Motorway spending

monument

cgcsb wrote: »

many more people use the roads because the roads offer better service. It could easily be the other way round if there was investment.

Can you name many countries where, on a national level, modal share of rail is above the modal share of roads?

Banjoxed

How embarrassing. Just came across a peer reviewed list of the world's fifteen greatest cost overruns on infrastructural projects, and Ireland makes three of them. On Luas did you say? Er, no.

In reverse pork order, the three projects are:

3. The M50 Dublin Port Tunnel at 261%.

2. The N20 at Patrickswell at 370%.

And finally, in at number one with a gold plated bullet,

1. The M50 South Eastern Motorway at 556%.

What a lucrative place to be, at the end of bottomless and near unquestionable State largesse. Ker-Ching!

http://123usman123.blogspot.ie/2013/07/15-of-worlds-biggest-cost-overrun.html?m=1

Copyerselveson

monument wrote: »

Can you name many countries where, on a national level, modal share of rail is above the modal share of roads?

That question is a good one monument. However I think a more realistic comparison would be to review the relative percentages of rail use against road use in different countries. No country will have a higher share of rail versus road, that is quite impossible. However it's worth examining the proportional share worldwide and drawing some conclusions. This one might need a bit of research!

I've started a separate thread on that subject.

corktina

end of the road wrote: »

get what

and? nobody said otherwise, the problem is the governments policy of favouring roads over everything else rather then having all work together, rail can be useful but its up to the relevant people to allow it to be for those that want to use it.

so does rail, the problem isn't road investment, its the idea from some that roads and roads should only get investment at the expence of everything else which should be left to rot or be destroyed to benefit said people (todd andrews and marples) who had a vested interest in roads, beaching probably had such a vested interest to

Rail has had vast investment in recent years and we have ended up with bright new shiny trains, sidings full of trains being scrapped before their time and precious little else.
Roads are used by every one of us and not enough has been spent yet to bring quality roads to all. A lot was wasted on parallel motorways which are fairly empty (M7/8 for instance) where one would have served both destinations, but many areas are yet to benefit from modern roads, all of west and north Cork for instance.

Patrickheg

It's not really a fair comparison, you need to look at the bigger picture as a good percent of the road spending was on intercity motorways built from scratch.

You can't deny that Ireland badly needed a motorway network between Dublin, cork, galway, limerick etc together with essential projects like the limerick and Dublin tunnels, M50 upgrade. Even at that we have only caught up to what our European neighbours had 40 years ago.

As we were starting from a bad place return on investment on these types of critical projects is high and they will pay for themselves in years.
-Road deaths down,
-We now have an affordable bus network which is thriving because it offers connections with realistic times and realistic pricing,
-Dublin city is less congested = a nicer place to be in without trucks, health benefits, moving goods is cheaper, less traffic, Dublin bus can get places quicker etc
-Regional towns like Athlone Portlaoise are more attractive for investment,
-Better use of hospitals,
-even small things like being able to do away with regional airport PSOs(€2.5m per year on the Dublin to waterford/Galway dub route)
Etc

Take the costs of these one off motorway builds which are of national importance and then compare the numbers

No Pants

n0brain3r wrote: »

Minister said so himself and given the average train carries 8 passengers even if all where paying it would be cheaper to put them on a mini bus


http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10257655/

And ministers always tell the truth and never have an agenda, so that argument is now over...

Banjoxed

Just a little reminder of the murkiness around the construction of the M50 South Eastern:

http://www.irishbuildingmagazine.ie/2013/07/31/dunlop-bribed-councillors-for-m50-lands-rezoninig/

Chris_5339762

I love the way they couldnt find a picture of the N20 in Limerick and just lashed up a stock photo

Out of interest, why was the Patrickswell section so overbudget? Its noting special or technically challenging as motorways go.

cgcsb

Carawaystick wrote: »

Govt spent about 100 million on the line from Galway to Limerick.
It's slower, dearer, and more less services than the coaches serving the same route.

