Motorways in Ireland

Hi patty. The M50 is due to be upgraded to three lanes in each direction. The N7/M7 is three or four lanes near Dublin. There could be others; I dunno.

Motorways are great for travelling between cities and towns and I view it as a positive thing for the country to have motorways linking the major cities/towns: Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway. Motorways are terrible for commuting; the experience in other countries has proven this but we seem intent on copying their mistakes. The M3 is an example of a commuter motorway which is a big mistake in my opinion whatever your views on heritage. The M50 has become a commuter route.

I agree totally with Jimg, its totally the norm to have motorways connecting all the main cities of ireland, not just all to Dublin Which i think is a big mistake , it will cause major commuter problems and everything will filter out of the countryside as the as all the motorways will lead to Dublin .it takes hours and hours to get to any of the cities on a good day? its ridiculous that you have to snarl through towns that not need not to go through.

we have been blessed that you can go from Dublin to the bogs of ireland without gettin stuck in kildare town anymore !!!!
when you have a fantastic motorway !!!

The Naas Road (N7) is being upgraded to 3 lanes either direction from Rathcoole to Naas and all juctions being replaced with flyovers, graded juctions and the removal of traffic lights. However, when finished, it will not be classed as a motorway because there is no alternative road or non motorway serving the route. As some one who drives on this road the odd time, this change should be welcomed as the Naas Road has been dangerous for many years.

Richar
i have to agree with you on the reasons you stated as the N7 was not to be Motorway standard ,the main reasons is that a dual carrigeway is cheaper than a motorway as their are different designs and speeds.
there is a alternate route, as their are building a road from Naas to Castlewadern near Rathcoole there. which is for regional and traffic travelling that not need to use the N7,
the Road is served by a motorway route the M7 and M50…

how can you explain the reasons for supposed to be M7 Nenagh to limerick section which was planned long before the national roads plan was carried out . the road has an alternate route (the old N7) and on greefield site and has a lot of traffic for a motorway to be built but yet it s now going to be a dual carrigeway!

i meant to agree to dissagree..

It would be impossible to upgrade the N7 from Naas to the M50 to motorway standard because too many properties have access on to it. The upgrade will remove a lot of these, but not all.
The other section you mentioned is similar to several other “high-quality dual carriageways” which are in the National Development Plan. I haven’t managed to find a good reason why these won’t be classified as motorways and the NRA has been criticised by county councils and government for the inconsistency. The roads are of motorway standard with a design speed of 130km/h, and do not obstruct the old route, with the exception of the N1 from North of Dundalk to the border. The only difference between a high-quality dual carriageway and a motorway in the design handbook is that a dual carriageway is allowed “a limited number of left-on, left-off accesses”, presumably for access to farmland. Why these aren’t allowed on a motorway is unclear; they are in other countries.

watergrasshill and carrigtwohill in cork are 2 prime examples of motorway standard roads assigned dual carriageway status!

Don’t know of 3 lane motorways, but there are 3 lane dual-carriageways including

• N4 from ~M50 (Liffey Valley) to ~Lucan
• N7 from ~M50 (Naas Road / Red Cow) to ~Rathcoole

There are plans for more 3 lane roads:

• Much of M50 to be upgraded to 3 lanes (motorway)
• N4 from M50 to Leixlip junction
• N7 from Rathcoole to Naas

You can get status and some maps for all the major road projects at the NRA website.

I support 2 lanes in each direction on all major routes, bypassing the towns and cities. The current situation is not acceptable. Decent roads are safer, business friendly, local friendly. In time they should encourage businesses to cheaper premises outside of Dublin, which will bring jobs, then families, helping to strengthen vulnerable communities.

I don’t like the trend of all all main roads leading into Dublin: The Outer Orbital Route currently being explored (possibly from Drogheda to Navan to Maynooth/Kilkock to Naas and maybe even Wicklow) sounds like a good idea to me. I also like the idea of a decent North/South road in the West. Something like Sligo to Galway to Limerick to Cork (and maybe Wexford).

Building these roads does have a cost, financially and arguably to heritage and the local environment. But I think the cost is worth it: lives saved, the hours waiting in traffic avoided (these hours are wasted forever!!!), the towns and cities that can breath, the communities that will get a new lease of life. Public transport (rail etc.) will help reduce cars, but we need to get jobs out of Dublin, not just the people.

Like it or not, I think it is better to widen the N7 (Naas Road) and upgrade junctions as planned. The cost of providing a new 4 or 6 lane highway close to Dublin would be huge and undesireable from an enviromental aspect. The new planned motorways to Limerick, Cork and Waterford will all merge on the N7/M7 and eventually end at Newlands Cross. Are there any plans to place a flyover at this junction?

I support 2 lanes in each direction on all major routes, bypassing the towns and cities.

Personally, I’d have a problem with blanket policies like this. I support motorway construction when the case has been proven with regard to benefits to justify the massive capital spending required and the accrued environmental costs. From my personal experience, I’d say that motorways were definitely required to replace large sections of the N7, N4 and N1. These routes had terrible bottlenecks and the motorway upgrades have improved journey times considerably. I’m sure there were other similar routes in the country which justified upgrading to motorway. On the other hand, the Shannon bypass (on the Limerick to Galway Route) or whatever it’s called seems to me to be a monumental waste of money. At best it has reduced journey times by 5 or 10 minutes on a route that was never that congested to begin with. Sure it looks nice on a map, but I don’t think any cost/benefit analysis could have justified such expenditure and this is my worry; motorways are being built for ideological or perversely aesthetic reasons (nice lines on maps) rather than for sound economic reasons.

Theres 3 lanes on the south link road in cork for 1 and a half kilometers. Almost 4 if you count the turning off lane. Then it goes straight down to 2 lanes with no hard shoulder. Like the M50 the road was’nt very well designed when first built and now lanes are being added flyovers being built and overpasses extended with no particular order.Already the Jack Lynch tunnel is running at the capacity that it is supposed to be running at in 2015.As for leesiders comment thats a governent thing done to indicate that if your not near Dublin you wont recieve the same privliges as the pale.

@PTB wrote:

As for leesiders comment thats a governent thing done to indicate that if your not near Dublin you wont recieve the same privliges as the pale.

I agree you Cork folks don’t have the privilage of two hour commutes, I’m sure it can be arranged.

Has the motorway linking Cork and Limerick to Dublin been given some sort of green light or is it still some urban myth? Also, isn’t the bypass in Fermoy a motorway? I haven’t seen it yet, but I thought I heard it was. I think more emphasis should be put on public transport e.g. rail, instead of on roads. Ireland must be the only country in Europe (after Moldova) that still uses diesel engines to run it’s rail network. We were better off in the 1950’s when almost every town in Ireland was connected to a railway line, since then all of these stations have been dwindling away. I was so delighted to hear that the railway line will be extended to Midleton from Cork, providing a commuter service that is heavily needed. But an extension of the service isn’t good enough, it should be happening nation wide. My biggest disappointment is that we only have one railway provider, compared to countries such as England and Germany where they have 5 or 6 companies operating trains. What does everyone else think??

@A-ha wrote:

Has the motorway linking Cork and Limerick to Dublin been given some sort of green light or is it still some urban myth? Also, isn’t the bypass in Fermoy a motorway? I haven’t seen it yet, but I thought I heard it was. I think more emphasis should be put on public transport e.g. rail, instead of on roads. Ireland must be the only country in Europe (after Moldova) that still uses diesel engines to run it’s rail network. We were better off in the 1950’s when almost every town in Ireland was connected to a railway line, since then all of these stations have been dwindling away. I was so delighted to hear that the railway line will be extended to Midleton from Cork, providing a commuter service that is heavily needed. But an extension of the service isn’t good enough, it should be happening nation wide. My biggest disappointment is that we only have one railway provider, compared to countries such as England and Germany where they have 5 or 6 companies operating trains. What does everyone else think??

that’s a good idea

I still haven’t gotten used to this website.

@A-ha wrote:

Has the motorway linking Cork and Limerick to Dublin been given some sort of green light or is it still some urban myth?

Approval has been given to build a collection of road segments and upgrades that, once strung together will form a road of at least dual carriageway standard between Dublin and Cork by 2010. A lot of it is built already or under construction.

Also, isn’t the bypass in Fermoy a motorway? I haven’t seen it yet, but I thought I heard it was.

Yes it is 17.5 km of tolled motorway, due to finish by summer 2007.

We were better off in the 1950’s when almost every town in Ireland was connected to a railway line, since then all of these stations have been dwindling away.

We were of course much worse off in every other way. The extensive rail network only existed because there was no competition from cars. Had we maintained the rail network we would have spent the last 40 years running trains that nobody used at huge expense. Rail infrastructure only lasts about 30-40 years so we would have had to renew the network by now anyway.

Increased employment and car congestion have made commuter rail systems a welcome prospect in Ireland. Watch the price of property along the MIdleton line shoot up over the next few years.

My biggest disappointment is that we only have one railway provider, compared to countries such as England and Germany where they have 5 or 6 companies operating trains. What does everyone else think??

It didn’t seem to work out so sweetly for the Brits. Ireland’s rail network may be too small to generate any interest in competition. However, allowing Connex to run the luas seems to have been a good idea. Their ticketing is about a million times better than the DART and Irish Rail have something to live up to now.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Had we maintained the rail network we would have spent the last 40 years running trains that nobody used at huge expense. Rail infrastructure only lasts about 30-40 years so we would have had to renew the network by now anyway.

I totally agree the only successful tourist railway I know in the World runs from Cusco to Agus Calientes it generates seven full trains in each direction per day for about 200 random days per year. Some of the existing rail network is losing cash fast and where renewal programmes have been instigated in some circumstances the underlying engineering issues have not be adressed. This has resulted in situations where new track has been laid at great expense on alignments that have serious structural and drainage issues that will require regular replacement.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Increased employment and car congestion have made commuter rail systems a welcome prospect in Ireland. Watch the price of property along the MIdleton line shoot up over the next few years.

Again I totally agree, the only sucessful rail system is a busy rail system, Midleton will deliver benefits for everyone and this investment should be a model for other lines in Cork as well as Limerick, Galway, Sligo, Navan and Waterford. The Luas effect will be the subject of many a thesis as will Midleton in time too.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Ireland’s rail network may be too small to generate any interest in competition. However, allowing Connex to run the luas seems to have been a good idea. Their ticketing is about a million times better than the DART and Irish Rail have something to live up to now.

I disagree I believe the Luas ticketing system is a complete waste of time and the Smart cards are a joke if you pay 10 euro you get a card that costs 3 euro (once off) then there is a 4 euro reserve that effectively can’t be used. I genuinely believed that the idea was to get people off the already congested roads and that rail was the carrot in the equation.

Glad to hear that the Cork-Dublin “motorway” is getting built piece by piece. At least it should cut down the time spent on the road.

@A-ha wrote:

Glad to hear that the Cork-Dublin “motorway” is getting built piece by piece. At least it should cut down the time spent on the road.

Not really as that way it takes longer to complete the whole road. Whats being done between Athlone and Kinnegad is better. When completed the cork-dublin road will have been done in about 12 sections over 45 year. In France that would be 3-4 sections in 20 years max.

@Jack White wrote:

I agree you Cork folks don’t have the privilage of two hour commutes, I’m sure it can be arranged.

Ever seen the tailback on the N8 approaching Dunkettel in the morning?Ever driven through the Kinsale road roundabout in rush hour?I’d bless myself before using the vortex of death. 😡

Try driving from Bray to Parkwest everyday and include a tram system crossing a roundabout.

The NRA website is rather poor. You’d expect them to actually post some maps, plans etc. of all the road projects but no.

As one who lived near one of the stops of the Cork-Cobh rail commuter line, it always amazed how such a good asset was wasted due to the lack of a decent service. Thankfully, some new railcars were put in, the double track line was upgraded wtih concrete sleepers and new signalling, and a more rational timetable was put in place. No longer a creaking old train way past its sell by date (boiler carraige anyone!), but a sleek push pull railcar. Not surprisingly, traffic soared as people for once could rely on it and get there in comfort. As the line passed Tivoli and the and the tailbacks into Cork, one saw first hand the advantages of taking the train.
Ironically, Irish Rail did all they could to get rid of the service in the 80’s and the only thing that kept the line open was the NET plant and its related train cargo specials. Similar to Dublin, Cork had lines all over the city once, with over 5 stations in the city centre at one point. Obviously, many never made sense economically or otherwise, but parts of the lines out to Bishopstown, Kinsale, and Crosshaven would be damn useful today!

@A-ha wrote:

Glad to hear that the Cork-Dublin “motorway” is getting built piece by piece. At least it should cut down the time spent on the road.

There is an argument that the traffic levels between most Irish cities don’t justify 2 lane motorway. instead, we could have bypassed every town on the way and used a 2+1 passing lane road, as seen in Australia and Sweden. 10 years ago, any Irish person driving in France or the UK would feel slightly embarrassed and think, ‘Why can’t we have a network of motorways?’ The NRA has spent 17 billion over the last 10 years to achieve this end. Maybe we could have spent this more wisely.

It might have been an idea not to continue the radial structure of roads and rail emanating from a congested Dublin Ring motorway. Rather than upgrading Dublin-Cork, Dublin-Waterford and Dublin-Limerick, we could have upgraded Dublin-Waterford-Cork-Limerick-Dublin. Journey times would not have been greatly increased compared to the direct routes. The Swiss, aided by geography, have managed to build a balanced infrastructure that has allowed the development of at least four decent cities. France, by contrast, looks much more radial. These patterns reflect their respective degrees of government centralisation.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

There is an argument that the traffic levels between most Irish cities don’t justify 2 lane motorway. instead, we could have bypassed every town on the way and used a 2+1 passing lane road, as seen in Australia and Sweden. 10 years ago, any Irish person driving in France or the UK would feel slightly embarrassed and think, ‘Why can’t we have a network of motorways?’ The NRA has spent 17 billion over the last 10 years to achieve this end. Maybe we could have spent this more wisely.

I agree that there has been a number of instances of over-engineering in a lot of NRA projects that has led to:

@IRELAND.COM wrote:

NRA had no senior accountants when agreeing road costs
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 12th May, 2005

The National Roads Authority (NRA) did not have an accountant at management level at a time it was negotiating road building contracts worth billions of euros, it emerged today.

It also emerged that the cost of projects originally estimated at &#8364]http://home.eircom.net/content/irel…?view=Eircomnet[/url]

The percentage overspend here is off the scale.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

It might have been an idea not to continue the radial structure of roads and rail emanating from a congested Dublin Ring motorway. Rather than upgrading Dublin-Cork, Dublin-Waterford and Dublin-Limerick, we could have upgraded Dublin-Waterford-Cork-Limerick-Dublin. Journey times would not have been greatly increased compared to the direct routes. The Swiss, aided by geography, have managed to build a balanced infrastructure that has allowed the development of at least four decent cities. France, by contrast, looks much more radial. These patterns reflect their respective degrees of government centralisation.

I’m not so sure about building a Dublin- Waterford-Cork-Limerick-Dublin Motorway as it would have a total of 335 miles on the basis of

Dublin- Kilkenny- Waterford 105 miles
Cork Waterford 75 miles
Cork- Limerick 65 miles
Limerick Newbridge 90 miles

Alternative routings on

Dublin-Kilkenny- Clonmel-Cahir- Cork 160 miles (The original Dublin- Cork road T6)
Kilkenny- Waterford 30 miles
Cahir – Limerick 35 miles
Total 225 miles

Instead we will have

Dublin -Cork 160 miles
Portlaoise- Limerick 70 miles
Newbridge -Waterford 75 miles
Total 305 miles

hmmm, the NRA can never seem to help overspending, shame they alsways overspend in the wrong ways!

@A-ha wrote:

hmmm, the NRA can never seem to help overspending, shame they alsways overspend in the wrong ways!

Is there a right way to over-spend public money?

@Thomond Park wrote:

Is there a right way to over-spend public money?

An NRA Tribunal would be good 😀

@patty wrote:

Are there any three lane motorways in Ireland? Are there any projects? Is the project to upgrade all main routes to motorway status?

FYI – This is what happens when ….

