Roads budget with the new gov

veryangryman

Seeing as it's unlikely that Rod and co will get into a government(with any influence anyway), will the new programme remove the nonsense two thirds allocation for PT and cycling which many a council did not spend their allocation on anyway?

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058382879/roads-budget-with-the-new-gov

[Basing this on the most likely coalition of FG+FF+(someone who can supply 10 seats)]

It'll be downplayed, but won't disappear, because public transport is where the big infrastructure deficit is right now. It'll be very much a continuation of current policy, unless the two biggest parties have some kind of mental fit and pair up with a gang of rural independent TDs (lowercase intentional) rather than, as is most likely, SocDems or Labour - both of those parties have near carbon-copies of the Greens' transport policies.

What will change, I hope, is the delivery. A lot of the transport projects are scuppered by a combination of planning delays and general budget shortfalls: that Children's Hospital overspend and those energy credits had to be covered somehow. For all the complaints about the 2:1 ratio, there were precious few PT/active travel projects reaching construction either.

Councils not being able to spend their allocation on works is something you should actually be getting annoyed about, because it's nothing to do with central government, and it's not just stuff you call "nonsense", but also things like flood defences, road improvements and other infrastructure. The local councils have a huge range of ability to deliver: some are absolutely brutal, while some actually try to get the most out of their infrastructure funds. I'm not naming names, but I think we know the worst ones…

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058382879/roads-budget-with-the-new-gov

Would be extremely sad if they did remove the 2/3rd allocation given that most of the capital expenditure needed is in heavy infrastructure. Reminder that there was 0€ going into heavy and light rail in 2019

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122910312#Comment_122910312

There was as about much money being spent on heavy and light rail in 2019 as there is now. FG had Metrolink and DART+ underway before the Greens and the 2:1 spending ratio (Along with BusConnects). And they also built Luas Cross City only a few years before that

The Greens didn't manage to get either of these projects to construction and Ryan interfered to get road projects stopped.

I don't think there is a need for the ratio as the money is already ring fenced to build these projects, while road projects are being held up because that money won't be spent for some time yet.

gossamerfabric

pay attention to rural independents' wishlists; that will be the cost of doing business with them.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122910639#Comment_122910639

They didn’t manage to get ANPR cameras in either to keep bus lanes for busses either.
They were such a disappointment.

KrisW1001

“The Greens didn't manage to get either of these projects to construction”:

There are projects that the 32nd Dáil (i.e., ended 2020) wanted done that haven’t moved to construction. It’s a symptom of the wider problem in this state of procuring works.

There are still unresolved legal issues about using ANPR on ordinary roads in Ireland. The specific cases where it is used now (journey-time estimation) are quite restricted, with data deleted very soon after collection, and Gardaí have to obtain an order just to follow a given numberplate through the parts of the national road network where it is implemented. Extending this technology to urban streets would raise a lot of legal challenges, so any project that uses it needs to have those legal arguments answered before it starts.

(A Dash-cam type system where the driver could flag a lane offender for review later is possible, and avoids these legal issues, but it’s very manpower-intensive, and couldn’t work at the scale Dublin Bus would need)

marno21

A 2:1 ratio would be perfectly fine (I would argue 2.5:1 or 3:1 would be more appropriate given the backlog of big PT projects), but if there's a ratio of any sort it should be contingent on the roads budget and NDP plan being protected from idelogical meddling.

Labour and the Soc Dems have the exact same approach to this as Ryan did.

gossamerfabric

I hope independents from Longford/Westmeath and Offaly support the incoming government. The route from Kilbeggan to Tullamore will probably then get fast-tracked and the route from Birr to Nenagh get improved because that road is a death trap.

Cookiemunster

Hopefully now that the Greens are gone there isn't any more resistance to TIIs request for multi annual funding.

hans aus dtschl

I don't even mind the ratio question. Like others here, I never saw that as a major factor, I saw it as a good PR thing to point at where our transport priorities are, or should be.

