The secret cost of PPP's - N8 Johnstown bypass

quitepossibly

The N8 Cullahill-Cashel scheme is to be terminated at a temporary junction at the northern end. The road between Cullahill and Johnstown is to comprise of 10 km of motorway.

When the M7/M8 PPP scheme is completed the temporary terminus will be removed and this 10km of motorway will become tolled. Northbound traffic will have to leave the HQDC at J4, south of Johnstown, if they wish to use the untolled road. User's of the Johnstown bypass, built entirely at the tax payers expensense, will have to pay a private company to use the road. The situation is exactly the same as seen in Watergrasshill in Cork where to use the once free bypass of the village you must now pay a toll. However while the length of road subsumed into the toll scheme in Cork was 2km, the Cullahill to Johnstown length is 10km!

10km of road.

Payed for by the taxpayer.

To be maintained by the taxpayer.

For the benefit of a private company.

mike65

The situation is exactly the same as seen in Watergrasshill in Cork where to use the once free bypass of the village you must now pay a toll.

It is still possible to get from Cork to Fermoy without paying a toll by going via Watergrasshill itself and using old N8. Was'nt there going to be a second 'mini by-pass' put in?

Mike.

dodgyme

WE voted the government who creates this situation back into power so sin e!

penexpers

quitepossibly wrote:

The N8 Cullahill-Cashel scheme is to be terminated at a temporary junction at the northern end. The road between Cullahill and Johnstown is to comprise of 10 km of motorway.

When the M7/M8 PPP scheme is completed the temporary terminus will be removed and this 10km of motorway will become tolled. Northbound traffic will have to leave the HQDC at J4, south of Johnstown, if they wish to use the untolled road. User's of the Johnstown bypass, built entirely at the tax payers expense, will have to pay a private company to use the road. The situation is exactly the same as seen in Watergrasshill in Cork where to use the once free bypass of the village you must now pay a toll. However while the length of road subsumed into the toll scheme in Cork was 2km, the Cullahill to Johnstown length is 10km!

10km of road.

Payed for by the taxpayer.

To be maintained by the taxpayer.

For the benefit of a private company.

Is it being payed for entirely by the taxpayer?

Will the taxpayer maintain it?

I would be surprised if the answer to both those questions is yes.

Stark

From what I can see on the NRA website, Cullahill to Cashel is totally taxpayer funded.

If you look at this map, you can see that the section of road from Johnstown to Cullahill comes under the taxpayer funded scheme:

http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/SchemeMaps/file,4368,en.pdf

The PPP section starts just before Cullahill.

I wasn't planning on using the Portlaoise - Cullahill section as I've made a habit of stopping off for refreshments in the Abbeyleix hotel on journeys home. It's a bit of a blow that I won't be able to use the Cullahill-Johnstown section without paying the toll once the PPP section is built. They'll probably decrease the speed limit on the old road to 80km/hr too, the bastards

By the way, quitepossible, where did you get this information from?

AlekSmart

Now quite possibly IF one were to take a detailed peep at the shareholders roll of the successful tenderer for the Toll collection one might not see any recognisable names.
However ....the trick is in perseverance and a dogged determination to find the beef....

Sometimes the meat can be disguised as veg..or as gaelige or even in the mothers maiden name,but as the Judicial Tribunals are proving,there is ALWAYS a paper trail....PPP ...Pillaging the Public Purse...coming soon to a town near YOU :eek:

penexpers

Stark wrote:

From what I can see on the NRA website, Cullahill to Cashel is totally taxpayer funded.

If you look at this map, you can see that the section of road from Johnstown to Cullahill comes under the taxpayer funded scheme:

http://www.nra.ie/RoadSchemeActivity/SchemeMaps/file,4368,en.pdf

Ah I see now. That is bad form alright.

corktina

mike65 wrote:

It is still possible to get from Cork to Fermoy without paying a toll by going via Watergrasshill itself and using old N8. Was'nt there going to be a second 'mini by-pass' put in?

Mike.

there is a second very convuluted bypass....(when travelling North)it involves crossing the main drag on a bridge,,,running alongside it for about a mile then re-crossing on another bridge and then travelling back almost into the village before taking a sharp right to regain the old road. There is s Rat-run if you know it which helps but must p1ss off the residents no end. It is not possible to access the village from the south end anymore so all traffic to WGH must use this route....Fred Karnos Army comes to mind...what a farce...I wonder who WGH residents voted for?

Capt'n Midnight

quitepossibly wrote:

User's of the Johnstown bypass, built entirely at the tax payers expensense, will have to pay a private company to use the road.

Lets not forget that 90% of the original cost of the M50 wasn't paid for by NTR.

The NRA can justify this by saying that the govt cut of the toll pays for the roads. I couldn't.

