No more motorways - what ya reckon?

magicbastarder

Packrat wrote: »

Which is appropriate given how dispersed our population is by comparison with Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn

the german population is a hell of a lot more dispersed going by that motorway network, in that it's more evenly spread across the country.
i'm not sure if you mean the irish population is more rural - which it is, but this has no bearing on whether we should build motorways. motorways should connect population centres.

Wildly Boaring

Ok I've skipped a couple pages so maybe this point is made.

From 2022 EU money will be much more expensive for non ESG qualifying infrastructure.

Basically you can get very cheap money for qualifying train tracks and relatively expensive money for roads.

"EU Taxonomy"

Maybe if all our cars are EV and our grid tending towards zero green house gases we'll be back to motorways.

But the latest guidance for EU loans is fairly stark for those awaiting motorways.

Yellow_Fern

Strumms wrote: »

Building a shît load of roads means government after government can throw millions and indeed billions over decades at and into the industry populated by their mates... builders and their contractors.

There has been minimum investment in rail... the rolling stock was literally falling asunder before new trains were ordered... Dublin still waiting for a one line of a metro 16 years later after first talking about it...it’s now scheduled to open in 2027... proposed in 2005, finished (maybe) in ‘27 .... both my parents were still working when it was given the go ahead, wheather they’ll live to see the benefit of the one line of the metro having been built..hmmm...22 years, from saying ok, we’ll do it, to having it, maybe.

According to google, if I decide to take the train to Kilkenny from where I live in Dublin, north east, driving I’ll get the two minutes faster.... Rail service is third world..

That isnt the case at all . The Celtic Tiger motorways were built by a highly efficient agency called the national roads authority and they did a fantastic job. The integration of ecological and heritage concerns with road construction was incredibly successful and totally rewritten what we know of the history of this island.
I love trains but the reason so little was spent on trains is that we would never have the passenger numbers to justify brand newlines according to reports by the European Commission.

Charles Babbage

The thing about the Greens is that they are more than willing to say to people that they should move from where they want to live and where their families live to some congested place near a tram or train. But, for some reason, they are not willing to say to people in Raheny (say), we are going to take your garden and make this railway line 4 tracks to provide a proper service.

Thelonious Monk

Charles Babbage wrote: »

The thing about the Greens is that they are more than willing to say to people that they should move from where they want to live and where their families live to some congested place near a tram or train. But, for some reason, they are not willing to say to people in Raheny (say), we are going to take your garden and make this railway line 4 tracks to provide a proper service.

But it's not up to the Greens to make these decisions. Bus Connects will require taking parts of people's gardens, is it the Greens doing this? It's fascinating how much power people think the Greens have, and that they are responsible for so many things in this country even though they've been in power 5 minutes and wont be around for long.

ineedeuro

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Surely the next government without the Greens will remove us from this anti rural agreement?

The Greens didn’t sign up to it and as far as I know it’s not really something you suddenly decide to get out of

Plus it’s not “anti rural”

RandomViewer

FoFo1254122 wrote: »

there is plenty of people in rural ireland who vote for green candidates.
its mostly young college educated people, you know the type who have to be right on with the latest PC bullsh1t.
people who say martin luther king, nelson mandela and gretta thunberg are their 'heroes'
we all know the type

Putting Great in the same sentence as King and Mandela, what did she actually do? skip school and whine like every other teenager

ineedeuro

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'd like to see more money pumped into cycling infrastructure in our towns and cities.

100% but when they have done this recently in Dublin and other towns you have loads of people complaining.
We need to change the mentality of the population

RandomViewer

I think it'll be a Green scandal that brings down this government,

Thelonious Monk

ineedeuro wrote: »

The Greens didn’t sign up to it and as far as I know it’s not really something you suddenly decide to get out of

Plus it’s not “anti rural”

It was in jest because the Greens get the blame for us being part of that agreement and carbon taxes even though it was the work of FG.

Heraclius

ineedeuro wrote: »

The Greens didn’t sign up to it and as far as I know it’s not really something you suddenly decide to get out of

Plus it’s not “anti rural”

I think you missed some sarcasm there!