The bigger issue for me is the general lack of ability or drive to get the more transformative infrastructure projects over the line. We seem to generally have a slightly better hit ratio with roads, but rail, bus and even cycle projects are constantly at the mercy of small, loud objector groups predicting impending doom if any sustainable project proceeds. They're given disproportionate media coverage. Micheal McDowell take a bow.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912698#Comment_122912698

Were the greens the roadblock there? I didn't realise.

GerardKeating

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912698#Comment_122912698

You really think it was the Green's that held that up ?

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912865#Comment_122912865

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912868#Comment_122912868

I don't think. I know. Here's Eamonn Ryan saying so only three months ago.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41479846.html

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912889#Comment_122912889

He was only saying that TII manages spending, and the Transport budget always includes pre-committed spending on projects already underway, and thus multi-year road budgets are not needed. And, in fairness, we were able to build out our motorway network without such a multi-annual budget structure.

The issue, and it’s one that people really seem to be blind to, is that the whole Transport budget had to take cuts to support increased spending elsewhere in government. There simply wasn’t money there to do everything.

We have spent billions in energy cost supports since 2022, and we’ve about a billion of overrun on the NCH - that money has to come from somewhere, and every department has had its budgets cut. Unfortunately, Transport, and road transport in particular, is always first on the block when money needs to be spent, as these projects are mostly capital expenditure, and largely independent of each other - ideal when you need to cut out a few hundred million without causing strikes or protests. Faced with a budget cut, Ryan chose to prioritise the major rail projects on his desk (DART+, MetroLink), and defer some of the road projects. I actually agree with that priority, as any delays in those rail projects would cause huge knock-on pressures on Dublin’s road transport infrastructure. I don’t live anywhere near Dublin, for what it’s worth.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058382879/roads-budget-with-the-new-gov

Hopefully not

We have an extensive road network and a poor PT network. The investment should be in PT

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912889#Comment_122912889

That was the Minister for transport quotes.

The Minister might change but the long term strategy wont

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913060#Comment_122913060

I don't live anywhere near there either and I also fully support the PT projects. However at a time of massive budget surpluses (even with the outgoings you mentioned) it's ridiculous to say that planning for relatively small roads projects had to be put aside because planning for PT was ongoing. Because that's all that would have been needed. Funding to progress these projects through the design and planning process. Instead he personally cancelled numerous schemes.

Also as Minister for Transport it was his job to fight for the budget to fulfil the remit of his department. He didn't give a damn about roads and didn't bother fighting for the funding.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913071#Comment_122913071

Yes we do have an extensive roads network, but it's not a complete network and many, many roads are substandard and dangerous. I'll keep banging the drum that we need the big PT projects in Dublin AND we need to finish the motorway network and upgrade dangerous national primary and secondary roads.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913205#Comment_122913205

IMO the biggest issue with the roads is the amount of traffic on the roads

Making a road bigger, which Ireland has tried for many years, hasn't really improved traffic or safety, just increased the traffic and moved the issue a little further down the road

Removing traffic from the roads will make it safer and give a better long term solution than build another road, then another, then another. Which as I said have Ireland has doen for as long as I can remember and we haven't really fixed any issues, just created more.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913235#Comment_122913235

The motorway network has demonstratively improved safety across the network. But nobody is suggesting building more or bigger roads in the GDA. It's about filling the glaring gap in the network (the M20) and then providing bypasses and safety upgrades on rural national primary and secondary roads. PT will not be the answer in rural areas due to the scourge of one off housing.

Larbre34

This also ignores the economic prosperity provided by these routes and indicated by the increase in traffic using them

Marty1983

I would imagine their will and should be a % of Active Travel retained from the roads budget. Their has been great work done on things like safe routes to schools for children walking and cycling -Hopefully the removal of the greens will get some of the roads projects stalled back onto the agenda while also parking a number of their farcical public transport projects.

