Varadkar reveals FF's drive for needless roads

westtip

Leo Varadkar, the transport minister, claims department...ministers in former Fianna Fail governments. Varadkar said ministers who “decided a motorway was...which would “not be made now”. Varadkar is to ask the Economic and Social Research...

From the sunday times yesterday I can't post the full article - won't subscribe to Sunday times on line - not yet looked at other papers but the gist was:

We overspecced many of our new roads
We were so keen to get them built we overpaid for land
The deal with the Irish Farmers Association was sweet deal for farmers.

Nothing new really!

invinciblePRSTV

Old news, the world and his wife knows Dempsey & Cullen "delivered" for their constituencies by delivering white elephant motorways.

Patronage politics + gombeen men + inflated revenues from a housing bubble = M3 & M9.

Sponge Bob

I think Veradkar is too young and too insularly Dublin centric to remember that many of the road sections the motorways replaced were 30 years old or less. So designing a road that need not be revisited for another 30 years is no bad thing. The land take from Maynooth to Lucan ....designed 20 years ago and built less than 20 years ago .....ensures the road can be widened to 3 lanes in future. Same between the M9 and the Naas Dual Carriageway.

I have encouraged a review of road design standards for the future, especially looking at interspersing 2+2 overtaking sections with S2 on roads such as the N5, the N21 and N22 N15 and N17 and parts of the N24. The roads themselves need to be built though. The existing road is crap.

But we will need a motorway from Cork to Galway Leo and you can feck off if you think anything less will do the job long term, now hop to it!

Son of Stupido

westtip wrote: »

We overspecced many of our new roads
We were so keen to get them built we overpaid for land
The deal with the Irish Farmers Association was sweet deal for farmers.

Nothing new really!

Roads weren't over-specced. A cost benifit analysis showed very little difference in building 2+2/motorway over a 2+1. Same landtake and construction costs only marginally higher for junctions. This is why many schemes went to 2+2 / motorway after originally being planned as 2+1 or wide S1. Proper joined-up thinking IMO....unlike what happened when the M50 was being built!

The IFA held the govt to ransom. They got a good deal out of the land. They even got "cooperation money". There is no problem now tho.....many are desperate to sell!!! Nearly all the purchase orders went to arbitration, and many 'middlemen' popped up purporting to represent the landowners. This also inflated costs. A lot of people made a lot of money out of it.

IF the minister said what he said, it was a cheap political shot. FG were never against the roads programme, infact often criticised it for being too slow and unambitious.

westtip

I think LV's point is we could have got better deals and it could have been done better, true FG clamoured for roads to be built and hindsight is great and all that.

I just hope the new NDP doesn't kill off all road projects. FF left with us with a lot done a lot more to do but no money to do it cos we (FF) squandered so much.

corktina

blindingly obvious when you see two empty motorways serving Cork and Limerick where one would have done and done away wirth the need for an M20.

galwaycyclist

Sponge Bob wrote: »

But we will need a motorway from Cork to Galway Leo and you can feck off if you think anything less will do the job long term, now hop to it!

Clearly there is/was a requirement for better strategic links. However starting with a motorway based plan was in my view a mistake.

What was needed first was a large scale program of town/village bypasses nationwide. This would have gone some way to solving level of service issues on existing strategic routes while simultaneously improving the quality of life in the bypassed locations.

What we have now is large sections of expensive motorway, much of which is empty much of the day, while our urban centres are still blighted by through traffic that has no business there.

Arguably a vast misuse of public money on the wrong kind of roads in the wrong places.

wobbles-grogan

Personally i would prefer if there was far better (and far cheaper for the consumer) rail infrastructure than the motorways.

If there was a good rail service we could have gotten by with good N route's between all the major cities.

Currently, we dont have a BAD service as such, its just prohibitevly expensive to use and its not properly conneted (no rail link from galway - cork for example)

Sponge Bob

galwaycyclist wrote: »

What we have now is large sections of expensive motorway, much of which is empty much of the day, while our urban centres are still blighted by through traffic that has no business there.

