Dublin Metrolink (just Metrolink posts here -see post #1 )

LeinsterDub

Estimated cost to move the TBM portal to the park is about 30 million but that would still leave the pitch out of commission for 3 years while the station box is constructed.

Shedite27

ignorance is strength wrote: »

Nice spot! Did you just speculatively look at the register of members’ interests?

In fairness, I wouldn’t be thrilled if that were built outside my house.

I went for a viewing there once and was recognised the landlord!

ricimaki

Here's a PDF up on Na Fianna's website relating to Metrolink. In fairness to them, it's well put together, and while it is not exactly in favour of Metrolink, it's not overloaded with negative info either.

I don't think its been discussed here much, but this does point out the expected traffic volume for the construction at this site: 55 trucks every day for 145 weeks, assuming 24 hours tunnelling. That's 1 truck every 26 (ish) minutes. That doesn't seem bad at all to me.

Whilst they'll lose some pitches for a few years, there won't be many sports clubs in Dublin with a Metro/DART station this close, which will surely attract new members long term. They should receive some compensation (no idea how much) for the disturbance, but I don't see enough reason for them to be able to stop this station/portal going on their site.

LeinsterDub

ricimaki wrote: »

Here's a PDF up on Na Fianna's website relating to Metrolink. In fairness to them, it's well put together, and while it is not exactly in favour of Metrolink, it's not overloaded with negative info either.

I don't think its been discussed here much, but this does point out the expected traffic volume for the construction at this site: 55 trucks every day for 145 weeks, assuming 24 hours tunnelling. That's 1 truck every 26 (ish) minutes. That doesn't seem bad at all to me.

Whilst they'll lose some pitches for a few years, there won't be many sports clubs in Dublin with a Metro/DART station this close, which will surely attract new members long term. They should receive some compensation (no idea how much) for the disturbance, but I don't see enough reason for them to be able to stop this station/portal going on their site.

It won't be 24 hour tunneling from the impression I got today. Noise and dust would be a major issue

fly_agaric

Bray Head wrote: »

McDowell has kindly posted his article on his blog here:

Find that stuff about the construction of these 10s of luas lines somewhat hard to swallow. Am getting to be an old dog now and the memory might be iffy but don't recall much of that sort of philosophy & zeal for big public infrastructure spending emanating from the PDs when they were in power.

Would have been more credible imo if argument had been made about spending the metro billions on cutting the top rate, new investment vehicles/tax breaks or perhaps introducing a flat income tax or something! :pac:

marno21

Article in Irish Times tomorrow on Na Fianna's woes (paywall)

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/na-fianna-gaa-club-warns-about-impact-of-metrolink-construction-1.3456174

BonnieSituation

marno21 wrote: »

Article in Irish Times tomorrow on Na Fianna's woes (paywall)

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/na-fianna-gaa-club-warns-about-impact-of-metrolink-construction-1.3456174

This is the level of reportage:

Evelyn Conroy wrote:

“The noise, the vibrations, the dust, the dirt, the pollution, all of that will affect our children,” Ms Conroy said at a public consultation meeting in Dublin City University on Monday.

“I’m also concerned about the number of workers on the site. I feel each member of that work team will need to be Garda vetted when they’re right beside schools where kids are playing.”

marno21

BonnieSituation wrote: »

This is the level of reportage:

I didn't even notice that I was quite taken aback by this:

John Horan wrote:

“You can never control the young lad with a spirit of adventure that’s going to, out of pure curiosity, wander onto that site. Parents will have to monitor the access of their children to school on a constant nature, and that’s not part of a child growing up.”

ignorance is strength

Shedite27 wrote: »

I went for a viewing there once and was recognised the landlord!

Haha, your eyes must have lit up when you made the connection!! Whenever I see a politician opposing a project, first place I'm going to look is the register!

ricimaki wrote: »

Here's a PDF up on Na Fianna's website relating to Metrolink. In fairness to them, it's well put together, and while it is not exactly in favour of Metrolink, it's not overloaded with negative info either.

I agree that they could have been very much more negative; the document principally outlines the nature of the metro, which is commendable. Interesting to see that it's not definite that they will lose the training pitches. The Collinstown pitches are highlighted in the image of the Dardistown stop. Was any mention made at the meeting of the benefit to Na Fianna of that?

They complain that Na Fianna isn't listed in the Metrolink document as a "key trip attractor" when Tolka Rovers is. But, first, Tolka has an actual stadium, so would seem to attract more people (including away fans). And, second, if they really are the "heart of the local community", its members won't be needing the metro to get to it, you would have thought...

