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

gjim

Sam Russell wrote: »

I think that there is no need to duplcate Luas and Metro station from the tie in to SSG. If the tie in is south of Beechwood, than a change point at Beechwood is enugh, then why have staions every 500m duplicating the Luas. In fact why have any when ommiting them improves travel time, and reduces costs.

If a station is needed, why not make it further east = say at Portabello? This would significantly increase the capture area for the Metro.

I don't understand you here - you seem to be suggesting that the tie-in south of Beechwood option involves also building underground stations under existing Luas stations at Ranelagh and Charlemont? Is this the case? Surely this would explode the budget - never mind the disruption caused by trying to mine a underground station at the Ranelagh triangle? And all just to "save" the Dunville crossing for the few local cars that use it?

My (possibly faulty) understanding is that there will be no metro stations after SSG until the point of tie-in. This is why I favour option 4B - it provides metro stations at Ranelagh and at Charlemont. The gap between SSG and "south of Beechwood" tie-in stations looks like it would be the longest on the whole line (except for each side of the airport) which seems ridiculous given the density of offices and residential it passes under.

There's a massive redevelopment happening around Charlemont (Amazon are moving there) and it sits on a major axial route (the canal) and is near lots of existing offices - it would be very shortsighted in my opinion to not provide a metro stop here. The Charlemont tie-in option provides this (and a metro station at Ranelagh) and is the cheapest.

If the residents of Dunville avenue absolutely need to be able to drive to Morton's to do a bit of shopping, then I'd rather an under/over pass be built than leave a huge area south of SSG without walkable access to the metro despite it running through the area.

hmmm

LXFlyer wrote: »

Remember that unless additional trams are purchased, the current timetable will be maintained which means that over half the trams actually start at Sandyford and not Brides Glen.

The longer trams will buy us perhaps two years of capacity. Cherrywood starts coming on stream in 2020.

They will need to up the frequency on the Cherrywood section, which will reduce the ability to start trams from Sandyford. Anyone who thinks they will still be able to get on an empty Sandyford tram are deluding themselves I think.

Planners need to get involved now - stop approving high density building along the LUAS line, and let Minister Murphy explain.

Sam Russell

gjim wrote: »

I don't understand you here - you seem to be suggesting that the tie-in south of Beechwood option involves also building underground stations under existing Luas stations at Ranelagh and Charlemont? Is this the case? Surely this would explode the budget - never mind the disruption caused by trying to mine a underground station at the Ranelagh triangle? And all just to "save" the Dunville crossing for the few local cars that use it?

In option 6b = the metro comes above ground just south of Beechwood with a station in the cut and cover section at Beechwood. There would be only one station between there and SSG. It could be at Charlemont or it could be further east at Portabello bridge. It is about 2 km from SSG to Beechwood, and normally a metro has a station every km, so a single station is all that one would expect. It does not need to duplicate the Luas stops - why would it?

L1011

There is also meant* to be another 8 trams (24% increase) - but the growth on the Broombridge section has been such that some of that will be eaten up providing more services there - they won't all be increasing southside services.

The longer and more frequent the trams, the longer the red times on the lights at Dunville Avenue. It'll basically be closed all morning and evening anyway if more trams are added.

*Ross has mentioned it a few times but I can't find any proof they were ctually ordered.

LeinsterDub

L1011 wrote: »

There is also meant* to be another 8 trams (24% increase) - but the growth on the Broombridge section has been such that some of that will be eaten up providing more services there - they won't all be increasing southside services.

The longer and more frequent the trams, the longer the red times on the lights at Dunville Avenue. It'll basically be closed all morning and evening anyway if more trams are added.

*Ross has mentioned it a few times but I can't find any proof they were ctually ordered.

Remember before LCC launch we were being told that the northside loadings would be poor.

This country is a joke

Idbatterim

hmmm wrote: »

The longer trams will buy us perhaps two years of capacity. Cherrywood starts coming on stream in 2020.

They will need to up the frequency on the Cherrywood section, which will reduce the ability to start trams from Sandyford. Anyone who thinks they will still be able to get on an empty Sandyford tram are deluding themselves I think.

Planners need to get involved now - stop approving high density building along the LUAS line, and let Minister Murphy explain.

You mad? Give them an excuse to lower densities and get away without greenline upgrade? It’s the growth along this line that is going to force this issue. Don’t give the idiots a “get out of jail card”!

hmmm

Idbatterim wrote: »

You mad? Give them an excuse to lower densities and get away without greenline upgrade? It’s the growth along this line that is going to force this issue. Don’t give the idiots a “get out of jail card”!

