M50 upgrade ‘will only make it a car park’ Michael Brennan

THE upgrading of the M50 ring road around Dublin will only create a massive car park, the Green Party warned yesterday.

An Bord Pleanála yesterday approved the 810 million plan to widen the motorway from two lanes to three, to upgrade 10 interchanges including the Red Cow Roundabout, and to introduce an electronic toll free flow system at the Westlink toll bridge.

Green Party TD Eamon Ryan said the board's decision to give the go-ahead was a major mistake.

He said the traffic forecast for Ireland's busiest road was 200,000 vehicles daily, even though its free-flow capacity was only 187,500 vehicles, "which means there will be constant traffic jams on the M50 from the day it opens," he said.

He added: "We will have spent almost a billion euro simply transferring the traffic jams from the approach roads to the M50 onto the carriageway itself. It's going to be a parking lot."

The Department of Transport is proposing to fund the upgrade by extending the toll franchise on the M50 for a further 15 years.

The operators of the Westlink toll bridge, National Toll Roads, is involved in the Celtic Roads Group consortium, which has been shortlisted for the private public partnership (PPP) project.

Mr Ryan said the Government should abandon the upgrade plan and instead buy out the Westlink toll bridge and introduce an electronic tolling system on M50 approach roads to control the traffic.

An Bord Pleanála received more than 250 submissions on the upgrade plan mostly objections.

It approved the upgrade certain conditions, such as the modification of interchanges to lessen the impact on the surrounding areas and the drawing up of a traffic management plan for the M50 within three years of completion.

Transport Minister Martin Cullen said the M50 upgrade was a vital part of the Government's roads programme.

"Whilst the upgrade won't solve all traffic problems on the M50, it will bring benefits to road users. The addition of an additional lane means the M50 can better cater for traffic. Equally, modification of the interchanges will improve traffic flows," he said.