Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

tobefrank321

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866226#Comment_121866226

Its not nihilism, its realism.

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866252#Comment_121866252

What has moving spoil got to do with anything? That's quiet an odd argument. It's almost as if when someone calls you out you move the goalposts.

AdamD

If we don't build it now, it'll cost a lot more in 20 years time.

tobefrank321

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866287#Comment_121866287

The point was being made that Metro North will be similar to the Port Tunnel. But Metro North involves construction of passenger stations in and around the city centre. The port tunnel didn't have that, it was a relatively straight forward bore, without passenger station complications.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866252#Comment_121866252

What TII do is manage major infrastructure projects and they have an excellent track record of doing that.

They don't actually do the construction work themselves, they hire in and contract experts and companies in the relevant field, people who have built and designed Metros in Spain, Copenhagen, etc. to do the detailed design and construction. TII's job is too manage the project and sub-contractors at a high level.

When TII built the port tunnel, they had never done anything like that, first major TBM bored tunnel and yet big success. When they built the intercity motorway network they had never done anything like that, now look what we have, when they built the first Luas lines, they had never done anything like that, look at Luas now.

While I'm not saying this won't be a massive and complicated project, it really isn't that different from what we have done before, just a slightly more complicated version of the port tunnel combined with a Luas line. But more importantly this will be built by experts and companies who have built Metro's for decades in cities like Copenhagen and Spain.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866234#Comment_121866234

A surprising amount of tunnelers for projects all over the world came from NW Donegal. Many tunnels in Australia built by Donegal tunnelers too

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866284#Comment_121866284

Realism based on what though? Navel gazing saying a project is doomed to fail without having read any of the funding documents behind it, is just wild. There is plenty of evidence that TII has the ability to build projects on time and on budget.

Realism is trusting that none of us have a clue how to build a Metro, but given TII is an organisation filled with talented engineers and planners, they probably know more than we do and probably have better judgement on how much it costs to build a metro.

Zebra3

Cost of building ML versus cost of not building it….?

Hibernicis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866252#Comment_121866252

This is exactly what they do. They manage large scale infrastructure projects. The scope may vary. The scale may vary. The type of infrastructure may vary. That's par for the course. What's important is that they manage projects from cradle to grave. They have a very good track record of dealing with the issues that arise in the course of construction (e.g. chunk of the M7 sinking into a bog) and still completing projects on time and on budget.

VinLieger

Its just the usual argument of unless its absolutely perfect in form, cost and function we shouldn't do it. As always the simple answer is perfect is the enemy of good.

I find anyone making that argument is usually doing it because they don't want to divulge their real reasons for being against something. Michael McDowell being a prime example of this.

tobefrank321

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866339#Comment_121866339

Good luck to them. Here's my predication. Costs will balloon. This project will not be completed under 15 billion, regardless when it starts.

Comparing it to the Port Tunnel and saying we can do it cheaper than the Brits is just nonsense.

Just been reading a bit about the difficulties of city centre undergrounds, and the first issue you run into is finding out where all the utilities and sewers and so on are, and then rearranging them. And this will have to be done for every station.

tobefrank321

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866345#Comment_121866345

You'd have to look at the benefit from building it. One benefit appears to be saving time getting from the airport to the city centre. What that time is, I'm sure people have quantified.

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866363#Comment_121866363

Isn't it great for the last 5 years TII have been doing extensive ground investigations in compiling the EIAR which maps out where the tunnel should go to avoid core utilities. Its how we discovered the sewer under the Grand Canal and the tunnel had to be adjusted to compensate for that.

To put it plainly, and of us perusing various think pieces about how difficult it is to build undergrounds on various blogs, is going to be ultimately less informed than genuinely the 100s of engineers who have been paging through 100s of architectural documents in compiling the railway order proposal for this project.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866363#Comment_121866363

All the same sort of utility work had to be done for the Luas lines. Hell even the folks (not TII) building the city to Clontarf cycle lane have run into this.

