M20 - Cork to Limerick [preferred route chosen; in design - phase 3]

Silentcorner

cgcsb wrote: »

Limerick is probably the best planned Irish City, perhaps owing to a simple lack of development full stop rather than development being better handed by authorities.

Or maybe it is because Limerick did not suffer from the highly irregular planning issues Dublin, Cork and Galway have suffered from.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/six-local-authorities-to-face-new-investigations-over-planning-irregularities-1.1429578

Congestion is not a sign of development...it is a sign of terrible planning, or possible corruption, I believe Dublin has been destroyed by this kind of planning, it is a nightmare to get around, Galway has to be the worst planned city in the country, a city that size should not have the congestion issues it has...Cork has huge local flooding issues...

Calina

cgcsb wrote: »

Yes driving is more flexible and it is government policy to discourage driving in favour of more sustainable modes of transport in order to reduce our C02 emissions, something we're failing miserably at.

I would love to believe that but decisions regarding Metro North and the interconnector have to call that assertion seriously into question. There appears to be a policy not of improving public transport but making private transport increasingly difficult. We'll still have poor public transport after all the cars have been priced off the streets of Dublin.

With respect to the primary objective of this thread, it is extremely disappointing that the M20 is being dawdled over. Arguments that Galway-Tuam are a part of a Cork-Derry link up lose currency when the Cork Limerick section is staying off the priority list. From where I am sitting, it seems as though commuting traffic in Galway is being prioritised over interurban traffic.

Schadenfreudia

Silentcorner wrote: »

O

Congestion is not a sign of development...it is a sign of terrible planning, or possible corruption

Nope...it could be the consequence of either. :cool:

Silentcorner

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

Nope...it could be the consequence of either. :cool:

Hmmm I don't think so...

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/dublin-is-world-s-10th-most-congested-city-1.1818738

Dublin is up there with Moscow/Istanbul/Mexico City...at some point we have to accept how much unnecessary damage has been done to 3 of our 5 cities in terms of planning...and the uncomfortable truth that it was all avoidable!

It also means that Dubliners will always have to waste hours every day in traffic as a consequence...and will limit the size the city can expand to...

The Atlantic motorway scheme will offer Irish citizens the chance to live on the west coast and not have to add to Dublins already stretched infrastructure.

Schadenfreudia

Silentcorner wrote: »

Hmmm I don't think so...

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/dublin-is-world-s-10th-most-congested-city-1.1818738

It says Dublin is the 6th most congested in Europe...it doesn't say why :cool:

The why is the bit we could fill many a thread debating....except this is the M20 thread!

marno21

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

It says Dublin is the 6th most congested in Europe...it doesn't say why :cool:

The why is the bit we could fill many a thread debating....except this is the M20 thread!

Surprising lack of Buttevant there.

One of the best things about the M20 if it ever gets built is a permanent goodbye to that place.

D.L.R.

zulutango wrote: »

Isn't this the crux of the problem? Why should Ireland be so demographically lopsided? People seem to accept that Dublin will be a sprawling metropolis while the next biggest urban centre will be a regional backwater by comparison. This may be the reality now, but it's completely an effect of policy whether intended or not. That is, it needn't be the case that Dublin has half the country's population by 2030. It isn't even particularly good for Dublin that this happens.

You can't control where people decide to live. Fianna Fail tried Decentralisation and it was an epic failure. People are moving to cities all over the world, more and more each year. Ireland is no different. All our cities are growing and we need to plan for that.

Dublin will continue to grow, and very little is being planned in terms of capacity for all those extra people. We're back to tiger era gridlock already every damn day - what will it be like in 10, 20 years??

I get that if you don't live and work in Dublin, you don't understand the magnitude of the problem or how many people it affects. Yes the Claregalways of this world need improvement too, but how many Claregalways worth of traffic congestion are there in Dublin every single day? 100? 1000? How is it good for Ireland to overlook this?

Cookiemunster

D.L.R. wrote: »

You can't control where people decide to live. Fianna Fail tried Decentralisation and it was an epic failure. People are moving to cities all over the world, more and more each year. Ireland is no different. All our cities are growing and we need to plan for that.

Dublin will continue to grow, and very little is being planned in terms of capacity for all those extra people. We're back to tiger era gridlock already every damn day - what will it be like in 10, 20 years??

I get that if you don't live and work in Dublin, you don't understand the magnitude of the problem or how many people it affects. Yes the Claregalways of this world need improvement too, but how many Claregalways worth of traffic congestion are there in Dublin every single day? 100? 1000? How is it good for Ireland to overlook this?

You can't control where people live, but we should be trying to grow Cork, Limerick and Galway so that people have an option of living elsewhere and don't HAVE to move to Dublin. It would make as much sense for Dublin as it would for the rest of the country.

