DART+ (DART Expansion)

L1011

liamog wrote: »

By the looks of it that land has always been reserved for a transport corridor

Rail spur to the Blanchardstown Centre under one of the 1970s/80s plans.

strassenwo!f

Jack Noble wrote: »

If you want to discuss your College Green fantasy, why don't you start a separate thread on it?

Leave this thread for people who want to discuss the plan that exists, has been approved by ABP and which IE and the govt hope to proceed with in 2016.

The plan that exists (and the one approved by ABP) is based on building the interconnector through St. Stephen's Green so that it connects with the LUAS and metro. All the documentation says so. No demand figures which otherwise justify the circuitous southerly loop have been produced.

Now that the LUAS is being continued northward, St. Stephen's Green is not the only place that this connection (with the LUAS) can be made. College Green, for example, would be another.

We have not yet had a chance to view any documentation (such as might exist) that demand is greater to go to St. Stephen's Green than to other locations where the interconnector might interchange with the LUAS. In the absence of this, and in the face of plenty of documentation which shows otherwise, why not build it through a more central location, like College Green?

The situation with the metro is unclear, but it is certainly doubtful if the RPA's proposed station at O'Connell Bridge wil ever be built, even though it was approved without question by ABP. (The RPA proposal is for two four-level stations with the tunnelled platforms running between them under the bridge, effectively an eight-level non-interchange station).

The smoothness with which this bizarre idea was approved by ABP does make one question how closely they actually looked at the figures for the DART Underground project.

The whole St. Stephen's Green plan does appear to be flimsy. The idea that it was the only place where the DART could connect with the LUAS is gone. The idea that it made sense because there's a big park there for construction has also, surely, been rubbished, because of the problems of the park itself (22 acres right beside the station with, effectively, no commuters), and the extra costs involved in building the tunnel to this location.

College Green would be challenging, but at least it wouldn't involve an extra couple of hundred milion for a circuitous route and then result in a station with very inefficient passsenger uptake.

The Jack Noble argument is pretty much that Archbishop Ussher has already decided that the World was created in 4004 BC, so why should we allow any discussion of Mr. Darwin's theory?. Jack, and, surprisingly, a moderator of this discussion board (Aard), have expressed themselves keen to dissuade people from discussing the route of this important underground line.

The ABP acceptance of these routes (metro and interconnector) is full of holes. ABP's acceptance should be no guarantee that these are the routes which will be built in the future. Some indication that it would make more sense, in terms of bodies, to build a longer route, would be very welcome

ianpresley

Incredible obsession for strassenwolf digging himself into a hole deeper than the station box at STN.
The reason there will be no UG station at College Green is the immense engineering challenges since the foundations of buildings in that locality are very shallow, especially Trinity College and it is virtually certain that PP would be impossible to obtain let alone the costs involved.

AngryLips

I wish a station was planned for the junction at Islandbridge as part of this project. There is a large gap between the stop at Inchicore and the stop at Heuston. I don't think any other stretch of the existing Dart line has such a large distance between stops so close to the city centre.

strassenwo!f

ianpresley wrote: »

Incredible obsession for strassenwolf digging himself into a hole deeper than the station box at STN.

Welcome to the board, Ian.

If we're talking about deep station boxes, you might be interested in the RPA plans for the metro at O'Connell Bridge. Two four-level station boxes at one location, linked by an expensive tunnel section under the river. All given approval by ABP, without a whimper.

ianpresley wrote: »

The reason there will be no UG station at College Green is the immense engineering challenges since the foundations of buildings in that locality are very shallow, especially Trinity College and it is virtually certain that PP would be impossible to obtain let alone the costs involved.

Well are these challenges immense? The current plans for the metro go under the Bank of Ireland's nice building in College Green, without ABP having any problem.

There would, I feel sure, be extra expense in making sure that the buildings in College Green don't crumble into the dust, but there would be an eventual benefit to the city from having this major route built through a very central location.

