Isnt our infastructre a mess?

Qadhafi

Isnt our infastructre a mess?

I didnt get to see the Prime Time program last night but I did read some of Gareth Fitzgearld articles on the Luas.Mr Seamus Brennan admitted last night that the Luas was badly conceived and that it should have been put 100% underground. Its just a sample of things in general.

Firstly the Luas, the capacity which offers doesnt meet that of a bus, it would have been a lot cheaper to offer Quality Bus corriders in Dublin. Luas is a red herring in Dublin.

Dublin needs a underground metro, the government has to re-draw the plans to put everything underground and start work now!. Luas should have been given to Cork or Galway where the traffic isnt as bad as the capital. €1bn is wasted in Dublin but would have been great for Cork or Galway.

The M-50 is already at capacity, yet were still sitting on the fence. It needs a huge upgrade with those US style flyovers and widening to 4 or 5 lanes each way.

We need a new stadium to replace Landsdown road. Croke park wont do, matches overlapping etc. It should be at least 65,000 if not 80,000 (the seats will be filled) and should be built in Abbotstown as there is no real alternative.

Why is the government building a huge motorway network for the private car and expecting the private sector to build public infastructure? The motorways should be tolled, so they can be built quicker- whoever wants to use them should pay, there should be incentive schemes in place fo r roads which are completed on time or ahead of schedule. The government should be investing in rail with high speed rail on the main inter-city routes. and general upgrading of the rest of the services.

Dublin airport needs a second terminal URGENT. Build it, why are they pissing around?

It could do simply things like have an integrated ticketing system and an integrated transport policy(Im talking about timetables,and connecting services). Even things like giving local authorities more power to make rural roads safer to drive on, taking away dangerous corners, contracting out cutting hedges etc. Some of the rural roads are a joke, badly drained is their main problem with Huge hedges and full of dangerous corners and NO signposts ANYWHERE.

Where to get the money? Borrow, PPP tolls etc. Intrest rates are at historical lows. The government has to either breach the stability pact or come up with something better next January when we have the presidency.

whats everyone's thoughts on the matter??

Personally, i'm alot more tolerent of our infrastructure requirements. I agree on the matter of the roads, and i consider that to be a top priority, but the rest? not really too bothered. they're really things that can follow later.

I'm mostly interested in the road system we currently have, be updated nationally, not just in Dublin. There are too many roads that haven't been re-surfaced in more than three years (i.e. plants growing from the middle, and only capable of taking one vechicle going one way)

As for Croke park and Landsdown Road, they're like the government jet, something we don't really need yet. theres plenty of other things this country needs more.

Where to get the money? Borrow, PPP tolls etc. Intrest rates are at historical lows. The government has to either breach the stability pact or come up with something better next January when we have the presidency.

Ahh but our economy is apparently doing fine, but we're in debt already. Why borrow more, for cosmetic changes. I say, allocate what we have and upgrade our existing infrastructure. I don't really see the point, of going further into debt....

Qadhafi - just to note something. All the changes you list are in or around Dublin. Just to make the upgrades, or changes you list would bring us into more debt. But the rest of the country needs work done also.... so where does that leave us? I dunno...

mike65

If e-bay turned down a more generous grant to locate in Athlone and chose Dublin instead I think that tells you everything about the infrastruture failure (which is about more than obvious phyiscal stuff) of the last two governments.

Mike.

The Beer Baron

WHAT INFASTRUCTURE!??
:eek:

bloggs

Im living in Dublin, but i still don't understand why the places like Cork or Galway can't have a light rail/rail service?

Did anyone see on the news about the English complaining that they were 20 years behind the French with highspeed trains. I guess we will get the same ones by about 2020 :rolleyes:

bloggs

Originally posted by Qadhafi


Dublin airport needs a second terminal URGENT. Build it, why are they pissing around?

Or get a private company to build another Airport (smaller one) (Dublin City Airport or something). Also don't let Aer Rianta/Unions into it at all!!!

Wook

I think , by the time this goverment realizes that we do need roads and a decent public transport system it's going to be too late and ireland will once again be the land of lepra-goons and rainbows. People will have to do the riverdance and tourist will see the remnants of a metal tube sticking into the ground.

bonkey

Originally posted by Qadhafi
Dublin needs a underground metro,

I thought the reason that the underground plan was initially scrapped was because of the fact that most fo teh city centre is built on top of what is effectively reclaimed land, which simply isn't solid enough to build an underground system on for anything less than a ridiculously astronomical price.

Luas should have been given to Cork or Galway where the traffic isnt as bad as the capital. €1bn is wasted in Dublin but would have been great for Cork or Galway.

So you're saying that the government shouldn't have spent the money where the problem was worst? Or are you saying that this 1bn should have been spent elsewhere, and even more money spent in Dublin.

If they had that money, don't you think they would have used it?

We need a new stadium to replace Landsdown road.

Absolutely not, unless its a private venture. Spending money on such a vanity project when our education, infrastructure, etc are all desperately in need of improvement would be utterly irresponsible.

Where to get the money?

The government should stop trying to plug all the little holes, and concentrate on one problem at a time. Invest in infrastructure, sort it out, then move on to the next problem. The current idea of supplying dribs and drabs to everything is good for appeasing the "What About Us" moaners, but hopeless at actually achieving anything. Of course, the problem with such a focussed approach is that it would more or less guarantee losing the following election from all the WAU's

It should also look seriously at its efficiency and choke-points. How is it, for example, that the Irish pay more for their health-care than anyone else in Europe? It sure as sh*t doesn't result in the best service, or anything approaching it.

jc

Qadhafi

we have the second lowest National debt (Luxemburg 1st) in Europe but we must have one of the worst infrastructure in Europe.

The luas should have been built in Cork. It was the first major piece of infrastructure we built for ourselves and a lot of lessons have been learnt. It wouldn’t have made such a negative difference to trade if it was built in a smaller city.

Every country seems to go through these learning curves. The brits spent £Ster3.4bn on the jubilee line (its only 20k long i think). France and Germany have examples etc.

The government if it had any sense would be building high speed lines for the intercity routes. But something like this isn’t going to happen for another 10 years (when we need it).

The poor maintenance of the roads is also a mystery. If I was Seamus Brennan I would do the following.