Eh let me see

Limerick Bypassed
Dublin Bypassed
Cork Fairly Bypassed , upgrade in progress less than 20 years after construction.
Waterford Bypassed
Athlone Bypassed
Drogheda Bypassed
Dundalk Bypassed.
Carlow Bypassed
Naas Bypassed.
Bray Bypassed
Tralee being Bypassed
Cavan Bypassed
Ennis Bypassed
Arklow Bypassed

etc etc. All of them in the last 20 years more or less. Sadly Veradkar probably needs a map to find them.

Thereby leaving only 4 sizeable towns in Ireland with no adequate bypass, they being Galway Sligo and Letterkenny and Clonmel all of which have gacky inner relief roads of some sort thronged with traffic.

There are places like Claregalway that need a bypass but Claregalway is not an urban centre.

galwaycyclist

Sponge Bob wrote: »

There are places like Claregalway that need a bypass but Claregalway is not an urban centre.

Perhaps I should have used a better term than urban centre but yes I would put the Claregalways on the list.

Ash.J.Williams

the new motorways are class....no way would i go back to the old days waiting queuing for hours at every town or village...galway in under two hours..nice

serfboard

Oh dear. I can see this thread is about to be de-"railed":D

wobbles-grogan wrote: »

If there was a good rail service we could have gotten by with good N route's between all the major cities.

Most definitely not.

wobbles-grogan wrote: »

Personally i would prefer if there was far better (and far cheaper for the consumer) rail infrastructure than the motorways.

As a result of the road-building we have a far better and cheaper bus service than we had previously, delivered by both the private sector and Bus Eireann (including links to Airports).

wobbles-grogan wrote: »

Currently, we dont have a BAD service

... in your opinion. I disagree. Services that are less frequent, take longer and are more expensive than the bus from Galway to Dublin and Limerick don't constitute good service in my opinion.

wobbles-grogan wrote: »

its just prohibitevly expensive to use

Agree.

wobbles-grogan wrote: »

and its not properly conneted (no rail link from galway - cork for example)

Well there is. Sort of. Although it would take you most of the day to get there. I'm not going to say any more and go more off-topic than I have done.

WRT the OP, some farmers made out like bandits during the boom. What with selling land for huge amounts of money to developers who flipped it on, to others who screwed us (the state/taxpayers/citizens/you and me) on values for land when used to build vital infrastructure. The funny thing is, farming is now doing well anyway - what with commodity prices and so on, which is why you don't hear them whingeing. Believe you me, if this recession was affecting them badly, there would be protests every day.

WRT needless roads, the differential between building future-proof roads and cheapo ones that would need to be replaced shortly was not that much - and was evidence, possibly for the first time, of an Irish government using that alien concept - "planning".

However, there may have been some excess. As discussed here before, the M8 may not need to have been built, but M7+M20 or M9+M25 could have got you there instead. M2 and M3 was a waste - should have been M2 leading into M3. The proof of how much of a waste the M3 was, is the fact that we have to pick up the bill when not enough cars use the tolls - an example of profligate economic treason that IMO Noel Dempsey should be jailed for.

Sponge Bob

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Perhaps I should have used a better term than urban centre but yes I would put the Claregalways on the list.

Claregalway is a crap junction around which a village grew...same as Oranmore was till they thankfully bypassed it it the 1980s.

We had a crack at rightsizing the design standards for new roads earlier this year but the thread got overrun with dipstick nimbys and even rail advocacy and the mods closed it in utter exasperation.

Nor should you make the mistake of thinking we 'planned' a motorway network. FF promised a radial dual carriageway network from Dublin (not until 1999/2000 mind) which BECAME a motorway network.

Having realised that a HQDC makes a perfectly adequate Motorway we continue to design HQDC that will be designated as Motorway. We have long built our 'pure' Motorway network ......as in all of it. Everything west of Kinnegad and Portlaoise is more or less HQDC barring a few fragments.

Proper motorway lanes are generally wider...certainly on the inside where the truck are ( c 3.75m vs 3.5m) than HQDC lanes are. However that is an observation.

