Dublin's Commuter Belt-Really this wide??

base2

These people deserve every misery they force on themselves. They have the options to improve their standard of living. What job is worth commuting 5 hours a day for? They would be better off working in Tesco in some local town.

And its all because people in this country just have to buy a house.

Schuhart

Victor wrote:

Um, when the Prison Service Actually get there.

Indeed, the article is essentially estate agent hype. That's not to say that the issue they are hyping does not exist in some form. But where we're mostly discussing this on the basis of 'down with this sprawl kind of thing', their perspective is more 'charming dormer bunglalow defacing area of outstanding natural beauty ten miles outside Longford town. Features include toilet discharging bodily waste directly into your drinking water supply. Would suit person working in Sandyford Industrial Estate'.

BendiBus

Schuhart wrote:

'charming dormer bunglalow defacing area of outstanding natural beauty ten miles outside Longford town. Features include toilet discharging bodily waste directly into your drinking water supply. Would suit person working in Sandyford Industrial Estate'.

Classic!

orbital83

base2 wrote:

These people deserve every misery they force on themselves. They have the options to improve their standard of living.

That depends on whether you view standard of living as a function of distance from workplace alone.
There are a multitude of other reasons why people may choose to commute:

• family of 2 working adults earning the average industrial wage, with 2 children and renting in Dublin will need to pay away 25-30% of their gross wage in rent and will probably still face at least 30 minutes travel time each way
• if they lived in somewhere like Mullingar a mortgage would probably cost around 15% of gross income and there would be some capital accumulation... property ownership and inheritance culture won't die in Ireland overnight.
• desire to raise children outside Dublin in what is viewed as a safer and cleaner environment with higher "soft" standard of living
• family connections, e.g. parents, relations, spouse living or working in an area outside Dublin so proximity to them is more important than proximity to work

I don't believe it's unreasonable to ask for a service to Enfield after 6.17pm, a train beyond Greystones after 6.35pm, a train to Mullingar after 7pm etc etc etc
There's no hiding the fact that IE's evening longer distance commuter services are dire - and blaming the passenger for wanting a service won't wash.
It wasn't too long ago P11 were heralding commuting as the future of Irish railways. Perhaps now we should consider truncating the lines from Dublin at Maynooth, Malahide, Greystones and Newbridge respectively

MarkoP11

Commuting is going to be the back bone of the rail network, if intercity wakes up the strong city pairs will probably survive. But is commuting 70 odd miles from Longford sustainable? The ideal rail model is high density development supporting a high frequency electric service, a few random bungalows in Mostrim doesn't hack it.

Problem here is a resource allocation problem, a train that is sent to Longford non stop at 6pm is poor usage of resources as it could make a few out and back trips to Maynooth in the same time at crush loading levels making a real impact on congestion, until such time as the Department of Transport wakes up and provides the resources thats the way things are going to be. But the powers that be have put the brakes on and have refused to fund DART to Kildare and Drogheda. Most people don't realise that Irish Rail are about 60 coaches (40 railcars/20 DART) short of requirements, its a long way to Longford and a long long way back

Here is the big question

Do you run
Long distance train from station x limited stops to Dublin ~300 onboard
Short distance train, capacity loading all stops ~1200-1300

Thats the $64,000 question who has priority? Note the crew in Longford went up the wall when the the new timetable meant all calling at all stations, thats what suburban trains do. I don't know what the answer is but someone in authority is going to have to make a descision, what ever happened to the NSS, what on earth is going on with the greedy developers holding on to land

What is needed is a basic service level based on distance or some other reasonable metric, yes Mullingar deserves a service at 9pm not so sure about Wicklow, to be fair the service levels to both have improved a lot in the last 3 years, Bus Eireann can level with the times no problem off peak particularly to Wicklow.

The problem is a planning one, lots of green space out there, its unsustainable to build dormitory towns 50-80miles from the city, the density is not there to support a super high quality service rail service and the distance means the infrastructure and operating costs are high.

