No road investments - Why should we bother paying tax

yop

I saw this article on the Mayo News.

Why should we bother paying road tax at all, where the hell is our money goin to, the East coast I suspect.

The road I live on, a main road, has not been resurfaced now for 6 years so the money is not going on resurfacing.
:mad:
http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2353&Itemid=38

de5p0i1er

It all goes east "having a good capital city is good for the whole country" thats what Bertie thinks.

Thanx 4 The Fish

And to be fair to him he is right. It is important to have a good infrastructure in the capital, but not at the expense of the rest of the damn country. Brought a bunch of lads over there a couple of weeks ago and every one of them commented on how poor the roads in Mayo were, worse than B roads in the Uk.

alan4cult

And I'm sick of the Gardai talking in the media every Halloween, Christmas and Bank Holiday telling people to drive carefully on the roads and yet keeping to the speed limit on Mayo roads can be dangerous at times. Let them build proper roads and then take a case against the people. On the lighter side it makes the Mayo Rally as popular as ever!

biko

You are not forced to keep the speed limit, stay under if you think the conditions calls for it.

Acidflash

They're letting the roads degrade in order to stop any more Mayo people moving to Galway

oscarBravo

Thanx 4 The Fish wrote:

Brought a bunch of lads over there a couple of weeks ago and every one of them commented on how poor the roads in Mayo were, worse than B roads in the Uk.

I was in Denmark a couple of weeks ago - the most trivial minor roads are in better condition than many of our N-roads. It's embarassing.

JoeyJJ

It sure is. Castlebar - Belmullet is a disgrace, Ballina - Belmullet isn't much better.

alan4cult

biko wrote:

You are not forced to keep the speed limit, stay under if you think the conditions calls for it.

Yes, but the gardai are blaming many of the deaths on speeding. If you are driving at 60km/h on a road with an 80km/h speed limit you are not speeding by the law but you are speeding by the road conditions. Surely if one was to drive at the speed limit it should still be safe, so should the speed limit be 60km/h on these roads?

yop

T4TF - They are right on that point, take the roads from say Castlebar to Belmullet, Castlebar to Galway via Headford, these are "main" roads but are C rated compared to some of the roads throughout Europe. We pay high road tax, maybe higher than most countries but yet our money does not get invested in the areas we drive.

It is very frustrating that every time you go East, once we pass the Shannon there is new roads going in.

alan4cult

What does T4TF stand for?

oscarBravo

Thanx 4 The Fish.

sligotrue

i commute from sligo to mayo and the roads here are even more of a disgrager if such a word exists. also sligo moderators are nice guys.;)

dodgyme

de5p0i1er wrote:

It all goes east "having a good capital city is good for the whole country" thats what Bertie thinks.

A good capital city would be good for the whole country however that is not the case.
Trust me its not very nice sitting in traffic for hours on end only to have to pay a toll for the privelege. The reason mayo roads are crap is that the government will not bother doing anything there because the volume of traffic is not enough to interest a brown envelope toll road like the ones going to be in existence or already laid, between dublin and the major cities. Corruption (and FF/PD policy) is the reason for city folk stuck in traffic and tolled to the hilt and rural folk (and in particular counties without a big city) being left to stew on dirt tracks - It is truely embarrasing for the whole country

Sponge Bob

nobody noticed the big ignorant road currently being built around Charlestown, evidently

dodgyme

Sponge Bob wrote:

nobody noticed the big ignorant road currently being built around Charlestown:p

How can a road be ignorant. What I mean i the M50 arrogant and the N4 polite?>??:rolleyes:

bowsie casey

I've only heard good things about the roads in Mayo. Are you telling me that the Pee Flynn highways are a myth....??

oscarBravo

Much of the N5 is pretty good, and the Charlestown bypass will improve that situation even further. The N17 is also pretty good, especially the Knock and Claremorris bypasses. But that's pretty much it.

jmayo

oscarBravo wrote: »

Much of the N5 is pretty good, and the Charlestown bypass will improve that situation even further. The N17 is also pretty good, especially the Knock and Claremorris bypasses. But that's pretty much it.

OscarBravo are you telling me that the N5 section of road between Frenchpark and Strokestown (I know in Roscommon but still N5) is good. Yeah they widened it over last few years but they didn't bother to level it at the sides. Great for the suspension on the inside.
Typical half assed job.

True enough, the new section from Carracastle to Swinford will cut out a large section of crap road and about time.
Of course it will have it's own revenue collection curtesy of an Garda Siochana.

The Castlebar-Belmullet or Crossmolina roads are very dangerous, you get physically sea sick driving on it at anything above 40 mph.

The secondary roads have always been a joke, the mentality has always been to slap a bit of tar and chips on to fill the holes with the next rain showere washing it out.

But where has all the car tax from the increaed number of drivers in the county gone ?
Oh yeah now I remember, I think the county councillors went to visit Austria to look at incinerators or something :rolleyes:

oscarBravo

jmayo wrote: »

OscarBravo are you telling me that the N5 section of road between Frenchpark and Strokestown (I know in Roscommon but still N5) is good.

No, I'm not. As I politely suggested to you in another forum, it would be a good idea to read my posts before replying to them.

jmayo

oscarBravo wrote: »

No, I'm not. As I politely suggested to you in another forum, it would be a good idea to read my posts before replying to them.

Jeese take it easy. Sorry but I don't have time to slowly disect every single word of your messages and contrary to what you might think I don't try and find fault with your posts.