Strumms

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

That isnt the case at all . The Celtic Tiger motorways were built by a highly efficient agency called the national roads authority and they did a fantastic job. The integration of ecological and heritage concerns with road construction was incredibly successful and totally rewritten what we know of the history of this island.
I love trains but the reason so little was spent on trains is that we would never have the passenger numbers to justify brand newlines according to reports by the European Commission.

We will have passenger numbers if and when the service appeals to people...

ie. The service is...

- modern

- regular

- comfortable

- efficient

- effective

We have a population of 4.9 million...and growing..by 2040 we could, no sorry WILL be looking at a population closer to 6 million according to the government and ESRI numbers..

New Zealand, Croatia, Norway, Denmark.... all have similar populations yet for years have comfortable, effective, efficient rail networks.. for decades in fact...

Contractors working on major road projects here sought more than €850 million over agreed tender prices, new figures show too....Data released to The Irish Times relates to 15 road projects with a tender price of more than €40 million, between 2008 and 2018.

Gougers... get effective, efficient, public transport ie trains on the go..and fûck the gougers.

end of the road

mickuhaha wrote: »

The government want to stop building the safest roads available.

no, just big motor ways, for which the ones that are actually justified have been built or are going to be.
single carriage or maybe dual carriage where justified will be built.

mickuhaha wrote: »

What absolute nonsense. They also have a rail network that slows down then there are leaves on the tracks and people sitting on the floor during busy times.

that's virtually every rail network around the world.
certainly we could do better in terms of capacity but we are far from the only rail network to suffer over-crowding and it would never be totally eradicated.
also leaves on the line turn into a grece when a train travels over them which can cause quite serious issues hence trains have to travel slower, again we could certainly try and do better with insuring treatment of the lines but it is something that can never be totally mitagated against.

mickuhaha wrote: »

A city bus that drives past stops during rush hour.

if they are full they can't take any more, if they are out of service then they can't take passengers.
absolutely rubbish when it happens but it is something that is going to happen here and there and the government can't really be blamed for that.

Heraclius

ineedeuro wrote: »

100% but when they have done this recently in Dublin and other towns you have loads of people complaining.
We need to change the mentality of the population

I think that is a fundamental issue. It isn't just on cycle lanes either. Planning would need serious and very unpopular changes too. I suspect muddle along while paying lip service to sustainable development is more likely unfortunately.

end of the road

Arealred wrote: »

This will hopefully be the last time we see the Greens, at best they are idiots at worse they are psychopaths.

For the economy to function motorways are needed between Cork and Limerick, Limerick and Waterford/ Rosslare, Dublin and Donegal.

These clowns are deluded leaving wolves roam in rural Ireland, carsharing in rural areas and lettuce on windowsills.

there is unlikely to be a dedicated Dublin and Donegal motor way as there isn't enough traffic on offer to justify it.
what you might get is a motor way that will serve multiple counties on the way to donegal, and be a little bit less direct then a dedicated one but even then i wouldn't bank on it.
as another poster mentioned waterford to limerick can suffice with a dual carriage way.
cork to limerick is being built eventually.

Fred Cryton

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

But it's not up to the Greens to make these decisions. Bus Connects will require taking parts of people's gardens, is it the Greens doing this? It's fascinating how much power people think the Greens have, and that they are responsible for so many things in this country even though they've been in power 5 minutes and wont be around for long.

It's not about the power they have, it's about what they are advocating for as Green policy. The poster is correct that they wouldn't dream of cpo'ing gardens of voters in leafy south Dublin for much neeeded rail infrastructure where many of their voters live.

Fred Cryton

Can people stop mentioning cycling on this thread. That's so dumb. Motorways are for distance driving such as inter-city. Do we really think 55 year old Mary is going to cycle in the pouring rain for 2 hours to get to a nearby town that's a 15 minute drive away.

Thelonious Monk

Fred Cryton wrote: »

It's not about the power they have, it's about what they are advocating for as Green policy. The poster is correct that they wouldn't dream of cpo'ing gardens of voters in leafy south Dublin for much neeeded rail infrastructure where many of their voters live.