The Irish Times – Thu, Apr 08, 04

Hearing into proposed €250m road between Limerick and Nenagh ends
Karl Hanlon

An oral hearing into a controversial proposal to build a €250 million motorway between Limerick and Nenagh concluded yesterday amid heated scenes.
The seven-day hearing was told that there were objections from more than 100 landowners who have been served with compulsory purchase orders on their homes and property.
An Bord Pleanála inspector, Mr Michael Ward, also heard submissions from groups and individuals in relation to the Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed route.
On the final day of the hearing in Limerick yesterday, conservationist Mr Ruadhan MacEoin, made a lengthy submission on alternative proposals to the new 37 km road.
Central to his argument was a proposal to upgrade the existing N7 route between Limerick and Nenagh along the lines of the “two plus one” routes.
This is basically a three-lane carriageway which allows safe overtaking at 2 km sections in both directions along the route.
The conservationist argued that this proposal would be less damaging to the environment and be considerably more cost effective.
At the end of Mr MacEoin’s submission, Mr James Macken SC, for the local authorities, made his final address and Mr Ward closed the hearing.
At this point, Mr MacEoin made several attempts to ask the expert panel to address the points he had just raised in his alternative proposal.
However, his request was repeatedly denied by Mr Ward, who told him the hearing had closed.
“I am deeply upset at the way in which the inspector concluded the hearing in such a needlessly aggressive manner without allowing the experts to address my questions,” Mr MacEoin said afterwards.

© The Irish Times

So there you go. As to lack of strategic positioning of the routes, this thread may also be of interest:

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3633

From a factual perspective, in relation to Dublin – Cork / Limerick / Waterford route siting one does note 2 clear historic trends:

1) Infrastructure has been successful – provided the route selection process also gave due consideration to population centres other than just the end destinations. Hence, the Dublin – Cork mail coach roads went via Carlow and Kilkenny, while the Dublin – Cork railway went close enough to Limerick so as to also serve that by spur from Limerick Jcn.

2) Infrastructure has been unsuccessful and/ or commercially unviable where routes were run too close together. The 2 best examples from Irish experience are the Turnpike roads built in the 18th century – where the network was too dense and overly focused on the Dublin / S.E. of the country (Plus ca change! See “Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape” pub 1997 for more), and the Royal Canal, built in the 19th C., practically paralell to the Grand Canal and a financial black hole from day 1.

Point being that there were really 2 choices when it came to servicing cities, either build slightly circuitious routes between the major cities, or alternatively upgrade with 2 + 1 systems along existing routes. Given that the NRA overspend to date equates with €5000 overspend per taxpayer, it does not strike me as value for money to build a motorway solely for only 800 vehicles per day that currently are on the Waterford road south of Kilkenny.
From the perspective that a bit of strategic planning would have got far better bang-for-buck, it is depressing to watch billions of taxpayers money needlessly wasted while rats infest class rooms and hospitals fall apart. That said, and if one accepts that a mistake was made by building a motorway via Portlaoise, there may actually still be time to get more efficient motorway route selection. Were the political will there, it might be found that the Dublin – Galway and the Dublin – Limerick routes could be amalgamated with a junction somewhere near Birr, and likewise Dublin – Cork should go via Carlow, Kilkenny, Clonmel with a spur or 2 + 1 to Waterford.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Carlow and Kilkenny Chambers of Commerce, County Cos, etc, did not see that both their access, and the actual financial justifiacation of construction would be better advanced were they to push for such a route choice.
In the meantime Jack’s last comment as to a tribunal is probably on the money 😀

Ah! Thats that off my chest !

H.

[font=Arial:3a157cfk]Of course theres a right way of overspending! For example, if the government allocates €100million to build a road from Tralee to Killarney or where ever, but they decided to add more traffic lights or something so the school kids could cross the road. They weren't in the original plan, but they had to OVERSPEND to pay for the traffic lights. Bad example, but ye know wot i mean.[/font:3a157cfk]

But they should know in advance that things like zebra crossings are needed. This government is the biggest eejit for overspending on roads etc. Is eejit an irish word? :confused:

Amadan
Ludraman

Eejit would be hiberno-english

[FONT=Arial]I always wondered how you spell eejit :confused: [/font]

someone mentioned the newlands crooss junction ????? flyover????
The NRA really dont know how to build proper roads in the first place
they should keep high priorthy routes that need extra investment
like the Nenagh to Limerick Motoray , which was the first section of motorway planned before the official inter urban plan came about , No sign of that coming anytime soon ,
anyone travel on the N7/N8 are seeing villages along the route been cut in half with the new kildare motorway just s brings it to the next bottleneck
Classsic example!!!
build 1 little road (bypass) then free of traffic as soon as your back on the old road again u sit in traffic and it keeps goin on on
then they go ahead and build a super road near Naas obviously , but still crash into the newlands cross which already gets tailbacks frequently?????????????? what is going to happen when all the inter URBAN ROUTES join up ????
talk about back to the drawing board….

im interested to know about the old Cork to Dublin route T6 via kikenny a good few years back or when did they they changed it???
awhy did they change the route in the first place and join up at portlaois with the main limerick to Dublin road

Dave,

it was late 1960’s the Lemass govenrment when the Country went from Trunk & Link Roads to National Primary Routes and Regional Routes. The old system was a lot simpler the main routes were

1 Dublin to Belfast
2 Dublin Monaghan Derry
3 Dublin Sligo
4 Kinnegad Galway
5 Dublin Limerick
6 Naas Athy Kilkenny Clonmel Cahir Cork
7 Dublin Enniscourty Waterford
8 & 9 Went from Dundalk and Monaghan snaking through the midlands to Potlaoise and Athlone
10 Derry Letterkenny
11 Letterkenny Cork

I note the absence of what is now the N3

Hearing deadline for Abbeyleix – Mitchelstown is coming up in July. Current NRA proposals are for a (greenfield) road adjacent to existing road.
What do people think about routing Dublin – Cork via Kilkenny, roughly along Durrow-Kilkenny (N77) and Kilkenny-Clonmel (N76) route?

By my calculations, it would add approx 10 miles onto Dublin – Cork journey, or less than 10 minutes extra journey time.
If such a route was chosen, it might be best complimented by having the existing road to Waterford from Kilkenny upgraded as a 2+1, likewise with that from Kilcullen to Carlow.

All of this would result in 65 miles less of motorway needed to be built while also providing Kilkenny with motorway connections, not just to Dublin, but to Cork as well.

Is all of this nonsense, or what do people think?

Hutton,

it is a little late for the T6 route at this stage given that motorways already exist to Portlaoise and will exist to Carlow on the N9 very soon both 50 miles on each respective route.

There is the possibility of taking a Western alignment close to Thurles and following the rail line as far as Limerick Junction then crossing the Galty Mountains on the Western side before coming out at Mitchelstown, this would give a virtually identical Dublin – Cork whilst requiring only a 20 mile dual-Carriageway to Childers Rd in Limerick which would also double up as a DC/M-way from Limerick to Cork.

The one caveat I would enter is that I have no idea if the East Limerick section is designated SAC or high-amenity. But if it were a clean route it would cut 50 miles from the Dublin to Limerick requirement. Whilst giving a far superior Galway/Limerick to Cork route.

Thomand,

As far as I am aware – but Im open to correction – work has not begun on the Carlow route sth of Kilcullen. Granted it would have been more desireable had Dublin – Cork gone via both Carlow and Kilkenny, but as the motorway to Portlaoise is already built, there is still the option to go via Kilkenny (with a pop inc environs of 20,735) in the future connection between Mitchelstown and Portlaoise. Simply 10 minutes longer on journey time, what about it?

The Board granted permission for the Carlow / Kildare Scheme as far as I’m aware and I would imagine that as there aren’t any legal challenges that I’m aware of it can be considered a done deal.

I don’t think that Kilkenny with a population of 20,735 can justify a 10 mile diversion on the N8; personally I would favour linking Limerick with Cork and I for the life of me cannot see the rationale to build 50 miles of extra dual-carriageway to link Roscrea population 4,578 and Nenagh population 6,121 to the national network at such expense, from a Limerick perspective it would be the fastest way to get a motorway to Dublin as with Cullen at the table and Smyth gone Waterford will get a dual-carriageway before Limerick despite Limerick being a bigger City with larger satelite towns.

[font=Arial:26ngot8s]Shame for Limerick, it obviously needs bigger and better roads sooner than Waterford. Limerick is Ireland's third city and needs money invested in its roads sooner than Waterford.[/font:26ngot8s] 🙁

All of the land-use and transportation trends in Ireland show an American pattern of development, with increasing car dependency and journey generation between places of residence, work, shopping and recreation……The dual-carriageway and motorway programme between the main urban centres is being justified on the basis of reducing travel times and achieving good regional distribution of goods and services. But the main effect will be to increase the commuter and urban sprawl belts, without any parallel strategy to increase the modal share of public transport as required by Ireland’s National Cilmate Change Strategy (2000).

Most of the individual elements of the National Development Plan’s inter-urban motorways and dual-carriageways have been approved through oral hearings. Each EIS has been produced and each oral hearing conducted as though it concerned an isolated development – without considering the downstream impact of filtering more traffic into urban centres or generating more car-based sprawl across a wider catchment area….

There is an almost uniform prejudicial assumption that road vehicle numbers must be catered for without any consideration of the knock-on effect of increased emission of greenhouse gases and particle pollutants, congestion generation, and consumption of land and resources; or consideration of more efficient rail and other public transport based strategies….

– from An Taisce Annual Report 2005

government just can’t plan roads at all!!!
they wont finish the N7 i think because they are at the moment spending a lot of money on the existing road , noticably in laois to roscrea , plus they don’t want dig up the nenagh bypasss
which was OUTDATED before it was built !!!!!!
i can’t understand why they can’t just DO the N7 once and for all its 1 of the shortest distance road between two cities.
kerry and clare traffic have to via the N7 to go directy to Dublin
BY THE WAY NOTHIN CULLEN !!!!1 BUT THAT ROAD ONLY WENT AHEAD BECAUSE THATS WHERE HIS CONSTITUNCY IS HAHAH !!!!!
now theres some realisation of why the N9 is going ahead. up to a year ago the plan from Dublin to waterford was nearly scrapped . oh well limerick loses out again!!!!!!!1

spellin , i dont check it ……. i meant nothin against minister cullen

@dave123 wrote:

BY THE WAY NOTHIN CULLEN !!!!1 BUT THAT ROAD ONLY WENT AHEAD BECAUSE THATS WHERE HIS CONSTITUNCY IS HAHAH !!!!!
now theres some realisation of why the N9 is going ahead. up to a year ago the plan from Dublin to waterford was nearly scrapped . oh well limerick loses out again!!!!!!!1

Welcome to the country of County jerseys 😀

does anyone know why can’t they build a flyover at newlands cross N7??
the government have the money to buy private aircraft to beat the traffic, so why can’t they get rid of serious traffic blackspots ?
when naas road is finshed it will funnel into the cross and cause more delays to the already snarled cross!

why can’t they build a flyover at newlands cross N7

http://www.sdublincoco.ie/index.aspx?pageid=22&deptid=12&dpageid=355

Volume 5 part 2 has diagrams. The N7 starts at its junction with the M50; the upgrade will provide freeflow links for N7 eastbound to M50 northbound and southbound, and for M50 southbound to N7 westbound. M50 northbound to N7 westbound will have traffic lights as the Luas crosses at grade and it uses part of the existing roundabout. Access to the Luas park and ride will be grade-seperated.

Just noting on that link – why are public hearings always held in the Gresham?!

the old Naas road adjacent to the newlands cross to M50 section could be paved away for a proper dual road with flyovers
i know ther are buildings there but most are derelict and to close to the existing road.
the old naas road is like a country back lane in the middle of know where! as regards to the luas park and ride jucntion should have been a flyover

Money ran out , what a surprise,
sure the Dail are on public holidays so i will say nothin more. there are on helicoptors so they won;t have to worry about the rush either.

god bless em!

😮 !

Planners reject road plan for first time
An Bord Pleanála makes landmark ruling on proposed inner relief road for Kildare town
Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

An Bord Pleanála has refused planning permission for a proposed inner relief route in Athy, Co Kildare, the first time that the board has rejected any road scheme that came before it.

The 1km route, first proposed in 1975, would run to the south of Duke and Leinster streets from a new roundabout west of the railway bridge on the Dublin road to another new roundabout on the Kilkenny road.

It would have included a new bridge over the Grand Canal and another over the River Barrow. Objectors argued that the route would run right past the rear of Athy’s courthouse – a protected structure – skirting the main square before rising to cross the river. In its decision to refuse permission, An Bord Pleanála said it considered that the proposed route “would fail both as a street and as a relief road because it would continue to bring traffic, including heavy commercial vehicles, through the town centre”.

The board noted, in particular, that the current Athy Development Plan included a proposed southern bypass, which would provide a new crossing of the River Barrow some 500 metres to the south of the inner relief route, but without any need to bridge the Grand Canal.

It said this bypass “offers opportunities for providing linkages between the growing eastern, southern and western suburbs of the town, while leaving the townscape of its historic core intact”, whereas the inner relief route would have “significant adverse effects”.

Spelling these out, the board said the proposed road would materially and adversely affect the character of the town centre of Athy and would detract from its townscape qualities by reason of visual intrusion, noise and general disturbance from traffic.

In reaching this conclusion, the board said it had regard to the composition of protected structures and other buildings of importance in the medieval core of Athy, to existing historic street patterns in the area and to their relationship to the River Barrow.

It considered that the introduction of vehicular traffic, including heavy commercial vehicles, into this “sensitive urban environment” and interference with the pattern of urban spaces would be “contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.

The board also ruled that the environmental impact statement (EIS) “is deficient in not adequately addressing the alternatives to this inner relief route in the context of present land use patterns, traffic movements, road developments and environmental constraints”.

Though Dom Hegarty, the inspector who conducted the public inquiry last March, recommended approval, the board said “the totality of the injurious effects on the town of Athy would be unacceptable in the context of proper planning and sustainable development”.

An Taisce welcomed An Bord Pleanála’s decision, saying it was a vindication of its role as a prescribed body under the Planning Acts.

“Kildare County Council weren’t even going to do an EIS until we referred the matter to the board, which directed that it be done,” it added.

Mr Ian Lumley, the trust’s heritage officer, said the case raised questions about the competence of inspectors holding road hearings in relation to how the EU directive on environmental impact assessment is applied, particularly the requirement to consider alternatives.

“More often than not, these inspectors are retired engineers from local authorities or the Department of the Environment, whose thinking on roads seems not to have changed from what was happening in Dublin in the 1980s, when whole streets were being pulled down.”

One of the most vocal opponents of the inner relief route was local solicitor Frank Taffe. He made it clear at the hearing last March that there was no need “to destroy the character of our town” when the alternative of an outer ring road was available.

© The Irish Times

the old Naas road adjacent to the newlands cross to M50 section could be paved away for a proper dual road with flyovers
i know ther are buildings there but most are derelict and to close to the existing road.

The N7 is already eight lanes wide at that point, and since it terminates on the M50 there is a deliberate intention not to provide a freeflowing link to the R110 dual carriageways (yes, there are two) on the other side. Also, to absorb a parallel service road and introduce numerous private accesses to the N7 itself would go completely against the point of the upgrade.

as regards to the luas park and ride jucntion should have been a flyover

It will be. Whether the junction should have been built before the Luas opened rather than three years later is another matter.

i totally dissagree with you saying it is eight lanes by then …………..
if you notice that there is no hard shoulder , a narrow median in the centre and a bus lane on the other side , you might want to check it again!
as with the other lane it is only a filter lane to the M50 . there IS NO EIGHT LANE ROAD IN IRELAND TECHNICALLY,
OH YES O’CONNELL BRIDGE!!!
ITS A TOTAL DISSGRACE THAT ROAD IS F****** NIGHTMARE
the trees are a healthazard as it looks will fall over on cars that use the road

The M1 has an eight lane section between the Airport and the M50 – there are five lanes southbound and three northbound. There’s also a shoulder each side and a wide median. Will that do?

Incidentally, the Naas Road dual carriageway at Bluebell was built in the early 1940s – is it the oldest such road in the state?

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

Incidentally, the Naas Road dual carriageway at Bluebell was built in the early 1940s – is it the oldest such road in the state?

