Published: Tuesday, 30th December, 2008 5:02pm

M3 construction full speed ahead

by John Donohoe

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Over the past 12 months, progress on the building of the M3 motorway through Meath from Clonee to north of Carnaross has become more obvious to motorists and those using the existing roads network in the region of the motorway construction.

The M3 is the longest stretch of new road ever to be constructed in the history of the Irish State. The total scheme length is around 60 kilometres, and the project covers a total of 700 hectares of land across the county.

Since construction work began in earnest last year on the project, it has been moving rapidly. Now, anywhere in the vicinity of the planned route, motorists are likely to pass a site connected to the building of the project, from Dunboyne through to Dunshaughlin, Skryne, Bellinter, Cannistown, the Trim and Athboy roads out of Navan, across to Boyerstown and Ardbraccan, onto Kells, Drumbaragh, Woodpole and finally finishing past Carnaross and Derver.

While much attention has centred on the controversial Tara-Skryne Tara valley stretch of the road, work has been steadily progressing on other sections of the motorway, with priority being given to areas where overbridges and such structures will be necessary.

The hub of the operation is the site compound at Readsland, Drumree, on the Dunshaughlin to Dunsany Road. Here, all those involved in the design, construction and overseeing of the project have offices. In all, six separate temporary office blocks have been erected on this site.

The official name for the project is the 'M3 Motorway Joint Venture", which is what motorists passing the flashing lights on the current N3 read as: 'M3 Motorway JV". The partners in this project, who are all based at various offices at the Drumree compound, are the main contractors: the Eurolink Consortium, made up of Spanish company Cintra SA and Irish firm SIAC, as well as the National Roads Authority representative, Meath Consult. The engineering consultants are made up of the Arup, Halcrow Barry and RPS firms.

Work began on the actual construction of the route at the end of April 2007, after the contract had been signed by the NRA and the contractors" consortium, and is divided into four distinct sections, each with different contractors working on them.

According to Enda Tyrrell, technical director with Eurolink, the four sections are: Clonee to the existing N3 at Roestown, Dunshaughlin; from Roestown to Cannistown, Navan; Cannistown to the Kilmainham interchange outside Kells, and from there to north of Carnaross.

'Each of these sections are about 15 kilometres long in length, which is a size that the individual contractors can handle quite easily,' Mr Tyrrell says.

In many places, efforts have been concentrated on moving the traffic off existing routes to allow for construction to begin on the motorway, so in many places bridges are being built to accommodate the re-alignment of the roads.

The traffic is diverted across these new bridges, giving the contractors access to the route underneath. 'As well as allowing the contractors to work, it also gives the public an opportunity to see the motorway developing as they drive across the work in progress,' Enda Tyrrell adds.

Every existing road along the route is being crossed by an overbridge, with exceptions like at Blundelstown, Navan, where the motorway will go underneath the existing N3, which will be carried over it on a bridge, such is the lie of the land at the bottom of Soldiers" Hill. The natural dip between Soldiers" Hill and Garlow Cross allows for this.

There will be two major river crossings – of the Boyne at Bellinter and the Blackwater as part of a Kells by-pass - and, at the moment, it is planned to build these as steel structures, although this design could change. Where the motorway cross smaller rivers, culverts are bring put in place.

The overall motorway construction will involve building 49 kilometres of motorway and dual carriageway, 10 kilometres of wide single carriageways, 15 kilometres of link roads, 3.5 kilometres of by-passes, 61 bridges, 30 culverts, and two toll plazas and the use of 1.25 million tonnes of asphalt and four million cubic metres of infill.