Pass a law to enable the County Councils around Ireland to remove the verge of minor roads. There are usually high banks of mud. Then dig a trench, put that yellow piping stuff in it and fill it up with stones and have those man holes every 25meters flush with the surface of the road(taking those verges away would enable 2 cars to pass safely). Specify a certain height for the hedges and contract it out to a contractor to keep the hedges that height all year. Compulsory land acquisition for dangerous corners (say up to 5 -10 meters). Mark all the roads with appropriate road marking and have signposts at every junction. The only real cost is manual work and the paint and the signposts. It would make a huge difference to people living in rural areas and maybe they would be so pissed off with the government. Its probably one of the cheapest things the government could do.

Well for any football and rugby fan (and there’s quite a few) we need a new stadium. It good for a country to have an interest in sport and it will help develop sport in this country. You have to admit when Ireland does well at soccer it lifts the whole country!

Originally posted by Wook
I think , by the time this goverment realizes that we do need roads and a decent public transport system it's going to be too late and ireland will once again be the land of lepra-goons and rainbows. People will have to do the riverdance and tourist will see the remnants of a metal tube sticking into the ground.

lol this post just reminds me of that comedy show that used to be on Network 2 on a Monday night - you know, the one with the guy who played the referee in the oap soccer match in Father Ted?

Anyways theres these American tourists going around and everytime the Irish people see them they have to put on paddy-hats and start doing the riverdance.
LAF

/back to topic

star gazer

There is a point for a light rail system for Galway and Cork, but i think the national pension reserve fund could be used to funded a metro for Dublin. Every major European city has an underground, if Dublin is to be thought of as a real world player, it needs to get an underground, efficient transportation system. A certain amount of planning would be needed to take some pressure off the city of Dublin while the city gets a metro system. I would be a bit sceptical because there could be some damage to buildings (subsidence etc. think of port tunnel) and in certain areas there would have to be surface works aswell as underground. My opinion is that that could be far worse than Luas (if that is possible).
On balance, investing in our future is something we, as a nation, should be focussing on.

ringzer

Originally posted by Qadhafi

Pass a law to enable the County Councils around Ireland to remove the verge of minor roads. There are usually high banks of mud. Then dig a trench, put that yellow piping stuff in it and fill it up with stones and have those man holes every 25meters flush with the surface of the road(taking those verges away would enable 2 cars to pass safely). Specify a certain height for the hedges and contract it out to a contractor to keep the hedges that height all year. Compulsory land acquisition for dangerous corners (say up to 5 -10 meters). Mark all the roads with appropriate road marking and have signposts at every junction. The only real cost is manual work and the paint and the signposts. It would make a huge difference to people living in rural areas and maybe they would be so pissed off with the government. Its probably one of the cheapest things the government could do.

Have you any idea how long that would take the hard working council workers to do? They'd all probably die before its done. Then again most of them are ancient so they'll die soon anyway.

But seriously, I agree with contracting out road repairs and tolling roads. I dont think any country with a good road network give it away for free - ie they charge tolls. Its only fair. You use the train - you pay, so if you use the road, you should pay tolls.

I'm in NY at the moment, and in fairness their infrastructure is excellent. Its not perfect, but its a damm sight better than Ireland.

bonkey

Originally posted by Qhadafi
we have the second lowest National debt (Luxemburg 1st) in Europe but we must have one of the worst infrastructure in Europe.

Yup, and yup (presuming "Europe" == "western Europe" for the second point). However, there are now limits to how much the government can overspend, unless you're suggesting (as I already mentioned) that we give Europe two fingers.

The luas should have been built in Cork. .

You keep saying this about Cork. I'm beginning to think you must be from there

Did Cork need an investment of €1 bn to fix its transport on top of the monies already spent there in the past decade on such necesseties as the tunnel??

Have you any evidence that the lessons learned would have been applicable to Dublin? What do you propose should have been done in Dublin while they waited? Nothing? Spend more money on a temporary knee-jerk solution while we wait 10 or 20 years to evaluate the success of what was done in Cork?

It was the first major piece of infrastructure we built for ourselves and a lot of lessons have been learnt.

Did we not build the DART?

(And to be quite honest, anyone building something "for themselves" in preference to hiring trusted and proven expertise in the matter should be shot - figuratively speaking).

Originally posted by star gazer
Every major European city has an underground,

Yes, and no.

http://www.metropla.net/eu/euromet.htm

For example, there isn't a single metro in Switzerland, although I guess you could argue that none of the cities here are large enough to be "major" in terms of pure population.

Also, you're really talking about every major western European city.

What would be more important (for me) is the fact that I can't think of a non-Irish major European city which does not have a train line running to its major airports.

if Dublin is to be thought of as a real world player, it needs to get an underground, efficient transportation system.

I don't think so. It is not (IMHO) Joe Q Public who decides a city is a world player - it is businesses and the like - the successful and the rich.

The successful and rich generally do not travel by public transport, underground or overground.

What is a more telling factor is the overall quality of the transport system. Here, Dublin falls down, but an underground is not necessarily the way to solve it.

Bear in mind also that the estimated costs for the Dublin metro plan were in the region of €100 to 150 million, per kilometre. The entire LUAS budget of about €1 billion would have funded 10km of underground at most assuming that the figures proved to be somewhat accurate for once.

Those costs are astronomical, and are generally the reason that the plan was scrapped (assuming it was scrapped - the link above still shows the planned "metro-tram" system for Dublin as being on the cards).

jc

bonkey

Originally posted by ringzer
I dont think any country with a good road network give it away for free - ie they charge tolls. Its only fair. You use the train - you pay, so if you use the road, you should pay tolls.

On public roads, they call it road tax - which people already pay.

And as an island, Ireland doesn't suffer from significant masses of foreign traffic using our roads "for free" either.

jc

Qadhafi

a high speed train service to the 5 major cities would make a huge difference to quality of life. travelling at 250Kmp/hr (or whatever it is), you would be down in cork in no time.

Fixing the minor roads isnt go cost that much, they really should do it!

In addition the Government should design a Luas system for Galway and Cork(Luas was a good idea but wrong city).

