Transport 21 - if elected will the opposition implement it?

Navan Junction · 16-10-2006 11:12PM #1

Meath on Track now has a General Election party policy section on it's site, prompted by the complete absence of commitment from opposition parties as to whether they will implement, review or scrap Transport 21 or it's component projects.

Info is sparse because statements have been sparse.

MOT General Election section - click here

Zebra3 · 17-10-2006 03:08AM

After reading what's happened since 1998, would anyone living in Meath believe any politican backing their cause?

godtabh · 17-10-2006 07:49AM

I would say it would be hard from them to pull out of Transport 21. They might not do everything on the list but it would be bad PR to scrap it. But who knows!

I dont see transpoert been a national issue for the GE. More than likely a local one

Slice · 17-10-2006 08:47AM

Since nothing in T21 is certain in itself unless it's a project already underway I would say that it's doubtful the entire plan would be implemented as is regardless of who gets into power as none of the details in T21 are really ironed out.

The fact that Olivia Mitchell seems to believe the interconnector is not essential because Luas now connects Heuston with Connolly just goes to show how lacking Fine Gael are in transport policy.

Perhaps it would be the case that if the Opposition do get into power it would be whichever one of the smaller opposition parties that end up setting the agenda for transport in much the same way the PDs determined so much of policy for the present Government.

Labour would be caught in a difficult position since they would be naturally inclined to support the unions even at the expense of actual progress but maybe there's hope with the Greens??

road_high · 17-10-2006 09:23AM

I'd be worried the Greens might stall on the roads projects and pump the investment into subsidising public transport. Thats my only worry as regards transport and the alternative govt.

Lennoxschips · 17-10-2006 09:56AM

transport 21 won't solve anything as long as ireland pursues ultra low-density urban areas with massive commute times. people in ireland drive twice as many kilometres as the eu average!

ireland needs more high density developments in city areas. but look at transport 21, the cork area strategic plan... all these things. they all envisage even more commuting and even more satellite towns with massive estates. these plans actively pursue it!

ireland is really going down the tubes, and it's a shame, because it's not like we're the first to encounter this problem. there was a whole century of failed and successful urban planning in other countries to learn from, but no, we had to build Los Angeles 2.

so, to answer the question, i should hope the opposition would seriously review all transport and spatial plans if they get into power.

westtip · 17-10-2006 10:48AM

Navan Junction wrote:

Info is sparse because statements have been sparse.

MOT General Election section - click here

Nav, unfortunately we all know T21 was largely a re-hash of what was supposed to have been done under the NDP but wasn't, there was a lot of flannel and hot air in it, which is not surprising when it was launched by the PR bull-sh1t king himself Martin Cullen. T21 pulled the wool over many peoples eyes with fancy graphic presentations but no substance, no costings no final delivery dates, just all hot air and the kind of fanciful artwork we could all have done when doing a "What if" project as part of our leaving cert geography. I know you don't - but people need to realise if the Government (of any colour or creed) says it is going to happen, we can take it all with a very hefty pinch (or bucket) of salt. There should be a warning on the T21 website that all is not what it seems.

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 11:19AM

Lennoxschips wrote:

so, to answer the question, i should hope the opposition would seriously review all transport and spatial plans if they get into power.

Question is will they support projects such as Navan and the Interconnector?

Rather than an entire take it or leave it, surely they can evaluate some/,ost of the projects now?

The opposition though is not engendering a debate. To quote another from Drivetime last week, the opposition are hoping that the government will lose the election rather then them having to win it..

aliveandkicking · 17-10-2006 12:12PM

westtip wrote:

I know you don't - but people need to realise if the Government (of any colour or creed) says it is going to happen, we can take it all with a very hefty pinch (or bucket) of salt. There should be a warning on the T21 website that all is not what it seems.

