Department of Environment Orders Councils To Review and Abandon Local Tertiary Roads

Sponge Bob

I was talking to a county councillor earlier who just found out that the Department of the Environment has ordered a review and reduction in the Local Road Network and particularly Local Tertiary Roads, those with a number above L10,000 This will result in there being de networked and no longer maintained by local authorities. Some of these lead to small coastal piers which are hardly used, etc.

Some may be even converted to Cycling Greenways he thinks and blocked to vehicular traffic.

I am not sure what the precise network reductions they have in mind are but I understand it is a % of the current public road network and that the instruction has just gone out to all County Council Directors to make it so.

I'll post more data as I get it.

Makes sense in the real back of beyond where a group of houses has two or three routes between it and the one destination. I've found several roads like that in Mayo.

There's a few duplicated routes around here (south Roscommon) as well, but many have housing along them now.

Carawaystick

Dept of transport's game not environ I'd have thought?

If only there was a map with these roads all listed.

If every road has a number, some city roads are gonna be effected
(surely >9000 roads in the cities?)

JupiterKid

On the face of it I wouldn't disagree with this move. Ireland has one of the highest densities of roads per square kilometre in the world but most of this is of poor quality.

I would hope that each local authority carries out an audit of their local roads and decides which ones are for the chop on a case by case basis. I also can't see why landowners adjacent to local rural roads who benefit from them can't pay a charge towards their upkeep.

galwaycyclist

This is very interesting can we get more details? At the moment the Galway (city) "Transportation" Unit are actively fighting proposals to develop local back roads and country lanes on the periphery of the city as walking and cycling routes.

To encapsulate their position, they are of the apparent view that if a car will fit down a given road then thats what it should prioritised for, including putting through-traffic down little boreens. If there is a shift in national policy then that would be very interesting.

tonc76

I think if this does go ahead as a case by case study by Local Authorities it will get nowhere. A process whereby LA's can apply to reduce speed limits imposed by the change over to km has been in place for >5 years but to date I believe there have been no applications. As was said above DATTS would surely be driving this rather than DOE?

antoobrien

tonc76 wrote: »

I think if this does go ahead as a case by case study by Local Authorities it will get nowhere. A process whereby LA's can apply to reduce speed limits imposed by the change over to km has been in place for >5 years but to date I believe there have been no applications. As was said above DATTS would surely be driving this rather than DOE?

Road maintenance comes under DoE, so that's why it's being driven from there.

O.T. but the system for changing speed limits on roads not working probably has more to do with councillors not wanting to annoy voters by reducing the limits on local roads.

Carawaystick

This would be a big issue if it came to pass. to try slip this in on the qt would inevitably result in failure when a vocal opposition group gets organised. Think Micheal Ring/ Enda Kenny/ Jackie Healy Rea stuff.


tonc76,
There have been roads speed limits adjusted by LA's, Louth redesigned the R132 and the road from Dundlak to Carlingford to 100; the N1 is 120
Cork has 120 non motorways and the old n8 is 10 in parts.
Galway has a 100 limit on the old n6
Wicklow has different limits on different sides of the n11 in and near Kilmacanogue
etc.

L1011

Cork has put numerous decent quality R roads that were never N roads to 100 also.

Ted_YNWA

Is there any easy way to find out what L number relates to a particular road.

Only maps I can find only show some R roads

Victor

As far as I know, Local Tertiary (LT) roads are invariably cul de sacs and/or have very few destinations. Councils tend to only give partial funding and the balance comes from adjacent landowners.

Ted_YNWA wrote: »

Is there any easy way to find out what L number relates to a particular road.

Councils generally don't publish them widely. Quite a few are listed on openstreetmap.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_roads_in_Ireland

There are three types of Local Road: Local Primary (local roads wider than 4 metres), Local Secondary (local roads narrower than 4 metres) and Local Tertiary (cul-de-sacs and other minor roads).

Sponge Bob

Victor wrote: »

As far as I know, Local Tertiary (LT) roads are invariably cul de sacs and/or have very few destinations. Councils tend to only give partial funding and the balance comes from adjacent landowners.

I beleive certain roads ( particularly Bog access roads) were not designated and were maintained if at all on a grant scheme where 'proposals' from bog users to repair the road with their own labour were funded ad hoc or else the labour was capitalised into the project cost as a local contribution.

