Fingal / North Dublin Transport Study

Lenton Lane

Sam Russell wrote: »

Currently there is capacity only for cars. No train. No Luas. No bendy buses. Coaches carry 70 or so passengers per coach so one Dart carries 2,000 at crush load, but say 1,200 per Dart. That is equal to 17 coaches. If Darts run every 15 mins at peak, that would be equal to one coach every minute.

The spur could be built NOW - certainly starting within 12 months - if the political will was there to do so. Most is across open countryside.

No other solution, apart from bendy buses could be up and running quicker - and who wants bendy buses?

The one chink of light in all this debacle would be for the Airport spur to be built from Clongriffin. The real value add would be to take the spur up to Swords and beyond to reconnect with the Belfast mainline. That way all Enterprise trains could serve the airport and relive congestion on the Great Northern commuter line.

The danger is that Clongriffin to Airport is designated Phase1 and Airport to Swords to GN line is Phase2. And we all know when Phase2 lines get built? Never. Ask residents of Navan.

Idbatterim

IF the issue is money, why are they spending quite a lot, to provide us with rubbish? That is going to cost a fortune to patch up. years down the road.

How about HR 2 i.e. clongriffin to airport and swords DART and then luas to airport, where dart and luas could meet... There wouldnt be any of this Dublin doesnt need an underground line rubbish. RPA and CIE happy, cost is broken up over two projects. The capacity issue is sorted as light rail is probably fine, up to the point you get to the airport for that route from town, its the airport (probably) and certainly (swords) on a numbers basis that make it a joke... other than the time factor...

Lenton Lane

Idbatterim wrote: »

IF the issue is money, why are they spending quite a lot, to provide us with rubbish? That is going to cost a fortune to patch up. years down the road.

How about HR 2 i.e. clongriffin to airport and swords DART and then luas to airport, where dart and luas could meet... There wouldnt be any of this Dublin doesnt need an underground line rubbish. RPA and CIE happy, cost is broken up over two projects. The capacity issue is sorted as light rail is probably fine, up to the point you get to the airport for that route from town, its the airport (probably) and certainly (swords) on a numbers basis that make it a joke... other than the time factor...

Yes, agreed. The combined HR2 and LR3 scenario in the Fingal/North Dublin transportation study report as good as recommended that option.

Idbatterim

my opinion is, if MN etc are totally off the table. It appears there are certainly other options worthy of consideration and with more merit, than the Luas to swords alone...

If that option is off for the time being or with FG at the helm. In my opinion the reality is, even with Luas to the airport, they are going to have to put a heavy rail link or high freqeuncy, highly segregated line in at some point. We know this NOW, we have known it for YEARS!

Its impossible to predict anything, because there are so many vested interests, who knows what goes on behind closed doors!

Lenton Lane

Idbatterim wrote: »

my opinion is, if MN etc are totally off the table. It appears there are certainly other options worthy of consideration and with more merit, than the Luas to swords alone...

If that option is off for the time being or with FG at the helm. In my opinion the reality is, even with Luas to the airport, they are going to have to put a heavy rail link or high freqeuncy, highly segregated line in at some point. We know this NOW, we have known it for YEARS!

Its impossible to predict anything, because there are so many vested interests, who knows what goes on behind closed doors!

Well to be candid, I get the impression that those of us with deep knowledge of the subject are kept well away from the doors of the Department. :rolleyes

McAlban

Lenton Lane wrote: »

The danger is that Clongriffin to Airport is designated Phase1 and Airport to Swords to GN line is Phase2. And we all know when Phase2 lines get built? Never. Ask residents of Navan.

Or Tuam and Youghal for that matter.

Lenton Lane

McAlban wrote: »

Or Tuam and Youghal for that matter.

Tuam and Youghal deserve their own threads but yes, getting passenger services there in place would seriously rejuvenate those towns. Sadly that kind of forward thinking is not at all present in the Department. I am quite sure many of the officials would gladly rip up the bulk of the railway system if they could get away with it.

McAlban

Lenton Lane wrote: »

Tuam and Youghal deserve their own threads but yes, getting passenger services there in place would seriously rejuvenate those towns. Sadly that kind of forward thinking is not at all present in the Department. I am quite sure many of the officials would gladly rip up the bulk of the railway system if they could get away with it.

If Dunleer (just a station on a busy commuter route) can't get upgraded and re-opened then I hold out little hope for Swords, Tuam or Youghal ever seeing a viable rail option. 3 large commuter communities with congested N roads as their current options. Albeit with the M17 it will all be solved. Until they get to Lough Atalia of course.

markpb

Idbatterim wrote: »

IF the issue is money, why are they spending quite a lot, to provide us with rubbish? That is going to cost a fortune to patch up. years down the road.

