Delays to road projects could lead to 77 deaths, Minister warned

Delaying the funding of roads projects could result in 77 deaths and 381 serious injuries, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has been warned.

The Green Party leader was given a briefing document in October of last year prepared by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) which looked at the consequences of delaying or halting funding to major roads projects around the country.

Mr Ryan was warned that the consequences of not building or not improving infrastructure would span across “multiple areas including safety, economic development, regional accessibility, high quality interconnectivity to ports and airports and enabling the reallocation of road space in towns and villages.”

The briefing note detailed a series of roads projects and their current status and analysed the impact of delaying funding by five years on each.

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In total, the TII warned of the potential for 77 fatalities along with 381 seriously injured people where there is a five-year delay in funding.

If there was a failure to fund the N4 Mullingar-to-Longford road, for example, the TII predicted potentially seven deaths and 11 injuries.

Looking at the Cork City Northern Transport Project, it forecast 18 deaths and 252 serious injuries.

The TII also said there could be another six deaths and 37 injuries if the N4 Maynooth-to-Leixlip project is delayed, while four deaths and 11 serious injuries could result from stalling the N24 Cahir-to- Limerick Junction bypass.

“This level of casualty indicates the scale of the problem in leaving legacy roads to perform a transport function without improvement,” the TII warned.

The document, first reported by The Irish Independent, is likely to ramp up tensions between the Green Party and its Coalition colleagues.

Backbenchers from both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been vocal about their frustration around what they see as a delay in providing funding for various roads projects around the country.

The board of the TII held a meeting on October 25th last year where it was decided that the briefing note should be prepared and issued to the Department of Transport, describing the consequences that would flow from any decision to not adequately fund the national new roads programme.

The board said it was “concerned about funding cuts leading to increases in fatalities and serious injuries because of delays to projects and improvements to dangerous sections of national roads.”

Mr Ryan was told that a dual carriageway road, with each direction separated by a vehicle restraint barrier, is four times safer than a single carriageway – and that motorways would come into this category.

A divided road with a vehicle restraint barrier is more than two times safer than a single carriageway road.

Modern single carriageway roads, in turn, are safer than “legacy single carriageway roads” but the “improvement in safety is less than that provided by dividing roads.”

“Accordingly, the New Roads programme would realise safety savings through substantial reductions in collisions.”

The board concluded that progressing new roads projects at a “steady pace”, rather than by “stop-start”, would mean that the overall number of casualties would “substantially reduce”.

“The programme has the potential to reduce the absolute number of casualties by several hundreds.”

Mr Ryan was also told that the State “cannot avoid providing funding allocations” to projects “without significantly adverse consequences. None of the committed projects provides a tenable option for suspending funding in the years 2023 to 2025.”

“Hundreds of millions of euros go into maintenance and restoration on our local, regional and national roads every year,” Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said when asked about predictions that road deaths could increase if funding is not stepped up on his arrival at a summit in Granada on Thursday.

“It’s always the case that any Government agency will always say they need more money and if we don’t give them more money, there’ll be negative consequences. People make their case for more money, and I wouldn’t expect anything different,” he continued.

“I do support more funding for roads. I should be clear on that. But also we need to make sure there’s adequate funding for public transport,” Mr Varadkar said.

“We have a commitment in the programme for Government to make sure that funding for public transport outweighs investment in roads by two to one and that makes sense to me.”