Foxrock dualer – late 30’s I think; from church to the next jcn nth at Whites cross

That early?
Suppose we tend to associate dual-carriageways with motorways, which didn’t come about till the 50s in the UK anyway…

Well considering that we didnt get our first motorway till 1983,motorways are still a bit of a novelty in Ireland,at the moment Dublin,Meath,Kildare,Louth,laois and wicklow(barely) are the only counties with motorways,it took us a good while to find our way,it is only recently after a couple of high profile accidents that median barriers were fitted,these have been in place in europe since the 60s.Another problem with our motorways is the signage,its terrible!, small,flimsy signs are no good,there is always a total lack of overhead gantry signing,even at important junctions,i know they are being installed on the M50 but i would like to see them rolled out on all motorways and important dual carriageways. I think with the naas road,we would be happy with full grade separation from Naas to the M50,its disappointing that it isnt going to be designated as a motorway, just a another example of inconsistencies in the road network,at the moment its to be dc from the M50 to naas,motorway from Naas to Borris in Ossory and dc from there to Limerick,Limerick to Nenagh was supposed to have been a motorway but that seems to have been quietly shelved. Then again the Limerick ring road is a dual carriageway aswell, why not make the whole bloody route a motorway!,the ridiculous thing is that the roads being built are of motorway standard but are to be designated as dual carriageways,like a lot of things in this country it makes no sense!..

the rathcoole was the first town to be bypassed in the 50s think
Andrew do you drive ?????
did you pass your D lesssoons? no offense but look at the white lines again there ARE filter lanes , the lines clearly show that
redcow to rathcoole N7
palmerstown to liffy vally N4
are official 3 lane roads

they are for turning left off the M1 because there are two intercahnges very close and by the time you get off one your on the next , especially whern you have a lot of traffic using the M1 who wish to get on and off the the motorway!

I do drive. The extra lanes on the M1 are not slip roads, they are weaving lanes. You won’t find many motorways with sections wider than 6 lanes that aren’t for this purpose – in many cases the road is actually divided into multiple carriageways. The interchange on the M50 at Sandyford is an example. When the M50 upgrade is complete it will have weaving lanes between the M1 and the N81, making it an eight-lane highway.

If you drive North of Dublin Airport on the M1 you’ll see that the traffic does not justify any more than two lanes in each direction.

Most certainly – there’s tumbleweed to be seen in places.

how about we call our superficial lanes a 10 lane motorway 10 lanes so we can add all the off ramps slip roads and even the extra lanes that are on the slip road , god we have the widest roads in europe Andrew ,
Andrew we don’t HAVE EIGHT LANES , THERE ARE NOT MAINBOUND LANES FOR TRAFFIC … WE HAVE ONLY OFFICIALLY THREE LANE MOTORWAYS . WEAVING IS LIKE SAYING YOU BUY PORRIDGE WITH ADDED SUGAR IN IT ,

Wow. Maybe you should write to the National Roads Authority and express your concerns about the lack of second and third overtaking lanes on the mainlines of our motorways. The fact is that, M50 aside, all of the motorways in the country have enough lanes in each section for the demand made of those sections – the M1 outside Dublin and the M7 are virtually empty. An upgrade of the M50 to six lanes plus auxiliary lanes is about to start – however, I guess that because the six-lane mainline will only extend from the M1 to the N81 you won’t be happy?

lol i did…… there should be 3 lanes to portloais , when all the limerick ,waterford and cork sections join up, traffic will funnell onto the existing M7 ,and i can see that happining in 15 years time! the naas bypass takes a pretty large amount of traffic when only twenty years ago it went through the town.
i don’t really care how many lanes there or auxillary, weaving worms and girrafes there are ! what is needed is neccessary to carry the amount of traffic for any don’t you think?

@dave123 wrote:

…what is needed is neccessary to carry the amount of traffic for any don’t you think?

Motorways generate traffic [as well as absorbing some of it].

Well you will not find a Service Area on any of the new Motorways.

@Richards wrote:

Well you will not find a Service Area on any of the new Motorways.

Yeah I read something about that this morning. Seemingly the National Roads authority are against it and thus have not provided any planning permission. I agree in principle as it will mean that people can divert in local towns and villages for fuel but having nearly ran out of fuel on the N7 myself I am not so sure.

there should be 3 lanes to portloais

Why? Just because it would look nice and impressive? Since the Monstereven bypass, I’ve always been able to drive at whatever speed I want once past the current roadworks at the Dublin end. On off peak times, I’ve driven miles without encountering another vehicle on that stretch. There are serious bottlenecks on roads all over the country and you’re talking about spending maybe a billion quid on upgrading a road that probably isn’t even operating at half capacity at the moment?

Despite the hype, we are still a SMALL country with ONE moderately sized city and a couple of other small cities and towns. Building an eight lane (three driving plus a pair of the ubiquitious and stupidly wasteful hard shoulder lanes) motorway would constitute a monumental vanity project.

The NRA are constructing vanity projects all over the country with little reference to cost/benefit analysis (they’ve only recently hired a senior accountant to examine the minutae of PPP contracts, ffs). Sometimes this sort of building seems to me to reflect a purile national lack of self-confidence; we need trophy overspecified roads all over the country in order to PROVE that we’re now a proper country and not some mickey mouse backwater. Any rational outsider would look at a motorway which carries an average of less than 500 vehicles a hour and ask “what the fuck?”. Missallocation of resources (i.e. pouring billions into unneeded road capacity) is as damaging to an economy as is a lack of infrastructure.

At the moment 3 lanes to portlaoise arent justified, but in 10 to 15 years they may well be, judging by the huge growth in car ownership in the last 15 years, remember most of the M1 is future proofed for many years to come, with wide central medians to add a third lane if needed,just like the M11. I think the only long distance motorways we need in this country are Dublin to Cork, Dublin to Limerick and Dublin to Galway, obviously some sections of these routes (Cashel to Portlaoise, Nenagh to Portlaoise and probably Ballinasloe to Athlone) dont yet have the traffic levels to justify a motorway but in the interests of continuity they should be included in the motorway network, it would also increase the accesability of these areas,constant varying types of road quality is dangerous ,(i.e. motorway followed by a stretch of single carriageway and then followed by another stretch of motorway). In fairness it makes sense for the 3 major regional cities to have motorway access t the capital!.

This ‘continuity of design’ arguement is one being increasingly spouted in this country of late, based on safety concerns. Has this been proven internationally?

Are varying types of high standard road not compatible in forming a road network?

yes i agree highways generates and attracts trafic but it takes a lot of traffic not just to adjacent roads but the surrounding back roads and hinterlands also , for example people who wish to travel from Dublin to tullamore would go through the bogs ( funny saying that) or go the N4 or more commonly by portarlington, now a lot of traffic would take the M7 by monastrerevin and and take a lot of traffic off the country standard roads. which will improve safety also.
people from north clare who would use the N6 to Dublin would use THE M7/N7 because of the high standard road and being quicker as there are less towns to go through, but there are just two examples straight from the top of my head out of loads of other scenerios…

There is no real necessity for three-lane roads anywhere except in the immediate hinterland of Dublin ie the M50.
However, we should continue to develop roads – as we are doing – with the third lane accounted for in the central median (for future growth).
Everybody is complaining about the M50 needing to be upgraded to three lanes already. But imagine if the space hadn’t even been put there – what we would have done then.

if we didnt have a M50 life in ireland wuold very different , think about it,
anyway it needs more than three kanes too

It doesn’t need more than three lanes – three lanes and grade separated junctions would suffice.
After that, the next solution is a second ring road between six and ten miles further out.
Trying to make the M50 into the largest road in the world is not going to miraculously cure capacity issues on the old Naas Road, the Navan Road, Drumcondra, Finglas, Dundrum etc.
Stopping non-Dublin traffic and circling Dublin traffic getting close to the city centre has to be the aim in future.

you mentioned the largest road , it does need extra lanes , ehen it goes over 55,000 is the limit for two lanes , when it goes over 100,000 it needs to be 3+ look at the m25 grade seperate jct. 150,000 vehicles and struggling to cope with 3 some place 4 lanes. the M50 is a bloody cark park !!!!! where have you been latley?

Dave, gridlock on the M50 is symptomatic of much greater infrastructure failings. Even if you have four lanes worth of traffic on the M50 – it all still has to get on and off somewhere.
The problem (both now and into the future) will always be cars leaving the ring road
The vast majority of the current tailbacks are caused by cars trying to exit the M50 and waiting on traffic lights to allow them through a roundabout. Think the Red Cow, Blanchardstown, Lucan intersections.
While half the traffic might be going away from Dublin into a motorway, the other half is going into residential areas inside the city, where upgrading the roads is not an option.
An eight-lane M50 is about as sustainable a suggestion as paving over the Liffey and the canals.
Comparisons between Dublin and London just don’t make any sense either.
There are more people living inside the M25 than there are on this entire island.
It’s four lanes wide in part and still doesn’t work – what does that tell you? That endlessly widening ring roads doesn’t fix anything. They just get full again.

i know all that ( thanks for explaining it anyway)
im not comparing the road i was just mentioning the traffic flow on the M25 with mostly “free flow” interchanges ( ive been on it myself ) and still suffers from traffic dues to sheer volume and the amount of constant traffic which also slows traffic down to a halt. when you have any large volume of traffic and any car that slows down, even by as much as 1 mile an hour or a ssudden brake , will effect traffic the whole way (domino effect ) down the highway , and cause tailbacks.
so my point is even with your scenrio of a two lane motorway (m50) with free flow interchanges , it will still be a cark park
Thr Nra said even with 3 lanes 15 years timwe with will still overtake capacity levels

its great news to tell me that it will not solve our traffic probs , frankly i never said it would!

Whatya think of this? – from our Minister for Transport:

Minister hits out at motorway protesters
30/06/2005 – 16:24:38

People who take court actions against state infrastructural projects are stealing from their fellow taxpayers, a Government minister claimed today.

Transport chief Martin Cullen launched a stinging attack on those who mount legal challenges to block major road projects as he opened the final sectin of the much delayed M50 motorway around Dublin.

A number of proposed projects have been delayed by court proceedings taken by conservationists and historians because of their proximity to sensitive sites such as the Hill of Tara and Carrickmines Castle.

But Mr Cullen said campaigners should accept the decision of the planning authorities and stop resorting to courtroom battles.

“When independent assessments are made and projects are given the green light, I am not accepting of people then using the court systems to delay, delay and cost the state a fortune,” he said.

“My point is they are robbing money out of the taxpayers’ pockets of this country unfairly.

“This is a democracy, when the decisions are taken by fair institutions and different bodies, we should accept them.”

Mr Cullen said only a small number of people opposed most projects.

“We have a highly independent, transparent statutory process in this country where all of these projects go to, everybody gets a fair hearing, everybody gets a chance to make their point,” he said.
This bit is bollocks for a start ↑

“When the decisions are taken, they should be accepted.

“The vast majority of the people on all of these projects are fully behind them, it is time that the very few, and it is the very few, causing massive hold-ups and robbing money out of taxpayers’ pockets in this country that could be well invested in other transport areas or indeed, many other areas of the economy, and it is time that it stopped.”

Mr Cullen said a democracy was about going through the proper processes and having a majority coming to a conclusion.

“Abuse of democracy is what goes on beyond that with people using every element of the court system to block up and freeze up and stop investment in this country,” he told RTE radio.

“I won’t stand for it and it’s time that this sort of carry-on was stopped.”

He was positively apoplectic on the News at One today, an extraordinary performance.
Of course I’d no choice but to listen to what the Liveliners had to say, and it was quite hilarious with Joe trying to reign them all in given the previous ‘incident’ with Cullen 😀 – worth a listen…

He certainly ain’t making any efforts to improve his relationship with conservationists/environmentalists etc.

It’s impossible to argue the merits of the planning system for infrastructural projects objectively unless one is involved in them – though you can get a decent idea of what’s going on 🙂

Why is the concept of the system being transparent & democratic

bollocks

?

🙂

Sorry about the language, but sometimes this pathetic current government would bring it out in you.

It was the “highly independent” bit I was refering to: The planning applications, oral hearings, planning / archaeology reports and decisions for the roads end of transport infrastructure are all a big charade; as is well known the last dozen or so major roads projects were simply rubber-stamped by the otherwise highly independent An Bord Pleanala.

Purely for laughs

I think enough is enough with these stubburn green treaty people, and pagans and fanactical historians , I can’t remember the proper names for those people who halt all the new roads ( the kinda people who slept on the N11 going through the glens), and complain everytime there is someting needed to keep our Country Moving???

Would they ever live go live in igloo in Lappland or and smoke dope beside a fire where there are no roads and treatment plants , motorways and even no sight of the M50 and M3! better stil they couuld live in harmony in the North pole . Meanwhile back to Motorway thread…..

if anything id blame the NRA for bad planning and growing money trees to waste time and the money to build infastructural projects, not the Government!

Seems to me he alleges that specific people are guilty of robbing – That is a charge that I cant imaging being upheld in any court of law…

Either way that statement leaves Mr Cullen open to being sued for defamation. Although he dosn’t mention individual names of the alleged robbers, he doesn’t need to

” If just one person gives credible evidence that he recognised the complainant by the description or image, that is enough to ground a defamation action.”

dave123-

To draw parallels between the protestors in the Glen and those attempting to bring a measure of sense to the M3 debate is unfair and naive. Also, every campaign will have an extremist element, on both sides. There are many people who disagree with the M3 route who would never wish to be associated with dope smoking Lapplanders, just as there are many people who are in favour of “keep[ing] our Country Moving” who would not wish to be associated with shrill, sweepingly generalised pronouncements written in often unintelligible text-speak.

Graham-

“Why is the concept of the system being transparent & democratic [bollocks]”- for starters, there’s the 20 euro fee for observations, which might seem small to most people but which is a prohibitive hurdle for many people directly affected by major planning schemes.

Unfortunately, defamation involves proving that your name was lowered in the minds of right-thinking people.
And most right-thinking people believe that the so-called Carrickminders and the English dirtbirds who occupied the trees around the Glen of the Downs are about the lowest form of pondlife in the country.

There is no question that the conservation movement was done no favours by litigants in relation to either the Glen of the Downs or Carrickmines, in the case of the Glen there were essentially three routes, Route A destroy Bray Head, Route B chosen or Route C destroy the Sugarloaf. It was the correct decision to my mind. In relation to Carrickmines Castle it was a national monument and the roundabout could have been moved by 100m it probably should have been but it was a national monument as opposed to a national treasure, in this case I was in two minds as to whether a road feature setting an undesireable precendent should have been pushed through as this time they had an option unlike the Glen.

Regarding Tara there were a number of routes open to the NRA and there was even the route of building a combined N2/N3 route as a six lane highway to provide a high capacity spine that could have been split a few miles north of the M50 to dilute the load hitting this clogged up orbital route.

To my mind there is significant doubt as to the correctness of the currnet administrations iron will to push this through against the advice of the Director of the National Museum of Ireland who is in a unique position to comment as to the importance of the Tara-Skryne area, there has also been concern expressed by the National Trusts of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales or looking at it another way the principal heritage bodies from all the different Celtic Cultural Blocks.

The one peice of completely new information I wish to include at this time is that the proposed rail extension to Pace cannot be opened until this innappropriately routed road is completed. The reason being is that the Pace terminus can only be accessed from the M3 and only from a point beyond where the toll has been paid coming from Navan. I am not stating this myself but a very senior rail observer is of the opinion that this route has been specifically designed to benefit a toll operator. It will not be possible to use the Meath rail line without paying a toll to the operator of the M3.

I suggest that it is in fact the Commuters of Meath that are being taken by this current administration.

The strategy of delaying things in the courts is the right one in this case. That way there is a good chance of a different government coming to power and preserving the valley.

I would hope that it wouldn’t take that long, I can confirm that it would be entirely possible to run a limited number of no change trains from Navan to Dublin Connolly within 12 months taking 70-73 minutes during peak hours the slots exist in the Iarnrod Eireann timetable at present. This will shortly be confirmed by Platform 11 and will be followed by the Navan Rail Campaign.

@ctesiphon wrote:

dave123-

To draw parallels between the protestors in the Glen and those attempting to bring a measure of sense to the M3 debate is unfair and naive. Also, every campaign will have an extremist element, on both sides. There are many people who disagree with the M3 route who would never wish to be associated with dope smoking Lapplanders, just as there are many people who are in favour of “keep[ing] our Country Moving” who would not wish to be associated with shrill, sweepingly generalised pronouncements written in often unintelligible text-speak.

Graham-

“Why is the concept of the system being transparent & democratic [bollocks]”- for starters, there’s the 20 euro fee for observations, which might seem small to most people but which is a prohibitive hurdle for many people directly affected by major planning schemes.

