Metro North and Dart Underground costs revealed

cabrasnake

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

It was a mistake, I meant to say the North Circular. I live near enough the railway in question, so my interest in such a station is rather parochial

I guess such a station would have some use for certain trips i.e. to get to the DORT etc but as a vital part of mass transport system it's irrelevant

Aard

cabrasnake wrote: »

I guess such a station would have some use for certain trips i.e. to get to the DORT etc but as a vital part of mass transport system it's irrelevant

The whole point of a transport network is that it's a gestalt - more than the sum of its parts. If you build enough not-exactly-vital stations, you end up with a decent transport system. The same could be said of so many stations (for example Drumcondra) but if you got rid of them all you'd be left with only the stations at peak trip generators and little in between.

Also if the PPT route ends up running to Grand Canal Dock, it becomes a good bit more attractive than the bus to get to D2/South Docks.

cabrasnake

Note the word 'vital'.

Sierra Oscar

According to the Independent, Iarnród Éireann are now looking to include an 'airport link tunnel' if they get the go ahead for DART Underground.

Airport link tunnel included in expanded DART plan

hfallada

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

According to the Independent, Iarnród Éireann are now looking to include an 'airport link tunnel' if they get the go ahead for DART Underground.

Airport link tunnel included in expanded DART plan

I think it's just an expensive way to boost Irish rails passenger numbers. Why would anyone want to go from the airport to town back out on train to somewhere in the country. When you can get a bus direct from the airport for what €7 compared to €35 for a train ticket and you are not guaranteed a seat.

The Dublin metro is needed to provide decent public transport in the north city. During the boom( we will eventual return to that level of traffic on our roads) congesstion was a nightmare. A dart underground is going to do very little to solve that problem

aindriu80

hfallada wrote: »

The Dublin metro is needed to provide decent public transport in the north city. During the boom( we will eventual return to that level of traffic on our roads) congesstion was a nightmare. A dart underground is going to do very little to solve that problem

Agreed. They need a Dublin Metro.

Cool Mo D

hfallada wrote: »

I think it's just an expensive way to boost Irish rails passenger numbers. Why would anyone want to go from the airport to town back out on train to somewhere in the country. When you can get a bus direct from the airport for what €7 compared to €35 for a train ticket and you are not guaranteed a seat.

The Dublin metro is needed to provide decent public transport in the north city. During the boom( we will eventual return to that level of traffic on our roads) congesstion was a nightmare. A dart underground is going to do very little to solve that problem

I think the airport DART combined with DART underground could work quite well. Not as a replacement for intercity buses or the airport express, but to link people already near the commuter rail network to the airport. Linking the multinationals in Grand Canal Dock, or suburban residents in North Dublin (who make up a lot of the airports employees, and currently drive to work) to the airport would be really handy. Also, park and rides on the M1 and Malahide road would have a lot of potential for picking up day trippers and commuters. The DART underground tunnel would have excess capacity if just dealing with Howth and Malahide DARTs, so having another service use it would be no harm. Ideally the Connolly - Malahide segment would be 4-tracked though.

And Metro North should still go ahead.

AngryLips

Dart Airport would connect the airport to the national rail network in a way that MN doesn't

aindriu80

I can't see any new Dart development as a revolution in travel for Ireland. Metro is designed for a city much like Dublin Bus. If we had it we couldn't live without it.

Jack Noble

aindriu80 wrote: »

I can't see any new Dart development as a revolution in travel for Ireland. Metro is designed for a city much like Dublin Bus. If we had it we couldn't live without it.

Metro and Dart do exactly the same thing.

If you don't understand what Dart Underground will do for public transport in Dublin, then there's really not much point being on this thread.

This article in the Indo is clearly a planted flyer.

I wonder who is behind it? And why? And why now?

Calina

I'm fascinated slightly in that I seem to recall past discussions around a DART spur from Portmarnock rather than Howth Junction in the past.

monument

hfallada wrote: »

I think it's just an expensive way to boost Irish rails passenger numbers. Why would anyone want to go from the airport to town back out on train to somewhere in the country. When you can get a bus direct from the airport for what €7 compared to €35 for a train ticket and you are not guaranteed a seat.

It would mainly link Dublin regional passengers to the airport and many intercity airport passengers would pay even more to advoid coaches (regardless of how good some on here think buses are).

hfallada wrote: »

The Dublin metro is needed to provide decent public transport in the north city. During the boom( we will eventual return to that level of traffic on our roads) congesstion was a nightmare. A dart underground is going to do very little to solve that problem

Dart Underground would upgrade the rail capacity for north Dublin -- it would serve everywhere north of the city of note bar Swords, which could be partly served by (metro-like) park and ride.

aindriu80 wrote: »

I can't see any new Dart development as a revolution in travel for Ireland. Metro is designed for a city much like Dublin Bus. If we had it we couldn't live without it.