The LIS was a scheme run since the 1990s to maintain certain roads where the users/landowners funded 10% of the costs.

http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0450/D.0450.199503150090.html

Fuaramar tuarascáil ón chomhairle contae anuraidh agus cruthaíodh ag an am sin, ag an ráta a bhfuilimid ag fáil an airgid faoi láthair, go dtógann sé deich mbliana le bóthar a dhéanamh faoin LIS, sin an scéim faoin a n-íocann na daoine iad féin 10 faoin gcéad den airgead le caoi a fháil ar an mbóthar.

The LIS was also abolished this year. The LIS is not the same thing as de- designation. It was a scheme to extend the network without fully taking it over.

http://www.advertiser.ie/mayo/article/48977/funding-for-lis-roads-must-be-reinstated-conway-walsh

One hundred and sixty eight LIS roads in the Belmullet Electoral area alone are waiting to be repaired. Speaking at the Belmullet Local Area Meeting this week, Cllr Conway-Walsh said: “The Ard Mor Road, Binghamstown, is one such road which is almost impassable. As this is not a council road the reinstatement of the LIS Scheme is necessary to provide the funding so that those using the road will not be completely cut off from their homes and lands.”

OH!

It was bad enough the last government cut the LIS Scheme from over €80,000 per councillor to €18,000 per councillor in the last couple of years.

I am talking about dedesignation in addition to the abolition of the LIS.

http://www.kerrycoco.ie/en/allservices/roads/applicationforms/thefile,311,en.pdf

marmurr1916

About time they followed my suggestion!

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Maybe we should get together and find local roads that could be downgraded to paths (i.e not suitable for motorised traffic)?

I'm sure there must be several hundred kms of very lightly used local roads that don't serve anywhere that anybody needs to drive to.

A good cull of all road types is needed.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=64238895&postcount=8

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=64252819

murphaph

All I can say is, I hope this rumour is true.

It should be a first step in abandoning formal maintenance (which is piecemeal anyway at times) and transferring the responsibility for maintenance of routes that are only really serving the houses along them.

unit 1

How will all this fit in with the new houshold charge for services, and what about people who have already paid betterment levies for services that might now be downgraded.
The notion that small rural (mostly) roads can be downgraded on a rational basis and without political interference (the scourge of Ireland) is very unlikely.

lucernarian

Roads that are no longer maintained and left as paths will sooner or later become too overgrown from hedging anyway to be useful. Then there'll be a need to maintain the "paths"! Abandoning all of these roads mightn't make much sense if there's a clear recreational value in having such paths without people having to trespass over land for a walk. I'm only talking about a small number of these roads though. Perhaps a much smaller scheme can be kept for such purposes.

marmurr1916

This map from Waterford County Council gives some idea of the density of local roads in Ireland. Most local tertiary roads on this map, the type that are to be reviewed, are cul-de-sacs:

http://www.waterfordcoco.ie/en/media/planning/publications/2011-17countydevplan/A5.pdf

And some information related to Co. Monaghan:

Monaghan has a total of 2475km of road network of which 574km are classified as local secondary and 975km local tertiary roads – one of the highest in Ireland. 2059 rural households do not own a car.

http://www.baltibus.ie/integrated-transport/

There were a total of 20,169 km of Local Tertiary roads in Ireland in 2004:

Road Class Kilometres
Regional (R) 11349
LP (Local Primary) 23611
LS (Local Secondary) 32021
LT (Local Tertiary) 20169
Total 87150

http://www.engineersireland.ie/sector_papers/Non_National_Roads-%20Pavement_Condition_and_Pavement_Management_Systems.pdf (page 2 of pdf)

The only significant changes to the those figures will have come from new housing developments, which will mainly have well-surfaced roads, and from former national roads being re-classified as regional roads.

nordydan

marmurr1916 wrote: »

About time they followed my suggestion!



http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=64238895&postcount=8

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=64252819

Was that not my suggestion??

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Makes sense in the real back of beyond where a group of houses has two or three routes between it and the one destination. I've found several roads like that in Mayo.

There's a few duplicated routes around here (south Roscommon) as well, but many have housing along them now.

I know in the area of mayo i live in if the road served a local need or amenity(lake, forest etc) or if the road has a minimum of 5 or more houses the residents after funding 50% of the costs could get the council to put a layer of tar or fill the potholes. This would normally take a few years of asking and the road would have to generally be in a poor state. I thought this was quite fair...i know of one road where the five households(all working for multinationals) contribute more taxes than many small estates that would automatically expect those kind of repairs for free.

marmurr1916

nordydan wrote: »

Was that not my suggestion??

