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The NRA must be stopped

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Comments

  • #332
    celticbest
    Registered Users Posts: 2,092 ✭✭✭celticbest


    blacktopper wrote: »
    Rail is far safer than roads. You should not even enter into a safety argument when comparing to rail. Its laughable.

    How do you get to a train station :confused: by road, so there is as much change of an accident on your commute to the train station as any other journey you may take.


  • #333
    dubhthach
    Registered Users Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    celticbest wrote: »
    How do you get to a train station :confused: by road, so there is as much change of an accident on your commute to the train station as any other journey you may take.

    There's also the point that most of the country with bad roads have next to no rail system. Donegal for example, let alone vast swathes of the country.


  • #334
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    If we have more stations less car commute, for example opening up new stations on existing lines that now find themselves running through newly sprung up commuter towns and settlements. You'd be surprised how cheap doing that is. Certainly the OECD research paper on the subject I was looking at said it was the way forward. Besides we have completed the upgrade of the road network now its finished people will always have that and we can start to maintain all our non-national roads that according to the last NDP make 94% of our roads.

    NDP%2007-13%20p.133.png

    There is no point continuing with larger new road projects there are no value for money more affordable options available, see this thread, "Post IMF Road Design Standards". Rail is safer, more sustainable, recommended in the T21 mid term review, public transport as recommended by our new government. Time we made a new plan. Trust me the question of building more affordable roads has been knocking around Boards.ie for months many road builders and fans troll certain boards they have been invited to offer affordable alternatives, they have none. They have no changes to the 2007 NRA road cross-sections published in the economic boom. The expert review of T21 said rail needs investment and it is government policy to move from roads to public transport and rail carries public and freight. It really is a done deal there is no alternative. Me and you chatting about it is immaterial, especially when there are no substantive changes to the NRA DMRB from the economic boom. You can't honestly say that the same manuals designed in the largest economic boom period the country has ever had will be applicable in the severest economic collapse, its stupid. Need to look to other sectors in transport if that's the case for affordable options that spread value across the country. Rail is the new roads.


  • #335
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    celticbest wrote: »
    How do you get to a train station :confused:

    An Taisce and James Nix expect you to walk or cycle :) Newcastle West train station is a wonderful building that requires careful preservation and you can appreciate its heritage value while you wait for the next train to appear. Presently !!

    6a0120a721c2d7970b01348.gif


  • #336
    dubhthach
    Registered Users Posts: 3,284 ✭✭✭dubhthach


    Blacktopper I would think most of the spend on rail that is proposed is for projects in Dublin area. Namely Metro North/Dart Underground/Kildare Rail project. The rest will be spent on commuter rail around Cork and perhaps one or two projects around Galway/Limerick.

    This still leaves the vast bulk of the country with poor infrastructure. The issue mainly been poor trunk roads (National primary/secondary). I don't think any one here would argue against the reduction in local roads. If anything all these bóthrín contribute to unsustainable one off development in the countryside.


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  • #337
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    I've nothing against low cost improvements of existing infrastructure. It is the expensive new builds that should be off the schedule. We have a vast amount of existing roads stock including National Secondary and Regional roads. If a vision of low cost improvement could be set out I'd probably support it, hell I'd probably champion it. Unfortunately we are stuck in a rut of thinking in terms without budgetary constraint. The Rosslare-Oilgate N25/N11 scheme being a case in point it has yet another new bridge across the Slaney and lots of sections of new build in Barntown etc. etc. Now if an online upgrade and junction treatment option was to pop up with only local bypassing where absolutely necessary that would be different. If you could lay out the costings for the original ambitious scheme then show a low cost alternative like that then Minister Varadkar and the rest of us would sit up and say hey wait a minute these guys are on the same page as me, maybe we should continue to invest in roads. High cost, few schemes you'll be ignored by government they have enough to contend with without accusations of favouritism and county nepotism being levelled at Ministers who are going to be having to dish out numerous bitter pills to the public. Lower cost affordable alternatives with the implicit brief to get the best we can for less and spread the value across the country, then your suddenly in the game again. Anyone a few years out of university can design the gold standard of roads, it is when you have to find the compromise between cost and safety and function that the true experienced professional justifies his salary IMO.


  • #338
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    By the way that video of that guy almost getting wiped out by a car run off. I notice the road has 4 lanes is this a demonstration of how larger roads induce traffic and still end up compromising safety Spongebob??:D


  • #339
    Stark
    Registered Users Posts: 20,874 ✭✭✭✭Stark


    Good job we don't build footpaths along motorways then :rolleyes: The safety improvements with motorways aren't due to extra lanes, they're due to separation of the carriageways. So when a car goes out of control like in the above scenario, it doesn't end up in a head-on with a truck.


