We've got tolled motorways but council destroy the alternate route

Mailman

On my way to Dublin from the Midlands I took the alternate route N4. I noted a dozen or more houses in the middle of construction on this road. Kildare County Council appear to be intent on granting planning permission to anyone for housing on what was supposed to be the alternate route that motorists(including L-plate drivers) could take.
Average journey speed on this alternate route is going to drop below 60kmph with the amount of ribbon development that is happening.
One has to wonder is this an intentional decision taken by the county council or are they all just clueless gimps.

L1011

Its the R148 not the N4; but yes - the council now see it as free access for pretty much anyone. Arguably they'd have a hard time trying to protect it as its "just" an R road - nobody says the alternate route has to be high speed.

Mailman

With a development levy of 18,000 referenced in a thread on the construction forum I see a motive.

L1011

That would be received no matter where the house was built, no specific motive to allow them along detrunked routes.

Mailman

Not when the alternative is a windey boreen that needs to be tarmacadamed to make it accessible and a site with ESB line running close by.
There are fewer viable sites out there in the countryside than you'd think.

L1011

Well, seeing as I've done the sustainable thing and lived in a town; no I don't have any idea about suitability of sites in the countryside. I'd consider them all unsuitable due to being in the sticks!

Zoney

R roads are pretty essential infrastructure links. It is not sensible to have ribbon development along them such as occurs.

It is bad planning to have ribbon development and one-off housing anywhere, but at least on the rest of the road network, it doesn't hinder major volumes of traffic. Many R roads are routes of high traffic volume, some more than even some N roads. Neither N nor R roads should have private developments littering them.

AlekSmart

As is currently being shown by the Minister for Transport`s manipulation of the Bus Atha Cliath/Bus Èireann fleet reduction programme there is a strong anti-social and unsustainable aspect to the entire business of development.

Put bluntly,the current Minister for Transport presiding,as he is,over a very substantial PPP Toll Road programme has run into a serious problem......a Depression in fact.

With new car sales down by some 68% this year so far our Minister,and his Officials have to find some way to square the circle of the Deals already negotiated with some serious "Consortia" for the construction and operation of the Toll Roads.

Less cars = Less State Revenue+Less Profit Prospects for the Private Sector "Risk Takers"

So what better action to remedy this than to REDUCE the country`s Public Transport Fleet by some 10%.
With each Bus/Coach having a Minimum of 53 seats the country`s Publicly Owned fleet is being reduced by a minimum of 12,500 seats per single journey.

Now if,subsequent to the inevitable service reductions,even half of this 12,500 people return to the Motor Car as their prime means of Transport then the State (and Minister for Transport) is quids-in.......

There is little or no profit for the State (and Minister for Transport) should there be any great Modal shift towards improving affordable Public Bus/Coach services,especially if the punter opts for a Taxsaver Commuter ticket which will see the State (and Minister for Transport) actually subsidising the individuals commuting cost quite substantially.

Of course Noel Dempsey has to appear at Press Conferences extolling the virtues of Public Transport as part of a sustainable alternative for everybody to avail of.
However if one were to look behind Mr Dempsey we would see his fingers firmly crossed !

Even today we read of further action against Ireland in the Pipeline following our dismal failure to reduce our gigantic Carbon Wellington Bootprint,all of which means little to a Fianna Fail Minister with a few worried PPP Toll Roadsters breathing down his neck !!

SeanW

The M4 is toll free throughout county Kildare (leixlip-Kilcock). The tolls only apply to motorists travelling between Kinnegad and Kilcock - both Meath border towns with Westmeath and Kildare respectively.

Mailman

The points on the road I'm thinking of are in Kidare although the road crosses the border a couple of times and the road appears to be the border of the two counties in places in some of the maps I've looked at.

murphaph

Mailman wrote: »

Not when the alternative is a windey boreen that needs to be tarmacadamed to make it accessible and a site with ESB line running close by.
There are fewer viable sites out there in the countryside than you'd think.

A good reason to build in towns or better yet, buy one of the hundreds of thousands empty units littering the midlands already. The council are clearly gimps. It's time for 'development levies' to be scrapped in favour of sustainable local government taxation based on property ownership (rates). Development levies encourage all sorts of rubbish.

D'Peoples Voice

AlekSmart wrote: »

Now if,subsequent to the inevitable service reductions,even half of this 12,500 people return to the Motor Car as their prime means of Transport then the State (and Minister for Transport) is quids-in.......

I think you'll find if more people switch over to the car, you have more gridlock, so the Minister of Transport has to spend more money in solving the gridlock created.

Also if fewer people use public transport, the greater the cost per passenger carried - that means the greater the subsidy that will have to come from central funds to subsidise the service!
Don't get your logic at all.....so yes thats probably what Dempsey will do:D

Bogger77

Mailman wrote: »

The points on the road I'm thinking of are in Kidare although the road crosses the border a couple of times and the road appears to be the border of the two counties in places in some of the maps I've looked at.

There's no access to the M4 between Enfield and Kinnegad. The Kildare section of the old N4 is between Leinster Bridge (east end of Clonard) and a couple of KM west of Enfield , so M4 is not a possible route for anyone living there anyhows. Tolled or Untolled.

If you can remember back pre-M4 Enfield/Kinnegad, when travelling from Kilcock to Kinnegad, there was a section of 50MPH -80km/h, That was Kildare County, the 60MPH/100km/h, that was the Meath Section. So Kildare Co Co have being prep'ing this road for development for a long time, as while it's been a N road from 70's to 2005, it's not been a national speed limit road since at least prior to 1994. The redesignation to R road has not reduced the speed limit for the Kildare Section.

