Irish Infrastructure and the Irish Media

Irish and Proud · 18-12-2009 10:52pm #1

Just watched the RTE News @ 9oc and was looking forward to seeing the article on the M6 motorway. I held my breath and...

...no mention on the headlines - and...

...no mention on the "coming up after the break" bit - and...

...second last item, there was a murmur not even 20 seconds long - and...

...last but not least (we know what was least! :mad:) Terry Wogan's career!

Not even a map of the scheme was shown - was hoping that the road would get at least the same coverage as the M8 Mitchelstown to Fermoy did - the M8 is still to be completed mind you! Also, saw nothing anticipatory about the M6 in the press either - remember the coverage that the M50 Northern Cross got in 1996 and what it meant for people - now we have our first intercity motorway, but where's the media interest - however, there was an M9 article in the Irish Times in connection with the controversy over its opening!

What a patriotic media we have in this country! :rolleyes:

I decided it's time to start a thread about our media in relation to our infrastructure - people here were giving out stink about our media before, so I thought it might be a good time to start the ball rolling regarding a dedicated thread!

Amtmann · 18-12-2009 11:07pm

Speaking as someone who doesn't care for patriotism and nationalism, it is the lack of civic-mindedness that bothers me more than anything else. These are massive investments that should certainly receive greater coverage, both in terms of documentary-making and accountability, as Wednesday night's little fiasco demonstrated.

mike65 · 18-12-2009 11:12pm

I only recall one decent look at our road building programme and that was on one of Mike Milots PT Investigates a couple of years ago. RTE isn't interested in this sort of thing cos its packed to the gunnels with the usual crowd of political and arts/media studies graduates who neither know nor care about engineering.

Irish and Proud · 18-12-2009 11:15pm

Furet wrote: »

Speaking as someone who doesn't care for patriotism and nationalism, it is the lack of civic-mindedness that bothers me more than anything else. These are massive investments that should certainly receive greater coverage, both in terms of documentary-making and accountability, as Wednesday night's little fiasco demonstrated.

Well it's civic-mindedness I'm really talking about when it comes to our infrastructure! There should be more education about it in our schools - I always hated history when I was a child, so civics would surely be a good replacement subject!

Regards!

Irish and Proud · 18-12-2009 11:17pm

mike65 wrote: »

I only recall one decent look at our road building programme and that was on one of Mike Milots PT Investigates a couple of years ago. RTE isn't interested in this sort of thing cos its packed to the gunnels with the usual crowd of political and arts/media studies graduates who neither know nor care about engineering.

...and very importantly, do not care about the things that affect the everyday lives of ordinary people!

Zoney · 18-12-2009 11:40pm

Well, I still prefer overlooking the achievements compared to Fianna Fáil trumpeting everything ad nauseum from years before it's started, at multiple points during construction and with different trumpeted end dates, and finally references at every opportunity on any remotely related subject for months or even years after completion.

When really, however good these things are, they are nothing extraordinary but just basic infrastructure that should have been in place years ago. I also think people have been far too forgetful of the budget overruns and poor execution of the initial projects in late 90s early 2000s - they may have been new to Ireland but is the country so utterly devoid of any ability to look up best practice and implement it?

I don't regard such distaste of the mismanagement of our country unpatriotic - quite the reverse.

Irish and Proud · 19-12-2009 12:05am

Zoney wrote: »

I don't regard such distaste of the mismanagement of our country unpatriotic - quite the reverse.

...true, but the people of this country (through their hard work) have paid dearly for this infrastructure though inflated prices and VAT receipts - that's how the government got certain things done here - on the backs of the ordinary people!

In short, it's our infrastructure and our money, not the government's!

Regards!

fricatus · 19-12-2009 1:49am

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Also, saw nothing anticipatory about the M6 in the press either - remember the coverage that the M50 Northern Cross got in 1996 and what it meant for people - now we have our first intercity motorway, but where's the media interest...

Would it be unfair to suggest that the Irish* media's interest can be summed up in the following formula:

i = sqrt(d)

where i is the level of interest and d is the distance from Dublin... :rolleyes:

Irish and Proud wrote: »

...however, there was an M9 article in the Irish Times in connection with the controversy over its opening!

In fairness that was a fairly major story for the political intrigue that it involved, and for the anti-gombeenism zeitgeist that's about at the moment.

* for "Irish" read "Dublin"

masteroftherealm · 20-12-2009 2:34pm

Can someone explain to me how it cost over a billion euro to build 200km of motorway??

L1011 · 20-12-2009 2:50pm

masteroftherealm wrote: »

Can someone explain to me how it cost over a billion euro to build 200km of motorway??

Much of it was tendered for while construction wages were stratospheric. Much of it was CPOed while land prices were stratospheric.

masteroftherealm · 20-12-2009 2:53pm

Ahha yes didint think of that, still as crazy as ever but at least I can see where that figure came from.
Uteerly unbelievable though, its 2009 almost 2010 this is not something we should be cenebrating its something that we should be ashamed that it tooks us this long to do.

spacetweek · 21-12-2009 5:52pm

masteroftherealm wrote: »

Can someone explain to me how it cost over a billion euro to build 200km of motorway??