Against that, with St. Stephen's Green, you've got the extra expense of building a considerably longer tunnel. It is without doubt that building a station there would be easier, as there's 22 acres with no residents, offices, art galery owners, etc. Unfortunately, the transport numbers in St. Stephen's Green don't seem to be terribly convincing.

You may only have been here for a very short time, Ian, but the DART Underground is intended to be around for a long while. so it's important to have a close look at all the options, to see what's best for the city in the long-term.

ianpresley

I'll speak slowly StrassenWolf.
It's.......got.........nothing........to.......do.....with......the.......depth.......of.....the.......station box. Trinity...........College..........are..............vehemently..........opposed..........to...........any.................near........surface.......construction................there.................because............of..........the............potential...........instability................of.....their......buildings.
The..........RPA.........have.........made.........a..........final.............decision.............that............an..........UG..........STATION............is..........not..........feasible.............at...............College Green.
They...........will...........not............be............revisiting.............this.............issue.

Can't for the life of me see what is difficult to understand about this.

strassenwo!f

ianpresley wrote: »

I'll speak slowly StrassenWolf.
It's.......got.........nothing........to.......do.....with......the.......depth.......of.....the.......station box. Trinity...........College..........are..............vehemently..........opposed..........to...........any.................near........surface............construction................there.................because............of..........the............potential...........instability................of.....their......buildings.
The..........RPA.........have.........made.........a..........final.............decision.............that............an..........UG..........STATION............is..........not..........feasible.............at...............College Green.
They...........will...........not............be............revisiting.............this.............issue.

Can't for the life of me see what is difficult to understand about this.

Trinity College are vehemently opposed, the RPA will not be revisiting this, etc.etc. Any source? Don't see the words DART Underground in there.

strassenwo!f

I may not have made myself clear in the previous post.

Of course TCD are vehemently opposed to any tunnelling in their vicinity. This is the obvious starting point in negotiation. And I can understand why they would have used this with the metro, what with the libraries, etc. But an East-West line which might (but probably would) go under mainly residential and catering areas on the north side of the campus, it holds little water.

Anyway, Ian, any sources for your quotes?

Copyerselveson

At this late stage in the game with a Railway Order in place and detailed design complete I don't consider there's a cat's chance in hell the design will be re-done, a new railway order granted and the inevitable public enquiry completed and An Taisce placated in order to allow Dart Underground and LUAS to connect at College Green.

The interchange will be St Stephen's Green. Not a bad location at all - at the top of Grafton Street and in the heart of the City Centre business district and a stone's throw from Government Buildings.

strassenwo!f

I think it is important to stress that everybody knows it would be difficult to build this major line through College Green. But, the passenger numbers appear to be in favour of it.

On the other hand, St. Stephen's Green doesn't have the passenger figures in its favour, it doesn't solely have the LUAS, and building a line through there would involve considerable damage to a much-loved park and considerable extra expense.

L1011

strassenwo!f wrote: »

On the other hand, St. Stephen's Green doesn't have the passenger figures in its favour

According to your guesswork.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

it doesn't solely have the LUAS,

As opposed to what?

strassenwo!f wrote: »

and building a line through there would involve considerable damage to a much-loved park

As opposed to paralysing the entire city centre by digging up College Green for years?

strassenwo!f wrote: »

considerable extra expense.

Really? What extra expense is there in building to what has been planned and granted a railway order versus the cost of a huge rework of plans, a new railway order, and digging up part of the core city centre road network with the resulting damage to all forms of transport (private, public, cycle and foot).

Your proposal is the one with considerable extra expense - how you've managed to convince yourself of the reverse astounds me.

At this stage you have me convinced you have a vested interest in having it at College Green. Do you own property there or are you upset at possibly having to walk five minutes from the train to work when its done?

strassenwo!f

No MYOB, no vested interest at all. I don't even live in the country, and own no property in Dublin or shares in any Ireland-based company.

