Dublin Metrolink - future routes for next Metrolink

strassenwo!f

But, bk, what is the point of Dublin spending money now on creating a southeast metro route which will have 2-3 times the capacity of the current LUAS Green line?

Given the NTA's figures in their metrolink documentation, it looks like the upgrade to 55m trams and judicious use of the St. Stephen's Green siding - or some other way of utilising higher throughput on what is now the Green line - will be fine for at least the next 25-30 years or so.

Use the metro project to build a line, or preferably lines, to the southwest, which would massively reduce journey times into/out of the city to/from many areas in the southwest, extend them gradually over a period of around a decade, and then come back to the Green line and see what might need to be done then.

Spending money in the next decade to produce a line which has a capacity of 2-3 times what is required seems to be wasteful.

CatInABox

strassenwo!f wrote: »

But, bk, what is the point of Dublin spending money now on creating a southeast metro route which will have 2-3 times the capacity of the current LUAS Green line?

Given the NTA's figures in their metrolink documentation, it looks like the upgrade to 55m trams and judicious use of the St. Stephen's Green siding - or some other way of utilising higher throughput on what is now the Green line - will be fine for at least the next 25-30 years or so.

Use the metro project to build a line, or preferably lines, to the southwest, which would massively reduce journey times into/out of the city to/from many areas in the southwest, extend them gradually over a period of around a decade, and then come back to the Green line and see what might need to be done then.

Spending money in the next decade to produce a line which has a capacity of 2-3 times what is required seems to be wasteful.

NTA are predicting that the Green Line will be beyond capacity by 2027, less than ten years away. Playing around with the St Stephens green siding would be a sticking plaster at best.

The upgrades required to significantly increase capacity beyond the current level would essentially be an upgrade to Metro standard, except building a metro out to the SW would mean that the Green Line wouldn't have anywhere to go, unless of course, you decide to run both through the one tunnel, halving the capacity of both lines.

strassenwo!f

CatInABox wrote: »

NTA are predicting that the Green Line will be beyond capacity by 2027, less than ten years away. Playing around with the St Stephens green siding would be a sticking plaster at best.

If bk's figures are correct, then the NTA are wrong. They are saying, and I quote from the metrolink documentation:

The NTA wrote:

Over the next two decades, passenger demand levels on the Green Line will reach approximately 11,000 passengers in the northbound direction, and expected to grow to approximately 13,000 passengers by 2057. This is beyond the carrying capacity of a standard Luas system and an upgrade to a metro system is required.

The poster bk is saying that that there's a capacity of 500 people per tram. Thus, the Green line should be able to run 10,000 people per hour northbound, at the approximate current rate of 20 trams per hour. Use of the siding for trams is certainly a sticking plaster, but it's surely better than closing down the entire line, which would be required if an upgrade were to happen.

CatInABox wrote: »

The upgrades required to significantly increase capacity beyond the current level would essentially be an upgrade to Metro standard, except building a metro out to the SW would mean that the Green Line wouldn't have anywhere to go, unless of course, you decide to run both through the one tunnel, halving the capacity of both lines.

The LUAS Green line would have somewhere to go. It could continue to do what it currently does, which is go between Cherrywood and Broombridge, and Dublin should look at upgrades for that line at a later stage.

CatInABox

Officially, the 55m trams have capacity for 386, at least according to the minister for transport.

Here's more on the future capacity post upgrading of all trams to 55m, and increasing the frequency:

The Green Line Capacity Enhancement project is identified in the National Transport Authority’s Transport Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area 2016-2035. The capacity increases at peak periods provided by the project will assist in reducing crowding on the Green Line thus enhancing accessibility for mobility and sensory impaired users during these periods. After the opening of Luas Cross City the capacity on the Green line will be approximately 6,400 passengers per direction per hour based on 21 trams per hour. At the end of the Green Line capacity project the capacity will increase to approximately 8,160 passengers per direction per hour based on 24 trams per hour. The increase in capacity is 1,760 passengers per direction per hour.

Note that the Green Line Capacity project is due to start next year, so that's when we can expect to see a capacity of 8160 ppdph.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

The LUAS Green line would have somewhere to go. It could continue to do what it currently does, which is go between Cherrywood and Broombridge, and Dublin should look at upgrades for that line at a later stage.

In order to upgrade the Green Line, it will have to be upgraded to Metro standard, which cannot go through the city centre.

bk

strassenwo!f wrote: »

But, bk, what is the point of Dublin spending money now on creating a southeast metro route which will have 2-3 times the capacity of the current LUAS Green line?

Why ask the same question over and over again when it has already been answered a dozen times?

Because ten years from now, as the Cherrywood SDZ, etc. continue to come on line, the Green line will be back to being at maximum capacity and leaving people behind at stops and there is no way to upgrade it further beyond the 55m trams and current peak time frequency. The only way to upgrade it further is to convert it to Metro.

It really is as simple as that. I don't know why that is so hard to understand.

CatInABox wrote:

Officially, the 55m trams have capacity for 386, at least according to the minister for transport.

Part of the difficulty in comparing numbers is that the methodology for counting capacity has changed over time.

For instance the 40m trams were advertised as having a capacity of 358. So it doesn't make sense that the 55m trams have a capacity of just 386.