What's your frame of reference here? That is really cheap, only €5M/km. Even in China, motorways cost around €3M/km. *

* For example, in this article, a 210-km motorway cost 6.2B yuan, which is €634M. This works out as €3M/km.

dowlingm · 21-12-2009 7:21pm

fricatus wrote: »

Would it be unfair to suggest that the Irish* media's interest can be summed up in the following formula:

i = sqrt(d)

where i is the level of interest and d is the distance from Dublin

Given the amount of nonsense Jim Fahy has inflicted on the country over the years (especially anything involving Macnas) I'd say it's maybe just that JF is on holiday and RTE are too busy overpaying tubridy et al to afford a temp.

masteroftherealm · 21-12-2009 8:02pm

spacetweek wrote: »

What's your frame of reference here? That is really cheap, only €5M/km. Even in China, motorways cost around €3M/km. *

* For example, in this article, a 210-km motorway cost 6.2B yuan, which is €634M. This works out as €3M/km.

Woah selective example,
http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/WICLARK/WICLARK_243/WICLARK_243_20030731_en.pdf

330,000 Us Per Mile. Wisconsin

http://www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/roads/TNR_originals/Rd_treatments.asp

1,000,000 US Per Mile, Texas

http://www.dot.state.fl.us/estimates/Lane%20Mile%20Costs/Lane%20Mile%20costs.htm

Florida - from 1million per mile.

Average across a rnage of sources for a new build road from scratch which not all of this was is around the 1-2million US$ Mark.

So I would think it was quite overpriced.
Like the LUAS.

The cost of building the Red and Green Lines was €770m. This was three times original predictions that the system would cost €254m.

We have a history of overpaying for infrastructure that isnt even up to scratch.

mike65 · 21-12-2009 8:09pm

Is that a fair comparison? I've never driven in the states but its my impression that their interstates are woeful.

Roryhy · 21-12-2009 8:21pm

masteroftherealm wrote: »

Woah selective example,
http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/WICLARK/WICLARK_243/WICLARK_243_20030731_en.pdf

330,000 Us Per Mile. Wisconsin

http://www.co.travis.tx.us/tnr/roads/TNR_originals/Rd_treatments.asp

1,000,000 US Per Mile, Texas

http://www.dot.state.fl.us/estimates/Lane%20Mile%20Costs/Lane%20Mile%20costs.htm

Florida - from 1million per mile.

Average across a rnage of sources for a new build road from scratch which not all of this was is around the 1-2million US$ Mark.

So I would think it was quite overpriced.
Like the LUAS.

The cost of building the Red and Green Lines was €770m. This was three times original predictions that the system would cost €254m.

We have a history of overpaying for infrastructure that isnt even up to scratch.

2 of the links dont work and the one that does refers to road replacement of a single carriageway road, 6 years ago, so obviously doesn't include land costs.

Also, the €254 luas plan was a very different plan to the one built and was only an estimate based on mid to late 90s construction prices. The docklands line i wont even try justify

mysterious · 21-12-2009 9:17pm

We shouldnt be really giving our daily attention to these media stations, nor should we even be losing sweat over exposure of these road projects to the media either. We are the media now, The internet works far better, because its realtime and we can inform each other. We don't need a government run sissy station to tell us what what is going in the world and what kind of world we live in. They never do anyway....... Half of the news we get is BS over hyped and really not important to improving our lives.

I think we need to get real. I'm really serious about this.

fricatus · 21-12-2009 10:07pm

dowlingm wrote: »

Given the amount of nonsense Jim Fahy has inflicted on the country over the years (especially anything involving Macnas) I'd say it's maybe just that JF is on holiday and RTE are too busy overpaying tubridy et al to afford a temp.

Hehe, that's very true actually. A bridge could fall down in Sligo, 500 jobs could be lost in Limerick, and half of Waterford could burn down, all without RTE taking any notice. However you can be sure that if a set of traffic lights were out of order in Galway, we'd have Jim focking Fahy reporting on the "traffic chaos" in the "western capital" :rolleyes:

spacetweek · 26-12-2009 1:24pm

masteroftherealm wrote: »

Woah selective example,

So I would think it was quite overpriced.
Like the LUAS.

The cost of building the Red and Green Lines was €770m. This was three times original predictions that the system would cost €254m.

We have a history of overpaying for infrastructure that isnt even up to scratch.

Wow! Your examples were selective! Can't open 2 of those and one of them was for single carriageway. Also you didn't convert to euro/kilometre. Fail.

I've debated this before in the past on other threads and typical figures for motorway are €2-4M/km (developing world), €5-7M/km (developed world). This assumes the motorway is largely in a rural setting. (Urban motorway is extremely expensive and varies massively depending on the setting.) The Irish M6 is pretty good value for what we got.

The Luas wasn't overpriced when worked out on a euro/km basis, despite what Kevin Myers may have you believe.

When infrastructure in Ireland is built properly, which I admit it isn't always, it compares favourably with costs overseas.

Mike65, I wouldn't say they're woeful, but they are suffering from age. Being an early adopter has meant that the States has vast amounts of motorway that hasn't been repaved in decades. They use concrete rather than asphalt. Also the discolouration from the fumes isn't helping. Many structures are crumbling.

Sponge Bob · 26-12-2009 1:32pm

Master of the realm, go back and fix those US links or else the Chinese example stands.

IN the UK , it has been reliably observed that 1 mile of Motorway costs £30m ( then €40m+ now more like €33m) in this working link and TWICE AS MUCH more if built on a PPP basis. ..see

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/dec/13/guardiansocietysupplement3

The Newry Bypass in the North is costing £150m for 8 miles, nearly £20m a mile or €30m a mile when it kicked off and less now of course owing to exchange rate movements.

see the ever reliable

http://www.wesleyjohnston.com/roads/a1beechhillcloghogue.html#costs

The southern 4 miles involved very little land take but the northern 4 miles did. There are rather a lot of structures and it is cut into a hill along the southern edge ...just like the road the southern half it is largely built upon and completed only slightly over 10 years ago.

Irish Infrastructure and the Irish Media

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