KrisW1001

I take your points, but do disagree about Ryan. He was trying, with some success, to shift the Department of Transport away from being the “Department of Roads”, and I do think that those Dublin-centric rail projects had the highest chance of being canned by a future government (imagine, for a moment, what would have happened if Independent Ireland ended up as kingmakers…). But the 2022 energy crisis hit everything - suddenly every road project was up 30% just on fuel - remember the N5 winner preferring bankruptcy to fulfilling the contract at a huge loss? Escalating costs plus cutbacks, something has to give. The rail projects were expensive, but far less dependent on the price of diesel.

On everything else, though I think we’re on the same page.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913205#Comment_122913205

I’d go further and say we don’t even have an extensive road network: the motorways are very good (we only need N20 and N28 to complete the network), most of the primary routes (1-50) are good with some notable exceptions that are scheduled for improvements, but if you get off those primary routes you suddenly you can find yourself back in the bad old 1980s again.

Our secondary network is also not of consistent quality: we don’t need dual carriageways everywhere - traffic numbers on these routes often don’t top 5,000 AADT - but it would be good to get to a consistent width and geometry for secondary roads. And we’re going to have to bite the bullet and start removing entrances, and grade-separating dangerous junctions.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913289#Comment_122913289

But you are not really fixing anything, you are just moving the issue down the road a bit and they will require a bypass. It is never ending

Most of the safety issues on the roads is due to the amount of traffic on them with people having no alternatives.

Building a proper train network and taking the cars off the road will resolve the issue better and longer term. If at the end of a huge investment in public transport, project are required outside the standard budget then put money forward for them at that stage.

Planning is an issue, one off housing is been restricted and should be restricted more. The country is littered with houses build in random locations and they are based in a city for work, with the kids then having to travel miles to get to schools/sports etc.

When Ireland has build PT, people use it. The Luas etc are all used. So build it and they will come.

gossamerfabric

I will let you in on a secret. The majority of people living outside the big cities visit them infrequently and would not benefit from your vision of how scarce infrastructure capital should be spent. Good quality wide straight dual lane traffic is all they wish for.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913325#Comment_122913325

PT needs population density. Outside of the cities we have a very low population density. The one off house are not going away anytime soon. Even with the restrictions 26% of the national housing stick (or 440,000 homes) are one offs.

You can't build a rail line (or even drive a bus) down every boreen in the country to service one off housing. These people will continue to need to drive. If that's to the nearest mainline train station then that's perfect, but they will still need to drive on these substandard and dangerous roads to get there. You simply can't ignore that fact.

I don't disagree at all that people will use PT when it's available, but the layout of rural Ireland will never support it.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913235#Comment_122913235

Well yes to all of that, but not having a proper road between Cork and Limerick, or Cork and Waterford are major gaps in the road network.

Members of my family from the East cost who have travelled these routes for the first time didn't realise there was such a significant infrastructure gap between our major cities. We do need to prioritise sustainable transport infrastructure, but also our primary roads network isn't yet finished.

No amount of effort to remove traffic from the N20 will make it safer if it always combines pedestrians with intercity traffic and HGV's in town centres.

And that's just Munster. Most of the North West is missing primary roads infrastructure.

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913456#Comment_122913456

sorry, which boreens was ER trying to convert into rail lines? The only live rail projects in the country at the moment are for urban commuter services (well, the Foynes project isn't but that's for freight).

The expansion of Local-link bus services in rural Ireland has AFAIK been reasonably successful and relatively low cost, there's also been successful rollout of town bus services around the country.

gossamerfabric

buses need roads of good quality just as much as cars do.

Kermit.de.frog

Certain to be a shift back to more spending on roads and motorways with Ryan no longer in transport. I don't think it will be at the expense of public transport but there was, under the Greens, an intentional inertia and delaying tactics around roads that I think riled many FFG backbenchers. That inertia will be lifted and it should be. This country needs all sorts of infrastructure.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912246#Comment_122912246

Fair enough but what did ER as green transport minister do to further these legal issues?
Did he setup a task force in conjunction with the justice minister to get these issues sorted and legislate as a matter of urgency?

