Why do some Motorway projects get priority?

Sam Russell

This thread is for discussing why some motorways that would appear to be less important get progressed ahead of ones that would appear to be more urgent.

For example the M20 joining Limerick to Cork is languishing at the bottom of the list while the M17 is storming ahead.

Who makes these decisions? Are they parish pump - or are they made on engineering or planning considerations?

annfield1978

Politics is definitely the problem, Its who shouts loudest. e.g Tralee Bypass developed as a sop to the Healy Raes

NTA in the GDA will inceasingly have the power in developing infrastructure projects as opposed to Irish Rail or TII

mikeym

County Cork seems to get very neglected.

The N20 is a death trap.

The N22 is a death trap.

The N71 is like driving on the moon.

And the N25 is good in parts but Killeagh and Castlemartyr need to be bypassed.

I blame Irish Water, the road tax money could have been used on the roads instead of paying for water meters.

Sam Russell

mikeym wrote: »

County Cork seems to get very neglected.

The N20 is a death trap.

The N22 is a death trap.

The N71 is like driving on the moon.

And the N25 is good in parts but Killeagh and Castlemartyr need to be bypassed.

I blame Irish Water, the road tax money could have been used on the roads instead of paying for water meters.

Are they not based in Cork?

mikeym

Sam Russell wrote: »

Are they not based in Cork?

The call centre is. Irish Water Hq is in Dublin.

Why bother paying road tax when money gets diverted to non road projects.

Theres no money set aside for roads but the government get millions from road tax.

That is the root problem of this discussion.

Sam Russell

mikeym wrote: »

Theres no money set aside for roads but the government get millions from road tax.

They are currently building the M17/M18. Does that count as money for roads?

L1011

mikeym wrote: »

Theres no money set aside for roads but the government get millions from road tax.

There is no such thing as 'road tax'

mikeym

Sam Russell wrote: »

They are currently building the M17/M18. Does that count as money for roads?

It counts as money for one road.

Sam Russell

mikeym wrote: »

It counts as money for one road.

€580m for one road joining two small West of Ireland towns.

Well, they are extending the M11 to Oilgate - that's another road. They are widening the M7 Naas bypass - that's another. They have just finished widening the M50 and sorting the Mad Cow with a nice flyover.

That is a lot of Motor Tax - sorry - infrastructure spending on roads.

Not a lot spent on Dublin public transport.

Mrs Dempsey

Sam Russell wrote: »

€580m for one road joining two small West of Ireland towns................

Limerick & Galway? :rolleyes:

Jayop

Mrs Dempsey wrote: »

Limerick & Galway? :rolleyes:

Limerick to Galway and Galway to Sligo if the full thing goes ahead.

I suppose if they're going to carry on closing hospitals in the North West the least they can do is provide people with a reasonably safe road to travel to Galway to for treatment.

Kevwoody

Sam Russell wrote: »

€580m for one road joining two small West of Ireland towns.

Well, they are extending the M11 to Oilgate - that's another road. They are widening the M7 Naas bypass - that's another. They have just finished widening the M50 and sorting the Mad Cow with a nice flyover.

That is a lot of Motor Tax - sorry - infrastructure spending on roads.

Not a lot spent on Dublin public transport.

Do you not think the rest of the country deserves some proper infrastructure?
Typical post from a Dub who only ventures outside the M50 for a weekend every year, you have no idea of how serious some of these roads are.

newacc2015

mikeym wrote: »

The call centre is. Irish Water Hq is in Dublin.

Why bother paying road tax when money gets diverted to non road projects.

Theres no money set aside for roads but the government get millions from road tax.

That is the root problem of this discussion.