Build the Dublin eastern bypass through Public Private Partnership

Provide proper park and ride facilites in Dublin, that might take some of the cars off the streets on Dublin

The government isnt doing much is it?

bonkey

Originally posted by Qadhafi
a high speed train service to the 5 major cities would make a huge difference to quality of life. travelling at 250Kmp/hr (or whatever it is), you would be down in cork in no time.

And how much would it cost, and is it the best use of limited funds?

Fixing the minor roads isnt go cost that much, they really should do it!

Again - how much would it cost? "Not that much" is a very easy number to throw about. Hard figures, plus sources for generating the cash in the first place are a bit harder to come by.

In addition the Government should design a Luas system for Galway and Cork(Luas was a good idea but wrong city).

I disagree entirely. Neither Cork nor Galway need a Luas, nor a metro. What they need is a conventional bus & tram system.

Also - see previous questions about cost and sourcing revenue.

Provide proper park and ride facilites in Dublin, that might take some of the cars off the streets on Dublin

Doubt it.

Dublin needs a coherent strategy - a combination of removal of inner-city parking facilities, coupled with a simultaneous increase in bus numbers, routes, frequencies, and quality of service.

The problem Dublin faces is possibly unique within Europe, and uncommon worldwide at best. The problem is the population density - its incredibly low. When you factor that into public transport, its an almost impossible situation - you need bus-stops frequently enough that people will use them (rather than driving cause the bus-stop is half a klick away), but at the same time, the closer together you place them, the more routes, drivers, and buses you need....without the travelling population outside rush-hour to even make it remotely possible to avoid losing money hand over fist.

The best solution Dublin had proposed was about 15 or 20 years ago, when they were told to imlpement a shed-load of bus corridors, replace a huge amount of the fleet with Imps, and increase the frequency of said buses to supply an overall better service. That might have worked then, but the govt decided it couldn't afford it and implemented it piece-meal. Even today, the number of bus corridors is below what was suggested as necessary over a decade ago, Imps are a dying breed, and we have a service thats overcrowded to ridiculous amounts at rush-hour, but which is massively under-utilised the rest of the day.

Seriously - if you think the problem is easy to solve, go make a proposal. I'm willing to bet that Dublin Bus would pay a fee of large numbers of millions to anyone who could supply as easy a solution as many people here seem to think there is.

The government isnt doing much is it?

The government has an awful lot of people, each with their own "highly important" priorities to keep happy. What makes you think your priorities are more important than everyone elses?

It could do better, but to be fair, its not exactly a simple problem.

Personally, I think that the key to resolving the issue is to hand the responsibility over to someone who doesn't need to be re-elected every so often. Then there's at least a chance that tough decisions will be made when they're needed (rather than waiting until its a question of the easiest tough option to choose) and things might slowly improve.

jc

Qadhafi

High Speed Rail HSR
(troll) advantages:
High-speed rail has the advantage over cars, in that it can travel at speeds far faster than those possible by car, and avoids congestion. And for relatively short distances of less than around 650 km (400 miles) has an advantage over air travel in that it needs no long check in times, which eliminates the speed advantage of air travel for short haul flights. And has a far greater frequency of service than is possible with air travel. (/troll)

cost is another matter, it depends on the location.
Railway Technology

Whatever the cost now, HSR will pay itself off in the future. motorways just clog up, yeah we need them but look at any other western country and its a similar pattern. HSR needs to be built now, not started when we really need it in the future.

Bringing the minor roads up to a minimum standard cant cost that much.Its essentially manual work.There is no complex plans. Just widen the roads, cut hedges, paint, drainage and signposts. Ive no specific numbers, but it cant cost that much. Its not crucial so it can stop if there is finance problems but at the moement its just being ignored.

I disagree entirely. Neither Cork nor Galway need a Luas, nor a metro. What they need is a conventional bus & tram system.

Luas is essentially a tram system.

Park and ride served by a proper integrated policy will work and if there was enough capacity on the buses etc then Dublin could introduce a limited congestion charge.

I really belive the government is pissing about and making a real mess of infastructure.

Name me 1 large high profile infastructure project that they didnt make a mess of? Port Tunnel, Luas, Metro(cost overruns+hasnt started).
Lack of broadband even though were selling ourselves as a E-commerce hub of Europe.
National stadium for Rugby+Soccer.
Stalling on 2nd terminal @Dublin airport, when its projected to bring in a increased number of tourists.
Only building only 3 lanes on M-50 and costcutting on roundabout instead of interchanges on motorway.
The cost over runs on motorways and behind schedule.
Still stalling on fixing the health service, basically downgrading regional hospitals and have centres of excellents.

gurramok

Only building only 3 lanes on M-50 and costcutting on roundabout instead of interchanges on motorway.

Yup, its a farce. Guess we are paying for all the housing estates that were built since the 70s with little/inadequate public transprot service.

Obviously the engineers/people in charge never heard of flyovers, putting traffic lights on roundabouts at major interchanges (Red Cow, Blanchardstown M50/N3) must be one of the worst road cockups

The M50/N3 interchange at blanch was built twice. I remember they knocked it down first time, the canal and train line were redesigned to be be like a flyover, they obviously forgot about the road part

I wonder what educational institution the planners attended

As said previously, more and more buses with appropiate routes are needed rather than a Luas that would only serve a small minority of commuters.
For ex, getting from the west to the north of Dublin, M50\back roads is the better alternative than getting 2 buses that would take far too long to tempt commuters. Why is there not frequent and plentiful bus routes to serve these parts of the city ?

The Luas reminds me of the Dart in that it would only serve a small number of commuters. Ffs, the dart only serves the extreme coastal parts of the eastern suburbs (:
Plus any public transport needs to be the CHEAPER journey alternative to the car !

ringzer

Originally posted by bonkey
On public roads, they call it road tax - which people already pay.

And as an island, Ireland doesn't suffer from significant masses of foreign traffic using our roads "for free" either.

jc

I knew that point would be picked up on. I thought people would give me some credit and assume I knew about road tax. Road tax is for rural and city streets, not to fund national primary routes. I'm talking about charging extra, based on use obviously for use of large roads such as motorways. Its the only way to fund these things. Money from Europe is drying up and will do more so with all the Eastern Europe countries joining soon

bonkey

Originally posted by gurramok
Plus any public transport needs to be the CHEAPER journey alternative to the car !

