4/11/07 Transport 21. Sunday Business Post

[Peter FitzPatrick]

The Department of Transport has also conceded that there is no operable date for a joining of the two Luas lines in Dublin city centre, following concerns expressed by Dublin Bus about the impact on bus traffic. The link-up was due to be finished next year.

They can delay that one in to oblivion for all I care. Expensive pile of RPA nonsense.

Delays seem to be on the rail side, all interurban mortorways are either on time or ahead of schedule. Priorities.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by Peter FitzPatrick

Delays seem to be on the rail side, all interurban mortorways are either on time or ahead of schedule.

Well insofar as they were all meant to be finished at the end of 2006 ....

[Brian Condron]

Originally Posted by Victor

Well insofar as they were all meant to be finished at the end of 2006 ....

Where does this 2006 figure that is thrown around come from? To the best of my knowledge, the original plan was for a series of by-passes around the country's biggest bottle necks. Then a few years ago the plan was changed to have brand new motorways/hqdcs between the major urban centres. Is the 2006 figure the one for completing all the by-passes?

Anyway, we have been building roads at a phenomenal rate in this country, I can't see how we could have built them any quicker. There are only so many road construction contractors in Europe, let alone Ireland.

[Mark Gleeson]

Well by 2006 we should have had the Metro to Dublin Airport and would be just starting to dig for the line to Navan. Kildare route project would be half done etc

Every single rail project is running late, they all started late due to planning issues which in all cases relate to the minister either not signing the order in reasonable time or the DoT demanding a scale back before committing

[Peter FitzPatrick]

Originally Posted by Victor

Well insofar as they were all meant to be finished at the end of 2006 ....

True Victor, the inter-urbans were part of the last National Development Plan. It was fairly clear early on there wasn't a chance that deadline could be met once the land acquisition process started & fairly quickly ran in to a brick wall, never mind swans & snails.

The point is we are building a national motorway network in 5 years, & despite the usual guff about delays from media etc. that is pretty damn fast.

In the mean time, on the rail side, we have two luas lines & a slow renewal of rolling stock / signalling.

It’s clear what Government policy is; pay lip service to rail, build roads like the clappers.

Even in a so called bad year, Government will turn a surplus of 6 billion euro this December; essentially they are building our infrastructure out of change in Cowen's back pocket.

Why they cannot borrow & accelerate the rail agenda with even a portion of the vigour constructing the motorway network receives is beyond me. There is no reason, financial or otherwise, why Government can't do the same for rail as they are doing for roads, both could move forward in tandem if the will was there.