How about HR 2 i.e. clongriffin to airport and swords DART and then luas to airport, where dart and luas could meet... There wouldnt be any of this Dublin doesnt need an underground line rubbish. RPA and CIE happy, cost is broken up over two projects. The capacity issue is sorted as light rail is probably fine, up to the point you get to the airport for that route from town, its the airport (probably) and certainly (swords) on a numbers basis that make it a joke... other than the time factor...

If money is the issue, how does splitting up the (much increased) cost between two projects help at all?

Plus, don't you see the political downsides to building two separate rail lines to the airport? Joe, its teddidble, two train lines to the airport and no motorway to tuam, hospital in Roscommon, school in termonfecin, etc, etc. never going to happen.

Idbatterim

If money is the issue, how does splitting up the (much increased) cost between two projects help at all?

Plus, don't you see the political downsides to building two separate rail lines to the airport? Joe, its teddidble, two train lines to the airport and no motorway to tuam, hospital in Roscommon, school in termonfecin, etc, etc. never going to happen.

ok, firstly they dont need to be done at the same time, joke of journey time to swords in particular and also to the airport sorted with much quicker dart, sorted. Capacity issue sorted. Cie and RPA bickering, probably sorted. Very little if any underground sections, sorted, so none of the usual "shure what would dublin be doing with an underground at all at all". Both dart and luas serve airport, sorted...

RPA put price of 600,000,000 of luas to swords, so just run it to the airport and say what E450,000,000 and the cost of HR1 was estimated by Irish rail to be 200,000,000 for 7.5km. HR2 would be an additional 4.8km, cost would vary considerably, depending on a number of factors under airport, but say another 400-500 million, so the airport gets dart and luas, can be done independent of each other, the amounts arent staggering each, they would be politically sellable...

these two schemes could probably be done for less than half the cost of even metro north revised and I am not sure how capacity would compare to MNR, but it would be interesting to work it out... so seeing as how we love consensus here, give everyone a share of the spoils. To me it seems a great option, figures should be palatable to everyone, dublin airport and north dublin get great transport solution, dublin airport is served by two systems, as I mentioned...

SantryRed

I genuinely can't believe they think it's feasible to run a LUAS to the Airport that's going to take at least 40 minutes (being generous here). What's the bloody point in using it?! And it makes an extension to Swords even more pointless too. The transport situation in this country is gonna grind to a halt soon and we'll see the true damage caused to the economy. Such short sightedness in this country it's unreal! It's all about getting back into power, and absolutely nothing about improving the country.

Schadenfreudia

Whatever the outcome of this review, the Minister should make clear that the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Metro North is no longer on the agenda. Merely shelving the project, leaving open the prospect of dusting it down at some stage in the future, is not sufficient. There are other, more realistic ways of serving Dublin Airport and Swords.

http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/link-to-dublin-airport-and-swords-must-concentrate-on-more-economical-options-1.2343440

The IT manges to sound pompous and Neanderthal in the same breath.

Sam Russell

The Irish Times are suggesting bendy buses! Can you believe it?


Of course, the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Metro North is off the table, like the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Dart Underground but not the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Galway Bypass.

Lenton Lane

Sam Russell wrote: »

The Irish Times are suggesting bendy buses! Can you believe it?


Of course, the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Metro North is off the table, like the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Dart Underground but not the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Galway Bypass.

You would swear Colm "no Dart here" McCarthy wrote the editorial.

Schadenfreudia

Sam Russell wrote: »

The Irish Times are suggesting bendy buses! Can you believe it?


Of course, the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Metro North is off the table, like the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Dart Underground but not the wildly expensive and enormously disruptive Galway Bypass.

This should not be either/or - that plays right into their hands....:(

Schadenfreudia

Lenton Lane wrote: »

You would swear Colm "no Dart here" McCarthy wrote the editorial.

And to think the IT also led the campaign against Busaras back in the day - I guess they've come to love buses in the intervening years.....

Sam Russell

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

This should not be either/or - that plays right into their hands....:(

It is not a case of either/or - it is a case of accepting €600m for a bypass for a small provincial town of 75,000 citizens, but not to spend a smaller (on an equivalent basis) amount for a much more urgent piece of infrastructure for the capital city.

Schadenfreudia

Sam Russell wrote: »

It is not a case of either/or - it is a case of accepting €600m for a bypass for a small provincial town of 75,000 citizens, but not to spend a smaller (on an equivalent basis) amount for a much more urgent piece of infrastructure for the capital city.

In the Irish context not many would characterise Galway city as a "small provincial town".

And the cost of that much-needed bypass was doubled by a bunch of cranks "saving" the local bog-mite in an area which, I am reliably informed, has almost zero conservation value but was added to a list when the EU was demanding habitat to protect.

It seemed like a good piece of waste land to beef up the list at the time. Of course by then there were too many vested interests opposed to coming clean on the sham; so €300 million down the tubes...snall price to pay for the "reputation" of some Civil Servants and politicians.

