Exit 14 on M1 near Castlebellingham, Co. Louth.
I may not do it here, but in conversation with others I often berate the small-country mentality that Ireland has. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of wonderful things about this great nation. But, when it comes to planning, it is a country of many contradictions that are good and bad. Coming from a non-political point of view and purely pro-contemporary planning position, Ireland seems to be moving generally in the right direction on some periphery planning and environmental-related issues. These include water charges, property taxes, and expanding tolls to motorways across the island. However, there are some critically mistaken methods and rationale for doing so and I will discuss them below. [In an effort for full disclosure, there was discussion on these topics in our MPlan class today, but the issues have been on my mind for sometime. So, this is not entirely in response to today's events.]
Water Charges
Most countries, including my home country, have water charges. Almost universally these are based upon usage of water. Ireland, however, is proposing a flat rate for water usage. I originally thought it would be based upon actual usage, but the government merely want to recoup cost of providing the service rather than targeting how much of a service that they wish or must provide. In essence, the rationale is entirely budgetary and not remotely based upon the fact that it is a limited resource that may not be able to be provided at current rates of usage. In Dublin there has been serious discussion about accessing water all the way from County Roscommon (over halfway across the country). If that reminds you of New York City or Los Angeles, then you know how much of a problem that this is. Already, Dublin has water loss of three-quarters in piping before it even makes it to the door. The environmental ramifications are huge and the burden placed on the infrastructural system is huge. It’s no wonder that the Dáil Éireann wish to charge for water. But, they going about it completely the wrong way because it is likely not to induce conservation of water efforts since there is zero interest once you’ve paid the universal nominal rate to have access to water.
Some people on the topic in Ireland come from the perspective that water is in an inherent human right. Thinking about it in these terms is an interesting exercise. I’ve even sort of come around to the perspective that maybe each household should be allotted a certain “water right” or monthly usage free of charge. After this determined allotment of water, a charge is placed on a per litre rate for usage. Mainly, the rationale is a compromise between a human right to water, the environmental concern of water usage, and the public burden of infrastructure. Surly this is unlikely to fly in the United States, but I wonder if it could be successfully implemented in Ireland and if it would be as effective if not more. Nevertheless, the Dáil is likely not to do either my proposed compromise on water usage or the metered usage rates. The only problem that the government will solve is the high costs of providing water services, not the more pressing factors that I have outlined.
Property Tax
The Dáil is also to look at introducing a property tax. In the 1970s, Ireland repealed a property tax, which has been largely recognised as a disaster. Nevertheless, people have become accustomed to not paying tax on a property aside from the Stamp Duty upon purchase of it. A student in class referred tl the idea of introducing a property tax as “highway robbery”. I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it that way before. In fact, I don’t even know any conservatives in the United States that have called it that. I’ve certainly heard calls for rejecting new or increased property taxes, but never the full abolition of it or that it is a con-job. From a planning perspective, property taxes are very important. Not only do they help sustain and provide public services, they encourage people with developable properties to develop rather than lay fallow. It also helps to lock-in value on a property and discourages speculative accumulation of property. Call it social engineering if you like.
In any case, the method that Ireland is likely to choose is a simple land value tax, which excludes the assessed value of a house or the actual property. Instead, the Dáil may opt for a flat-rate tax on the size of a property. This is indeed a very easy method of introducing a property tax, but it completely neglects the real value of the property and the necessary services that should be provided in a local area. Does it make sense to charge the same rate for a rural area as it does to tax in an urban area? From my point of view, it doesn’t make much sense at all. Under this scenario, rural areas will be disproportionately taxed for the services that they receive whilst urban areas will be taxed effectively less and receive more benefits on the backs of rural areas. In other words, it’s inequitable. Clearly, pure equity is impossible, but this is highly inequitable. I suppose someone could make an argument for the above scheme. However, I’m am not of the mind that rural areas or farmland should be taxed at the same rate as towns, cities, and urban-like areas. Or, that even all urban areas should be equally taxed. It may very well be the case that two property tax rates will be created to give rural areas a break since they require far fewer services than urban areas, but I’m not privy to this knowledge if it is the case.
Nevertheless, to labour my point, I would like to illustrate using a theoretical example of a town equal in size to the surrounding rural area: under a normal and perfect property tax scheme, the town of 5,000 should have 5 Gardaí and the surrounding rural area of 1,000 people should have 1 Garda. Under a flat rate property size tax scheme, the town should 2.5 Gardaí and the surrounding rural area should also have 2.5 Gardaí. Of course, the Dáil is not likely to provide services in either of the illustrated ways. Instead, either a higher burden will be placed on rural areas with lower services and disproportionately provide the services in urban areas, or there will be some sort of reduction on farmland.
I am also not yet privy on the details of where the taxes will go. But, I can only hope that they go with the local authorities instead of the state. I’m not sure that it makes rational sense to plug deficits and state services with monies that should be going directly back to the areas where they came from. That is why there are already an income tax and value added tax. In any case, the proposal will achieve a few positive planning points. It will reduce property speculation, encourage economical use of property, and bolster public services (or in the interim plug the hole in them). But, this proposal will not be targeted in a holistic way as it is entirely focused on quick money. So, I feel that this is sort of a halfway stepping stone to achieving a truly rational property taxing system.