Actually what has happened is that the way of counting capacity has changed over the past 10 years!

It seems in the past, they calculated capacity at 5 people per meter squared, they now seem to measure it at 3pp/m2.

Perhaps 3pp/m2 is more realistic then 5pp/m2

strassenwo!f, this is the same reason why you can't compare the capacity of the old Metro North to the new Meterolink. I suspect the old MN numbers used the 5pp/m2 approach, while Metrolink probably uses 3pp/m2, so they aren't directly comparable.

CatInABox

bk wrote: »

Part of the difficulty in comparing numbers is that the methodology for counting capacity has changed over time.

Yes, I noticed that discrepancy myself, and figured much the same thing.

Wonder if it's insurance related.

bk

CatInABox wrote: »

Yes, I noticed that discrepancy myself, and figured much the same thing.

Wonder if it's insurance related.

Hadn't thought of that, quiet possibly.

Unfortunately I can't find it now, but a few months ago I found a website that listed all the different Alstom trams and their specs and under the capacity section they specifically listed how the number was come to per people per square meter. Older trams had something like 5pp/m2 and newer ones 3pp/m2. Knowing that seems to be important to actually compare numbers.

Comparing numbers within the same report is fine, for instance comparing the capacity between 60m LFV, 90m LFV and 60 HFV in the same report should be consistent.

But comparing those numbers with 15 year old Metro North plans or against old Luas numbers doesn't work IMO.

I suspect, "8,160 passengers per direction per hour based on 24 trams per hour" shows the true max capacity of the green line. Sounds like a 55m tram every 2.5 minutes. Really quiet impressive, but right at the limit of street running trams.

Clearly a 60m HFV every 90 seconds is going to have at least double that capacity. According to the Metrolink report they are estimating 18,000 PPDPH.

So the greenline Metro upgrade will allow it to jump from a very strained * maximum capacity of just 8,000 to 18,000 people per hour or over twice the capacity, nice.

And keep in mind if they do go with the monotube option as rumoured, nothing stopping them extending it to 90m in future (about 27,000 PPDPH) or hell even 120m/180m in future if needed.

* One thing about Luas running at the absolute edge of it's maximum capacity. It leaves very little room for anything to go wrong. All it takes is one asshole to block a yellow box junction for an extra 30 seconds to totally through your schedule out and ruin the actual real world per hour capacity. You normally don't want to be running a system at its max like this, it usually means bad news. We saw that when Luas Cross City opened and the chaos that occurred for a few months after until the new longer trams settled in.

One way or another, the green line will need to be upgraded in the next 10 years or so.

marno21

MOD:

I think at this stage the reason for including the Charlemont-Sandyford section in the Metrolink project has been fairly comprehensively answered. It does not need to be covered again.

I am not stopping any discussion of Metrolink alternative routes as per the thread topic, but repeatedly asking the same questions and receiving the same answers is of no benefit to anyone.

annfield1978

Eight Months in from Idom/ Jacobs taking over from Arup, are we any closer to an emerging preferred route?

marno21

I would be confident we will see an announcement before the end of the month.

strassenwo!f

An interesting thing in Frankfurt, where I lived several years ago, is that they developed 1 proper metro line on one corridor (along with their S-Bahn linking neighbouring cities) and two other tram/metro corridors, all linked in what is basically a triangle.

Because it's actually quite a small city, they basically decided several years ago to stop building full metro lines, for a time, as pretty well everywhere was covered by tram or metro or S-Bahn lines, or their bus services, giving everybody a rapid route into the centre.

They're now developing an area called the Europa Quarter, in the west of the city, a very large residential area. And, it turns out, that having developed rapid transport to pretty well everywhere in their city, and not focussing on one particular corridor, they actually now have a spare end of a metro line (which currently terminates at the main train station) which can be used to serve this major development.

Well done Frankfurt. Look at you, with your good planning.

salmocab

Hurrah for Frankfurt

strassenwo!f

salmocab wrote: »

Hurrah for Frankfurt

Indeed. Well done to them.

Of course, it helps that public transport generally has a higher priority in politicians' minds on continental Europe than it does in Ireland. And it also helps that, while many European cities had their urban rail systems destroyed by war, they didn't go around destroying it themselves only to have to rebuild it again a half a century later.

Many European cities seem to have copped a long time ago that competition between lines was the best way to spread development throughout their city and to prevent congestion along any one line.

(Though I doubt if many cities would invest in the kind of Real Madrid/Bray Wanderers competition which will be observed in the Phibsborough area, between the metro and LUAS, if the Whitworth Road proposal goes ahead. After the considerable, and very recent, investment in the northside Green LUAS, this seems like a crazy idea).

It seems that the southwest of the city can only be served by a metro, as an on-street LUAS is unfeasible on any corridor in that area, and I think that the southside focus should largely be on that area in the years to around 2032 (assuming that construction starts in 2021).

Given that the current infrastructure of the LUAS Green line (including the St. Stephen's Green siding) would appear to be sufficient to deal with the NTA's figures for that line (from the documents on metrolink.ie) well into the 2040's, I would suggest that the N11 corridor be developed in the mid-2030's.

