- Chronic misspending on proposed new motorways is based inaccurate NRA data

- As families shed cars a research-based public transport investment programme is desperately needed

- Planned motorways will become ‘ghost roads’ as oil price rises and traffic falls further

An Taisce is calling on the National Roads Authority to stop proposing new motorways using false data showing never-ending traffic growth.

Information used by the National Roads Authority to promote current motorway schemes pretends that traffic is growing when it’s actually falling.

Using a traffic growth multiplier which dates back to August 2003, the NRA assumes traffic grows by 2 to 3 per cent year after year. Even though this projection has proven widely inaccurate, the NRA continues to use it to defend plans for approximately 850 km of new motorway.

Yet the NRA’s own network of automatic roadside counters shows that traffic has fallen 7 per cent over the last two years; this downward trend is accelerating, with a 4.3 per cent drop in the last 12 months compounding a 2.6 per cent fall the previous year.

Documentation produced by the NRA to promote road schemes is failing to acknowledge the 7 per cent fall over the last two years. Examples here include proposed motorway or dual carriageway schemes across South Wexford, at Ballyvourney, from Bohola to Ballina, Blarney to Patrickswell, Oilgate to Rosslare, and Clontribret to Moybridge.

By not admitting the fall in traffic over the last two years – 7 per cent averaged out across the country – the NRA is, in effect, data tampering to advance motorway proposals.

Over the course of last year 22,000 households shed at least one car, according to figures for the number of vehicles taxed at the end of 2009.

While the NRA continues to promote new motorway, the price of oil is rising and is expected to continue doing so, with some commentators predicting sudden price surges in coming years. Not alone is the NRA ignoring the data showing falling traffic, it also seems to have cocked a determined blind eye to reports by the International Energy Agency, Macquarie, LIoyds, McKinsey Consultants, the UK Energy Research Council, the UK Industry Task Force on Peak Oil and Energy Security, US Department of Energy and the Saudi Oil Ministry that the era of cheap oil is over and that unprecedented economic, social, and political costs are likely to accompany future oil price increases.

Oil price rise carries with it demand for increased public transport, but instead of investing in buses and trains that will fill up, Ireland is miss-spending on motorways that will empty out. This wrongheaded policy is directly attributable to the NRA’s use of traffic growth projections which the Authority must know are wrong.

The NRA’s proposals for 850 km of additional motorway is a charter for gross misspending. What Ireland needs is a proper national public transport plan, not legacy projects left over from a boom time. In the revised capital spending programme published at the end of July, transport outlay is dominated by one project (metro north) of use to comparatively very few people compared to the enormous debt burden

(€6bn) to be carried by all taxpayers. Golden-spoon metro and motorway projects dating from an era of frenzy cannot – and will not – tackle the challenge of rising fuel cost.

As oil becomes a comparatively greater cost burden, more people will be looking to buses, trains and share cars and the volume of traffic on the roads will fall even further.

The prospect of building ‘ghost roads’ based on false NRA projections is very real as time nears to sign contracts on a number of routes.

Motorway/dual carriageway the NRA is attempting to justify based on inaccurate data include:

• Oilgate to Rosslare
• South Wexford motorway
• Blarney to Patrickswell
• Tuam to Gort
• Clontribret to Moybridge
• Ballyvourney motorway
• Abbeyfeale to Clonshire, and
• Kilmeaden to Midleton
• Ashbourne to Ardee
• Tuam to Letterkenny

Projections from the US show that total vehicle distance travelled may contract sharply in coming years, up to 41 per cent by 2030 according to one assessment (Bomford 2010). We cannot easily predict whether or what extent this may be mirrored in Ireland.

But we do know that as driving declines the number of people in need of public transport rises with motorways becoming redundant, and ultimately closed – unless taxpayers are forced to shoulder the burden of maintaining the existing national network and, on top of that, a parallel network of motorways.

“When will the NRA stop using false projections to make it appear more motorways are needed?” asks An Taisce.

The NRA is proposing to borrow close to €9 billion to build its 850 km of proposed motorways.  This would place a further mountain of debt upon already crippled taxpayers, compounding stress already faced by those that continue to have work.

Earlier this year the planning appeals board, An Bord Pleanála, pointed to the over-scaled nature of NRA proposals. In February it refused a Mayo scheme for 19km of dual carriageway from Bohola to Ballina because the NRA failed to justify the project on traffic grounds. The board called instead for a “more modest” proposal.

Noticing the very high number of empty homes, An Taisce was among the first to call for the ending of special tax breaks in the Upper Shannon region. At the time Government didn’t listen and didn’t act, resulting in the very high proportion of ‘ghost estates’ in the area.

This time let’s hope Government acts on time.

Attribution:

James Nix, 086 8394129

Ian Lumley, 01 7077064

Notes for the editor:

• Traffic count data is from NRA monitors located right across national roads including motorways.
• Michael Bomford’s study on US data is available via http://organic.kysu.edu/KY-VMT-Projections.pdf
• In its Annual Report for 2009 and Programme for 2010 the NRA stated it intended building 850 km of additional motorway. While funding has been suspended for some sections, the NRA continues to place borrowings upon taxpayers just to plan suspended projects.
• The Irish Bulletin of Vehicle and Driver statistics shows 1,924,281 cars were taxed at the end of 2008 but that this fell to 1,902,429 at the end of 2009; available via www.transport.ie
• The Hirsch Report commissioned by the US Department of Energy in 2005 states: “The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.”