Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar has ruled out the introduction of multipoint tolling on the M50 despite a warning that traffic congestion on Dublin’s orbital motorway would be “commonplace” within 10 years without it.
“I have no plans to introduce any new tolling points while I am in office as Minister for Transport,” he said, adding that a report by the National Roads Authority and the four Dublin local authorities “does not reflect Government or Department of Transport policy”.
In that context, Mr Varadkar was surprised at the leaking of the NRA report – which was not due to be published until September – and he expressed serious concerns that implementation of multipoint tolling on the M50 would drive traffic into residential areas.
“The report was done by the NRA as a planning condition [for the €1 billion M50 upgrade], so it’s a report they had to do. Essentially, it tries to look ahead and see how we will deal with congestion when it re-emerges on the M50. But it is just a report.
“My own department is not fully satisfied with it at the moment. We have some concerns about the methodology. We don’t think that serious congestion will return on the M50 in 2015.”
The cost to motorists of using the M50 would double from €1.30 to €2.60 per car if tolling was introduced at four or five points along the route, says the report compiled by consultant engineers Roughan O’Donovan and the AECOM Alliance.
It says the M50 is “the busiest road in the country” with some 100,000 vehicles using many sections of it every day. The motorway was originally envisaged as a bypass of Dublin but is now an “orbital distributor” for the city’s traffic.
The report recalls that An Bord Pleanála approved plans in 2005 to widen the M50 and upgrade its interchanges – work that was completed in 2010. However, one of the conditions was that “demand management measures” would have to be considered.
It says multipoint tolling would cut demand on the M50 “although the consequential increases on other roads will require the consideration of some targeted traffic management measures in the final scheme to mitigate these impacts”.