This corridor is very well served by buses like the 46A, so there is no urgency to develop it, but there would be a number of advantages. It would unquestionably reduce the requirement for commuters to use the current Green LUAS, as it would be nicely placed between the DART and the Green line, thus introducing competition for both. It could serve areas like Donnybrook, UCD and the other end of Stillorgan - which are all quite remote from the kind of frequent and rapid rail-based transport which similar suburbs enjoy in cities like Frankfurt - and eventually Cherrywood.

It should release many buses from a journey along the N11 and free them up to do other stuff in Dublin.

And, it should be very easy to build, probably the easiest of any corridor in Dublin.

If that were in place, around, say, 2040, then Dublin might consider upgrading the Green Line to a metro in the early 2040's, to stay ahead of the NTA's capacity projections to 2057 (as given on the metrolink.ie website), if that is required.

One thing which we've learned from the earlier construction of the southside Green line is that it was supposed to be easily upgradeable to metro standard, and we have now found out that it isn't. There will be line closures, perhaps for several months, if an upgrade happens, and it will require considerable money.

This mistake should not be repeated on the probable extension of the LUAS Green line to Finglas. It should be built to a standard which will be easily convertible to a metro, given the wonderful corridor north of Broadstone.

(In the unlikely event that anybody cares, I'd just like to remind the board that I don't have a conflict of interest here. I am from Dublin, but I do not have a vested interest in the development of any particular area of Dublin, or Ireland.

I have on many occasions, on this board, stated my preference for a Swords - southwest Dublin metro corridor and a Cherrywood - northwest metro corridor, with an interchange in the city, perhaps somewhere around St. Stephen's Green, for the two metro lines which Dublin will hopefully build in the next 30-40 years).

bk

Yes, hurrah for one of the richest cities in Europe, which opened it's first Metro line 50 years ago when we were still dirt poor.

They started with just one Metro line too, gotta start somewhere!

Interestingly they have 9 Metro lines, but most are various above ground branches. They basically consist of three core shared tunnelled sections, routes A, B and C.

Also very interesting to note that some of these routes were former tram lines and were converted to Metro!

From Wiki:

The decision was finally made in late 1961 in favor of the subway system, which was to be built in several sections using existing tram infrastructure. In the first construction phase, the tunnels of the inner city were to be built for the time being, which were to be connected via provisional ramps to the adjacent tram routes. It was not until the second construction phase that the tunnels were to be extended beyond the inner city and connected to suitable upgraded above-ground routes in the suburbs. In the third construction phase, the change from light rail to subway would have been completed, which was to operate completely independently of traffic in tunnels, cuts and dams.

Sounds sort of familiar, doesn't it?

The second trunk route, route B was built as a tram tunnel between Theaterplatz and Gießener Straße and opened in 1974. On 28 May 1978, both ends were extended to Hauptbahnhof and Preungesheim. In 1980 the line reached Seckbacher Landstraße and started to operate as a full U-Bahn, i.e. competely underground and entirely grade-separated.

It seems Frankfurt went through the same process as us of building tram lines first and then upgrading them to Metro as capacity demands increased. Not very different to here, just perhaps 40 years ahead of us.

Over the next 40 to 50 years I would hope that we also build a network of 3 core tunnels (Metrolink and DU would be two straight off, a SW/NE a third) and a bunch of branches and extensions off those.

strassenwo!f

Bk, I picked Frankfurt for my comment because it's a city I happen to know very well.

But I could have picked Dresden or Prague or a number of central european cities which I have been fortunate to visit, or a whole host of other cities in central Europe which I haven't yet been in and which are not all rich cities. Competition between tram/metro lines in those cities means that no one line becomes too busy.

bk

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Bk, I picked Frankfurt for my comment because it's a city I happen to know very well.

You've been going on about how we should not upgrade the green line to Metro and instead build an extensive Metro network like Frankfurt.

But if you take a look at the history of how Frankfurts Metro, is was basically a tram network that reached it's peak capacity, so they upgraded it to Metro!

It completely validates and proves the idea of upgrading tram lines to Metros is a good idea. If it was good enough for Frankfurt, then it is good enough for us.

If you look at the history of the first Metro line in Frankfurt, the U1, it was originally a tram line that ran from the suburbs into the city. In the suburbs it was pretty segregated, running down the middle of a very wide road, but from about 3km from the city center it started to run through narrow, congested city streets.

So they built a 3km tunnel in the city center section and then tied that in with the rest of the above ground segregated tram line which they then upgraded to Metro standard (above ground still, but with longer platforms, etc.).

I mean that is literally almost a carbon copy of the Green Luas line. The Green Luas line is highly segregated until Ranelagh and then runs on highly congested streets for 2km to OCS.

So now we are going to build an extra 1 to 2km of tunnel to eliminate that congested on street section and upgrade the rest of the mostly segregated Green line to Metro standard.

I mean it is pretty shocking, it is almost exactly the same as Frankfurts U1 line.

And if you look at the other two main routes in Frankfurt, it is exactly the same again, both former tram lines that were above ground and highly segregated (middle of the road) in the suburbs, but then tunnels were built for the last 3 to 4km of the congested onstreet city center sections and the above ground sections were upgraded to Metro.

