Toll bridge buyout

jimmycrackcorm

I don't know if this has been brought up previously. It occurs to me that as the government is considering a buyout of the toll bridge costing hundreds of millions, wouldn't it be much cheaper to build another bridge beside the existing one? Why let NTR screw the public for nothing?

There is the revenue aspect but the government are going to toll the entry/exits instead.

Tobias Greeshman

I assume you're talking about that female politician 2 weeks back that said about the government purchasing the toll-bridge. In fairness it's all a bit of white smoke really, nothing more than a pre-election false promises, to get the public on their side. The government are making too much money with the toll-bridge in place (VAT on tolls), to justify buying it out.

prospect

Well, as I read recently, there is an Election coming up soon. So why doesn't everyone pipe up and voice thier complaints to their local politicians. I have already e-mailed all my local represantitives about it. If everyone does this, on an individual basis, the government wioll get the message pretty quick.

No Buy-out, No Vote.

Jumpy

For those outside Dublin I think its going to be Buyout = I wont vote for you.

Not enough money is spent outside Dublin to justify spending my tax dollars on something I wont use. Extending the M7 all the way to limerick... now that I would vote for.

Seth Brundle

thread copied to commuting / transport

mikemac

Navan Junction wrote:

Tim O'Brien, Irish Times 10/08/2006
The removal of the West-Link toll barrier and the extension of tolling on to the M50 itself are also due to be completed by 2008.

I got this quote from another thread posted today.
If it's to be removed in 2008, surely there's no point in pay hundreds of millions to buy it now.
2008 isn't that far off!

Praetorian

The bridge should have been paid for by the government from the beginning. If they had borrowed a little more money back then they would have saved us a fortune now. I'm sure some politicians got some nice fat brown envelopes back then.

westtip

Jumpy wrote:

For those outside Dublin I think its going to be Buyout = I wont vote for you.

Not enough money is spent outside Dublin to justify spending my tax dollars on something I wont use. Extending the M7 all the way to limerick... now that I would vote for.

The toll bridge is a national issue, not just about those poor unfortunates who sit in the queues everyday in the Dublin area but also about getting goods moving quickly out of Dublin - with the port tunnel opening (errr....soon or at least b4 the election!!) even more trucks will have to negotiate the toll bridge, it will slow things down even further - if you are travelling from the West, South West or South to the Airport the toll bridge is an issue. It is a national issue a national disgrace and should be addressed - not just for the Dubs but for all of us.

By the way saying you don't use the toll bridge is not true. If you buy a single product in a shop which has come in a truck which had to cross the toll bridge - you have used it.

Schuhart

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

wouldn't it be much cheaper to build another bridge beside the existing one?

I'd agree with your basic point. The Westlink tolling agreement is a pure disaster. But buying the bridge should not be seen as the only possible solution to that disaster. The same money might do more good if invested in some alternative route, or in public transport. I'm not sure that they can legally build another bridge beside the existing one in any case, as NTR have a right to collect tolls on that part of the M50.

Jumpy wrote:

Not enough money is spent outside Dublin to justify spending my tax dollars on something I wont use.

This is just not so. Dublin makes a massive tax contribution and, yes, that money is shared around. Tax revenue raised in the regions stays in the regions.

Jumpy wrote:

For those outside Dublin I think its going to be Buyout = I wont vote for you.

I think this attitude more correctly reflects the political reality that the State avoids investing in Dublin because of the resentment in causes elsewhere.

Ham'nd'egger

I just don't see why the State should have to buy out a private business, traffic delays or no delays, votes or no votes. It would be a very dangerous precedent to open up, delays in the Eastlink, why not buy it back as well? Overcrowded Luas, what about it being taken back? End of the day, NTR have the control over it, they took the risk on the investment and fair f**ks to them. A toll is the fairest way of taxing road useage as it is charging a user on that stretch of road so it is fair game to the motorist.

The delays on the Westlink are due mainly to far far too many of us using it, plain and simple. The road replaced nothing as such when it opened, logic follows that a truck or car wanting to get from Tallaght to Blanch etc was bound to use it or crawl to Phibsboro or the back of Clonsilla and Lucan. Take off the amount of school runs, shoppers to Liffey Valley and Blanch and single car trips and the car numbers are slashed. Move the booth to the Red Cow or Sandyford or Ballymun and you make marginal difference to the traffic. The road is one of the prime reasons why Dublin has ballooned industrially so that has put yet more cars and trucks onto it, hence yet more delays. Granted if the M50 was 6 or even 8 lanes it would assist more vehicles on the road, but then you make for even more cars on the M50 before long. In any case, there is other bottlenecks on the M50 that are nowhere near the toll bridge, like Finglas northbound and Tallaght southbound, so there is development issues hampering the route (Like big shopping centres at busy interchanges), not a toll. Tolling the entrances and exits to the M50 will make motorists think a little about where they are going in future so it will make a difference.

