Westlink and M1 Upgrade (2) past progress reports

Westlink & M1 upgrade Belfast -
Past Progress Reports Dec 2006 - Feb 2007

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This is a sub-page giving additional information on the Westlink upgrade.

This page is an archive of old progress reports.

For the final progress reports, after late July 2008, click here.

For the progress reports from February 2008 to early July 2008, click here.

For the progress reports from October 2007 to February 2008, click here.

For the progress reports from July 2007 to September 2007, click here.

For the progress reports from March 2007 to June 2007, click here.

For the earliest progress reports, up to November 2006, click here.

18 February 2007

This update primarily relates to Grosvenor Road. Here there is a lot of progress in the past month. On the eastern (city) side of the junction, the northern retaining wall for the approach to the flyover is now in place, mirroring the one on the south side of the approach. The approach on the Falls side of the junction is not so far on. In the centre of the former junction itself, the foundations for the bridge piers are now in place (photo 1) which means that the 3 metre high bridge abutments may start to appear soon. The excavation of the 4 metre deep underpass has advanced further on both the north and south side of the junction, so that now there is a relatively small amount of earth under the future bridge left to be removed (photo 2). Photo 3 shows the view south from the temporary bridge. At Roden Street, the fence between the bus lane (that goes from Roden Street to the Europa Bus Centre) has been removed and the bus lane now joins the Westlink about 100 metres closer to Grosvenor Road. It's not totally clear why this has happened at this stage. The eventual plan is for the bus lane to extend all the way to Broadway along the side of the Westlink, but with a southbound onslip where Roden Street currently is to give quick access for buses heading towards the M1. At Broadway, the centre of the roundabout is looking very empty - all remaining vegetation and most of the building materials have been removed. The large ditch at the eastern side of the roundabout is still there and it does seem to be related to the river diversion works. This week the project was 30% complete, in time terms; another milestone.

Photo 1: The foundations of the future bridge piers for the Grosvenor Road flyover in place (the steel bars sticking up into the air). The excavated underpass is on the left. Looking north west from the city end of the temporary bridge on 19 Feb 2007. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 2: The view north at Grosvenor Road on 19 Feb 2007. The cross section of earth in the foreground is 4 metres deep and shows about 3 metres of sleech (mud), overlaid by about two feet of red bricks (former building foundations) and a final layer of gravel and tarmac (the former roundabout). [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 3: The view south at Grosvenor Road on 19 Feb 2007. The white area in the foreground is concrete, but with a mud track constructed over it for some reason! [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

4 February 2007

I explored all the sites at the weekend, although my photographs were largely obscured by thick fog.

Nevertheless, there is lots to report.

At Stockman's Lane, all the beams are now in place for the northbound lanes of the M1 (photo 1). Workers are now laying steel reinforcements on top of the beams and will soon pour the road deck itself. Photo 2 shows the northbound onslip showing how the bank has been steepened here. It's still not clear if this is a permanent change or a side-effect of the works. At Broadway, the northbound traffic lanes of the Westlink have been shifted over onto the future northbound onslip (photo 3). The southbound lanes, meanwhile are now right over as far to the edge of the site as they can go. So the central building-site area of the Westlink is now about 8 lanes wide - workers are in the process of installing the piles that will form the north-eastern part of the underpass and the southbound offslip. As well as all this, an enormous hole has been excavated from the centre of the roundabout, roughly where the Blackstaff river flows. Because of the lack of a pavement here I could not look down, but it's either part of the culverting works or part of the underpass piling. At Roden Street/Mulhouse Road, a large number of trees have been felled. This is likely simply to be to ensure they are gone before the bird nesting season, and may not mean that any work is imminent here. At Grosvenor Road, the underpass has now been excavated on the northern side of the former roundabout. The southern part is already excavated and the first part of the future road surface has actually been laid (directly beneath the temporary flyover). Only the former roundabout itself is still at the old ground level and forms an "island" of earth filling the middle of the future underpass. A huge drilling machine is evident and it seems to be now drilling the foundations for the bridge piers (photos 4 and 5). Note that the large metal pillars are moulds - they are not the bridge piers. Finally, the retaining wall for the Grosvenor Road city -> Westlink south is now complete, although as yet it is not "retaining" anything.

