Tara / M3 – Better Solutions?
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Hill of Tara – There is a better, cheaper solution
Sunday Tribune Nov 04
Opponents of the proposed motorway near the Hill of Tara are not against progress. In fact, many campaigners believe that better infrastructure could be delivered for less cost.
ANY decision given on the Dublin – Navan – Kells Motorway was bound to be controversial. For the 30-mile trip, it can take the commuter 2 hours. Equally, the towns en-route are suffocated by traffic congestion. Undeniably there is a problem; yet what must be questioned is why were things let slide – to the point that any answer now offered must be accepted?
It is also unfortunate the debate has been distorted to “Heritage versus Road”, reflecting a misguided notion that those who have criticised current proposals must be “anti-road”. “Progress or the environment”; is the way it is billed – you can’t have one and also the other. Or so we are told.
This belittles a vital debate: it is essential that critical infrastructure is constructed – but of equal importance is that this is value for money, deliverable and functional. What if we could develop necessary infrastructure while protecting our environment? Moreover, what if this was more cash effective than current plans?
Surely the debate should be “How on limited resources, can we best tailor infrastructure projects to match our needs – while managing the environment?” In other words, one should not preclude the other: well-planned and functional infrastructure should go hand in hand with good environmental management.
Which is why the debate on the M3 is so important – in its own dysfunctional way, the M3 scheme has come to epitomise the utter vacuum of strategic vision in the National Development Plan. Its not that the M3 encroaches on 141 archaeological features, or that it bisects where Tara Mines have applied to excavate, or even that the road goes through a Special Area of Conservation. It’s just that it represents such poor value for money – that is, if it is deliverable.
Despite that a motorway can carry 12 times the amount of vehicles as a two-lane road, there will now effectively be three motorways in Co. Meath – all parallel within a few miles of each other, and all with the same destination – Dublin.
As the country’s most expensive road project, is this really the best way to get value – or should amalgamating the N2 Slane road and the M3 not have been given more consideration? Is Euro700 Million going to be the end figure? Or given the NRA’s recent history of 300% inflation on schemes such as the Glen O’ Downs and the M50, might 2 Billion not be closer? Already this year it has been revealed that the NRA has overspent by €10bn; this equates to €8,500 per tax-payer instead of the €3,500 to which they were originally authorised.
And what if the road is stopped because one of the archaeological features fits the criteria of a National Monument? Simply put, the M3 scheme is running the gauntlet with taxpayers money – billions of it.
While the M3 may take decades, the rail-line from Navan to Dublin lies idle. Despite going via Drogheda, according to the Strategic Rail Review, it could cut a Dublin-bound journey to 50 minutes.
The tracks are already there; it simply requires to be used. Yet like the M3/N2 amalgamation, the railway is a discarded viable alternative. It does seem perverse to minimise the use of exiting infrastructure while embarking on current grandiose schemes.
Yet aside from these concerns, recent reports revealed that the much-vaunted PPP’s (public-private partnerships) are finding it difficult to secure investment for the NDP roads package – despite the prospect of state subvention of 65%. Maybe it’s coincidence, or maybe building parallel motorways serving the same destination does little to enthuse potential backers.
In other countries, there is co-ordination of planning, yet Ireland has countless different agencies with numerous different plans. In a scene reminiscent of the opening lines of “The Third Man”, there is the National Development Plan, and there is the National Spatial Strategy, and then there is even the Strategic Rail Review; and yet there is no co-ordination.
A little known European Community report from 1988 makes for interesting reading. Authored by a Professor Serratosa, it was never destined to be a best seller; but it might have been a useful read for the architects of the National Development Plan. Phase One saw a daring plan: one route southbound from Dublin to Cork via Kilkenny.
With a spur feeding Rosslare, the motorway would have served Carlow and Clonmel, and would have only been seven minutes more on the Dublin – Cork journey time as opposed to the NDP plan. Going North, Serratosa recommended one motorway from Dublin to Belfast along the N2 Slane road, which would have serviced Drogheda and Navan with feeder roads. And because the expense for only one motorway was required, it could have been toll-free.
In ancient times all roads led to Rome, but in Ireland of the near future, all motorways will lead to Dublin – with separate motorways to Rosslare, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick, Galway, Navan, and Belfast. Whereas Serratosa would have complemented to the National Spatial Strategy, the radial NDP plan runs contrary.
Equally, Serratosa would also have allowed for the concept of “Strategic Infrastructure Corridors”. The idea is simple: strategic corridors whereby all services can be “wrapped” around the one axis. Hence the Dublin – Waterford – Cork route becomes an umbilical cord for electricity pylons, gas pipelines, telecommunications, water, sewers, with space set aside for a possible future TGV inter-urban style train.