Saruman

I only commute 40 miles or so each way! I live in westmeath and i can get to Blanch in anywhere between 45 mins and 1 hour depending on how many slow trucks i get stuck behind (rarely any actual traffic!!). Getting home takes a little longer at 1hour and 15 mins or so. Either way if i lived anywhere on the northside of dublin.. like finglas etc and worked in Sandyford my commute WOULD be longer!!! And there are much further Dublin commute distances. So unless you are lucky and work within walking/cycling distance then a country commute is just as handy! I would Never move further than i am unless i/we had a local job

orbital83

MarkoP11 wrote:

Problem here is a resource allocation problem, a train that is sent to Longford non stop at 6pm is poor usage of resources as it could make a few out and back trips to Maynooth in the same time at crush loading levels making a real impact on congestion

So what do you suggest as an alternative? Truncate the line at Maynooth and let everyone beyond that go to hell? Even a cursory glance at the Maynooth and Sligo timetables will tell you that Maynooth is already the top priority.

This was illustrated the other evening in Connolly when I was sitting on the 17.00 Connolly-Sligo waiting to depart. It was a few minutes after five and the 16.54 Maynooth train serving all stops was also waiting to leave.
Guess which train leaves first? You got it - the slow Maynooth one.

As a result the Sligo train is 20 minutes late by the time it reaches Maynooth.

For more concrete examples:

• The Sligo early bird was culled in Dec 05 to make room for extra Maynooth trains.
• The morning trains from Longford double as Maynooth suburban services adding 20-25 minutes to the journey time
• The first train from Sligo doesn't reach the capital until 9.55am, so that it doesn't interfere with Maynooth trains.
• 5-10 extra minutes of padding have been added to all Sligo services on the Maynooth-Connolly section, so that Maynooth trains can depart shortly before the Sligo train arrives.
• The evening departures to Sligo were moved out of the 5.01-6.59 peak period to make room for extra Maynooth departures.

Your suggestions about green field sites near Dublin are noble and I would love to live in the world you espouse. However some reality checks are needed.

• The average house price in County Dublin has broken the €400,000 barrier.
• House price inflation is at its highest level this millennium, with no sign of abating.
• There is a general shortage of rental property in the capital, especially medium-sized units. These properties, where available, are expensive.
• The landowners are NOT willing to sell the lovely green fields you see around Leixlip.
• The political will does NOT exist to make them sell the land.
• The infrastructure does NOT exist to service large residential developments in the green field sites around Dublin, and will NOT appear overnight with zero funding.
• As a result of the incompetence and corruption of past administrations, and the poor planning decisions that resulted, many people live beyond a 15 mile radius of their workplace. We cannot wave a magic wand - these people need to get to work, and until the underlying problems around Dublin are sorted, a service to get them there must be provided.

orbital83

MarkoP11 wrote:

a train that is sent to Longford non stop at 6pm is poor usage of resources as it could make a few out and back trips to Maynooth in the same time at crush loading levels making a real impact on congestion,.

The train you refer to exists because IE made a hash of the timetable at the end of last year.

For as long as I can remember there was a train leaving Connolly around 6.15pm running non stop to Mullingar and then serving Edgeworthstown and Longford. It took an hour to Mullingar and roughly another 30 mins to Longford. This train was hugely popular, with standees almost every evening.

In Dec 2005 IE decided to replace this with a train calling at all stops which took 30 minutes longer than before.
Unfortunately the people already living in Mullingar and Longford had no magic way to add an extra hour to their day to compensate for this. Pitching a tent in some field in Liffey Valley didn't seem very attractive, because it had already been a cold winter, and indications were it would get colder. In any case the multi millionaire developer who owned the land would serve an eviction order within hours.
Therefore the Westmeath Examiner, Longford Leader and Cullen's office were bombarded and the result was an 18.00 departure taking roughly the same amount of time as the old express train.

Lesson learned - people live beyond Maynooth - withdraw their services at your peril.

bk

John J wrote:

So what do you suggest as an alternative? Truncate the line at Maynooth and let everyone beyond that go to hell?

I guess the solution would be to quad the lines as far as Maynooth and electrify them for DART. That would free up a lot of rolling stock and line capacity for faster and more frequent distant journeys like Longford.

However I wouldn't hold my breadth.

SeanW

Quad tracking the entire line from Connolly to Maynooth would be OTT and very expensive, where even possible. Don't hold your breath.

However I do believe there is scope to add "middle road" passing loops here and there to allow long distance trains to overtake short ones.

That, in practical terms, would have the same effect as full quad tracking because there will be so few long distance trains vis-a-vis a bunch of DARTs.

The whole "Longford Commuter" service needs to be thrown out and rethought again from scratch.

