tara campaign over the hill
I never gave an opinion on the whole Hill of Tara/N3 debate before because, quite frankly, I have never had any need for that particular stretch of road, nor do I think I ever will.
If you pinned me down and made me choose, however, I suppose I would have to say I came down on the side of the motorists, and the latest news that they are STILL challenging the Supreme Court's decision to build makes me think "for the love of all that's holy, lads will ye just let it go!!!!"
The main reason for my opinion is that I believe that in the year of 2008, and considering all the Euro money that has poured into our exchequer for the purpose of improving infrastructure over the years, we should definitely have an existing system of roads that at very least links our main cities of Dublin, Belfast, Galway, Cork, Athlone and Limerick.
Now when I say roads, i mean DEDICATED ones. I don't think it that unreasonable that I get on a motorway in Dublin and stay on it right the way to Galway without being stuck in towns like Moate for half an hour waiting for traffic lights to change and schoolchildren to finish running across the road.
And as much as I respect this country's heritage, and as much as I appreciate the fact that less cars not more is better for the environment, when all is said and done our basic roads network is a chronically mismanaged work in progress that needs finishing once and for all.
Look at the bloody M50. Who the HELL is responsible for designing a grass verge down the middle of it which now has to be dug up for the much more sensible option of extra lanes? Do YOU drive on the road so you can see grass? Me neither.
So who was the architect who made that bonehead decision? Why weren't they castigated in the press? Why wasn't there public outcry when not only the road but also the toll bridge had to be ripped apart and rebuilt more than once?
And don't start me on tolls. My idea of tolling a road was that the government would take out a loan to build it and the people who drive on it would pay a toll so that the loan would be repaid. That implies that surely there must come a time when the repayments are honoured and the toll is no longer needed. So if you continue with the toll bridge, doesn't that mean that all we are paying for is for them to take our money? Makes no sense to me.
Plus, of course, you have to appreciate the strangehold of both the construction industry and the unions on this country, and the many roadblocks they put in the way of anything getting done to benefit the people. Not to mention the chambers of commerce from these towns who are afraid to see local business suffer if the traffic is "forced" to go around their towns rather than through them.
So as you can see, there's a lot to be said for those responsible for building our roads. But we still need them, and while I understand the general desire to take environmental and cultural concerns into account when designing them, eventually then necessity to build them has to outweigh the wishes of the protesters, who quite frankly appear to be too much of a minority group to be able to hold up the process for this long.
So my overall opinion has to be : "Just build the goddam thing, will ye?", even though the furthest down the N3 I ever travel is the turn to Ratoath.
If you pinned me down and made me choose, however, I suppose I would have to say I came down on the side of the motorists, and the latest news that they are STILL challenging the Supreme Court's decision to build makes me think "for the love of all that's holy, lads will ye just let it go!!!!"
The main reason for my opinion is that I believe that in the year of 2008, and considering all the Euro money that has poured into our exchequer for the purpose of improving infrastructure over the years, we should definitely have an existing system of roads that at very least links our main cities of Dublin, Belfast, Galway, Cork, Athlone and Limerick.
Now when I say roads, i mean DEDICATED ones. I don't think it that unreasonable that I get on a motorway in Dublin and stay on it right the way to Galway without being stuck in towns like Moate for half an hour waiting for traffic lights to change and schoolchildren to finish running across the road.
And as much as I respect this country's heritage, and as much as I appreciate the fact that less cars not more is better for the environment, when all is said and done our basic roads network is a chronically mismanaged work in progress that needs finishing once and for all.
Look at the bloody M50. Who the HELL is responsible for designing a grass verge down the middle of it which now has to be dug up for the much more sensible option of extra lanes? Do YOU drive on the road so you can see grass? Me neither.
So who was the architect who made that bonehead decision? Why weren't they castigated in the press? Why wasn't there public outcry when not only the road but also the toll bridge had to be ripped apart and rebuilt more than once?
And don't start me on tolls. My idea of tolling a road was that the government would take out a loan to build it and the people who drive on it would pay a toll so that the loan would be repaid. That implies that surely there must come a time when the repayments are honoured and the toll is no longer needed. So if you continue with the toll bridge, doesn't that mean that all we are paying for is for them to take our money? Makes no sense to me.
Plus, of course, you have to appreciate the strangehold of both the construction industry and the unions on this country, and the many roadblocks they put in the way of anything getting done to benefit the people. Not to mention the chambers of commerce from these towns who are afraid to see local business suffer if the traffic is "forced" to go around their towns rather than through them.
So as you can see, there's a lot to be said for those responsible for building our roads. But we still need them, and while I understand the general desire to take environmental and cultural concerns into account when designing them, eventually then necessity to build them has to outweigh the wishes of the protesters, who quite frankly appear to be too much of a minority group to be able to hold up the process for this long.
So my overall opinion has to be : "Just build the goddam thing, will ye?", even though the furthest down the N3 I ever travel is the turn to Ratoath.
2 comment/s so far:
Hey, no although I don't live there and am not completely sure of what the M50 looks like... Typically the grass median serves a few purposes: future expansion (the money or need for those extra lanes aren't always there when the roads are built), to help keep cars who run off into the center median from immediately hitting traffic (sure there are guard rails in busy areas but they don't always stop everything), and sometimes it is for drainage. Sorry, I'm a civil engineer... =)
Point taken Shel! The trouble with the M50 is that they realised it wasn't big enough for the volumes of traffic before they had even finished building it and thus started ripping it up again and basically it has been nothing less than a cash cow for the construction industry. There's a standard joke that the reason it's called the M"50" is that it will be 2050 before it is finished.
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