Photo 1: The beams for the south side of the northbound M1 flyover were in place on 4 Feb 2007. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 2: The northbound onslip onto the M1 at Stockman's Lane on 4 Feb 2007 showing how the embankment has been steepened for a distance. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 3: The view north along the Westlink from Broadway roundabout. The traffic has now been switched to the future onslip. This is an identical view to "photo 3" from 18 December below. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 4: A foggy Westlink seen looking north west across the former Grosvenor Road junction from the city side on 4 Feb 2007. The huge yellow machine here is drilling foundations for the bridge piers (the metal tubes are moulds, not pillars). [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 5: The (limited!) view north across Grosvenor Road junction from the temporary flyover on 4 Feb 2007. The fog is hiding a huge excavation on the north side of the underpass. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

1 February 2007

Stockman's Lane: All the beams of the northbound Stockman's Lane bridge are now in place and workers were working feverishly today on constructing the bridge deck. If the timetable above is being stuck to, they have 8 weeks to complete the bridge and divert all the M1 traffic onto it. A couple of days ago the M1 was partly closed over the southbound bridge for "emergency carriageway repairs", an indication of how much abuse this bridge is taking with 4 lanes of traffic running over it.

Grosvenor Road: Work has now commenced on excavating the north (M2) side of the underpass. This is different from the excavations that have already taken place on the south side. Also, I recently discovered that the solicitors Wilson Nesbitt, whose offices are sited beside the Grosvenor Road junction on the Westlink, have set up a live webcam of the roadworks. They've also been taking photographs daily and posting them on the site. Very interesting. Click here.

In time terms, the whole project is now 29% completed.

22 January 2007

The last beams of the M1 northbound bridge at Stockman's Lane roundabout will be lowered into place on Friday night (26-27th Jan). This time the southern part of the roundabout will be closed. This will complete the beams of the bridge. After this, the road deck, side barriers and final road surfacing will need to be added. There is still a reasonable chance that the bridge will be completed on schedule by the end of March. After that, the whole process starts again for the southbound bridge....

14 January 2007

Quite a fair bit to report today since I explored all of the building sites at the weekend. The first site is Stockman's Lane where an overnight closure on Tuesday night saw all 8 beams that form the northbound bridge over the north side of the roundabout lifted into place (photo 1). The bridge abutment at this side looks complete, and works are also taking place on the embankment of the adjacent northbound onslip. A trench has been dug along the side of the sliproad at the bottom of the embankment. It's not clear if this is simply a consequence of digging up the soil, or if some kind of retaining wall will go here. The bridge abutment on the south side of the roundabout is not yet complete, so it's likely to be a couple of weeks before the last beams are lifted into place. If the timetable above is being followed, the bridge is due to be open by the end of March, so only 10 weeks to go for the engineers to finish this bridge! After that, the workers will repeat the entire process for the southbound flyover which is currently carrying all M1 traffic. On the M1 motorway, site clearance on the eastern side is now largely complete and it is likely that construction works on the new widened M1 will begin within the next few weeks. Two lanes will be added on this side, and once complete, the central-reservation will be moved one lane east to create a 3+3 lane arrangement.

Photo 1 - The beams for the north half of the northbound flyover at Stockman's Lane in place on 14 Jan 2007. The pillars in the centre are actually part of the existing southbound bridge beyond, so the new flyover has a much longer span than the old. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Next, at Broadway, a reorganisation of the pedestrian routes through the works have allowed me to see what's going on on the northeast side of the roundabout. It seems that the engineers have been busy installing a long culvert to carry the Blackstaff River along the eastern side of the underpass. See picture 2 for a view north east from the roundabout itself. The flat area ahead is the top of the culvert. It's not clear what the two rectangular things are, but they may be manholes. The culvert continues beneath the roundabout and towards the M1. This is parallel to the side of the future underpass, so it seems that the river will follow a direct route beneath the eastern side of the finished roundabout, rather than skirting round the edge of the roundabout. Meanwhile, the northbound onslip is quite far advanced with both sides now in place and even a manhole visible (photo 3). It really only needs surfacing and then it will be ready to use. This is unlikely to happen, however, until work has advanced on the other sliproads.