But the thing is a lot of what is in T21 is actually happening. The Luas extensions to Cherrywood, Bray, Citywest are happening, the Metro route is due to be unveiled in the next few weeks so thats happening. Thhe southern half of the WRC is happening. Docklands rail station has gotten planning permission and is happening. If Docklands is definite that means the rail extension to Pace is happening. DASH 2 is happening. KRP is happening.

At the moment the "we dont know for sures" are:
Navan
Interconnector
Metro West
Lucan Luas
Atlantic Road Corridoor

But to be quite honest I'd trust Cullen/Cowen/Ahern more to deliver the "we don't know for sures" than I would trust Olivia Mitchell, Enda Kenny and Pat Rabitte to deliver them.

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 12:27PM

aliveandkicking wrote:

But to be quite honest I'd trust Cullen/Cowen/Ahern more to deliver the "we don't know for sures" than I would trust Olivia Mitchell, Enda Kenny and Pat Rabitte to deliver them.

Exactly. I think the worry for opposition parties is that they seem to have no position at all on most of these projects.

In the case of Navan ALL opposition parties have been completely silent - why would any commuter vote for them?

Ten years may be bulloney, but it is more than anyone else has promised.

The most frustrating thing is that if the opposition parties were doing their jobs, the government could have been pressurised to bring Navan to railway order stage by now.

It seems that the opposition parties want the issues more than they want a resolution to them.

Davidth88 · 17-10-2006 12:48PM

Maybe I was just a little cynical . When I read through the T21 proposal there wasn't anything new in there at all.

To a great extent it was just a bunch of old proposals that the Minister of Transport's office must have found in a filing cabinet blown the dust off and decided to re-present them

I would be amused if someone actually went through and looked at the original completion dates and saw how many of them should have been finished by now .

As for any other parties doing any better .... I really don't know , the planning ' fast track ' system should help any party that comes to power.

Of course a lot of the posters here are saying ' better the devil you know '

As for trusting Cullen to deliver anything , can anyone really take this guy seriously after the e-voting debarcle ? ( I know thats off track sorry )

westtip · 17-10-2006 01:17PM

aliveandkicking wrote:

But the thing is a lot of what is in T21 is actually happening. The Luas extensions to Cherrywood, Bray, Citywest are happening, the Metro route is due to be unveiled in the next few weeks so thats happening. Thhe southern half of the WRC is happening. Docklands rail station has gotten planning permission and is happening. If Docklands is definite that means the rail extension to Pace is happening. DASH 2 is happening. KRP is happening.

At the moment the "we dont know for sures" are:
Navan
Interconnector
Metro West
Lucan Luas
Atlantic Road Corridoor

But to be quite honest I'd trust Cullen/Cowen/Ahern more to deliver the "we don't know for sures" than I would trust Olivia Mitchell, Enda Kenny and Pat Rabitte to deliver them.

A lot of it is "happening" as you say but not because it was in T21 - much of it was in the previous NDP and was already on the table b4 T21 was invented is happening and being called T21 initiatives. T21 was an excellent branding exercise to pull all these projects under one name and give people the impression they were new, most of them weren't. I agree with some of the comments about the opposition they haven't come up with a grand plan of their own - much of what is in T21 makes common sense as infrastructure spending the country needs and should expect from any government, and I daresay their problem is that to include any T21 projects will lead to what I call nah nah nah, nah nah politics of the primary school playground - this is when politicians say that's our idea you can't use that, akin to it's my ball and I am going home. I think the key issue for the opposition is to say: How we will deliver these projects, how much they will cost and when they will be finished, and by the way we will also do this that and the other. I have got to admit they have been very weak on policy statements on Transport.

I don't agree with you that the "The southern half of the WRC is happening" - if you read between the lines on T21 website it is more in the appraisal stage, the money invested in this stage may yet come to the conclusion its a non starter. - and i do wish the Government would finally put West on Track out of their misery and tell them once and for all Claremorris-Collooney is a non starter.

As for who I would trust to deliver. None of them is the answer.

