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

Zebra3

Banjoxed wrote: »

Well there's a new option now, Sinn Féin and the far left. Short of getting Hugo Chavez resurrected from the dead and an oilfield around and below Ireland, we'll be lucky to have an ass and cart to travel in by the time they've finished the country.

Yep, because paying the private banking debt was a wonderful move. :rolleyes:

cgcsb

https://www.newstalk.com/reader/47.301/54653/0/

Are we still to believe that a botched luas is sufficient?

Lenton Lane

cgcsb wrote: »

https://www.newstalk.com/reader/47.301/54653/0/

Are we still to believe that a botched luas is sufficient?

In any other country an integrated transport plan would be at the heart of the proposals. Insane stuff but then again what else would be expected?

McAlban

Transport21 Was the closest we got to any type of integrated plan.... Depressing to think it would have been almost completed by now. (and begs the question... what would we all talk about when T21 was complete?!?)

DAA have been land grabbing strategically buying land around the Airport for 30 years. A huge amount of the surrounding area is owned by them already. As Long as profitable Air Freight/Logistics and FDI exist a near airport industrail and commercial space will be very profitable.

Strangely enough. This area is exactly where the Dardistown Stop/P&R/MW Junction of MN was supposed to be.

Spanish Eyes

When I read threads like this, I look back to the days the Luas being joined up was scuppered. What a disaster, not for lack of funds, but constant objections and a political decision to leave it as it was.

I well remember a debate about the LUAS not being able to turn at the end of Dawson/Nassau Street. Too narrow.

Now what have we got? Yep.

Anyway, at the rate PT infrastructure is built in this city, even IF MN and DU get the go ahead, it will be ten to twenty years away minimum. That seems to be the time it takes to get something from decision, to planning, to finish. Mad altogether.

Unfortunately if we had done the business back in the day, it would have paid such huge dividends now for everyone. Sad isn't it that vision was not an issue then.

I think most politicians with the power to decide this do not live in the Capital. They tolerate it for a few days a week and then decamp.

They do not realise the real issue here.

I love Dublin and want the best for it. I still hope for that!

Lenton Lane

Spanish Eyes wrote: »

When I read threads like this, I look back to the days the Luas being joined up was scuppered. What a disaster, not for lack of funds, but constant objections and a political decision to leave it as it was.

I well remember a debate about the LUAS not being able to turn at the end of Dawson/Nassau Street. Too narrow.

Now what have we got? Yep.

Anyway, at the rate PT infrastructure is built in this city, even IF MN and DU get the go ahead, it will be ten to twenty years away minimum. That seems to be the time it takes to get something from decision, to planning, to finish. Mad altogether.

Unfortunately if we had done the business back in the day, it would have paid such huge dividends now for everyone. Sad isn't it that vision was not an issue then.

I think most politicians with the power to decide this do not live in the Capital. They tolerate it for a few days a week and then decamp.

They do not realise the real issue here.

I love Dublin and want the best for it. I still hope for that!

Well this is the danger of adopting Luas to the airport as the sole "solution" to the airport's transportation issues. If Luas was one of the rail based solutions then it would make sense, however on its own it really is only a stopgap, a quick fix.

It will quickly be seen as barely adequate and in another 10 years time a final decision on Metro North or Rail or better still both, will be adopted. The DTTAS have kicked the can down the road for another 10 years and we will be paying a hell of a lot more for it in 10 years time than now.

But when it comes to capital projects we have always adopted a half baked approach which costs us a lot more money in the long run. M50 bridge anyone?

jd

As we feared..

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/underground-dart-plan-sacrificed-for-other-capital-projects-31509205.html

Underground Dart plan 'sacrificed' for other capital projects

Proposals for the highly ambitious Dart underground project are set to be parked, as the Coalition puts the finishing touches to its multi-billion-euro capital spending spree.
..
But sources have indicated that the proposed €4bn project will be "sacrificed" due to funding constraints and concern among some ministers that the capital plan will be perceived as focusing too heavily on Dublin.
..
Mr Donohoe is now expected to be given the green light for the expansion of the Luas between Dublin city centre and the airport.

cgcsb

Gutted, will now start looking for a job abroad, Ireland is a hopeless case.

pclive

The ministers e-mail address is minister@dttas.ie

suggest people e-mail him and cc finegael@finegael.ie

XPS_Zero

So here it is..the mask is finally well and truly on the floor. They are no longer even keeping up a pretense of having foresight.

