Dublin Metrolink - future routes for next Metrolink

antoinolachtnai

Well, we have a problem in Dublin too. As we improve rail links, density sometimes falls. Fewer people live in Ranelagh now than did when the Luas was put in. Phibsboro will likely go the same way. How do you really stimulate density in these areas?

strassenwo!f

I looked at it yesterday morning, and they ran a very impressive 19 city-bound trams through the Ranelagh stop in the morning peak (between 8 and 9).

Strangely, only 13 southbound trams in the same period.

strassenwo!f

I'm a bit surprised by the southbound element of this.

Apart from Tallaght, I would have seen the only strong southside area of employment as being Sandyford. Obviously the major area in the city is the city centre, but I am curious as to why demand to Sandyford doesn't seem to be stronger in the morning peak?

antoinolachtnai

Maybe it is because the city centre is a more significant destination (higher number of employees) compared to Sandyford?

salmocab

It’s because most people working in sandyford don’t live along the green line so people tend to drive there if they can. Plenty do get luas to sandyford/leopardstown area in the morning but those areas whilst large are nothing compared to the numbers working in the city

strassenwo!f

salmocab wrote: »

It’s because most people working in sandyford don’t live along the green line so people tend to drive there if they can. Plenty do get luas to sandyford/leopardstown area in the morning but those areas whilst large are nothing compared to the numbers working in the city

And is public transport not an option for those that drive?

salmocab

strassenwo!f wrote: »

And is public transport not an option for those that drive?

For lots of them no, for some probably but driving is likely quicker.

bk

ncounties wrote: »

And how does good infrastructure within the canals not open up new housing? The city within the canals needs to flow more than the areas outside the M50, so that land prices continue to rise in the city centre, and it becomes more economical to redevelop land that is currently taken up by low-density, un-archecturally significant property.

Very little open space for new development inside the canals. There are bits of infill of course, but nothing that the existing bus and tram networks can't handle and whatever Metro lines end up passing through them (see my earlier comment on Metrolink passing through parts of North city Dublin, Drumcondra, etc.).

You have the issue that much if not most of the buildings in these areas are listed buildings and thus can't be knocked.

You also have the issue that even if you have green field site, the neighbours in their two storey houses around you will object strongly to any attempt to build tall apartment buildings on the site.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Well, we have a problem in Dublin too. As we improve rail links, density sometimes falls. Fewer people live in Ranelagh now than did when the Luas was put in. Phibsboro will likely go the same way. How do you really stimulate density in these areas?

That is a very good question and interesting observation.

I haven't looked into these areas. But I know the same happened in Cork City and the reason was an ageing population. Older neighbourhoods where most of the homes had elderly people living in them, kids moved out, usually further outside the city as they can't afford to live in that area and big 4 or 5 bedroom houses with just one or two elderly people living in them.

So the question is how do you encourage those elderly people to move out in a sympathetic manner and give over those homes to young growing families instead?

Maybe, tax benefits to help allow them swap homes. Maybe smaller, but high quality apartments in the same areas, but designed for more elderly users without being actual OAP homes, for those who want to stay in the area, but don't need a big old drafty house any more.

I'm not sure what the answer is, we should look at what other european cities do, I'm sure it isn't a unique problem.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I'm a bit surprised by the southbound element of this.

It sounds like they are wisely scheduling extra departures to flow in the direction of peak demand. I'd say 13 is probably enough to satisfy demand in the opposite direction at that time. The odd time I've gone outbound in the morning peak, it has always been busy but never full, as in usually able to get a seat, so it sounds like enough.

I'd assume you find the opposite in reverse during the evening peak, with more trams travelling outbound then in.

antoinolachtnai

bk wrote: »

That is a very good question and interesting observation.

I haven't looked into these areas. But I know the same happened in Cork City and the reason was an ageing population. Older neighbourhoods where most of the homes had elderly people living in them, kids moved out, usually further outside the city as they can't afford to live in that area and big 4 or 5 bedroom houses with just one or two elderly people living in them.

So the question is how do you encourage those elderly people to move out in a sympathetic manner and give over those homes to young growing families instead?

Maybe, tax benefits to help allow them swap homes. Maybe smaller, but high quality apartments in the same areas, but designed for more elderly users without being actual OAP homes, for those who want to stay in the area, but don't need a big old drafty house any more.