It is brilliant, everything about Frankfurts Metros literally validates and proves the sensible idea of upgrading existing tram lines to Metro once they hit capacity.

BTW I don't know why you mention Dresden, it is pretty unique in similar sized German cities in having no underground or Metro sections. It is just a completely above ground tram network.

strassenwo!f

bk, your post about the history of Frankfurt's metro development is much appreciated, and I will look into it more in the next couple of days.

With Dresden, and a city like Kraków, and other central European cities, the importance of their historic city cores possibly present difficulties building underground lines which outweigh the advantages offered by a metro.

bk

strassenwo!f wrote: »

bk, your post about the history of Frankfurt's metro development is much appreciated, and I will look into it more in the next couple of days.

With Dresden, and a city like Kraków, and other central European cities, the importance of their historic city cores possibly present difficulties building underground lines which outweigh the advantages offered by a metro.

I think it is always good to look at other cities and to try and learn from them.

But it is also important to keep in mind differences in population size (e.g. Frankfurt Metro is 4 times the population of Dublin Metro), geography, wealth, how long they've been independent, history and yes politics.

For instance many German cities were flattened after WW2. But they were then quickly rebuilt using money from the Marshall plan and when they did they often built very wide roads, with a tram line down the middle of the road. These sort of segregated tramways were ideal for upgrading to Metro, at least outside the core cities. You see this very strongly in Frankfurt, but I've also seen streets like these all over Polish cities too. It makes doing Metro much cheaper and easier. The Green line is similar for us.

Then you have the effects of communism on central and eastern european cities. They obviously favoured public transport and big show off Metro systems. It has left those cities with great infrastructure, but it is important to keep in mind that under communism there was no planning authority, if you house or GAA pitch was in the way of a Metro station, then tough, here comes the bulldozer. And of course cheap and in some case slave labour (political prisoners) and very lack safety standards made it easier to do. And pretty much everything else about communism sucked.

Cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, etc. of course weren't largely effected by either of those. But they have long been extremely wealthy trading cities and long had independence and strong local governance.

We by comparison were dirt poor until the 90's. While others were busy building Metros in the 60's and 70's we didn't have two cents to rub together. High unemployment, high emigration rates, and Dublins population was half what it is today meant we couldn't afford Metros back then and realistically didn't particularly need one. Remember the DART only opened in 84 and that was a struggle for IR to get done and it is relatively simple and cheap in comparison. Metros were sci-fi for us back then.

Really we've only had money for projects like this for the last 30 years and we had a nasty recession for 10 years of that! At least we got a decent motorway network out of it, which was very badly needed and another area we were way behind our neighbours.

Had the recession hit 2 or 3 years later then it did, we would have had started Metro North and DU and we would likely have them now. But unfortunately what happened happened. But now we have a chance to finally get in gear and start sorting the public transport deficit with Metrolink and DART expansion.

strassenwo!f

bk wrote: »

You've been going on about how we should not upgrade the green line to Metro and instead build an extensive Metro network like Frankfurt.

No, I haven't said that, at any stage.

I hope that Dublin will have an extensive metro network, and I've said that, and I've also said that it would be appropriate for the Green line to be upgraded to a metro, but at a later stage.

bk wrote: »

But if you take a look at the history of how Frankfurts Metro, is was basically a tram network that reached it's peak capacity, so they upgraded it to Metro!

Frankfurt had a very extensive tram network, and it had reached capacity when they decided to go underground. Dublin does not have an extensive tram network. There are many areas of Dublin which are not served by a tram - indeed the majority of suburbs of Dublin are not served by a tram.

bk wrote: »

It completely validates and proves the idea of upgrading tram lines to Metros is a good idea. If it was good enough for Frankfurt, then it is good enough for us.

I agree with this, by and large. Frankfurt is a city which places a high value on quality public transport, as pretty much all German cities do. Most of the cities in the countries which neighbour Germany do too. While I wouldn't, in general, agree that what is good for Frankfurt is necessarily also good for Dublin, in public transport terms it probably is.

bk wrote: »

If you look at the history of the first Metro line in Frankfurt, the U1, it was originally a tram line that ran from the suburbs into the city. In the suburbs it was pretty segregated, running down the middle of a very wide road, but from about 3km from the city center it started to run through narrow, congested city streets.

So they built a 3km tunnel in the city center section and then tied that in with the rest of the above ground segregated tram line which they then upgraded to Metro standard (above ground still, but with longer platforms, etc.).

I mean that is literally almost a carbon copy of the Green Luas line. The Green Luas line is highly segregated until Ranelagh and then runs on highly congested streets for 2km to OCS.

I've read (or most probably re-read) the history of the development of Frankfurt's metro, thanks to your prompting.

I'm afraid it doesn't change my view.

The infrastructure (including the St. Stephen's Green siding) is in place in Dublin to deal with the capacity issues on the Green line well into the 2040's, as laid out on metrolink.ie. If a 55m Green line tram has a capacity of 400, and the LUAS is currently getting towards 20 trams per hour through the city, then the capacity of the line is around 8,000. Add in a few services to the siding over the next 20 or so years, and you can stay well ahead of the NTA's projections for demand on the Green LUAS over that time.

