Further stress on our clogged arteries

In the week in which the Irish Small & Medium Enterprises Association (ISME) has revealed that traffic gridlock is costing small businesses €2.5 billion per year as a result of choked roads and no proper overall traffic management, the lifting of the toll-booth barriers on the dreaded M50 should be an occasion to celebrate. While the notorious arterial route which encircles Dublin city - and one that is used by thousands of frustrated Meath motorists every day - passed its first major test on Monday of this week with little or no congestion as children returned to school, confusion has reigned over the multiplicity of toll tag providers and payment methods motorists now face. Apart from the fact that tens of thousands of Irish motorists still don"t know how the system works or were not even aware of the changes in the days leading up to the removal of the West-Link toll plaza, the whole project appears extremely complex and overly expensive. For a start, one toll booth serving an extra lane off to the side of the road should have been left in place to allow motorists to continue to pay in cash. This would facilitate those who do not want to register online or who do not understand the system and the many thousands of visitors and tourists driving hire cars who know nothing of the new arrangements, not to mention the thousands of cars registered out of the State which ply our roads every day which the M50 number plate recognition technology may not recognise. The Government bought the toll plaza from National Toll Roads (NTR) for €600 million last year. It will take an estimated 12 years to pay off that bill so, unfortunately, tolls on the M50 are here to stay. The AA claims the new technology is a scandalous waste of money with an operating cost of €25 million annually from revenues of €80 million generated per year by motorists using the road. It"s not exactly value for money. To make matters worse for local commuters, in the coming couple of years Meath motorists will face a triple whammy of tolls if they use the full length of the new M3 followed by the M50. Welcome though the new road will be in terms of reducing journey times to and from the capital and reducing gridlock in towns like Navan, Kells and Dunshaughlin, the price to pay for this convenience will be high for many and could well defeat the purpose for which the road was built in the first place if drivers stick to the existing untolled alternative route. A commuter living in Kells going to work in Lucan or Tallaght and passing through three tolling points (two on the M3 and one on the M50) will pay almost €40 per week for the privilege, or about €1,900 a year. If that motorist chooses to take the train from the new M3 interchange station near Dunboyne, he or she will already have passed through two tolls booths and will then have to fork out to park at the new station on top of buying a train ticket into the city. The Eurolink consortium which will operate the new motorway stands to make €590 million is tolls over the 30-year concession period. The reality of the public private partnership (PPP) process so beloved of the Irish Government is now beginning to sink in as car-users realise how much they are going to have to pay into the future. These levels of charges will impose an unfair burden on commuters from Meath compared to other counties in the Greater Dublin Area like Kildare and Wicklow. If people choose not to pay the tolls and foresake the motorway, then the existing N3 will continue to be choked with traffic while a shiny new under-utilised motorway will sit beside it devoid of the levels of traffic it requires to remain viable. The National Roads Authority (NRA) can argue that, without tolling the M3 in a PPP arrangement, it could not deliver the road by conventional funding, but hard-pressed motorists will see it differently - they will feel they are being short-changed at every turn with motor tax, higher fuel costs and more and more tolls, effectively a further tax for using the road network. While the motorway should be bring benefits to the county in time, it will also make Meath a more expensive place in which to live and commute from. This week"s survey by Meath East Labour Party senator, Dominic Hannigan, presents a snapshot of an already stressed population in commuter towns around Meath with no link to the communities in which they live, and an unhappy lifestyle exacerbated by the grind of the daily commute to Dublin. It shows a considerable disconnect between the large numbers of people working in Dublin and their dormitory communities with complaints of considerable time poverty preventing them from getting involved in their communities. Having to pay tolls up to six times per day to get to work and home again, albeit a bit quicker than before, will only add further to frustrations among a substantial section of the local population already feeling alienated by their circumstances.