  • #340
    Pete_Cavan
    Registered Users Posts: 6,688 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Cress wrote: »
    'Scrapping of N21 road plan welcomed' - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0310/1224291779178.html
    Spokesman for the group James Nix said recent cuts in local road maintenance works were due to excessive motorway construction.

    He expressed a hope that the move would “herald a change in policy to an emphasis on the maintenance, connectivity and accessibility to public transport”.
    blacktopper wrote: »
    I've nothing against low cost improvements of existing infrastructure. It is the expensive new builds that should be off the schedule. We have a vast amount of existing roads stock including National Secondary and Regional roads. If a vision of low cost improvement could be set out I'd probably support it, hell I'd probably champion it. Unfortunately we are stuck in a rut of thinking in terms without budgetary constraint.

    You and our friend Mr Nix are thinking in terms of once off costs but not considering the long term costs. Maintenance costs quickly add up when you have to go out regularly to repair the road, and even when replacing a surface entirely, the new surface wont last long if the pavement layers below it are of poor standard. New builds have significantly lower maintenance costs because the road pavement is designed to carry the loads which it will be subjected to, meaning the surface lasts longer.

    There is also a safety issue with most of the old roads, too many one off houses along the road, creating a danger at entrances and preventing widening of the road. In many cases it is simply not practical to upgrade existing roads because, regardless of how good there surface is, there will always be safety issues and speed restrictions.

    It would be interesting to compare the cost of maintaining 10km of road over 20 years v the construction and maintenance cost of 10km of new build over the same period and factor in the economic benefits and reduced number of accidents/deaths because of the new road.

    Of course we should be looking to upgrade existing roads where possible, but in some instances new build is the only option - people should judge individual projects on their merits, not dismissing them because "we have enough roads already".


  • #341
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    More transparency with regard to cost benefit analysis CBA of new build and 20 year maintenance vs existing build re-mediation and maintenance would be welcome. I suggest Stephen Glaister for the paper his reputation in this area is unsurpassed internationally, he is UK based so easy to get and independent.


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  • #342
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    Your right Stark we don't build footpaths next to roads over here we let the public walk on the road.:eek: My vision is of NRA responsibility for regional roads also. But only if VFM/A (Value for Money/Affordability) can be demonstrated and I'm afraid without a significant revamp of a few guidelines that will not be possible.


  • #343
    marmurr1916
    Registered Users Posts: 2,091 ✭✭✭marmurr1916


    blacktopper wrote: »
    More transparency with regard to cost benefit analysis CBA of new build and 20 year maintenance vs existing build re-mediation and maintenance would be welcome. I suggest Stephen Glaister for the paper his reputation in this area is unsurpassed internationally, he is UK based so easy to get and independent.

    Pity a proper CBA wasn't done for the WRC:
    PASSENGERS NUMBERS on the long-anticipated first phase of the Western Rail Corridor are falling far short of projections made in the business case for the route.

    In March last year, the €106 million route from Ennis to Athenry – connecting Galway to Limerick by rail – was opened after years of lobbying in the west.

    However, figures provided by the Department of Transport in response to a Freedom of Information request show that passenger numbers between May and September last year averaged 4,800 a month. “This translates into an annual figure of between 62,400 and 67,158 which is well below the 100,000 trips assumed in the business case,” an Irish Rail official wrote.

    The Iarnród Éireann business case anticipated the service would require an annual subsidy of €2.4 million to operate. Figures provided by Iarnród Éireann show passenger numbers from October to the end of December dropped, with a monthly average of 4,330.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0310/1224291779125.html

    The only way to encourage more passengers to use that service is to have much faster trains and lower fares, which would require a lot of investment and increased subsidies.


  • #344
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    I agree rail has been neglected too long. I suggest a frame shift of public investment to rail. You now are starting to get the point. If there is no new thinking in roads then rail becomes the new roads.


  • #345
    KevR
    Registered Users Posts: 3,110 ✭✭✭KevR


    We cannot escape the fact that road users heavily subsidise public transport. If there is no thinking in roads then there is no money for rail (or public transport in general).


  • #346
    Amtmann
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,093 ✭✭✭Amtmann


    blacktopper wrote: »
    I agree rail has been neglected too long. I suggest a frame shift of public investment to rail. You now are starting to get the point. If there is no new thinking in roads then rail becomes the new roads.

    You've shown a few times now that you know nothing about transport, road design consideration, and the constraints of population density.