That's no good for the commuters of 2025 when the line grounds to a complete halt. They'll have to wait 10 years for the Metro to be approved and built.

Planners would be mad to approve more building along the line if the long-planned upgrade appears doubtful. The planning documents for Cherrywood mention the Metro - the approved planning already granted is more than enough to overload the line if it remains a light rail.

L1011

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Remember before LCC launch we were being told that the northside loadings would be poor.

This country is a joke

Initial service timings (the 7 new trams weren't in service / kept calving in service; leading to very poor service north of Parnell), poorer train service to Broombridge, no 40E, and less students/staff moved to Grangegorman - and it was still fairly busy

gjim

Sam Russell wrote: »

In option 6b = the metro comes above ground just south of Beechwood with a station in the cut and cover section at Beechwood. There would be only one station between there and SSG. It could be at Charlemont or it could be further east at Portabello bridge. It is about 2 km from SSG to Beechwood, and normally a metro has a station every km, so a single station is all that one would expect. It does not need to duplicate the Luas stops - why would it?

I didn't suggest it would. You argued against duplicating the Luas stops with metro stops and I was wondering where the suggestion that metro stops be constructed under Luas stops had come from.

Btw. I don't see a mention of any stop besides the one at Beechwood in the section on option 6 but I'm happy to be corrected.

LuckyLloyd

hmmm wrote: »

That's no good for the commuters of 2025 when the line grounds to a complete halt. They'll have to wait 10 years for the Metro to be approved and built.

Planners would be mad to approve more building along the line if the long-planned upgrade appears doubtful. The planning documents for Cherrywood mention the Metro - the approved planning already granted is more than enough to overload the line if it remains a light rail.

But at least it will be built then. We should be hyper approving builds along the green line. We could break nimby culture in Ireland forever if commuters along that line realise they were sold a complete pup by rich people in Dunville Avenue and the Green Party. Never again would this argument be lost to spurious nimbyism.

LeinsterDub

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

But at least it will be built then. We should be hyper approving builds along the green line. We could break nimby culture in Ireland forever if commuters along that line realise they were sold a complete pup by rich people in Dunville Avenue and the Green Party. Never again would this argument be lost to spurious nimbyism.

It hasn't worked with the dart, the Luas, lcc, etc
. What makes you think this time they'll learn their lesson?

Sam Russell

LeinsterDub wrote: »

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

But at least it will be built then. We should be hyper approving builds along the green line. We could break nimby culture in Ireland forever if commuters along that line realise they were sold a complete pup by rich people in Dunville Avenue and the Green Party. Never again would this argument be lost to spurious nimbyism.

It hasn't worked with the dart, the Luas, lcc, etc
. What makes you think this time they'll learn their lesson?

By their very nature NIMBY objections are a local interest only - mainly their own selfish interest, and so they will never consider the greater good, no matter what.

LuckyLloyd

LeinsterDub wrote: »

It hasn't worked with the dart, the Luas, lcc, etc
. What makes you think this time they'll learn their lesson?

Sam Russell wrote: »

By their very nature NIMBY objections are a local interest only - mainly their own selfish interest, and so they will never consider the greater good, no matter what.

The issue here is the success of the LUAS. The Irish Times, the local residence opposition groups and the politicians hopping on a bandwagon to get elected all leverage the refrain of 'shur isn't the LUAS great, why change it?'. Any closure to it (exaggerated timelines or no) is leveraged as a great evil; and it is sold to everyone as a 'fairness' issue. Those on the LUAS already have THE solution, let's deliver something elsewhere.

Were these arguments to win out, and the upgrade is abandoned then upon the failure of the current Green Line due to inevitable capacity issues will this topic turn, potentially forever. An affluent influential base of society will know they were knowingly sold something completely incorrect and - as they are crammed on a cattle cart (of which they can barely squeeze on every third offering of) they will scream for an upgrade. And the next time nimbyism rears its head we'll have a very simple example to point to, that is easily explained and understood.

The problem in this instance is the vast majority of green line commuters don't realise that their service is mortally wounded, a ticking time bomb. They just use it as is and are fine with it and don't want any change or disruption to it.

Sam Russell

gjim wrote: »

I didn't suggest it would. You argued against duplicating the Luas stops with metro stops and I was wondering where the suggestion that metro stops be constructed under Luas stops had come from.