Photo 2 - The Blackstaff culvert at Broadway, looking north east from the roundabout on 14 Jan 2007. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 3 - The future northbound onslip at Broadway on 14 Jan 2007. The digger is parked in the centre of the future carriageway, with the future underpass running where the green fence is. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Finally, the scene at Grosvenor Road does not appear to have changed significantly since last month, with the view north virtually unchanged (photo 4). However, work has begun on the future northbound offslip, with a curved foundation starting to take shape on the Falls side of the junction (photo 5). Work on the curved section of the southbound onslip is also advancing well, and it's likely that this is where work is concentrated at the minute. The view south (photo 6) shows that the excavation of the underpass has been extended for a further 50 metres or so, but it looks as if the current layout of the road beyond is preventing any further extensions. Drainage and hardcore have both been laid in place. They are probably reluctant to extend the excavations north until absolutely necessary as it would make it harder to get in and out of the site. In time terms, the whole project is now 28% complete.

Photo 4 - The view north at Grosvenor Road on 14 Jan 2007. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 5 - The foundations for the future northbound offslip starting to appear west of the former Grosvenor Road roundabout on 14 Jan 2007. The closed section of Grosvenor Road runs left-right. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Photo 6 - The view south at Grosvenor Road on 14 Jan 2007 showing that the excavated portion of the underpass now extends a couple of hundred metres south. It gets shallower as it rises to ground level. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

3 January 2007

The Stockman's Lane roundabout will be closed overnight from 9-10 Jan (Tue to Wed) to facilitate the installation of more bridge beams, this time the ones over the road. It's not clear if all the beams will be erected in this one night. Meanwhile, the PSNI have said that they are "actively enforcing" the 30mph speed limit on the M1 here and that motorists who break the limit will risk prosecution.

As the project nears its first anniversary perhaps it is time to step back and review the main milestones of 2006. The project is now 27% complete.

17 Jan 2006 - work officially begins with "cutting of first sod" ceremony
Feb - tree felling begins along Westlink; traffic lights installed at Stockman's Lane
6 Mar - Westlink reduced to 2 lanes each way - first peak time traffic disruption
13 Mar - right-turns banned at Grosvenor Road roundabout to allow service diversion works
Apr - first disruption at Broadway as service diversion works begin; buildings demolished
May - construction of approache ramps for temporary Grosvenor Road bridge begins
May - piling works begin at Grosvenor Road
25 June - citybound M1 bridges at Stockman's Lane demolished
16 July - Broadway roundabout elongated to allow river culverting works
Aug - work to remove high voltage overhead cables at Broadway is completed
3 Sep - first section of temporary Grosvenor Road bridge lifted into place
9 Oct - Grosvenor Road junction closed and temporary bridge opens to traffic
12 Oct - serious road accident on the M1 in the contraflow closes the motorway for 13 hours
Oct - work begins to pile the centre parts of the Grosvenor Road underpass
30 Oct - Broadway roundabout restored to original layout, earlier than expected
Nov - site clearance takes place on east side of M1 in preparation for widening
Early Dec - work begins on the excavation of the underpass at Grosvenor Road
Mid Dec - first girders installed for new citybound M1 bridge at Stockman's Lane

If the original timetable is being stuck to, I'm expecting the M1 citybound bridges to be completed and opened in March 2007, and the construction phase of the M1 widening works from Broadway to Stockman's Lane to begin in February 2007. By next January, the Stockman's Lane works should be largely complete, and the Grosvenor Road flyover approaching the final stages of work.

18 December 2006

I explored all three sites of work on Sunday 17 Dec, so there are photos of each area. Firstly, at Stockman's Lane, the supports for the M1 northbound flyover in the centre of the roundabout are built (picture 1). There are two pillars to support each end, rather than the old arrangement of five pillars. This reflects advances in technology in the past 50 years. A fifth set of supports has been added in the centre of the roundabout which surprises me since the centre of the junction will apparently be an earthen mound. To confuse matters more, about ten reinforced concrete beams have been put in place to form the road bed above this central area. It is possible that the central span is being built as a bridge, but will then be infilled with earth. This would require less engineering on the embankment which would not then be load-bearing. The embankment idea may be to discourage anti-social behaviour under the motorway. We will wait and see. Note also that the beams rest on the central pillars, but do not rest on the pillars at each end of the roundabout. Instead, the red girders are holding them up. We will wait and see why this is the case.