When I lived in Dublin, taking the cost of owning, running, insuring and parking a car (I worked in the city centre) meant that taking a taxi everywhere would be a cheaper alternative to a car.

The DART is a massively cheaper alternative, and (to be fair) transports rather a lot of people along a route where it was effectively impossible to upgrade the roads significantly.

Seriously lads....everyone here is moaning about what should have been done, what was done wrong, etc. etc. etc. and not one of you has addressed the issues of costs, or actually made anything more than a sweeping statement about something.

You complain about the M50 only having 3 lanes. The problem with the M50 is not the number of lanes on it. Its the volume of traffic which the on- and off- ramps can (or rather can't) handle overloading the road resulting in massive congestion. You could make the road 20 lanes wide, and you'd still queue for 45 minutes to get off at an exit.

People say "buses are the answer" without any though of where the buses would run, other than as "a proper service".

The LUAS isn't the answer - a metro is, despite the illogically large costs, not to mention the disruption it would cause compared to the LUAS (which is also being complained about).

I'm talking about charging extra, based on use obviously for use of large roads such as motorways. Its the only way to fund these things.

I very much doubt that anyone is going to agree to pay tolls on roads which were built with a combination of taxpayer's money and EEC / EC / EU grants in the first place.

And if road tax doesnt fund the NPRs at present, what does?

Also, consider the massive congestion our few toll points already cause. Whenever they are (occasionally) closed, there are always reports at how much better the traffic is flowing through and near them. Are you suggesting that implementing these systems on a significantly wider basis would be an improvement??? It might make the roads better, but its simply going to add another set of bloody big chokepoints on them as well.

jc

jd

Originally posted by gurramok
.

Obviously the engineers/people in charge never heard of flyovers, putting traffic lights on roundabouts at major interchanges (Red Cow, Blanchardstown M50/N3) must be one of the worst road cockups

I think any of the engineers working on the project would have preferred flyovers etc . The department of finance effectvely shunted back any proposals for them saying it cost too much...

star gazer

I don't think so. It is not (IMHO) Joe Q Public who decides a city is a world player - it is businesses and the like - the successful and the rich.

I disagree partially. It is true that the rich have a part to play in the fortunes of a city, but a business can only expand and make it's owners rich if the workers are productive. Cutting out traffic jams, crowded buses and claustrophobic housing through the use of a well planned, well spread underground system. The barber, the waiter, the street sweeper would all have a little bit of extra free time, and more comfortable daily routine with the underground. The point i'm trying to make is that it's the people that make a city a world player. Having a smooth underground (that not all rich would avoid) would be a part of the criteria for Dublin being a world player.
If a bus and tram system would work for Dublin I believe that Luas would be seen as a more positive step than it is.

I thought the reason that the underground plan was initially scrapped was because of the fact that most fo teh city centre is built on top of what is effectively reclaimed land, which simply isn't solid enough to build an underground system on for anything less than a ridiculously astronomical price.

I agree. I hope the technology is or will soon be there to make it feasible. Someone may just have to go for it because there will always be dissenters.

ringzer

Originally posted by bonkey


I very much doubt that anyone is going to agree to pay tolls on roads which were built with a combination of taxpayer's money and EEC / EC / EU grants in the first place.

And if road tax doesnt fund the NPRs at present, what does?

Also, consider the massive congestion our few toll points already cause. Whenever they are (occasionally) closed, there are always reports at how much better the traffic is flowing through and near them. Are you suggesting that implementing these systems on a significantly wider basis would be an improvement??? It might make the roads better, but its simply going to add another set of bloody big chokepoints on them as well.

jc

Two points:

1. The problem with Road tax is that is funds every road in the country. We need to create a revenue stream just for NPR's. Granted we get/got alot of money from the EU but as I'ive already said, this is drying up. We need to look at other areas to create money. I agree that people may have problems paying for roads that are EU funded, but any future roads will have to be paid for in other ways ie tolls.

2. Being ignorant and not from Dublin, (much better place - Cork!) I dont know how the toll booths work in Dublin. However, in the states and in most other countries I reckon, they have electronic toll booths. You sign up and get a device that you stick to the windscreen. When you get to the toll booth, you drive at 15mph without stopping and your toll is charged to your account. Relieves traffic quite a bit. So toll booths dont make things a hundred times worse! Its probably just stupid people rummaging in their bags as they get to the window that slows things up.

bonkey

Originally posted by ringzer
I agree that people may have problems paying for roads that are EU funded, but any future roads will have to be paid for in other ways ie tolls.

Ah yes, but the funding of future roads is a seperate issue, unless we decide that the solution to our traffic problems is simply to build more roads.

However, in the states and in most other countries I reckon, they have electronic toll booths. You sign up and get a device that you stick to the windscreen. When you get to the toll booth, you drive at 15mph without stopping and your toll is charged to your account. Relieves traffic quite a bit.

I believe they did discuss implementing this in Dublin some time ago. I can't remember why, but there were some reasons for not going with the idea.

Its probably just stupid people rummaging in their bags as they get to the window that slows things up.

And those stupid people are the ones suffering from the congestion as well??? Come on...stupid drivers, incompetent politicians....its beginning to seem that everyone involved must be stupid one way or another in order hold to the belief that its not a difficult problem!!!

Anyone who uses a toll-road regularly will have a stack of coins / tokens ready. These people already minimise the "start-stop" time. The problem is the choke-point effect. If you force even a reduction to 15MPH, then you start to build up a tail-back as the volume of traffic overloads the small area with extra lanes set up for a toll booth. With enough sustained volume, the tailback hits the road proper, at which point it "accelerates" backwards at a rate proportional to the volume of traffic. Once/if a tailback reaches the previous exit, the problem increases in scale, as more traffic is forced into the catchment.

Yes, a significant increase in roads (number of lanes, number of roads etc. etc.) would be a solution, but just how much are we talking about? How many roads, and how much money? How much more traffic will we suffer by the time those roads are built? Remember, that to avoid the problems we face today from re-occurring, we need to plan for the traffic volume of 20 or 30 years time, not just for today. How many lanes does that require?

The ultimate conclusion would appear to be that just building more roads is simply not a viable solution - even ignoring the fact that in and around Dublin there is often no space in which to build them where they are needed.

