DART Underground planning due to lapse, but lots of Airport Luas talk?

end of the road

thomasj wrote: »

Blanchardstown (maynooth line) is still waiting on the DART line. It has a bigger population than swords.

they should get a spur also

BoatMad

end of the road wrote: »

they should get a spur also

one for everyone in the audience

Lenton Lane

BoatMad wrote: »

one for everyone in the audience

Well if there's sweets being handed out I'd finish Phase 2 of the Navan line before a branch to Blanch.

Or is the term "Phase 2" DTTAS shorthand for "it won't get built"

thomasj

Lenton Lane wrote: »

Well if there's sweets being handed out I'd finish Phase 2 of the Navan line before a branch to Blanch.

Or is the term "Phase 2" DTTAS shorthand for "it won't get built"

Why not just electrify the maynooth line and then just add bus connections for the greater blanchardstown area

McAlban

thomasj wrote: »

Blanchardstown (maynooth line) is still waiting on the DART line. It has a bigger population than swords.

That's debatable, depending on where you get your info from.

Blanchardstown is smaller than Swords. unless you're counting Corduff, Mulhuddart and Coolmine etc.

Yes the DART should be extended to Maynooth, but the real issue of course is that the MGWR built it on the cheap to reach Galway before the GS&WR and there are too many level crossings on the line. To make it "Rapid" would take a lot of work.

cgcsb

thomasj wrote: »

Why not just electrify the maynooth line and then just add bus connections for the greater blanchardstown area

agree a Blanch BRT with a few branches would be great for the area. However that would mean we'd have to adopt an integrated ticketing system, and that's just not on the cards right now after all the money that was blown on "leap".

thomasj

McAlban wrote: »

That's debatable, depending on where you get your info from.

Blanchardstown is smaller than Swords. unless you're counting Corduff, Mulhuddart and Coolmine etc.

Yes the DART should be extended to Maynooth, but the real issue of course is that the MGWR built it on the cheap to reach Galway before the GS&WR and there are too many level crossings on the line. To make it "Rapid" would take a lot of work.

Census 2011 has swords at around 43k compared to around 68k for blanchardstown.

andrew163

Excuse my ignorance... but is an airport DART spur really feasible without DU taking northern DART/Kildare services?

Making everything fit into rush hour at Connolly was difficult enough with just Maynooth, DART and Northern commuter services. Trying to make Northern commuter, Maynooth, Malahide/Howth DART, new PPT commuter services and Airport DART all work on that same length of track sounds like an impossible task.

Unless DU is included (or at least given a "commitment to build" so it's not off the table, and presumably some money for CPOs) this all just sounds like throwing public money at things that might get FG a few extra votes in the election.

Idbatterim

Census 2011 has swords at around 43k compared to around 68k for blanchardstown.

Either way it should go out to swords, there is a massive housing shortage and a mass of land suitable around swords for development, combine that with a high capacity line into Dublin high density housing to be built close to Dublin, without a nightmare commute into the city for people...

n97 mini

McAlban wrote: »

Yes the DART should be extended to Maynooth, but the real issue of course is that the MGWR built it on the cheap to reach Galway before the GS&WR and there are too many level crossings on the line. To make it "Rapid" would take a lot of work.

True there are a lot of level crossings, but the existing Dart has loads too, so that didn't stop them.

Big advantage over diesel is rapid acceleration. The stops on the Maynooth line are too close together.

cython

McAlban wrote: »

That's debatable, depending on where you get your info from.

Blanchardstown is smaller than Swords. unless you're counting Corduff, Mulhuddart and Coolmine etc.

Yes the DART should be extended to Maynooth, but the real issue of course is that the MGWR built it on the cheap to reach Galway before the GS&WR and there are too many level crossings on the line. To make it "Rapid" would take a lot of work.

n97 mini wrote: »

True there are a lot of level crossings, but the existing Dart has loads too, so that didn't stop them.

Big advantage over diesel is rapid acceleration. The stops on the Maynooth line are too close together.

Not to mention that Irish Rail are already working towards closing the level crossings on the line, so it should really be a matter of when, not if, they are closed.

aliveandkicking

Capital Expenditure plan now delayed until next week. Is this confirmation that they have had a last minute change of mind about the Luas and are now frantically trying to come up with something better? We'll probably never know for sure. I wonder have any of the decision makers been reading this thread along with with the DU thread on the infrastructure forum. Whatever the case may be lets just hope we end up with a common sense long term solution.

cgcsb

If it's delayed till next week then DARTu is definitely gone, that means we're going to spend hundreds of millions more on fresh planning.