LOL…….
please don’t get me going on the m3 , WHEN THERE IS NO m3 ….
the hill of tara is wow .
but its not affecting it ….reallly

its further than the existing , im meam for F*** sakes there are ring forts everywhere !
the hill of Tara is the “Wow” one ………
There are many reasons for the Nra chose this route as their are thousands of ancient site in the area

Dnshaughlin will have a heart bypass!

in my opinion i don’t think its the hill of tara that is the real problem , its just an obvious exuse to use this as way to stop the road going ahead . every road we build is been objected
and my point we need to get on with it and save our history at the same time , (which is been done to a small extent) its people been greedy and trying to rob taxpayers money ? is there any copon here! and land phobia,
it utter nonsense……

there is a motorway near stonhenge too…
anyway god only know what the next reaction is
im looking to the future on beyond!!!!
im imagining if i could drive on a motorway from Dublin straight to limerick pleasantly right now. but i have to go to busa a rasa , damn.

😮 LOL… IM CRAICIN UP ! with the pic you sent thomond park….

Dunshaughlin can have a bypass anyway and if the route were sufficiently routed east of this site of World importance dunshaughlin probably wouldn’t need a by-pass in the first place.

The more I think of the individual blunders in this scheme the more I question the validity of tenure of the vast majority of senior NRA staff.

Lets face it Cullens latest tirade has little to do with anything other than providing a smokescreen away from the massive cost over-runs within the NRA programme.

Taxpayers have been let down on a huge scale in relation to public projects such as e-voting, the national aquatic centre, aborted Breetie Bowl, Luas, Cork Airport terminal the list is endless.

@Thomond Park wrote:

Dunshaughlin can have a bypass anyway and if the route were sufficiently routed east of this site of World importance dunshaughlin probably wouldn’t need a by-pass in the first place.

The more I think of the individual blunders in this scheme the more I question the validity of tenure of the vast majority of senior NRA staff.

Lets face it Cullens latest tirade has little to do with anything other than providing a smokescreen away from the massive cost over-runs within the NRA programme.

Taxpayers have been let down on a huge scale in relation to public projects such as e-voting, the national aquatic centre, aborted Breetie Bowl, Luas, Cork Airport terminal the list is endless.

how that man is still a minister i will never know. i think in retrospect the pds have sighed a quiet breath of relief. that man has cost the state a treasure and so blatantly and unapologetically too,

Cullen even got the go ahead for the waterford dublin dual carragway is really not a priororthy! , for F*** sake .
its so infurriating and annoying! that road was the last major inter urban route to be considered never mind to be constructed , it will be started early next year ! its amaaxing that its going ahead , he just looks like a hypercrite ( if i cud even think of a name to describe him ) ahah devious……

Even way back in 1999 up till last year there were fears that it would have been shelved.

only 450 cars a day travel between waterford and Dublin a day including fat head cullen , sorry i cudnt help it , i apologies.
whereas towns like adare , abbeyleix , mountrath , ballinasloe, gorey are on major routes and are in seriois need of relief of traffic , none to mention on the N9 maybe carlow but is locally generated and commuter traffic heding to dublin.

@dave123 wrote:

LOL…….
please don’t get me going on the m3.

Wouldn’t dream of it.

Fully agreed about the €20 planning charge, utterly farcical – but when is it being ditched?
We were told almost as soon as it came in that Europe would rightly so come down on top of us, and I recall seeing Mammy O’Rourke make some statement on the issue in the Seanad on Oireachtas Report 🙂 at the time…can’t remember what it was…

I agree about the fee and this situation can be further compounded by applicants engaging in deliberate application splitting, I have seen cases where four seperate members of the same family have applied for identical designs drawn up (often badly) by the same designer (usually not an architect) and submitted on the same day where all of the applications relate to a single land folio.

I can also understand Dave123’s frustration that the Mid-West/South West is being denied a dual carriageway whilst two commuter motorways/dual carriageways are being built roughly 5 miles apart on roughly parallel alignments.

Originally posted by dave 123

there is a motorway near stonhenge too…

And now the local authority realises the mistake that they have made and they are covering it over at huge expense

But why didn’t the NRA go a mile or so west of the hill?I’m sure that they could invisage that there would be objections and that that would take up huge amounts of money and time.So they should have bypassed the trouble by bypassing the hill. They’re only sailing into the storm.

Lol

funny stuff you said about the hill of tara ,

geographicaly its a half a mile further west of the eicting N3 and the three is anothr a half mile or so,

so techically it is over a mile from the hill of tara….

anyway when is the M7 going ahead from Nenagh to limerick , its becoming very frustrating!! it was meant to be finished in 2005 , not 2205

the government had the nerve to put their bald heads in the sand and let other roads go ahead when some of them were on the drawing board! at the time the road should be well in the construction phase, although it would not bother me the slightest if any new road was needed and gt the go-aheas
but this common sense here,
that road has no reason to be waiting go ahead , its should have started in 2003? sorry that date was two years ago ?the environmental impact statments and CPO was done twicedone (problay cost the sane as building a few kilometres of motorway , while The NRA were making paper airplanes.
its quite a waste of money and time.

its all Bolox of this scountry (i do love our country but the people who run it totally dislike)when it comes to stickning with a plan through and bloody do the damn thing right ,
anybody can name 52 things from the top of your head that the state had built

natioal AQuatic centre, port tunnel
the M(barresing)50 , Dublin Airport,
has anyone travleed between porlaois and mountrath ? supposed to a main artial orute in the country or better still the E20! Erea square , are main roads are still full of otholes , they weventually build the state of the art road, two weeks later the diggers are bck to fit a tootbrush size pipe under it and then after that eircom come in , oh yeah the gas pipline that will go arounfd the ring of kerry and go by donegal to Dublin.
font plan just build on top of… lol
this is a good way of letting out steam.

the list goes on and on…..

my spelling isnt to bad, its the very same when your speaking to someone , when you get so annoyed about someting , as it comes out like 300 words evey minute

Eye no wat u meen,

Tip for dave 123: (nxt. pg)

@dave123 wrote:

my spelling isnt to bad, its the very same when your speaking to someone , when you get so annoyed about someting , as it comes out like 300 words evey minute

Try typing your post in Word, before pasting into Archiseek. That way you’ll get a red line under a misspelling, and a green line under a sentence when you’re not making sense.

Thankfully the M50 upgrade begins on Monday. Imagine what the traffic will be like! Anyway the designs for the the N4 and N7 interchanges look impressive although I do think they could have done the flyover route a bit more. Phase 1 is 4 lanes between both interchanges, 3 regular lanes and one weaving lane including a hard shoulder. Phase one is approximately 8 kms long and will be completed in 2008. Electronic tolling is expected to be introduced on this stretch in the form of overhead gantries upon completion and the freak show that are the toll booths will be removed as part of phase 2.

And Freak-Show it surely is…however,it seems as if the single freak show is going to be replaced by no less than THREE seperate but invisible Stealth Freaks Shows which will run their virtual hands along your inside leg to remove 3 seperate amounts which are presently handed over to the Bearded Lady in the West-Link booth.
Can we please have an on-board Poll as to the amount of members who expect the current €1.80 car toll will be replaced by three 60c ones over the shorter intermediate stretches…?
Paddy Power would be well advised to have a peep at this one…
The central overriding issue here is that National Toll Roads will once again emerge from this sordid little local arrangement with their financial standing guaranteed.
The very existance of the West-Link in its Toll collecting form should be regarded as our very own statue of Saadam Hussein or Nicolae Ceaucescu and if this country ever manages to work up enough interest for a revolution then its here the TV cameras should focus.

The West-Link saga was formulated during the absolute worst era of modern Irish public representation and planning.
It featured a cast list of what were,even then,serious names from the A-list of back slapping hail fellow-well met
political creeps.
Michael Jackson could not have made a better choice for the cast of “Thriller” and perhaps even did manage to fit a few of them in.

This latest West-Link NTR wheeze simply side steps the central issue of admitting to a public stitch-up which has gone on to fabulously enrich a select few commercially minded “Friends of the Party” types and their well placed investment vehicles.

Here again we see NEW charges and NEW methods of collecting them,all of which are ADDITIONAL to what we are paying through Central Taxation and Indirect Taxation which in the relevant period has never been adjusted downwards to balance the ship a little.

We pay Full PRSI up to the cut-off income point then magically lose the entitlement to the services we have already paid for thus bringing private health insurance providers into the fray.
We pay full Motor Tax and Insurance Levies for our cars,yet we now find a requirement to pay-per-Km to use the same roads whose construction we already paid for and whose upkeep we continually fund…

The Irish style of Public Administration is based firmly on the principle of extracting a double payment for as many services as possible.
A cynic might say the first payment is to fund the service,whilst the second is to give the lad a “bit of an oul return on his investment” a principle apparently dear to the heart of the Minister for Finance.

T21 is looming ever larger on the horizon and the burning question should be…..
“Would YOU give these people €34 BILLION to spend on ANYTHING”..???? 😡 😡

Labour criticises NRA toll plan

30 January 2006 09:52
The Labour Party has criticised the decision by the National Roads Authority to toll the entire M50 motorway by 2008.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland, Labour’s Spokesperson on Transport, Roisin Shortall, said it was a way of squeezing money out of motorists.

Ms Shortall said the Government is making the right decision by buying out the licence to operate the M50 by National Toll Roads, but introducing tolls with charges based on the amount of the route used by the motorist will not work.

from RTE

I posted this on the Westlink thread, but on mature reflection, it may have been more appropriate to have done so here.

In comparison to other EU states, however, perhaps Ireland is still quite ok . Someone mentioned on the other thread that we are being double-taxed. I give you the example of Austria: you pay your income taxes, you pay for your vignette to use the motorway (EUR 72 per annum) and then if you are really unlucky and have to use a tunnel every day, you very often have to pay for that luxury also (many cost EUR 9 per time – although you can get an annual toll ticket also). On top of all of that, you have additional tolls for trucks. Look at Switzerland – if you are passing through the country and only want to use the motorway network for a minute, then you still have to pay for a full year’s vignette. Mind you, in return you get a real full-scale motorway network with all of the trimmings. I’m not mad about paying tolls myself, but I reckon that if you want to have a motorway network, then you have to put your hands in the old pockets. It ain’t going to come for free.

I totally agree PDLL. Most other countries have tolls and its a great way of getting people out of the car and into public transport.

@Maskhadov wrote:

I totally agree PDLL. Most other countries have tolls and its a great way of getting people out of the car and into public transport.

Ah yes, but you need to actually have a public transport system in the first place!

Getting back to the Westlink,

The fact is that NTR were granted a franchise on a two lane motorway for 39 years and one day from 1989 on a stretch of motorway with 5 junctions with a high probablity that 3 more junctions (northern cross) would be added and a possibility that the Southern cross would be added at a much later date ; the NRA will shortly spend €800m to upgrade the M50 with a huge beneficiary of this being NTR even though they will contribute nothing.

There are two choices on this:

1> CPO the interest in the Westlink held by NTR at the prevailing rates of similar PPP road schemes i.e. Fermoy bypass or Enfield/Kinnegad bypass i.e.adopt an 8% net yield which would give a multiple 12.5 times the net profit on an average of 2004 & 2005

2> Give NTR a new concession further south or two concessions one north say between the N3 & N2 and south between N81 and Ballinteer.

Buying them out on their terms or leaving a barrier at a bridge are not options and at least some action is required

When they were building the M50 they should have put an underground line under the roadway to provide a real public-transport alternative. This could then have had points at which radial spurs could easily have been added to link the orbital underground line with the city centre at a later date. Another missed opportunity – exactly like that at O’Connell Street. It must be too complicated to consider developing two infrastructural projects simultaneously.

Back in 1986 when the M50 was cleared for construction and immediately upon opening in 1989 west Dublin was a very different place with the two sizeable satellites of Tallaght and Blanchardstown and little in between, development around Dublin Airport and Swords was limited and Sandyford was a mid scaled logisitics park. The primary use for the M50 were people from the south avoiding the city centre to reach the airport or north east. Anywhere east of Ballinteer was faster to reach via the city centre. By 2000 the M50 was being described as ‘Dublins main Street’ by both property agents and respected economists alike largely due to the amount of development it spawned by giving access to the National road network.

The fact that it took 11 years to clog up is largely a reflection of the development policies of that period and there is no question that a country as financially indebted as Ireland could never have afforded an underground rail network at that time.

Wisdom dictates that underground rail transport has little if no advantage in areas of this density over road infrastructure wheras in City Centre locations it is King.

Point taken Thomond Park. However, it is also very predicatable that once a ‘ring-road’ like this is built, development along it is almost an inevitability. It says much about the abilities of Ireland’s planning community in the late 1980s that they couldn’t predict this happening.

The problem with the tolling on the entire M50 is that central Dublin will never have any congestion charging.

The idea of Congestion Charging and a fully tolled ring road would be politically impossible, My view is that the M50 should be free of charge and some kind of congestion or demand management should be put in place between the canals. The focus of the planners in Dublin should be to promote public transport and push traffic on to the M50.

For a laugh

Nerdy or what????

Needless to say there is NO Irish contribution………………………..

http://www.msatrivia.co.uk/

Have any service stations been planned for Ireland’s ‘motorway network’? Do any exist? Are any breakdown laybys planned? Do any exist?

@Richards wrote:

The problem with the tolling on the entire M50 is that central Dublin will never have any congestion charging.

The idea of Congestion Charging and a fully tolled ring road would be politically impossible, My view is that the M50 should be free of charge and some kind of congestion or demand management should be put in place between the canals. The focus of the planners in Dublin should be to promote public transport and push traffic on to the M50.

That is a fair analysis of the current political situation;

I however disagree with your conclusion that congestion pricing should be introduced for Central Dublin for the following reasons:

1> A free M50 would lead to Dublin losing most of its hinterland to South Dublin/Fingal as human behaviour would suggest that it is unlikely that someone from Carlow will in the absence of a regular train service drive to a non-existant park n ride site and complete the journey to the City Centre when centres such as Dundrum/Blanchardstown have parking at similar rates.

2> Dublin City Planners have no control over the provision of Public Transport Capital Spending unlike Cities in Germany therefore whilst the roads department can levy a charge the City Council have no remit to spend the money on the purpose for which it was intended.

3> A free M50 would simply attract more traffic rendering the €800m upgrade redundant.

Politically I doubt that beyond tinkering with the operation/location of toll facilities that much will happen; what could be worth looking at is that regular users of the bridge could buy ‘annual road/toll tax’ with a chip inserted in to the tax disc that would facilitate a dedicated lane. The origin of sales by district would give great insight into settlement patterns in the Dublin hinterland.

@PDLL wrote:

Have any service stations been planned for Ireland’s ‘motorway network’? Do any exist? Are any breakdown laybys planned? Do any exist?

As far as I know some sort of study or report was to be made up for the provision of a motorway service station somewhere on the M1 although I thought it was against offical NRA policy to provide service stations.

They’ve changed their mind on that, see last week’s motoring supplement in The Irish Times

Maybe I am just thick, but why would a body – the NRA – with a mandate to build a motorway network in Ireland have an official policy not to build motorway service stations. I know Ireland isn’t the biggest country in the world, but surely such service stations play a crucial role in terms of road safety (providing a place for drivers to rest and recuperate along with a place to repair or check their vehicles and/or load). It seems that to omit them as a matter of official policy is verging on the criminally negligent. Mind you, criminal negligence has been the defining characteristic of Irish road planning since the car was invented so why change now. Again – we will have a mickey-mouse job. I feel sorry for a druck driver who has just driven off the ferry from france and who is delivering a load of Dutch tulips to Cork – I guess he will just have to drive on. No rest for the wicked or those who drive. What did it say in the Irish Times motoring supplement?

Here’s the piece from the IT, verbatim.

The National Roads Authority has lifted its objection to providing service stations along motorways, and has devised a new strategy that will see suitable sites for the facilities included in the designs for all new major roads.

The new strategy, seen by The Irish Times, states that it is now the “policy of the NRA that service areas should be provided at intervals of approximately 50 to 60 kms, where feasible, for motorway or high-quality dual carriageway.”

Service areas will also be developed alongside existing motorway or at interchanges with the NRA identifying and developing appropriate sites before contracting them out to a private operator. The State agency has also specified the standards that all motorway service stations must meet.

According to the strategy, service station operators must provide food for a minimum of 16 hours a day and fuel and toilet facilities around the clock. The site must also have extensive parking spaces and a Garda enforcement area.

The NRA also said it will provide rest areas, including toilets, parking and picnic facilities every 25 to 30 kms where possible, the majority of which will be accessed directly from the motorway.

The NRA will provide a system of signs on motorways telling motorists of these new facilities. But the authority has warned that if an operator allows standards to fall the signs for that service station will be removed.

