Tunnel height decision will haunt Brennan

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan has finally quashed hauliers’ hopes of having the height restriction at Dublin Port Tunnel raised to 4.9 metres following discussions with the National Roads Authority and Dublin City Council. We predict it is a decision
that will come back to haunt him.

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan missed the boat

Dublin Port Tunnel will have a height clearance of 4.65 metres when it is finally opened in 2005, much to the annoyance and frustration of the road haulage industry, the Transport Umbrella Group, which operates out of Dublin Port and the Irish Exporters Association. The chairman of the Oireachtais Committee on Transport, Eoin Ryan has also expressed his disappointment at the decision.

While the Minister's decision is disappointing in the extreme it isn't surprising, given the global economic slowdown and the current lack of funding for capital programmes. Just two weeks before Minister Brennan made his controversial decision, Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy openly criticised his counterpart in the Department of Transport.

In summary the Finance Minister told Minister Brennan to get his house in order and to get to grips with spending on the Roads Programme, which is now hopelessly behind time and over budget. With this stark warning ringing in his ears, Minister Brennan had little room for manoeuvre on the Dublin Port Tunnel issue.
The National Roads Authority (NRA) and Dublin City Council (DCC) steadfastly stuck to their guns throughout the entire debate and said there was no justification for increasing the height clearance.

Work continues, but at what cost?

The two bodies insisted that there was no need to change the height of the tunnel as it could accommodate more than 98 per cent of all port traffic.
Tim Brick, the deputy engineer in charge of the project, said there was no economic case for increasing the clearance within the tunnel.

Bound by tight financial constraints, Minister Brennan decided to back the NRA and DCC. "There is absolutely no need to interfere with the height of the tunnel. The maximum clearance height of 4.65 metre will remain, despite protestations from the haulage industry," he commented.

In making the decision to stick with the original design the Minister said he had taken on board a study carried out by the Dublin Port Company, which showed that less than one per cent of trucks using the port, wouldn't fit in the tunnel.

Interestingly, the Minister refused to take a board a contradictory survey of port traffic carried out for the Irish Exporters Association, by the National Institute of Logistics and Transport (NITL).

Dublin Port Tunnel will have a height clearance of just 4.65 metres

This survey concluded that 2.5 per cent of port traffic won't be able to use the tunnel, and by 2013 the figure could rise to 10 per cent. The findings of this survey were discounted by Dublin City Council and the National Roads Authority.

In defence of Minister Brennan, the potential problems at the Dublin Port Tunnel arose during Noel Dempsey's tenure at the Department of the Environment. Had the road haulage industry been consulted on the design of the tunnel, the current debacle could have been avoided.

However, Minister Brennan is culpable for the ludicrous plan to ban so called 'super trucks' -or anything that won't fit in the tunnel - for environmental and safety reasons.
There isn't a single shred of evidence to suggest that 'high cube' trailers represent a road safety risk, and it flies in the face of logic to claim that such a ban would have a positive effect on the environment.

Six years ago EU-funded research found that the use of 'high cube' trailers could reduce vehicle movements in the grocery sector by 15 per cent. Promoting high sided trailers has been official policy at Britain's Department of Transport since 1998. in pushing ahead with the proposed ban, Minister Brennan is disregarding the experiences of our largest trading partner. He is also putting certain sectors of the Irish haulage industry and industry in general at a cost disadvantage.

Successive reports by the Environmental Protection Agency have identified spiralling road transport emissions as the greatest threat to our air quality. As a result of Ireland signing up to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate
Change, a failure to stay within our emission targets will result in penalties from 2008.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, Ireland agreed to cap emissions of carbon dioxides and other greenhouse gases at 13 per cent above 1990 levels. Our rate of increase is currently running at about 25 per cent.
By banning 'high cube' trailers the Minister will actually increase the number of truck movements required to move goods from A to B. Ultimately the ban will also have a negative impact on carbon dioxide emissions.

Originally, the Transport Umbrella Group sought to have the height clearance at the Port Tunnel raised to dual carriageway height. However, they settled on an operational height of 4.9 metres last December.

This would have given an operational clearance 15 cm below the standard, but crucially 25 cm more that the original design. Essentially it would have meant that 'high cube' trailers could have used the Port Tunnel unhindered.

A review of the feasibility and cost of adjusting finished road levels and overhead equipment found that an operational height of 4.9 metres could have been achieved at an additional cost of between £20 and £30 million.
In the scheme of things it was only a drop in the ocean.