[article] Fermoy bypass opens today

bryanw

I don't understand why people can be so opposed to tolls - I don't think there was one post in favour. But, it may make more sense to toll by distance instead of at certain points - so you would get a ticket and hand it in when you leave the motorway or when it ends. Most motorways are built for the purpose of long-distance travel - such as that, that a trucker would be doing, not for someone popping out to the shops - so its really an invalid point talking about special rates for locals... unless its a long-ish commute.

Tolls help to pay for the roads - but its the private sector that benifits (even though the government gets a lot) - so that we can build more roads for less money. If fuel taxes are increased and there are no tolls - then there is no private sector involvement in roads, thus costing more to build the roads in the first place.

spacetweek

I think in other countries if e.g. trucks dodge a motorway toll, there's still a local single carraigeway bypass they can use. We have that here sometimes, e.g. Kinnegad, Enfield. Someone said that there are a lot of trucks still passing through the centre of Enfield - there is absolutely no excuse for this and a 3-tonne limit should be enacted immediately.

In the case of Fermoy though, there's no local bypass, so you can't really ban trucks from the village as this would force them to pay to pass the area. The solution is to designate or build a local non-toll road for the use of non-motorway traffic a la Enfield.

DublinWriter

bryanw wrote:

I don't understand why people can be so opposed to tolls

Do you on a daily basis have to experience the horror that is the M50 X 2? Didn't think so.

bryanw wrote:

Tolls help to pay for the roads - but its the private sector that benifits (even though the government gets a lot)

Dude...we are the private sector...at the end of the day *we* benefit from being able to go from A to B in a reasonable time.

In the late 90's I commuted to several jobs in Tallaght and the Naas Road from the northern tip of the M50. I wouldn't even dream of doing that now.

I read a very interesting thesis recently that stated that the ability of an economy to grow is directly proportional to the ability of workers in the economy to travel speedily.

Consider NYC where their subway has a four track system throughout - two local and two express.

We turned streets in Dublin into the Somme for years in getting a tram system up that has to share space with the already burdened road network and you'd swear we just launched the Irish Space Shuttle from the amount of back-slappery going on between FF politicians.

If the Celtic Tiger does die an untimely death I think it will be down to the total lack of joined-up thinking on a National Transport Strategy.

Stark

The main reason I hate tolls is that the bridges introduce an obstruction to the motorway more than anything. The M50 tollbridge causes chaos in rush hour. Even when you don't pass through the toll bridge, you can still be affected by the tailbacks.

The toll bridges on the Fermoy bypass are already causing delays apparently and we haven't seen the Friday evening traffic yet. Not to mention the effect tolling the Watergrasshill bypass is having on the residents there as their town becomes the new free route.

westtip

Said it before will say it again - have a flat rate extra tax disc for use on motorways - make foreign visiting cars, foreign staying cars and cars from the other jurisdiction buy one - if they don't they get hit for a hefty fine. It works in Switzerland - and don't give me those who use the road most argument - if that were the case we wouldn't have the flat rate tax disc for motortax. The system we have implemented is a complete nonsense and totally inefficient At the moment if you live in say Greystones and work in Maynooth you pay nothing and have motorway all the way (ok in the morning you are going nowhere on it - but thats the fault of the toll bridge), but if you live north of Drogheda and work say in Leopardstown you pay two toll if you use the motorway to get to work. The people of Meath are going to be stung on the M3, the poor bast**ds on the M50 have my greatest sympathy and now if your mother lives at one of Fermoy and you live at the other it costs you 3.20 to get back and forth to see her quickly. Its a bloody mess and everybody knows it.

sweeper4

bitbuilder wrote:

How about this from aa roadwatch this morning:
"Long delays northbound at the toll plaza on the fermoy bypass" - how hard would it have been to count the cars using the road before opening the toll plaza to calculate the expected traffic volume?????

Was this operator not subject to the same conditions as the M4 operator regarding traffic queues? Are they not required to lift the barriers when a queue of more than 5 (I think) cars forms?

westtip

sweeper4 wrote:

Was this operator not subject to the same conditions as the M4 operator regarding traffic queues? Are they not required to lift the barriers when a queue of more than 5 (I think) cars forms?