    You speak on behalf of, or are affiliated with, PlanBetter - yet you didn't know the difference between Type2 DC and motorway. Why should anyone engage with you? You appear to have a default anti-road construction position, which is tedious to behold. Everyone else here adopts a more nuanced view on a case-by-case basis; but you come across as an absolutist.


  • #347
    marmurr1916
    Registered Users Posts: 2,091 ✭✭✭marmurr1916


    blacktopper wrote: »
    I agree rail has been neglected too long. I suggest a frame shift of public investment to rail. You now are starting to get the point. If there is no new thinking in roads then rail becomes the new roads.

    I think you've spectacularly missed the point.

    The WRC is a waste of money.

    Pouring more money into it would be a waste of money.

    Ireland cannot afford to waste money.


  • #348
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Cancelling Adare Abbeyfeale because it has NO CHANCE of being built for 15-20 years is fair enough. What is ridiculous is the airtime given to self selected sociopathic green types to rabbit on about it and conflate 2+2 ( Rural Dual Carriageway is what that is) with Motorway which is a greatly different road type.

    We still have genuine motorways to build like the M11 , M18 M17 M20 and M4 and we we can look at the N15 N17 N21 N22 N5 etc to 2+2 , I do think we need to look at our intended use of thru 2+2 and consider interleaving 2+2 andc S2 ..offline on a new alignment on newly cheap land that does not have a development and site value premium on it :)

    Sure how else are we supposed to get from A to B in our electric cars before the battery runs out in a tailback outside Abbeyfeale with the nearest charge point 30 miles away, what!!


  • #349
    tharlear
    Registered Users Posts: 130 ✭✭tharlear


    I do think we need to look at our intended use of thru 2+2 and consider interleaving 2+2 and S2 ..offline on a new alignment on newly cheap land that does not have a development and site value premium on it

    I think this is a valid suggestion, and could help keep costs down while the country is broke. However new access to these S2 roads would need to be severley restricted. No one offs or petrol station belonging to the friends of local FF/FG/Lab/SF gobs

    Also the land take should be such that it allows for future upgrading of the S2 sections to 2+2 were necessary when money is available.

    I have seen this accur in the US. One half of a State highways is built and used as S2 while the land for the other half is purchased and left vacant beside it. In some locations grading is completed, no bridges or culverts, for easy competion when funds become avaibalbe.
    Generally referred to as planning ahead.
    Even where there is no cash to build a road, the land could be cpo'ed and fenced off, rent it back to the farmer on 11 month contracts. This would protect the aligment for future use. Not sure of the legality of the this option.


  • #350
    Cress
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12 ✭Cress


    To Sponge Bob and Pete Cavan:
    I am not James Nix. Request the admins to confirm by IP address or any other means.

    corktina wrote: »
    Cress wrote: »
    'Scrapping of N21 road plan welcomed' - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0310/1224291779178.html

    Glad to hear it. Penny finally dropping on the recent orgy of unecessary road-building in Ireland?
    tell that to the relatives of the first person to die because this road has not been replaced with a much safer new one.
    Road-building means the death count goes up.

    More roads mean increased car use, more car ownership, more choice for drivers and the making of driving an easier option. Therefore you have an increase in the yearly number of people killed or maimed for life on roads, in addition to all the other ill-effects of a motor-car-borne society (non-renewable fuel consumption, inefficient use of resources, single-occupant-vehicle road congestion, time wasted commuting, social isolation, destruction of communities, obesity, increased anxiety, low sex-drive, an unequal soceity, land take, decay & degeneration of urban areas, noise & air pollution generation etc. etc.)

    No "safety features" of roads can address this and in fact the improved safety features in cars the motor industry always make hay of actually displace risks onto other, vulnerable road users - pedestrians, cyclists etc. Spongebob your video illustrates this only too well.

    Actually the future inquiries into the road-building programme of the 2000s predicted at the start of the thread should probably be changed to the trying of the NRA for mass murder.


  • #351
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    KevR you must be joking surely. When you consider all the externalities of roads such as ghg emissions, accidents, damage to buildings, noise pollution, congestion, scarcity of space in urban areas, and damage to the environment the single occupant car user gets a cheap deal, a really cheap deal. The external costs of transport are large (estimated at about 8 % of EU GDP (INFRAS, 2000)). When they tried to cover all those externalities into the price of fuel in Hungary the people rioted. Europe wants those externalities payed for on "the user pays principle" this is not a aspiration for tomorrow this is policy today.