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122913658#Comment_122913658

Sorry, but where did I actually say that? I was replying to Clo-Clos post and never mentioned Ryan.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122914182#Comment_122914182

Someone did, as we now have a new planning process for large projects: I can't imagine Transport didn't have a say in that. We'll see how it goes, but unfortunately, anything that entered the old process had to stay in it.

On Roads particularly, remember that Road Transport was partially carved out of DoT and given to a junior minister. I know this was done to "Green-proof" roads, but I suspect it had the opposite effect, and introduced confusion and delay as some authority over road projects was delegated, and some retained by the Minister.

markodaly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122909194#Comment_122909194

The government will be made up of Independants. That is very clear now.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122920569#Comment_122920569

Discussion of coalition formation is off-topic, so I won’t challenge your prediction, but what effect do you think such an outcome would have on the roads policies of the new government?

markodaly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122920631#Comment_122920631

It depends on who those independents are. Many of them want things like the M20, the Galway bypass, and the Cork North Ring Road built. They also want more PT for rural Ireland, something that the Greens actually delivered on.

We would have to wait a week or two to see who the main players are going to be, but generally, they are very pro-road building.

FGR

I believe that more public transport options are needed in the major urban hubs with the inclusion of park and ride facilities at the main entry points to cities to allow for those living in rural areas to have the option to take public transport.

My issue about the 2:1 ratio was that the Minister appeared to use it as a weapon to slow down or actively downgrade projects which would end up costing a lot more in the future to rectify e.g. actively trying to downgrade the N24 project from dual carriageway to s2 bypasses.

I also believe that the motorway network is not complete. Sure Dublin, Limerick and Galway are interconnected; but Cork and Waterford are completely out of the picture as regards connectivity until the N20, N24 and N25 are also upgraded.

Throw in the whole debacle of Waterford Airport and the paltry sum ER refused to give and you can see why many voters had little time for the Minister, and as such, his party.

I know it's old news but imagine how much money would have been saved had Transport21 actually been implemented vs the cost of doing anything like it now.

Chris_5339762

I really wish the M20 had been included in what were dubbed the "main interurbans" which included the M1/6/7/9. That way it would have been completed long ago.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122925353#Comment_122925353

Without the crash it would have probably have been opened by 2015. Remember that Varadker pulled it from ABP in 2011. I'm still of the opinion that he should have allowed it to proceed through planning before parking it.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122925461#Comment_122925461

If he was even able to put a paltry sum against it to keep it moving on life support it would have been better.

But we are where we are. And the current project is at least one of the highest quality I've seen in this country.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122925156#Comment_122925156

N25 does not have anything like the traffic needed to justify a motorway. Type 2 DC is the upper limit of upgrade you could expect on all sections that aren't already Type 1 DC (i.e., the Waterford bypass and the Cork approach), and for various reasons those Type 1 sections won't ever be designated as motorway.

N24 is planned as a Type 2 DC upgrade, and that will sort it for the foreseeable future.

There is only one motorway that's needed on the basis of current and future demand, and that's M20. N28 could have been a 2+2, but Cork County Council wanted another commuter motorway, so it'll be M28.

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122925461#Comment_122925461

Yeah, he pulled it because we couldn't afford the CPOs. We got so close. If only they'd borrowed one measley billion at the time…. Such a shame.

Jayuu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122927048#Comment_122927048

Realistically given where we were at the time borrowing €1billion was simply not possible and even if we had been able to borrow that much the idea that we would spend it on a road when taxes were being increased significantly would have been political dynamite. I wish it had managed to get done at that time but this wasn't an option.

