NRA's Road Tolling plans

The announcement by the National Roads Authority that more roads in the country need to be tolled, but more specifically the N20 near Mallow is bordering on ludicrous.  The N20 is one of the country’s national arteries that was was abandoned by the previous government in the Motorway splurge of the Celtic Tiger.  The road, particularly south of Buttevant is not even up to the standard of some Regional Roads.  There is not a road of the standard to warrant a toll.  If a full Motorway linking Cork and Limerick was constructed then a single toll at Mallow would be sustainable, but not at present.   Indeed an M20 Motorway would take traffic from the towns of Charleville, Buttevant and Mallow.   The NRA has no right to toll a road that they have overlooked.  Lives are lost because of the state of some our countries roads.  The NRA proposes to profit from work not yet done and take advantage of motorists forced to use these clogged up routes.  Other routes such as the M50 where there is a proposed toll have some justification because of the standard of the infrastructure but has anyone from the NRA even driven along the N20?  Not everyone in the country has access to alternative modes of transport such as the Luas Green Line which passes a stone’s throw from the NRA’s HQ in Dublin 4.  Indeed it makes someone question why we pay tax on our cars, on fuel and in our personal taxes and yet still be asked to pay for roads that are already built.  One of the worst National Primary Roads in the country would be tolled twice under the NRA plan, with additional tolls for people coming from either the Jack Lynch or Shannon Tunnels as many inter-city commuters now do.  The proposal to toll the Jack Lynch Tunnel also strives from desperation, the Tunnel would drive regular commuters back into the city to avoid it and thus recreate the problems £105 million was spend to alleviate.  Some might argue that Limerick has a tolled tunnel now in operation but the Shannon Tunnel deals with mostly transit traffic that would be traversing the city for Galway or Cork.  The Jack Lynch deals with Cork City commuters on a daily basis.  I tell the NRA thus to build us a proper road infrastructure between Cork and Limerick, and then consider tolling that.


Further Reading:
http://www.eveningecho.ie/news/ireland/nra-suggests-doubling-number-of-tolled-roads-501759.html
http://www.corkrdo.ie/preview.php?fileName=m20_cork_limerick_motorway_scheme_introduction&id=0&end=html

See videos of Computer Generated Overlays of the proposed M20:

http://www.corkrdo.ie/m20_cork_limerick_motorway_scheme_videos.php