AlekSmart

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/taxpayerwill-have-to-foot-bill-for-m3-toll-shortfall-1855553.html

As sure as night follows day this little nugget slips out during the recess.....I wonder which Economist came up with this little bit of underhand crookery,which in other less sleepy juristictions might cost Dempsey his job....if not his head !! :eek:

murphaph

AlekSmart wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/taxpayerwill-have-to-foot-bill-for-m3-toll-shortfall-1855553.html

As sure as night follows day this little nugget slips out during the recess.....I wonder which Economist came up with this little bit of underhand crookery,which in other less sleepy juristictions might cost Dempsey his job....if not his head !! :eek:

If that's true it's nothing short of scandalous. Why bother with PPP if the private sector end takes NO EFFING RISK?! Who negotiates these crazy contracts? The taxpayer ALWAYS seems to lose out on these crooked deals.

The NRA defended its decision to include a minimum traffic guarantee. A spokesman said they needed to attract as many bidders as possible to the project.

In reality they were forced to build this motorway by FF and their cronies. This motorway goes against every notion of what a motorway should be. The N3 is a decent road with a handful of bad spot that could have been sorted (2+2 mostly) a lot cheaper than the M3 'solution'.

BrianD

Mailman wrote: »

Not when the alternative is a windey boreen that needs to be tarmacadamed to make it accessible and a site with ESB line running close by.
There are fewer viable sites out there in the countryside than you'd think.

I would say there are none as the rest of us have to subsidise their existence. Those who live in sustainable subside those who choose to live in unsustainable one-off housing in rural areas.

corktina

Zoney wrote: »

R roads are pretty essential infrastructure links. It is not sensible to have ribbon development along them such as occurs.

It is bad planning to have ribbon development and one-off housing anywhere, but at least on the rest of the road network, it doesn't hinder major volumes of traffic. Many R roads are routes of high traffic volume, some more than even some N roads. Neither N nor R roads should have private developments littering them.

i dont often agree with Zoney, but ribbon development is not a good idea...

AlekSmart

Much of Fianna Fáil Infrastructural policy largely focuses on the "Brother in law has a plant-hire compnay" ethos.

Upgrading the N3 as suggested by murphaph just would not have required all those shiny hired in diggers,rollers,graders,temporary traffic signal arrays and whatever else could be charged out.....:rolleyes:

As the oul Tribunal Judge once said..."Follow the paper trail". :eek:

serfboard

I find it interesting that this (M3) information comes out during the holiday period.

This should be the last nail in Dempsey's coffin. But it won't. And of course the (F)Fer will top the poll in the next election too.

A holy shtink should be created about this outrage. Let's see if the Greens have any cojones now. I suspect not.

icdg

Bogger77 wrote: »

There's no access to the M4 between Enfield and Kinnegad. The Kildare section of the old N4 is between Leinster Bridge (east end of Clonard) and a couple of KM west of Enfield , so M4 is not a possible route for anyone living there anyhows. Tolled or Untolled.

If you can remember back pre-M4 Enfield/Kinnegad, when travelling from Kilcock to Kinnegad, there was a section of 50MPH -80km/h, That was Kildare County, the 60MPH/100km/h, that was the Meath Section. So Kildare Co Co have being prep'ing this road for development for a long time, as while it's been a N road from 70's to 2005, it's not been a national speed limit road since at least prior to 1994. The redesignation to R road has not reduced the speed limit for the Kildare Section.

There is a big reason why Kilcock to Enfield was 50mph and it has nothing to do with "preping the road for development". The reason was this section of road had a high accident rate and there was a big local campaign to have the speed limit reduced (which was NSL at the time). Those with long memories might remember the crosses at the side of the road which had been erected by locals. The council eventually gave in and slapped a 50mph special speed limit along with a no-overtaking restriction.

AFAIK the majority of rural sections between Enfield and Kinnegad were NSL prior to 2005. Its worth remembering that prior to 2005, there was no reduction in speed limit when a road was bypassed and that the old N4 (the R148), by default, stayed an NSL road until metrification brought the lower default speed limit for R roads in.

Tech3

AlekSmart wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/taxpayerwill-have-to-foot-bill-for-m3-toll-shortfall-1855553.html

As sure as night follows day this little nugget slips out during the recess.....I wonder which Economist came up with this little bit of underhand crookery,which in other less sleepy juristictions might cost Dempsey his job....if not his head !! :eek:

The M3 was always a bad idea to start with.

D'Peoples Voice

I won't disrespect the OP by deviating from the subject title by talking about the M3, that can be covered here!
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055362204&page=3&highlight=motorway
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=194423&page=23&highlight=motorway
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055514626&page=9&highlight=motorway
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055626738&highlight=motorway
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055526724&highlight=motorway

In relation to destroying the alternate route, well on the one hand you now have a road that carries a lot fewer cars yet will cost a lot of the local authority's (NOT the NRA) budget to maintain. Perhaps having more development on that road, concentrates the population onto the existing road rather than creating more new roads off the now- detrunked road and further straining their budget.
But thats just my opinion!

serfboard

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

In relation to destroying the alternate route, well on the one hand you now have a road that carries a lot fewer cars yet will cost a lot of the local authority's (NOT the NRA) budget to maintain.

But is there not a suggestion (or more than that) out there that the NRA should maintain all roads (or down to R level anyway)? Or am I wrong?