The pace of the national road-building programme is to increase over the coming years, the Minister for Transport, Mr Seamus Brennan, said today.
Mr Brennan announced that on-site construction will begin on seven major road projects in 2003 at a cost of €150 million this year and an estimated cost of €1.1 billion on completion. No new projects started construction in 2002.
He said that road-building would increase when expensive projects such as the Dublin Port Tunnel and the South Eastern Motorway were completed, freeing up resources for other projects.
The seven projects to start construction this year are: Dundalk Western By-Pass, Carrickmacross By-Pass, Kilcock/Kinnegad, Monasterevin By-Pass, Naas Road (Kingswood interchange), Cashel By-Pass and Waterford City By-Pass.
The Kilcock/Kinnegad By-Pass is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) scheme and will operate as a toll road when completed. There are 10 PPP schemes, and Mr Brennan did not rule out tolls operating on all of them.
However, he did say that tolling "was under constant review by the Government" and that he would like to see the introduction of electronic tolling to help the flow of traffic through the toll booths.
The Minister said 11 major projects would be completed this year including the M1 Drogheda By-Pass and the Cloghran/Balbriggan road, the N8 Watergrasshill By-Pass in Cork, and the N5 Strokestown/Longford road.
In the West, the only projects under construction in 2003 are the N18 Hurlers Cross and N19 Shannon project, the N7 Parkway project - both to open this year - and the N7 Limerick Southern ring road which will open in 2004.
An allocation of funding for preparatory works has been given for the Sligo Inner Relief Road, the Ennis By-Pass and Loughrea By-Pass to get them under construction as soon as possible.