Nor, as far as I know, do any of my relatives.

strassenwo!f

MYOB wrote: »

Really? What extra expense is there in building to what has been planned and granted a railway order versus the cost of a huge rework of plans, a new railway order, and digging up part of the core city centre road network with the resulting damage to all forms of transport (private, public, cycle and foot).

Your proposal is the one with considerable extra expense - how you've managed to convince yourself of the reverse astounds me.

Apologies to the board, but it is necessary to deal with MYOB's misunderstanding of what's involved.

Building the interconnector through College Green would not involve extra expense. It would be cheaper, because the route between Heuston and Pearse would be shorter.

You'd probably save a couple of hundred million, maybe more, in tunnelling costs because of the shorter route. Against that, you'd have to do a bit of redesign of the route, and an application for a revised planning order. (It's very hard to know how much this might come to, but the latest estimate from the press put the entire planning cost, including the railway order application, at 44 million euro. So you might be looking at at 10-20 milion euro. That is against savings on tunnelling of at least a couple of hundred milion euro.

It is hard to be definite, because the project has been variously costed at around 2, 3 and 4 bilion euro. Nobody seems to know for sure).

There's no doubt that construction of an interconnector station at College Green would cost more to the city, in the short term, than construction of a station at St. Stephen's Green, that "incredibly easy" location, as described on this board. The problem is what happens in years after construction.

So, to be clear, MYOB, a route via College Green would be shorter, and cheaper, than the St. Stephen's Green detour. It would be more difficult, that is for sure, but it would appear that it would bring more benefits for the Dublin commuter, overall, over the next 100 or so years.

L1011

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Apologies to the board, but it is necessary to deal with MYOB's misunderstanding of what's involved.

Building the interconnector through College Green would not involve extra expense. It would be cheaper, because the route between Heuston and Pearse would be shorter.

You'd probably save a couple of hundred million, maybe more, in tunnelling costs because of the shorter route. Against that, you'd have to do a bit of redesign of the route, and an application for a revised planning order. (It's very hard to know how much this might come to, but the latest estimate from the press put the entire planning cost, including the railway order application, at 44 million euro. So you might be looking at at 10-20 milion euro. That is against savings on tunnelling of at least a couple of hundred milion euro.

It is hard to be definite, because the project has been variously costed at around 2, 3 and 4 bilion euro. Nobody seems to know for sure).

There's no doubt that construction of an interconnector station at College Green would cost more to the city, in the short term, than construction of a station at St. Stephen's Green, that "incredibly easy" location, as described on this board. The problem is what happens in years after construction.

So, to be clear, MYOB, a route via College Green would be shorter, and cheaper, than the St. Stephen's Green detour. It would be more difficult, that is for sure, but it would appear that it would bring more benefits for the Dublin commuter, overall, over the next 100 or so years.

I haven't misunderstood anything, thanks very much.

You are proposing a complete rework of the planning, a new railway order, construction that would be orders of magnitude more difficult and unimagineably destructive and claim this would be significantly cheaper due to it taking a small amount off the full tunnel length (which will not save "a couple of a hundred million" either).

I think the issue here is that you don't understand how to cost things. You have clearly inaccurate, back of a fag packet scratchings that you've convinced yourself "prove" that your obsession is cheaper; but they don't convince anyone else.

ianpresley

Your costings contain schoolboy howler errors strassenwolf.
Firstly, while the extra distance of the DU loop via SSG is about 1 Km, there will be no extra stations on that loop so tunneling itself would be in the order of 200 Million Euros extra.
But. Any College Green station would be at least twice the cost of the SSG station. Then with the associated new planning you won't have much change out of your 200.
Then, an extra station at College Green would be needed for Metro North. This again would be expensive both in construction and in planning.
So your overall costs would be higher,
In an ideal world there would be a station at College Green. But things don't work that way in reality.
You are also assuming that Dublin CC will remain largely unchanged for the next 100 years. Whereas in reality key development will drive changes to nubs and areas of popularity and that development will be moulded by what is feasible.
The RPA's legal advice is that PP will be impossible for a station at College Green.