I wonder ought NTA have had in place a proposal for compensation and replacement facilities, because not having such has given Na Fianna an easy gripe: "no incentives have been offered" (that's not how CPOs work, I'm afraid!!), "no alternate sites ... proposed."

marno21 wrote: »

Article in Irish Times tomorrow on Na Fianna's woes (paywall)

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/na-fianna-gaa-club-warns-about-impact-of-metrolink-construction-1.3456174

Gosh, they have such influence. Can't imagine a working class club getting such exposure (nor, for that matter, the sailing club of which I'm a member). It might backfire, though, because of the ridiculous Garda vetting suggestion and parable of the young lad with a spirit of adventure.

Na Fianna's membership has risen from "almost 3000" to "more than 3000" in only a week. Seems the publicity is already giving them a boost!


Btw, friends, Irish Times paywall can be got round by copy-pasting the headline into the searchbar of an incognito window in Chrome or Firefox (or deleting browser cookies).

Zebra3

Just had a read of the McDowell SBP piece.

Dear, oh dear. This man was once Tánaiste?

He’s rabbitting on about DART Metro. Hasn’t even got a clue what he’s talking about.

Bemoaning a lack of Luas line for Clonsilla? Has this moron ever looked at a public transport map of Dublin and seen that Clonsilla is served by a heavy rail line, one which is going to get a vastly increased frequency under current plans?

I’ll take the “boffins” over this clown any day of the week.

marno21

Zebra3 wrote: »

Just had a read of the McDowell SBP piece.

Dear, oh dear. This man was once Tánaiste?

He’s rabbitting on about DART Metro. Hasn’t even got a clue what he’s talking about.

Bemoaning a lack of Luas line for Clonsilla? Has this moron ever looked at a public transport map of Dublin and seen that Clonsilla is served by a heavy rail line, one which is going to get a vastly increased frequency under current plans?

I’ll take the “boffins” over this clown any day of the week.

Interesting alright for a man so anti rail that had no issue hopping on the Seanad gravy train after losing his seat

plodder

GAA president John Horan, who has a son in Scoil Mobhí, also attended the consultation meeting, where he voiced concerns around safety.

“You can never control the young lad with a spirit of adventure that’s going to, out of pure curiosity, wander onto that site. Parents will have to monitor the access of their children to school on a constant nature, and that’s not part of a child growing up.”

I'm surprised at that. Nobody is going to be able to "wander onto that site". It'll take a fairly determined effort to break into it.

I wonder did anyone at the meeting mostly say positive things about it. If not, that's a little disappointing. If they did, then it shows what I said about media only reporting the negatives, and it's something we'll have to get used to for the next several years.

cgcsb

I'm getting depressed:

“The noise, the vibrations, the dust, the dirt, the pollution, all of that will affect our children,” Ms Conroy said at a public consultation meeting in Dublin City University on Monday.

Dust and Dirt? the vast majority of construction is to be carried out underground. If your children are on a site visit to one of the station sites they should be wearing appropriate PPE. Not that your children have any business getting that close to a live a building site.

“I’m also concerned about the number of workers on the site. I feel each member of that work team will need to be Garda vetted when they’re right beside schools where kids are playing.”


Every person in the world has to be garda vetted by that logic. How, in an age where the near sum of human knowledge is available for free at a few clicks are people still so stupid? Free education has failed folks. Those IQs aren't going any higher.

"You can never control the young lad with a spirit of adventure that’s going to, out of pure curiosity, wander onto that site. Parents will have to monitor the access of their children to school on a constant nature, and that’s not part of a child growing up.”

This makes me wonder how humanity has reached it's current state of development from it's cave dwelling roots. If teenage boys simply cannot safely exist in a society where construction sites are a thing then we may as well just nuke ourselves, it'd be quicker that way. How can we have any buildings at all?

Perhaps all children should be confined to a padded room and forced to wear rolls of cotton wool, until they reach 18 years.

plodder

In fairness, that's just a random citizen having their say. She probably didn't expect to be quoted in the Irish Times the next day. So, I wouldn't make too big a deal out of it.

AlmightyCushion

I walk past schools and even parks, some times if it's a good day I'll have an ice cream and sit in the park. Never realised I needed to be garda vetted for this. Thanks to the members of Na Fianna for pointing this out to me.

cgcsb

plodder wrote: »

In fairness, that's just a random citizen having their say. She probably didn't expect to be quoted in the Irish Times the next day. So, I wouldn't make too big a deal out of it.

You can hardly blither such stupidity in public and expect it not to be talked about.

ignorance is strength

plodder wrote: »

In fairness, that's just a random citizen having their say. She probably didn't expect to be quoted in the Irish Times the next day. So, I wouldn't make too big a deal out of it.

True. But it’s yet another ridiculous fear voiced by someone connected with Na Fianna, alongside that the disruption would destroy the club, etc.