The new strategy follows a review of the NRA policy on service stations last summer that was called for by the Minister for Transport Martin Cullen.

He sought the review after the NRA’s objection to service stations along motorways attracted criticism from motorists and hauliers. Road users complained the policy would force them to travel long distances from the motorway into small towns and villages for fuel and toilet facilities.

Mr Cullen objected to the NRA opposition to service stations on motorways, contained in its 2004 annual report, saying the benefits of bypassing smaller towns would be lost if traffic was forced back on to them in search of services.

The new strategy is an attempt to combine the needs of motorists with the NRA’s aim of trying to restrict access to major roads for safety reasons.

By law, only the NRA and local authorities can bring forward a development proposal relating to a motorway to An Bord Pleanála, meaning that service stations along new motorways will be tightly controlled. The NRA said a proliferation of service areas could be a safety risk.

NRA stated in its strategy that it would also try to restrict access to dual carriageway sections where the speed limit is 50 to 60 km, rather than sections where the speed limit is higher.

Before being approved, the authority says a service area plan must clearly show it “would not significantly affect the safety of road users and the operational efficiency of the roadway concerned.”

As part of its review the NRA examined international practice for positioning service stations. It found that in recent years some countries had concentrated these facilities at interchanges.

According to the NRA, such an approach led to significant cost savings as purpose-built slip roads did not have to be supplied. Service stations at interchanges can also serve traffic from both directions.

In Britain approximately half of the service areas are at interchanges, with the remainder at the side of motorways. Contracts to operate service stations will be awarded on the basis of competitive tenders run by the NRA. The NRA has over 500 kms of new motorway or dual carriageway under construction this year.

Here’s the strategy from the horse’s mouth. Currently available from the NRA home page.

@jmkennedyie wrote:

Here’s the strategy from the horse’s mouth. Currently available from the NRA home page.

http://www.nra.ie/PublicationsResources/DownloadableDocumentation/NRAPolicyDocuments/file,2057,en.pdf

Just spun through some of the updates on the NRA website …

I notice that the appendix to press release about activity in 06 etc. mentions that Naas Road upgrade will be complete by Q2 06!!! (I understand that the traffic lights at Kill and Johnstown should be history in a couple of weeks when the new flyovers are opened up).

Also, NRA are inviting comments/feedback from folks on following draft documents:

• Bats & National Road Schemes
• Landscape Treatments & National Road Schemes

Bat doc contains interesting picture of bat house in Clare (looks like regular cottage), and concept of Green bridges (while normal bridges have railings/walls, green bridges also have trees/hedge growing on the bridge beside the railings).
Landscape doc is quite extensive – 127 pages – focuses on native species, identifies guidelines for various parts of the road (median, verge, boundaries, etc.). Mentioned that motorway art can have (positive) safety implications. Eg. art on Kildare bypass was designed to be visible at night to help keep motorists interested (i.e. awake).

(BTW, I’ve tried underlining the URL’s this time to make em a bit more obvious…seems a bit easier to read)

NTR Chairman before Oireachtas committee

02 February 2006 15:01
The Chairman of the firm operating the M50 tollbridge has said the National Roads Authority has not spoken to him about any plan to accommodate trucks that will be obliged to use the M50 when the Port Tunnel opens later this year.

Jim Barry of National Toll Roads has been speaking to the Oireachtas Committee of Public Accounts.

He said the M50 was operating at full capacity at the moment, even before the 2,000 extra heavy goods vehicles begin to use it.

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Mr Barry reiterated that the tollbridge was not the cause of congestion on the M50.

The NTR chairman offered to show committee members by helicopter the traffic patterns on the M50. He said these indicated that the gridlock was caused by the roads feeding on to the motorway.

He estimated that the current cost of buying out the toll franchise would be €600 million.

Mr Barry also disclosed that even after the Government bought it out, it would still have to negotiate with his company when it comes to upgrading the 3km section of the M50 for which NTR has the concession, even though the stretch is ultimately owned by the State.

The revelation prompted Fianna Fáil Deputy Sean Fleming to observe ‘shame on whoever negotiated that deal’.

Fred Barry of the National Roads Authority denied there had been any lack of urgency in his body’s negotiations with the tollbridge operators.

However, he told the committee that its legal advice was that the contract with NTR was so vague that it did not provide any legal remedies to the roads authority if it wished to sue over the level of service being provided by the company.

He said the NRA had not sent threatening legal letters over the service provided by NTR, because there would not have been any point.

Should the question not be did CJ do it with Des Traynor or did Des do it with Pee

There have been a number of estimates of the cost of the buy out in the press from €100m to €1b, so here is the first public offer from the owner, €600m. As the concession has 15 years to run, that’s equivalent to €40m per year.

NTR has said that is is making about 35 cent operating profit on the 1.80 toll with 1 euro going to the state and the other 45 cent spent on costs. 35 cent on 100,000 cars a day for a year gives just 12.8 million profit. So something doesn’t add up.

In future years, the extra capacity on the M50 could deliver a 50% increase in traffic to 150,000 cars a day, but even then, NTR should be happy with about €250-300m

The concession requires NTR to maintain the N3-N4 section of motorway in return for collecting tolls but that’s just a cost so NTR is hardly going to demand that they be allowed to continue running that section of road. I guess I am missing something here.

The Flood tribunal suggested Liam Lawlor had been paid 74,000 for a consultancy report for NTR in the early 1990s. This seems such a small amount of money compared to the cost to the state of an over-generous contract. Maybe future major contracts could be amended to allow for termination in the case where undeclared payments were found to have been made to officials by the winning bidder.

At 100,000 cars per day €132,490,278.00

At 150,000 cars per day €198,735,417.10

These are the numbers I was working from:

100,000 cars * .35 profit * 365 days * 15 years = €191,625,000
150,000 cars * .35 profit * 365 days * 15 years = €287,437,500

either way it’s nowhere near €600m

I am sure though that those earnings would probably be further invested by the company which would, subject to the vagaries of the market, also involve a substantial increase in the figures. In effect, they could lose more than the total claculated by simply adding up the toll for each car. On top of that, car ownership will also probably increase which would again increase the amount involved.

Actually, just did a quick calculation on an investment programme for the Vienna stock market, as an example.

Based on historic prices, if you invested 100,000,000 euros in 1991 in the Vienna stock market, you would now be sitting on 391,933,947 euros. It seems reasonable then, that if you invested the amount of 287,000,000 you would certainly get back 600,000,000 euros – if historical prices are anything to go by (which of course they are not).

It seems fair then to conclude that the buy out could be worth something in the region of 600,000,000 as is it safe to assume that they will not be stashing the cash away in their local post office but are also counting on further investment returns.

A euro today is worth more than a guarantee of a euro in a year’s time, due to inflation and lost returns.

This is the concept of Net Present Value used when calculatinvg the value of a company based on projected future income.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/npv.asp

Unless I have misunderstood you, you seem to suggest that possible investment returns are greater when you invest cash later rather than sooner. This would be untrue. NTR would get a better return by investing 287m cash today than investing an average 19m a year for the next 15 years.

I excluded inflation from calculations because the tolls are index-linked.

Im not an economist so I cannot argue the details. The point I was making, however, is logical. Whatever way you invest the 287,000,000 – whether as a lump sum today or as 19m on average every year for 15 years – you will – in all likelihood end up with more than 287,000,000 in 15 years time. If you invest it in the stock exchange at a rate of 8 – 10% interest and if the markets are good, you will probably end up with a figure of 600m or so.

@PDLL wrote:

Actually, just did a quick calculation on an investment programme for the Vienna stock market, as an example.

Agreed but the object of valuation is to find the Net Present Value and not what may or may not happen at a future date; investment is all about timing.

Frank,

I am unsure as to why you have adopted a 15 year term; the correct method is to adopt the unexpired term i.e. the term prior to the route becoming a ‘right of way’ which is 39 years and one day. This will occur in 2029 i.e an unexpired term of 23 years. The figure cannot be calculated on the basis of a multiple of that number but must be discounted to reflect the fact that the value of one euro in 23 years time is not equal to that of today.

Therefore the only realisrtic method of valuation is the Discounted Cash Flow DCF method; adopting the figure that appears to be typical in the market gives the values I displayed in my earlier post.

Even adopting the risk free rate of 4% returns ceteris paribus are €189796152.30

One would hope and expect that the Government would task one of their busy little economists to work out a fair price before just handing over a fist full of dollars or euros.

@Thomond Park wrote:

I am unsure as to why you have adopted a 15 year term]The NRA says the concession expires in 2020 – 15 years from now.
http://www.nra.ie/PublicPrivatePartnership/ProjectTracker/M50SecondWest-LinkBridge/

The figure cannot be calculated on the basis of a multiple of that number but must be discounted to reflect the fact that the value of one euro in 23 years time is not equal to that of today.

Tolls are index linked, so in 15 years they will be charging 1 euro plus 15 years of inflation.This is still worth less than a euro today so long as you can invest risk free above the inflation rate.

That explanation makes a lot of sense

That would give an NPV of €237,551,328.60 allowing for an inflation figure of 2.5% p.a. which is 10 basis points above the Eurozone average

A real Aladdin’s Cave………………………….

http://www.sabre-roads.org.uk/gallery/index.php?cat=24:eek:

Just to ammend your heading. It is not “Motorways in ireland”, it is “Motorways, Dublin and its Hinterland”.
There are no motorways anywhere else in The Irish Republic and never will be and none are planned.

I wouldn’t even call them “Motorways” – more like “sprawl facilitators”

We’re under the false impression that Ireland is getting Motorways to link the big urban centres, but really these roads are just being clogged by commuters living ever deeper into the countryside.

While the roads that will be built to Cork, Limerick and Galway will be motorway standard and will have 120km/h speed limits if the _local_ coucils decide, the Fermoy bypass in Cork will be classified as a motorway. Also, how far away from the city that’s paying for it does a road have to be for it to be visible through the blinkers? How about Laois and Tipperary, where the M7/M8 scheme will be built? Or is it the fact that the motorway classification are on roads between Dublin and other cities, where the traffic levels warrant them, that irks you?

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

While the roads that will be built to Cork, Limerick and Galway will be motorway standard and will have 120km/h speed limits if the _local_ coucils decide, the Fermoy bypass in Cork will be classified as a motorway. Also, how far away from the city that’s paying for it does a road have to be for it to be visible through the blinkers? How about Laois and Tipperary, where the M7/M8 scheme will be built? Or is it the fact that the motorway classification are on roads between Dublin and other cities, where the traffic levels warrant them, that irks you?

And presumably Waterford?

Yes, the N9/N10 scheme will be motorway standard, despite its not being included in the National Road Needs Survey that predated the National Development Plan. Predicted traffic levels on the road won’t reach even the levels required for an at-grade dual carriageway duting its lifetime.

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

Yes, the N9/N10 scheme will be motorway standard, despite its not being included in the National Road Needs Survey that predated the National Development Plan. Predicted traffic levels on the road won’t reach even the levels required for an at-grade dual carriageway duting its lifetime.

Not that I want to start an argument about this, but I have some serious doubts about these predicted traffic volumes. Particularly a survey that came out about a year ago saying that only a small number of vehicles travel from Waterford to Dublin each day. The South East is more densely populated than the West, for example, and the populations served by an M9 and an M6 are quite similar. I estimate that, excluding Kildare, the M6 serves some 280,000 people. The M9, excluding Kildare, would serve some 230,000 people. (The M9 would serve a lower population due to the proximity of the M8 and N11) The 230,000 population served by the M9, however, would be distributed relatively close to the road, whereas the 280,000 population served by the M6 is more sparsely distributed: as far away as Clifden, Westport, etc. So judging sheerly on a population basis, I’m not seeing a better case for a Galway Motorway than a Waterford one.

As for previous surveys of traffic on the N9, it is well known that the N9 is one of the worst national primary routes in the country, and traffic often take alternative routes, such as the N11, and other, smaller roads. I don’t think you can measure traffic on the N9 and make predictions based on that for numbers that would travel on an M9.

Upgrade of M50 now delayed by change in toll policy
From:ireland.com
Friday, 17th February, 2006

The €1 billion project to widen the M50 motorway around Dublin has been delayed because of the Government’s change of policy on tolling, The Irish Times has learned. The contracts for the massive project were on the point of being signed at the end of last month but were withdrawn at the last minute. Stephen Collins and Liam Reid report.

In the light of the Government’s new policy on tolling, the National Roads Authority (NRA) was forced to withdraw the major portion of the project and launch a new tendering process.

Work was due to begin before the end of this year and was scheduled for completion by 2010. It will now be at least 2011 before it is finished.

The new tenders cover 25 kilometres of the M50 which is being widened from a two-lane to a three-lane motorway in each direction. The road will be built as part of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.

Work on a smaller five-kilometre stretch, known as phase one, has just begun and will not be affected by the new tender procedures.

The much longer phase two could now be delayed for up to 18 months, according to informed sources.

A spokesman for the NRA yesterday denied that there would be a large delay caused by the new tendering procedure. He said it had been originally hoped that the second phase of construction would get under way by the end of this year and this might be delayed into early next year.

“A new tender process was required in order to reflect the changed scenario regarding the West Link toll facility,” he said. The NRA placed an advertisement in the Official Journal of the EU on Wednesday seeking tenders for the project just a day before the formal launch of the Government’s Infrastructural Bill which is designed to speed up work on major projects. According to the new tender notice: “The M50 PPP Contract is intended to comprise the design, construction, operation, maintenance and financing of the upgrade of approximately 25 km of the existing 2-lane carriage-way forming part of the M50 motorway to 3-lane standard, the provision of auxiliary lanes and the upgrade of a series of motorway interchange junctions.”

The NRA spokesman said that the abandonment of the original tender process would not leave the State liable to pay any compensation as there had been no contracts signed or any financial undertakings given by the State.

The change in the process arose because of the new tolling policy announced by the Government at the end of January when a decision was taken to remove the controversial West Link toll barrier within the next three years. It will be replaced with a new barrier-free tolling system.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said that the Government will decide on the new tolling arrangements, to be introduced in 2008.

The decision by the Government followed the collapse of talks between the NRA and the bridge’s operator, National Toll Roads (NTR).

Under the plans, the State will buy out the right of NTR to operate a toll plaza on the road, in a compensation package that will be worth at least €500 million and up to €900 million to the company between 2008 and 2020.

From 2008, NTR will have no role in the operation or setting of tolls on the route and will instead receive either a lump sum or an annual payment, based on the amount of traffic using the bridge in 2007.

The West Link toll barrier will be removed by 2008, on completion of the first five-kilometre phase of the M50 upgrade between the Red Cow and M4 junctions on the route. The upgrade is aimed as easing congestion along the route, which will see freeflow junctions and an extra lane in each direction on the road.

The money from the new tolls will be used towards the upgrading of the M50 and the payment of compensation to NTR. An electronic tolling expert has been commissioned to advise on the type of system to be introduced

€500-900m would represent the biggest stroke in Irish History

Anyone hear anything about the possible upgrade of the Cork Watergrasshill road from Dual Carriage way to Motorway between Glanmire and Watergrasshill ?

NTR’s half yearly toll revenues up 7%

April 03, 2006 12:06
NTR, which operates the West Link toll bridge on the M50 motorway around Dublin as well as other road toll plazas, has reported a 7% increase in toll revenue to just under €50m for the 12 months to the end of December 2005.

The number of cars paying to pass through the company’s toll operations – which also include the East Link in Dublin and the Drogheda by-pass on the M1, increased by 4% to just under 48 million vehicles. An average of 130,700 vehicles use the company’s toll bridges every day.
The company said today that use of its Eazy Pass system is up 28% on last year and 40% of peak traffic now uses EazyPass.

The company also announced today that it is to become a leading international developer and operator in the renewable energy and waste recycling markets, where it currently generates 80% of its revenues.

NTR also announced today that it is seeking to list its Irish Broadband division on the Irish Stock Exchange.

In relation to open roads tolling, the company said that talks with the National Roads Authority were ongoing with a veiw to meeting the NRA’s deadline of July 2008.

Frank there are two errors in our previous calculations;

One the article you posted is a year old therefore the unexpired term is 14 years.

Secondly the usage figure relates the bridges so for a calculation a split would be required between both East and Westlink bridges.

Allowing a 50:50% split for the M50 out of all their toll projects a maximum value of €350m can be allowed itself an extremely generous figure given that increases are limited to inflation which is substantially below investment returns.