It also has so few passengers, that it would actually be cheaper to taxi them instead of take the train.

indeed, complete gombeanism, orcastrated by ff.

monument

Copyerselveson wrote: »

That question is a good one monument. However I think a more realistic comparison would be to review the relative percentages of rail use against road use in different countries. No country will have a higher share of rail versus road, that is quite impossible. However it's worth examining the proportional share worldwide and drawing some conclusions. This one might need a bit of research!

That question would normally be fine but cgcsb's point went far beyond the normal and suggested that more people would use rail over road if there was a massive investment in rail but very few places in the world have made that work for intercity trips alone, never mind all trips.

I'm all for more balance but that goes beyond what has been realistic in the last 20 years in a country with such a poor planning system and dispersed housing pattern (even before the motorways made such worse).

corktina

bear in mind that spending on roads also benefits train users, whereas the opposite would rarely be true

Losty Dublin

Banjoxed wrote: »

How embarrassing. Just came across a peer reviewed list of the world's fifteen greatest cost overruns on infrastructural projects, and Ireland makes three of them. On Luas did you say? Er, no.

In reverse pork order, the three projects are:

3. The M50 Dublin Port Tunnel at 261%.

2. The N20 at Patrickswell at 370%.

And finally, in at number one with a gold plated bullet,

1. The M50 South Eastern Motorway at 556%.

What a lucrative place to be, at the end of bottomless and near unquestionable State largesse. Ker-Ching!

http://123usman123.blogspot.ie/2013/07/15-of-worlds-biggest-cost-overrun.html?m=1

Does the M50 get bonus payouts for being a good 20 years late?

monument

corktina wrote: »

bear in mind that spending on roads also benefits train users, whereas the opposite would rarely be true

Taking passenger trips off roads means less congestion.

Taking freight off roads can notably reduce the wear on roads, as well as improves safety and lowers congestion.

Banjoxed

Losty Dublin wrote: »

Does the M50 get bonus payouts for being a good 20 years late?

Perhaps they couldn't quite decide where exactly to build it?

Grandeeod

end of the road wrote: »

get what

and? nobody said otherwise, the problem is the governments policy of favouring roads over everything else rather then having all work together, rail can be useful but its up to the relevant people to allow it to be for those that want to use it.

so does rail, the problem isn't road investment, its the idea from some that roads and roads should only get investment at the expence of everything else which should be left to rot or be destroyed to benefit said people (todd andrews and marples) who had a vested interest in roads, beaching probably had such a vested interest to

You don't get the whole road vs rail thing without expecting an equal or near equal rail investment. That's just daft. On the Island of Ireland, their are more roads than railways. In fact thats the case in most countries. Governments dont favour roads over everything else. Everything else could mean anything.

Roads got huge investment in Ireland, yet the network is still under developed. Railways got huge investment and just failed to address the obvious anomaly. Road investment in Ireland was very basic and just about brought us to the 21st century. The way some people talk about it here would suggest we got some kind of cosmic back to the future flying car highways. Get a grip. The national road network is still poor. We got a motorway network that shortened journey times. Irish rail knew this but perpetuated with a daft investment plan based on a belief that state handouts for investment would run forever and they could plod alone slowly and improve things in their own time. They took their eye off the ball like always, because they are a pitiful little company with civil servant managers and UK imports that enjoy the ride for the pension.

Losty Dublin

Banjoxed wrote: »

Perhaps they couldn't quite decide where exactly to build it?

Oh they knew where to built it for sure

corktina

monument wrote: »

Taking passenger trips off roads means less congestion.

Taking freight off roads can notably reduce the wear on roads, as well as improves safety and lowers congestion.

But would it? Passengers travel to and from stations at the start and end of their journey , as does freight, so instead of this traffic moving city to city on a trunk road, it will be travelling into railheads ,some of which may well be in the wrong direction and all of which are likely to be in town centres.

munchkin_utd

Banjoxed wrote: »

There is a lovely juicy story here about the taxpayer shelling out €547,000 to the operator over a few months in 2011.

http://newsandsport.ie/leads/read/items/taxpayers-foot-500k-for-m3s-traffic-shortfall?page=31

for a road that cost 1billion, i.e. 1000 million, to build.
even if the government paid 500grand every 6 months, it'd take 1000 years before the government has paid an equivalent cost to what the road cost.