Remember, one of the key blunders during the boom years was short term thinking. 'Lets buy the election, using bubble-money that may not be here in 6 years time, and spend it not on one off capital projects but election purchasing long term social items like children s allowance increases"
They said when they got in that short term thinking was a thing of the past it was all about medium to long term economic planning, we were gonna be all Chinese, plan 20 years into the future...but no. The reasons boil my blood.

"It was seen as too Dublin centric" ....AS OPPOSED TO WHAT? A METRO IN GLAWAY? CORK? These places don't have the population density or even future projected density to justify major capital expenditure on transport, many rural people in politics have this absurd chip on their shoulder about "dem up in Dublin" and it's holding the country back years.

-So even though we know an Airport Luas will be over capacity on day 1...we will build it
-Even though we know it does not ACTUALLY GO INTO THE AIRPORT COMPLEX...we will build it
-Even though we KNOW we'll have to upgrade it to Metro in the end later anyway..we will build it

Its the 'two lines not joined up' mistake all over again. This is simple, this plan costs 1b less and that means an extra bit in the slush fund to buy the election, Metro North and DART UNDERGROUND will take 5 years to build and they don't care about that, most of them will be retired or dead by the time it's finished and it will be their 3rd from now successor or later who is cutting the ribbon, no long term thinking at all...think only about the next election.

This is one of the few times I've actually felt like physically belting a govt minister, this one and the previous one may be among the worst Transport ministers in the history of the state. Even with FFs short term thinking in terms of buying elections with bubble-revenue hikes in children's allowance at least they did Transport 21...this is sheer incompetence.

Not to mention, what would be the IDEAL thing, economically to do right now to consolidate the economic gains? That we should have done ages ago and worked for Germany? A stimulus package! A new transport package could be a central plank of one...but no...we've an election to win...

Muahahaha

XPS_Zero wrote: »

-So even though we know an Airport Luas will be over capacity on day 1...we will build it
-Even though we know it does not ACTUALLY GO INTO THE AIRPORT COMPLEX...we will build it
-Even though we KNOW we'll have to upgrade it to Metro in the end later anyway..we will build it

Those three points make me want to pull my hair out. But not having a Luas terminate either underneath the airport terminals or directly outside both of them is nothing short of criminal. Do they really think that passengers want to walk 500m with their baggage to get a Luas when the Aircoach will be a lot closer (and quicker) to get people to the city centre? Its daft, just pure daft.

cgcsb

Maybe that's the plan. It won't be over capacity because people won't use it due to the poor offering of service. A bit like buying a donkey with a cart for €700m that you know won't be able to do the job, so when nobody uses it, they'll point and say 'look it's not overloaded'

Infini

Shouldnt be that much a suprise Fine Gombeen were always anti railway anti public interest. Theyre only interested in selling off whatever they can. Luas on its own is pretty much a joke, its mostly for local commuting its not big enough to be able to handle airport traffic and it'll be like the M50 in a couple of years. It also runs through finglas and cabra which are somewhat less than the nicest areas in Dublin at times.
Even a heavy rail spur off from Clongriffin would've been a good idea as it would connect to the main network.

DART underground being deferred is gonna bite back later on for sure. The Connolly loop and area is choked up with traffic even the new signalling system was only part of the solution the long term solution being to free up traffic and divert it in a different direction. Hell its laughable to think that they call it too Dublin Centric when anything not dublin centric leads to financial losses (aka WRC).

With any luck Fine Gombeen will be out of power by next year if things go the way people hope. I heard Kenny and Higgins were boooed all the way down the road from the match at the weekened. They didnt show it on the news (you know why THAT is) but afink many people have had enough of them on a bunch of issues. Labour are dead men walking (politically) no matter what kind of pact they do everyone will remember they sold out the people at the 1st oppertunity. Whoever gets in after I dont know if theyll be sensible to put proper plans in place but hopefully the idiots that made bell ended decisions like these will be gone.

