No More Toll Booths

The Good: The much hated toll booths on the M50 Westlink are to be removed and replaced by barrier free tolling.

The Bad: It wont be done until sometime in 2008.

The Ugly: National Toll Roads will be compensated because of it owns the monopoly on tolls on the Westlink. Apparently that compensation in set based on the income from the previous years tolls, so by moving the closure date to 2008 instead of now they get the benefit of 2 years of toll rate increases and increases in traffic thereby increasing the compensation.

Update: 2nd Feb 2005: Watching Oireachtas Report, apparently the amount paid to NTR could be as much as 600 million and they will maintain rights on a 3.2 mile strip of the M50 for 15 years so the government will have to go to them for permission if they want to upgrade or alter the M50. Bloody hell.