The good news is as all this public transport improves we all get older by the day and will soon have our travel passes.

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 01:20PM

Davidth88 wrote:

a lot of the posters here are saying ' better the devil you know '

Not really. 'Better the devil that is at least talking about delivery' is probably a better description..

The opposition parties are like a silent drunk in the corner of the pub, mumbling obscenities but not offering anything useful to the conversation..

Question - when did an opposition party spokeperson last say anthing about transport that made you think 'I gotta vote for these guys..'?

Davidth88 · 17-10-2006 01:35PM

I love the imagary of

The opposition parties are like a silent drunk in the corner of the pub, mumbling obscenities but not offering anything useful to the conversation..

Ill be honest no party has actually convinced me yet.

The true word said by kearnsr about transport being seen as a local issue. Thats the problem of course , there is no co-ordination here .

Westip , I couldn't agree with you more either ..... T21 is a good idea but most of this was happening anyway , perhaps this is the start of the co-ordination I mentioned in my last paragraph ? ( I doubt it , what I think it was was a PR job to try to make Mr Cullen look like was actually doing something !)

So when the candidates knock on your door ASK the questions ! make sure you are registered to vote and vote according to the answers you get on the doorstep.

aliveandkicking · 17-10-2006 01:53PM

It's not "better the devil you know" I dont want to vote for Fianna Fail really I don't but when the main opposition party's spokesperson on transport Olivia Mitchell has said the interconnector is not needed and displays a complete lack of knowledge of her brief on regular occasions how can you vote for the opposition? the labour party will just side with whatever the unions want and we all know how bad the transport unions are.

The difference between Transport 21 and all the other plans such as Platform for Change etc. is that T21 is the first plan that the government has actually commited to funding and delivering.

gobdaw · 17-10-2006 02:45PM

Am I reading the transport or the politics thread? I didn’t know there were so many FF heads here!

Lets look at some facts:

1 Transportation, particularly in GDA is in sh*t
2 Urban planning is in sh*t
3 M50 is in sh*t
4 Dart is in sh*t
5 Dublin Airport is in sh*t

PDs have been in government n “running” things for over nine years. FF have been in government for over thirteen years of the previous seventeen years. So the way to fix these problems is to re-elect the govmt that has presided over them? That’s novel n Irish. No wonder Cullen treats us with such contempt.

Dunboyne rail service is a result of planning restrictions imposed by Fingal (not controlled by current Government parties), facilitating developers not commuters. Anyone for Sherrif St, Dublin’s premier destination?

NavJunc elsewhere posted on Dempsey claiming rail service to navan many years ago. Most of his litany of broken promises came from FF, but he wants to see them re-elected. If we don’t learn from our mistakes, we’re doomed to repeat them.

Maybe Wednesday Wallace will do better, if she can find time to attend the Dail.

Olivia Mitchell’s rubbish about the interconnector is being quoted. Has anyone heard from her since then? She has been gagged by FG.

Oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them.

road_high · 17-10-2006 02:56PM

Youre right gobdaw, people here moaning about what FG and the opposition said or didn't say instead of focusing on the real issue;
FF have been in power for the last 10 years, in a time of unprecedented exchequer returns. They have failed so misearably to improve transport in this country in that time. That is a fact.

No point moaning about undelivered rail and road projects and then voting for the party that has failed to deliver them; that makes nosense to me anyway.

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 03:01PM

gobdaw wrote:

NavJunc elsewhere posted on Dempsey claiming rail service to navan many years ago. Most of his litany of broken promises came from FF, but he wants to see them re-elected.

And how do you work that out?

Transport in Dublin IS a disaster. But where does the opposition stand on transport??????

The opposition parties have refused despite constant contact to detail their plans for Navan.

A Labour candidate told me his party had to be realistic. Another FG candidate has gone missing and has not responded to requests for support on the rail link.

SF have not released a statement since the by-election on the railway, and neither have the Greens.