On the M1 evidence of site clearance is still there on the eastern side, but no evidence of any widening construction works as yet. This is currently timetabled for February. Traffic police warned on 8 Dec that they will enforce the 30mph speed limit here. At Broadway, it is hard to get an overview of the site without a good vantage point, but work does seem to be progressing on the north side of the junction. Picture 2 shows piling machines clearly engaged in piling works on what is likely to be the southbound offslip. Meanwhile, the piling for the northbound onslip appears to be complete (picture 3) with the wall in the foreground probably the wall between the sliproad and the motorway, and the outer retaining wall just visible beyond. It is likely that these will be completed and the traffic temporary shifted onto them while the underpass is built. The rest of the junction is a total mess of cones. Picture 4 shows the view back towards the M1. While there is some evidence that work on the southbound onslip is underway, there is still no evidence of work on the northbound offslip. Since this offslip will join the main line further back than the others (since it first joins the small Donegall Road roundabout), it may not have to be built before excavation of the underpass itself starts.

Finally, at Grosvenor Road, the excavation of the underpass on the south side of the junction has advanced, as apparent in picture 5, and a layer of mesh covered with stones laid on the base as well as a future drainage system. The excavation has apparently met with current drainage problems, however, judging by the roar of a water pump that was active at the weekend even when nobody else was about. There is evidence of a lot of activity on the site, but not much new visible since 11 days ago. Picture 6 shows the view north. Also, a sign has appeared at one of the two approaches to the temporary bridge stating that it is called "Grosvenor Road Bridge"! In time terms the whole project is now 26% complete.

Picture 1: The northbound M1 flyover taking shape at Stockman's Lane [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 2: Piling works, probably on the southbound offslip, visible just north of Broadway roundabout. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 3: The future northbound onslip taking shape at Broadway, with the still-buried retaining wall visible in the foreground and the other wall just visible on the other side of the track. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 4: Looking towards the M1 from the small Donegall Road roundabout at Broadway. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 5: Looking south from the Grosvenor Road bridge at the underpass now partly excavated. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 6: The view north at Grosvenor Road on 18 Dec. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

6 December 2006

I explored the works at Grosvenor Road again today with my camera, and there is evidence of a lot of progress. Most interesting is the fact that the excavation of the 4 metre deep underpass has begun, starting on the south side of the junction (picture 1). Two JCBs were evident removing soil and a convoy of dump trucks was taking it away. Directly beneath the temporary bridge the trench is already at its final depth and workers have laid a white membrane covered with loose gravel. Not being an expert, I am not sure whether or not this is permanent. Next, the retaining wall for the curved westbound to southbound (city to M1) sliproad has started to rise (picture 2). It's not immediately obvious which side this is, but my guess is that the sliproad will run to the right of the wall. With all the piling apparently completed at Grosvenor Road, workers are now completing the sides of the underpass by pouring concrete along the top of the piles to complete the sides of the underpass. Picture 3 shows a closeup of workers placing steel reinforcement inside a wooden mould on the western side of the Westlink ready for the concrete to be poured in. Finally, picture 4 shows a general view north across the Grosvenor Road junction from the temporary bridge.

Picture 1: The excavation of the underpass on the south edge of Grosvenor Road junction was well underway on 6 Dec 2006. [Photo by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 2: The retaining wall for the westbound to southbound sliproad taking shape at Grosvenor Road (city to the right) on 6 Dec 2006. [Picture by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 3: Workers constructing the sides of the underpass at Grosvenor Road on 6 Dec 2006. [Picture by Wesley Johnston]

Picture 4: The view north across the former Grosvenor Road roundabout on 6 Dec 2006.

[Picture by Wesley Johnston]

4 December 2006

With the busy-ness of life I haven't been able to get a good look at the works for a couple of weeks, but I intend to take some more photos by this time next week. The works have now passed the 25% landmark (in terms of time). This assumes an end date of August 2009. The Roads Service are publicising March 2009 as an end date, but this is merely the date when all the new roads are opened. According to "The Link" document released in June 2006, the final works, such as landscaping, signing etc, are planned to continue until August. However with the project apparently running several weeks ahead of schedule, these deadlines may vary. The % complete figures I give are therefore all based on an end date of August 2009. At the weekend, Broadway roundabout was realigned slightly on the city side to facilitate the ongoing culverting of the Blackstaff, while at Grosvenor Road, more piling has taken place on the north east side of the new underpass.