XPS_Zero

Muahahaha wrote: »

Those three points make me want to pull my hair out. But not having a Luas terminate either underneath the airport terminals or directly outside both of them is nothing short of criminal. Do they really think that passengers want to walk 500m with their baggage to get a Luas when the Aircoach will be a lot closer (and quicker) to get people to the city centre? Its daft, just pure daft.

They have this absurd idea for a 'people mover'...I can only imagine when it breaks down, the farce of tourists walking the way..you know it will happen!

People also think the metro was some kind of airport express just thats not it, it was a case of : "we need a metro for that whole Swords corridor so may as well stick an airport stop along the way". With the projected population growth in that area Luas cars are two small, metro cars (twice as long) will be needed eventually.

Besides whos to say they E VEN do this much? What happened to their last election promises? Universal Healthcare (terrible model that it was ), the graduate tax with no upfront fees to replace our assbackwards third level funding? The stimulus package (again bad model that they were proposing), not another cent for anglo, new bank regs...they did none of that maybe we won't even get this much.

Idbatterim

I emailed Donohoe earlier and just reading this post now, I made several of the same points... Such as...

Remember, one of the key blunders during the boom years was short term thinking. 'Lets buy the election, using bubble-money that may not be here in 6 years time, and spend it not on one off capital projects but election purchasing long term social items like children s allowance increases"
They said when they got in that short term thinking was a thing of the past it was all about medium to long term economic planning, we were gonna be all Chinese, plan 20 years into the future...but no. The reasons boil my blood.

-So even though we know an Airport Luas will be over capacity on day 1...we will build it

This is one of the few times I've actually felt like physically belting a govt minister, this one and the previous one may be among the worst Transport ministers in the history of the state. Even with FFs short term thinking in terms of buying elections with bubble-revenue hikes in children's allowance at least they did Transport 21...this is sheer incompetence.

totally agree, he should realise this and shelve it, like I suggested in my email. Its way too big a f**k up and the other ministers will all be delighted with the extra few hundred million to buy more votes... Its win / win, Dublin will get a proper solution eventually, they can divert the funding for the upcoming election buying process...

n97 mini

I'm not so sure that DU would have been a great success, esp if the incumbents would be running it.

As is there is plenty of infrastructure in Dublin that is poorly used, and that's without looking at the complete non-integration of services from DB and IE. We have a city centre train station that doesn't open at weekends, we have others like Drumcondra with a woeful level of service, and instead of building more stations in the city along that line and electrifying it, they're building stations way off out in the burbs within a stones throw of each other which only slow the whole service down. When PPT opens I've no doubt it will be easier to get from Port Laoise to GCD, but it still won't be benefit travel within the city. Electrify it and put stations on the Old Cabra Rd and on Phibsboro Rd.

I think we could achieve a lot more with what we have if it was run right.

I am dismayed at the thoughts of Luas to the airport though:
1. Too long
2. Too slow
3. Visitors won't be able to avoid feral kids and junkies
4. There is the beginnings of a train station already under the airport and green fields between the airport and Clongriffin.

Banjoxed

Idbatterim wrote: »

I emailed Donohoe earlier and just reading this post now, I made several of the same points... Such as...

totally agree, he should realise this and shelve it, like I suggested in my email. Its way too big a f**k up and the other ministers will all be delighted with the extra few hundred million to buy more votes... Its win / win, Dublin will get a proper solution eventually, they can divert the funding for the upcoming election buying process...

The danger to proper infrastructural development is nonsense thinking dominating in the Civil Service, like that of the Irish Times editorial this morning which blithely ponders BRT as being fit for any purpose whatsoever.

Christ on a bike.

Banjoxed

jd wrote: »

As we feared..

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/underground-dart-plan-sacrificed-for-other-capital-projects-31509205.html

But, as usual for the Indo, the point is missed by a whole bloody mile.

Let me emphasise this point.

DART UNDERGROUND ISN'T THAT BLOODY AMBITIOUS BUT IT DOES HUGELY RAISE THE CAPACITY OF RAIL TRANSPORT IN THE GREATER DUBLIN AREA.

Let me repeat that point.

DART UNDERGROUND ISN'T THAT BLOODY AMBITIOUS BUT IT DOES HUGELY RAISE THE CAPACITY OF RAIL TRANSPORT IN THE GREATER DUBLIN AREA.