So what do you suggest? Who should Meath's commuters vote for? The party that has made a vague promise or the parties that couldn't even be bothered detailing where they stand on it?

Like it or not but the opposition is offering nothing in terms of solutions. And that is not an opinion, that is fact. Go to blog.meathontrack.com and check the records there yourself.

The only comment came from Damien 'MIA' English saying that Navan's link was built in only five years in the nineteenth century.

It wasn't - it was less than 3 years. These boys are taking the piss.

strassenwolf · 17-10-2006 03:19PM

gobdaw wrote:

Olivia Mitchell’s rubbish about the interconnector is being quoted. Has anyone heard from her since then? She has been gagged by FG.

Gobdaw, I think you and others are perhaps being a little unfair to Olivia, though it's nice to see someone pointing out that this thread had been turning into a bit of an FF/PD love-in.

As I recall, she pointed out in her Irish Times article that she felt that some other, cheaper options should be looked at, before necessarily going for the interconnector tunnel option, or at least as a means of providing interim capacity before it is built.

If I'm not mistaken, the Phoenix Park tunnel was an option which she particularly identified as an option, even if only a short term solution. Despite it sitting there for years, and clearly usable, the current Govt. have done nothing to activate it for commuters. There's some capacity there now, and much more so when the Kildare Route Project and the Sheriff Street Station are finished, yet no plans to use it.

The Lucan LUAS, in the form suggested by Transport21, did not even exist at the time she wrote the article. The current Govt. introduced the idea of this line, effectively from nowwhere. As this line would compete to some considerable extent with the interconnector, with outline plans for it to cross the Kildare Line to the West of Heuston, one wonders if this Government themselves are not so sure about the necessity for the interconnector.

It's certainly interesting that the idea was introduced. There were previously no similar plans for this LUAS line.

What is also interesting is how T21 puts back the plans for the interconnector to a time which is considerably later than might have been expected for this line. This struck me as surprising if we are to believe that everybody apart from Olivia Mitchell is convinced of the urgency to build it.

gobdaw · 17-10-2006 03:27PM

Navan Junction wrote:

And how do you work that out?

Navan Junction wrote:

Meath on Track now has a General Election party policy section on it's site, prompted by the complete absence of commitment from opposition parties…..

Right, you are stating that MoT party policy section is anti opposition parties, rather than pro Navan rail.

Navan Junction wrote:

The opposition though is not engendering a debate. To quote another from Drivetime last week, the opposition are hoping that the government will lose the election rather then them having to win it..

Your mildest so far……

Navan Junction wrote:

Exactly. I think the worry for opposition parties is that they seem to have no position at all on most of these projects.

In the case of Navan ALL opposition parties have been completely silent - why would any commuter vote for them?

Ten years may be bulloney, but it is more than anyone else has promised.

The most frustrating thing is that if the opposition parties were doing their jobs, the government could have been pressurised to bring Navan to railway order stage by now.

As it’s the opposition’s fault that the Government hasn’t preformed, so we better vote the non-proforming government back in again.

Navan Junction wrote:

The opposition parties are like a silent drunk in the corner of the pub, mumbling obscenities but not offering anything useful to the conversation..

I rest my case, miLud.

Maybe. Navan Junction, instead of your current sig “2015 for Navan rail? What happened to 2004 and 2010?” you should be preparing your update “20** for Navan rail? What happened to 2004, 2010 and 2015?”

Be carefull what you wish for, it may come true!

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 03:28PM

strassenwolf wrote:

this thread had been turning into a bit of an FF/PD love-in.

No it hasn't.

The opposition parties have no plan other than to criticise. I sit in the traffic jams for hours each day created by FF/PD.

I don't believe they can sort this mess out in an efficient manner. But by Jaysus, what are the opposition proposing?

Nothing. If they had a plan or proposals to evaluate, then that would be different.

But they have refused to release any information or even to detail a plan. So if they aren't offering anything why should they be voted for?

