[article] Opposition to using Dublin Port Tunnel in for the long haul

NavanJunction1

Opposition to using Dublin Port Tunnel in for the long haul
Irish Times, Sat, Apr 15, 06

The Dublin Port Tunnel was ill-conceived from the start and it may even be facing the wrong way, writes Frank McDonald

The Dublin Port Tunnel is nearing completion. It is by far the biggest and most complex road project ever undertaken in Ireland and will cost taxpayers at least €752 million.

Yet just months away from its inauguration, those for whom the tunnel was specifically designed are vociferously objecting to having to use it.

Although Dublin City Council has amended its heavy goods vehicle (HGV) management strategy, agreeing to delay the imposition of a ban on trucks in the inner city for two years, a powerful lobby has emerged from the undergrowth to challenge the council's move; one major freight company is considering a High Court action.

Even the Dublin Port Company is up in arms. It maintains that the aim to maximise the use of the port tunnel and minimise the number of HGVs on the city's streets would be an "unwarranted restriction of the free movement of goods", raising serious issues about competition law "and perhaps even of human rights".

In its submission on the draft HGV management strategy, the State-owned port company described the proposed ban as a "disproportionate response" to the problem, and queried how it made any sense to force trucks to take a journey of 25km right around the M50 to a destination that may be just 1km down the road from the port.

It wants this "fundamentally flawed" strategy to be suspended until the €1 billion upgrade of the M50 is completed, a suitable southern port access route is agreed and a "regulatory impact assessment" of banning trucks during daytime hours (7am to 7pm) from using East Wall Road and Sean Moore Road is carried out.

The Irish Road Haulage Association said the closure of these "long-established HGV routes" would be an "unwelcome development for the transport industry" and might simply result in the transfer of problems to other areas.

Overall, the hauliers warned, the HGV management strategy would have a negative impact on their business.

Ibec has rowed in behind the truckers. It has claimed that the strategy would have the effect of "stifling the development of Dublin Port and undermining the city's status as a trade and distribution centre, with the possibility of increasingly isolating Ireland's largest port from its national trade and distribution hinterland".

Last week Ibec said it was planning to lodge a formal complaint with the European Commission against the truck ban. It had legal advice suggesting that the city council is "exceeding its authority by curtailing HGV access to Dublin Port and is in breach of EU free movement provisions", according to transport director Reg McCabe.

Noting that the European Court of Justice struck down a similar HGV ban by the provincial government of Tyrol in Austria on this basis, he said: "It is not acceptable to the business community that vital trade is subject to arbitrary rules and restrictions, particularly as the full economic impact of the policy have not been calculated".

Even the National Roads Authority (NRA), which co-sponsored building the tunnel with Dublin City Council, felt it would be "unreasonable at present to expect port-bound HGVs to travel through the congested West Link toll bridge from the south", and said the strategy should be phased in with the introduction of barrier-free tolling.

Those opposing the introduction of the HGV management strategy, even on a phased basis, have now turned their big guns on Minister for Transport Martin Cullen. It is up to him to make regulations allowing the city council to implement the strategy, and it will be very interesting to see if he buckles under pressure from the vested interests.

Yet a ban on trucks trundling to and from the port on the city streets was always envisaged once the port tunnel opened. In 1994, when the then Fianna Fáil-Labour coalition government approved the project - which was estimated at the time to cost £120 million (€152 million) - a "truck management system" was part-and-parcel of it.

The main objective of the port tunnel, as proposed in the final report of the Dublin Transportation Initiative (DTI), was "to reduce the environmental impact of HGVs in the city, particularly given the likely increase in vehicle flows" as a result of an expansion of trade through Dublin Port. Currently the port handles 25 million tonnes a year.

The environmental impact statement (EIS) on the tunnel, published in 1998, noted that the port "is a major source of HGV traffic and, during 1995, over 6,000 HGV trips were made into and out of the port each day", with much of this traffic trundling along the Liffey quays - a situation that's not mirrored in any other European port city.

According to the EIS, the benefits of the port tunnel would include "the removal of HGV traffic from city streets and residential areas". Indeed, it said one of the key city-wide traffic effects of the scheme would be "the opportunity to implement a comprehensive HGV management plan to improve the environment of the city centre".

It was also planned from the outset that trucks would be able to use the tunnel free of charge, whereas cars and light commercial vehicles would have to pay a premium - to protect its primary purpose of catering for HGVs travelling to and from the port. The peak period toll, announced by the NRA, will be €12.

However, trucks will not be exempt from paying a toll of €4.80 at the West Link bridge - and the same again if they also use the East Link.

Marine Terminals Ltd, a cargo company operating in the south port container terminal, is considering legal action over the East Link toll, claiming it will be put at a competitive disadvantage.

Of course, an east-west tunnel to link the port with the M50 would have made more sense than the alignment that was chosen. But the proposal put forward by National Toll Roads plc was rejected by the DTI - mainly because a north-south tunnel would advance the long-standing aim of providing Dublin with an eastern bypass motorway.

What the whole row highlights is that Dublin port is in the wrong place, hemmed in by the city. Its entire cargo business should be relocated to Bremore, in north Co Dublin, where Drogheda Port has ambitious development plans. But the port company will not budge, and its stance is endorsed by IBEC among others.

An eastern bypass has long been at the very top of Ibec's transport agenda for Dublin - and keeping the port locked in the bay is essential to its argument in favour of the motorway. Its last-minute threat to take the city council's HGV management strategy to Europe merely shows that it always saw the port tunnel as a useful Trojan horse.

© The Irish Times

Chris_533976

NavanJunction1 wrote:

Even the Dublin Port Company is up in arms. It maintains that the aim to maximise the use of the port tunnel and minimise the number of HGVs on the city's streets would be an "unwarranted restriction of the free movement of goods", raising serious issues about competition law "and perhaps even of human rights".

That is the biggest bunch of crap I've ever read on this forum.

And believe me, the geniuses that create some of the articles on here have done some pretty mad things.


Infringing human rights. Jesus christ. Get a life you sad fools and come into the 20th centuary, then the 21st where you should be. Its attitudes like that that hold this entire country back.

Basically the taxpayer spent €732 million on YOU to help YOU get to the port easily and you're complaining.

Victor

In its submission on the draft HGV management strategy, the State-owned port company described the proposed ban as a "disproportionate response" to the problem, and queried how it made any sense to force trucks to take a journey of 25km right around the M50 to a destination that may be just 1km down the road from the port.

Of course, the only people this affects are (a) Tesco Sandymount (b) construction deliveries (few).