This is not about Dublin v Galway; not Galway bypass v DU - it is about that fact that in both places we are governed by cynical clowns.

And we fall into their inter-county rivalry strokes every time....

Sam Russell

Yes, obviously Galway is a city, (just a bit of exaggeration on my part) and I suspect it will be possible that DU is built before the Galway bypass. DU was further on in planning terms when this Gov came into office nearly five years ago than the Galway bypass is now. Neither will be built in the near future, unfortunately.

Idbatterim

It seemed like a good piece of waste land to beef up the list at the time. Of course by then there were too many vested interests opposed to coming clean on the sham; so €300 million down the tubes...snall price to pay for the "reputation" of some Civil Servants and politicians.

you really have to question this BS! with the homeless and refugee crisis, would the €300,000,000 not be better on saving lives rather than insects or whatever :rolleyes:

Ren2k7

What is the point of all these reports? This latest AECOM report on public transport in North Dublin was based entirely around the notion that DU would be going ahead (the so-called "do-minimum" scenario) where the various options (MN, Luas, Spur) would tie into DU as part of an overall transportation system. So the govt now announcing it is abandoning DART U pretty much makes any decision based on the options presented in the AECOM study to be completely pointless.

The govt is ignoring its own reports.......which of course isn't all that surprising. Why break the habit of a lifetime. I wonder if we actually had govts that followed through with expert recommendations what Dublin and Ireland would be like today. Sigh. :rolleyes:

Bray Head

Metro North is alive according to the Irish Times!

It's heavy on selling the benefits of 'optimised' MN over the original version, such as the one less station, more overground and shorter platforms.

The Government is considering a revised metro system to run between Dublin city centre and the airport and Swords in north county Dublin.
The metro plan, which would run from St Stephen’s Green, had appeared to have been effectively killed off on cost grounds a number of years ago. However, it is understood a revised, less expensive “optimised” metro system has now been proposed to Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe by the National Transport Authority (NTA) following an assessment of the transport requirements of Fingal and north Dublin.
A number of sources said the metro has emerged as the preferred option, but stressed no final decisions have been made. Mr Donohoe’s spokeswoman last night declined to comment but said the final decision will be announced next week “in the context of the capital plan”.


...................Mr Donohoe’s spokeswoman confirmed the chosen project will be one of the six options presented to him by the NTA. The NTA estimated the original Metro North would cost about €2.5 billion, with the so-called “optimised Metro North” coming in €452 million cheaper. Some sources suggested the cost of the revised metro could be as low as €1.8 billion.

I would guess the emphasis on cost is spin to try and get it past the doubters who would prefer the Luas link. It's also consistent with yesterday's decision to can Dart Underground as this frees up more cash for spend on rail in Dublin.

jd

Heard this from a fg councillor a few weeks ago, could well be true. But they'll have to revisit station lengths again in a few years

Bray Head

jd wrote: »

But they'll have to revisit station lengths again in a few years

I would tend to agree. It seems foolish not to future proof the system against an increase in demand.

Is a change of mind on this something that the planning process could allow once the boring has started?

Idbatterim

Ok in the aecom report, it said the shortening of platforms would save E80,000,000 or some pittance like that, in the scheme of 1,800,000,000 its nothing, watch out for the most short sighted "saving" ever!

Van.Bosch

Idbatterim wrote: »

Ok in the aecom report, it said the shortening of platforms would save E80,000,000 or some pittance like that, in the scheme of 1,800,000,000 its nothing, watch out for the most short sighted "saving" ever!

I would take it over airport luas though

cgcsb

the optimised metro is a good result from FG, a rural party in all fairness. The platforms in the central areas will have to be lengthened in the future at tripple the cost of course, but sure...

Pete_Cavan

If MN is back on the cards in some form, could that explain the random Balbriggan Dart extension? Is there some logic to having Darts run as far as where MN meets the Northern Line or are they totally unrelated? Just trying to make sense of the Balbriggan extension and the reports now circulating about MN, is there some method in this madness?

Pete_Cavan

Idbatterim wrote: »

Ok in the aecom report, it said the shortening of platforms would save E80,000,000 or some pittance like that, in the scheme of 1,800,000,000 its nothing, watch out for the most short sighted "saving" ever!

Maybe the small saving comes from the fact that the station boxes would still be constructed to accommodate larger platforms, they will just be fitted out to a smaller size? The combined saving from the shorter platforms and less rolling stock could be significant.

cgcsb

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

If MN is back on the cards in some form, could that explain the random Balbriggan Dart extension? Is there some logic to having Darts run as far as where MN meets the Northern Line or are they totally unrelated? Just trying to make sense of the Balbriggan extension and the reports now circulating about MN, is there some method in this madness?

Metro N will not meet the northern line initially although a future extension to donebate with residential development along the route in between may be prudent.