I heard an official from Irish Water put it this way. If you take water services from the Government and put it into a utility company. The several hundred million spent on providing water can be freed up to pay for other infrastructure. If you take out a few hundred million spent on water services yearly with little return. You have money to spend on things like motorways, Luas lines, colleges etc

The biggest problem with infrastructure is the Government spends so little on it. We have the second lowest expenditure on infrastructure in the EU. I imagine it is because if you asked people would they prefer better motorways or a welfare increase/ tax cut. They would take the latter. Irish people put so little emphasis on infrastructure

Your comment backs this up. You made a discussion on roads about IW. Instead of debating capital spending in the run up to the election, time was wasted on endless discussions on IW. There was a brief discussion on capital spending in comparison to IW

marno21

MOD: There are threads in the Politics forum to discuss Irish water. This thread is about motorway projects

marno21

Dublin is possibly the most Infrastructure starved area in the country.

At present, the M50 between Lucan and Redcow handles 170k cars per day. The M1 on approach to Dublin carries 100-110k, the N4 carries 60k, the N7 carries 90k, and the M11 carries 75k. This can't keep increasing much more before it descends into chaos. We also have a situation where we have an airport carrying 25 million passengers a year with no city centre rail link. This is much more necessary than a motorway upgrade carrying 23k vehicles at it's peak.

The M17, M20 and M21 are important, but lets not forget how far behind Dublin also is.

Jayop

Volume isn't the only measure of importance. I know that's terrible hard for anyone from Dublin to understand but it's true.

marno21

Jayop wrote: »

Volume isn't the only measure of importance. I know that's terrible hard for anyone from Dublin to understand but it's true.

I live along an R road in Co. Cork in a village of 191 people.

Almost 100k entering Dublin along each route is not sustainable as a) it's increasing and b) there are no plans to alleviate it.

Whilst an upgrade to the N17 is important, so are equivalent upgrades in Dublin which are unfortunately not being delivered.

Jayop

marno21 wrote: »

I live along an R road in Co. Cork in a village of 191 people.

Almost 100k entering Dublin along each route is not sustainable as a) it's increasing and b) there are no plans to alleviate it.

Whilst an upgrade to the N17 is important, so are equivalent upgrades in Dublin which are unfortunately not being delivered.

The n17 isn't causing the projects in Dublin not to go ahead. It doesn't need to be one or the other.

Sam Russell

Mrs Dempsey wrote: »

Limerick & Galway? :rolleyes:

€580 m is the cost of Gort to Tuam.

Sam Russell

Back to the topic :-

Who makes the value decision like for example the M17/M18 project should go ahead while the M20 get put on the long finger and the Clongriffin spur to the airport gets canned permanently?

Also the DU and MN both go for senseless redesign to cheapen them - who decides these things?

Jayop

Sam Russell wrote: »

€580 m is the cost of Gort to Tuam.

Yeah and the only purpose is to connect those two towns.

It's part of the sligo to limerick route and is essentially a Galway bypass. Given the traffic problems in that particular section of road currently it's no wonder it's being done now.

Cookiemunster

Sam Russell wrote: »

€580 m is the cost of Gort to Tuam.

And 50% of that road is linking Limerick to Galway. You need to forget what the road is call and what it's end points are and look at what it actually connects. Ie the 3rd and 4th largest cities in the state.

Del2005

Sam Russell wrote: »

Back to the topic :-

Who makes the value decision like for example the M17/M18 project should go ahead while the M20 get put on the long finger and the Clongriffin spur to the airport gets canned permanently?

Also the DU and MN both go for senseless redesign to cheapen them - who decides these things?

Not body decides which is why every few years they get rolled out as a new transport plan again. Our elected representatives don't care about anything that takes more than 2 years from start to finish, so that they can get reelected, and the people who run the country, the civil servants, are never held accountable.

Look at the farce of the children's hospital. Everyone knew a new one was needed but it took years and millions of Euro to pick a location, then they scrap that location and spend years and millions of Euro to pick another location that isn't really suitable either.

Cookiemunster

Sam Russell wrote: »

Back to the topic :-

Who makes the value decision like for example the M17/M18 project should go ahead while the M20 get put on the long finger and the Clongriffin spur to the airport gets canned permanently?

Also the DU and MN both go for senseless redesign to cheapen them - who decides these things?

The decision to build the M17/18 ahead of the M20 wasn't a financial one. It was done because the M17/18 was through planning before the crash and the M20 wasn't.