Jhcx

I agree its a shame that Dublin is treated like its the only city in Ireland. I think its great that Cork has a strong rebel passion to be independent from dublin and its needed because ive seen its like the capital for the West and thats fine by me id rather see it as much on the same level as dublin. The west coast very much needs an all roads to Cork not just dublin. Having this road network would defiantly help encourage people. but you need to show them that dublin is not the only place in the country.

cgcsb

Calina wrote: »

I would love to believe that but decisions regarding Metro North and the interconnector have to call that assertion seriously into question. There appears to be a policy not of improving public transport but making private transport increasingly difficult. We'll still have poor public transport after all the cars have been priced off the streets of Dublin.

With respect to the primary objective of this thread, it is extremely disappointing that the M20 is being dawdled over. Arguments that Galway-Tuam are a part of a Cork-Derry link up lose currency when the Cork Limerick section is staying off the priority list. From where I am sitting, it seems as though commuting traffic in Galway is being prioritised over interurban traffic.

100% agree better public transport is payed lip service but nowhere near an appropriate level of investment. The M20 is a far more important project than building motorways north of Galway.

cgcsb

Silentcorner wrote: »

The Atlantic motorway scheme will offer Irish citizens the chance to live on the west coast and not have to add to Dublins already stretched infrastructure.

Are you saying that a motorway project is the only thing keeping people from living in Tuam?

Silentcorner

cgcsb wrote: »

Are you saying that a motorway project is the only thing keeping people from living in Tuam?

I haven't even mentioned Tuam.

marno21

cgcsb wrote: »

Are you saying that a motorway project is the only thing keeping people from living in Tuam?

No, but the prospect of spending a significant amount of time daily staring at the facades of Claregalway is.

JCX BXC

The M20 strenghtening Limerick and Cork together would be a viable option to rival Dublin. Having a strong population base going from Cork-Galway (Maybe as far as Tuam) via limerick would be a good decentralisation plan.

As long as jobs are only announced for Dublin then Dublin will only get further congested. I have never in my life seen such a high proportion of jobs announced for Dublin as there has been in the past few years. Its no wonder that there is no accommodation left.

If the government need to further incentivise companies to to move western cities, Sligo, Galway, Limerick then that's what they should be doing. It would relieve pressure in Dublin and restart growth in the west. Unfortunately for everybody the government appear to have no interest in doing it.

Schadenfreudia

Deleted User wrote: »

As long as jobs are only announced for Dublin then Dublin will only get further congested. I have never in my life seen such a high proportion of jobs announced for Dublin as there has been in the past few years. Its no wonder that there is no accommodation left.

The solution to that is more housing; more transport infrastructure (DU, MN) and the Naas - Drogheda motorway bypass - plus lots more.

That's what they do in the rest of the world in growing cities - only in Ireland is begrudgery and parish pumpery a serious input into the equation.

Dublin is not growing at the expense of anywhere else - other than that globally there is a move from rural areas to cities.

If we want another major city in Ireland then pick one or two - Cork plus either Limerick or Galway and build up a critical mass - globally cities are the engines of growth and prosperity.

The factory in every parish mentality has utterly failed to develop any viable alternative to Dublin for investment and growth.

Strangling Dublin's growth will not add a single job to Ballygobackwards. :mad:

Middle Man

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

The solution to that is more housing; more transport infrastructure (DU, MN) and the Naas - Drogheda motorway bypass - plus lots more.

That's what they do in the rest of the world in growing cities - only in Ireland is begrudgery and parish pumpery a serious input into the equation.

Dublin is not growing at the expense of anywhere else - other than that globally there is a move from rural areas to cities.

If we want another major city in Ireland then pick one or two - Cork plus either Limerick or Galway and build up a critical mass - globally cities are the engines of growth and prosperity.

The factory in every parish mentality has utterly failed to develop any viable alternative to Dublin for investment and growth.

Strangling Dublin's growth will not add a single job to Ballygobackwards. :mad:

Hold on a second - what about technological evolution and the social changes that will come with it. In fact, cities as we know them may well be an old thinking as the nature of much of the industry is about to be turned on its head - continued development of 3D printers and resultant de-industrialization regarding many products in the future, cloud computing and increasingly interactive telecommunications, smart grid and e-cars, virtual reality, modular building technology etc, etc, etc, What I'm really saying is that technology which brought with it mass production (a major reason for cities) is about to take much of it away again - we're going full circle in other words.