How dare you!

The percentage of publicly-maintained roads in Ireland that are Local Secondary and Local Tertiary Roads is very significant.

There are approximately 5,000 km of National Roads (roughly split 50-50 between National Primary and National Secondary Roads), about 12,300 km of Regional Roads* and about 24,000 km of Local Primary Roads, a total of about 41,300 km.

In addition, there are over 52,000 km of Local Secondary and Local Tertiary Roads.

This means that about 56% of Ireland's publicly-maintained road network is made up of Local Secondary and Local Tertiary Roads.

*2004 figure of 11,314 km of Regional Roads plus ca. 1000 km of National Roads that were reclassified as Regional Roads after completion of motorways.

Victor

Deleted User wrote: »

I know in the area of mayo i live in if the road served a local need or amenity(lake, forest etc) or if the road has a minimum of 5 or more houses the residents after funding 50% of the costs could get the council to put a layer of tar or fill the potholes. This would normally take a few years of asking and the road would have to generally be in a poor state. I thought this was quite fair...i know of one road where the five households(all working for multinationals) contribute more taxes than many small estates that would automatically expect those kind of repairs for free.

Typical frontages in estates vary from 5 to 12 metres, with houses on each side for most of the distance. Its a lot easier to maintain that amount of road compared to maybe hundreds of metres or road per house in rural areas.

lucernarian

Victor wrote: »

Typical frontages in estates vary from 5 to 12 metres, with houses on each side for most of the distance. Its a lot easier to maintain that amount of road compared to maybe hundreds of metres or road per house in rural areas.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here Victor. Are you implying that the system in Mayo of going 50:50 on costs with homeowners on the more important teritary routes is not necessarily "fair"? I'm asking for the sake of clarity.

On a separate note:
When it comes to road "maintenance", there are significant cost differences between a full resurfacing job, an additional layer of tar and chippings and then a man with shovel and asphalt filling potholes. It would cost householders much more to arrange for basic pothole repairs than it would the council, while larger resurfacing jobs done by subcontractors would cost similar amounts to council or householder. So perhaps the likes of pothole filling could be continued or subsidised by home and farm owners seeing as the council may well enjoy signifiant economies of scale anyway.

Victor

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here Victor.

You say that those rural dwellers pay more tax, but fail to note that they might need 10-100 times more road.

lucernarian

Victor wrote: »

You say that those rural dwellers pay more tax, but fail to note that they might need 10-100 times more road.

What? I wasn't trying to say or failing to note anything. I'll ask again: Is the point you're trying to make something along the lines of: that the system in Mayo of going 50:50 on costs with homeowners on the more important teritary routes is not necessarily "fair"?

I'll take it as a given that the answer is yes now.

Victor

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

What? I wasn't trying to say or failing to note anything. I'll ask again: Is the point you're trying to make something along the lines of: that the system in Mayo of going 50:50 on costs with homeowners on the more important teritary routes is not necessarily "fair"?

I'll take it as a given that the answer is yes now.

I think council money for private roads is not fair.

antoobrien

Victor wrote: »

I think council money for private roads is not fair.

AFAIK the council's don't pay for private roads i.e. roads that are not public a right of way. I think your objection would be more correctly classed as roads low level traffic.

Victor

antoobrien wrote: »

AFAIK the council's don't pay for private roads i.e. roads that are not public a right of way. I think your objection would be more correctly classed as roads low level traffic.

To_be_confirmed is referring to roads where there is only private rights of way.

lucernarian

Victor wrote: »

To_be_confirmed is referring to roads where there is only private rights of way.

I must inform you to the contrary, I'm not referring to privately-owned property and I don't know why you'd make that conclusion based on what I wrote either.

I'm referring to local tertiary roads (the subject of this thread) and the post mayomaffia made. I wanted to know whether Victor found that situation "fair" or not. I.e. a fair use of taxpayer's money to pay 50% of the maintenance of routes which only serve a handful of householders.

I'm still waiting on a clarification for that point.

lucernarian

I'm going to bump this, as a clarification from Victor did not appear to be forthcoming.

It would be fantastic to confirm the existence of such an arrangement in Mayo (mentioned earlier) and that it applied at least to some "L" roads, teritary or otherwise. Roads that have public rights-of-way, mind:)