Who wouldn't dream of CPOing their gardens? And isnt the plan to CPO parts of gardens in leafy Glasnevin for Bus Connects?

REBELSAFC

I think Eamonn is right.No more motorways. We should build some double dual carriageways instead

Yellow_Fern

Strumms wrote: »

We will have passenger numbers if and when the service appeals to people...

ie. The service is...

- modern

- regular

- comfortable

- efficient

- effective

We have a population of 4.9 million...and growing..by 2040 we could, no sorry WILL be looking at a population closer to 6 million according to the government and ESRI numbers..

New Zealand, Croatia, Norway, Denmark.... all have similar populations yet for years have comfortable, effective, efficient rail networks.. for decades in fact...

Contractors working on major road projects here sought more than €850 million over agreed tender prices, new figures show too....Data released to The Irish Times relates to 15 road projects with a tender price of more than €40 million, between 2008 and 2018.

Gougers... get effective, efficient, public transport ie trains on the go..and fûck the gougers.

The Irish rail network is actually longer than Demark. It is smaller than Norway and New Zealand, although they are far larger countries. I am not sure what reliability figures you are citing. I very much doubt any of these countries are building new lines regularly. Here are there yes but prob not churning them out like we churned out motorways 10 years ago. I imagine building rail will attract similar levels of gouging.

end of the road

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

The LUAS red line has been allowed fall in to scangerification and is unsafe for travel, the DART is beginning to fall in to this on the northside, what's the point in spending billions on infrastructure to allow it to be hijacked by scumbags, we need a transport police.

what we need is just more gardai, dedicate some of them to transport.
i used to be in favour of a dedicated transport police myself but the more i look at it i think that a whole load more gardai would give better bang for the buck.
transport police would have to hand people over to the gardai anyway and there would be the relevant infrastructure and management to support such a service which for a small country i'm not sure is justified.

FoFo1254122 wrote: »

why will the state not invest in rail network across the whole country.
because they know rail means more then writing capital investment cheques.
the state will have to provide funding regards subsidising fares and repairs and maintenance , they will have to police the network, and worse the state will be answerable when it all goes wrong.
but also by reducing car ownership, the loss of VRT and VAT to the exchequer would be substantial.

its a nonsense to even entertain the idea, i have always said we should be closing intercity rail and replacing with private bus companies.
i would sell dublin bus and bus eireann, shut irish rail as you couldn't even give that away.
the savings would be huge and the quality of service the same.

the state has to provide funding for maintenence and repairs of the motor ways, and to a lot lot more then they ever would have to do so for rail.
certainly car tax goes some way to covering the cost but the state are not out of that game.
closing inter city rail and replacing it with private bus companies is doomed to failure as the rail users don't transfer over to bus services where railways are closed, this has been known and shown since the 1960s and before where lines were closed, + there would actually be no real savings as infrastructure costs would have to increase to facilitate more single occupant cars which would be the fall out of this.
selling dublin bus and bus eireann does nothing as you will still have to fund them given a lot of the routes are always going to be loss making.

FishOnABike wrote: »

When they can get five people plus luggage from Ballyferriter in Dingle or Dungloe in Donegal to Dublin and back for a similar cost to the round car journey and similar convenience in terms of frequency and journey time to make it some way practicable then rail might be in the running.

Unless it's prepared to run at a significant loaa and be significantly overprovisioned it isn't even on the pitch in terms of competiveness or convenience.

Trying to get from one remote rural area to another in a different part of the country and you'd be lucky if you could make the journey in a day, let alone the return journey.

For point to point between one urban centre and another (if one happens to be Dublin) and any intermediate stops en route rail might be able to contend if it was five or six times cheaper than present.

5 or 6 times cheaper is just never going to happen, the government wouldn't pay for it for a start, and there does come a ratio by where dispite high amount of patronage the service still isn't able to cover it's costs because the fares are so low but the subsidy couldn't be increased to pay for it.
actually rail in this country is quite cheap as it is, it should be cheaper but enough people need to lobby tds to pay for it.
but 5 or 6 times cheaper is just sadly never going to be.