And assuming that some of the 1billion was land purchases and whatnot, youre still looking at 500 to 800 years before the government would have paid in toll subsidies what the road cost to build if they did it themselves.

cgcsb

monument wrote: »

Can you name many countries where, on a national level, modal share of rail is above the modal share of roads?

I cannot, but that's beside the point.
Approximately 40% of Dublin-Cork journies are taken by public transports, it seems logical that investment can improve that figure.

corktina

source?

antoobrien

monument wrote: »

Taking passenger trips off roads means less congestion.

That idea has been conclusively demonstrated to be fallacy in Dublin. Congestion did not go down in 2004 when the Luas opened, it went down when the recession took hold.

Banjoxed

antoobrien wrote: »

That idea has been conclusively demonstrated to be fallacy in Dublin. Congestion did not go down in 2004 when the Luas opened, it went down when the recession took hold.

Growth in the economy between 2004 and 2008 meant that demand for transport space outstripped capacity. If Luas wasn't there congestion would have been far worse on the corridors. Your preposition is therefore a fallacy.

antoobrien

munchkin_utd wrote: »

for a road that cost 1billion, i.e. 1000 million, to build.
even if the government paid 500grand every 6 months, it'd take 1000 years before the government has paid an equivalent cost to what the road cost.

And assuming that some of the 1billion was land purchases and whatnot, youre still looking at 500 to 800 years before the government would have paid in toll subsidies what the road cost to build if they did it themselves.

It should be pointed out that this project is a 45 year concession (most of the rest are 30 year concessions). So if the payments continued at that rate for the lifetime of the concession, at roughly €2.2m per annum for 45 years, the government would pay about €99m to subsidise a project that would have cost a total of €650m up front if it were not delivered by PPP.

I'd take that over having to borrow it all up front for any project.

antoobrien

Banjoxed wrote: »

Growth in the economy between 2004 and 2008 meant that demand for transport space outstripped capacity. If Luas wasn't there congestion would have been far worse on the corridors. Your preposition is therefore a fallacy.

Did congestion reduce when Luas was opened in 2004? No
Did growth in 2004 outstrip demand? No.
What's the journey count? - 30m currently

It took the recession for congestion to be reduced, not the provision of up to an extra 30m journeys p/a. That's not a fallacy, that's fact.

Markcheese

monument wrote: »

Taking passenger trips off roads means less congestion.

Taking freight off roads can notably reduce the wear on roads, as well as improves safety and lowers congestion.

I agree with you on passenger trips,coaches can do it quicker and cheaper than trains though... And if there were municipal coach stations it'd be even easier ...
Freight ??? It's available ... but probably not for long... Nobody uses it ...

end of the road

Markcheese wrote: »

coaches can do it quicker and cheaper than trains though...

on some routes, not on mine, train is faster, still it shows how behind the times we actually are when a coach can travel faster then a railway, only thing it has going for it on routes which have a railway is its cheeper, upgrading tracks as much as possible and bringing the lines up to the highest speeds possible and the coach will be left in the dust where it should be in this day and age on routes which have a railway, having coaches linking from towns which don't have a railway to ones which do should be promoted or if necessary forced as part of an integrated transport network

corktina

i think often the railway is much faster than the coach. It's really a brand new railway being slower than the coach that has shifted our perception. The train wins hands down over the coach on the route I would take to the Capital, although it is about the same time overall as my car journey would be. Car is probably dearer in petrol and tolls, but not by much and if you have two travelling there is no contest.

Banjoxed

Jackson Way looking for compo:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/jackson-way-company-claims-damages-over-freezing-order-1.1730095#.Uylyfb7QqA4.twitter

More hidden costs of the M50 South Eastern Motorway so.

L1011

Banjoxed wrote: »

Jackson Way looking for compo:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/jackson-way-company-claims-damages-over-freezing-order-1.1730095#.Uylyfb7QqA4.twitter

More hidden costs of the M50 South Eastern Motorway so.

Chancing their arm, that's all.

Banjoxed

MYOB wrote: »

Chancing their arm, that's all.

Yes but all that fannying around the High Court doesn't come without a price tag for the taxpayer..