To be honest if we take out the M20, M21 and M28 which are all going through anyway, if I were the Minister of Transport then from a major road building perspective I'd be pushing to construct the M17 projects through with the aim of completing as much as possible of the Cork-Limerick-Galway-Sligo axis , building the N24 to a 2+2 standard to give a southern cross-country route and potentially getting the N40 route completed for Cork and the N6 Galway bypass in some form or other.

Thereafter the priority from a national perspective should be to eliminate blockages in the network with properly constructed town bypasses that could be linked in at a later point (places like Carrick-on-Shannon, Slane, Virginia, etc.;) and the removal of known dangerous stretches of road.

This wouldn't rule out local improvements which could still carry on as necessary.

cson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122912533#Comment_122912533

This one is undersold a little bit I feel, good quality primary routes between Tullamore → Portlaoise → Kilkenny & the likes of Athlone → Roscrea would make a huge difference to the midlands in terms of enabling people living there to commute easily to urban centers/train stations for work. I look at somewhere like Oranmore and how well the train to Galway is doing there, that should be the template nearly - but with higher density housing surrounding the station.

Something similar to Westport → Castlebar would do wonders.

My expectations are low for this Government though, if we get a mile of the M20 laid during their term I'd nearly count that as a success.

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122930006#Comment_122930006

The N80 between Tullamore and Carlow onwards definitely needs fixing and upgrading. Bypass the villages en-route, widen the lanes etc. Some of it is shockingly bad.

marno21

The weekends Mail on Sunday

Quote:
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are in favour of a return to a single Department of Transport to drive key road projects that were stalled during outgoing Green Minister Eamon Ryan’s tenure.

A Fianna Fáil source said: “There are a lot of roads needing to be built. We need to reverse the damage done by the Greens.”

As an aside, it’ll be interesting to see if any local road projects are shifted up the priority list by Independent TDs forming part of the next Government. In particular, the Thurles bypass, N55 out of Athlone, the M11 in Wexford, the N22 Killarney-Farranfore, minor projects on the N70 and N86, Claregalway relief road, N59 out of Galway, Galway Ring Road, the N2 Kilmoon Cross and the N17 are ones to watch in particular. Also perhaps the Tipp Town bypass and the N52 out of Tullamore.

KrisW1001

I think we all know that the Mail's "FF Source" is probably the dude in the office who voted for them, so forgive me if I'm sceptical.

Tipp Town on N24 is already in motion, M11 an N22 are stuck in route selection. Actually, I can't really see many existing projects where a government push is even possible. Maybe some new, small schemes might get kicked off, but anything that's far enough along the pipeline for a local TD to usefully claim credit for is already out of the hands of a Minister.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123004991#Comment_123004991

The Mail on Sunday can be on the ball with their sources. After all, the editor is married to a FF Senator.

I think the point is that those projects are “moving” but they’re moving very slowly. After all, we’ve seen in the past 2 years how quick a project can move if it’s pushed (Adare).

KrisW1001

Adare is exactly the kind of dicking around we can do without. I am actually concerned that the Adare project will end up delayed overall because of the golf shenanigans. Once “have a nice road for the yanks going to the golf” becomes the objective, then there’s a temptation to think the project isn’t important anymore once that event is over.

It was always possible to award the whole contract with a stipulation that the Adare section had to be installed before the event, and no other work was permitted on N22 until the event ended. But no, we got a “just do this bit” contract, and that comes with a chance of the rest of it being permanently long-fingered.

road_high

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122995352#Comment_122995352

Not to mention the road safety issues- some of it has particularly high accident rates. There’s a whole list of projects that need doing on this route- bypasses/relief roads of Carlow, portlaoise, stradbally, Mountmellick, bunclody etc….sections south of the M9 need immediate attention, that awful section out of portlaoise, south of killeigh…I could go on.

road_high

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123006424#Comment_123006424

tbh I’ll take anything we can get-this period has been a real low point in roads building with some absolutely essential projects just left to wither in the drawing boards. The alternative to wait even longer is worse because god only knows what the excuse could be then