Now if DU went back to the drawing board what's to stop MN getting the nod ahead of it? That would complicate things further.

There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that the design of DU will be changed at this point. Nor should there be.

TheBandicoot

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Of course TCD are vehemently opposed to any tunnelling in their vicinity. This is the obvious starting point in negotiation. And I can understand why they would have used this with the metro, what with the libraries, etc. But an East-West line which might (but probably would) go under mainly residential and catering areas on the north side of the campus

Have you read this page? If not, do so. https://www.tcd.ie/Buildings/projectsmetro.php

Also I cannot see how you can make a route that does not pass under the Arts Building(deep basements and even deeper piles and foundations), the Provost's House, the Public Theatre, or the Rubrics.

TCD believes that the presence of cellars and vaults under the Provost's house and the Public Theatre make [the] route unattractive and will require intervention to the buildings in order to determine foundation depths and basement locations.

I am confused as to the route you envisage. Would there still be a stop at Pearse? if so. you are going to have either massive curves(to get back to a North/South axis) and/or extensive under-TCD tunneling.

TheBandicoot

BTW, is the http://www.dartundergroundrailwayorder.ie/ site meant to be down? Without the plans and information there it makes it a lot more difficult for us to have meaningful discussion.

antoinolachtnai

The curves on DART Underground are very tight as they are.

The obvious answer to your concern about the SSG catchment would be (a) to do a study (which I think would show a large working population Between the Green and the Canal) and (b) if justified to have a station at either end of the park, One catering for the Harcourt St side, the other catering for the Baggot Street side.

There is really a case for making the curve wider to serve somewhere like Liberties or the Coombe. There are a lot of people out there, and they are underserved.

College Green also has a problem in that it will be served with buses to a much lesser degree once Luas Cross-City goes in, and so will be less attractive as a location for changing from bus to rail.

GerardKeating

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I think it is important to stress that everybody knows it would be difficult to build this major line through College Green. But, the passenger numbers appear to be in favour of it.

On the other hand, St. Stephen's Green doesn't have the passenger figures in its favour, it doesn't solely have the LUAS, and building a line through there would involve considerable damage to a much-loved park and considerable extra expense.

Those who want to go to College Green will get the DART to SSG or O'Connell Street and walk.

Also the old adage "If you build it, they will come" will also apply, the existence of stations will alter the dynamic of the area.

Sam Russell

As was said to an American visitor who asked why Irish railway stations were so far from the town, he was told that the railway companies liked them near the railwaylines.

[The 19th century landowners would not sell the land to the railway companies].

If the interchange station is at SSG, that is where the passengers will interchange or exit and walk. If it is in CG, likewise.

As I said in an earlier post, nobody would route a train to Galway through Portarlington, but that is what they did. Does not stop anyone going by train that way, but the motorway does not.

strassenwo!f

ianpresley wrote: »

Your costings contain schoolboy howler errors strassenwolf.

Let's examine that, shall we?

ianpresley wrote: »

Firstly, while the extra distance of the DU loop via SSG is about 1 Km, there will be no extra stations on that loop so tunneling itself would be in the order of 200 Euros extra.
But. Any College Green station would be at least twice the cost of the SSG station. Then with the associated new planning you won't have much change out of your 200.

There is absolutely no reason why an interchange station at College Green would be significantly more expensive than an interchange station at St. Stephen's Green. The cost of materials and labour should be about the same, as the station needn't be any bigger or deeper at College Green.

In fact, it might require less labour and materials, as you would probably put the interconnector on top with the metro down below (to enable it to get under the river). Thus the section with the really big platforms would not be as deep as is proposed for St. Stephen's Green and, therefore, less expensive to build.

I grant that there would probably be more cost involved in removing spoil from a really central location like College Green than a relatively quiet area like St. Stephen's Green, and there would have to be some extra measures taken to protect the important buildings in the neighbourhood, but those factors should not make a significant inroad into the 200 (or so) million saved by building a shorter route.