What I as trying to raise was that the N5, even though fine in sections, still has chunks of it not fit for tractors.
It has improved greatly, what with Strokestown to Tarmonbarry section and now the Chalestown bypass soon to open, but the section alluded to through Roscommon is still pathetic in the extreme. They did a half assed job by widening it but not leveling the inside verges.

Alnitak

Hee hee, thats mad, I came into post on this forum to mouth off at the roads in Belmullett too, I have to say I've never come across worse roads in my entire life, thankfully it wasn't me driving on them. I pity the people who live there, their cars mustn't last very long!!!

bobcar61

I'm not from Mayo but I do drive to Castlebar a fair bit from Sligo and I have to say I don't think the road from Charlestown to Castlebar is that bad,and the new bypass makes it even better

I did the drive from Ballina to Bellmullet and the road was atrocious

RiverWilde

I've given up on the car in Mayo. I'm sick of the cost, the condition of the roads etc. The sooner the Western Rail Corridor is rebuilt the better. To hell with the car! We spend daft amounts of money on road tax, insurance, fuel and servicing etc; for what? Roads that were built to deal with horses!

Riv

Bob the Builder

RiverWilde wrote: »

Roads that were built to deal with horses!

Horses wouldn't even travel on Mayo Roads...

jmayo

nevf wrote: »

Horses wouldn't even travel on Mayo Roads...

Resurrecting this a bit just to comment on the Charlestown bypass.
Has anyone noticed how bad the slip roads are for turning off this road onto the old road netowrk.
One really bad example is the first one on left after passing Swinford going towards Charlestown. It brings you along the old road.
Rather than use the width available and build longer slip road, a car turning left has to slow down on main road lane and then turn onto the very short slip road and onto old road.
Thus you get someone braking suddenly to turn off, with truck behind also having to hamper the brakes.

The planning of the turnoffs for exiting the road and the slip roads leading on the new road are too short. You exit from or enter directly onto the road with no chance to gradually slow down or build up speed.
And they wonder why we have accidents :rolleyes:

Whoever planned the road should get kick in ar**, actually I think I know one of the bright sparks :rolleyes:

oscarBravo

This seems to be a common problem with recent road improvements. Given that it's perfectly feasible to drive safely at 100km/h on these new roads, the short exit lane means that you have to either (a) slow down in the driving lane, obstructing traffic; (b) pull over before the exit lane starts, driving on the hatched section of the shoulder; or (c) brake dangerously hard in the exit lane.

None of these are particularly attractive options.

PogMoThoin

I'm on this bypass every day, here are a few things i've also noticed:
1) the full length of the road is exactly the same width, there is no extra width to allow for an extra lane or slipway. In places they have completely lost the hard shoulder to accomodate the central lane for vehicles turning right.
2) The slip roads onto and off the bypass are dangerously short.
3) They have lined the side of the road with a half metre wide patch of loose chippings which are being scattered onto the road.

Who actually plans these roads? Have they actually got any idea what they're at?

bandit197

It makes it easier to understand what went wrong when we realize that the Charlestown bypass was given out as a design and build project. The company that built the road also designed it to cost as little as possible to maximize profit.
This may make good business sense but it does not bode well for the commuter.
Any savings that could be made have been done so by cutting corners. The most obvious sign that I have noticed is of course the lack of filter lanes along the stretch. Of course if these lanes were in place it would have cost a lot more money, materials, manpower etc.
Next time you are driving at night from the Swinford side heading east you will notice the difference in the quality of the roadmarkings and cats eyes when you join the new bypass. Its a disgrace. The road is very dark and hard to see lanes and approaching minor side roads. Its plainly obvious the cheapest materials were sourced and used.
I hate to say this but in my opinion the bypass is an accident waiting to happen.
Shame on Mayo County Council and the NRA for letting these blatant flaws go unchecked. What should have been one of the best examples of engineering in the west is now, sadly, a dangerous embarrassment.

jmayo

bandit197 wrote: »

It makes it easier to understand what went wrong when we realize that the Charlestown bypass was given out as a design and build project. The company that built the road also designed it to cost as little as possible to maximize profit.
This may make good business sense but it does not bode well for the commuter.
Any savings that could be made have been done so by cutting corners. The most obvious sign that I have noticed is of course the lack of filter lanes along the stretch. Of course if these lanes were in place it would have cost a lot more money, materials, manpower etc.
Next time you are driving at night from the Swinford side heading east you will notice the difference in the quality of the roadmarkings and cats eyes when you join the new bypass. Its a disgrace. The road is very dark and hard to see lanes and approaching minor side roads. Its plainly obvious the cheapest materials were sourced and used.
I hate to say this but in my opinion the bypass is an accident waiting to happen.
Shame on Mayo County Council and the NRA for letting these blatant flaws go unchecked. What should have been one of the best examples of engineering in the west is now, sadly, a dangerous embarrassment.

I hadn't been on it for a while, but last Saturday night came onto the bypass from the roundabout on the N17 outside Charlestown.
It is affectively a T Junction to get onto the bypass road, really no filter lane, maybe few yards and that is it.
As someone else mentioned the right turns off affectively remove the hard shoulder.
So much for our great new road infrastructure.

oscarBravo

It's worse than I'd remembered. Heading east, where the Swinford bypass ends and the old Charlestown road turns off to the left, there is neither hard shoulder or deceleration lane. If a car slows down to make the left turn, then whole road slows with it.

Farcical.

PogMoThoin

Was on the Claremorris by-pass today and noticed a huge difference, better quality road, better markings, longer slip roads and allowances for the central lane.