FF/PDs don't deserve to be voted back in. But neither do the opposition deserve to be voted in.

The provision of transport infrastructure is unfortunately political. And the opposition are doing nothing to engender any confidence that they will do anything better.

The reason FF seem to get back in no matter hom much of a mess they create is that the opposition are useless.

jjbrien · 17-10-2006 03:29PM

Navan Junction wrote:

Exactly.
In the case of Navan ALL opposition parties have been completely silent - why would any commuter vote for them?

Leo Vradkar of FG in Dublin West has openly backed the extention to Navan he is also in favor of an upgrade of the dart line to Maynooth. So yes FG does support these issues.

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 03:34PM

gobdaw wrote:

you should be preparing your update “20** for Navan rail? What happened to 2004, 2010 and 2015?”

Ok. Turn this around. Show me where the opposition have commited to Navan rail by 2015 even?

I have never voted FF/PD in my life btw.

gobdaw wrote:

Right, you are stating that MoT party policy section is anti opposition parties, rather than pro Navan rail.

The opposition parties at this point are not pro Navan rail. That is the point.

Wringing hands and saying traffic is terrible does not equal "we will build your rail link"

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 03:36PM

jjbrien wrote:

Leo Vradkar of FG in Dublin West has openly backed the extention to Navan he is also in favor of an upgrade of the dart line to Maynooth. So yes FG does support these issues.

Great, fair play to Leo. But is that the party's position, and in what timescale?

Where is it listed as official FG policy?

Slice · 17-10-2006 04:18PM

I think it's reasonable to hold the Opposition to the same account as the ruling Parties when it comes to policy - that in itself is not unreasonable given that they too are vying for our votes.

gobdaw: PDs have been in government n “running” things for over nine years. FF have been in government for over thirteen years of the previous seventeen years. So the way to fix these problems is to re-elect the govmt that has presided over them? That’s novel n Irish. No wonder Cullen treats us with such contempt.

To be honest gobdaw I don't think your logic is making a great deal of sense. Simply voting the current Government out of office isn't going to do anything for public transport issues when the parties in opposition are not exactly championing any causes themselves in that area. NavanJunction is totally right to politicise the issue because that's probably the most effective way of getting it onto the political agenda.

You're wrong to assume that just because Fianna Fail come out with a more comprehensive position on the Navan rail link by comparison to the other parties that MoT is going to back Fianna Fail (not that I'm speaking on the behalf of MoT here). Remember, there is time left before the election for every Party to get its act together regarding the Navan rail link and a straight out comparison like this might encourage that...? No?

Rebeller · 17-10-2006 04:26PM

Navan Junction wrote:

FF/PDs don't deserve to be voted back in. But neither do the opposition deserve to be voted in.

Indeed. We do not have a functioning opposition in this country apart form the likes of Tony Gregory, Joe Higgins and the Greens. FG always seem to get it wrong and Labour under Rabitte is extremely ineffectual. However, after nearly a decade of corrupt, scandal ridden FF/PD rule we need a change

Navan Junction wrote:

The reason FF seem to get back in no matter how much of a mess they create is that the opposition are useless.

The reason FF always get back in and the reason why transport in this country is a mess is because FF are the developers/builders' party. Ban any and all private donations to political parties and politicians and you wil see far more effective governments being elected.

Planning does not exist in this country to ensure sustainable, well thought out development but as a means to control the carving up of land for certain vested interests. The sprawl and gridlocked madness around all our cities was not caused by some horrendous accident. It is the result of decades of corrupt, gombeenism rule by a pack of second-rate representatives whose idea of vision is allowing buses use the hard shoulder during rush hour!!!

Instead of investing heavily in an efficient public transport system in all major cities, the government has instead roled out a disasterous road building project that only serves the interst of CRH who have a virtual monopoly on road construction materials in this country. 2 km stretches of motorway (with access to large scale commercial developments such as shopping centres) will not ease movement.

