Redes inalámbricas

Expend- iture Commit- ments Preliminary Commitments Recomm- ended Expend- iture Estimates Recomm- ended

Economic & Social Infrastructure OP* 683 426 148 258 4,239 3,698 3,967 National Roads 318 258 94 148 1,084 1,270 1,445 Public Transport 203 58 25 60 524 441 500 Environmental Infrastructure 160 92 12 50 504 382 390 Sustainable Energy 1 17 16 0 9 13 13 Housing* 0 0 0 0 1,615 1,081 1,142 Health Facilities 0 0 0 0 504 510 475 Technical Assistance 1 1 0 0 1 0 2

Notes: For 2002 and 2003 the CSF expenditure includes Cohesion and TENS funding as well as public funding. These are not relevant for 2004. The 2002 NDP expenditure includes a small amount of PPP funding. The table only includes public expenditure by the EU and the State.

* The 2002 figure for investment in housing, for the Economic and Social infrastructure OP and for the total NDP includes investment funded from local authorities’ own resources. For 2003 and 2004 the NDP, ESI OP and housing investment figures do not include investment in housing funded out of Local Authorities’ own resources.

Due to the completion of a number of major water supply and waste-water schemes, the estimated expenditure for this sector in 2003 is significantly down on 2002. We have allocated a similar sum to the sector for 2004 compared to 2003 so that the required investment programme can be completed. As explained above, the proposed allocation for social housing implies a continuation of the high level of activity seen in 2003. If such resources were not available this would call for some further reallocation across all OPs. In the case of health, some reduction is recommended compared to 2003. This reflects concerns about the effective utilisation of the existing stock of beds and concerns that, even when the stock of beds is increased, there will not be current resources to use them. Future investment should go together with commitments of current funding that will see the new investment fully utilised. The NDP funding for technical assistance is also increased, albeit at a modest level.

The fact that we have not recommended higher allocations for some key Measures reflects concerns with the ability to deliver a major increase in investment efficiently and on time. In the case of the roads and urban transport, there is no doubt that they have a high Priority as the current inadequate provision of the stock of infrastructure represents a serious economic bottleneck. Similarly the importance of tackling the shortage of social housing is important from the point of view of social inclusion. However, there are concerns about the capacity of the building and construction sector to deliver increased output without inflationary consequences, notwithstanding the recent moderation in overall construction inflation. If it could be shown that these problems were being dealt with, then a more rapid rollout of infrastructure

that has a continuing high Priority would be justified. The roads, public transport, environmental infrastructure, sustainable energy and technical assistance priorities have been CSF co-financed, while the housing and health priorities have been non co-financed. For the remainder of the ESI OP we recommend no further CSF funding for sustainable energy. CSF funding should be continued in respect of national roads, public transport and environmental infrastructure, areas where the investment is most productive or where the pattern of investment is driven by EU regulation and where there should be an adequate number of projects having a high probability of completion on time.

ROADS

This measure is part funded by the CSF and our recommendations apply to both the co-financed (CSF) and the non co-financed (NDP) elements.

Investment in roads is likely to produce a high rate of return to the economy. As such it is accorded a high Priority. The progress to date, albeit at a rather high cost, will significantly enhance the growth potential of the economy over the coming years. The continuing high rate of investment recommended in this evaluation should produce further significant benefits. As the roads system begins to connect up these benefits could be enhanced.

While according such investment a high Priority, there are concerns about value for money. Failure to tackle such concerns will see less roads being built with the budget allocated and will delay the completion of the very onerous programme of infrastructural investment. These concerns take two forms: first, there is a concern that the cost of building the roads is too high; second there is a concern that the level of service, and hence cost, provided for may be excessive relative to prospective demand. Where the level of service (LoS) chosen is unduly generous for likely traffic needs, this will raise costs and result in a delay in tackling bottlenecks elsewhere in the road system. The welfare loss from such delays would, of course, be significant.

The five main routes connecting Dublin to Belfast (N1), Galway (N6/N4), Limerick (N7), Cork (N8/N7), and Waterford (N9/N7) are designated in the National Development Plan and in the ESI OP as key infrastructures. They are to be built, throughout their length, to a standard described as four-lane motorway or four-lane ‘high-quality dual carriageway’. It is our understanding that the concept of high-quality dual carriageway envisaged would have significant amounts of grade separation. In rural locations, it is our belief that the operating capacities of four-lane dual carriageways with significant grade separation will not differ materially from the capacity of a four-lane conventional motorway. There will tend to be limited cost differences too.