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  • #352
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    Tremelo, I know nothing about roads?! I suggest the reader looks back on this thread and makes his own mind up. Rail being the obvious choice obviously hit a raw nerve. Pity because its not me your going to have to get insulting with on that one its the present government, best of luck I hear demeaning insulting language is just what works with politicians. Rail is the new roads Prof. Austin Smyth did the mid term review of Transport 21 on that one not me maybe he knows nothing as well. Now if you want me to start posting the same proofs on the folly of present road building strategy again you keep going. I won't be fobbed off onto a new thread on designing a new mid sized road to get affordable value for money infrastructure this time either. I will just leave lots of nice evidenced based arguments against road building all over this thread as the thread's title suggests I should and you road trolls will have to waste time on the same arguments again. Any fool knows that the same rules cannot be used in both the biggest economic boom the nation has had and then the biggest economic collapse. That might be why after the national press from my publishing the 7% fall in traffic over the last 2 years the NRA has now revised its traffic growth forecasts from 2-3% year on year growth to no growth in the short term and 1.12% in the long term. I don't know what I'm talking about! Who exactly do you think your talking too. You keep going like this I'll get half the ESRI posting and see how you like them apples. And as for your everyone else here is nice and reasonable and kind to small animals crap that is because you road trolls sit on this thread and scare the unknowing public off, your fooling no one Tremelo. Maybe you'll infract me again to shut me up.


  • #353
    Amtmann
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,093 ✭✭✭Amtmann


    blacktopper wrote: »
    Tremelo, I know nothing about roads?! I suggest the reader looks back on this thread and makes his own mind up.

    I repeat: You didn't know the difference between type 2 dual carriageway and motorway, and it took an obscene amount of time to explain to you. This makes it awfully difficult to take anything you have to say seriously.
    I won't be fobbed off onto a new thread on designing a new mid sized road to get affordable value for money infrastructure this time either. I will just leave lots of nice evidenced based arguments against road building all over this thread as the thread's title suggests I should and you road trolls will have to waste time on the same arguments again.

    Unless you have new arguments to make, it sounds like you're planning on soap-boxing. I wouldn't go there, if I were you. Also, please don't engage in name-calling.
    I don't know what I talking about! Who exactly do you think your talking too.

    Someone who didn't know the difference between type 2 dual carriageway and motorway. Someone who, despite this manifest ignorance, thinks he is informed enough to enlighten the rest of us about road design.
    You keep going like this I'll get half the ESRI posting and see how you like them apples.

    Anyone who wants to post is free to do so as long as the forum's rules are obeyed. There are very effective remedies for forum invasion, though, which can be activated at the touch of a button. Now, rather than being obstreperous, perhaps you could explain how it is possible to be an authority on roads while being ignorant of the difference between Type 2 DC and Type 1 DC.


  • #354
    blacktopper
    Closed Accounts Posts: 44 ✭blacktopper


    Maybe you should ask Sean O'Neil of the NRA that because as you well know it was his email that stated type 2 dual carriageway had been up graded to motorway status. Are you saying I might have been foolish to believe the NRA is sufficiently competent to know the difference? Are we really going over this again Tremelo in which case go speak to Sean not me. Rail are the new roads. The more you cover the same ground the more ardent I will be in lobbying the new Dail on the fact. You keep going. As for forum invasion why on earth are a load of professional/semi proffesional road building types hogging a thread saying the "NRA must be stopped" why don't you toddle off and make your own thread saying the "NRA is the best thing since sliced bread" or all of the numerous other road threads you appear on Tremelo. Was I clear in your final remark that if I get a load of transport economists to post some frank facts about how road building is probably the worst way of creating jobs you can find etc. etc. you'll press your little button and suspend them. Now that sounds to me like someone who's trying to manipulate free speech. How the hell did someone who loves roads as much as you end up as the mod on a thread titled "the NRA must be stopped". For the unknowing public I think that is a bit unfair don't you?


  • #355
    Amtmann
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,093 ✭✭✭Amtmann


    blacktopper wrote: »
    Maybe you should ask Sean O'Neil of the NRA that because as you well know it was his email that stated type 2 dual carriageway had been up graded to motorway status. Are you saying I might have been foolish to believe the NRA is sufficiently competent to know the difference? Are we really going over this again Tremelo in which case go speak to Sean not me.

    If you had known anything about roads, you would have immediately recognised that the NRA spokesman made a mistake when he said that. Instead you believed what was an obvious terminological error because you obviously weren't au fait with the topic. It's as simple as that. And no, we will not be going over it again. This thread is going around in circles and it's about to be locked.
    Rail are the new roads. The more you cover the same ground the more ardent I will be in lobbying the new Dail on the fact. You keep going

    If you really believe this, then argue the case in the parent Infrastructure forum. Describe there how your slogan can possibly be true given the abysmal failure of the Western Rail Corridor and the dispersed population settlement that blights large swathes of the country.

    This thread has run its course.


This discussion has been closed.
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