St.Stephen's Green is not ideal, I know, but I remember years ago discussing the route of the DART Underground proposal (for younger readers an Irish Rail idea for an underground line between Heuston and the East of Dublin) where there was a considerable cohort who would have been delighted to have had a station to get out at at St. Stephen's Green.

bk wrote: »

So now we are going to build an extra 1 to 2km of tunnel to eliminate that congested on street section and upgrade the rest of the mostly segregated Green line to Metro standard.

I mean it is pretty shocking, it is almost exactly the same as Frankfurts U1 line.

I am aware that the LUAS Green line 'trundles' through the city streets between Charlemont and Broadstone. But there are other areas on the southside of Dublin where it appears the LUAS will never even be able to trundle, because of the street layout, These are the areas which, in my opinion, should be upgraded straight away to a metro.

bk wrote: »

And if you look at the other two main routes in Frankfurt, it is exactly the same again, both former tram lines that were above ground and highly segregated (middle of the road) in the suburbs, but then tunnels were built for the last 3 to 4km of the congested onstreet city center sections and the above ground sections were upgraded to Metro.

I hope they will eventually do that in Dublin too.

bk wrote: »

It is brilliant, everything about Frankfurts Metros literally validates and proves the sensible idea of upgrading existing tram lines to Metro once they hit capacity.

But the Green line hasn't hit capacity, or anywhere near it. As mentioned above, judicious use of the St. Stephen's Green siding should mean that there
is no need for an upgrade at this stage - though I hope there will be in the future - and that the metro focus in Dublin will be on areas which can never be served by the LUAS. An upgrade of the Green LUAS should come later, in the 2040's or so, when it may start to be required, based on the NTA's timeline.

bk wrote: »

BTW I don't know why you mention Dresden, it is pretty unique in similar sized German cities in having no underground or Metro sections. It is just a completely above ground tram network.

Dresden is a very good example of a city where there are many tram lines which compete with each other. In that sense, they have reached a stage which Dublin hasn't. But, as far as I understand it, underground through the historical core is not really an option.

D.L.R.

Tara Street is going to be crazy busy as an interchange. I hope advanced planning of that is being factored in.

We have a habit of underbuilding capital infrastructure in Dublin, and overbuilding in the country.

bk

strassenwo!f wrote: »

The infrastructure (including the St. Stephen's Green siding) is in place in Dublin to deal with the capacity issues on the Green line well into the 2040's, as laid out on metrolink.ie. If a 55m Green line tram has a capacity of 400, and the LUAS is currently getting towards 20 trams per hour through the city, then the capacity of the line is around 8,000. Add in a few services to the siding over the next 20 or so years, and you can stay well ahead of the NTA's projections for demand on the Green LUAS over that time.

Huh, why are you talking about Stephens Green siding! That is zero help!!

Unless you plan on tunnelling from Stephens Green to Ranelagh, the siding is useless to you in increasing capacity since it runs at street level along Stephens Green and down Harcourt Street, etc. It is those street running sections that are the constraint. You simply can't run trams at high frequency down completely non segregated streets. It simply isn't an option.

It is the same reason they had to build the first Metro line in Frankfurt, the U1. A 3km tunnel on a tram line to replace a congested, non segregated city center section that had reached it's maximum capacity.

The green Luas line is already bursting at the seams. It has just about handling numbers with the introduction of the 55m trams. But with over 10,000 new apartments to be built in Cherrywood and near by over the next 10 years, it will be maxed out completely in 10 years time, again leaving people behind at stations closer to the city. It needs to be upgraded, to meet its full potential, simple as that.

I don't know what is so hard to understand. This is good engineering. Upgrading existing infrastructure as it reaches capacity (preferably just before) is good practice.

Increasing the length of DART platforms so they could increase train lengths from 4 to 8 and thus double capacity.

Increasing the length of the Luas platforms so that we could go from 30m trams to 40m and now 55m.

Upgrading the rail signalling in the city center so that it can handle a big increase in number of trains it can handle, giving us 10 minute DARTs, etc.

Hell even the original DART project, which in the end was just the electrification of an existing line.

Do you really think all of those were bad ideas? Was the DART a bad idea?

Do you think the planed DART expansion plan is a bad idea?

Of course, you also need to grow your transport network. And that is what Metrolink is. A fantastic Metro line that will be going from North to South right through the heart of our city and connecting both Dublins largest commuter town and airport to the city and creating a backbone for all future transport projects.

But we also need to continue to develop and expand the capacity of existing routes. To help make the most of them. And the green line upgrade is a very sensible and cheap upgrade. It is the cherry on top on the Metrolink that makes it's economics look even better and thus more likely to go ahead and be successful, great.

And in the meantime, we are also doing many other sensible capacity upgrades of existing networks. 10 minute DARTs, DART Expansion, more commuter trains, all 55m trams, Bus Connects.