Anyway, I thought the NDP was originally meant to have been completed by 2006? Now we have Transport 21 which is (as many here have stated) just a cynical rehashing of the same tired old lame policies.

Ireland is supposedly one of the richest states in the EU (yeah right:rolleyes: ) yet we are always told that certain projects, even though essential, are just too expensive. However, certain public services have to supplied whatever the cost (although it is essential that value for money is obtained and that fixed rate contracts are signed)

Portugal (a country with an extremely unfavourable economic situation) developed a nationwide network of high quality motorways in the space of 10 years. Yes all of these were built and are operated by private companies with a toll being charged depending on distance travelled. However, there is no road tax in Portugal and if you don't want to pay the tolls you can always take the equivalent of our national roads for free.

What happens in Ireland? The government comes up with the hairbrained idea of the Public/Private Partnerships which are essentially a guise to get taxpayers to subsidise the construction cost of roadways which are then handed over to private companies for an inordinate number of years with few if any rules governing when and how to levy tolls. Highway robbery. Literally!!

Residents of Midelton (East Cork) have ben lobbying for a reopening of the Cork Midelton rail line for years. The most recent Cork area developers'....sorry...I mean developMENT plan allows for widescale development in a number of key "satellite towns" around Cork city. Midleton was designated such a town. Sprawling development has already been granted planning permission on the basis that the Cork Midelton line will be reopened. The houses have bene built but still no rail line.

Today's mess is due to a total failure to operate a non-corrupt, effective planning system. Sprawling housing estates are still being granted planning permission with no provision public transport or amenity areas. 10 years later when the population in a given area has doubled (it's not exactly rocket science. What else is going to happen when you build 1000 houses in a town with a population of 1000?) our trusted local and national gombeen men get the locals rallied up to campaign for bypasses and relief roads (code for "my buddy has some land with no road access which he wants to develop so we need to get the taxpayers to build a road that conveniently runs by that very land") which are soon clogged with unsuitable developent within a few years of being built.

The current shower need to be ejected from government and barred from public office for at least a decade. We then need to sit down and place a moratorium on all wide scale development until the transport and societal infrastructure has been put in place first.

I remember visiting a suburb of Lyons in France a number if years ago. Like most French suburbs the housing consisted of 5-6 storey apartment blocks laid out in a grid pattern with children's playgrounds, green areas, bus and cycle lanes. At the edge of the area was the same layout but without the aprtment buildings There were bus shelters, green areas, parking spaces, bus lanes, none of which were being used. Finding this strange I asked my friend what was going on. She seemed surprised. She said that it was normal for the infrstructure (roads, bus shelters etc) to be put in place years before any aprtments or other accomodation was built. The municipal authority had predicted X increase in population so had constructed the faciities for future use. Now that's planning!!!

With that sort of planning we can prevent the perpetuation of current problems

Navan Junction · 17-10-2006 05:56PM

Slice wrote:

I think it's reasonable to hold the Opposition to the same account as the ruling Parties when it comes to policy - that in itself is not unreasonable given that they too are vying for our votes.

To be honest gobdaw I don't think your logic is making a great deal of sense. Simply voting the current Government out of office isn't going to do anything for public transport issues when the parties in opposition are not exactly championing any causes themselves in that area. NavanJunction is totally right to politicise the issue because that's probably the most effective way of getting it onto the political agenda.

You're wrong to assume that just because Fianna Fail come out with a more comprehensive position on the Navan rail link by comparison to the other parties that MoT is going to back Fianna Fail (not that I'm speaking on the behalf of MoT here). Remember, there is time left before the election for every Party to get its act together regarding the Navan rail link and a straight out comparison like this might encourage that...? No?

You have it in a nutshell, slice.

strassenwolf · 17-10-2006 09:57PM

Slice wrote:

I think it's reasonable to hold the Opposition to the same account as the ruling Parties when it comes to policy - that in itself is not unreasonable given that they too are vying for our votes.