Even if they did, you would end up with a station which would serve more commuters (and others) directly, and would have much greater uptake and delivery efficiency than the proposed St. Stephen's Green route.

ianpresley wrote: »

Then, an extra station at College Green would be needed for Metro North. This again would be expensive both in construction and in planning.

There would not need to be an extra metro station at College Green. Instead of the proposed O'Connell Bridge "station" you would have metro stations at College Green and O'Connell Street (somewhere around the spire, maybe).

At present, the O'Connell Bridge plan is for two four-level station boxes linked by platforms under the river. This proposal, which is effectively to build an eight-level non-interchange station, is a hugely expensive solution.

If there were metro stations at College Green and O'Connell Street these would need to be no more than three levels deep (possibly two in the case of O'Connell Street, depending on where it is, as it wouldn't be an interchange station). The metro platforms could be incorporated into the station (as they are in pretty much every metro station around the world), so no need for the extra levels or expensive platforms under the river that are proposed for O'Connell Bridge. Considerable savings could thus be achieved and, in addition, metro stations become more accessible to more people because instead of one station you've got two (for a lower cost).

ianpresley wrote: »

So your overall costs would be higher,

In the cases of both the metro and the interconnector, it has been shown above how costs would be saved by building an interchange at College Green rather than by building the circuitous St. Stephen's Green loop and the absurd O'Connell Bridge metro station.

There would be costs involved in redesigning the plans, and going on the recent reports of 44 million euro for the design of the entire interconnector, you could say that around 30 million or so should cover all the redesign costs for the metro and interconnector in the city centre.

Again, not much in terms of the overall costs of the projects (or indeed the possible savings made by building a shorter interconnector route), and as I have shown earlier in these discussions, considerable improvement in efficiency of passenger uptake and delivery.

ianpresley wrote: »

In an ideal world there would be a station at College Green. But things don't work that way in reality.
You are also assuming that Dublin CC will remain largely unchanged for the next 100 years. Whereas in reality key development will drive changes to nubs and areas of popularity and that development will be moulded by what is feasible.

Far from making the assumptions you suggest, I'm sure it is highly likely that many changes will take place in Dublin over the coming century. But they're not mainly going to come in Georgian Dublin.

There are, simply, two things we can be pretty sure of. One is that the 22 acre St. Stephen's Green park is going to remain there, with no commuters, for ever. The other is that College Green is going to be a busy place, all day, every day.

ianpresley wrote: »

The RPA's legal advice is that PP will be impossible for a station at College Green.

Interesting one, this. The roads through College Green are owned by the State, the major player (TCD) is a branch of the State, and the companies which propose to build these underground lines are owned by the State.

Yet legal advice was apparently needed, and this advice was that it couldn't be done?

ianpresley

Hard to know where to begin. Strassenwolf's prime thesis that SSG was selected for DU to interchange with the LUAS is actually invalid.
In fact the LUAS cross city was always planned anyway and MN was sent there for a later upgrade along the LUAS Green Line. SSG was selected for the DU link because it was recognised that building a station at College Green was undoable.

Satan help us :-). Strassenwolf's other assumption seems to be that the RPA planners and consultants are feckless wasters who while away the day on FB and surfing the net and then at 5:20pm, 10 mins before knocking off somebody says: "C'mon lads, what'll we do about this DU malarkey? - any preferences for the CC station?" "Shure, bejaney my mate is a porter in Trinity and he says a line there will destroy de place. Better put it in SSG". Clearly the RPA know nothing about transports issues and planning. How could they?

On the other hand I suspect a person of normal common sense can see that there is no chance whatsoever of a change of plans at this stage and Strassenwolf will end up like one of those old fogeys who never tires of telling all that if they'd done things his way all problems of the world would be avoided............not noticing how his audience raise their eyes to the heavens and wonder how long they'll have to listen to this stuck record farrago of unreality.

strassenwo!f

TheBandicoot wrote: »

Have you read this page? If not, do so. https://www.tcd.ie/Buildings/projectsmetro.php

Also I cannot see how you can make a route that does not pass under the Arts Building(deep basements and even deeper piles and foundations), the Provost's House, the Public Theatre, or the Rubrics.