These sort of upgrades are the norm. Just as they were in Frankfurt and you will find similar all over Europe.

riddlinrussell

I think people are trying to argue this point thinking strassenwolf is against the metro extending to the green line. I think he is for it but wants to prioritise the unserved areas. I wholeheartedly agree with him in principle.
But the argument against it is the simple and pragmatic. As part of Metrolink there are basically two choices, build the northern section and tie it in to an upgraded green line metro, or build the northern section... The money required to do a southwest extension either isn't there or isn't politically possible to get.
And again from a practical perspective you could continue the tunnel as far as could be afforded by not paying for the green line upgrade (not particularly far if you want any stations along that stretch?) which again I agree would make a good start which could then be expanded, but politically is going to be even worse, because now you've neglected the entire green line corridor AND you haven't reached all the south western commuters, assuming the stub line would get about as far as rathmines underground?

ncounties

Another way the south west could be served would be if the overland green line in the city centre, diverges south west at Harcourt, to go down the Rathmines road, and extends on to Terenure. This could be built in conjunction with Metro North (still refuse the new title), and commence operation when Metro North opens.

salmocab

ncounties wrote: »

Another way the south west could be served would be if the overland green line in the city centre, diverges south west at Harcourt, to go down the Rathmines road, and extends on to Terenure. This could be built in conjunction with Metro North (still refuse the new title), and commence operation when Metro North opens.

There is nowhere to put an on street line out SW the roads are already some of the busiest in the country. There are no routes that wouldn’t cause constant mayhem.

strassenwo!f

riddlinrussell wrote: »

I think people are trying to argue this point thinking strassenwolf is against the metro extending to the green line. I think he is for it but wants to prioritise the unserved areas. I wholeheartedly agree with him in principle.

You're entirely right, riddlinrussell. I'm sure Dublin will eventually need at least two north-south metros - in line with what we've seen in cities of a similar size and density in other parts of Europe.

A Green line upgrade would seem to an obvious part of that, when the time arrives, as would better use of the excellent Broadstone corridor.

But that time hasn't yet arrived.

riddlinrussell wrote: »

But the argument against it is the simple and pragmatic. As part of Metrolink there are basically two choices, build the northern section and tie it in to an upgraded green line metro, or build the northern section... The money required to do a southwest extension either isn't there or isn't politically possible to get.

The Green line upgrade is clearly unnecessary, at this stage. They're running 19-20 trams per hour at peak times from Sandyford into the city, and I know that those trams are busy. But this is well short of the kind of tram throughputs which are enjoyed by many cities in Europe (around 36 trams per hour in central Berlin, or central Vienna, for example, with several street crossings involved.

Dublin is well short of the kind of that kind of throughput, even though those cities also have traffic, and higher populations.

None of us on this board seem to be privy to the reasons that Dublin needs to upgrade to a metro for the Green line, when it is off-street for most of its journey, and is giving up the ghost at 20 trams per hour for its on-street journey across the city when other cities, like Vienna and Berlin, are doing 36 trams per hour in very central sections in their cities.

Use of the siding at St. Stephen's Green would seem to be one obvious solution to enabling the LUAS Green line to stay well ahead of the NTA's predictions for Green line demand into the middle decades of this century.

But here's another possibility which occurred to me recently: demolish that derelict house at the corner of Peter Place and build a LUAS line connection from Cherrywood along Adelaide Road, across Leeson Street into Wilton Place (one of the most unused wide streets in Dublin).

At one stroke you remove the spurious doubts about running 30 tph across the city and/or into the Stephen's Green siding, you remove any possible extra traffic conflict in the Harcourt Street area and at St. Stephen's Green and you serve the whole Baggot Street/Leeson Street/Fitzwilliam area with 10+ trams per hour at peak times.

Simple enough. That would utilise the 30+ tph capacity of the Green line, directly serve busy areas like Baggot Street and Leeson Street, and perhaps even be extendable towards Grand Canal. And it would free up, even more, the southwest of the city - which can't be served by trams - to be part of the metrolink project.

riddlinrussell wrote: »

And again from a practical perspective you could continue the tunnel as far as could be afforded by not paying for the green line upgrade (not particularly far if you want any stations along that stretch?) which again I agree would make a good start which could then be expanded, but politically is going to be even worse, because now you've neglected the entire green line corridor AND you haven't reached all the south western commuters, assuming the stub line would get about as far as rathmines underground?

I reiterate. You can't expect all of the southwest to be served immediately with the funds which are currently proposed. We know know already it can't realistically be served by a tram. But a start to the southwest makes a lot more sense than upgrading a line which doesn't need to be upgraded.

Once the start is made, and a southwest line is seen to be successful, I feel sure that more money for extensions will be forthcoming.

marno21

This was all explained to you last week, and every week since Metrolink was announced.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

You're entirely right, riddlinrussell. I'm sure Dublin will eventually need at least two north-south metros - in line with what we've seen in cities of a similar size and density in other parts of Europe.

A Green line upgrade would seem to an obvious part of that, when the time arrives, as would better use of the excellent Broadstone corridor.

But that time hasn't yet arrived.



The Green line upgrade is clearly unnecessary, at this stage. They're running 19-20 trams per hour at peak times from Sandyford into the city, and I know that those trams are busy. But this is well short of the kind of tram throughputs which are enjoyed by many cities in Europe (around 36 trams per hour in central Berlin, or central Vienna, for example, with several street crossings involved.