As ever with the Indo, calling something by a made-up name does not make it so.

XPS_Zero

I think all long term infrastructure planning should be in the hands of a specially appointed person from outside politics who is totally independent and who can point and say "short term gombeenism" when they see a decision like this, so they have to openly reject THEIR plans instead of coming up with their own half brained ideas.

or even have there be an agreement among parties that a 'strategic planning minister' with 10 year terms is appointed whatever the govt via the Senate, someone non partisan non political, who was a civil engineer or something. I asked a friend of mine finishing a degree in it do they ever even consult engineers and he said "yes...and we told them you need two metro lines and DART Underground, unfortunately we also told them the price, and that conflicts with getting their arse over the line in the next election because the electorate in many areas are far too immature to have any delayed gratification, they won't be willing to wait 5 years to see the fruits of something they want their extra 5er on childrens allowance NOW NOW NOW NOW (imitation of a toddler)"

Think about this...GOD it burns me up...we'll have to rip up that whole airport area in 10 years or less and do this all over again for a Metro upgrade and endure the farce of full Luas cars passing people sitting on the platform with their luggage...all because politicos who are going to be (In Labs case) utterly wiped off the map no matter what they do (their mistakes were made with the PFG and its too late to undo them) ...all because those politicos wanted someone to have an extra 5er or 10er in their pocket on some welfare rate, a difference they will barely even notice....

Idbatterim

yeah it is totally and utterly insane! Its a pity the EU didn't force a minimum infrastructure spend during the crisis, to stop banana republics like ours, just spend as much as possible on welfare, tax cuts and PS...

end of the road

n97 mini wrote: »

I'm not so sure that DU would have been a great success, esp if the incumbents would be running it.

of course it would be successful

n97 mini wrote: »

We have a city centre train station that doesn't open at weekends

which station?

VeryOwl

It's incredible how they've out-done themselves in coming up with the worst of all worlds "solution". A shabby Luas that doesn't even connect to its (supposedly) primary destination, with the main element required to make it work in any useful sense deferred to a Phase 2 that'll never happen.

It's actually beyond laughable.

cgcsb

Idbatterim wrote: »

yeah it is totally and utterly insane! Its a pity the EU didn't force a minimum infrastructure spend during the crisis, to stop banana republics like ours, just spend as much as possible on welfare, tax cuts and PS...

No point it'd be spent on pothole filling in semi-private boreens and bringing superfast broadband to Innis Achill for all the tech start ups. :rolleyes:

At present we are spending €700m on a motorway connecting the villages of Tuam and Gort, bypassing Galway City. The motorway will never reach it's design capacity owing to a terminally declining population in the area, never mind the fact that less than 10,000 people live between them anyway.

We'll also likely see a €700m bypass of Galway, a 75k population town in dire need of a modest improvement to it's bus system.

end of the road

as i suspected, fina gail fail have sold our capital out again. instead of building a project that would increase our rail capacity, they now want to build a slow, low capacity light rail system that is just not fit for an airport link. and we are supposed to except it and expect people to use it with all the short comings it has. i knew this would happen. "shur luas will be grand begorra" its the solution to everything. thats the governments stance on transport for the capital. ridiculous.

toptom

end of the road wrote: »

as i suspected, fina gail fail have sold our capital out again. instead of building a project that would increase our rail capacity, they now want to build a slow, low capacity light rail system that is just not fit for an airport link. and we are supposed to except it and expect people to use it with all the short comings it has. i knew this would happen. "shur luas will be grand begorra" its the solution to everything. thats the governments stance on transport for the capital. ridiculous.

Sure whats wrong with a luas ? Cork and Shannon have no rail connection now Dublin will have one. Ye want it all up there thats whats wrong.

cgcsb

toptom wrote: »

Sure whats wrong with a luas ?

Insufficient capacity, frequency and journey time in it's present form. It'll also cost nearly the same as a proper solution. you might as well buy a few more buses.

Idbatterim

Sure whats wrong with a luas ? Cork and Shannon have no rail connection now Dublin will have one. Ye want it all up there thats whats wrong.

Possibly a troll, but I will bite! brilliant comparison there, Dublin doesnt have one and this year will have 25,000,000 passengers, Cork and Shannon have probably a little more than 10% of that number :rolleyes:

liam24

toptom wrote: »

Sure whats wrong with a luas ? Cork and Shannon have no rail connection now Dublin will have one. Ye want it all up there thats whats wrong.