The benefits could be enormous; aside from saving both money and environment, by minimising the areas effected by construction works, planning could be focused to ensure deliverable systems.
Complementary to Serratosa would be alternative ways of upgrading Primary Routes – like the increased use of passing-lanes. As a car-driver, it seems to me that by not getting bogged-down in completely new projects, passing-lanes are an inexpensive option that could provide almost immediate benefits.
Yet instead of these alternatives, we now have a scenario that has ensured rocketing inflation within the construction sector. Given that these projects are being done “in the public interest”, and are costing €20 bn of taxpayers money, it is essential to ask “qui bono” – who benefits? Is it to be unquestioned that in the absence of planning co-ordination, many of these schemes also assure the construction industry of large contracts, open up lands for “development”, and guarantee that Ireland will be car-dependent?
Maybe it is coincidence, but it is certainly worth noting that the top three contributors to the major political parties are… developers, building interests, and the motor lobby.
All the time, the EU Commissioner for the Environment, Margot Walsrom continues to rap the government’s knuckles over the absence of strategic planning. Is a dysfunctional “L.A. in the rain” really the sort of future which we want for Ireland? NDP: “National Disaster Package”, anyone?
© Ruadhán Mac Eoin
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Another article crippled by exaggeration and bad logic.
For example: ‘A little known European Community report from 1988 makes for interesting reading. Authored by a Professor Serratosa … Going North, Serratosa recommended one motorway from Dublin to Belfast along the N2 Slane road, which would have serviced Drogheda and Navan with feeder roads. And because the expense for only one motorway was required, it could have been toll-free.’
That is not interesting – it’s suicidal. Expecting a single junction at Finglas to manage all the traffic currently using the N1, N2, and N3 when it cannot manage as it stands is just ridiculous.
“Three motorways in Co. Meath – all parallel within a few miles of each other, and all with the same destination – Dublin.” – One of these motorways (the M1) passes through Co Meath for just a couple of miles, services Dublin Airport and also has a destination of Belfast and the entirety of eastern Northern Ireland. -
That is an excellent article and its tone pleasantly surprises me given its author who has been far more radical in his previous media pieces.
He has made one factual mistake there will not be three motorways in Meath in the near future there will in fact be four when the M4 through Enfield is completed next year.
I absolutely agree with Kefu on the strain that the existing N2 junction on the M50 is placed under, once going to a wedding in Carrickmacross on a bus it took 2 hours, it took 10 minutes from Busaras to Finglas 50 minutes to clear the M50 junction and 60 minutes to Carrickmacross. This was an ordinary Tuesday evening in July, but it just goes to show how poor Irish road intersections are in comparison to the German Autobahn Kruetz or major Junctions in the UK such as the M25/M4.
The M4 model in the UK is directly comparable to the Meath situation when you analyse three destinations namely Cheltanham, Exeter and Cardiff, on each route the central spine of the M4 is used and then the lesser towns of Cheltenham and Exeter are linked by the M5, which not only link these places to London but also encourage trade between each other.
I don’t think for a second that a two lane motorway would have been adequate for a northern corridor but rather a three and four lane section certainly beyond the commuter belt. The benefits of this would not only have been environmental and economic it would also have caused much less disturbance or severance to a much smaller group of communities and have resulted in a much smaller land acquisition requirement.
I really felt that the icing on the cake was the NRA advertising their version in the broadsheets in December with our money, they are onto a losing battle here and they know only to well every vista surrounding Inns Quay, and the sad fact is we’re paying for it.
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all roundabouts between sandyford & the airport are to be removed … the whole project is in with ABP at the moment, sdcc are managing …
http://www.sdublincoco.ie/index.aspx?pageid=539&deptid=12&pageno=44
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The M50 upgrade is costing a fortune 816m is the latest figure and it looks set to rise further if previous NRA experience is anything to go by. I can understand your support Peter; if I lived close to the notorious traffic blackspot that is Ballymount; I too would be asking how to God they ever built the M50 in its current format.
Coming back to the article there are some very well made points in it particularly on the existence of three motorways so close to each other, it is a fact that the Existing M1 runs west of Drogheda by about 2 miles, the proposed route of the M3 will be a similar distance East of Navan, Drogheda and Navan are 13 miles apart by road or 11.5 miles in a straight line, these two motorways will be 7.5 miles apart and I’m sure that the NRA will surely upgrade the M2 beyond Ashbourne before too long.
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@Thomond Park wrote:
it is a fact that the Existing M1 runs west of Drogheda by about 2 miles, the proposed route of the M3 will be a similar distance East of Navan, Drogheda and Navan are 13 miles apart by road or 11.5 miles in a straight line, these two motorways will be 7.5 miles apart and I’m sure that the NRA will surely upgrade the M2 beyond Ashbourne before too long.