Dublin is well short of the kind of that kind of throughput, even though those cities also have traffic, and higher populations.

None of us on this board seem to be privy to the reasons that Dublin needs to upgrade to a metro for the Green line, when it is off-street for most of its journey, and is giving up the ghost at 20 trams per hour for its on-street journey across the city when other cities, like Vienna and Berlin, are doing 36 trams per hour in very central sections in their cities.

Use of the siding at St. Stephen's Green would seem to be one obvious solution to enabling the LUAS Green line to stay well ahead of the NTA's predictions for Green line demand into the middle decades of this century.

But here's another possibility which occurred to me recently: demolish that derelict house at the corner of Peter Place and build a LUAS line connection from Cherrywood along Adelaide Road, across Leeson Street into Wilton Place (one of the most unused wide streets in Dublin).

At one stroke you remove the spurious doubts about running 30 tph across the city and/or into the Stephen's Green siding, you remove any possible extra traffic conflict in the Harcourt Street area and at St. Stephen's Green and you serve the whole Baggot Street/Leeson Street/Fitzwilliam area with 10+ trams per hour at peak times.

Simple enough. That would utilise the 30+ tph capacity of the Green line, directly serve busy areas like Baggot Street and Leeson Street, and perhaps even be extendable towards Grand Canal. And it would free up, even more, the southwest of the city - which can't be served by trams - to be part of the metrolink project.



I reiterate. You can't expect all of the southwest to be served immediately with the funds which are currently proposed. We know know already it can't realistically be served by a tram. But a start to the southwest makes a lot more sense than upgrading a line which doesn't need to be upgraded.

Once the start is made, and a southwest line is seen to be successful, I feel sure that more money for extensions will be forthcoming.

The Green Line is currently being upgraded with longer trams to facilitate demand upto 2027. The Metro upgrade of the Green Line is to facilitte demand beyond 2027. The Metro upgrade of the Green Line will not begin until 2021 and is not to open for another 9 years. It's not a today or tomorrow upgrade.

How many more times does this have to be explained?

strassenwo!f

I'm looking at the figures given on metrolink.ie:

metrolink.ie wrote:

During 2017, the numbers carried by the Luas Green Line in the busiest morning peak hour was approximately 5,000 passengers in the northbound direction. The introduction of new 55 metre length trams, and the extension of the existing trams, will increase the Green Line capacity up to approximately 8,000 passengers per direction per hour based on a three minute frequency.

That's almost where we're getting to now. They're running 19-20 tph northbound from Sandyford, several of which are 55m trams, and they're all busy.

Although I haven't found any definitive figures for the capacity of a 55m tram, the above figures suggest that it is about 400. (Wikipedia gives 250+ for a 30m tram and 350+ for the 40m trams).

metrolink.ie wrote:

Over the next two decades, passenger demand levels on the Green Line will reach approximately 11,000 passengers in the northbound direction, and expected to grow to approximately 13,000 passengers by 2057. This is beyond the carrying capacity of a standard Luas system and an upgrade to a metro system is required.

No matter how loud you shout, Marno, them's the official figures.

Adding 10tph to the off-street section, which is not in a central area, would add capacity for an extra 4,000 people to bring the capacity to 12,000, well ahead of the metrolink predictions for the next two decades. In fact it would seem to bring it to the capacity which, it is implied by the above quote, would be required in around 2047.

This extra capacity could be achieved by using the St. Stephen's Green siding or by a measure such as I suggested in my previous post, which should be quite simple to do and could be very useful at peak times.

And still stay comfortably below the throughputs which we see in very central sections, with several street crossings, in other European cities.

bk

strassenwo!f, again, you are completely wrong, the Luas Green line can not be upgraded any further then the current upgrade plan other then upgrading it to Metro.

From the Metrolink Green line upgrade report:
http://data.tii.ie/metrolink/alignment-options-study/study-3/metrolink-green-line-metro-upgrade-line-b.pdf

5.1
Line B (Ranelagh to Sandyford)/Segregation
The existing Luas Green Line is limited to running a maximum of 24 TPH. This limitation is driven by the non-segregated nature of the line and in particular the need for vehicles to stop at at-grade crossings at Dunville Avenue and St Raphaela’s Road.

Note the maximum capacity is 24 TPH due to the at-grade junctions at Dunville Avenue, etc. So no, once again, turning trams around at Stephens Green won't allow for more trams as the bottleneck is south of Stephens Green at the street running and at grade sections.

That is why this section needs to be upgrade to a Metro tunnel, just like the 3km Frankfurt U1 was.

As for the maximum capacity of Luas, see this:
http://www.dttas.ie/press-releases/2017/minister-ross-gives-green-light-%E2%82%AC100m-green-line-project

8,160 passengers per direction per hour based on 24 trams per hour.

That is the maximum capacity of the Green Line Luas.

Note that they have spent 100 million on the Luas upgrade to do this, including lengthening platforms to 55m and buying 55m trams.

After the opening of Luas Cross City the capacity on the Green line will be approximately 6,400 passengers per direction per hour based on 21 trams per hour. At the end of the Green Line capacity project the capacity will increase to approximately 8,160 passengers per direction per hour based on 24 trams per hour. The increase in capacity is 1,760 passengers per direction per hour.