I've already mentioned the low population density in Dublin, and resultant massive footprint of the city. Consider also that Ireland has the highest house-ownership percentages in Europe. So while in many European cities, people may be more inclined to move across town to a new (rented) flat/apartment in order to be closer to their work, in Ireland you are more likely to see people doing long commutes from where they could afford to buy a house to wherever they happen to be working.

Its not a simple problem. It doesn't have simple answers. Yes, something needs to be done, but any kneejerk assumptions of "X is obviously a good/better solution" are - quite honestly - probably wrong.

jc

sovtek

Originally posted by bonkey
Ah yes, but the funding of future roads is a seperate issue, unless we decide that the solution to our traffic problems is simply to build more roads.

While Ireland needs more road capacity (especially in Dublin city) to meet the needs of a modern city, it isn't the long term solution...that is..of course public transport infrastructure.
More lanes means more cars to fill them.

I've said this before...get some Germans over here and let 'em sort it out.

Qadhafi

Quote
The ultimate conclusion would appear to be that just building more roads is simply not a viable solution - even ignoring the fact that in and around Dublin there is often no space in which to build them where they are needed.

I have to totally agree. Im not saying the motorways being built are not the answer. Yes build them but essentially they are part solution and they are for the private car. What the country needs is effective public transport and high speed intercity rail.

Someone mentioned that upgrading all the interchanges to proper flyover type ones. Thats something which should be undertaken immediately.

interchanges


Whatever happened to the Dublin Eastern Bypass?? That was meant to built by PPP and would really sort the problems on the M-50

sovtek

Thanks for that link Q, I've been wondering for several posts what the hell a "flyover" is.

"...but do you know what the cool thing is....the little differences".

Qadhafi

hey if i had an ariel photo of the RedMad cow roundabout i could select the overchange myself:D The mad cow is obviously the busiest junction in the country and why they didnt build a proper interchange is beyond me.

Ireland obviously doesnt have the technical expertese to build large infastructre projects, the Luas was a good lesson though and €1bn isnt a total waste of money. All the interchanges on the M-50 need to be upgraded and the road itself widened to 4 lanes each way. I dont know if they have enough room to do that though or what the cost would be :eek:


Can they get it right for the Metro?

oneweb

Was in Paris for a while (not long enough, tbh) The metro in particular, and how well it's integrated into rail and bus connections was just fantastic. They even have a 100% automatic (driverless) metro line, which was sweeet The metro is frequent (max we were waiting was 7minutes, average was 2 minutes) uber-fast and uber-efficient.

To come home and have to wait 30 minutes for a bus into the city center, ffs! just made me wanna walk back into the terminal and catch a plane out of the country for good

OK, so many of their tunnels were built a century ago, but with the technology available today, surely Dublin could get something decent done?

Let's hope a proper Dublin Metro can be properly planned and properly implemented in the not-too-distant future! (and if it does go underground, that it'll fit! :rolleyes:

Lennoxschips

I am a Civil Engineer and work in Amsterdam for the department of Spatial Development and Transport, and the last thing Dublin needs is to widen the M50. EVERY TIME A ROAD IS WIDENED, THE TRAFFIC INCREASES, AND THE JAMS DO NOT GO AWAY. Every European country has realised this, but in Dublin people still seem to think that more asphalt is the answer to all our problems.

People are saying that Dublin needs to become a major European player. One of Dublin's selling points is it's coastal location and sea views from certain areas. So why then do people want to build a "Dublin-East" bypass? The coast needs to be developed into a marina style boardwalk area, not turned into a motorway!

What Dublin needs is an intelligent usage of existing roads, through a good use of one way systems and proper, safe junctions, which clear markings and lanes for turning. Too many Irish traffic light road junctions look like they have been thought up of at the last minute. The Kinsale Roundabout in Cork comes to mind. However, even without a flyover they should have been able to do a better job there then they did. That roundabout was was a traffic mess waiting to happen. Why is it that similar roundabouts in Holland where dual carriageways meet are much safer and logical? It has nothing to do with money, and a lot to do with creating and enforcing national standards.

Dublin also needs to give public transport a priority. Ok, LUAS is a good idea in principle, but you get the feeling it was built because some TD somewhere thought it would be cool if Dublin had some trams, without actually considering the point of the thing. As somebody said earlier, dedicated bus lanes and corridors would have done the same job for a lot cheaper.

I also read somewhere that there is an existing rail ringline between Connolly station and Heuston, but it is never used. (The Phoenix park tunnel) The first and most obvious thing to do would be to upgrade this to a DART style light rail facility, and it would cost half nothing, because all the infrastructure is there! I'm sure it would be a very popular service if put into use.

What is needed is an integrated transport plan (not just roads, but all transport) that gets all the small things right, which will eventually lead to a good product overall. The Roads authority and Rail authority should be merged into one. People should be able to use the same tickets on the bus, luas and DART. Timetables need to be synchronised. A proper, integrated public transport map of Dublin needs to be released to the public. Even some proper footpaths and cycle lanes would help. Yet new neighbourhoods and roads are still built with tack on footpaths and no cycle lanes. These are all the small things that would make a huge difference.

Similarily, while 250 km/hour trains from Dublin to Cork would be nice, why don't we concentrate on getting what we have working properly first? Upgrage the rolling stock, electrify existing track, and install a decent 150 km/hour system. Ok, it's no TGV, but it would be a robust, reliable and clean system, and do wonders for making the rural areas accessible.

More and bigger motorways won't solve anything, but they do get the votes of car owners. This is the sad truth behind Ireland's transport policy. In the 1990s we had the money and the oppurtunity to start from scratch and build a public transport system that would have been the envy of Europe. Instead we built roads everywhere. Take Cork for example, does anybody seriously think the ring road and tunnel system has improved city life there? Does a small town like Ballincollig really need a motorway going to it? If anything, things have gotten worse. A proper tram and bus system would have done a much better job and lasted much longer.

bonkey

Originally posted by Lennoxschips
Similarily, while 250 km/hour trains from Dublin to Cork would be nice, why don't we concentrate on getting what we have working properly first? Upgrage the rolling stock, electrify existing track, and install a decent 150 km/hour system.

Not to mention re-laying a vast majority of the track in the first place....

I was on the Dublin-Cork line recently, and I couldn't believe how much the carriages were wobbling from side-to-side, even on the so-called straight.

