More tolls the solution?

Stinicker

Now that Ireland is essentially bankrupt and new road activity has all but slowed to a standstill should we once again look to tolls as the way forward?

There is many stretches of road in dire need of replacement with Motorway, eg. Cork to Limerick and Cork to Ballvourney/County Bounds. The Adare bypass Limerick to Tralee. N24/25 Limerick to Waterford-Wexford. M2 or M3 to Derry/Donegal M4 to Sligo & Mayo.

The government now clearly hasn't the money to build these roads so I ask why don't the NRA borrow separately and build and toll the roads sensibly, not giving the Private concessionaires a free reign for 30 years or whatever but toll them to pay for construction and not the line the pockets of cronies. Eg. a €2 toll between Killarney or Limerick to Cork on a Motorway would gladly be paid by most people to avoid the bad roads in between, €2 for everyone and not €6 or €8 for lorries which is driving freight off the motorways.

A day of a Munster final in Killarney you'd have 20,000 cars going from Cork to Kerry @ €2 x 2 you'd be looking at €80,000 and you'd have many thousands of cars going both directions daily which would only increase if a fairer tolling system was imposed on our Motorways, eg. a vignette system and a reduced pass for a person travelling to Belfast for example giving say a 20 or 25% reduction.

If the money was borrowed and toll the roads until it was paid back with interest and then the government could remove the tolls, the money raised should be ring fenced for construction debt repayment and the entire thing kept separate from Ireland inc. and the treasury. This would allow for faster repayment when the economy gets back on its feet and a few years of a boom in future could see it being paid back extremely quickly. In the event that traffic was low the state could act as guarantors for the loan.

The main thing would allow for construction now which help competitively now and avoid the previous PPP's which have screwed the taxpayer for most of the cost and given tolling concessions to the financiers for the long term, with the government even bailing out the financiers further when people boycott the tolls due to stupid pricing systems and inadequate tolling.

The markets will still lend and infrastructure is seen as a safe haven compared to sovereign debt and financiers love lending for this most of China's burgeoning new Motorway network is financed this way and it is all tolled. Safe places for money are becoming rarer and even the Gold bull market is losing its sheen.

I don't mind paying tolls for building Motorways but I do have a large problem with paying tolls that are lining the pockets of greedy investors and holding a noose around our necks for 50 or 60 years in a situation where if the Government had straight out borrowed the money back in the day would have worked out better. Make the NRA like the DAA and give them a free reign and leverage them out to the last and the get the bloody roads built already!

AugustusMinimus

I can't for the life of me understand why the Government give private companies a franchise to operate these tolls in return for road funding.

Surely if it were profitable, wouldn't it make much more sense as you say for the government to it themselves.

That way, the government would see a return, or the toll could be reduced in order for the whole setup to just break even every year.

Sometimes I wonder about this country.


Overall though, tolls are bad. They discourage use of the safest roads in the state, instead forcing traffic onto poorer roads and just as bad, back into towns and villages which are supposed to be bypassed with these schemes.

mk6705

Motorway for Macroom - Ballyvourney would be overspecced. Likewise with Adare - Abbeyfeale (Two separate schemes). These will be 2+2 roads (eg. Castleisland bypass).

nacimroc

Government were far too busy spending €45,000,000 on a 1200 METRE bypass of Dundrum to worry about the infrastructure outside of their beloved Dublin!

I drove from Limerick to Cork yesterday. Took me 1 hr 45 mins to go between 2 major Irish cities that are only 50 miles apart. What was the governments next major project.....a metro for north Dublin. There is no motorway between ANY of the major cities in Ireland except for ones that lead to Dublin.

I think the other points you raised were great ideas and would get the country moving a little forward again, job wise, finance wise etc.

The key point is they absolutely have to write into the contract a timed buyout clause so they can't toll us endlessly for the piece of roads thats been paid for ten times over.

AugustusMinimus

Adro947 wrote: »

Motorway for Macroom - Ballyvourney would be overspecced. Likewise with Adare - Abbeyfeale (Two separate schemes). These will be 2+2 roads (eg. Castleisland bypass).

Is the cost of motorway really that much more than 2+2 though ? The only difference is a breakdown lane.

mk6705

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Adro947 wrote: »

Motorway for Macroom - Ballyvourney would be overspecced. Likewise with Adare - Abbeyfeale (Two separate schemes). These will be 2+2 roads (eg. Castleisland bypass).

Is the cost of motorway really that much more than 2+2 though ? The only difference is a breakdown lane.