Sam Russell

Jayop wrote: »

Yeah and the only purpose is to connect those two towns.

It's part of the sligo to limerick route and is essentially a Galway bypass.

No, it is not the Galway Bypass - that is another project costing north of €680 million. The M18 connects Tuam to the M6.

Why did this bit of infrastructure get the go-ahead before the M20?

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

Back to the topic :-

Who makes the value decision like for example the M17/M18 project should go ahead while the M20 get put on the long finger and the Clongriffin spur to the airport gets canned permanently?

Also the DU and MN both go for senseless redesign to cheapen them - who decides these things?

The cabinet ultimately.

If you don't like the decision lobby your local politicians.

newacc2015

Jayop wrote: »

Volume isn't the only measure of importance. I know that's terrible hard for anyone from Dublin to understand but it's true.

Well actually it does. Many motorways were built around this country were built with PPP. The tolls on the road were to cover most of the cost of building and maintaining the road. When the volume wasnt on the road. Guess who had to pick up the tab? The tax payer.

The greater the volume on the project, the greater the probability of it being self-financing. What some rural TD's dont seem to understand why they go on their rant 'Dublin having it all' is that most projects in Dublin cost the tax payer nothing. The Luas pays for itself and doesnt require a massive subsidy to run. When something is self-financing, there is a greater incentive to build it

I'm from Dublin and I believe the Government place little value on the importance of volume. It used to annoyed me so much during the boom when you would hear of some glorified village in the west getting a new several million euro bypass to shave 5/10 mins off the motorway and improve the quality of life in the area. Yet there is Drumcondra in Dublin which has roughly 50k cars go through it a day and is gridlocked pretty much 18 hours a day. There has been no meaningful attempt to but the Metro through the area to lighten traffic

Cookiemunster

Sam Russell wrote: »

No, it is not the Galway Bypass - that is another project costing north of €680 million. The M18 connects Tuam to the M6.

The road was NOT built to connect Tuam to the M6. It was built to connect Limerick and Ennis and all points inbetween to the M6
The route between Limerick and Galway after this road opens will be M18/M6. Just as the route between Cork and Dublin is M8/M7. It doesn't matter if it takes in two different route numbers, it's still the main route between two large population centers.

Sam Russell wrote: »

Why did this bit of infrastructure get the go-ahead before the M20?

Try reading post #24 which was posted an hour and a half before you posted this.

Jayop

Not all projects have to be self financing. Like I said, if services in the West continue to be cut and people are expected to travel 100 miles for basic Healthcare then I think having decent roads is the least we can expect. Maybe you're not as familiar with the roads around Galway as you are with those you mention in Dublin but if you're under the impression that they're used by a few tractors and are pretty empty then you're mistaken. Claregalway, Tuam, Galway city itself from the north and south are gridlocked several times a day every day too. Add that to the fact the n17 is a death trap that cars drive for miles and miles at 60kmph then you should understand why they need upgrading.

They could have upgraded them at less expense but that's a false economy and future proofing them now is best in the long run.

busyatwork

Sam Russell wrote: »

€580m for one road joining two small West of Ireland towns.

Well, they are extending the M11 to Oilgate - that's another road. They are widening the M7 Naas bypass - that's another. They have just finished widening the M50 and sorting the Mad Cow with a nice flyover.

That is a lot of Motor Tax - sorry - infrastructure spending on roads.

Not a lot spent on Dublin public transport.

There spending money on the luas laying new tracks and look now no one to operate the luas because there out on Strike that money is better spent in the west not on the luas tracks and no luas running typical,,,

Cookiemunster

busyatwork wrote: »

There spending money on the luas laying new tracks and look now no one to operate the luas because there out on Strike that money is better spent in the west not on the luas tracks and no luas running typical,,,

That's the most ridiculous rant I heard in quite a while. Because drivers are on strike the extension shouldn't be built? Are you for real? If the guys building the M17/18 went on strike, by your logic the project should be canned. Ridiculous.

The LUAS extension is badly needed, as are other public transport projects in Dublin. Transport projects in Dublin are just as important as projects elsewhere in the country.