Trying to get from the bar back to my table with 2 drinks was an absolute nightmare!!!

Seriously - while it might seem like a small complaint, the difference in getting a 3-hour train trip across Swizxerland and the same in Ireland is massive. In fairness, the quality of the carriages is roughly comparable, but the major difference is just how damned smooth the ride over here is.

If Ireland want their rail system to be improved, teh first thing they need to do is bring their track up to late 20th century standards. 21st century standards and high-speed trains can wait for a few decades to be honest.

jc

SkepticOne

Originally posted by bonkey
Not to mention re-laying a vast majority of the track in the first place....

I was on the Dublin-Cork line recently, and I couldn't believe how much the carriages were wobbling from side-to-side, even on the so-called straight.

Trying to get from the bar back to my table with 2 drinks was an absolute nightmare!!!

I have found this too. By the fourth or fifth trip to the bar the swaying of the train can get quite bad. This is clear evidence of the poor state of the tracks as the train approaches Cork.

Qadhafi

The Irish Independent
Alan Ruddock
21-September
Another fine mess they have got us into

********************
SEAMUS Brennan, the Minister for Transport, gave us an interesting glimpse of how Irish governments go about their business when he appeared on RTE's Prime Time last week.

The original estimates for Dublin's Luas tram system were, he said, a "back of the envelope" job and it was really unfair to complain that the costs had run away from the estimates because those original costs had been plucked out of thin air.

The true measure of the Luas was the tender price for the job, he said, and that was still on course, give or take a €100m or so. He could have mentioned that we never knew the tender price because it was kept secret by the Rail Procurement Agency for reasons of commercial sensitivity, but that might be nit-picking.

The message was clear: the Irish public service does not have the skill to price major infrastructural projects and we will only ever know the real cost when it goes to tender. And since our public servants have no idea what the true cost should be, they will have no idea of how to assess value when those tenders come in.

So what to do? Pick the cheapest? Go mid-range? Stick a pin in the list? Throw them all in the air and choose the first to hit the ground? Who knows?

Mr Brennan's interview on Prime Time had, at least, the merit of some honesty. Luas, which will deliver two tram tracks covering 25kms from parts of Dublin to different parts of the city centre and a third that will run the few hundred paces from Abbey Street to Connolly Station, will cost close to €800m and should open for business some time next year. The two and a bit lines will probably never link up, and if Mr Brennan was starting with a clean sheet of paper he wouldn't be doing it at all.

And, at the eleventh hour, the minister has realised that running trams across the country's busiest and most congested roundabout might prove problematic. It is, as he said, a mess, but we just have to learn our lessons and, eventually, learn to love Luas.

So what are those lessons? Clearly, we do not have the competence, in government or in the public service, to plan and manage big projects. If Luas has been expensive, poorly planned and sluggishly built, what might we discover if we examined our road-building programme in forensic detail?

Or what about Aer Rianta's massive spending programme at Dublin airport, where hundreds of millions were spent developing new facilities that have done nothing to ease congestion?

More importantly, what credibility can we attach to Mr Brennan's own plans for a metro system in Dublin? Are we to believe that it will cost €2bn, or €4bn or €10bn?

The Luas fiasco - and it cannot be considered anything but - is a startling example of how poorly this country has been managed by successive governments, and it provides yet further proof that Mary O'Rourke, Mr Brennan's predecessor, was one of the most dangerous and incompetent ministers in recent memory. This project is part of her legacy, just as the anarchic chaos that passes for Dublin airport is part of her legacy.

International comparisons can be unfair, but they still provide some context for what we do. On Friday, the Irish Independent noted that the Darwin to Alice Springs railway line in Australia had cost less than Luas for its 1400kms of track, laid through intimidating desert at a rate of some 2kms a day. It was on time, and on budget. The Australian state, through the Federal and local Northern Territories government, contributed about half the cost, with the rest coming from the private sector.

By contrast, London's Jubilee Line Extension cost about seven times more than Luas and covered only 16kms, 12 of them underground. The JLE also includes architecturally stunning stations and carries about 200m passengers a year but it does tend to make Luas look relatively cheap. So how do we know if we are getting value for money?

The clearest signal that we are not was Mr Brennan's assertion that he wouldn't do it if he were starting from scratch. Because of our inability to plan, the Luas was conceived on out-of-date information and was designed to solve a problem for the late Eighties and early Nineties, not the 21st century.

As Garret FitzGerald, the former Taoiseach and committed Luas-sceptic, pointed out in his report in the same programme, the traffic projections that formed the basis of the Luas plan were comically out of date by the time the project was approved. No one, apparently, noticed.

He also pointed out that trams work in cities that have wide boulevards, not the congested, narrow streets that characterise Dublin. Which was why they were ripped up many years ago. So even if Luas turned out to be exceedingly good value for money, and proved to be an exemplar of good project execution, it would still be the wrong solution to Dublin's problems. In other words, a waste of our money.

And, as always, there will be no political price to pay for this frittering away of taxpayers' money. Civil servants, who expect to see their levels of pay benchmarked to the private sector, will not lose their jobs for making poor decisions and no minister will take the fall. The weary watchwords of accountability and transparency will have no place in any post-Luas analysis. Life for those who made the decisions will go on as normal.

The analogy with Dublin airport is valid. Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, is so frustrated with the shambles presided over by Aer Rianta that he is prepared to build a new terminal for €120m and hand it over to the State, for free, so long as it is run by competent people (anyone but Aer Rianta). He will add 20 new routes, guarantee an extra five million passengers a year for Dublin and contribute to the creation of some 5,000 new jobs.

Mr O'Leary has a proven track record of delivering on his promises; the State would get an important asset for free; the economy would benefit and Irish travellers would get the opportunity to fly direct to Europe on low fares. Instead of embracing Mr O'Leary, this government shuns him and embraces the public sector unions who are terrified of competition, of change and of progress. Their mentality shapes this country, and their effective veto on good management diminishes it.

Luas will have served some purpose if it wakes us up to the mismanagement and basic incompetence that characterises the governance of this country, if it forces people like Mr Brennan to realise that good planning and good management are essential prerequisites before public money is spent. It is a lesson so elemental that it that should not need to be learnt, but Luas has shown that we are barely literate when it comes to the basics of how to run a country.

