Limerick tunnel: will it be ever free?

masterboy123

I am wondering if the Limerick tunnel connecting Shannon will ever be free of road toll charges? As in after 5 or 10 years?

colm_mcm

It won’t be owned by the state till 2041, so no time soon. Even then it’ll still cost a lot to maintain, and very unlikely to be made free.

Rackstar

I’d doubt it ever will be. The government have been paying the operator a top up as the traffic volumes haven’t been high enough.

masterboy123

Ok, thanks for the info. Was actually thinking of getting a house in Co. Clare and then commute to Dooradoyle via the tunnel. This means extra 76 euros a month on toll.

zulutango

masterboy123 wrote: »

Ok, thanks for the info. Was actually thinking of getting a house in Co. Clare and then commute to Dooradoyle via the tunnel. This means extra 76 euros a month on toll.

You can see that if they did get rid of the toll that it would provide an incentive for people to live away from the city. And in general this is what free road infrastructure does, hence we get a lot of one-off housing and urban sprawl.

You might say what's wrong with wanting to live in the countryside if you can find a nice house there and if you don't mind doing the driving. That's all well and good, but the reality is that the State (i.e. taxpayers) ends up paying the price as the tax that rural dwellers pay doesn't come anywhere close to covering the cost of providing the services and infrastructure they need to live their lives. It's economic recklessness on the State's part to encourage it, so it's very unlikely that the tunnel will ever be free, notwithstanding the direct maintenance and operational costs.

John_Mc

Yeah, much better to have that traffic funnelled in through the town centre.

And those people who want to live in the countryside for lifestyle reasons, they're just reckless.

zulutango

John_Mc wrote: »

Yeah, much better to have that traffic funnelled in through the town centre.

And those people who want to live in the countryside for lifestyle reasons, they're just reckless.

If the toll is taken away then we'd be incentivising car-dependent living (one-off housing, urban sprawl, etc), and that means more traffic. If we want to get rid of traffic the best thing to do is not provide the infrastructure that creates it.

There's nothing reckless about wanting to live in the countryside, but it's only fair that those who choose to pay the real cost.

John_Mc

zulutango wrote: »

If the toll is taken away then we'd be incentivising car-dependent living (one-off housing, urban sprawl, etc), and that means more traffic. If we want to get rid of traffic the best thing to do is not provide the infrastructure that creates it.

Not if planning permission is refused one off housing as is the case now.

If you want to get rid of traffic you provide cycle lanes and decent public transport, which requires decent roads.

It's makes no sense to say that to fix the traffic congestion problem we don't invest in roads.

zulutango wrote: »

There's nothing reckless about wanting to live in the countryside, but it's only fair that those who choose to pay the real cost.

Which is tolled roads and being forced through the city rather than around it?

masterboy123

Great info there Zulu.

I guess I would add up another 100e on top of my mortgage to cover up toll charges.

zulutango wrote: »

You can see that if they did get rid of the toll that it would provide an incentive for people to live away from the city. And in general this is what free road infrastructure does, hence we get a lot of one-off housing and urban sprawl.

You might say what's wrong with wanting to live in the countryside if you can find a nice house there and if you don't mind doing the driving. That's all well and good, but the reality is that the State (i.e. taxpayers) ends up paying the price as the tax that rural dwellers pay doesn't come anywhere close to covering the cost of providing the services and infrastructure they need to live their lives. It's economic recklessness on the State's part to encourage it, so it's very unlikely that the tunnel will ever be free, notwithstanding the direct maintenance and operational costs.

Cookiemunster

The toll on the tunnel has got absolutely nothing to do with housing policies, it's to pay the contractor for building the tunnel in the first place.

And if the government decide to keep it after 2041, it'll be 100% to do with revenue generation, just like the East Link and M50 in Dublin, and 0% to do with housing policies.

zulutango

Cookiemunster wrote: »

The toll on the tunnel has got absolutely nothing to do with housing policies, it's to pay the contractor for building the tunnel in the first place.

And if the government decide to keep it after 2041, it'll be 100% to do with revenue generation, just like the East Link and M50 in Dublin, and 0% to do with housing policies.

No, that's not true. The planning consent for any infrastructure takes consideration of its wider impacts, including housing, environment, etc. And that's not to mention the political side of things. Ultimately, whether a road is tolled or not is a political decision. And political decisions tend to take a broader view than direct revenue generation.

zulutango

John_Mc wrote: »

It's makes no sense to say that to fix the traffic congestion problem we don't invest in roads.

If you provide incentives to own cars, then people will own cars. The more incentives you provide the more cars you get. The converse is also true. The less incentives you provide the less cars you get.

The more progressive cities in the world are removing roads in order to reduce the number of cars.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/06/21/the-science-is-clear-more-highways-equals-more-traffic-why-are-dots-still-ignoring-it/

Cookiemunster

zulutango wrote: »

No, that's not true. The planning consent for any infrastructure takes consideration of its wider impacts, including housing, environment, etc. And that's not to mention the political side of things. Ultimately, whether a road is tolled or not is a political decision. And political decisions tend to take a broader view than direct revenue generation.

If tolling of the interurban motorways was seen as a way to reduce urban sprawl, then there would be more than the handfull that there are. You can head out the M7 and M20 for free, only the river crossing is tolled. Why isn't there sprawl stopping tolls on these roads? I'll tell you why. The Limerick tunnel is tolled because the only way to finance it at the time was via a PPP and that entailed a toll. The other tolls around the country, such as the M6, M7 and M8 tolls, are in the middle of nowhere. On the other side of the tunnel the road goes all the way to Tuam toll free.

It quite simply has never been government policy to deter urban sprawl via tolls.

Cordell

What happened to the HGV go free experiment tried some years ago? I guess that it showed very little change in traffic patterns, and so probably will be the case for a free for all tryout, so if people that need to use are using it, why make it free when you can collect?

zulutango

You know that there's a very extensive consultation process before a toll is applied to a road? These consider submissions from multiple State agencies as well as private interests.

Cordell

I was trying to say the same. There's very little incentive for the state to make it free - which is actually not free-free, but 100% state subsidized.