I do not advocate the construction of any more Motorways with wide lanes and wide medians in Ireland. Ever. Our biggest issue is whether to proceed with the enormous 2+2 Network that FF promised every nook and cranny in Ireland, I believe that a 2+2 is overkill for a 5000 AADT stretch such as the N5 across north Roscommon. And yet the current road is dire and must be replaced. So I personally recommend a 2+2 and S2 interstitial plan...offline as much as possible.

I feel it is worth a discussion because I always felt it was worth a discussion. 2+2 can never become a 120kph motorway, it can be a 100kph motorway or a 100kph dual carriageway and that is it.

L1011

Sponge Bob wrote: »

The land take from Maynooth to Lucan ....designed 20 years ago and built less than 20 years ago

Designed closer to 40 than 20 years ago Sponge. The full plans were getting rat-eared in the local library when my parents started looking at houses in Maynooth in 1985! Definitely a 1970s design job like the Naas, Newbridge and original-plan Kildare BP's

Sponge Bob

MYOB wrote: »

Definitely a 1970s design job like the Naas, Newbridge and original-plan Kildare BP's

Large median and large land take MYOB. There will be nothing quite like that again.

mk6705

galwaycyclist wrote: »

What was needed first was a large scale program of town/village bypasses nationwide. This would have gone some way to solving level of service issues on existing strategic routes while simultaneously improving the quality of life in the bypassed locations.

What we have now is large sections of expensive motorway, much of which is empty much of the day, while our urban centres are still blighted by through traffic that has no business there.

The reason big road projects are built in big sections is to avoid a so-called "rosary-bead" alignment. Motorways have many benefits, especially for the movement of freight. They improve public transport and probably most importantly, journey times are predictable. Building S2 or WS2 bypasses wouldn't have been a good idea. It would have encouraged ALOT of roundabouts, for a start. Secondly it would have made planning even harder, with a "don't bypass the bypass" action group set up for every town and village along the N4, N6, N7, N8, N9 etc.

antoobrien

Adro947 wrote: »

Secondly it would have made planning even harder, with a "don't bypass the bypass" action group set up for every town and village along the N4, N6, N7, N8, N9 etc.

I do seem to remember all the towns along the N6 having one of these at some stage in the 80s and even early 90s- save our town, nobody will come etc. Fast forward a few years and you've got complaints about people not being able to get out of their homes etc etc etc

Like it or not bypasses along with poor roads, especially where a sunday driver can hold up 20/30 vehicles as is common on the N17, are not the answer. A Tuam or Claregalway only bypass wouldn't be effective on the N17, the same can be said about Clarinbridge on the N18. I'm sure people will be able to make similar arguments about the Likes of Mallow etc on the N20. We need at least Dual carraigeway standard roads on certain routes, be they HQDC or motorway or whatever your having yourselves. Beyond that it's all aesthetics and I don't particularly care.

popebenny16

antoobrien wrote: »

Like it or not bypasses along with poor roads, especially where a sunday driver can hold up 20/30 vehicles as is common on the N17, are not the answer.

not to mention the tractor driver who held everyone up on the Carlow By-pass last Wednesday night. on my way back on the bypass at about 11pm i noted that he had pulled up at the pub

westtip

corktina wrote: »

blindingly obvious when you see two empty motorways serving Cork and Limerick where one would have done and done away wirth the need for an M20.

Corky yes indeed - and my OP was not necessarily to agree with Varadkar and I don't think LV is saying the new roads are bad - they are all very welcome, I think he is saying it could have been done better, and the process was at times questionable - but in fairness to the outgoing mob when things are done in a hurry mistakes are made - which I think is he general consensus. We can all find great roads that have improved our lives and we can equally find frustrations that continue, Claregalway, the N20, the N17/18 and none of us need a degree in transport planning to realise The 123 running north of Dublin debacle is pure idiocy - a way of coping with one (possibly 2) northern arterial route should have been examined, and a better way of connecting the north north west to the grid could hav been achieved.