In a rare insight to the workings of the Taoiseach's mind, the Irish Independent also reported last week that "Mr Ahern believes that too much time and money have been wasted through delays on multimillion euro projects around the country and that changes will have to be introduced".

This is the same Mr Ahern who has presided over those projects for the past six years, and is the same Mr Ahern who wanted, above all else, to build a near billion-euro football stadium on the outskirts of Dublin.

If he's serious about change then he must start with himself: he must abandon his cosy embrace of the public sector unions and enforce professional standards of competence within the public sector; he must reach out to the private sector and accept competition; he must recognise that is consumers, not producers and providers of services, who should be paramount.

Otherwise we will have many more projects like Luas: poorly conceived, poorly executed, inappropriate and a waste of taxpayers' money.

Or, as Mr Brennan would say, a mess.

Qadhafi

if this wasnt serious it would be hilarious, somethin you would read in the newspapers about what goes on in Cambodia.

Just looking at what the ministers do, you can get a terrible picture of the fcuk ups made. Bertie hasnt done anything in regards to transport, i.e like take tough decisions on anything.

Take the Metro, Brennan gave out that the €4bn was too much, worked on it then came back all happy that nothing had to be paid till after the metro was up and running. Then we only have to shell out €10bn. Duh !! Buy him a calculator.

Personally I think the entire government has ran out of steam. Its not the government it used to be. There is so much more competiton between countries these days that making a mess of infastructure, education etc is not acceptable and the government is realy struggling.

Lennoxschips

It's also the same Ahern that built a megamall next to the M50. And now people wonder why the M50 is full.

Hmmm.

Qadhafi

Treacy Hogan
Environment Correspondent
The Irish Independent
23-September-2003
****************************
A €700m plan to improve access to Dublin from all parts of the country is to be handed to the Government shortly.

It has been drawn up by the National Roads Authority in the hope of finally ending the capital's gridlock.

The news emerged yesterday as European Car Free Day provided the clearest possible evidence of how bad the problem has become.

Dublin joined hundreds of other cities and towns in an attempt to illustrate the value of leaving the car at home.

But the day was branded an unmitigated disaster with five-mile tailbacks developing along the M50 from the new €23m Westlink bridge - less than 24 hours after it was opened by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Traffic volumes were heavier than usual and Dublin Bus reported no increase in passengers despite offering free travel between 10am and 1pm.

Bus Eireann said its inter-city passengers using the M50 were stuck in delays of up to an hour because of the traffic build-up at the West Link.

The ambitious new plan involves extra lanes on the M50 and a series of multi-lane flyovers.

The proposals are due to get the green light from the board of the National Roads Authority (NRA), the Irish Independent has learned.

New lanes, stretching 30km along the M50 from Sandyford in south Dublin to Dublin airport on the northside, form a key part of the plan.

There will also be a series of flyover "spaghetti junction" links at the Red "Mad" Cow Roundabout, and other chronic interchange bottlenecks where the M50 meets the main roads from Belfast, Sligo, Galway, Cork and Limerick.

After being considered by the NRA board, the plan will go to the Government who will have to sanction the funding. The Government has already made it clear that up to €1.2bn will be available for national roads next year.

Under the blueprint, motorists coming from the Airport who want to go to Cork, for example, will have a dedicated flyover to avoid queueing through three sets of traffic lights at the Red Cow M50 junction.

Other "freeflow" flyovers are in the plan for the M1 Belfast-Dublin intersection with the M50 as these are the two worst bottlenecks.

Michael Tobin, NRA chief executive, said they hoped to have contractors on site within 1½ years of getting the green light with the entire project taking three years to complete.

"This will go a long way to relieving the congestion on the M50 and the interchanges," Mr Tobin told the Irish Independent.

Under the plan:

* There will be extra lanes on the M50.

* Motorists travelling south on the M1 from Belfast will be given a flyover to join the M50 and allow them to head in the Cork direction.

* Motorists heading from the Naas direction towards Dublin who want to turn right at the Red Cow Roundabout and drive towards south Dublin and beyond will have a flyover.

* Drivers who want to exit the M50 and head west will benefit from a new flyover.

bloggs

Originally posted by Qadhafi
if this wasnt serious it would be hilarious, somethin you would read in the newspapers about what goes on in Cambodia.

Just looking at what the ministers do, you can get a terrible picture of the fcuk ups made. Bertie hasnt done anything in regards to transport, i.e like take tough decisions on anything.

Take the Metro, Brennan gave out that the €4bn was too much, worked on it then came back all happy that nothing had to be paid till after the metro was up and running. Then we only have to shell out €10bn. Duh !! Buy him a calculator.

Personally I think the entire government has ran out of steam. Its not the government it used to be. There is so much more competiton between countries these days that making a mess of infastructure, education etc is not acceptable and the government is realy struggling.

I bet we could have got an efficient Japanese construction company to build the likes of the LUAS for half the money in half the time.

Not but it's like the bloody mafia in this country half the money goes to Bertie's friends

bloggs

Originally posted by Qadhafi


Personally I think the entire government has ran out of steam. Its not the government it used to be. There is so much more competiton between countries these days that making a mess of infastructure, education etc is not acceptable and the government is realy struggling.

No it's exactly the government it's always been!!!

Qadhafi

The Irish Times
23-September-2003
****************************

CONTRARY to popular belief the Luas wasn't the first Irish planning disaster. We have a terrific record, second to none, for getting it totally wrong when it comes to infrastructure.

Take the M50 C-ring motorway around Dublin and its money-making West Link bridges as cases in point. When the contract was signed for the tolls back in 1986 the worst case scenario envisaged traffic volumes to grow to 46,000 at most in the years ahead.

The harsh reality is that some 80,000-100,000 unhappy souls spend hours stuck in tailbacks, often five miles long, every day as they queue up to hand over the toll charge allowing them to escape onto open road.

Car Free Day my eye. It was gridlock as usual yesterday as it will be in increasing amounts every day in the run up to Christmas.

And when the Port Tunnel is open another 6,000 trucks will be piling on to the M50 which has already reached "crisis capacity." And we still don't know if that tunnel is high enough to cater for the so-called supertrucks.

