HEAVY goods vehicles and buses should be toll free. That’s the view of Fine Gael local election candidate for City North, Richard Delaney, who believes such vehicles are necessary to keep distribution chains and passenger transport systems running.
“The current charges of €5.70 for a rigid lorry, €7.30 for an articulated lorry, and €4 for a bus is untenable, and I can vouch for this as a bus operator,” he said.
“If we are serious about reducing our city’s congestion and carbon emissions, this move is necessary and would have a huge impact.”
The €600million Limerick Tunnel, opened for public use on July 27, 2010, according to Mr Delaney, is being avoided by up to 15,000 large trucks every month, who instead opt to travel through the city centre.
A pilot project, he says, found that there was a 70 per cent increase in the number of trucks using the Limerick Tunnel last November when tolls for trucks were lifted for the month.
The tunnel is designed to handle around 40,000 vehicles per day, he claims, but the current figure is closer to 24,500.
“As we can see from these figures, there is still plenty of capacity there to take more vehicles off our congested local roads and through the tunnel.”
He also called for a reduction in charges for those using the tunnel multiple times a day “commuting to work or conveying their families to schools and colleges”.
He says the current €2.30 each-way charge should be reduced to the original opening fee in 2010 of €1.80 and fixed for a number of years.