LV is frustrated cos he has no money to spend and will have no ribbons to cut or plaques to unveil - all the fun in governance was done by the last lot of party goers, LV is cleaning up the debris - it will be interesting to see what unfolds. One thing is for sure fantasy projects are a thing of the past.

corktina

just to emphasis the point, I can drive from North Cork to Dublin via either the M7 or M8, the difference (according to AA Route planner) is 8km) They dont merge until i am 160 km from home!



(its actually quicker on the longer route

monument

Son of Stupido wrote: »

Roads weren't over-specced. A cost benifit analysis showed very little difference in building ....

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I think Veradkar is too young and too insularly Dublin centric to remember that many of the road sections the motorways replaced were 30 years old or less. So designing a road that need not be revisited for another 30 years is no bad thing.

Err, no.

Varadkar says the files show that the over-specification was "politically driven by politicians and Ministers who decided a motorway was needed."

Deputy Leo Varadkar: I agree that there was over-specification. If one examines the files, one will find much of it was politically driven by politicians and Ministers who decided a motorway was needed, even though a dual carriageway might have done. Many State companies were put under pressure by the previous Government to build bigger and greater things than were necessary. I do not share that kind of “if you build it, they will come” view. The specification has to be appropriate. I have had discussions with the transport unit of the ESRI with a view to looking back at whether the major interurban motorways built could have been done better, as suggested by the Deputy. We have to learn from what happened in the past. A significant proportion of the high cost of the roads built can be attributed to the payments made to land owners and the arrangement reached with the Irish Farmers Association on land costs. It is fair to say that arrangement would not be made now. They got a very good deal. The files confirm the political pressure that a deal needed to be cut with the landowners.

So, just to be clear:

That's over spec due for politically reasons.

That's over payments for politically reasons.

Nothing what so ever to do with cost benefit analysis or building bigger for the projects to last longer.


The road project PPP deals also stink: Dwindling road traffic costs State €500,000 a month

popebenny16

i was involved on the sidelines of the traveling circus that was the CPO process for the M7 near Roscrea. Total joke. Considering that the IFA deal was fairly black and white I would not understand, apart from making money out of nothing, why the NRA produced a valuation, the land owneres there own valuation, and then an "agricultural consultant" would come in from nowhere with his own valuations, and who would then negotiate with Laois County Council on behalf of the NRA to get the money for the landowner.

There was some serious messing going on, and that isnt even going into the matter of disturbance money and inconvieniance.

As for what happened when the road was being built, well, thats another well known local story. A lot of money was spent that wasnt spent, and the results are there to be seen, like that pothole i keep mentioning after the M7/8 Junction.

serfboard

popebenny16 wrote: »

the NRA produced a valuation, the land owneres there own valuation, and then an "agricultural consultant" would come in from nowhere with his own valuations, and who would then negotiate with Laois County Council on behalf of the NRA to get the money for the landowner.

There was some serious messing going on, and that isnt even going into the matter of disturbance money and inconvieniance.

The simple fact of the matter is that FF bought taxpayers votes with their own money. As well as stuffing farmers mouths with gold, they also perpetrated that outrageous scam known as the SSIA that cost the country over 2.5 billion.

And of course eejits we were, we kept electing them. Until the chickens finally came home to roost.

Aidan1

Considering that the IFA deal was fairly black and white I would not understand, apart from making money out of nothing, why the NRA produced a valuation, the land owneres there own valuation, and then an "agricultural consultant" would come in from nowhere with his own valuations, and who would then negotiate with Laois County Council on behalf of the NRA to get the money for the landowner.

There's a great Masters thesis there for someone - the original 'deal' with the IFA was classic Bertie theatre. He would wait until the IFA (insert name of your rent seeking interest group here) threatened to walk out of the talks, then swoop in and save the day by using his 'formidable negotiating skills' (by giving them exactly what they wanted in the first place). Just like social partnership really.

Different CCs had their own process around CPOs of course, which tended to add to the cost in some cases - a whole other story.

westtip

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Eh let me see

There are places like Claregalway that need a bypass but Claregalway is not an urban centre.