Flukey

The Toll Bridge is far from being the only bottleneck on the M50, but it and all the other tolls should be got rid of. That would help. Some things will take time to deal with, like the junctions, but the toll gates could be left open immediately and the booths removed fairly quickly. Motorists, and I am not one myself, pay huge amounts of tax. With this and the other revenue coming in, there should be little or no need for tolls. Speeding up the movement on the M50 and other roads would have its own economic benefits. We are getting lovely new roads with built-in bottlenecks.

westtip

Hamndegger wrote:

NTR have the control over it, they took the risk on the investment and fair f**ks to them. .

It has been much debated how the toll contract was awarded - signed off by a public servant now doing a stretch for corruption. The risk was not that great, the government of the time should have had the guts to borrow the money to build the 3km of the motorway inc the bridge, it was an ill thought out strategy which has led to the problems we now have.

Hamndegger wrote:

A toll is the fairest way of taxing road useage as it is charging a user on that stretch of road so it is fair game to the motorist. .

Ideologically open to debate. If you are going to tax on road usage alone, increased tax on fuel is the fairest way of making sure everyone gets taxed for the amount of mileage they do on the entire road network and then get rid of Motor vehicle tax entirely and indeed tolls.

Hamndegger wrote:

The delays on the Westlink are due mainly to far far too many of us using it, plain and simple. .

Sorry, no not that plain and not that simple. A motorway is designed to be used by heavy traffic, heavy traffic can be managed at peak times (M25 traffic management is an excellent example) the traffic on Westlink actually moves quite well once it has gone through the toll barriers - ergo the barriers are the cause of the delays and the smoke screen put up by NTR that the delays would just be somewhere else is quite simply a joke.

Hamndegger wrote:

Tolling the entrances and exits to the M50 will make motorists think a little about where they are going in future so it will make a difference.

And will probably encourage more vehicles into the Suburbs clogging up the roads in places like Terenure. These places suffered enough during the construction of the M50, taxing drivers off the M50 is hardly a good traffic management.

Ham'nd'egger

Ah, the old George Redmond chestnut. It wasn't his choosing to have a tolled bridge, that was planned since 1970 odd, he just was the man in office at the time it was signed. Numerous governments had the chance to do somethign about it if the monies were there and if it was such a bad idea. To be fair to the State back then, Ireland hadn't got a bean to rub let alone two; so if somebody was willing to do it for nowt, then can you blame them for taking it? The usage of the bridge has totally exceeded expectations so you can't blame anybody for that. When it opened in 1990, about 3,000 vehicles used it per day from the N 3 to N 4 turn off when it opened. These days, it's nearer 90,000, simply from having the whole M50 to feed off it and more people going places.

I can't say I agree with you that the traffic moves well after the booths, many a day the tailback goes southbound to the tollbooth and ditto northside. There is layout problems with the road yes, but equally there is many a motorist out there who plain and simple does not have to be out on the road and they are blocking the roads as much as a badly aligned turn off or narrow slip road or missing flyover. As I said before, the M 50 replaced no road as such so the traffic on it often had no need to go between some of the places they are travelling between. Make it a little more inconvenient by tolling their entrance or exit on the road and maybe it will spill some of the rat runs onto local roads but it will take the pressure of the road for the longer distance journeys it is intended for, not just the to and from Tesco's. Quite often, people take the M 50 as if it is the shortest way from A to B which is often not the case.

Oh by the way, I agree with you in principal about adding road tax onto motor fuels though I reckon road haulage would beg to differ.

Flukey

There is already a lot of tax on fuel and other motoring aspects, but where is the money going to you'd often wonder?

Victor

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

wouldn't it be much cheaper to build another bridge beside the existing one?

Where?

Diaspora

I agree building an additional bridge would be problematic from a number of viewpoints not least where to put it and having two new messy intersections with very large numbers of venhicles merging.

In relation to motortax tolls etc; it is an established fact that most of this economies income base is made up of stamp duty on houses and VRT on cars / excise from motor fuels. In essence these hidden taxes are in place of Residential Council Tax which fund local government in most other developed countries.

westtip

jimmycrackcorm wrote:

I don't know if this has been brought up previously. It occurs to me that as the government is considering a buyout of the toll bridge costing hundreds of millions, wouldn't it be much cheaper to build another bridge beside the existing one? Why let NTR screw the public for nothing?

There is the revenue aspect but the government are going to toll the entry/exits instead.

If you seriously wonder if the Toll bridge has not been debated on these boards before just where have you been??? it must be about the most discussed issue in this forum, inc the issue of building a second bridge - which by the way for contractual reasons with NTR is a non starter.