Friday 28 May 2010

M8 Dublin to Cork motorway opens today

So the final motorway section of the Dublin-Cork motorway is opening today, four months ahead of schedule.  Not that I've plans to go to Cork anytime soon (where exactly is it, anyway?), but it makes sense to have all our major cities/towns joined up by good, safe roads - not only to shorten journey times, but to "saeve liiiives".  

The N7 to Limerick won't be complete until later this year, it seems, but they mentioned on Morning Ireland that it will bypass a notorious stretch of road between Mountrath and Borris-in-Ossary that has seen 30 road deaths alone. 

By monitoring statistics in regions like this over the coming years we will confirm that better roads equal fewer road deaths - regardless of the fact that Go Safe, the private speed camera consortium, will be let off the leash in the meantime to raise funds for speedo infringements (it needs to generate €16 million a year in fines to cover costs) and claim the credit for what was happening anyway.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

sooooh totally awsome GM what an achievment and only in oirland you say,now there is a road to cork from dublin or is it from cork to dublin either way for those millions of dubs who soooh wanted to visit the real capital of oirland this is wonderfull news, the natives have little or no english but their generosity and graciousness shines through kinda like limerick but larger, back in the 1800s the furbollicks barred all jackeen dubs from coming south of the liffey refined cork people didnt like the marauding hen parties of the day from dub with their puking and bad language the ban was lifted a hundred years later but the dubs didnt notice so all roads to cork became over grown and closed off and now such a happy ending what a great little nation up cork BH

Ponyboy Vroooooooom said...

I agree with you 100% GM (oh and BTW v funny post Mr Hills) about the safety aspect of Big Fuck Off motorways but I hate them with a vengeance and I'll always try to find smaller roads to travel on unless of course....Anyway last time I was in the land of saints and scholars I took the usual road out of Dublin heading for the west via palmerstown etc. I got down to somewhere near Moate on what I thought was a modern well maintained multi lane road, in fact just the type of infrastructure you would expect to find in a (then) prosperous modern european country. Ah but then the sting in the leprachauns tail - a toll booth. A TOLL BOOTH on the main Dublin Galway road - Are you kidding!!!!. The response to that was that it was a cheap toll by european standards and basically shut up and pay up and fuck off out of my sight. Which I did. I can't believe I'm still so annoyed about this - Jesus I've been on heaps of toll roads before and since but there was something sneaky about this particular one - No mention of it being a toll road when I got on to it in Dub. No signage like you get in france offering you alternative routes if you're a tightarse or if, like me you're a tightarse and you just prefer to cruise through the countryside at a more leisurely pace - I think it's the bloody cheek of it all. Didn't my rental car include a charge which i would have been charged towards its road tax and oughtn't that have gone into the roads via the Dept of BFO Motorways along with all your road tax charges. I've really got to get over this. Next thing you guys will be getting slugged for a congestion tax.

Anonymous said...

GM its tolled! Yep believe it or not ittts tolled.. Not happy to screw motor/road tax, vrt, vat, duties, excessively taxed petrol etc, out of the unsuspecting Irish motorist, now your paying an additional charge for the privilege. You and me already paid for this road. Or was that the Germans? Ouuuh GM and no service stations, suppose thats a good thing, just think the toll could have been double.

Dakota

The Gombeen Man said...

@BH. I'm laughing here. Thanks for bringing that little-known fact from our Great Little Nation's history to us!

@Ponyboy and Dakota. That's right, it's tolled. As if we don't pay enough motor-derived taxes as it is.

And then we've the M50. They build a whole motorway out of public money then leave the business of building a relatively crappy bridge over the Liffey to a private concern. Sounds a bit rotten, doesn't it?