And the concrete barrier and the full grade separation and the design for 160 km/h (So it could become longer) and overpasses or underpasses for each local road (On a 2+2 these could have Left-in-left-out junctions if near a roundabout or GSJ) and the installation of emergency phones and and and...

PseudoFamous

nacimroc wrote: »

I drove from Limerick to Cork yesterday. Took me 1 hr 45 mins to go between 2 major Irish cities that are only 50 miles apart. What was the governments next major project.....a metro for north Dublin. There is no motorway between ANY of the major cities in Ireland except for ones that lead to Dublin.

Dublin, Belfast, Cork and arguably Derry are the only "major" cities on this island. As you mentioned, all of these cities are linked to Dublin. Derry and Belfast are linked (EDIT: But not by a motorway, yet [Planned for large sections of the A6, though]). Cork is too far away from Derry and Belfast to justify a motorway between the two, and it makes more sense to direct people through Dublin from the governments standpoint. This, in reality, does make sense, as there is little demand for a direct motorway between Cork and Belfast or Derry. All of the other cities in Ireland are really large towns, and it does not make sense to provide motorways between two towns.

That said, there should be a high quality road between them, but I don't think enough people travel between Limerick, Cork, Galway, or Waterford and any City other than Dublin on a daily basis to justify a motorway.

L1011

Derry and Belfast are not linked by motorway or equivalent grade road.

marmurr1916

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

I can't for the life of me understand why the Government give private companies a franchise to operate these tolls in return for road funding.

Surely if it were profitable, wouldn't it make much more sense as you say for the government to it themselves.

That way, the government would see a return, or the toll could be reduced in order for the whole setup to just break even every year.

Sometimes I wonder about this country.


Overall though, tolls are bad. They discourage use of the safest roads in the state, instead forcing traffic onto poorer roads and just as bad, back into towns and villages which are supposed to be bypassed with these schemes.

What you're forgetting is that the government would have had to borrow the total cost of building tolled motorways and other schemes if there had been no PPPs.

Even when Ireland was able to borrow money on the open markets, that would have been unustainable.

Tolls are common across Europe on motorways and sections of other major roads, with little or no impact on their use.

Drivers are, of course, free to choose a non-tolled route over a tolled route, with all the inevitable time delays and extra fuel costs.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

AugustusMinimus

marmurr1916 wrote: »

What you're forgetting is that the government would have had to borrow the total cost of building tolled motorways and other schemes if there had been no PPPs.

Even when Ireland was able to borrow money on the open markets, that would have been unustainable.

Tolls are common across Europe on motorways and sections of other major roads, with little or no impact on their use.

Drivers are, of course, free to choose a non-tolled route over a tolled route, with all the inevitable time delays and extra fuel costs.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

I can't see why that would have been unsustainable.

If the government did borrow at the same rates as private companies, then the whole situation would play out exactly the same.

Year 1: Money borrowed by government to build road.
Years 1 to 2: Road built
Years 3 - 20: Road is trolled at a level so that the profits are used to repay both the interest and capital on the loan over an 18 year period
Year 21: Toll removed from road as the loan attached to the road has now been fully repayed.


And anyways, isn't this what the government did with the West Link Toll bridge a few years ago, except that they actually paid over the odds for it. So much money wasted.

dubhthach

PseudoFamous wrote: »

Dublin, Belfast, Cork and arguably Derry are the only "major" cities on this island.

Derry has an urban population of 93k (2001 census) if you include the rural population in the Council area you get up to 109,000

Limerick has an urban population of 90k not far off Derry at all. Of course it doesn't help that Limerick city boundaries are about 60 years out of date. Galway not a huge distance off with population of 75k within the city boundary (according to 2011 census, 50% higher then population in 1991)

Marcusm

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

I can't for the life of me understand why the Government give private companies a franchise to operate these tolls in return for road funding.

Surely if it were profitable, wouldn't it make much more sense as you say for the government to it themselves.
....

Overall though, tolls are bad. these schemes.

PPPs and PFI were initially justified on the basis that they provided superior private sector management into the provision of public services. That could have been achieved in a more efficient manner. The most significant underlying reason for introducing these schemes is to reduce the apparent level of government debt as the published figures will show the annual charges (whether tolls and top up payments or just NRA rent payments). Same principle applies fr PPP/PFI school and hospital projects. It's generally a very expensive way for a government to borrow and has a lot of similarities to the off balance sheet structures used by companies such as Enron, Worldcom ad Parmalat (although these companies were also involved in more egregiousstructures also).