@Micko wrote:

Anyone hear anything about the possible upgrade of the Cork Watergrasshill road from Dual Carriage way to Motorway between Glanmire and Watergrasshill ?

Haven’t heard anything about that, but did hear that the Ballincollig bypass was to be changed from 100km/h to 120 km/h. NIce to see the Council showing some common sense on speed limits.

@Thomond Park wrote:

Frank there are two errors in our previous calculations]I don’t know on which date the concession expires in 2020. in any case it’s not going to change the figures significantly.

Secondly the usage figure relates the bridges so for a calculation a split would be required between both East and Westlink bridges.

Are you forgetting the M1 Drogheda bridge?

Still way off 500-900 m.

The split I used was based upon the Eastlink having a fraction of Westlink traffic and Drogheda being a little patchy.

The real question on this for me is whether the €50m is gross revenue i.e. including the government slice or is net of this. One facinating detail to come out of this is that all three bridges have a total flow of 130,700 vehicles per day.

If that methodology were to be correct then the calculation would be:

65,000 cars * .35 profit * 365 days * 14.5 years = €120,404,375

I have always found articles such as the above to be little more than ‘cut and paste’ reflections of corporate press releases which generally tend to overstate the income being generated as opposed to mask profits

(with apologies for being so boring)

In financial statements, revenue means gross sales.
Daily traffic on the westlink for first half 2005 averaged 85,000 according to NTR’s latest published numbers.
http://www.ntr.ie/downloads/ntr-roads/25-July-2005-West-Link-First-Half-2005-Traffic-Figures.pdf

Bridge buy-out to net NTR €600m
Tuesday, 20 February 2007 18:33
Transport Minister Martin Cullen has confirmed plans for a buy-out of the West Link toll bridge from the current owner NTR. The deal will be worth more than €600m to NTR, which originally invested IR

So the buyout seems to return an extra 300 million to NTR over their expected revenues. On the other hand, the government was in a difficult position as the benefits of their billion euro upgrade to the road would have been reduced by this single point toll. At least in the future, the tolls can be arranged to discourage commuting and short distance use of the M50 in favour of bypass and non-peak traffic.

Additionally, the government had been under heavy politcial pressure to ‘do something’ from the likes of Shane Ross. What people really want are free roads that always run freely at peak hour.

People only want free roads at peak times because they live in low density housing, work in suburban office campuses and becuase there is no proper public transport to get from a to b. To get from Greystones to City West by public transport involves 3 or 4 vehicles and takes over 2 hours. Whilst one can whiz down the M50 and complete in about 35 minutes by car completely on National roads from the time you hit the M11; such commuting undermines national infrastructure.

Shane Ross has been on his soapbox for a number of years on this and he is right the government should have done something to sort this out a long time ago. However buying the bridge at 2 or 3 times its value is a suspicious transaction given the creation history of the arrangement.

What was not considered was to develop a public transport network prior to sanctioning the M50 upgrade or simply building another road further out that links the N81 to Lucan upgrade to the N3 which would have been cheaper and also could have been tolled at a reasonable level with all the income used to offset the costs of construction without leakage.

Cullen as always has dithered and bought the most expensive option that doesn’t work long term.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

So the buyout seems to return an extra 300 million to NTR over their expected revenues. On the other hand, the government was in a difficult position as the benefits of their billion euro upgrade to the road would have been reduced by this single point toll. At least in the future, the tolls can be arranged to discourage commuting and short distance use of the M50 in favour of bypass and non-peak traffic.

Additionally, the government had been under heavy politcial pressure to ‘do something’ from the likes of Shane Ross. What people really want are free roads that always run freely at peak hour.

Did the great man of ticky-tac mention something about an election this year :confused:

:rolleyes: :p

Was it ever envisaged that the M50 would get as bad as it has? Were the volumes of traffic using it expected, and was the type of traffic predicted?
Particularly the latter question, as whatever about future economic expansion pushing up volumes, the type of traffic using the motorway, largely comprised of short-haul commuters, surely should have been expected given settlement patterns generally don’t change?

From an aesthetic point of view, I find it remarkable how quickly the M50 has matured as a motorway, by virtue of the constant streams of traffic 24/7 clogging up its lanes. The Celtic Tiger sheen has long worn off and it is now more comparable to a 1970s UK motorway. Not having been on certain parts of it in a while, upon revisiting it’s quite marked in places how much it has also degenerated in terms of road surface, bridge cleanliness, railing maintenance, signage and lighting. Even the great N3 interchange, the symbol of 1990s Ireland, has become rather shabby looking, though the greenery all around is pleasantly mature. Some excellent specimen choices were made here too: the shrubs and trees have a delicate wispy quality that stands in marked contrast to the great bulks of concrete all about. One of the few scenic parts of this motorway.

The m50 reached capacity around 2000, a situation not projected to happen until 2020 – 2025 when the first leg – the ‘western parkway’ was constructed. Projections at that time indicated the third lane would be required around 2020, which would utilise the extra wide median.

You have to remember, scraping the money together for the original western parkway, which was under used for years, was in itself an achievement at that time & would have been completely impossible without EU assistance.

Those projections might sound off the wall now, but at that time, public finances were dismal, economic growth was at 0 & unemployment was rife – very little to suggest that our situation was about to change.

I don’t recall any journalist or punter at that time predicting our current situation, sure we were delighted with our first little bit of motorway :rolleyes:

True Peter. The feeling at the time of the NTR contract was “sure who the hell would want to pay to drive over a bridge way out there?”, while councillors were taking backhanders for Liffey Valley etc etc, ensuring that thousands would eventually have no choice but to pay the troll

No question of the fiscal backdrop in 1987-88 when the contract was put together but the deal was always generous to NTR in that the gross cost of construction was £27.6m inclusive of EU grant aid and related only for the N3-N4 section whilst the remainder of the motorway has not cost NTR 1c.

Whatever the history the only relevant question is do the numbers on this deal stack up; the answer for me on this is no. Even allowing for traffic flows of 125,000 per day and giving a 50% uplift in net income to 52.5c per vehicle the valuation is still only €23,953,125 per year.

Through this deal NTR will probably end up with the 50% of the income that currently goes to the government; a deal needs to be done but this is not the correct one. The existing agreement does not prevent the charging of additional tolls on other sections of the route which should be introduced at peak times to reduce commuter use in line with the policy adopted on the Dublin Port Tunnel. The income derived from same could be put towards further transport investments.

no question that the original contract was generous as is this buy out, but given the exclusivity clause in the original contract, does NTR not have the gov by the short & curley’s ? i.e little option but to pay over the odds to resolve this mess ?

Generous might cover 10% or even 20% but when you factor in a 50% uplift in net income and it it is still only 48% of the consideration offered then it is just not a deal to be done.

Lets face it Cullen, Dempsey and Breannan sat on this situation and allowed it to develop and volumes to grow and grow before caving into to NTR.

As part of this process:
1. a substantial above inflation increase was granted thus making the buyout even more expensive.

An upgrade of the M50 was announced with no contribution from NTR requested

Instead of

1. Threatening to freeze all future increases to inflation
2. Examining the possibility of extending the Adamstown link to Blanchardstown

With a contract relating to a completed product limited to inflation you are never held by the eggs

I’ve tried fiddling with these figures in Excel. The present value of the government’s deal is simply €600 million (given the fact that the payments are adjusted for inflation). Trying to get the present value of the revenue stream that NTR are foregoing to match this (on the basis that the current average daily traffic is 85,000 vehicles) requires some rather fantastic projections or measures of current profitability.

For example, one way (to make the deal seem reasonable for the tax payer) is to assume that they currently make an average profit of 1 euro per vehicle and that they expect a steady 10% per annum increase in traffic volumes. Neither of these seem realistic to me. Alternatively, if they are currently making on 50c per vehicle, this would require a projected volume growth of 18%.

Never mind the fact that a 10% annual growth in traffic would require a doubling of capacity every 7 years (and the associated construction costs) or that I’ve made no provision for systemic risk; obviously being guaranteed €50m a year is much more valuable than operating a business which might well be threatened by projects like the new outer orbital motorway or the public transport elements of Transport21.

However I’m not that surprised. I have some highly qualified friends who work in the civil service but none seem to have any appreciation for the nuances of financial planning (even one with an MBA seems to think that concepts like present value and discounting are largely academic). Looking at the rates of return the government has offered (and continues to offer) for PPP projects demonstrates that they think in terms of cash. The nearest analogy is with individuals who think they’re getting a good deal buying things on hire-purchase or using expensive car financing deals or sticking everything onto a large credit card balance. I guess governments by their nature discount future payments heavily – after all they may not be around to have to face the music.

The fact that the entire Dail was mobilized to have an emergency sitting out-of-hours in order to rush through legislation to ensure the VHI don’t lose €34 while a deal like this – where the loss to the public purse could be 10 times as much – is presented as a fait accompli shows how perversely the government (and public sector in general) prioritise financial issues.

PVC King – do your calculations take account of the fact that HGVs pay a multiple of that of a car?

Strikes me (from a position of no knowledge of the subject) that your calculations of ‘profit per vehicle’ are very low, even if they don’t. NTR have had a very substantial cashflow from the bridge(s), and their other investments notwithstanding, have probably long paid off any loans they had. PPPs really tend to start making money for operators towards the mid end of the period, particularly as the value of the loans fall in real terms and the toll amounts don’t (adjusted etc) – which is why the more recent PPP contracts are very different, and have a ‘revenue extraction’ facility for the state.

NTR’s half yearly toll revenues up 7%

April 03, 2006 12:06
NTR, which operates the West Link toll bridge on the M50 motorway around Dublin as well as other road toll plazas, has reported a 7% increase in toll revenue to just under €50m for the 12 months to the end of December 2005.

The number of cars paying to pass through the company’s toll operations – which also include the East Link in Dublin and the Drogheda by-pass on the M1, increased by 4% to just under 48 million vehicles. An average of 130,700 vehicles use the company’s toll bridges every day.
The company said today that use of its Eazy Pass system is up 28% on last year and 40% of peak traffic now uses EazyPass.

The company also announced today that it is to become a leading international developer and operator in the renewable energy and waste recycling markets, where it currently generates 80% of its revenues.

NTR also announced today that it is seeking to list its Irish Broadband division on the Irish Stock Exchange.

In relation to open roads tolling, the company said that talks with the National Roads Authority were ongoing with a veiw to meeting the NRA’s deadline of July 2008.

I agree that HGV’s pay a lot more but given that the Port Tunnel only carries 2000-3000 HGVs per day and allowing for local traffic of say 3000 per day and that probably leaves the split at 12-15 cars for every HGV.

This €50m covers all three bridges and is gross revenue i.e. before costs such as ticketing, maintenance, cash collection, staffing and head office costs.

The first 27,000 vehicles revenue goes to NTR, the next 18,000 the get 65% and thereafter it is 50% but they must pay all costs plus their head office and directors etc. The net revenue from this is probably less than €20m p.a.

@PVC King wrote:

However buying the bridge at 2 or 3 times its value is a suspicious transaction given the creation history of the arrangement. What was not considered was to develop a public transport network prior to sanctioning

This is Ireland: Roads = Votes. Public transport = No votes. Cullen could promise all the (public transport) wonders of the world – half the people wouldn’t believe anything he says and the other half won’t care anyway. Building a few roads and making people think tolling will get better is a much more efficient way to get elected.

What disgusts me almost as much is Bertie’s statement saying yesterday that the M50 would remain a single tolling point, even after the buyout, change to automated tolling and road widening.

Another way to look at this is that the price paid is determined by the buyer and not by the profit margin for the seller. NTR may only stand to gain 300m by retaining the concession but the government may stand to gain far more than 600m if removing the toll bridge enables them to toll the entire motorway. An analogy is the case where a developer stands to make €1m by obtaining a narrow strip of land that provides access to a building site. If the value to the current landowner of this strip is €1,000, then what is a fair price to buy the land for?

I have another question. As parts of the M50 were supported by European ‘Cohesion Fund’, is it legal to toll those sections?

According to the Sunday Times, the M50 is the most congested motorway in the world…
And I think I can remember someone from the AA saying it was the only tolled ring-road in Europe.

We don’t do things terribly longsighted in Ireland, do we?

not true. the dartford crossing on the m25 is tolled & subject to much the same criticism as our own toll. In fact the m25 actually breaks at this point (its not a complete loop) to allow local traffic access the crossing, through traffic is forced to use slip roads to rejoin the m25 proper.

The crosssing comprises a cable stay bridge & two tunnels all of which are at capacity so alternatives are being looked for. I very much doubt the m50 is the most congested motorway in the world, don’t be minding conor faughnan, he spouts populist guff most of the time.

@fergalr wrote:

According to the Sunday Times, the M50 is the most congested motorway in the world…
And I think I can remember someone from the AA saying it was the only tolled ring-road in Europe.

We don’t do things terribly longsighted in Ireland, do we?

Here in Paris, the ring road “Boulevard Périphérique” is not tolled, it gets gridlocked at rush hours but otherwise moves reasonably okay which is not a bad achievement seeing its proximity to the city centre.
There is however a suburban motorway: ”the A86” that runs in a north-south axis of Paris, again this isn’t a tolled road but it gets really very congested at peak hours, we’re talking about ¾ hour to drive 6km (when there are no accidents or broken down lorries), don’t know how that fairs with the M50.

@constat wrote:

There is however a suburban motorway: ”the A86” that runs in a north-south axis of Paris, .

Ah, the dreaded quatre-vingt six. It was built as an outer ring road to keep the trucks away from the Periph. Never saw it as bad as the M50, in fairness. And ze French are at an advanced stage of planning for a new outer outer ring road……… while we are rebuilding the M50! Quoi de neuf!
KB2

When a road is congested and untolled, people still pay to use it – they just pay with their time. They queue in traffic jams. The amount of time they are willing to devote to waiting in traffic is proportional to the value they obtain from the journey and inversely proportional to the value they place on their own time. The perverse result is that an untolled congested road tends to have a combination of people who really need to be there and people who have sod all else to do that day and don’t mind listening to the radio for an hour.

I see that Bertie has said that there will continue to be a single toll point on the m50. Although NTR’s concession was due to expire in 2020, the givernment will now toll the bridge until 2035.
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20061115.xml&Node=H2&Page=3

In the past Bertie said that a buyout of the bridge was ‘not an option’, so I guess you never know what will happen
http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0202/tollbridge.html

It’s worth considering what might have happened if the M50 had been originally built to the upgraded spec with more lanes and free-flowing junctions. I would guess that the edge city would have developed even more and that the centre city would have lost business and land value.

mmm maybe, but building it back at the start with 3 lanes each way and colossal freeflow junctions would have seemed like a huge white elephant at a time when the country had little money. So I can understand why it was built as it was.

That said, they should have started the upgrade several years ago, and should have linked the barrier free tolling arrangements in with the Port Tunnel opening. What we have now is a mishmash of different schemes, and we are now in the middle of the problem points inbetween their completions.

@PVC King wrote:

3> A free M50 would simply attract more traffic rendering the &#8364]

Looks like the €800m has grown 25%; the line that the roads programme is now on time and on budget is pure waffle as the new cost is a billion all ten figures for an upgrade:

That is presuming it doesn’t rise still further.

D

rivers face mayhem on M50 as upgrade begins
From The Irish IndependentFriday, 13th April, 2007null

FRUSTRATED motorists can expect further disruption on the M50 when construction work on upgrading the Red Cow roundabout begins today.

Drivers have been warned to keep within the 60kmh speed limit along the stretch of the motorway under construction, or risk a court appearance.

Yesterday, South Dublin Co Council (SDCC) announced details of new traffic arrangements which will apply on the N7 Red Cow interchange. It will be a central part of the €107m upgrading works.

The council and the National Roads Authority also revealed that the Luas will be separated from road traffic when the upgrading is complete in December next year, with trams no longer forced to share road space with other vehicles.

Freeflow

The Luas track will no longer cross the traffic lanes of the roundabout when this phase of the upgrading is completed in December 2008, and the roundabout will become freeflow with all traffic lights removed.

This will lead to considerable time savings and motorists will no longer have to queue to exit the M50 onto local roads.

The programme will involve works along a 7.5km stretch of motorway from the Westlink toll plaza to the Red Cow interchange.

The main changes are:

* Changes to the traffic layout at the N7 Red Cow interchange with a temporary road through the Luas car park to serve westbound traffic.

* A section of the N7 roundabout to be removed with traffic from the city centre going onto the M50 northbound to be diverted to make a u-turn at Monastery Lane.