Regardless of the airport link, the Dart expansion project covers far more of Dublin than Metro North would.

Dart expansion is by far the more important project than would bring the greatest return.

Sierra Oscar

The National Transport Authority has today opened consultation on its "Draft Integrated Implementation Plan 2013-2018 for the Greater Dublin Area".

The report can be read here.

What is immediately interesting is the statement that it is envisaged that the Phoenix Park Tunnel link will be reopened to commuter services from 2015 onwards once the City Center Re-signalling project is completed.

TheBandicoot

It's great news that people in government are still trying to get Dart Underground implemented , hope funding is secured and it gets moving.

cabrasnake

monument wrote: »

It would mainly link Dublin regional passengers to the airport and many intercity airport passengers would pay even more to advoid coaches (regardless of how good some on here think buses are).




Dart Underground would upgrade the rail capacity for north Dublin -- it would serve everywhere north of the city of note bar Swords, which could be partly served by (metro-like) park and ride.




Regardless of the airport link, the Dart expansion project covers far more of Dublin than Metro North would.

Dart expansion is by far the more important project than would bring the greatest return.

Disingenuous. It adds a few key city centre stations but otherwise only enhances services on preexisting lines (Kildare and Maynooth). MN opens up pure virgin territory to train riding. That is essential also.

Victor

cabrasnake wrote: »

Disingenuous. It adds a few key city centre stations but otherwise only enhances services on preexisting lines (Kildare and Maynooth). MN opens up pure virgin territory to train riding. That is essential also.

Not quite. You currently can't use the DART to get quickly from say Killester or Booterstown to to St. Stephens Green or Heuston. With DART underground you can. While DU will fundamentally alter the Kildare line and radically improve the Maynooth line, it will also greatly improve the Bray and Maynooth/Howth lines.

cabrasnake

Victor wrote: »

Not quite. You currently can't use the DART to get quickly from say Killester or Booterstown to to St. Stephens Green or Heuston. With DART underground you can. While DU will fundamentally alter the Kildare line and radically improve the Maynooth line, it will also greatly improve the Bray and Maynooth/Howth lines.

What on earth are you gibbbering about? Read my post again.

"It adds a few key city centre stations"

Aard

You can't quantify railway improvements purely in terms of number of stations. Reliability, frequency, speed, and network effect are equally important.

cabrasnake

Meanwhile leaving schoolboy makey up cod arguments aside, the point is: MN is also important, not much less than DU.

Aard

Yes MN is important. And where did I put forward "schoolboy makey up cod arguments"?

cabrasnake

For reasons best known to 'aard he went off on a schoolboy makey up diversion nothing to do with the point which was that DU covered a lot more of Dubland than MN. Now DU will make a huge upgrade of suburban rail but on areas already covered mostly while almost all MN stations will be new territory. MN is very important for different reasons. The argument that DU is vastly more important is not correct.

Jack Noble

cabrasnake wrote: »

What on earth are you gibbbering about? Read my post again.

"It adds a few key city centre stations"

The key point about two of those city centre stations is they are interchanges which allow passengers to hop from one line to another to continue and complete their journeys.

As for the Metro North v Dart Underground argument, MN needs DU to reach its full potential while a post-DU Dart network can reach a critical mass of passengers without MN.

Building Dart Underground will increase the chances of Metro North being built in the longer term because it will (a) increase the demand from commuters and business for a rapid rail line to serve the city centre-Swords corridor and (b) will make it a much more attractive prospect for long-term State and private sector investment.

GerardKeating

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

According to the Independent, Iarnród Éireann are now looking to include an 'airport link tunnel' if they get the go ahead for DART Underground.

Airport link tunnel included in expanded DART plan

Is that map to scale. The airport spur from the Northern line looks about the same distance as a run from the airport to liffey junction.

strassenwo!f

Jack Noble wrote: »

Metro and Dart do exactly the same thing.

If you don't understand what Dart Underground will do for public transport in Dublin, then there's really not much point being on this thread.

This article in the Indo is clearly a planted flyer.

I wonder who is behind it? And why? And why now?

Why now? Isn't it pretty obvious?

There was damage to the CIE brand because of the bus strike. So a positive news story was needed to show that CIE (as a group) is a go-ahead, proactive entity, which can get things done in the 21st century.