Quite simply the biggest and busiest road in the country cannot cope with the volumes of traffic now using it. The only certainty is that the numbers of cars and trucks are going to grow and grow in the years ahead until it can no longer function at peak times without even more horrendous traffic jams, if that is possible.

Planners now realise that there should have been at least one extra lane on the M50. And the nightmarish interchanges which link it with the main roads to Cork, Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Belfast should have been built with full fly-overs which would make it possible for cars to join or leave the motorway without hindering the flow of traffic.

Trucks and cars are stuck every day either on the M50 trying to get off onto the N4 to Sligo and Galway or on the M1 Belfast road vainly attempting to join the M50. Car drivers are stuck in the middle in a maelstrom of frustration, delays and downright anger that planners got it so wrong.

There has been talks for years of providing the extra lanes on the M50 and upgrading the interchanges but it now appears that this is finally taking shape. The National Roads Authority (NRA) is putting the finishing touches to a €700m plan involving such proposals and these are due to go before its board within a matter of months.

But this may simply go the way of so many other plans now gathering dust such as the National Spatial Plan. The battle between motorways and public transport has been won by the roads lobby.

If you add extra lanes you are simply just inviting more cars to join the gridlock. Where does it end? Now two lanes on the M50 possibly three shortly. Why not go for four lanes? The numbers of cars and lorries will rise but public transport remains the poor relation of transport investment. That's the reality as yet another plan is unveiled to the public.

Perhaps it might be far more prudent to invest in our clapped out public transport system. Dublin might be getting a very expensive Luas but the rest of the country is getting absolutely nothing. Michael Tobin, the NRA's chief executive, has admitted that such an ambitious programme will take considerable time. It will take at least one and a half years to get a contractor on site from the moment the plan is approved and another three years after that.

Realistically it will be about ten years before the new look M50 will be finished at which time the numbers of cars and trucks might even necessitate even more alterations of the grand plan.

But if the political will, cash and proper planning is provided the changes could happen even quicker. After all the latest Westlink bridge was built ahead of schedule and within its €23m budget, demonstrating that it can be done. The NRA is acutely aware that their chances of getting significant extra revenue from the Department of Finance is very slim indeed. They will be doing well to hang onto the annual €1.2bn much of which is already earmarked for a variety of new motorway and dual-carriageway projects as well as key by-passes.

Conor Faughnan, the Automobile Association spokesman, favours extra lanes and fully upgraded interchanges to ease the plight of the motoring public. But Mr Faughnan also advocates a far simpler and less costly solution which could happen overnight.

This involves NTR the private company operating the tolled Westlink bridges lifting the barriers to motorists between the peak 7am-9am and 5pm-7pm periods. This would reduce tailbacks on the M50 which frequently stretch all the way back to Firhouse. Even a minor accident effects traffic five miles back.

Under his suggestion the Government which is making far more money than was anticipated back in 1986 from the Westlink bridge would cover the cost of the "happy rush hour" and remove the artificial tailbacks from the toll booths.

The original deal with Westlink in 1987 laid down a level of "franchise fee" that got higher as traffic volumes increases. As a result the AA calculates that the Government each day gets about €65,000 or which is almost €23m a year. Part of that could be rebated back to West Link to cover the cost of raising the barriers at rush hour. The AA believes the bridge will still remain highly profitable for both the Government and NTR.

Perhaps it is also time for Transport Minister Seamus Brennan to implement his radical proposal to sell off the Port Tunnel and the M1 to an agency such as the National Pensions Reserve fund which has indicated its desire to invest in infrastructure.

Alternatively the Government may wish to to hand over the M1 to private operators as is now planned. The intention is that the private consortium would bankroll the final stretch of this road from Dundalk to the Border. Should the government set up State tolls the revenue stream could be used to pay for the road and significantly provide a constant source of cash for other road projects.

In the meantime the only sign of progress for the 100,000 on the M50 is the vehicle in front moving two feet every few minutes. And soon we might well need bypasses of our bypasses.

---

I thought this was intresting, yeah there thinking of fixing the M50 with flyovers and interchanges and extra capacity but doesnt that just put more cars on the road? And the roads vs public argument has to be addressed. These news roads are great etc but I just think it will lead to more traffic.

Selling the roads off to private firms is a good idea providing the money is ploughed back into infastructure.

star gazer

Great, new roads. The more roads we build the more things seem to congest. Maybe there comes a point when new roads will be able to handle full rush-hour traffic efficiently. Also it's unfortunate that tolls are the new thing for roads because they just seem to add to the problem in delay-terms.
I agree the luas is looking hap-hazard at best, so maybe it would have been better to spend the €770million on roads. Central Dublin does need public transport though. The density of users and value of land means that new raods aren't feasible. If a worker/consumer/tourist can get to anywhere around central Dublin in a short period of time it would make a real difference(underground).

Lennoxschips

* There will be extra lanes on the M50.

The elastic traffic effect. The more roads there are leading to the suburbs the more people think, "ooh, I can live further away from work thanks to these brand spanking new roads!". 50,000 other people have the same thought and hey presto, the new roads are full six months after they are opened.

Every country in Europe has learned the lesson the hard way that widening motorways does not work. Almost every major city in Europe is investing in city centre public transport on a massive scale and suspending road schemes. But in Bertie's Republic of Texas more lanes are being built. It's ridiculously stupid. Does he want us to relearn the hard lessons that were learned in Europe 20 years ago?

mike65

I'm all in favour of more roads were appropriate but what really needs doing is to bringing ppls work place closer to thier home.

On a related issue e-working is entirely possible now but it seems very few are able/allowed to partake as managerment is'nt able to grasp the idea of thier employers doing a productive days work when beyond thier steely gaze. The govenment must start to encourage home working where feasible through tax breaks to enlightened companies.

Mike.

Qadhafi

€700 million on upgrading the interchanges and provision to put more cars on the road?? where do these people think up these stupid ideas. Proper public transport is the only way to go, its going to take another 10 years before the penny drops with infastructure planners... err duh, we should have looked at rail and bus.

Why cant the government spend some of that cash and invest in rail (because they are thick and stupid ? ?)


Whatabout de-centralising all of the civil servants quicker than the decade long program hence reduce the emphasis on Dublin. Were the most centralised city in Europe. Maybe Ebay might have relocated to Athlone if the governments sole concern wasnt Dublin.