Project costing ¤60m would develop two sites at east and west ends of RingaskiddyThe Port of Cork yesterday unveiled a revised plan for the development of its facilities at Ringaskiddy in Cork harbour which it hopes will enable the port to develop in its role as a first category – Tier 1 – mainharbour facility under the Government’s ports policy.

The move follows the rejection by An Bord Pleanála in 2008 of a much larger–scale project costing ¤160 million which would have involved the reclamation of the Oysterbank off Ringaskiddy.  This was strongly opposed by local groups.

Port of Cork engineering services manager Denis Healy acknowledged that one of the grounds for An Bord Pleanála’s refusal for the 2008 plan was the lack of a rail link but the Port of Cork had since commissioned a study that showed a rail link was not a major weighting factor in selecting a site.

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 Car manufacturers have been accused by An Taisce of deliberately misleading the public on fuel consumption and carbon emission efficiency levels.

The environmental body said some carmakers’ claims are unachievable and it further accused the industry of “manipulating” testing procedures.

 An Taisce called on the EU to reform the car testing system to avoid the publication of “delusional” fuel economy figures.

However, the body, otherwise known as the National Trust for Ireland, conceded the motor industry was not breaking any rules. 

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A €65 million scenic road scheme which would radically widen and straighten a large section of the narrow fuschia lined road between Dingle and Tralee will have to go back to the drawing board, An Bord Pleanála has ruled. 

The upgrade of 28 km of the N86 between Dingle, Annascaul and Gortbreagoge to Camp is one of a handful of “type–3 single carriageway” pilot projects planned for national secondary tourist routes along the western seaboard. The design allows for constructed cycle ways as well as overtaking. 

An oral hearing in Dingle last May heard objections from cyclists, conservations and tourist providers.

An Bord Pleanála has now told Kerry County Council it must remove the cycleways from the design and reduce the width of the alignment in order to minimise interference with hedgerows, landscape features and tree lines.

Shane Foran, a spokesman for Cyclist.ie, welcomed the decision and said it planned similar objections to other such schemes in Galway and Donegal. 

12 Nov 2012
The Irish Times
ANNE LUCEY

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 AN BORD Pleanála has refused permission for a bypass of Adare in Co Limerick. 

Traffic gridlock around the scenic town is blamed for major delays at weekends and during the peak tourist season. The N21, the main route from Shannon Airport, Dublin and Limerick to Kerry and the southwest holiday belt passes through Adare village. 

Some 10,000 cars a day pass through Adare, it is estimated, and delays are a constant feature at weekends and daily during the summer. Local TDs have reacted angrily to the decision. 

However, the bypass was linked to plans for the Cork–to–Limerick motorway withdrawn earlier this year, and the board now sees the bypass as “isolated infrastructure”.

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TWO Fine Gael TDs have called on the Government to put in place a Plan B after a vital city bypass came before the European Court yesterday.

The Galway City Outer bypass was before a panel of judges in Luxembourg who will examine whether plans for the multi–million route contravene an EU Habitats Directive.

A final ruling on the matter will be made by the Irish Supreme Court after it receives the opinion of the European Court of Justice.

That decision will not be known until next year

Irish Independent

13 September 2012

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New Luas line cheaper than Metro project but €185m already spent on other shelved schemes

YESTERDAY’S DECISION by An Bord Pleanála to grant permission for the Luas Broombridge line to link the existing Red and Green Luas lines underscores the folly of having built two independent lines in the first place.
 
Not having done the job properly when the lines were built eight years ago has proved extremely costly in terms both of inconvenience to the travelling public and, probably more importantly, money.
 
With Dublin’s mainline stations on the outskirts of the city centre and the Dart hugging its eastern edge, it surely made sense that when a new rail system was being devised it would service the main shopping and business district. But that’s not how it panned out.
 

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MOTORWAY PROJECTS and new roads that had been put on the long finger are expected to get the go–ahead when the Cabinet signs off a ¤2 billion stimulus package tomorrow aimed at “job–rich” sectors of the economy.

The Department of Transport will be a key beneficiary of the “offbalance–sheet” funding, along with strategic infrastructure projects in education such as the postponed Dublin Institute of Technology campus at Grangegorman.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin will announce the suite of measures formulated after the Government examined non–traditional ways to fund previously announced flagship projects. Investment for many projects had to be delayed when the capital spending budget for this year was cut by ¤755 million to ¤3.9 billion last November.

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Opponents of a proposed Limerick northern distributor road have called for the scheme to be reassessed in the context of reduced traffic levels, impact on communities and environmental considerations.
The Lisnagry–Annacotty Action Group commissioned Limerick–based Punch Consulting Engineers to inform its submission to Clare County Council, arguing much of the objective of the road plan has been met by the Shannon tunnel.