Btw. I don't see a mention of any stop besides the one at Beechwood in the section on option 6 but I'm happy to be corrected.

The Metro is shown in the documentation as stopping at all Luas stops south of Charlemont. If the surface at Beechwood, it is not discussed whether they will stop at the other Luas stops. However, they do include the cost of underground stations, so I presumed that they would stop. Beechwood is only 2 km from SSG so why have 3 stops in that distance?

CatInABox

The Phoenix weighs in on the South side Metrolink.

Meanwhile Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has also condemned the proposed link, saying, “It’s completely unsound on vague environmental grounds – particularly because it does not involve eco-friendly bamboo rickshaws.”

lucernarian

Sam Russell wrote: »

The platforms could be prefabricated and merely installed - it would not take long, perhaps a weekend. They did that new railway bridge at Sallins in a weekend with a mainline railway.

ALL of the stations to be done in a weekend? This seems far-fetched. If it's one at a time, one station is going to lose out inevitably before others, and how will the stabling space work for having a seamless transition from one fleet to another overnight?

Kellyconor1982

cgcsb wrote: »

In my experience the red line is more over crowded but there are no plans to metro-ise it.

The reality is, on street trams were never meant to provide long distance services to outer suburbs. Tallaght should have been served by DARTS every 10 minutes, with a supplemental tram service. The only way to relieve the red line in the future is:

- a future metroline, possibly from Talaght to Beaumont via Rathmines and Marino.
- Dart Underground from Heuston to Docklands.

both of which are now beyond 2040 realistically. West Dublin will just have to shrink it's population I guess.

Completely agree with all of this.

gjim

Sam Russell wrote: »

The Metro is shown in the documentation as stopping at all Luas stops south of Charlemont. If the surface at Beechwood, it is not discussed whether they will stop at the other Luas stops. However, they do include the cost of underground stations, so I presumed that they would stop. Beechwood is only 2 km from SSG so why have 3 stops in that distance?

We may be misunderstanding each other. South of the tie-in isn't the issue - my issue is with what happens between the tie-in and the SSG stop. In the emerging preferred route map (which uses a Charlemont south tie-in), there are 2 stops between Beechwood and SSG which seems a reasonable minimum to cover such an area, the northern half of which is relatively dense.

Apparently metro ridership falls off rapidly once you hit about a 400m walk from a metro station. Other metro systems have typical inter-station distances around 500m/600m in the densest/central areas. Some in London I believe are as little as 250m apart. 1km apart seems to be the average globally but that includes the larger distances when the line runs through sparsely populated areas - like the stretches on both sides of the airport stop.

Space for 3 or 4 thousand new office workers is due to come online near Charlemont to add to an already heavily officed area. Measuring from the existing Charlemont stop gives over 15 minutes walk to SSG NE and about the same to Dunville avenue. I guess they could get a Luas but average wait time and transfer time will make it marginal.

My fear is that the more southerly the tie-in, the greater the coverage gap south of SSG but maybe I've missed something in my lazy perusal of the docs as I don't see any mention of underground stations mentioned between the tie-in and SSG in the description of the Beechwood south tie-in options. If two new underground stations are implied or stated on this stretch with the Beechwood south, I'd be glad to hear it.

Although having said that I think mining out stations anywhere between SSG and Beechwood (particularly say in Ranelagh) is going to be very distruptive and is likely to provoke a whole new hornets' nest of NIMBYs.

I guess I'm also somewhat enamoured with the emerging preferred route which seems the most cost effective as well as offerring maximum utility and access. Maybe it will be best to see what the actual preferred route is before arguing about this. It seems difficult to reconsile all of the documentation on the project.

I guess we all just want to see the thing built and I'll take any of the tie-in options over deferring the project or deciding to deliver a runt system which terminates short of Charlemont.

Muahahaha

Idbatterim wrote: »

That’s likely what it will take. Disaster! It’s why I believe it will eventually be built, not because it should be or needs to be. But Because those morons eventually will run out of road on the “do nothing option” at that stage, a few other morons petty concerns will be totally eclipsed!

Its exactly the way the govt. proceeded with the M50 upgrade, they did nothing until it got to the point that doing nothing was no longer an option. They got a consultants report that literally said the costs to the economy of not doing anything were outweighed by the actual cost of the project. Then they finally got on with it but not until the pressure gauge was about to explode.

CatInABox wrote: »

The Phoenix weighs in on the South side Metrolink.