MarkoP11

MarkoP11 wrote:

Here is the big question

Do you run
Long distance train from station x limited stops to Dublin ~300 onboard
Short distance train, capacity loading all stops ~1200-1300

Thats the $64,000 question who has priority? Note the crew in Longford went up the wall when the the new timetable meant all calling at all stations, thats what suburban trains do. I don't know what the answer is but someone in authority is going to have to make a descision

Thats what I said, I don't know the answer but someone is going to have to make a decision and fast. Irish Rail made a right balls up of the Maynooth timetable, they didn't consult with anyone and refused to sell the new timetable to the public until the day it became valid

What is the goal, maximum number of people moved or most people over a long distance, whats the target solve congestion in Dublin or promote long distance commuting through its facilitation. Some long hard thought has to go into this problem

Taking Longford as an example at a crazy 77 miles from Dublin, it has as many trains from Dublin between 5pm and 7pm as Greystones does, five in total. I believe that to be excessive, especailly when you consider only 1 service from Longford arrives in Dublin before 9am, there is an imbalance there, would a 5pm, 6pm and 7pm non stop surfice ? Its approaching dangerous levels of overcrowding elsewhere. Its a lose lose scenario for everyone as there is no solution other than a proper development plan not suspect rezoings and huge green field holdings, undeveloped to force the land price up where it is built on

First question is why are people in Longford commuting to Dublin, it is because they can't afford a house in Dublin, can't get a job in Longford or is it that there are not enough houses in Dublin, noting price is very sensitve to supply, the lack of supply has forced prices up in no small part helped by the banks willingness to give out ever larger loans

dowlingm

Here's a radical suggestion that will never happen - linking regional bus and rail.

In southern Ontario, GO Transit runs trains (locohauled bilevel Bombardiers) and buses.
http://www.gotransit.ca/PUBLIC/aboutgo/fleet.htm#bilevel

Some people for example commute from Barrie to Toronto. Barrie was where "Toronto Live 8" was, about 88km from Toronto downtown. At the moment, there are no trains to Barrie although future re-activation of the line is planned. So at present people go by GO Bus about 38km to Bradford where they board the GO Train for the remaining 50km. A monthly pass from Barrie to Toronto costs C$347 (Eur243) although tax relief will start being available from July.

You could massively contract the commuter belt and train slot demand by using lateral buses to connect non-train served towns and connecting buses to towns that are so far out that they massively waste commuter train resources due to positioning. Rather than buying more trains to fill these gaps you put larger trains (bilevels if poss) on the shorter segments.

If only there was a single company that owned buses and trains... :rolleyes:

orbital83

MarkoP11 wrote:

it has as many trains from Dublin between 5pm and 7pm as Greystones does, five in total. I believe that to be excessive

As stated before, IE hashed up the timetable by putting in the 6.17pm all-stops train to Longford. No-one beyond Enfield wanted to use the train because it was too slow. There was an outcry and Cullen, fearing a FF meltdown in Mullingar/Longford, forced IE to add the 6pm train.
This rendered the 6.17 as pointless beyond Enfield, but the timetables were already out so it couldn't be pulled.

Don't forget people are commuting from places like Thurles and no-one bats an eyelid because a decent InterCity service already exists.
The Sligo InterCity is a sh1t service and "Longford" trains are plugging the gaps in many places.
If someone competent was employed to timetable Connolly trains, I'm sure capacity could be enhanced to a considerable degree while maintaining decent service levels. I could have done a better job myself.
One simple example: schedule the 6.50am train from Sligo to leave at 6.05am instead, and cancel the 7.00am Longford-Pearse.
Sligo/Leitrim/Roscommon people are delighted to have a train getting to Dublin 45 mins earlier.
Longford/Mullingar people are delighted to have 30 minutes shaved off their morning commute.
A driver and four 29000 coaches are freed up.
WIN WIN

Sarsfield

John J wrote:

There was an outcry and Cullen, fearing a FF meltdown in Mullingar/Longford, forced IE to add the 6pm train.

Which is why we may be waiting a long time for an improved public transport system. Many current transport decisions have nothing to do with public transport.

If someone competent was employed to timetable Connolly trains, I'm sure capacity could be enhanced to a considerable degree while maintaining decent service levels. I could have done a better job myself.

As per the earlier quote, Martin Cullen timetables Connolly trains. Why would a competent person bother their hole when their work will be shat on by a politician if it doesn't satisfy their political agenda.

Victor

SeanW wrote:

Quad tracking the entire line from Connolly to Maynooth would be OTT and very expensive, where even possible.

The hard bit is done already as far as Cabra.