In fact, the biggest Ballygobackwards is the traditional economic system as we know it today - inflexible and increasingly cumbersome and apathetic... With a major economic overhaul, will we really need cities in the future given that more and more arts and crafts (indigenous industry) are becoming possible regardless of location. Look at music production now - are the major labels really needed given that people can have entire studios on computers and produce music to professional standard from anywhere - will the current labels survive??? Now, transpose that ideology to 3D printing and resultant products - the only mass produced element related to 3D printing will be the bass material for the products (of course, the printers themselves too), but even that will be homogenous just like bread and milk is in Ireland today and the former will probably be manufacturable in any country by medium sized businesses. With ever evolving blueprints in the cloud, any household item including cars could become possible to produce anywhere by 2100.

Just food for thought!

Jhcx

I don't believe it's just technology. People move because of better opportunities . There's more jobs in Dublin so more people are going for them like the airport more people going through it so more staff needed. Plus better things to do on nights out more bars and restaurants that infrastructure is also needed in cork and limerick and galway. So set up those places in cork or Limerick build the road network and push companies that way. a city will always keep growing because humans need to live together and even simply having the m20 connecting two cities is an incentive.

Sam Russell

Mod: Can we get back on topic please. Let's keep it to the M20 - rather than parish pumps and their effect on technological development.

jgbyr

www.eveningecho.ie/cork-news/ff-cork-limerick-motorway-is-a-priority/1331405/

Leonard Hofstadter

If the M20 is that much of a concern to FF, why didn't they build it when the country was awash with money and the €1 billion price tag was a drop in the ocean compared to how much was being spent? That crowd will say anything to get elected.

That said, I have no faith in what Coveney or Sherlock have to say about this either. I'm 27 at the moment and I expect I'll still be on the existing road when I'm 40 :mad:.

Schadenfreudia

captainspeed wrote: »

If the M20 is that much of a concern to FF, why didn't they build it when the country was awash with money and the €1 billion price tag was a drop in the ocean compared to how much was being spent? That crowd will say anything to get elected.

That said, I have no faith in what Coveney or Sherlock have to say about this either. I'm 27 at the moment and I expect I'll still be on the existing road when I'm 40 :mad:.

I expect you will too!

From the proposal to build a dual-carriageway from Dublin to Portlaoise to actual delivery - 35 years.

From the proposal to build the "Southern Cross" in Dublin till delivery (as part of one of the last stages of the M50) - 40 years.

Eastern bypass - 40 years already and not on the 20-year horizon!

DU and other Luas lines are now going on 15 to 20 years old with no sign of any progress whatsoever.

We just don't do transport infrastructure on this island; 50+ years after most other developed countries peaked :mad:

Cookiemunster

captainspeed wrote: »

If the M20 is that much of a concern to FF, why didn't they build it when the country was awash with money and the €1 billion price tag was a drop in the ocean compared to how much was being spent? That crowd will say anything to get elected.

While I agree they'll say anything to get elected, FF did have the road before ABP, before the current crowd killed it completely.

Chris_5339762

Also they could do it as two PPPs if they really cared. It was the land costs, and the fact that the government could not afford the CPOs that meant it got canned initially. Spend a bit of the tax surplus in grabbing the land and farm construction out to PPPs.

Throw Cork NRR East into the mix as well.

jgbyr

http://www.eveningecho.ie/cork-news/m20-motorway-is-still-a-priority-pledges-tanaiste/1333019/

The government response.

marno21

The last government had this road as far as they could progress it considering the lack of money in the country towards the end of their tenure. (The other schemes being progressed at the time, M11 + N17/N18, didn't make it much further).

It was this government that has completely binned the project. If it's such a top priority for the current government, they could start the planning process and do the CPO's while it awaits funding. But they genuinely look like they don't care about it so all this 'top priority' nonsense is total waffle

Schadenfreudia

marno21 wrote: »

It was this government that has completely binned the project. If it's such a top priority for the current government, they could start the planning process and do the CPO's while it awaits funding. But they genuinely look like they don't care about it so all this 'top priority' nonsense is total waffle

Indeed; just like DU, they needed to allocate just €300m spread over the next 5 years for CPOs to keep the project alive - instead they binned it; setting it back a decade even if the Government wanted to suddenly build it.

THE stalled M20 motorway project between Cork and Limerick will be a “priority” when government spending plans are reviewed in two year’s time, Tánaiste Joan Burton has pledged.

Of course, Joan won't be in office in two year's time - so this is just more gibberish. :mad:

mikeym

I would be happy to pay a toll for the M20.

So why dont the government get some private investment and they can get a cut of the toll money.

L1011

mikeym wrote: »

I would be happy to pay a toll for the M20.

So why dont the government get some private investment and they can get a cut of the toll money.

Its extremely unlikely a toll there would cover itself, that's why.

Deedsie

L1011 wrote: »

Its extremely unlikely a toll there would cover itself, that's why.

How do you mean cover itself? Surely any payback from a toll would be of benefit? Two tolls from Cork to Tuam seems reasonable when you compare it to the tolls on the M8, M7, M50.