I'm from Limerick and a decent airport service to Dublin airport is more important to me than a Shannon service. Dublin airport is so big now that I get most of my flights from there. I'm willing to bet that most of your flights in Tipperary go from Dublin too. Dart Underground with the spur would have been ideal, enabling me, and the hundreds of thousands of people arriving at Heuston for the purpose of flying from Dublin airport, to go straight from Heuston to the airport.

Larbre34

So no DART underground and no heavy rail link to the Airport of our Capital City and major growth centre? Hmm.

Well that will be thrown in particularly sharp relief when the Airport decides to give the go ahead for the parallel runway sometime soon.

We might as well plan to transport 50 million passengers per year in Volkswagen hippy buses.

It will literally be more expensive to the economy as a whole, NOT to build these projects. Bunch of cretins.

velo.2010

Regarding the ever increasing traffic on the Northern line and the PPT

Call me stupid but Docklands station appears to be the key to this, no? Central location, land that could be used to increase station capacity,close to Luas which could easily be extended to Docklands doorstep.The problem seems getting trains from the PPT across Glasnevin junction onto the dockland line. Surely this can be done from looking at the area on Google Maps. It actually looks like there was a connection many years ago that was dug up.

Why the absolute need to get to Connelly, Pearse, Grand Canal dock? People have to get away from the idea that Connelly etc. are the centre of the Universe regarding transport hubs. Many people work further up the quays in the redeveloped docks area. Docklands station, with a connection to the Luas, offers as much if not more coverage for people working in the city centre. In any case, there will always be a walk to work regardless of where someone is disembarking.

In relation to the Luas Airport extension - now that is crazy. The route would be as long as a railway connection and slower with less capacity as many have mentioned. The suggestion above leaves capacity for rail connectivity to the airport from Connelly or indeed Docklands if the West Road connection was re-instated.

Just my 2cents worth.

liam24

The cardinal rule of a decent airport link - link it to railway stations. That's why easy links from the airport to Heuston and Connolly are essential. Most of the people landing at Dublin have little use for a direct link to the docklands or SSG - they want to get to the train or bus station so they can go home. In terms of this Glasnevin Luas tunnel - I'd almost prefer if they made this line heavy rail to link Heuston to the airport via the PPT, which could then be extended north to the Belfast line via Swords. You then link the airport into the national rail network.

McAlban

Google "Flytoget" to see how it should be done...I take this every time in Oslo. and can be in the office (50km from the Airport) 40 Minutes after landing.

Of Course in Dublin (Without Billions in Oil Money) a More realistic objective would be something like the Copenhagen Metro (Which as many issues similar to Dublin, congestion, historical buildings and geologically speaking).

Oh crap... talking sense.

velo.2010

^^Docklands could become a 'Connelly'. Luas access offers the same onward destinations. Ridiculous that CIE sold so much of the land down there - for money of course, during the boom. Shame there was no foresight as to the future transport needs.

XPS_Zero

Correct me if I'm wrong but won't this mean a HORRIFIC travel time from CC to Airport?

A metro can go like a bullet as most of it's underground or segregated whereas much of Luas is on street and stopping at bloody traffic lights (!!!???).

Never mind the travel time from Cherrywood or when line B2 is finished from Bray to the Airport. It takes as long as the DART to get from Cherrywood to CC atm, now imagine you're only halfway there maybe a good hour and a half journey, 1/3 longer than an aircoach route..and then you get there...AND YOU'RE STILL NOT AT THE F____G airport terminal, you've to lug your gear onto some poxy people mover which will no doubt have gaps between them as well. What are visitors going to think of us? and dare I imagine what potential investors who've seen countries like Chinas east coast, Germany and France who do this way better.

