The National Roads Authority should trim its overblown plans,writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
The N22, between Ballincollig and Macroom, currently carries an estimated 7,000 vehicles per day. But if the National Roads Authority gets its way, this Co Cork road will be replaced by a virtual motorway with a staggering capacity of 55,000 vehicles a day.
Two of the four potential routes for the proposed four-lane dual-carriageway would run through the valley of the River Lee, famed for its "green, leafy shade", severing farms, disturbing wildlife habitats and bringing the roar of traffic within earshot of tranquil forests.
Not surprisingly, the NRA's plans have provoked intense opposition in the area. The Lee Valley Protection Campaign is well-organised; it has its own website (www.savetheleevalley.com) and has also produced a CD, No Lee Way, sung by Jimmy Crowley to the air of The Banks.
And like other communities fighting against overblown road plans, the Lee Valley group is linked to the Campaign for Sensible Transport (CaST), which has become a forum for opposition to many elements of the motorway programme in the current National Development Plan.
Formed last year, CaST says it is not only a refuge for those directly in the line of the proposed motorways and dual-carriageways. It also represents others who believe that putting the NRA's road builders in charge of national transport policy may not be such an inspired idea.
One of the central criticisms of the NRA is that it proceeds directly to draw up a particular road plan, based on a series of route options, without first producing an overall concept to justify the proposal - as happens in Britain and, more commonly, in other European countries.
The only real insight into the NRA's thinking was provided by its Road Needs study in July, 1998. It estimated that €7.8 billion (£6.14 billion) needed to be invested in further road improvements to national primary and secondary routes over the succeeding 20 years. Yet even after all of this money was spent, the NRA admitted that traffic volumes - which were growing at 6 per cent a year when the study was done - would probably have reached saturation levels in 2019 and may then need to be "attenuated", or thinned out.
What happened, of course, was that the Government - flushed with the vast revenues flowing into its coffers - decided to accelerate the NRA's 20-year roads programme, compressing almost all of it into the seven-year time scale of the National Development Plan (1999-2006).
Ambitions also became more vaulting because of the perception that there were now unlimited funds available. Indeed, the NRA's chief executive, Mr Michael Tobin, admitted on RTÉ last summer that having so much money meant that it could build even bigger roads.
Few would disagree that the N22 from Cork to Killarney needs to be upgraded. But the proposal to provide a dual-carriageway from Ballincollig to Macroom, with the capacity to carry "eight times" the existing level of traffic, suggests that it has been hugely over-designed. The NRA maintains that the new N22 would be a "high quality strategic route", offering greater traffic safety, faster journey times, minimised impacts on local communities, an improved environment in Macroom and a positive contribution to economic development.
What the NRA promises in this case is "freedom of the road", that great, elusive goal of highway builders everywhere. Because the 16-mile stretch of road from the outskirts of Cork to Macroom (pop: c.3,000) would have almost as much capacity as the M50 in Dublin.
Mr Andrew O'Riordan, an engineer and leading member of the Lee Valley Protection Campaign, said that even if traffic volumes on the route more than doubled over the next 20 years to 16,000 vehicles a day, they would still be less than a third of the proposed capacity.
And because it would be an entirely new route, the existing N22 would continue in service (albeit downgraded to a regional road) so the actual capacity in the corridor would be even greater than the figures would suggest - more like 70,000 vehicles a day than 55,000.
The existing road from Ballincollig to Macroom is a single carriageway, mainly with a hard shoulder on each side, though some of it is narrow and more winding. Fatalities on the route are high, but most of these are attributed to driver behaviour rather than inherent deficiencies. The NRA appears to have dismissed the option of widening the road on the basis that it is unlikely to handle projected traffic volumes in 2020. But its opponents maintain that such a minimalist approach would be preferable to driving a new dual-carriageway through the valley.
Mr O'Riordan pointed out that there were very few houses on one side of the existing road, which makes widening it a feasible proposition. He also complained that low-cost remedial measures to reduce accidents, such as alerting motorists to be on their guard, have not been done.
Construction cost estimates for the new route range from €147.3 million (£116m) to €180.3million (£142m) depending on which option is chosen . As usual, the figures do not include land acquisition, which could be up to £25,000 per acre.
Obviously, the cost - and the land "take" - would be considerably lower if the NRA reconsidered the option of widening the existing road. Because value for money must once again be a factor, given the current and somewhat unexpected downturn in Exchequer revenues.
A third round of public consultations on plans for the N22 is due at the end of February. However, despite massive opposition from local people, there is no indication that the NRA is prepared to scale down the scheme in advance of a public inquiry.
All of the NRA's road plans are also proceeding in advance of the National Spatial Strategy, which is supposed to identify definitively where growth centres will be located to ensure balanced regional development. This is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. That's one of the main reasons CaST is pressing for "an integrated transport policy in the overall and long-term public interest, taking on board environmental and social concerns", and the establishment of a broadly-based National Transport Authority to implement it. CaST's website address is www.sensibletransport.com