So what are you suggeting? Do you want the motorway diverted west or do you just want it stopped? I think it has to be accepted that Meath is covered in historical sites as the Boyne Valley was one of the first places settled in Ireland, whatever route is chosen is going to have sites that can’t be built on according to some people.
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@Dubliner wrote:
Meath is covered in historical sites as the Boyne Valley was one of the first places settled in Ireland, whatever route is chosen is going to have sites that can’t be built on according to some people.
…one sentence going into another with a comma instead of a full stop…your style is oddly similar to Diaspora’s….(hmmmmmm!…….)
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Devin wrote:…]
Not me,
To be honest devin I think most people here read the posts and don’t indulge in syntax examination they simply post or don’t if they have nothing relevant to say. I actually think that Dubliner has made a good point here, what do the conservation lobby want in relation to the Skreen Valley? With Carrickmines they wanted the roundabout (soon to be replaced anyway) moved by 200 metres.
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@Diaspora wrote:
To be honest devin I think most people here read the posts and don’t indulge in syntax examination they simply post or don’t if they have nothing relevant to say.
I don’t normally care or particularly notice what syntax people use, but I happen to think Ruadhan MacEoin does good work to challenge the massively overscaled roads programme & government bias in favour of roads over public transport, and if you’re using multiple identities – Diaspora/Dubliner/PVC King (see also the “homepages†for those names) – to support yourself in threads, I think it makes a sham of the forum.
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Devin
As has been said before I’d hate to get stuck in a lift with some people. Dubliner is not my style the personna has no patience and gets angry and paranoid far too easy.
BTW I think the Tara Motorway should be shelved, I think that a rail link to Navan should receive a fraction of the investment required as it would provide a similar peak hour capacity for less than 30% of the cost, possibly in the future the benefits of extending the Ashbourne motorway further towards Navan and a western leaning M3 could be examined.
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this argument is getting very tiring…it gets to the stage when people just don’t give a shit anymore. build it/ don’t build it!!!! if it’s needed then build it. simple really.
i liked that little article but no mention of a road to the west…did he forget about us over here or just not care? but makes sense about grouping the services together. i think we talked about this a long time ago disapora??? can’t remember whch thread. makes much more sense.
everyone seems to have an opunion about our roads. they should have been built 20-30 years ago and there would be none of these enviornmental arguments… we are a car dependent country..all this talk about these roads will turn us into car dependents!!! wake up…we already are. and all this with crap roads!!! -
I understand we are car dependant but why cant we change that? What about rail.
The problem with the M1,M3, M4, M7 and the M50 is that none of them go past the outskerts of the city. We still have a problem getting them from the M50 into the city centre.€850 million is to be spent on the M50 and it wont make any difference on the traffic congestion inside the M50.
Now, rail can move commuters in such numbers that roads could only dream about.. At the moment there are about 4000 vehicles passing through the N3/M50 Jtn at peak times.
Now Irish Rail have a plan (part of the Greater Dublin Intergrated Rail Plan) to reopen the old Navan line, but only as far as where the Rail line croses the N3 (having a Park & Ride station there) This will be a DART which will join the Maynooth line (which also is to be upgrade to a DART). When finished, 14,000 commuters will pass the N3/M50 Jtn every hour. 14,000 or 4,000 (even after the M50 upgrade, this figure wont be much higher) . Rail is just superior when it comes to commuting.And rail bring you straight into the city centre. No jams or parking worries
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There is a very good press release on http://www.platform11.org
on the home page click onto the message board on the top right corner
It is in the last forum ‘events, happenings etc’ The thread title is ‘Navan’
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@FIN wrote:
i agree weehamster but there is no inclination by anyone with power to change this. park and ride is a very good answer to a part of the problem. espically with the suburbs moving out all the time but nobody seems interested in developing this.
I think that there is a very simple explanation for this, rail stations are viewed by planners as the ideal places for development as they are by their nature less car-dependent. Consequently all of this land is zoned for either commercial or residential development, where prospective developers know that they will secure a higher density than normal and are willing to pay a lot more for it.
Iarnrod Eireann would have to outbid developers for the land and then operate a carpark that is either free or at a heavily discounted rate to tempt commuters onto the train. Where the Navan Rail option has a massive advantage is that no rail link is currently operational so in theory IE can identify a number of large-scale potential park n ride sites and move in prior to the lands being rezoned. I really think that a small number of large park n ride facilities would be the way to go, why should commuters need to come in any further than Dunshaughlin? It is in reality the journey between Blanchardstown and Dublin City Centre that takes 75% of the time from Kells.
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