Imagine you're a foreign visitor visiting someone in Cherrywood and you hear "Oh it's ok you don't have to get all them busses just hop on the 'light rail' right beside your friends apartment there ...takes you right to the airport!' and an hour later there you are going through the winding...slow....meandering Luas cross city as it stops at traffic lights, smacks into cyclists....and then beside you this skeletal creature whos face looks like it hasn't been washed in months but somehow has BLINDINGLY show white tracksuit and runners taps you on the shoulder "ahhhh heeeearrrr bud...d'yve any skin on ye? SKINS SKINS!! ANY SKINS?"...don't worry i'll just summon the transit police...what you don't have any? what about regular cops? nope? security? whats that? they would get sued if they did anything? ....this country is one giant slow moving car crash in terms of strategic planning

liam24

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Correct me if I'm wrong but won't this mean a HORRIFIC travel time from CC to Airport?

A metro can go like a bullet as most of it's underground or segregated whereas much of Luas is on street and stopping at bloody traffic lights (!!!???).

Never mind the travel time from Cherrywood or when line B2 is finished from Bray to the Airport. It takes as long as the DART to get from Cherrywood to CC atm, now imagine you're only halfway there maybe a good hour and a half journey, 1/3 longer than an aircoach route..and then you get there...AND YOU'RE STILL NOT AT THE F____G airport terminal, you've to lug your gear onto some poxy people mover which will no doubt have gaps between them as well. What are visitors going to think of us? and dare I imagine what potential investors who've seen countries like Chinas east coast, Germany and France who do this way better.

Imagine you're a foreign visitor visiting someone in Cherrywood and you hear "Oh it's ok you don't have to get all them busses just hop on the 'light rail' right beside your friends apartment there ...takes you right to the airport!' and an hour later there you are going through the winding...slow....meandering Luas cross city as it stops at traffic lights, smacks into cyclists....and then beside you this skeletal creature whos face looks like it hasn't been washed in months but somehow has BLINDINGLY show white tracksuit and runners taps you on the shoulder "ahhhh heeeearrrr bud...d'yve any skin on ye? SKINS SKINS!! ANY SKINS?"...don't worry i'll just summon the transit police...what you don't have any? what about regular cops? nope? security? whats that? they would get sued if they did anything? ....this country is one giant slow moving car crash in terms of strategic planning

The transport system should be designed primarily for residents, not visitors, so I don't give a **** what they think to be honest. This is part of why I think the Dart spur is better than Metro North as an airport link, because nobody other than tourists wants to go from the airport to SSG.

The suggested travel time from O'Connell Street to the airport via the Glasnevin tunnel is 25 minutes, but God knows if that will transpire. The plan also involves a future 'phase 2' which will include a tunnel from Cabra to SSG and reduce the time from SSG to the airport to 22 minutes.

MICKEYG

liam24 wrote: »

The transport system should be designed primarily for residents, not visitors, so I don't give a **** what they think to be honest. This is part of why I think the Dart spur is better than Metro North as an airport link, because nobody other than tourists want to go from the airport to SSG.

The suggested travel time from O'Connell Street to the airport via the Glasnevin tunnel is 25 minutes, but God knows if that will transpire. The plan also involves a future 'phase 2' which will include a tunnel from Cabra to SSG and reduce the time from SSG to the airport to 22 minutes.

MN is not about airport to SSG. It is part of it but is is so much more.

XPS_Zero

liam24 wrote: »

The transport system should be designed primarily for residents, not visitors, so I don't give a **** what they think to be honest. This is part of why I think the Dart spur is better than Metro North as an airport link, because nobody other than tourists want to go from the airport to SSG.

The suggested travel time from O'Connell Street to the airport via the Glasnevin tunnel is 25 minutes, but God knows if that will transpire. The plan also involves a future 'phase 2' which will include a tunnel from Cabra to SSG and reduce the time from SSG to the airport to 22 minutes.

Those 'suggested times' don't often work out, I recall DB promising every 5 min busses after Network Direct, there was even a leaflet I saw from the 80s that said DARTS would be running every 10 minutes off peak and 5 mins peak.

I was just using visitors as an example. As I said with the airport we were not doing metro north FOR the airport, it was just that since were putting one on that corridor we may as well have an airport stop, and it was going to be neatly underground under the terminals via an escalator and lifts, and thats how they should at least do the airport part of this because well have to build that for the Metro upgrade later ANYWAY.

God even the slimmed down optimized metro north id have been ecstatic with this is so depressing. I remember in school, back I guess when my earliest political awakenings came about, reading in Geography about Norways regional policies and how they had this amazing development in even their poor areas isolated on the coasts and I asked the teacher why we didn't do things like that, she said two words "better government"

Larbre34

Cherrywood to Dublin Airport by light rail will take approx 1hr 20 mins.