Article written "by Our Rail Correspondent Dee Lais"

prunudo

"Luas in doubt" headline in the local free paper The north Wicklow Times. Good to see some reporting against the madness of cancelling the upgrade.

Idbatterim

Yeah that hits the nail on the head. I’ll be furious if this bull**** of ending it at Charlemont happens. It’s seems an off the wall suggestion to appease a few idiots, at an insane expense. But it’s such a banana republic , it’s actually a very real threat ...

Idbatterim

Muahahaha wrote: »

Its exactly the way the govt. proceeded with the M50 upgrade, they did nothing until it got to the point that doing nothing was no longer an option. They got a consultants report that literally said the costs to the economy of not doing anything were outweighed by the actual cost of the project. Then they finally got on with it but not until the pressure gauge was about to explode.



Article written "by Our Rail Correspondent Dee Lais"

Yesh and they still Ballsed up the upgrade. They could have for very little more, fitted in another lane each direction . Going back and doing it now would be expensive and disruptive. Of course I accept more road = more traffic BUT those morons will be at least two decades away from m50 upgrade, to putting in proper alternatives, like Dublin metro. At least two decades!

lucernarian

Idbatterim wrote: »

Yeah that hits the nail on the head. I’ll be furious if this bull**** of ending it at Charlemont happens. It’s seems an off the wall suggestion to appease a few idiots, at an insane expense. But it’s such a banana republic , it’s actually a very real threat ...

Meanwhile in the land of reality...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/state-will-no-longer-commit-to-projects-until-design-and-price-are-clear-1.3816903

"Robert Watt, the secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, will on Thursday tell the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) the State will no longer “commit to projects until the design and price are clear”."

I can't see anything but long delays or else the project being scrapped if the NTA persist with a single phase for Charlemont and southwards on the back of rudimentary calculations. Political fighting between NIMBYs and the minister for Transport himself doesn't help. The rest of the scheme would be basically FG's brand of Metro North but at least there are far fewer unknowns with that scheme. We need *Something* built asap and if it's to be done right, better to be done in phases than not at all or at severely inflated prices like the NCH has become.

LeinsterDub

jvan wrote: »

"Luas in doubt" headline in the local free paper The north Wicklow Times. Good to see some reporting against the madness of cancelling the upgrade.

Consider joining on Facebook to see more of this

https://m.facebook.com/groups/dublincommuters

prunudo

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Consider joining on Facebook to see more of this

https://m.facebook.com/groups/dublincommuters

http://wicklowtimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Wicklow-Times-5-3-19-North.pdf

Pete_Cavan

lucernarian wrote: »

Political fighting between NIMBYs and the minister for Transport himself doesn't help.

The Minister for Transport is fighting for the NIMBYs, not against them!

LeinsterDub

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The Minister for Transport is fighting for the NIMBYs, not against them!

How so?

salmocab

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

The Minister for Transport is fighting for the NIMBYs, not against them!

In fairness not on the metro front he’s not although he has strong links to doing local work above his real job.

cgcsb

jvan wrote: »

"Luas in doubt" headline in the local free paper The north Wicklow Times. Good to see some reporting against the madness of cancelling the upgrade.

No match for the anti -Irish Times though

Muahahaha

lucernarian wrote: »

Meanwhile in the land of reality...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/state-will-no-longer-commit-to-projects-until-design-and-price-are-clear-1.3816903

"Robert Watt, the secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, will on Thursday tell the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) the State will no longer “commit to projects until the design and price are clear”."

I still think the scandal over the cost over runs on the National Childrens Hospital is going to run into this Metro project. We now know that construction inflation has ran at 22% over the last three years. On top of that construction unions are currently seeking a 12% pay increase for their members.

The initial €3bn costing of Metrolink is now out of date and we are currently somewhere north of €4bn. By the time the railway order comes around in a coulple of years time that it likely to be closer to €5bn. And then the media will go mad again calling it a total waste of money. €5bn odd will be politically a hard sell outside of Dublin. At least with the Childrens Hospital its being built for the entire nation, the Metrolink won't be seen in the same way in rural Ireland, most of who will still be driving to the airport anyway and will never directly benefit.

If there are any economic storms up ahead be it due to a US recession or Brexit related then I cannot see €5bn ever being santioned for this project. Hope I'm wrong but without any politicians to push it through it won't be happeneing. And if they can'tshut down a few rabble rousers in Dunville Avenue just wait and see what happens when rural Ireland gets up in arms about the cost, it will put Dunville Avenue in the ha'penny place.