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ELECTRIC car drivers could get prime city parking spots free of charge under legislation being introduced by Transport Minister Leo Varadkar.
New measures to allow local authorities to reserve certain parking spots for electric vehicles –– and waive or reduce parking charges for their use –– are set to be tabled within weeks.
The move is aimed at encouraging more drivers to switch to clean electric cars, as currently there are only around 200 such vehicles on the road.
The ESB has rolled out 233 public recharging points, and said it will have 1,500 in place by 2013, but currently drivers can find access to roadside charge points hindered because there’s nothing to stop other motorists parking at the bays.

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The proposed highway, which is designed for up to 30,000 vehicles a day, would run from the old Dublin-limerick road, then north of t he University of Limerick, crossing the river Shannon near Ardnacrusha and then onwards via Parteen to Knockalisheen.

There, it would link up with the first phase of the 25km northern distributor road, which was approved by An Bord Pleanála last September to run from Knockalisheen to Coonagh. Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar last month pledged ¤ 2 million in funding towards its cost.

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The Republic of Ireland is way ahead of its northern neighbour and the rest of the UK on the EV front, but it remains to be seen whether its ambitious plans will come to fruition within the next eight years.

The target is for a tenth of all cars to be electric powered by 2020 - that would mean a quarter of a million EVs on Irish roads.

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CLARE COUNTY Council has spent almost €4 million on a 450metre "road to nowhere" in Ennis that has not seen traffic use it since it was completed more than two years ago.
In response to a Freedom of Information request, the council has confirmed that it has spent €3.71 million on the stretch of public road leading to the Information Age Park in Ennis.
This works out at €825,974 for every 100 metres. However, no traffic has used the road since it was completed due to the lossmaking Shannon Development's failure to complete the remaining 200 metres of the route leading to the agency's information park.

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IT WAS hailed as an engineering marvel when it opened to traffic in June 1999.
At the time, the experts reckoned the 600-metre long Jack Lynch Tunnel, which runs under the river Lee from Mahon to Dunkettle, would take up to 18,000 vehicles a day out of Cork city.

But over the last decade, the double-bore four-lane tunnel on the N25, administered by the National Roads Authority (NRA) and managed by Cork City Council, has become one of the state's busiest road arteries - handling up to 50,000 vehicles per day at weekends, rising to an incredible 68,000 vehicles every weekday.

Now, it's poised to close for six nights a week from early next year for its biggest safety upgrade - a massive retrofitting of fire retardant slabs to the tunnel walls to bring it into line with new EU standards.

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He said he was acting on the advice of the National Transport Authority when he instructed the Railway Procurement Agency to withdraw its application for a railway order from An Bord Pleanála. "From this weekend, I have suspended all planning works for Metro West, and the An Bord Pleanála oral hearing which was due to commence will not now proceed," he said.

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STATE PAYMENTS to the operators of the M3 motorway in Co Meath and the N18 Limerick tunnel are set to rise from €1.8 million in 2010 to between €5 million and € 5.5 million this year, according to the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, published yesterday.
The payments fall due because traffic volumes have fallen below levels agreed between the toll operators and the National Roads Authority.
The rise in the amount due this year compared to 2010 is attributable mainly to the fact that this year's figures include the first full financial year of operation of both schemes, which opened for only a few months in 2010.
Payments to the operators are set to consume more than the National Road Authority's entire share of toll revenue for 2011.

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While officially no decision has been taken, several senior government sources have said that in light of "significant cuts" to capital spending, the €5bn pet project of former Transport Minister Noel Dempsey is not viable.

Speaking to this newspaper yesterday, Finance Minister Michael Noonan confirmed that December's Budget would contain significant cuts to both current and capital spending, but was keen to stress that no decision had been taken on this specific project.

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THE NATIONAL Roads Authority is seeking advice on how to raise additional revenue from new tolls on existing roads, following cuts to its budget.
Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has said new tolls to fund road projects or public transport cannot be ruled out.
The authority is paying almost €500,000 a month to the private operators of the M3 motorway and the N18 Limerick Tunnel because traffic has fallen short of anticipated levels.

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Meanwhile, the EU imports large tonnages of biofuel, primarily from the US.

The Ensus plant on Teeside in the north of England began production last spring. It is designed to turn 1.2m tonnes of wheat a year into ethanol, but will shut for up to four months.

It seems to be a victim of the EU way of doing things, which contrasts sharply with the success of the ethanol industry in the US. The ability of the US to flood the EU with agricultural produce (their ethanol comes from maize) serves as a warning to the EU to look after its agri-business better.

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J UST 14 electric cars a month are being sold in Ireland, despite a €60m state grants scheme which aims to have 220,000 on the road by 2020.

After two months, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) has had just 35 grant applications, 28 of them from private customers.

When the initiative was launched in December, the target was for 2,000 electric vehicles to be on the road this year and 4,000 by 2012. Eamon Ryan, then the energy minister, said: "2011 will be the year electric cars become a common sight on Irish roads."

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