So they spent 100 million to boast the hourly capacity by just 1,760 people to 8,160.

But you then object to them spending just another 150million to boast the capacity of the Green Line from 8,000 to greater then 16,000!!

That simply makes no logical sense.

I also notice that you ignored my earlier questions on if it was a bad idea upgrading DARTs to 8 carriage or the city center resignalling.

riddlinrussell

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I reiterate. You can't expect all of the southwest to be served immediately with the funds which are currently proposed. We know know already it can't realistically be served by a tram. But a start to the southwest makes a lot more sense than upgrading a line which doesn't need to be upgraded.

Once the start is made, and a southwest line is seen to be successful, I feel sure that more money for extensions will be forthcoming.

Strassenwolf this doesn't address the issue I raised that building 150 million worth of tunnel + Stations wont get you far at all and politically saying "Look we've made a start on the South west!" Without actually impacting on the vast majority of those peoples lives in the medium term and simultaneously inviting comparisons of "Well they could have got the metro all the way to Sandyford but they went for a little nub that just barely reaches the canal" would be a PR nightmare for any political party that implemented it. All the people crowing for a south west metro currently are either being honest about it (greens I think want it but are saying they'd tack on another billion to the price tag to do it?) Or just being disingenuous and calling for it without saying how much extra it will cost.

EDIT: Also I should point out that the 'southwest-line' being a success would be contingent on it going far enough to have a major impact on the majority of commuters in the area, I just don't see how the 150m can stretch far enough to have the desired effect, so I'd prefer to see it spent on metro than just put back into another pot and have metro stub out in the city centre. If this metro line is a success then you can bet that there will be a major clamor for a second full line, and if they do it properly they wont be extensions or connectors, fully fledged, separated lines with good interchange.

strassenwo!f

bk wrote: »

strassenwo!f, again, you are completely wrong, the Luas Green line can not be upgraded any further then the current upgrade plan other then upgrading it to Metro.

From the Metrolink Green line upgrade report:
http://data.tii.ie/metrolink/alignment-options-study/study-3/metrolink-green-line-metro-upgrade-line-b.pdf

Note the maximum capacity is 24 TPH due to the at-grade junctions at Dunville Avenue, etc. So no, once again, turning trams around at Stephens Green won't allow for more trams as the bottleneck is south of Stephens Green at the street running and at grade sections.

That is why this section needs to be upgrade to a Metro tunnel, just like the 3km Frankfurt U1 was.

That's easily changed.

They just need to change the guidelines from 24 trams per hour (tph) to 30 tph. Not very difficult, you would think.

Given that other bigger cities in Europe are running 36 tph along central sections of their networks, it is surely not unreasonable that Dublin should be able to manage just 30 tph along a non-central section.

In Berlin, for example, the central section I mentioned earlier in this thread runs 36 tph and has about a dozen places where there is car (and other) traffic crossing. And they seem to be able to manage it. Several other European cities have similar throughputs.

The piddly levels of car throughput at Dunville Avenue and Stillorgan could well accomodate a tram every 120 seconds.

bk wrote: »

As for the maximum capacity of Luas, see this:
http://www.dttas.ie/press-releases/2017/minister-ross-gives-green-light-%E2%82%AC100m-green-line-project

That is the maximum capacity of the Green Line Luas.

Note that they have spent 100 million on the Luas upgrade to do this, including lengthening platforms to 55m and buying 55m trams.

So they spent 100 million to boast the hourly capacity by just 1,760 people to 8,160.

But you then object to them spending just another 150million to boast the capacity of the Green Line from 8,000 to greater then 16,000!!

That simply makes no logical sense.

I think it is reasonable to suggest that the off-street Green line (the Charlemont to Cherrywood section) can easily accomodate 30 tph if central Berlin, Vienna (and many other cities with road crossings) can handle 36.

It would be interesting to know why you completely ignore the demand figures given on metrolink.ie - which I posted above - in your posts. For example, you tout a capacity of 16,000 for the metro along the Green Line route, and yet the metrolink people are saying that there will be demand for 13,000 people heading northbound from Sandyford in 2057.

At the rate that the metrolink folk guess they'll be adding passengers it'll be into the next century before they will require a capacity of 16,000.

It would be much better, in my opinion, to do a few simple things with this line. First, change the rules to allow 30 tph along the out-of-centre section. That's simple enough. Second, either come up with a plan to use the St. Stephen's Green siding, or plan to build a very easy spur tramline from Peter Place along Adelaide Road to Wilton Place (or perhaps beyond).

That could be very useful at peak times, when there are lots of people who want to go to that whole area within a kilometre of Baggot Street.

(Though I struggle to know what that line would do at off-peak times. Would there be enough demand for a service from Wilton Place to Sandyford every 20 or 30 minutes at off-peak times?)

bk wrote: »

I also notice that you ignored my earlier questions on if it was a bad idea upgrading DARTs to 8 carriage or the city center resignalling.

I read your questions and took them on board. But it didn't seem to be appropriate to answer them, as this is a thread about the metro and the possible alternatives to it, and the moderators are keen to keep us on-topic. They're already even shouting at us if we're not posting stuff which is to their approval.