Still it's not like the €113m that it will cost to replace the M50 toll booths with a drive through system would have paid for this bypass is it ?

mike65

corktina wrote:

there is a second very convuluted bypass....(when travelling North)it involves crossing the main drag on a bridge,,,running alongside it for about a mile then re-crossing on another bridge and then travelling back almost into the village before taking a sharp right to regain the old road. There is s Rat-run if you know it which helps but must p1ss off the residents no end. It is not possible to access the village from the south end anymore so all traffic to WGH must use this route....Fred Karnos Army comes to mind...what a farce...I wonder who WGH residents voted for?

Oh I know all about the fly-over/rat-run as I use it every week! I just had this notion they were going to put in a proper road round the back of the village from the first roundabout. Obviously not.

Mike.

DerekP11

Ah ya have to laugh!

Fianna Fail = FF = Fund Fixers.

Its gonna be some inter urban network. Motorway, tolled motorway and HQDC. And all along virtually every route. A mish mash of all kinds of everything. Why? Oh ****e, I'll let someone else answer that.

Still saving the juice for me oul book.:)

Stark

Apparently someone's taken a case to the EU regarding the whole Watergrasshill bypass/Fermoy bypass affair. Hopefully it goes well and we might not be treated to more madness as described above.

D'Peoples Voice

How much are they going to charge for the toll - the price of a bottle of coke or a packet of smarties?
The continental europeans must laugh when they come to ireland, tolls of 2 and 3 euro. :mad:
Lets have a real toll like that on the 11.6km Mount Blanc tunnel EUR 31.50, now that's a respectable toll.:) Even the toll roads in the south west of Italy can be as high as EUR 19.
If we want a high class service, lets pay an adequate amount. Government revenue from the private sector levying of tolls on Motorways provide an excellent way of subsidizing the maintenance on other smaller roads in less developed regions of the country like County Offaly:)

Bogger77

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

How much are they going to charge for the toll - the price of a bottle of coke or a packet of smarties?
The continental europeans must laugh when they come to ireland, tolls of 2 and 3 euro. :mad:
Lets have a real toll like that on the 11.6km Mount Blanc tunnel EUR 31.50, now that's a respectable toll.:) Even the toll roads in the south west of Italy can be as high as EUR 19.
If we want a high class service, lets pay an adequate amount. Government revenue from the private sector levying of tolls on Motorways provide an excellent way of subsidizing the maintenance on other smaller roads in less developed regions of the country like County Offaly:)

I agree with you sentiments, but as a Biffo, we've a pretty good road network to Galway, Dublin, Limerick and Cork. Well, we will once the current roads are built. From my house in West Offaly, it's less than 1:10hr to Lucan, 2:15hr to Cork, and will be about 1.20 to Galway, once the road from B'sloe to galway is done.

It's faster to get from my house to Liffey Valley, then to get from Blanchtown center to the M50 on a Friday evening!

Zoney

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

How much are they going to charge for the toll - the price of a bottle of coke or a packet of smarties?
The continental europeans must laugh when they come to ireland, tolls of 2 and 3 euro. :mad:
Lets have a real toll like that on the 11.6km Mount Blanc tunnel EUR 31.50, now that's a respectable toll.:) Even the toll roads in the south west of Italy can be as high as EUR 19.
If we want a high class service, lets pay an adequate amount. Government revenue from the private sector levying of tolls on Motorways provide an excellent way of subsidizing the maintenance on other smaller roads in less developed regions of the country like County Offaly:)

The question is more why we need tolls at all in Ireland. There's enough tax money coming in, and plenty of it is specifically collected from motorists. It's just tokenism to these PD-type uber-capitalists who want private companies to be running everything.

spacetweek

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

How much are they going to charge for the toll - the price of a bottle of coke or a packet of smarties?
The continental europeans must laugh when they come to ireland, tolls of 2 and 3 euro. :mad:
Lets have a real toll like that on the 11.6km Mount Blanc tunnel EUR 31.50, now that's a respectable toll.:) Even the toll roads in the south west of Italy can be as high as EUR 19.
If we want a high class service, lets pay an adequate amount. Government revenue from the private sector levying of tolls on Motorways provide an excellent way of subsidizing the maintenance on other smaller roads in less developed regions of the country like County Offaly:)

Absolute nonsense. Why don't we charge 50 quid to drive to Galway!!
Maintenance doesn't cost 20 euro per driver, we should be able to have 2 and 3 euro tolls AND very high quality roads.

Zoney wrote:

The question is more why we need tolls at all in Ireland. There's enough tax money coming in, and plenty of it is specifically collected from motorists. It's just tokenism to these PD-type uber-capitalists who want private companies to be running everything.

Well said.

The NRA originally pursued the PPP idea probably because back then (1999?) there was still no guaranteed year-on-year funding program for roads. Finance was too dodgy, you were liable to start a project and then have the money cut off. So by putting it out to the private sector they got guaranteed funding.

However, nowadays they do have guaranteed funding under T21, which removes the original reason, and ironically the major schemes to be funded privately and tolled (e.g. N6 Galway-Ballinasloe, N7 Limerick-Nenagh, M3, M7/M8 etc.) are amongst the most late projects we have!