But Sponge it sits on an arterial route north south and buggers up journey planning times to Shannon Airport.

antoobrien

westtip wrote: »

But Sponge it sits on an arterial route north south and buggers up journey planning times to Shannon Airport.

But Sponge - it buggers up access to all north east Co. Galway from the city creating rat runs all over the place between Carnmore & Turloghmore/Athenry to try avoid Claregawlay.

But on a more serious note the tailbacks into and out of Galway city have a major economic effect - they affect the ability of businesses to get people to work, and goods out making Galway a harder place to justify having manufacturing businesses, which we still need because (not meaning to be cruel but) not everybody is a college grad or capable of doing the "Knowledge Economy" jobs.

It's also damaging small retailers in Galway that rely on weekend shoppers who are deciding not to sit in traffic for an hour or more trying to get into Galway. I left Briarhill one day at 2.20 - it took 40 minutes to get as far as college rd. The same day the Tuam rd was back back to the Ballybane RAB and I was told by my inlaws that the traffic was back to the Roscommon rd from Claregalway. Net result - people that usually would have come to Galway are staying away in their droves.

serfboard

Aidan1 wrote: »

the original 'deal' with the IFA was classic Bertie theatre. He would wait until the IFA (insert name of your rent seeking interest group here) threatened to walk out of the talks, then swoop in and save the day by using his 'formidable negotiating skills' (by giving them exactly what they wanted in the first place). Just like social partnership really.

Spot on - you must have either witnessed it, or heard about it, as I did (different interest group). Department of Finance officials saying "we can't afford it" and Bertie doing exactly as you describe - arriving in at the last minute and doling out the cash. Much to the dismay of said officials.

Now that he's buggered the country, the f**ker is happily swanning around the Galway Races spending his 3K a week :eek: pension which we're all paying for.

dlofnep

One of the best things FF did in Government was improve the infrastructure of the state. I love the motorway from Waterford to Dublin. Can make it up there in just a little over an hour. Beforehand, it used to take 2 and a half hours. Can go anywhere in Ireland now in a reasonable time - It especially helps if I'm going to Belfast, as it's pretty much motorway all the way from Waterford to Belfast now. Saves heaps of time!

Aidan1

Much to the dismay of said officials.

I would point out (as I probably have done before) that the HQDC 'upgrade to motorway' fudge was at least partially brought about as an official response to el Bertissimo's treatment of the exchequer as an ATM for interest groups.

Also, for those that complain that the roads projects were at least 4 years late (in the 2002 General Election campaign the promise was made that they'd all be done by 2006), there's several large chunks of issues that had to be dealt with at the time. Leaving aside the IFA's blatant attempt to mug the taxpayer, there were serious issues around getting planning permission, around avoiding cost overruns and legal comeback, and around project design and EIS that all had to be addressed. In many ways, the mini recession we had in 2002/3 allowed the State to get it's act together in many ways. In particular, the NRA were well resourced, and able to pull together a critical mass of engineers, and legal and finance people. In turn, this meant that they got to step outside of political influence, and build and project manage a coherent system of contracts (DBOs, for a start), and to take advantage of competition for contracts to drive prices down (in so much as was possible in a bubble economy), and to run through the series of EIS/CPO/PPs that were required.

All of that said, there were two basic issues with the process as it occurred - firstly, roads were built that may or may not have been required (M3 and M9 - or at least the route that was taken for the M9 in particular), and secondly, that some of the costs were extremely high, both around land purchase and for particular sections of road. The point that Minister Varadkar is trying to make is that both of these things were avoidable, but were politically driven.

Chris_5339762

...but if the roads had been delayed at all, then we'd have had a problem. The last contracts probably wouldnt have been signed, leaving us with the awful potential of the M7/8 scheme not starting (hello Abbeyleix and Borris) and the potential for an incomplete M50 upgrade. (Say the section that upgraded the N3 junction not being done). Timewise, we came AWFULLY close to that, given when the recession hit.