At level of service mid-D (Table 6.11), postulated as the replacement trigger in the Road Needs Study (RNS), a four-lane motorway in rural conditions offers capacity of 55,500 Annual

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL INFRASTRUCTURE OP 131

Average Daily Traffic (AADT). The M50 around Dublin is mostly four-lane, and currently carries volumes, in suburban mode of course, well in excess of 55,500 throughout its length. Estimated capacities for the various road types as per the Road Needs Study are shown in the Table 6.11.

Table 6.11: Capacity in AADT by Road Type According to the Road Needs Study

Road Type Capacity in AADT at Level of Service C D Undivided Two-Lane 2x(3.75+3.0)m. 6,500 11,600 Wide Two-Lane 2x(5.0+2.5)m. 7,700 13,800

Dual Carriageway Standard 2x(7.5+3.0)m.

34,600 44,100

Motorway 2x(7.5+3.0)m. 43,500 55,500

The volumes of traffic currently carried on two of the major inter-urbans, the N9 connecting the N7 junction near Kilcullen in Co. Kildare to Waterford city, and the N8 connecting Portlaoise (and Dublin also via the N7) to Cork city, had the following traffic pattern in 2001, the last year for which final data are available on the National Roads Authority (NRA) website, Table 6.12.

Table 6.12: Traffic on the N8 and N9, 2001

N9 Kilcullen to Waterford

N8 Cork to Portlaoise

Traffic Volume Range Kilometres of Route Kilometres of Route

Less than 5,000 25.90 Nil

5 to 10,000 25.17 80.08 10 to 15,000 64.86 68.91 Over 15,000 0.52 7.37 Total Length 116.45 166.36

Approximately 26 kms of the N9 had volume below 5,000 AADT in 2001. If the road proposed for these sections is motorway (or ‘high quality’ dual carriageway of equivalent capacity) able to accommodate 55,500 at the replacement trigger of LoS D, capacity is being provided equal to (at least) 11 times current volume. For such a section, even traffic growth at 4 per cent per annum indefinitely, higher than envisaged in the Needs Study or in any of the other long-range projections, would take 50, 60 or more years to approach the replacement trigger Level of Service. It is clear that adequate levels of service, for the foreseeable future, can be achieved for these sections using a lower road type specification. This conclusion is not altered if LoS C is deployed instead of LoS D. Almost half of the route length is carrying traffic below 10,000 AADT, and virtually none is above 15,000. The road Needs Study, not surprisingly, did not recommend motorway on this alignment,

even in a sensitivity analysis with traffic 20 per cent above the base case.

Roads with capacity of 55,500, or anywhere near it, appear to be a significant over-design for the numerous lightly-trafficked sections of the N8 and N9. For the Mullinavat section, for example, even a Wide Two-Lane road would offer above LoS D for 40 years at 3 per

cent compound traffic growth. The Road Needs Study did not recommend motorway, or even dual carriageway, for the sections in question, and no economic analysis has been offered to our knowledge to justify the design inflation which appears to have occurred.

This apparent over-design is compounded to the degree that portions of these routes are being considered for tolling. Tolling will divert some of the traffic, low to begin with, and the costs of excess capacity incurred as a result of road-type over-specification will be exacerbated.

We have discussed these issues in the context of two routes. They arise also on other routes, generally on National Primary routes outside Leinster.

Recommendation: All sections of the national primary network, excluding only those where binding contractual commitments have been entered into, should be scaled back to the

Needs Study recommended road type, unless a persuasive

cost/benefit analysis, justifying the enhanced design, is available. The resources released should be used to prioritise schemes that will contribute to the objectives of the National Spatial Strategy.

Finally, responsibility for National Secondary roads now resides in the Department of Transport, with responsibility for regional and county roads remaining with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. It raises the question of whether regional routes will do better than some national secondaries, given the natural and understandable focus of the NRA on national primaries. There should be some informal blurring of the distinction between secondaries and regionals, in order to ensure that prioritisation is driven by pavement condition, cost of improvement, and traffic, and not inadvertently by quirks in the road classification scheme, which is arbitrary of its nature.

Finally, the Dublin Port Tunnel is a major project proceeding to completion. There have been cost increases and delay, a feature of major urban road projects around the world. The costs of disruption during construction are a major element in the economic as distinct from financial cost of these investments, and it is not clear that adequate account was taken of this cost component in the case of the Dublin Port Tunnel. A chronology of this project is given in DKM, 2003a.