Not the core issue in Ranelagh, though it certainly does happen. Ranelagh used to be densely populated with small flats and bedsits. One typical house might have 12 people living in it. Now the same house has a family in it, with 2 or 3 people. The Luas has made this trend worse, by making the housing more attractive.

Public transport does not automatically solve problems. It can cause problems too. It needs careful consideration.

D.L.R.

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Public transport does not automatically solve problems. It can cause problems too. It needs careful consideration.

We've been talking about these projects for 50 years. I'd call that very careful consideration.

salmocab

There is an issue with population age alright, my mothers house in greenhills is on a block of 6 3 bed houses with a total of 10 people living in them. The area was built approx 50 years ago with plenty of the original couples still living there. Not sure how but there should be incentives and reasons created to free up this type of housing that’s already built and in good locations. Very much off topic though.

Bray Head

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Not the core issue in Ranelagh, though it certainly does happen. Ranelagh used to be densely populated with small flats and bedsits. One typical house might have 12 people living in it. Now the same house has a family in it, with 2 or 3 people. The Luas has made this trend worse, by making the housing more attractive.

Public transport does not automatically solve problems. It can cause problems too. It needs careful consideration.

This is complete nonsense. I looked up the Census population for the electoral division Rathmines East A, which is essentially Ranelagh and environs. 

Population:
2002: 4541
2011: 4634
2016: 4836

This is a 6% increase since the Luas opened.

marno21

salmocab wrote: »

It’s because most people working in sandyford don’t live along the green line so people tend to drive there if they can. Plenty do get luas to sandyford/leopardstown area in the morning but those areas whilst large are nothing compared to the numbers working in the city

Sandyford bound traffic from the M1 is a huge cause of M50 congestion. Metrolink will hopefully solve some of this.

antoinolachtnai

Bray Head wrote: »

This is complete nonsense. I looked up the Census population for the electoral division Rathmines East A, which is essentially Ranelagh and environs. 

Population:
2002: 4541
2011: 4634
2016: 4836

This is a 6% increase since the Luas opened.

I think Rathmines D is a better match if you want to look at just one.

It is pretty flat. It is flatter overall than I would have thought true.

6 percent is a very small uplift in any case for such a big infrastructure project when population in the GDA generally is growing at a much faster pace.

Carawaystick

strassenwo!f wrote: »

And is public transport not an option for those that drive?

the nta's journey planner shows a 77 min journey from Perrystown to leopardstown by public transport, which isn't going to get anyone to not drive the 13 km

jhenno78

bk wrote: »

Very little open space for new development inside the canals. There are bits of infill of course, but nothing that the existing bus and tram networks can't handle and whatever Metro lines end up passing through them (see my earlier comment on Metrolink passing through parts of North city Dublin, Drumcondra, etc.).

You have the issue that much if not most of the buildings in these areas are listed buildings and thus can't be knocked.

You also have the issue that even if you have green field site, the neighbours in their two storey houses around you will object strongly to any attempt to build tall apartment buildings on the site.

I think there's a further step in the economics here where the demand for housing in the city centre increases enough to make it viable for developers to buy up blocks of houses and redevelop the sites. There's of plenty of 1930's houses in places like Cabra and Crumlin that certainly aren't getting listed any time soon. Cottages in Rathmines and East wall that have a bit more charm but not much architectural merit.

Thought the awarding of planning for redevelopment of the "Big Tree" on Dorset St. was interesting -

Irish Times wrote:

Local residents made submissions to the council raising concerns about the “overdevelopment of the site”, the height of the hotel...[the council responded that] “low-rise and low-density development of surrounding two-storey residential dwellings is inconsistent with what would be a sustainable form of development for an inner city location”. These houses “cannot realistically determine the building heights of new developments”

Dats me

@Equium I was having a look at the map you posted, it's really well done with all the other rail projects there as well. I think I would continue through Darndale and then further North potentially linking with Heavy Rail at Malahide as this section is all green fields and therefore the Metro could be overground and built relatively cheaply. This would be contingent on Land Zoning and mixed use high-ish density housing being planned and built before and during the project, but the transport should spur growth

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

6 percent is a very small uplift in any case for such a big infrastructure project when population in the GDA generally is growing at a much faster pace.

And this clearly shows why building lines through existing mature locations isn't really a priority. Here we have the Green Line Luas, perhaps one of the best public transport routes in the country and it leads to a very small increase in population.

