M50 tolling

The M50 began life many, many, many years ago as an idea to relieve the city centre from through traffic. In typical Irish sty;e, there first had to be a long-winded process of consultation and public enquiries and planning applications and objections and protests before anything began to happen. Then it took an awfully long time to build, and by the time it was complete it was already unable to cope with the volume of traffic which was using it. In fairness, all the planning and construction happened before the Celtic Tiger began to roar, and the economic climate of the time wasn't up to building for the future. So the M50 was built with only two lanes in each direction, and it degenerated into a slow-moving car park.

A major (billion euro) project is under way to upgrade the M50 to three lanes in both direction, and this is scheduled for completion in 2010. Apart from too few laneways, a huge problem with using the M50 has been the toll booths which caused major backups. Tolling was introduced to cover the cost of construction of the Westlink bridge over the river Liffey, a project which was largely funded by private money. Costs have been well met many years ago, and it's taken a long time and an extended series of protracted negotiations to buy out the original investors and turn it over to the National Roads Authority. Finally, we've reached the stage where the barriers are being removed and barrier-free tolling is coming into operation on 30th August.

This is the information leaflet which has been delivered to households. I've been fortunate enough not to need to use the MM50 very often, and I have only seldom had to cross the toll bridge, but even so I've felt the effects of the delays the barriers caused, so I'm all in favour of this new system. Unfortunately, I think they've made a mess of the toll charges. In their 'wisdom', the NRA have opted for a 3-tier system of charges, with holders of electronic tags paying the least and unfortunates who are unregistered being subject to a number-plate scan and hefty penalties for non-payment of the highest-charged toll within 24 hours of passing through the tolled point.

It'll be interesting to see how it all works out. I'll make a point of taking a trip as son as the system into effect, just to see how smoothly it all works. I've had an electronic tag for a good few years now, so I qualify for the lowest charge.