N5 - Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge [construction to commence shortly]

Sounds very expensive but construction costs going up all the time so maybe it's accurate.

Great to see it get to construction stage though. It will make a big difference in getting to and from Dublin when at last those small town/village obstacles in Roscommon will be removed. Good to see active travel facilities part of the plan as well.

Another link here with quotes from local politicians

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2023/09/26/missing-link-to-mayo-dublin-road-connection-to-be-built-at-cost-of-e450m/

So obviously it hadn't already been approved to go to construction before now. I thought it was all ready to go.

So how long is it likely to be before there's actual activity on site?

Seems fair. Still quite expensive though, especially since this is Type 3 single carriageway, not any dual carriageway (and T3SC is all thats needed).

I've only driven this stretch once and got caught behind a lorry for all of it.

It's a type 1 single carriageway, thankfully.

I think Ryan was being a bit disingenuous with that comment. I costs have increased to that extent it will obviously affect rail projects too (probably even more so due to the more specialised nature of the work) but I doubt he'll be saying decisions to proceed with such projects are becoming increasingly difficult. If costs increase across the board, then the decisions are basically the same as before, particularly given the big increases in revenue available to the state.

Well I think first clarity is needed as to what is and isn't included in quoted costs before comparisons can be made. The Dept staff obviously know all the relevant figures but the figures that get released to the public can be selected for particular reasons. For us, we'll probably have to wait for the Tender Award Notice before we can draw comparisons to the tender which Roadbridge won. I suspect the €400m includes all design, land acquisition, retendering and additional public realm costs, plus a hefty chunk of contingency so that they can say that the project came in under budget.

And given that we don't have a standard way of publicly reporting project costs, making drawing comparisons between projects difficult, I don't think it is possible to accurately compare projects internationally. I mean, when was the last time Italy build a brand new driverless metro requiring all new rolling stock, depot, etc.?

I assume you are getting the €1.7bn figure from Wikipedia. The citation for that is an article from 2011 announcing award of the construction contract, so was obviously tendered earlier than that. Obviously there will be a huge difference in cost between a project tendered pre-2011 and one to be tendered in the next couple of years. Pre-2011 were recessionary times and today we are in a high inflation period with labour shortages. The article also states a completion date of 2015, the first part of a phased opening happened in 2022 so there is no way that initial figure remained constant.

The above cost based on a 2011 article can't include rolling stock as Hitachi say they signed a contract with ATM, so directly with the contracting authority, in 2015;

So this just highlights my point, comparing costs is not as simple as is often made out.

We are probably gone a bit off topic on all this even though it relates to the N5.

One of your points was that you said that you didn't think it was possible to compare projects internationally. I've shown that it is.

I never said that the 450m figure should be compared with the original Roadbridge figure. I just said that the 450k figure in general seems high but I accepted that its possible with inflation, supply costs etc.

A quote from what I said 2 days ago "Sounds very expensive but construction costs going up all the time so maybe it's accurate."

The international comparision illustrates that in general we aren't getting things built efficiently so its rational to query if a figure for a particular project like N5 figure is excessive. Projects across Europe that have less competition in tendering for example are known to come in with a final figure of on average 8 percent higher. From what ive heard only one contractor tendered for the N5 but as I said im open to correction. Thats just in tendering side.

I agree that we can't properly assess the €450m figure when we haven't the specific scope of work it comprises.

You make that point that you suspect that the figure been purposely inflated. But if on one hand you contend that we haven't enough information to assess the figure then I don't see how you can suspect anything. It could be accurate, it could be higher, it could be lower.

The point I'm making is that we are squandering money on large infrastructural projects and that can feed into roads as well.

While the Metro hasn't been built that doesnt mean an assessment cannot be made to compare it for value against other Metros internationally. We do know that €300m has already been spent Metro North, Metro West and DART interconnector and nothing has been built so the project has already got off to a wasteful start. The government has now promised a completed date of 2034, 23 years after planning was granted, another indicator that things are not being done properly.

You mentioned about needing like for like figures. The 100m per km figures for Milan in the international report are for sub metro, underground tunnelling construction so they have picked complex complicated expensive projects for comparison. Even if they tunnelled the entire Metro North is would be far more expensive by comparison.

The Dáil’s public spending watchdog has said the project should not exceed €9.5bn so already it is almost giving permission that it can be €475m per km. In terms of inflation Sam Keys has said that factoring it in over the lifespan you can pick any number between 500m-1bn.

It's worth noting the scope of the active travel schemes being progressed in parallel with the main construction project, because they will hopefully be transformational for the 4 towns being bypassed.

Tenders have already been issued for surveys and engineering consultants for developing the active travel schemes in Frenchpark, Bellanagare, Tulsk and Strokestown as well as between Rathcrogan and Tulsk (below).

In Frenchpark, the council has announced the junction between the R361 and N5, which is an accident black spot, will have traffic and pedestrian lights installed. Once the new bypass opens, the R361 will get priority at the junction.

They should really do the same in Tulsk, where the N61/N5 junction is also a blackspot for crashes, but I haven't heard of any plans to do so. Hopefully the active travel works will include some traffic calming measures which could have the same effect.

Finally, in Strokestown the active travel scheme will run from the roundabout in the town centre up to Kildalloge, where it will link up with AT measures being provided as part of the new N5 works.

There is a separate proposal for the streets in Strokestown under consultation at the moment. The plan is to dramatically reduce the parking around the town (on the wide streets) to the dismay of local business, and tallying with that outline on the above map, limit parking to one side of Bridge St and Elphin St and put in a cycle path out towards the main roundabout to the town off the new road. It's not very popular to put it mildly.

The vast, desolate main street makes Strokestown feel like a ghost town. There is huge potential there if that space was used right.

Interesting information. Good to see active travel being catered for in tandem with road projects and not an afterthought like in the past.

Strokestown looks like a town that should be doing better. Strokestown House is a significant attraction.

The closure of Bank of Ireland a few years ago must have been a serious blow. Feels like the town is part of an area suffering from a general malaise - Frenchpark, Bellanagare, Tulsk don't seem to have much signs of activity either.