Of course it benefits the people who live in that area. What you find is that people move from using the bus to instead using the tram/Metro, which of course is great for them, but it doesn't really massively change the numbers using public transport or in help with housing/density.

That is why the ideal would be a line that goes through a mix of green field sites, brown field sites and existing areas with obvious major transport destinations.

The green field sites are easy to get new housing into. Designate them as a SDZ and leave very high density building happen there. Brown field sites, a little trickier, but similar.

In the long term we will probably need to tackle existing mature areas with CPO's and SDZ's to knock existing homes and build much taller and higher density, but that will be a big politcal challenge. Anyway I think we are decades before that is necessary, we have plenty of green and brown field sites to start with first, along the Green line and out to West Dublin.

strassenwo!f

I'm still trying to get a handle on the numbers here.

The original metro north project envisaged 90m metros running at 90 second intervals between Swords and St. Stephen's Green.

That proposal was pursued by the DOT and was, possibly too readily, given planning permission from An Bord Pleanala.

Assuming that each of the 60m vehicles proposed for the current metrolink plan will have a capacity of around 420 people, (based on the NTA's estimate of 400 passengers per 55m LUAS), and the 90m trams on the original metro north plan would have had a capacity around 1.3 times that, then there are three very obvious questions:

1) Why is a capacity of 21,840 per hour (under the metronorth plan) on the Swords - City section being reduced to 15,000, in a city which appears to be booming?

2) Why is the NTA proposing a relatively easy upgrade now, of the Sandyford line, which is already in place, when it is clear that the proposed throughput figure of 15,000 passengers per hour is way beyond even the NTA's own predictions for the demand on the Sandyford/Cherrywood route for at least the next 2-3 decades?

3) has any explanation been asked of ABP, to clarify why the plans they approved so readily are now returning in such diluted form?

antoinolachtnai

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I'm still trying to get a handle on the numbers here.

The original metro north project envisaged 90m metros running at 90 second intervals between Swords and St. Stephen's Green.

That proposal was pursued by the DOT and was, possibly too readily, given planning permission from An Bord Pleanala.

Assuming that each of the 60m vehicles proposed for the current metrolink plan will have a capacity of around 420 people, (based on the NTA's estimate of 400 passengers per 55m LUAS), and the 90m trams on the original metro north plan would have had a capacity around 1.3 times that, then there are three very obvious questions:

1) Why is a capacity of 21,840 per hour (under the metronorth plan) on the Swords - City section being reduced to 15,000, in a city which appears to be booming?

2) Why is the NTA proposing a relatively easy upgrade now, of the Sandyford line, which is already in place, when it is clear that the proposed throughput figure of 15,000 passengers per hour is way beyond even the NTA's own predictions for the demand on the Sandyford/Cherrywood route for at least the next 2-3 decades?

3) has any explanation been asked of ABP, to clarify why the plans they approved so readily are now returning in such diluted form?

How come you are basing the capacity of a driverless wide level floored train on a luas tram? Have you done any research on this at all or given it any thought?

bk

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

How come you are basing the capacity of a driverless wide level floored train on a luas tram? Have you done any research on this at all or given it any thought?

Plus the capacity of the new 55m trams is closer to 500 people :rolleyes:

strassenwo!f

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

How come you are basing the capacity of a driverless wide level floored train on a luas tram? Have you done any research on this at all or given it any thought?

Driverless?

Was that the plan for metronorth?

Has there been any official suggestion, at any stage, for driverless operation. I've never seen it, and I haven't based any of my posts on that happening.

I would very much be in favour of it, but I don't know how you are coming up with me suggesting it.

antoinolachtnai

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Driverless?

Was that the plan for metronorth?

Are we talking about Metro North?

You came up with your capacity figure for Metrolink based on what a Luas tram (supposedly) carries. It is a completely bad basis from which to go.

Has there been any official suggestion, at any stage, for driverless operation. I've never seen it, and I haven't based any of my posts on that happening.

Metrolink has flaws as a scheme, certainly. However, the people who design it do at least deserve the courtesy of critics reading the stuff they wrote and finding out what the broad strokes of the design actually are. ATO is looked at, however briefly, in the Green line upgrade section and in the main report. It certainly seems to be a serious option.

I would very much be in favour of it, but I don't know how you are coming up with me suggesting it.