Ideally you would build the tunnel so that it infringes on TCD's space as little as possible, for reasons already discussed. This would probably best be achieved by building under the northern side of the Front Square buildings and the more modern buildings along College Street (the back of the dining areas, etc). Basically aiming to build the tunnel largely under Pearse Street.

TheBandicoot wrote: »

I am confused as to the route you envisage. Would there still be a stop at Pearse? if so. you are going to have either massive curves(to get back to a North/South axis) and/or extensive under-TCD tunneling.

The currently proposed station at Pearse is basically oriented North-South, as the line has to do the big St. Stephen's Green loop. A route through College Green would require this to be re-oriented in an East-West direction. I would think that an underground station directly under Pearse Street (at around the bit between Erne Street and Westland Row) would be a good choice, as it's very close to the current overground station.

This would iron out two of the major curves on the currently proposed route. It's also a nice, wide bit of road, so there shouldn't be any major compulsory purchase required, and there would be fairly small redesign costs involved.

strassenwo!f

Thanks Ian. Undoable. I hadn't heard it before.

Copyerselveson

Anyone remember the Unified Proposal or the Dargan plan or the Circle line? Every time a rail based infrastructure project starts in Dublin some person who thinks they know better than the actual people planning the work comes up with some "alternative" that is somehow better but on closer examination isn't.

These ideas for College Green are in exactly that category. I'll leave the rest of you to debate the idea but since this idea for College Green has emerged about 15 years too late I am not wasting anymore of my time on this. DU and Luas are interchanging at Stephen's Green, and as far as I am concerned that is the right decision.

L1011

strassenwo!f wrote: »

In the cases of both the metro and the interconnector, it has been shown above how costs would be saved by building an interchange at College Green

No, no it hasn't. Supposition and clearly incorrect guesswork is not proof.

What has been shown is that your proposal would require re-engineering pretty much the entire alignment, though.

strassenwo!f

Copyerselveson, I am emphatically not someone who thinks they know better than the people who are doing the planning.

But it would have taken a very strong-willed, and probably foolish, individual in the DU design office, to pipe up and say that College Green would be a sensible place for the interchange. The task was to integrate all the rail-based forms of transport in the city and, until very recently (the last couple of years), that meant building via St. Stephen's Green. End of. It no longer does.

You might say that it could have been foreseen that the LUAS would be linked up, but this is to overestimate the importance of public transport in any Irish Government's psyche. Even the public consultations for the DU project, when the preferred LUAS link-up route had already been chosen, probably reflect the fact that nobody could be sure if the link-up would ever be built, so sticking with St. Stephen's Green was the only sure option.

The RPA's bizarre O'Connell Bridge idea was also born of the requirement from above that costs should be pared to the minimum. This meant reducing the number of stations on the route and it probably, at first sight, seemed a sensible option.

The reality, in terms of costs, of what would be involved in building such a station, is quite different, and I'd imagine the RPA would willingly walk away from it, if they could.

I certainly do not believe that I know more than these planners and designers. I am also not operating under the strictures that they are, and have been, in producing their work.

ianpresley

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Copyerselveson, I am emphatically not someone who thinks they know better than the people who are doing the planning.

.

After 100 pages of assuming that the planners cocked up big time in setting SSG as the major interchange location..............................?
Having missed the crucial detail that College Green was considered the better location but was UNDOABLE since PP would be impossible?

Olympic standard delusional.

Strassenwolf, you are a gold medal prospect at the World Fantasist Championships.

strassenwo!f

There it is again, Ian. That word. Undoable. I'll try to use it in the next forty or fifty years.

Banjoxed

This "debate" reads curiously like the Rabbitte and Monahan mischief campaign against Luas. Who will ever forget who has read it the late Rudi Monahan's bizarre insistence that streets with Luas on them would have to be closed to pedestrians? Yet he was given the oxygen of publicity for whatever reason.