Re: Re: Tara / M3 – Better Solutions?

That is an excellent article and its tone pleasantly surprises me given its author who has been far more radical in his previous media pieces.

He has made one factual mistake there will not be three motorways in Meath in the near future there will in fact be four when the M4 through Enfield is completed next year.

I absolutely agree with Kefu on the strain that the existing N2 junction on the M50 is placed under, once going to a wedding in Carrickmacross on a bus it took 2 hours, it took 10 minutes from Busaras to Finglas 50 minutes to clear the M50 junction and 60 minutes to Carrickmacross. This was an ordinary Tuesday evening in July, but it just goes to show how poor Irish road intersections are in comparison to the German Autobahn Kruetz or major Junctions in the UK such as the M25/M4.

The M4 model in the UK is directly comparable to the Meath situation when you analyse three destinations namely Cheltanham, Exeter and Cardiff, on each route the central spine of the M4 is used and then the lesser towns of Cheltenham and Exeter are linked by the M5, which not only link these places to London but also encourage trade between each other.

I don’t think for a second that a two lane motorway would have been adequate for a northern corridor but rather a three and four lane section certainly beyond the commuter belt. The benefits of this would not only have been environmental and economic it would also have caused much less disturbance or severance to a much smaller group of communities and have resulted in a much smaller land acquisition requirement.

I really felt that the icing on the cake was the NRA advertising their version in the broadsheets in December with our money, they are onto a losing battle here and they know only to well every vista surrounding Inns Quay, and the sad fact is we’re paying for it.