Just to add note, there is already a nominal tax on second homes. That’s a good start, but it’s so minimal that it is hardly encouraging people to have one residence, time-share, holiday home rent, or more efficiently use the second home.
Tolling
Just out today on the Irish Independent is news that the National Roads Authority (NRA or An tÚdarás um Bóithre Náisiúnta) are to toll motorways across the country, including Galway, Kildare, Wicklow, Jack Lynch Tunnel in Cork, lesser areas in the country, as well as additional tolls on Dublin’s M50 outer ring road. Coming from a contemporary planner’s perspective, this can only be hailed as good. Of course, that doesn’t mean there isn’t grumbling amongst many others that will be affected by new tolls. There are already tolls on motorways throughout the country. But, these tolls have been limited to newer projects and stretches of motorway built by private companies on behalf of the state. The latter group has contractual rights to receive user fees (tolls) for 30 years on their stretch of the roads. Those are known generally as public private partnerships (PPPs). For those companies, they reap huge profits off of the roads that they hold these rights and none of benefits, except use, are provided to the public who authorised the construction of these roads. The state owns a few of the toll roads. Historically, the state subsidised construction of motorways through the NRA. Roads built under those schemes are, in essence, freeways (or, for the Irish reader, free motorways).
The issue of motorways being free is surly a huge contention because with this NRA statement it means road building subsidised by the state is now going to be retroactively tolled. I can’t say that the controversy that it will create is surprising as it is nearly as controversial in Washington State, but it is gradually becoming more acceptable to the public. It is hard to turn the tables and say what has been right in the past is now only a privilege by fee. In one sense, it is an earth-shattering change, but at the same time, the public roads are held by the public and there is a continuous maintenance cost there so charging for the service isn’t really different than other services for which the state charges. Arguing this point does temper the discussion, but there are also a series of other issues here. The rationale for tolls has mainly come about because of the government’s significant deficit. Do you see a theme here? Good in the planning context, but implemented for completely the wrong reasoning. Certainly it makes people feel ripped off and so maybe “highway robbery” is an appropriate phrase given the context. But, under normal circumstances, the rationale would be markedly different. Mainly, these would be social engineering exercises.
Tolling has a series of possible benefits if utilised properly: it prices the cost of using the public rights-of-way, can be variable to control demand for the service at a given time, reduces congestion, makes alternative modes of transport more viable, subsidise more efficient modes of transport, eliminates the need to expand motorways, reduces suburbanisation and leapfrog development, lower emissions, protection of rural areas and way of life, and/or eliminates trips altogether. What most people fail to recognise is that motorways actually induce demand (known unsurprisingly as ‘induced demand‘) for roadway usage. While adding a lane of traffic to a two-lane limited access roadway may increase capacity by 25% (not the 33% you’d expect and markedly proportionally less for each additional lane), it is only a temporary congestion measure. Transport planners know that the fully capacity will surly be met within 20 years, but far more often this is met in 7 years after construction. Expansion becomes prohibitively expensive, particularly in urban areas, and maintenance outlays increase. Add to this the fact that it encourages suburbanisation, leapfrog and ribbon development, and kills villages and towns make it a terrible concoction. There is indeed a rationale for motorways, but excessive construction and density of them renders them effectively useless where equal monies can be spent on better solutions for transport and infrastructure. It is for this reason why most planners ravenously support the implementation of tolls.
The plan to toll the M50 is somewhat reminiscent of the Puget Sound Regional Council’s plan to toll Interstate 5 in Seattle and the major limited access roads throughout the Puget Sound region. I particularly applaud this move, but I wonder why the NRA left out the M1 to Fingal, Meath, and Louth since it is a commuter corridor to Dublin whilst the NRA explicitly is targeting Wicklow and Kildare. What would be a particularly interesting move in the future would be to toll high-quality dual carriages such as the ones that exist in Cork. But, what the Dublin tolling plan seems to be trying to achieve is preventing people from not paying the €3 toll at the Westlink Bridge by parsing it out at three tolling areas. Not bad, but the move should be more ambitious to more adequate target usage by increasing the total fare should someone enter toward Swords on the M50 and exit near Shankill to the M11 (N11). If it’s up to $1.50 for the High Occupancy Toll lanes on SR-167 in Washington State for 4 miles, why not something more commensurate to that in Dublin? Both are urban limited access roads, only the Dublin one has higher volumes and is surrounded by greater density. Surly it makes sense to be at least comparable.
I suppose the purpose of this post is to say that I’m sceptical about both the motive of these initiatives and the residual, desired planning benefits that would be an outcome from implementation of them. I can only hope that these are stepping stones. I’m also not deluded enough to believe that every planner or layman will agree with me on these points, but I do hope that they will stir discussion and thoughts on the topics.