I have asked NRA to provide a link on their website to the Service level agreement (SLA) for the Fermoy by-pass when I have it I will post it, Regarding the M4, about which they made such a hooha about new SLAs (which were being implemented on all new PPPs) which would prevent the problems of the M50 recurring they said when it was opened in a press release.

The PPP agreement provides that:

for each direction of approach to a toll station, the average queue of vehicles calculated across all lanes will be no greater than 6 vehicles; and
the queue of vehicles waiting in any toll lane shall not exceed 12 vehicles at any time.
A strict performance regime is provided for in the PPP contract to ensure compliance with these requirements. Defaults in performance by the PPP Company lead to the imposition of a financial penalty together with the award of points under a penalty points system which may trigger increased levels of monitoring at the PPP Company's cost and ultimately contract termination.

url: http://www.nra.ie/News/PressReleases/2005/htmltext,1949,en.html#d.en.1949

The key issue here is the average queue - which is the cop out clause, but if things are exceeding twelve vehicles in any queue the barriers should go up - I say should but if you carry on in the press release they get another cop out from Cullen which reads:

"These provisions while not requiring the barriers to be lifted, clearly incentivise the operator to maintain a high level of service",
said Minister Cullen.

In other words they can offer a crap service, not fulfill their SLAs and all they will get is a slap on the wrists, However if any motorist is not happy with the performance of the operator I suggest anyone using the by-pass reports it to the NRA, quoting the above from the NRA website. - By the way, the good news is we only have 27 years to wait before it comes back into public ownership. Such joy.

White Van Man

daymobrew wrote:

It's not their fault that traffic volumes have surpassed all estimates. They could not have known that when their contract was signed. You should be more angry with those on the Government side of that original contract.

No, it's the same half-arsed planning that goes into every other project in the country. They used that same "traffic volumes have surpassed all estimates" excuse on the M50 - maybe they had an excuse in them days, but only an imbecile would fall for that one now. Anybody with a brain in their head would know that traffic levels are rising all the time, specially road planners.

quitepossibly

The M8 Fermoy bypass is a joke. Lanes are narrow, hard shoulder is narrow and distance between second lane and median concrete barrier is frighteningly small. The junction at Rathcormack northbound has been underengineered. The N8 between Dunkettle and Watergrasshill is a far safer road yet only able to travel at 100 kph. Carrigtohill bypass also much better. Who writes the standards for these people?

bryanw

DublinWriter wrote:

Do you on a daily basis have to experience the horror that is the M50 X 2? Didn't think so.

I don't use the M50 (western section) everyday, but I do use it often enough to know what it's like - an by God it's frustrating. But that's really got to do with the road itself. It is completely saturated and has no extra capacity. I live in South Dublin and would use the newest section of the M50 a lot - but that doesn't suffer from the same traffic problems.

I will say again that I don't think "point tolling" works well. Especially when we hear people talking about specific journeys and how many tolls are on them. The best thing to do is to toll by distance. And of course we can all agree that barrier tolling seriously affects traffic and we'd be better off with barrier-free tolling.

Also, I think urban motorways shouldn't be tolled - well at least with barriers. We might see a new M50 when the Waterford City Bypass opens because that's gonna be tolled. Barriers cause traffic build up and can also reduce journey times.

DublinWriter wrote:

Dude...we are the private sector...at the end of the day *we* benefit from being able to go from A to B in a reasonable time.

The point I was really trying to make was that its less risk to the public finances if roads are built PPP. Obvioulsy "we" will still end up paying for it - but there's no such thing as a free lunch.

There's nothing wrong with building roads - but public transport is still very important. If Transport21 is implemented properly - we'll be making progress. Obviously motor transport has its environmental problems - but the market will sort that out when the time comes - and we can still use the roads.

Also, a car reliant society isn't all doom and gloom - look at the USA, very car orientated and obviously the biggest economy in the World.