BoatMad

aliveandkicking wrote: »

Capital Expenditure plan now delayed until next week. Is this confirmation that they have had a last minute change of mind about the Luas and are now frantically trying to come up with something better? We'll probably never know for sure. I wonder have any of the decision makers been reading this thread along with with the DU thread on the infrastructure forum. Whatever the case may be lets just hope we end up with a common sense long term solution.

no i think its an indication of an argument between FG and Labour

XPS_Zero

Remember it's not just about what the population is NOW it's what it's projected to be. If we planned only for how things are now, today, no strategic infrastructure would ever be built.

BoatMad

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Remember it's not just about what the population is NOW it's what it's projected to be. If we planned only for how things are now, today, no strategic infrastructure would ever be built.

well in Ireland we never build " strategic" infrastructure, we build after the existing system has failed , M50, Liffey bridge , etc etc all after the effect planning

Van.Bosch

BoatMad wrote: »

well in Ireland we never build " strategic" infrastructure, we build after the existing system has failed , M50, Liffey bridge , etc etc all after the effect planning

Exactly and it has to be politically savvy also. We may see a metro being proposed for Swords, Ballina and Cobh.

If a variation of MN is proposed i hope they call it Luas North. Yes it will be faster, longer and 100% segregated but the brand should stay constant

BoatMad

Van.Bosch wrote: »

Exactly and it has to be politically savvy also. We may see a metro being proposed for Swords, Ballina and Cobh.

If a variation of MN is proposed i hope they call it Luas North. Yes it will be faster, longer and 100% segregated but the brand should stay constant

since Luas has much kudos politically , I can see a Luas North AND a specific heavy rail to the airport as a possibility

Van.Bosch

BoatMad wrote: »

since Luas has much kudos politically , I can see a Luas North AND a specific heavy rail to the airport as a possibility

Do you mean Luas north as in what we now call Metro or the connection to the green line?

The DART spur for the airport is a good idea in that it will be relatively easy and quick to build and will provide a good journey time to the city so it will cover the airport.

If they go with the Luas D2 plan, a lot of the airport traffic will go via the DART spur which should free up capacity for the swords area but it would still be quite slow. Overall its a mish mash of two ideas to come up with what MN can do in one albeit much dearer. I wouldnt be surprised to see both Luas D2 and the DART spur.

DART spur and MN would be amazing but i think we all know not going to happen.

Obviously DU is the priority but that ship looks to have sailed.

expectationlost

MerrionStreet.ie @merrionstreet https://twitter.com/merrionstreet/status/646305300019040256
Minister @Paschald is making an announcement on the DART underground.

MerrionStreet.ie @merrionstreet
Government at cabinet reaffirmed commitment to project. Will be the largest project ever undertaken by the state at over €4bn.


MerrionStreet.ie @merrionstreet
Extremely important project that will happen. Tunnel needs to be redesigned to meet future needs.

Gavan Reilly Verified account ‏@gavreilly 7m7 minutes ago Paschal Donohoe says DART Underground needs to be redesigned. €40m has already been spent on planning it thus far.

Sierra Oscar

expectationlost wrote: »

MerrionStreet.ie @merrionstreet https://twitter.com/merrionstreet/status/646305300019040256
Minister @Paschald is making an announcement on the DART underground.

MerrionStreet.ie @merrionstreet
Government at cabinet reaffirmed commitment to project. Will be the largest project ever undertaken by the state at over €4bn.


MerrionStreet.ie @merrionstreet
Extremely important project that will happen. Tunnel needs to be redesigned to meet future needs.

Those are just weasel words by the Minister. He has confirmed that DART Underground has been shelved because it needs to be "redesigned". It's going back to the drawing board yet again so don't expect anything for the rest of this decade.

He has given the green light to extend the DART to Balbriggan but says it won't happen until 2022 at the earliest. Yay ...

_Kaiser_

DU deferred.. instead the DART is going to Balbriggan:

The Government is to extend the Dart line in Dublin to Balbriggan by 2022.
However the plan for the Dart underground plan including a tunnel under Dublin City linking the existing northern line at Connolly Station with Heuston Station has been deferred.
Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe said the tunnel element of this project will be re-designed.

OR.. What SO said

thomasj

So there's an election coming up I presume?.....

end of the road

re-designed how exactly.

MrMorooka

I want clarification on what redesign is needed too. I'd assume it's a cost cutting thing, make the tunnel shorter or remove a stop or something. It's obviously impossible to just build what is actually needed the first time around.

As for Balbrigan DART- a shame that IE removed the loop at Mosney a couple of weeks ago. It's another location that's not suitable as a terminus, another Malahide in the making. However, it does work as a prerequisite to DU, so I would support it from that angle. Things like this or electrifying the Maynooth or Kildare lines are things that will feed into DU in the future, so it's not a complete mistake like Airport Luas would be.

markpb

MrMorooka wrote: »

I want clarification on what redesign is needed too.

It's need to be redesigned so that it's the other side of the election.