Same journey by car, assuming M50 is playing ball, 30 mins. No incentive, usual nonsense.

liam24

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Those 'suggested times' don't often work out, I recall DB promising every 5 min busses after Network Direct, there was even a leaflet I saw from the 80s that said DARTS would be running every 10 minutes off peak and 5 mins peak.

I was just using visitors as an example. As I said with the airport we were not doing metro north FOR the airport, it was just that since were putting one on that corridor we may as well have an airport stop, and it was going to be neatly underground under the terminals via an escalator and lifts, and thats how they should at least do the airport part of this because well have to build that for the Metro upgrade later ANYWAY.

God even the slimmed down optimized metro north id have been ecstatic with this is so depressing. I remember in school, back I guess when my earliest political awakenings came about, reading in Geography about Norways regional policies and how they had this amazing development in even their poor areas isolated on the coasts and I asked the teacher why we didn't do things like that, she said two words "better government"

But you should still be ecstatic about this, because it achieves every other objective - it links the north inner city and Swords to the city centre, which is always cited as the primary purpose of Metro North. It'll just be of questionable use as an airport link.

liam24

Larbre34 wrote: »

Cherrywood to Dublin Airport by light rail will take approx 1hr 20 mins.

Same journey by car, assuming M50 is playing ball, 30 mins. No incentive, usual nonsense.

I'm sure that will be concerning to the three people a day who want to travel from Cherrywood to Dublin airport. :rolleyes:

cgcsb

liam24 wrote: »

The transport system should be designed primarily for residents, not visitors, so I don't give a **** what they think to be honest. This is part of why I think the Dart spur is better than Metro North as an airport link, because nobody other than tourists wants to go from the airport to SSG.

The suggested travel time from O'Connell Street to the airport via the Glasnevin tunnel is 25 minutes, but God knows if that will transpire. The plan also involves a future 'phase 2' which will include a tunnel from Cabra to SSG and reduce the time from SSG to the airport to 22 minutes.

There is absolutely 0 chance of a tram reaching O'Connell street from the airport on the route proposed in 25 minutes. You're talking an average journey time of 45 minutes when you take into account the lights and tight curves.

liam24

cgcsb wrote: »

There is absolutely 0 chance of a tram reaching O'Connell street from the airport on the route proposed in 25 minutes. You're talking an average journey time of 45 minutes when you take into account the lights and tight curves.

The route is mostly segregated and in a straight line, so there's no way it takes 45 minutes. Granted I'm not convinced it will take 25 minutes either.

XPS_Zero

liam24 wrote: »

But you should still be ecstatic about this, because it achieves every other objective - it links the north inner city and Swords to the city centre, which is always cited as the primary purpose of Metro North. It'll just be of questionable use as an airport link.

It does not serve those areas when we know (BEFORE we build it!) that it will be under capacity on day 1. Ever tried to get on a Tram at say Ranalagh or even Dundrum at rush hour? At some periods the trams are so stuffed you physically cannot get on, and that's with people in the fold down seats standing instead (most do not appear to know you are meant to avoid using them when it's crowded so you can fit more people in..), that's what it will be like half the time along this new route, only much worse, around Swords esp in the 7-9am and 3-7 periods.

If they were intent on saving money (having apparently STILL , years later not copped that you don't run a state budget like a persons budget and govt spending on infrastructure has a multiplier effect where you get more money out in growth than you put in) they could have at least done the Optimized Metro plan but no. At least with that we could have 'filled in' the other stations along the line later and expanded it as we did with Luas B1 etc

Someone just sent me an email I sent to them when I first read the public consultation on this and I made a prediction, if I haven't mentioned it before I'm not an engineer I'm involved in politics, my education is economics & social policy and my jobs marketing, I just thought the arguments for this were fairly bullet proof, yet I suspected how it would gon:

"They'll pick an expanded Luas from cross-city out to the airport, for several reasons:
1. It will mean 1b less, and that means they'll have more money to spend on pointless roads to nowhere to get rural TDs elected

2. The Luas 'brand' is known and trusted, and people love it, so it's risk free, far less of a risk PR wise than Metro which we know from focus groups the public associates the Metro brand with expense and often think it's way more expensive than it actually is, so being cowards they'll go with the ''safe'' option especially before an election.