* Monastery Lane will become a two-lane carriageway, and bus stops will be moved.

* Traffic lights to the northwest of the roundabout to be removed.

Frank Coffey, Director of Transportation with SDCC, said that the project was proceeding as planned.

“The works carried out to date have been reasonably successful, but the congestion has not been helped by the works. We are on programme and works are progressing well.

“New local diversions at the N7/Red Cow interchange will be well signposted as we begin new major works to construct the new freeflow interchange.”

Two fixed speed cameras had been mounted on the carriageway and another two are to be installed over the coming weeks. Gardai will also operate speed checks to ensure that construction workers are protected from speeding motorists.

“The important thing is to ensure public safety,” he said.

“We have had a 60kmh limit in place since the work started. This has become an issue because a certain number of motorists are not complying. We need to ensure there is a safe average speed at the area of the works. There is no option but to ensure the speed limits are adhered to,” Mr Coffey said.

Details of changes to the N4 were also announced. They include closing the N4 westbound to M50 southbound freeflow until July, with traffic coming from the city centre to access the M50 via traffic light signals. The M50 northbound to N4 westbound freeflow will open in June, with traffic modifications to remain in place until August this year.

The new Ballymount interchange will open next month, while traffic on the M50 will be moved into new lanes in the middle of the roadway from May so that new lanes can be built on the outer verges.

“When the work on this section of the M50 is complete in 2008, each side of the motorway between the Ballymount and N4 junctions will have three main lanes and a fourth auxiliary lane between major junctions,” Mr Coffey said.

“The interchanges will be upgraded to freeflow or near freeflow, eliminating or minimising the need for traffic lights.”

The entire upgrading of the M50 will be completed by 2010, at a cost of €1bn

The headline and first line of that article stinks of the OMG CHAOS reporting of the Independent.

The Indo love to give the human angle it makes people feel part of a group.

The major revalation in that article is actually the last line which lists the cost as €1bn this has risen 25% since early 2006 and is at odds with Cullens promises that contracts are now on time and on budget. 18 months ago we were promised fixed price contracts:

http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0926/infrastructure.html

Roads – fixed price contracts to be introduced
Monday, 26 September 2005
Transport Minister Martin Cullen is to introduce ‘Fixed Price Contracts’ for all future transport infrastructure projects, in a bid to protect the taxpayer from cost over-runs. The Minister made the announcement at the opening of the Dundalk bypass, which was completed ahead of schedule and below its budget.

Months ahead of schedule and millions under budget, the 14 kilometre Dundalk by-pass was opened today. The by-pass is the first public private partnership in which more €100m was part raised by the toll bridge at Drogheda. Roads have been associated in the past by massive over-spends but improved contracts have recently provided greater financial certainty.

Today, the Transport Minister announced all future transport projects – €10 billion euro of planned activity – will be based on new ‘Fixed Price Contracts’. The aim is to ensure the contractor rather than taxpayer has to deal with the financial consequences of any delays, such as the discovery of archaeology.

AdvertisementJust last week, the Construction Industry Federation claimed the new contracts were legally untested and would, in all probability, end up the courts – costing not saving money. However, Minister Martin Cullen today rejected this.

Work is currently underway on a dual-carriage linking the end of the Dundalk bypass with the border. This is due to completed in 18 months time.

It is actually reasonably on time … slippage of about a month from what i can see. The extent of the works has increased several times, the original half assed configuration proposed for the red cow has been changing by the month. The current & final proposal released yesterday represents a much more complex job to provide a full free flow junction & segregated space for luas.

From a situation where the spend on the M50 was to cost €600m in 2004 announcements topping €1.6bn having been announced in the last 3 months and it is only a matter of time before the road gridlocks again.

Would these funds have been released if the overall cost of two years national public transport budget had been known?

No interconnector during the life on Transport 21, metro gone quiet

This is a disgrace

There is something new in the latest plan for the red cow but I cant quite put my finger on it;)

Ah I see now – Monastary road junction.

This is probrably a good pat of the reason the cost is increasing. Bits and pieces seem to be constantly being added.

This element has been known since 2005 when Roughan O’Donovan designed a much more elaborate structure which has now been scaled back

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4577&highlight=monastery+road

I wonder how much that has shaved from the cost?

@PVC King wrote:

This element has been known since 2005 when Roughan O’Donovan designed a much more elaborate structure which has now been scaled back

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4577&highlight=monastery+road

I wonder how much that has shaved from the cost?

No its not that im taking about. Its the freeflow slips in the Northwest corner I mean for that little road. That was origionally meant to be a T junction believe it or not. As far as im aware the over-bridge for the real mosastery road job is still the same as the new design unveiled last year. The photomonatges for the red cow have always showed the simpler deisgn.

The flyover coming from the Ibis / Mount Talbot is a new adition, with some further changes to the alignment of the outbound lanes. I notice the intersection with turnpike is not visible on that render, interesting to see if they are still proposing that it should meet the n7 at grade.

The Roughan O’Donovan ‘gateway’ is to be constructed as planned, don’t particularly like it.

PVC 1bn seems reasonable given the extent & scope of the works … I’d much sooner an increased spend for a full free flow red cow instead of a half baked job that will have to be re-visited in a couple of years. The current proposal is a million miles from that originally proposed last summer which envisged luas still passing through at grade & the retention of some traffic signals, particularly for south bound m50 traffic heading to the city.

True that any additional road capacity is generally filled, but the upgrade is necessary & reconfigured junctions & merges will be sufficient imo to resolve the rush hour congestion.

Obviously, i’m 100% behind the interconnector & agree it should at least get equal priority … it is however within transport 21 ? … with further recent statements to ‘accelerate construction’ i.e. attempt to bring it in on time.

I can’t see to much of a diffence other than a new bridge for Luas and a straight bridge for N7 between the image above and the one in August 2005 the price was still €800m at this time and there is no way that a couple of minor changes like this have added €200m or anything like it.

Possibly €10m or €15m

https://archiseek.com/content/showpost.php?p=38172&postcount=21

I presume the Luas line is being completely rerouted. Isn’t it great we have so much money now we can afford to rip up tramlines that are only a few years old? Also, love the fantasy world in these photomontages where red cow/M50 traffic is only a few brightly-coloured cars and trucks at regular 50-metre intervals. The sun is beaming, so it can’t be Christmas Day…

@AndrewP wrote:

I presume the Luas line is being completely rerouted. Isn’t it great we have so much money now we can afford to rip up tramlines that are only a few years old? Also, love the fantasy world in these photomontages where red cow/M50 traffic is only a few brightly-coloured cars and trucks at regular 50-metre intervals. The sun is beaming, so it can’t be Christmas Day…

Like the N4 its a full sphagetti junction so it should solve most of the probelms there.

@darkman wrote:

Like the N4 its a full sphagetti junction so it should solve most of the probelms there.

The costs cited above relate to a multiply grade seperated junction.

The price has accelerated €200M beyond the grade seperated scheme.

Do you think for one minute thatthere won’t be congestion where all the sliproads merge; that is the nature of motorways. Driving speeds will be lower here no matter how you merge the traffic.

I would also like to clarify how successful ‘spagetti’ (junction) is today; average queing times are 30 minutes between 6am & 8pm and that is after the parallel M6 toll opened to relieve the pressure.

Yet another example of a ‘final Solution’

€200m for what?

Are you going to address the issues of specific cost or simply repeat yourself?

There are very very limited differences between Andrew Duffy’s 2005 images and the image above. Bearing in mind that the entire Monastary Road bridge costs €12m and is a whopping 50m tall the €200m overspend is digraceful and further evidence that the NRA are still entirely hapless at financial accounting.

Martin Cullen strikes again

@PVC King wrote:

Are you going to address the issues of specific cost or simply repeat yourself?

There are very very limited differences between Andrew Duffy’s 2005 images and the image above. Bearing in mind that the entire Monastary Road bridge costs €12m and is a whopping 50m tall the €200m overspend is digraceful and further evidence that the NRA are still entirely hapless at financial accounting.

Martin Cullen strikes again

The point im trying to get across to you is that the new design is completely different to the old. Unrecognisable and is much bigger. Its as simple as that really.

I will post the old image later.

@PVC King wrote:

I can’t see to much of a diffence other than a new bridge for Luas and a straight bridge for N7 between the image above and the one in August 2005 the price was still €800m.
https://archiseek.com/content/showpost.php?p=38172&postcount=21

I’ll save you the trouble; there is very little difference between the proposals other than the treatment of the N7 which if the three lanes of the roundabout were available would freeflow as access from the N7 to the M50 was already fully grade seperated.

Simple solution concrete partitions c 3ft high used in road works for dividing traffic flows; same effect €200m cheaper unless you acknowledge that a 25% overun has been delivered by Cullen and the changes costing €10-15m are as stated above are actually only necessary in a civils wet dream

Thanks for acknowledging that the image I posted is the new proposal. As this dates from August 2005 when the price was listed at €200m less than the current cost.

I have never argued against grade separation of the major flows i.e. Getting all flows from the N7 south onto and off both directions of the M50 this is required. But levelling the mad cow to acheive this is not required as the other slip roads will render the mad cow enirely sane.

The issue here is how a project with a total life of 4.5 years has gone up in price by 25% in less than 2 years.

This is blatent mis-managment of scarce resources and bear in mind that all of these projects have a 10 year payback with interest.

@PVC King wrote:

Thanks for acknowledging that the image I posted is the new proposal. As this dates from August 2005 when the price was listed at €200m less than the current cost.

I have never argued against grade separation of the major flows i.e. Getting all flows from the N7 south onto and off both directions of the M50 this is required. But levelling the mad cow to acheive this is not required as the other slip roads will render the mad cow enirely sane.

The issue here is how a project with a total life of 4.5 years has gone up in price by 25% in less than 2 years.

This is blatent mis-managment of scarce resources and bear in mind that all of these projects have a 10 year payback with interest.

Thanks for acknowledging that the image I posted is the new proposal.

– huh? Thats the old proposal. A stupid design tbh. We are not exactly streching the National budget atm. There is ample room for further increase in cost to get the upgrade right or else – as has already been said – we will be back revisiting this in a few years. Im happy to see the money spent if it means a freeflowing M50 – which im very confident it will. Im very happy with the new interchange design. It is an excellent and intelligent design (something which is rare in Ireland unfortunatley).

BTW should also add in the proposal you posted there are 4 new bridges and retention of 2. In the new proposal there are 8 new bridges and retention of 2.

As I said above a civil engineers wet dream. The key flows are M50 N/S to N7 South and vice versa as well as N7 North to M50 South which are all grade segregated in the original proposal these represent 80% plus of the changes from the M50 to N7. Take 80% of the cross traffic out and you no longer have a traffic problem.

That 25% of the overall project cost which includes adding two extra lanes to a 40kms operational motorway to accomodate less than 20% of traffic using three junctions is akin to pouring cash down the sink.

I also don’t believe that that 2 new free flows I.e. N7 southbound to M50 northbound and M50 Northbound to N7 Northbound would at 3 junctions cost €200m.

Just Cullen up to his usual financial blundering.

PVC you are way off the mark. A lot of detail is hidden in the old fluffy render, just because they look similar doesn’t mean they are.

There was no free flow at all for M50 North heading to N7 City or N7 Newlands Cross, one of the major flows you mention. There wasn’t even free flow for N7 heading out of the city, with 2 sets of lights remaining in its path to facilitate luas & M50 N merges.

Luas will now travel under the n7 to follow a less clumsy alignment, with the m50 N to City lane travelling under luas, allowing removal of n7 outbound lights.

I doubt the cost increase refers solely to the N7 interchange. there will in fact be a 4th merge lane in each direction from ballymount to N4 and now this is being extended on to Blanch / N3.

I don’t know who compiled the original estimate or on what basis.
I do know that to run with the original proposal would have been crazy. There is no point re-visiting this down the raod, get it right now.

Cost of everything & value of nothing comes to mind.

I concede that there was no freeflow from M50 north to N7 north however very little through traffic turns this way due to the superior N81 route to City Centre.

Furthermore N7 north is no longer the strategic route it once was and encouraging additional traffic down this route is in direct contravention of the Kilmainham local area plan the key objective which is to calm traffic at this village. This area is further on a three ton weight limit from Davitt Road a very fine surface carpark everyday in its own right.

The key route at this junction is M50 north to N7 south which were correctly given priority in the original plan. Furthermore the city bound N7 to M50 south was completely grade segregated. Therefor there was no situation where a right turn onto the mad cow was required other than the Luas which runs on a 5 minute frequency.

I think for once you are being dimby on this and I stress for once; this gold plated junction is a prime example of the over engineered nature of this project whilst rail investment is ignored.

Disgraceful waste of public funds

ok i concede a vested interest 😉 , i sit almost daily on the m50N slip to head right towards the city.

Several traffic management reports have cited the proximity of ballymount to the n7 interchange as a key flaw in the original design of the m50. Despite what you say, vast numbers shuffle in to the exit lane after ballymount to access city or n7 south, traffic obviously clogs at the lights, entire exit lane becomes jammed, additional traffic wishing to exit here stick on the indicator & sit on the inside m50 lane with no where to go, forcing everyone else in to the outside lane. This situation would persist under the original plan.

The N81 just does not have sufficient capacity, most heading from the kildare commuter belt & indeed from limerick, cork, waterford stay on the n7 to head in to the city via long mile, the 4 lanes inbound & outbound are constantly clogged at rush hour.

Again contrary to what you say M50 North to N7 south did not have priority in the original, in fact almost no change was envisaged with lights still necessary to cross luas etc. This had to be tackled so as exiting traffic would not impact on through m50 traffic.

I contend that more money would be wasted had the original plan been implemented & the nra forced to revisit & finish the job in 10 years time.

This is the busiest junction in the state, full free flow as is happening at the N4 & N3 is entirely justified here.

Luas also benefits, knocking up to 3 minutes off its journey time.
In previous arguments with your good self, the merits of putting luas through red cow were at issue, i argued in favour solely in anticipation of the reconfigured junction so luas would not have to encounter or impinge on traffic.

If you look closely at the drawing you can see that the Luas is actually segregated with the grey line to the south of the N7. At the time people were laughing at Breanans ineptitude of allowing Luas onto the roundabout in the first instance and the original plan involved the Luas being put on stilts. The RPA being so impressed with the NRA design that they decided to trump it with a uIbend shaped stilt arrangement around the vodafone building at central park.

The Ballymount situation is a problem but will no doubt be releived by the third lane to keep the M50 freely flowing. Facilitating one junction use of the M50 cannot be contemplated under any circumstances. If people from Kingswood or Cookstown want to access the Naas Road they can use Ballymount and the Walkinstown roundabout. Spending an extra €200m to allow commuters to have perfect access to the city ring for one junction is a criminal waste of public funds.

I am surprised at your position in the context of children being educated in 30 year old prefabs and the absence of the interconnector.

This is €200m and rising not the €12m to plug in central clondalkin via Monastery Road.

thats actually a pedestrian bridge, i enquired directly at the time. luas was to cross the junction exactly as it is now … the greyed out bore looking render gives the false impression of it being segregated, just artistic license.

I’m not for a second suggesting that free flow for M50 North traffic should be done to suit the locals …
This is the primary exit for anyone living in the south suburbs taking n7 to the south & south west.
Not tackling this now, will cost more later. Sure its expensive, but the design errors have long since been made & need to be resolved. The monetary price pales in to the background when set against the cost of this congestion to the wider economy.

Absolutely agreed that the interconnector should be under construction at this stage & its the first thing i’ll be saying to any election candidate that comes to my door.

Its not a question of money, just political will & internal issues between government & IE.
The 1.8bn surplus for the first 3 months of this year would have covered the basic costs of interconnector construction.

Luas should be segregated but this would not cost anymore than €10-15m. The M50 to N7 will under the original plan only merge with N7 traffic heading south at the end of the roundabout and critically will no longer merge with N7 heading north M50 or M50 South to N7 South traffic which necessitated four way division of the roundabout pre upgrade.

This siuation being replicated accross 3 junctions to accomodate the smallest traffic flows is a waste of public funds. The only solution that is justified is to have traffic lights that discourage such movements. If you had to wait 5 minutes to go from M50 to the Naas road citybound would you still do it?

That would endure that more or less 95% of the traffic coming off here would be going south giving an effectively free flowing merge 54 minutes in each hour.The messy merge will always be the M50 south to N7 and that is allowing for grade seperation.

