'There isn't a quick fix solution for the M50', O'Brien says
Vivienne Clarke
Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien has said that "there isn’t a quick fix solution for the M50".
The route was the “busiest road in Ireland,” he told RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show.
Mr O’Brien said a lot of work had been done on improving the M50 – the removal of toll barriers, more lanes, and changes to access and egress lanes.
“But it's carrying 150,000 cars a day. And we've seen a continued increase in car numbers as well. And we do have an infrastructural deficit, and that's why the National Development Plan is so important.”
Transport Infrastructure Ireland had invested in the technology for monitoring and surveillance and response times for accidents and incidents, he added.
“That said, with all of that, it can still be a very tiresome and in many respects frustrating journey depending on what time you hit it.
“What we need to do is, we need to invest in our roads, and we're going to do that and we're going to continue to do that at pace.
"The other piece is public transport offerings. So where we're seeing people respond is like in 2024, we'd over 340 million public transport journeys. That was the highest ever, over a million a day. That's increasing again.
“Provisional figures show me that that'll increase by about 10 percent this year. So a lot of people, where there are alternatives, will use public transport because it's affordable. It's mainly reliable.
"The punctuality rates are decent, but we need to keep working on that. So that's why in the NDP, we're investing so heavily in public transport.
“We obviously have to renew our roads and maintain them. So there's the investment in that also. But really, it is about providing offerings. I would like to see more park and rides as well.
"I think that's something we haven't done too well as a country, too. And if you look at the M7, M4, there's congestion there as well in parts and at particular times of the day.
"But public transport is going to be key to this, and people do respond to it and do use public transport when it's available, but we need to improve it further.”
The Minister said there was no quick fix for the M50, “other than the investment which we're putting in between now and the end of this decade alone, of just short of €25 billion in transport projects.
“So one in every four euro being invested in the NDP needs to be delivered because every additional public transport route, every additional bus, train, Luas get metro built as well and get that started. They're really critical to our overall transport network that's there. People have seen where improvements happen.”