Micheal Noonan (this is before is was found that he was sick) is well into his 70s he's not gonna last more than one more election at best he'll retire, and most key players are on the wrong side of 50 they are looking towards retirement (in a job where you can get a pension at 50) they won't care about foresight or building for the future"

My friend wrote back "Jesus and you're the optimist? You're being too cynical they'll do the optimized metro they can make a lot of the same savings with that while also taking credit for getting something started FF never did, remember Metro North was meant to open in 2007"

Seems my cynical side was right again. Just once I'd like to be surprised and see some competence and foresight on display, just for novelty.

cgcsb

liam24 wrote: »

The route is mostly segregated and in a straight line, so there's no way it takes 45 minutes. Granted I'm not convinced it will take 25 minutes either.

It'll be stopping for lights on the Ballymun road then turning into the tunnel then onto BXD near Cabra then hit ever light from Western Way to O'Connell st, not to mention the tight curves from Dominick st to Parnell st and Parnell st to Marlborough st.

cgcsb

XPS_Zero wrote: »

Those 'suggested times' don't often work out, I recall DB promising every 5 min busses after Network Direct, there was even a leaflet I saw from the 80s that said DARTS would be running every 10 minutes off peak and 5 mins peak.

I was just using visitors as an example. As I said with the airport we were not doing metro north FOR the airport, it was just that since were putting one on that corridor we may as well have an airport stop, and it was going to be neatly underground under the terminals via an escalator and lifts, and thats how they should at least do the airport part of this because well have to build that for the Metro upgrade later ANYWAY.

God even the slimmed down optimized metro north id have been ecstatic with this is so depressing. I remember in school, back I guess when my earliest political awakenings came about, reading in Geography about Norways regional policies and how they had this amazing development in even their poor areas isolated on the coasts and I asked the teacher why we didn't do things like that, she said two words "better government"

To be fair Norway's massive oil wealth means Oslo has a widespread metro system, despite Oslo being quite small and not very dense.

liam24

cgcsb wrote: »

To be fair Norway's massive oil wealth means Oslo has a widespread metro system, despite Oslo being quite small and not very dense.

Interestingly, all of Oslo's metro lines fan out from a single underground line in the centre. It's not a million miles from what the DART would be if DU were built.

Idbatterim

there actually is another issue unless D2 is built! When whatever mob choose to shut down O'Connell street (water charge protesters etc), that is going to be great with the Swords Luas line... A word of advice for tourists if this goes ahead, sit on your luggage!

hardy_buck

liam24 wrote: »

The route is mostly segregated and in a straight line, so there's no way it takes 45 minutes. Granted I'm not convinced it will take 25 minutes either.

Doesn't matter if it's 'mostly' segregated, a train is only as fast as it's slowest section, in this case the city centre. Considering it takes well over half an hour to get from Suir Road to Connolly I'm not exactly optimistic about this joke of a 'solution'..

end of the road

toptom wrote: »

Sure whats wrong with a luas ? Cork and Shannon have no rail connection now Dublin will have one. Ye want it all up there thats whats wrong.

funny considering i'm not from, nor live in dublin. still, i support dart underground. why? because it will greatly improve rail transport in the capital, will bring more journey opportunities, will open up more capacity on our rail network, and more. it is right dublin should get a good transport system. all our cities should have a good transport system to help with potential growth.

liam24

hardy_buck wrote: »

Doesn't matter if it's 'mostly' segregated, a train is only as fast as it's slowest section, in this case the city centre. Considering it takes well over half an hour to get from Suir Road to Connolly I'm not exactly optimistic about this joke of a 'solution'..

The slowest section is getting from OCS to Broadstone. Once at Broadstone, you have a largely segregated track all the way to the airport. I think 30 minutes to the airport from OCS isn't unreasonable. However, given you can get buses that take you to the front door in 25 minutes, it's going to end up being perhaps even more useless as an airport link than the Edinburgh tram. At least in Edinburgh you get brought to the train station. To people worried about capacity issues - you're probably not going to get many people using it from the airport, so that solves some of that problem!