Mayor delighted with Limerick Tunnel progress
MAYOR Kevin Kiely has expressed his "delight" with the progress on the €660m Limerick Tunnel / Southern Ring Road following a site visit this week
Such is the rate of progress being made by the 400 workers on the project, the Mayor said, that there was "a good chance the tunnel will be open ahead of schedule".
The scheduled completion date is September or October 2010.
Mayor Kiely was speaking after inspecting the work along with the city's director of transport, Pat Dromey, this Wednesday.
They were given a tour of the site by Tom King, general manager of the Direct Route public-private partnership, project engineers and staff seconded from the Limerick City Council.
All five immersed tunnel sections are in place and it has been possible to walk under the Shannon for some months now.
"It is an impressive sight when you actually go in there. I'm told that the tunnel itself is nearing completion and all they have to do really is put in the electrics and tunnel services.
"We went out and viewed the various overpasses, bridges and roads that are all part of the project and I was very impressed by the whole set-up," Mayor Kiely said.
A spokesman for Direct Route confirmed that mechanical and electrical contractors were being mobilised to start fitting out the tunnel itself from August 8.
The tunnel control building and toll collection systems are shortly to move into the commissioning phase.
Work continues at the viaduct at Cratloe, the Dock Road and Rosbrien interchanges and St Nessan's Road.
Direct Route Limerick publishes quarterly updates on its website, www.limericktunnel.com
Once complete, the project will remove 40,000 cars a day from Limerick. According to Direct Route, the toll will be "equivalent to other toll schemes around the country".
Motorists using the Fermoy bypass are currently charged €1.90.
Mayor Kiely, meanwhile, said the NRA, Direct Route and Limerick city and county councils would all have to agree on whether the tunnel should be named after a Limerick theme or personality, like Cork's Jack Lynch Tunnel.
Mayor Kiely has favoured calling it the Limerick Port Tunnel, former councillor Tim O'Driscoll has suggested naming it after Ted Russell. Richard Harris' name has been thrown in, while in the wake of the pontiff's death in 2005, there was a proposal at city council to christen it the Pope John Paul II Tunnel.
Jari Howard, executive engineer at the Mid-West Road Design Office in Mungret, told the Limerick Leader last year that, as far as the lead authority, the NRA, was concerned, "the project already has a name, the Limerick Tunnel. That's how it's branded and that's how it will be known by them going forward. That is not to say that the tunnel can't be renamed at some point in the future."
"I'm not aware of any discussions to name or rename the tunnel," the Mayor said this week, "but it would have to involve all the stakeholders coming together and reaching an agreement."
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