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I walk past schools and even parks, some times if it's a good day I'll have an ice cream and sit in the park. Never realised I needed to be garda vetted for this. Thanks to the members of Na Fianna for pointing this out to me.

I think we should acknowledge that, were the children and workmen intermingling, the number of workmen and frequency of vehicles leaving the area might warrant a Garda vetting requirement. But, while I think establishing whether there would be complete separation is a reasonable concern, what makes it ridiculous is the seeming insistence that failure to have Garda vetting under any circumstances would pose an imminent threat to the children.

wakka12

I wonder if it was a group of women working beside the school would she want them to be vetted. Just ridiculous

plodder

ignorance is strength wrote: »

True. But it’s yet another ridiculous fear voiced by someone connected with Na Fianna, alongside that the disruption would destroy the club, etc.

I think the lady has children in the two schools. It doesn't say she has any connection with Na Fianna.

cgcsb

plodder wrote: »

I think the lady has children in the two schools. It doesn't say she has any connection with Na Fianna.

Was she doing her best Helen Lovejoy impression at the time?

Sam Russell

Mod: Can we get back to Metrolink.

CatInABox

I don't mind people asking silly questions like that, the fact is that these meetings open it up to people who don't have any knowledge of major infrastructure projects, and they're entitled to ask questions and voice their concerns.

I do mind when reporters use any excuse to "create a story", regardless of how realistic it is. Ten minutes of research would have shown that the fears of that lady and of the GAA president were very much overblown.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't see mod note!

Sam Russell

Michael McDowell is a bit disingenuous in not declaring an interest in the process. He is also irresponsible in not reading all the documentation before ranting writing about the project. He either does not understand what Metrolink is doing, or he is deliberately misrepresenting the arguments.

His brother, More McDowell is also either misrepresenting the project or does not understand it as referring to it as a single 'Luas' line serving just one suburb attempts to diminish it to a pet project that is overly expensive and one that achieves little.

To quote him - 'There is an adequate bus service from the airport' which is incorrect, as a bus that can take 70 passengers every thirty minutes and has to fight through city traffic taking up to 60 mins to CC does not equate to a Metro service that can take several hundred passengers every 90 seconds and take them to CC in 20 minutes.

Thirty million passengers passed through the airport last year - by 2027 that number could be significantly higher.

It was OK to spend €600 million on a motorway from Gort to Tuam, but not 5 times that amount on a vital metro link from the Airport to Dublin City Centre, and to link Swords, Ballymun, Northside Dublin, and Sandyford to the CC using a modern high capacity, high frequency Metro.

Why do people like them think that it is OK to rubbish such projects using fake facts?

CreativeSen

Michael McDowell is also missing the point that this is not just about the airport, its also about Swords and opening up significant land banks in the north of the city to investment/development and much needed housing. The goal is not a direct link between the airport and the CC, its about opening up the northern part of the county. The airport just happens to be very conveniently located along the route.

murphaph

plodder wrote: »

In fairness, that's just a random citizen having their say. She probably didn't expect to be quoted in the Irish Times the next day. So, I wouldn't make too big a deal out of it.

It's the fact that such a stupid person's worthless opinion gets column inches in the paper of record that's the real problem.

jd

Pascal gets his spoke in

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/finance-minister-demands-solution-to-metrolink-row-with-members-of-his-own-gaa-club-36796002.html

Finance Minister demands solution to MetroLink row with members of his own GAA club

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has intervened to demand a "solution" in the MetroLink row between transport chiefs and the GAA club where he is a member.
The minister spoke out yesterday about the disruption that could be caused to Na Fianna GAA as the underground line is constructed.
Mr Donohoe said it "is imperative in the consultative process that the NTA are dealing with issues that are being raised by clubs like Na Fianna".

Transport authorities must "respect the vital role" clubs like Na Fianna GAA "play in social and community life," he also warned.

markpb

jd wrote: »

Pascal gets his spoke in

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/finance-minister-demands-solution-to-metrolink-row-with-members-of-his-own-gaa-club-36796002.html

God forbid a minister might act in the interests of the country or even the capital and leave the parish politics aside for five minutes!

medoc

markpb wrote: »

God forbid a minister might act in the interests of the country or even the capital and leave the parish politics aside for five minutes!

Unfortunately all politics is local, even more so in Ireland.

prunudo

In fairness to him, at least he's not calling for a reroute or scrappage of the scheme. He wants a solution. With a bit of luck the solution will be na fianna will be compensated with nice temporary facilities, a few quid and all will be forgotten about by 2030.

marno21

jvan is 100% right here. Donohue wants the situation resolved with whatever solution suits all parties best asap. He wants to get on with the scheme rather than a long drawn out battle which will delay the project and cost both sides with no real winners.

A much better response from him than other politicians in similar circumstances in other parts of the country