A new outer ring road bypassing the M50 is being considered in the latest effort to solve Dublin's congestion crisis, writes Patrick Logue
The charge that Dublin's road network is an unmitigated disaster is hard to argue against. It seems that as soon as one project is complete, there are thousands of extra vehicles waiting to undo all the good work, and clog things up again.
The port tunnel has done as promised and removed thousands of trucks from city centre streets, albeit for almost €800 million and years late. But as the paint is barely dry on at the tunnel's toll booths, the disjointed nature of the road network of which the tunnel is part, is as apparent as ever.
The traffic jam of noisy and dirty HGVs has moved from the city's quays and can now be found clogging up the M50 with gusto, where thousands of car drivers are battling daily to get to and from work. It is little consolation to those stuck behind the wheel, with few public transport options, that the quays are a slightly more pleasant place to be.
The upgrade works on the motorway to add a third lane have made a bad situation terrible. Tuesday morning last week is a case in point. Radio talk shows fielded calls from angry motorists stuck in their cars, one of whom claimed it had taken him an hour to drive one mile. Another story was doing the rounds that a man drove from Lucan to Sligo in less time than it took his wife to make an 11-mile journey in the capital.
Traffic jams on the M50 lasted for more than four hours that Tuesday morning due to new diversions at the Red Cow roundabout because of upgrade works on the M50.
South Dublin County Council apologised for traffic being brought close to a standstill on all approach roads to the interchange for several miles, from about 6.30am until nearly 11am. The same thing has been happenning sporadically over the past number of years.
Solutions to the crisis, and it is a crisis, are varied. The upgrade to three lanes may provide some help and the lifting of the Westlink toll barriers and the introduction of barrier-free tolling will also be welcome. However, the idea of moving deckchairs on the Titanic springs immediately to mind.
Against this backdrop, an ambitious plan to solve the problem once and for all may be dusted off and implemented. The plan involves the construction of another motorway to bypass the M50 and Dublin altogether, negating the necessity to use the road for those transiting the capital and freeing roads inside the circle for those moving about the city.
The new road would begin near Drogheda, Co Louth, possibly at the site of a proposed super-port at Breamore near the Gormanston M1 Interchange. It would then travel in a semi-circle inland crossing in a perpendicular direction the M2, M3 and M4 before connecting with the M7 at the Kilcullen interchange in Co Kildare.
It represents approximately 60 kilometres of motorway and passes through several local authority areas including Meath, Kildare and Dublin. It would certainly take many years to bring such a project from pre-planning stage to completion.
But The Irish Timesunderstands that the plan is being looked at as a serious option in Government circles. Opposition parties, including the Green Party, are also looking at the plan or versions of it, as possible solution to traffic congestion.
In February 2005, Martin Cullen ordered the NRA to carry out a feasibility study on an outer ring road for Dublin. A spokeswoman for the NRA said that that study has now been completed and is with Mr Cullen's office.
The spokeswoman refused to rule the plan in or out, adding: "The Minister is considering this at the moment."
The Progressive Democrats have been a driving force behind the project as a straightforward solution to unbearable congestion. The party's transport spokesman, Tom Morrissey, is also in favour of moving Dublin Port and redeveloping the port area with residential and commercial units.
"We are determined that there has to be an outer ring road. People are concerned about the M50, but what they should also be concerned about is what happened to the outer ring road.
"You have 20,000 cars a day, for example from Blanchardstown travelling back and forth to Lucan across the M50, or some 30,000 travelling on the backroads to the Lucan bridge through the Strawberry Beds, going back and forth across the Liffey to avoid the toll because there is no alternative route," he said.
"It is seven years since Fingal County Council first started discussing the upgrade of the M50 to three lanes. The pre-planning and the public consultation have taken that length of time. It will be another four years before it is complete.
"We must plan for the outer ring road now, we are actually even late for it now.
"We know that Dublin is going to grow . . . and we just don't have enough road space to cater for the number of cars that we have in the country," Morrissey added.
The outer ring road plan is not a new one, with some suggesting it was part of Dublin County Council plans as far back as the 1970s. But the idea was officially shelved in May 1999 when Fingal County Council voted by 23 to 1 to scrap the idea. Morrissey was the only one in favour at the time.
The Green Party are not completely against an orbital route.
Their transport spokesman, Eamon Ryan, suggested there may be an argument for a freight-only orbital road to service any new port built at Breamore. Ryan also said his party would like to see a freight-only corridor on the M50 to cater for HGV traffic.
"But we would oppose another orbital M50 catering for unsustainable sprawl," he added.
Fine Gael's Olivia Mitchell said her party agrees "in principle" to building an outer road to bypass Dublin and the M50, and to link the State's gateway towns such as Dundalk, and even as far inland as Athlone. But she added: "What I don't want is another M50, just another couple of miles out.
"My instinct is that 10 or 20 miles out is not enough. Dublin would just go out to meet it."
However, Roisín Shortall of the Labour party said: "We wouldn't regard it as a priority. Priority should be given to public transport by expanding rail and bus.
"We don't have a Dublin Transport Authority yet. The transport needs of the Greater Dublin Area need to be looked at by a body with a transport brief, not a roads authority."
Labour wants a short-term measure of park-and-ride sites around the M50 with express bus services to the city centre. They also want the rail interconnector built, to link up Dublin's main stations, which they say would increase rail capacity four-fold.
"People want to use public transport - the problem is there isn't sufficient capacity. We should have learned that more roads are not the solution."