Hard for any positive news from DB to be well received. Not much point in a press release from BE, since that mostly affects the culchies. No, of the CIE companies the only one which could really produce a positive story to try and show several hundred thousand pissed-off Dubs that CIE is actually not so bad, it was really going to be down to IE.

IE don't have a whole heap of positive stuff, so the interconnector was wheeled out.

bk

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

The National Transport Authority has today opened consultation on its "Draft Integrated Implementation Plan 2013-2018 for the Greater Dublin Area".

The report can be read here.

What is interesting about this report is:

1) It doesn't mention any DART extension to the airport
2) It proposes a Swords -> Dublin Airport -> City Center Bus Rapid Transit route.

This BRT route pretty much replicates Metro North and is included as a stop gap measure until MN is built.

The NTA report seems to suggest very strongly that this route will go ahead as a priority project.

I think this is why we might be seeing Irish Rail suddenly promoting the DART airport link project again.

Interestingly the BRT is being designed by the RPA and the RPA is expecting to operate it, so it looks like a RPA/Luas project as opposed to a CIE (IR or DB) project.

I think there is a lot of politics going on here.

lods

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/metro-north-dropped-from-modest-new-dublin-transport-strategy-1.1487668

Economic reality has finally dawned on the National Transport Authority.

In March 2011, its “2030 vision” was still championing such boom-time projects as Metro North and Dart Underground. But the “implementation programme” is much more modest in scale.

It no longer even mentions Metro North, a largely underground Luas line that would have run from St Stephen’s Green to Swords via Dublin Airport. The €4 billion cost of this 17km line simply cannot be funded, nor can the €2 billion Dart Underground.

aindriu80

They are just crap at infrastructure and finance. They can only do one thing at a time and for now its paying off the banks for the next decade at least. They should have the likes of that tunnel in the phoenix park opened years ago. It has been mentioned for ages and its still not being used ?

There are no surprises that Metro or DART underground has been shelved because the pixies in charge can't put their heads together.

Metro is for a Dublin city that doesn't exist. You would expect DART already to have the underground segment. If it just comes down to money then that's it for a decade (unless we hit oil).

a new city centre coach station

Like Bus Aras ? I think that idea has been around for a looong time but is really needed.

cabrasnake

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Why now? Isn't it pretty obvious?

There was damage to the CIE brand because of the bus strike. So a positive news story was needed to show that CIE (as a group) is a go-ahead, proactive entity, which can get things done in the 21st century.

Hard for any positive news from DB to be well received. Not much point in a press release from BE, since that mostly affects the culchies. No, of the CIE companies the only one which could really produce a positive story to try and show several hundred thousand pissed-off Dubs that CIE is actually not so bad, it was really going to be down to IE.

IE don't have a whole heap of positive stuff, so the interconnector was wheeled out.

So, you reckon the illuminati were behind this news release? Jim Corr absolutely agrees.

He probably also has an answer to why news about DU is good for the CIE brand. Cos 99.9% of the comments in the indo were vehemently against DU. With cuts to social welfare and carers allowances and spl needs teachers big ticket investments like DU are very unpopular.
In fact oddly enough the public on the whole blame the gov for the DB strike, bankers are laughing at the people and workers are paying for their gambles.

But maybe you're correct. It's all part of the plan.

bk

lods wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/metro-north-dropped-from-modest-new-dublin-transport-strategy-1.1487668

Reading this article it is clear that some one at Irish Rail has the ear of someone at the times.

The article makes out that Metro North has been scrapped and that Dart Underground is "protected".

In fact the report says the same thing about both the MN and DU projects, that investments made in them already need to be "protected" for when they go ahead at a future date.

BTW the fact that MN and DU are such important projects under the 2030 plan, but less important under this plan isn't incompatible. The 2030 plan is a long term plan, these new plan is a short term plan up till 2018. Given the current economic situation it was always very unlikely they were going to go ahead in the next few years. Instead they are rightfully focusing on small cheap plans (cycling, BRT, Luas Cross City, etc.) for the next few years, but that doesn't mean MN and DU won't happen before 2030.

Victor

GerardKeating wrote: »

Is that map to scale. The airport spur from the Northern line looks about the same distance as a run from the airport to liffey junction.

I can't see any map.

aindriu80 wrote: »

Like Bus Aras ? I think that idea has been around for a looong time but is really needed.

Busáras isn't big enough. there are long distance coaches operating from Westmoreland Street, Burgh Quay, Georges Quay, Bachelors Walk, Eden Quay, Parnell Street, Abbey Street Lower, Connolly Luas stop and other places.