Darkman read the thread I have already stated that fact; although if the cost has gone up 25% in 19 months the overall cost including toll buy out might top €2bn when they decide that the N81, Dundrum, Sandyford, N2, Ikea and M1 require grade seperation as well.

Engineers should be forced to study some psychology, altering behaviour works pouring concrete patches. Whatever you spend on the M50 the City routes went beyond capacity 7 years ago.

The surplus is a current surplus when capital spending is taken into account there will be a €2-3bn overall deficet this year. Capital being defined as replacing police cars and buses.

Do they have planning consent for that? The only valid EIS considered 3 Junctions receiving heavy segregarion.

The traffic flows aren’t small PVC, i take it your not a regular user !? should they remain, the backup & impact on through traffic has huge knock on implications.

I consider the money spent to be an investment not a waste, it will be sufficient imo to manage traffic flows efficiently.

I’m aware of the budget projections, but given the experience of other years wont be listening to them despite the moderating economic environment, budget neutral i reckon.

Either way money is not the reason for the low priority given to the interconnector, i haven’t heard the insufficient funds excuse used by government for the last 10 years, its all about will … they don’t see many votes in the interconnector because most of the general public don’t have a clue what it is … whereas the words Red and Cow are engrained in everyones psyche.

Its true that the other junctions are getting similar but less extensive upgrades in phase 2 & these were included in the original EIS.

Totally agree that it is about political will; it is about the will to invest in unnecessary facilitation of single junction use of the M50.

Would you use the M50 for less than a mile if measures were taken to reserve it for people using it for 5 junctions plus?

I find your justification of this completelt me fein. There is no interconnector, a stalled metro and Kildare route project scaled back by 65% and you talk about abundent resources.

Farcical

As i’ve said it is the primary access point to n7, i.e the entire south of the country for anyone living on the southside of this city, lights at this point effect the basic functioning of the motorway & would negate benefits from the extra through lanes. If you think lights & at grade luas is ok, thats up to you. We would rue any such decision and spend far more sorting it later, and we’ve done plenty of that in our time.

You know full well the m50 is primarily a distributor road at this stage, thats not going to change, the mistakes are long made & junctions like ballymount cannot be realistically eliminated as they should be. Surrounding local roads are all way past capacity.

The me fein snipe is a load of cak. Its not about money but government policy. The upgrade is essential, you ignore the cost to the city of a congested M50.

At no point did i suggest the upgrade should take priority over or at the expense of the interconnector or other essential rail projects, they’re completely unrelated.

I’ve been banging on about the interconnector for years, written to TD’s, gone to meetings ( and just for the record its fairly unlikely that i will ever directly benefit from its construction ).
There is no reason, but government policy, why essential rail projects can’t be given priority.

Thanks lads, this thread and its fighting have kept me entertained all afternoon 🙂

think we’ll leave it there !

You would say that I come out of the tube and see you’ve thrown in the towel!!!!!!!!!!!

The NRA made a bollox of it the first time leaving Luas at grade: they then spend €200m extra routing free-flow junctions into the city centre to facilitate commuters using a junction here and a junction there. All that was required was to give people from the regions quick access to the airport and national primary network.

What was that expression Ctesiphon used? When €200m is wasted like that you know that Cullen isn’t far away. Any word on che breannan sorting out drinking water for the oaps in Galway?

Priorities

jaysus people that was an awful heated debate over a few bridges and slip roads here and there!!

anyway the great irony is that the Dublin County Engineers in the 1980’s designed all junctions on the M50 as free-flow, only to have their designs shafted by government. All the while Pee Flynn was shaking hands in the next room with NTR on one of the most outrageous deals ever undertaken by any government…

Although I agree with the principles outlined by PVC, we have to be able to accept that things change as projects progress. This is a monster undertaking and there will be more episodes such as this along the way. Hopefully not too many.

However all of the following things are more necessary than the M50 upgrade, and will be more advantageous economically and socially to Greater Dublin, but have been delayed and/or shelved
Metro North
Metro West
Northside radial LUAS
Bray LUAS and Metro upgrade
Interconnector
Kildare Route Project
Tallaght Metro
Second Southside LUAS
Extra buses

Personally, I just do not understand Ireland’s motorway building ‘policy’ at all.

How long are we building now? Yet we must be one of the only countries in Western Europe not to have a direct moroway link between our two main cities (i.e. Dublin and Cork)

The routes make no sense at all, duplication of routings as motorways operate in near parallel out of Dublin following the ancient lines of the old N-Road system instead of building new efficient routings that actually might have regional benefit.

I simply can’t understand how we keep building these little by-passes.

I’ve always suspected that the projects are being drip-fed as otherwise, Irish contractors wouldn’t be big enough to take on an entire motorway project thus “friends of certain political parties” may be left out of the loop…

Whoever though that it was a reasonable sollution to use roundabout junctions on the M50 was clearly living on another planet. It was completely stupid, short sighted and purely idiotic. There’s no insufficient space for proper cloverleaf sollutions which ought to have been built in the first place and even if they weren’t they should have at least reserved the necessary land!!
We’ll now have sort of half-baked cloverleafs that do the job, but in a convoluted stacked way.

The signage on the M50, (bar the newest bit) is an absolute digrace and causes chaos at junctions as the M50 commuters mix with those of us who only use the road occasionally. The commuters all know which lane to be in and when someone who’s not quite so familar with the mess that is Blanchardstown’s interchanges you get blasted out of it as you weren’t in lane 8km before a sign which is so small that you can only read it from 50 meters away.

The same applies to a lot of the N roads too.

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On other traffic issues (to just diverge slightly off topic)
Dublin *still* seems to have a largely timed traffic light system. Putting in a smart system would actually drastically reduce traffic and queing times at lights. I cannot understand why this hasn’t been given priority. Even Cork has 92 nodes of Siemens’ / Peak’s SCOOT system fully implemented which has reduced queing times and pre-empted traffic growth. 92 nodes covers basically all intersections (each node handles more than a single junction)
Dublin, meanwhile, has gone for SCATS, which is vastly inferior and patchily implemented. SCOOT can actually detect how long queues are, intelligently work out flow patterns etc etc. SCATS can only see cars as they pass the stop line!!! It’s an enormous difference as it means the Cork system can actually tell if there are long queues waiting and work out priorities on all junctions.
SCOOT’s used extensively in the UK e.g. 1600 nodes in London (also 55 nodes in Belfast,)
You can see the difference, Cork traffic lights are setup logically and seem to optimise flow. Dublin’s clearly aren’t.

Info on scoot : http://www.scoot-utc.com/DetailedHowSCOOTWorks.php?menu=Technical

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Intelligent signage, smart traffic lights, clever use of lane opening/closing and use of hardshoulders at peak times could all help dratically resolve traffic issues in parts of Dublin. I just can’t understand why no one is doing anything about it!!

There needs to be something done to really highlight some of the simple issues tha could be tackled to reduce congestion.

There needs to be something done to really highlight some of the simple issues that could be tackled to reduce congestion.

And not once have you mentioned anything to do with Public Transport which is disapointing 🙁

Its not brain surgery, however Irish people, especially Irish politicians have a great difficultly in thinking of anything else except Roads as the solution.

The M3 Motorway is a classic example. To-date there is still no real justification for the Motorway. A Twin rail train to Navan can move more people than the M3 could ever dream of, takes up far less space and bring you straight into the heart of Dublin. The M3 only take you to just outside the M50.

Then theres the M50. Originally designed as the Dublin By-pass, commuters came dependent on it because there was nothing else.The M50 upgrade will do nothing to reduce traffic. It will do nothing to helping commuters getting inside the M50 any better.

How can you seriously reduce traffic congestion by building more and more roads, catering for vehicles and avoiding the fundamental problem, which is currently there is no real alternative than using your car for getting around. Only a decent public transport SYSTEM can give people a real alternative. Rail in particular was designed to move people (not roads with is designed from moving goods & services around) and together with Local Bus network can only reduce traffic (ie stop people from using their cars).

weehamster,

I’m taking the lack of public transport to be a given!
The two issues are parallel and interlinked. Poor public transport’s coupled with very poor road infrastructure planning. There’s little logic to what’s going on.

Houses being built with access to neither public transport or road transport.

Not to mention placing vast amounts of housing on unserviced land with no amenities.

Then we wonder why we’re stuck in traffic, have over crowded schools, undrinkable water and eircom’s going we can provide you with broadband in 2018.

However, in the short term, I do think that the local authorities could take significant pressure off by applying a little intelligence ot the road network i.e. smart lights, proper traffic management, lane management, car pooling, ensuring junctions flow etc etc

It’s a bit like using Mr. Muscle drain unblocker on a backed up sewage system. It might not solve the problem in the long term, but things have to keep moving!

Roads are important, so is public transport. However, the money being spent on the roads is justified.

Lets face it, the roads are in a shambles and heavy investment is needed to DC all the major interurbans and sort out the bottlenecks. Even the M3, IMO is needed for future proofing, with the exception that one toll is enough, two is a thundering disgrace.

Public transport does need a lot more investment though.

Agreed that the road network needs serious investment but projects such as the M3 have had a serious opportunity cost as the hamster points out above a rail line could carry more people and cost a lot less.

4 Tracking the Kildare line to Kildare would allow for the population of many interevening towns to grow sustainably; the kids could have new schools as opposed to damp mouldy prefabs if proper planning were introduced to link growth with resources. The M3 was Noel Dempseys reward for his time in roads it has no cost benefit analysis justification. It is a prime example of ‘he who screamee loudest gettee road.’

MrX …

SCATS is widely used across Dublin.
Interurban motorways are all under construction & due for completion by end of 2010.
IMO N6, N7 & N8 are necessary. The money being poured in to the M3 is questionable although the gov. seem to have their eye on completing the motorway through northern ireland as the main link to the north west & will be paying for it in total.

This government clearly has no real will to implement major public transport projects. One does not have to happen at the expense of the other.

It does you either have a tax and spend economy or a low tax economy; by investing you increase debt and create ongoing interest liabilities as well as repayment at expiry of the note period.

The M3 and M9 / N9 HDC will defer tax cuts or prevent other more grounded projects such as the Interconnector or Oranmore Rail route being completed in a timely manner; there is no coincidence that the third last minister for environment (when DoELG managed the Moterway programme) and the current transport minister have both signed off highly questionable projects to appear like a sop to their home cummans.

But as you rightly say their City colleagues don’t fight for public transport in the same way; there is no will to prevent a Motorway to the bustling metropolis of Kells and ensure that the residents of the megalopilis of Enniskillen and World Financial Hub that is Blacklion don’t sit in traffic for a few minutes on the few days a year that their teams make it to Croker. This is the same administration that is putting how many hundred million into the Western Rail Corridor that will probably shuttle 200 passengers a day on all services?

I’ve noticed on the M50 upgrade page that the new N4 junction will be a ‘full free flowing interchange’ while the N7/Red Cow junction will be ‘partial free flow interchange’. What does this difference mean in practical terms? I can’t see much physical difference between the two junctions myself, besides the luas bridge on the latter.

The plan for the N7 interchange has been revised several times & will now from what i can see be almost completely free flow (including luas).

One set of traffic lights may remain on the n7 outbound to allow traffic from turnpike road filter through, its not clear at all however if this is the case as this area has been conveniently chopped out of almost every photomontage available.

Actually some of the N7 content on the m50.ie website is out of date and refers to a time when LUAS was going to cross some of the lanes and therefore require traffic lights for some movements. That design was replaced by this design http://www.m50.ie/pages/pressarea-n7-interchange.htm which was then improved with this one: http://www.m50.ie/pages/pressarea-n7-interchange2.htm.

So, I believe both junctions will be completely freeflow now, however, it is still unclear to me what the traffic coming out of the Red Cow Hotel(?) will be able to do. If they want to go M50N it seems they have some dodgy stop-starting to do according to the design in the first link above. 2nd Link above does not show that junction.

Anybody else know what is planned there?

Edit: Doh. Peter beat me to it. Glad to see I’m not the only one confused 🙂

@jmkennedyie wrote:

Anybody else know what is planned there?

Edit: Doh. Peter beat me to it. Glad to see I’m not the only one confused 🙂

Can’t see any solution to it really, its either lights or a dash for your life across six lanes.

Perhaps traffic from red cow & turnpike (which is very busy) will be limited to accessing m50 southbound & the u-turn city bound lanes (via current luas bridge) that way lights might not be required.

They could go N7 Westbound until the Monastery road interchange, double back and access M50 Northbound that way.

yeah thats possible alright Andrew but it doesn’t look all that safe to get to right hand lanes, you’d be looking for drivers to let you out at peak times ?

The 2nd photomontage shows turnpike …

http://www.m50.ie/pages/pressarea-n7-interchange.htm

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0820/orbital.html

Two things of note on that article
1) “the road will not connect with the N11” – nice to see RTÉ is concerned only with the road that runs past Montrose rather than pointing out that it will meet with the M9 to facilitate traffic that goes on to Waterford.

2) “the cost has been estimated at €2bn” – it was €1bn last week – where the hell do they pluck these figures from ‘ah sure what’s another billion euro anyway’ – bonkers

I think by virtue of its proposed connection to M7 it would be ok as the M7/M9 junction is on the Newbridge bypass section which would be plugged in. Why a town with a population of 75,000 people needs a motorway connection to another settlement 90 miles away was never clear to me though!

€2bn is a lot of money and Bremore would not be served. The three words Hair, Brained and Trim stick out on this one!

Just out of curiosity, why do you think it’s a hare-brained scheme?
Seems like an eminently logical project to me and it even appears to have the support of Eamon Ryan of the Greens.

The €800m upgrade of the M50 for starters, the fact that it starts 10 miles north of Bremore for seconds, the fact that there is very little in the way of rail investment planned for thirds. The list goes on

Ten miles north of Bremore is hardly an issue. Presumably you would link in the possible port on the motorway, which should take all of around nine/ten minutes to traverse.
Building it running in to Bremore will lead to exactly the same problem we have with the M50 whereby it is to close to the city and becomes a distributor road instead of a ring road.
Also, I don’t believe the road will be anywhere near Drogheda for exactly the same reasons. The likely location would be somewhere halfway between Drogs and Balbriggan.
The investment in trains issue is a complete red herring. Nobody is suggesting that money shouldn’t go into rail but why not attempt to have a First World motorway network as well.
Even from the point of view of safety, the benefits are huge. Since construction on the M1 finished, fatalities on the main Dublin to Belfast road have more than halved. That has been the same situation across the country where very poor roads have been replaced by dual carriageways/motorways.

10 miles is a huge issue if you have to drive ten miles further north, ten miles south and repeat the exercise on the return leg. 40 miles is close on an hour in HGV terms and would increase greenhouse gas emmisions condsiderably.

Bottom line this is not a well considered proposal and does not dovetail with other proposals that it should have been defferential to. It is an exercise in crayon ‘n map design.

When the M50 upgrade is complete then it will be time to talk about the overall transport requirements of the GDA and east coast region; so many times rail investment is cleared on a ten year window but these projects invariably fall further and further off the radar screen whilst crackpot schemes such as the M3 and M9 complete.

If Dublin is to have any ambition it needs to break the mould of thinking like a regional City and think like a Capital and place the centre of the city first.

I’m not aware of any detailed route proposal, bar RTE’s back of a beer mat scribble shown on the news.
There’s little doubt it will link in to Bremore.

@PVC King wrote:

Why a town with a population of 75,000 people needs a motorway connection to another settlement 90 miles away was never clear to me though!

To bypass the large settlement of 1m perhaps? It doesn’t make sense that a truck travelling from Belfast to Cork/Limerick/Waterford/Galway should travell via Dublin and the M50

I was talking about Wataford but significance of the flows of traffic from the South to the North are greatly overstated and Trucks from Belfast to Galway would always use a routing via Armagh, Cavan and either Athlone or Roscommon. What is equally understated is the decrepid state of the rail network excluding the DART; rail and high density development on the existing brownfield sites within the M50 in Dublin and Docklands in Cork should see the majority of transport budget going forward. The problem in Ireland is not moving freight it is getting to work!

The proposed outer “C” Motorway linking Naas to Drogheda will probably be build.

How about building this and at the same time run a railway line parallel linking the mail Cork Line with to the Sligo Line then connecting with the Belfast line. Could run rail traffic from North to south bypassing Dublin. If the new port is ever built in North Co Dublin, it would be an easier job of moving freight from road to rail.

Even if the railway is not built with the motorway, creating the permanent way for such a future rail project might be worth considering. Mad????