Carawaystick

I can't see how DART will improve services to Balbriggan, Skerries, R&L, or Donabate
It definitely won't improve journey times, and as the 33x is already faster to Tara st from R&L ....

XPS_Zero

MrMorooka wrote: »

I want clarification on what redesign is needed too. I'd assume it's a cost cutting thing, make the tunnel shorter or remove a stop or something. It's obviously impossible to just build what is actually needed the first time around.

As for Balbrigan DART- a shame that IE removed the loop at Mosney a couple of weeks ago. It's another location that's not suitable as a terminus, another Malahide in the making. However, it does work as a prerequisite to DU, so I would support it from that angle. Things like this or electrifying the Maynooth or Kildare lines are things that will feed into DU in the future, so it's not a complete mistake like Airport Luas would be.

There is no redesign, it's going the same way as the Universal Healthcare plan, the graduate tax plan, the economic stimulus package and all the other things that made FG-Lab look attractive and fresh 5 years ago, now those things are "*cough* er...(Trails off...)"

Minister "we need a redesign..."

Translation: "Infrastructure projects take years for the dumb dumb public to see, and we know voters, esp what are charitably called "low information voters " (2/3 of the electorate), only vote on policy if it's a policy that personally affects them, otherwise they vote on the economy, so we need the clapping seals to be good serfs and vote us back in again, they will only do this if they see tangible things like USC cuts and tax cuts and extra 10ers on childrens allowance, and as the era of boom and bust is over you see (sssssssssllllllow wink....snigger)...we only have around 2b extra to play with and we need to use that on short term nonsense like 10ers on ca, so your fancy projects will have to wait, anyway half of us will be retired or dead again these projects are needed so what do we care? ahahahahahahah SUCKERS!"

Larbre34

This Government spouts voluminous bullsh17 about commercial investment and silicon docks and smart economy and the return of growth, yet when it comes to the single most vital transport interconnector to allow the capital city to intensify over the next half century, they decide to shelve it. It may have cost €4bn to build, but in gridlock and lost investment opportunities, it could cost €20 or €30bn over the next decade when it isnt available. There is literally no viable alternative other than to bulld this.

What a complete bunch of incompetent amateurs and spoofers. That goes for the Govt and all their advisors and mandarins. This is a massive error.

thomasj

Carawaystick wrote: »

I can't see how DART will improve services to Balbriggan, Skerries, R&L, or Donabate
It definitely won't improve journey times, and as the 33x is already faster to Tara st from R&L ....

Well....... When The port tunnel is open it is.......

end of the road

MrMorooka wrote: »

a shame that IE removed the loop at Mosney a couple of weeks ago.

agree, only irish fail could remove a loop on a busy line like this. ah but shur itl save a few quid at the expence of causing more delays to customers no doubt

StonyIron

There needs to be a very serious long term strategy for public transit in Dublin. There's just no big picture stuff.

This is why I think public transport in Dublin, Cork and possibly Limerick, Galway and Waterford needs to be devolved to their respective city councils.

FG has actually been going around abolishing and merging cities with huge rural areas, the exact opposite to good strategy to create working urban areas.

The cities need strong leadership, vision, executive mayors and councils with actual power to develop them.

Carawaystick

thomasj wrote: »

Well....... When The port tunnel is open it is.......

Or when there's no signal failure, or points failure, or delay because the incoming train was delayed, Or a strike, or a not-a-wildcat-strike-just-the-drivers-have-to-take-time-during-their-working-hours-to-have-a-union-meeting Or if the bridge we maintain falls into the sea because we didn't know how it was constructed

it is.



But more on topic, surely 4 tracking more of the Heuston line would give better bang for the buck?

MJohnston

It's bizarre that the government can't figure out a way for DU to play positively for them politically - there's a massive housing shortage crisis brewing currently, and infrastructure projects like this would surely kill two birds by providing better transit, as well as opening up the opportunities for commuter living. Sigh.

cgcsb

Redesign what exactly? I wasn't aware that a detailed design had even been carried out, with only a route selected and standard tunnel section selected.

I suppose the redesign is shorter platforms, no Christchurch stop and single bore tunnel.

Captain Chaos

This government just lost my vote by shelving this. I would have voted FG if they went ahead with DU now but now thy have just shown they have no backbone nor have the foresight that is needed for the future growth of Dublin.

In a few years time this city will be at bursting point with everyone in their cars and no one using public transport with rising fares, slower commute times and out dated infrastucture operating beyond capacity.

cgcsb

some hilarious penny pinching here.

Pete_Cavan

If they follow through with the NTAs recommendation to proceed with the non-tunnelled elements of the DART Expansion Programme (KRPII and electrification of the Northern Line and Maynooth Line) this is the best we could have hoped for. It all feeds into the eventual delivery of DU and strengthens the case for it. It is a lot better than wasting resources on an under spec'ed Luas to the airport. The €4bn DU plan was never going to happen under on capital plan anyway, €1bn on improving services on the main commuter routes is the best we could have hoped for.

