Ballymount to J14 Sandyford. This followed a week after the Northern Cross opened from J3 M1 to J6 N3. The M50 is now 3 lanes in each direction from J3 M1 to J14 Sandyford, with auxiliary lanes between all junctions from the M1 to Firhouse