The capacity of a similar-length train with and without driver cabs is going to be considerably different.

strassenwo!f

bk wrote: »

Plus the capacity of the new 55m trams is closer to 500 people :rolleyes:

Excellent.

I checked it on Thursday and the NTA are now running 19 tph inbound from Sandyford. I was working on the basis that there are mainly 400 people per 55m train inbound, but you have clarified that it's now an average of 500 people per 55m train inbound.

Thus, heading towards 10,000 people per hour inbound at peak times. Well ahead of the NTA's own figures for the coming years!

I had only budgeted for them being at 8,000 per hour inbound at those times in those periods, with some use of the St. Stephen's Green siding to bring it up to around or above the NTA's projections.

Now it appears that my projections may have been quite low.

antoinolachtnai

Who said that there was an average of 500 people on a 55m train inbound? Where did that giant leap come from?

strassenwo!f

The poster bk said it, just a couple of posts above.

I can't vouch for whether it's true or not.

antoinolachtnai

bk said this, I think, which is quite a different thing:

Plus the capacity of the new 55m trams is closer to 500 people

Bray Head

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Bray Head wrote: »

This is complete nonsense. I looked up the Census population for the electoral division Rathmines East A, which is essentially Ranelagh and environs. 

Population:
2002: 4541
2011: 4634
2016: 4836

This is a 6% increase since the Luas opened.

I think Rathmines D is a better match if you want to look at just one.

It is pretty flat. It is flatter overall than I would have thought true.

6 percent is a very small uplift in any case for such a big infrastructure project when population in the GDA generally is growing at a much faster pace.

You didn't say it was flat - you said the population had fallen - which was completely made up!

Anyway what would you expect for an area which was already densified with nearly no room for new development?

Idbatterim

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Excellent.

I checked it on Thursday and the NTA are now running 19 tph inbound from Sandyford. I was working on the basis that there are mainly 400 people per 55m train inbound, but you have clarified that it's now an average of 500 people per 55m train inbound.

Thus, heading towards 10,000 people per hour inbound at peak times. Well ahead of the NTA's own figures for the coming years!

I had only budgeted for them being at 8,000 per hour inbound at those times in those periods, with some use of the St. Stephen's Green siding to bring it up to around or above the NTA's projections.

Now it appears that my projections may have been quite low.

Exactly as I’d expect. Go with numbers that will suit their agenda. It wouldn’t be unless some design flaws and reduced capacity was present from the get go to shave a few percent off the cost of the project. They can then go back a few years later and issue another tender for tens of millions or more after the consultants etc have had another nice pay off. Brilliant !

bk

Let me be clear, the NTA has never officially announced the capacity of the new 55m trams, at least not from anything I can find.

Previously they did give the following figures for the 30m and 40m trams:
256 people / 30m = 8.5333333333 per m
358 people / 40m = 8.95 per m

So based on those figures, extrapolating out, 55m is around:
8.95 × 55 = 492.25
8.53 × 55 = 469.15

BTW in comparing these numbers with Metrolink trains, a few things should be taken into account:
- 60m versus 55m
- 2.6m wide versus 2.4m
- High floor vehicle versus low floor vehicle (this makes a real significant difference).
- No driver cab, so more passenger space.

Metrolink will be at least twice the capacity (per hour) of Luas, I suspect almost 3 times the capacity.

And if they end up going with the monotube, stacked option, there is really nothing limiting them putting in longer trains in future. An advantage with monotube is that stations are relatively easily lengthened. So nothing stopping them having 90m, 120m or even 180m in the future if need be.

Also you need to be careful with comparing figures to the original Metro North plan. When they talked about 90m trains every 90 seconds, it was never going to open with that, that would just have been the maximum long term capacity of the line (say in 50 years). I'd have said 90m trains every 5 minutes would of been how it opened.

Also keep in mind the nature of the line. The vast majority of passengers coming from the South are likely to get off by O'Connell St and the vast majority of passengers coming from the North will likely get off by Stephens Green. Some will continue on beyond this, heading to the airport, etc. but not the majority.

So you can't really compare it to the original Metro North in that sense, just because it is continuing further south, doesn't necessarily mean you need double the capacity of Metro North across the entire line.

The important part is that it will have almost 3 times of the capacity of the 55m Luas green line. That should be fine for a few decades, as long as it can easily be extended in future.