Captain Chaos

cgcsb wrote: »

some hilarious penny pinching here.

Why the turn back under Pearse? That line was ment to continue on, exit at the Dockland site and align to the Eastwall Junction curve to connect to the Northern main line.

Decuc500

I can't imagine how packed a Dart would be coming in from Balbriggan in morning rush hour. It's bad enough now getting on a Dart from Malahide from Howth Jcn onwards but extending it to Balbriggan?

Van.Bosch

Decuc500 wrote: »

I can't imagine how packed a Dart would be coming in from Balbriggan in morning rush hour. It's bad enough now getting on a Dart from Malahide from Howth Jcn onwards but extending it to Balbriggan?

The idea would be that there would be more of them so less congestion...thats the idea.

BoatMad

personally , I'm not suprised DU got shelved, very big project with a very big ticket price.

equally Im not sure that IE is the right vehicle to implement a Dublin commuter strategy, In reality we need a form of LTA focused on Dublin exclusively

I think a lot of DU can be implemented in stages or perhaps in smaller projects , we shall see how the PPT works out as well.

Captain Chaos

Decuc500 wrote: »

I can't imagine how packed a Dart would be coming in from Balbriggan in morning rush hour. It's bad enough now getting on a Dart from Malahide from Howth Jcn onwards but extending it to Balbriggan?

Exactly my thoughts.

In reality what needs to happen (like they did in France for the TGV line, get people to move away from the line extension) but won't is 4 tracking the line from Connolly out to at least Malahide.

This will allow for slow and fast up and down lines. It will allow more frequent Commuter DMUs and DARTs while still providing enough paths for Enterprise services.

expectationlost

end of the road wrote: »

re-designed how exactly.

Lower cost re-design of DART Underground project proposed https://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/lower-cost-re-design-of-dart-underground-project-proposed/

cgcsb

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Why the turn back under Pearse? That line was ment to continue on, exit at the Dockland site and align to the Eastwall Junction curve to connect to the Northern main line.

I think it's an exercise in optics. To the untrained eye it appears to save a few quid, but anyone with an engineering background will tell you, heavy rail underground turn around facilities will probably cost you a good bit more than a km of extra tunnel.

Terminating the tunnel there also defeats the purpose of the tunnel entirely, it'd provide no relief to the loop line and indeed would just do the same job that the 145 bus and red luas already do. In short the NTA were asked by FG HQ to do some doodles on a map, in the real world a tunnel ending at Pearse street is too impractical to function.

BoatMad

cgcsb wrote: »

I think it's an exercise in optics. To the untrained eye it appears to save a few quid, but anyone with an engineering background will tell you, heavy rail underground turn around facilities will probably cost you a good bit more than a km of extra tunnel.

Terminating the tunnel there also defeats the purpose of the tunnel entirely, it'd provide no relief to the loop line and indeed would just do the same job that the 145 bus and red luas already do. In short the NTA were asked by FG HQ to do some doodles on a map, in the real world a tunnel ending at Pearse street is too impractical to function.

i think re all agree that the re-design is code for " drop it." so lets not waste too much time on possible " re-designs" that are never going to happen

MrMorooka

cgcsb wrote: »

Redesign what exactly? I wasn't aware that a detailed design had even been carried out, with only a route selected and standard tunnel section selected.

I suppose the redesign is shorter platforms, no Christchurch stop and single bore tunnel.

No, it was completely designed in detail : https://web.archive.org/web/20130907110400/http://www.dartundergroundrailwayorder.ie/ . Almost shovel ready, like.

cgcsb

MrMorooka wrote: »

No, it was completely designed in detail : https://web.archive.org/web/20130907110400/http://www.dartundergroundrailwayorder.ie/ . Almost shovel ready, like.

Interesting, this doesn't seem to be available from Irish Rail

MrMorooka

expectationlost wrote: »

https://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/lower-cost-re-design-of-dart-underground-project-proposed/

Oh god, that alternative 3.

I can't believe how they could seriously propose terminating the tunnel at Pearse. The whole point of the project is to create two DART lines, by removing a direct connection at one end you just make it into a total mess.

And they are proposing it twice. Literally the best outcome here is that they start the tunnel at Heuston(wasn't this the original plan but was decided not to be feasible? Why is it back?) and keep the rest of the route, but that is looking more unlikely and we might get a completely gimped 'solution' here. Madness.

BoatMad

MrMorooka wrote: »

No, it was completely designed in detail : https://web.archive.org/web/20130907110400/http://www.dartundergroundrailwayorder.ie/ . Almost shovel ready, like.

yes of course the 10 year CPO battle might have delayed it , ( like the m50)