It might well be unreasonable. The government have considerably more access to the figures relating to the state of the public finances and the predictions for the likely state of those finances in the years to come. They are, so far, the only group who have access to how the figures involved in T21 were to be divvied up between the various projects.

Yet even with this unrivalled access to figures and predicted figures, the T21 plans for Navan have been rowed back from "a commitment to building a line to Navan" to "a commitment for a feasibility study for Dunboyne to Navan". And we haven't even stuck the candle on T21's first birthday cake?

How can the opposition be expected to make more of a commitment than the govt., in the absence of any publicly available projected figures for this project, or any of the other T21 projects?

The figure of 34 billion is still being used by Martin Cullen to describe the outlay on T21, yet the commitments to individual projects, such as Navan, appear to be diminishing. It is impossible for the opposition to make a commitment to this project in the absence of full figures. But at least they are not (yet) making a commitment and then rowing back on it.

The current government has a history of coming out in support of this project and then replacing what seems to be a firm commitment with yet another feasibility study. Is this the third or even the fourth time this has happened?

mackerski · 17-10-2006 10:01PM

jjbrien wrote:

Leo Vradkar of FG in Dublin West has openly backed the extention to Navan he is also in favor of an upgrade of the dart line to Maynooth. So yes FG does support these issues.

He hopes to represent D15 (which he already does as a councillor). Regardless of party policy, you'd be hard pressed to find a politician from the area that's against these initiatives.

Dermot

Propellerhead · 18-10-2006 10:06AM

I have gone on record elsewhere advocating the short term implementation of a rail service via Drogheda. Paths exist for such a service and it has been proven so by Platform 11.

I am at a loss why FF and the PDs should be left off the hook by you over the non delivery of the rail service. Let's have a look at the shifting dates that have been promised for the delivery of the railway by Fianna Fail and the PDs. 2004, 2010 and now 2015. Noel Dempsey's infamous "Dempsey Delivers" poster has trumpeted the most elephantine pregnancy for any infrastructural project in the history of the state.

Why the interminable delay? The answer could well be that the M3 project is being fast tracked at the expense of the railway. The money making proposal for the promoters of the M3 is double tolling at Navan and Pace and then a stub service from Pace via Clonsilla to Spencer Dock.

Delaying the Navan to Pace section to 2015 gives the owners of the M3 super profits for a (say) seven year period.

The rail option via Drogheda gets kiboshed then for the simple reason that additional development in the catchment area of the line is unlikely, therefore no additional levies for Meath County Council, and would reduce the toll receipts on the M3.

The M3 is needed as well, but the way these deals are structured is that a cartel gets first divs on infrastructure improvements. The west link is a case in point. Expect massive amounts of money being paid in the near future to NTR to compensate for lifting the tolls on the West Link.

Always follow the money in Ireland and you'll get an answer to almost anything.

Navan Junction · 18-10-2006 10:20AM

Propellerhead wrote:

Always follow the money in Ireland and you'll get an answer to almost anything.

And the simple question I have asked is whether Fine Gael, Labour, Sinn Féin and the Greens will implement the projects listed in Transport 21, specifically the Navan link and the Interconnector.

A simple yes or no answer accompanied by delivery dates would suffice. But this answer is not forth-coming.

FF only deliver things when pressured to do so. Why should Meath's commuters vote for oppsosition parties when they haven't given any commitment or helped apply pressure to allieviate what is probably the biggest issue in Meath which is transport?

It is a simple question which is still unaswered.

Propellerhead wrote:

I have gone on record elsewhere advocating the short term implementation of a rail service via Drogheda. Paths exist for such a service and it has been proven so by Platform 11. I am at a loss why FF and the PDs should be left off the hook by you over the non delivery of the rail service.

They have not been let off the hook. Questions are still being asked about them.

But now the questions are also being asked of the opposition as well. And no answers are forth-coming.

Transport 21 - if elected will the opposition implement it?

Comments