The J Stands for Jay

ineedeuro wrote: »

100% but when they have done this recently in Dublin and other towns you have loads of people complaining.
We need to change the mentality of the population

It's just been a small, vocal minority doing the complaining.

The J Stands for Jay

Fred Cryton wrote: »

Can people stop mentioning cycling on this thread. That's so dumb. Motorways are for distance driving such as inter-city. Do we really think 55 year old Mary is going to cycle in the pouring rain for 2 hours to get to a nearby town that's a 15 minute drive away.

I just put too local towns into Google maps to check the travel times. 11 minutes by car, 25 minutes by bike, with a long steep hill in between. Not sure where you're getting 2 hours from.

biko

The J Stands for Jay wrote: »

I just put too local towns into Google maps to check the travel times. 11 minutes by car, 25 minutes by bike, with a long steep hill in between. Not sure where you're getting 2 hours from.

That's odd, so Google says it take about twice as long to cycle than drive.
Which towns? Perhaps they are not connected by motorway?



Let's take away cars from the Greens and let them set examples by cycling everywhere.
And since electric cars and scooters are bad for the environment we'll ban them too, for Greens.

Heraclius

biko wrote: »

That's odd, so Google says it take about twice as long to cycle than drive.
Which towns? Perhaps they are not connected by motorway?



Let's take away cars from the Greens and let them set examples by cycling everywhere.
And since electric cars and scooters are bad for the environment we'll ban them too, for Greens.

Anything else you feel should be done to the Greens? They've clearly treated you terribly!

Heraclius

Saying that we won't be building many more motorways seems totally sensible to me. I can't even see why it is controversial. The only major intercity route that might/does need to be completed is the Cork/Limerick section. There are some stretches elsewhere but otherwise all remaining bypasses etc would surely be fine as dual carriageway? I'd be much happier to see more being spent maintaining the surfaces on the national roads than building a motorway somewhere that wasn't justified by traffic volume. This entire topic feels like a strange one to pick to have a dig at the Greens.

biko

Heraclius wrote: »

Anything else you feel should be done to the Greens? They've clearly treated you terribly!

Yes, ship them from Dublin and Cork city centres out to rural areas around the country.
Maybe a dose of the real world will wake them up.

Heraclius

biko wrote: »

Yes, ship them from Dublin and Cork city centres out to rural areas around the country.
Maybe a dose of the real world will wake them up.

I think the real world exists in towns and cities too.

Wibbs

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Eamon's quotes on wolves were completely taken out of context.
What he actually said was

And it's still moronic.

So if we were to restore our forests, which we wont because farming is all that matters in Ireland, then in 50 years it might not be unreasonable to reintroduce wolves, and why not? They are part of a healthy ecosystem.

They were and quite a different ecosystem it was when they were. They went extinct here because their habitats shrank and then hunting finally ended them, but they were dropping in numbers before that. Never mind they were well known for maneating, unusual among European wolves. But anyway, let's imagine in "green" lalaland that we regrow our forests to the size that would sustain a wild wolf population, which would be a considerable size of forest BTW as they have large ranges per family group, in fifty years the Irish population will likely be a third larger if not double what it is now so that's going to crowd them a tad. Plus people are pretty spread out in this country and truly wild areas with few living in it are rare. Even somewhere like Spain has significantly more such areas(and a small wolf population, which even there is threatened, as it is in Italy). And how do you hope to keep them in one place? Wolves can comfortably cover fifty miles in a day and will do so to seek out food. You release a group in say Kerry, they could be in Wicklow within a fortnight. Even if the original pack stays in Kerry, their offspring when they grow up, just like humans, leave home and set up their own family and territory.

This is not Canada, or Russia, or even Sweden or Norway. We don't have enough of the space and the right type of space or enough prey items to sustain a wild wolf population the way we once did and unless there's a major drop in our population, much more of that population living in urban areas and a truly massive rewilding of our countryside it's a complete and utter pipe dream and demonstrates a politician not having a blind bog what the hell he's talking about. AKA Eamon Ryan.

Thelonious Monk

Heraclius wrote: »

I think the real world exists in towns and cities too.

It's also not the Greens fault that rural Ireland is so car dependent, that would be down to decades of no planning