In fact given the contained size of the stations, this part will be relatively easier then having to move utilities across the length of entire Luas lines.

BTW It is hilarious that you have increased how much the project will cost from 10 billion to 15 billion in the space of a few minutes!!

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866382#Comment_121866382

It is called a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and it came out extremely positive for Metrolink. You might be better off spending your time reading through the mountains of documentation on the Metrolink website.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866382#Comment_121866382

The benefit is far more than that, think of the cars it will remove from the streets, the reduction in congestion, the improvement in air quality, the time and money saved by individuals getting to and from work, those benefits along with the others in the CBA adds up to easily 100s of millions. If all you can see it as is a way for people to get to and from the airport you are quite myopic.

Whats being unsaid in your posts is you don't think it should be built and you quite obviously are hiding behind the cost as a reason for that.

bk

Swords, population 40,000, projected to grow to 100,000 by 2035!

This is the primary reason for Metrolink, the Airport is just the cherry on top.

But there are loads of other great reasons for it interchanging with two new DART lines at Glasnevin, likely to become one of the busiest train stations in the country, interchange with the existing DART line at Tara, interchange with both the red and green Luas lines, interchange with pretty much every major radial and orbital bus corridor in the city. Two major hospitals, two universities including multiple campuses.

Future potential to extend North to house hundreds of thousands more and connect to the Northern line too. Future potential to upgrade the green line or extend to UCD or SW.

This line will absolutely transform Dublin.

Hibernicis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866493#Comment_121866493

This is an excellent post that deserves to be highlighted. It very succinctly lists the intangible benefits, especially capacity and connectivity. There is simply no other way of delivering these benefits. And while the majority here don’t need convincing that the project must proceed, it is great to be reminded from time to time of the prize that is to be had at the end of the arduous process.

It absolutely will transform Dublin for the better and can’t come soon enough.

A Dub in Glasgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866382#Comment_121866382

That is one benefit but quite a small one so well done for spotting it

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866363#Comment_121866363

Have "the Brits" built a single bore driverless metro recently that I'm unaware of?

prunudo

40 new posts since lunchtime, was hoping there was some exciting new news, alas, no joy 😃

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121863099#Comment_121863099

Duncan Stewart is a parody of himself. He has even been parodied on RTE. I doubt anyone pays him a blind bit of notice, and I don't think you should do.

You will notice, as 99% of people are for the MetroLink, in the name of balance, radio programmes need to find people against it and they are all starting to have the same characteristics. Old, out of touch, not had their opinion listened to in years...

LambshankRedemption

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866358#Comment_121866358

There is also the case, that the price tag is insurmountable to some people. They can not imagine that amount of money. People who think we could spend 20 billion on the HSE instead - ignoring or not realising that spending 20 billion on the HSE in its current condition, would simply waste 20 perfectly good billion.

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866889#Comment_121866889

That is honestly the one defining characteristic of all the anti crowd they are all 70+, I heard one woman this morning on Pat Kenny and from the sound of her voice i doubt she would have a hope of being alive when this eventually opens. How dare these withered husks snatch any future progress and benefits from the younger generations, the entitlement of that generation disgusts me.

CrabRevolution

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866927#Comment_121866927

In can't remember which, but one objecting group quite literally had that as their argument. Their street housed mostly old people and they claimed they were going to have the last years of their lives stolen from them by ML works.

KrisW1001

The cost is around 20 quid a week from every Dubliner for the nine years it'll take to build. Spread out across the entire population, it's four quid a week per head. I think we can afford that.

People getting in a tizzy about "ten billion euro" are people who have never looked at the size of the goverment budget. We spend more than the cost of Metrolink every single year just on paying out the old age pension.

Sam Russell

Perhaps the Gov should offer Metrolink Bonds to fund the metro, with a tax free coupon to cover the cost being repaid over twenty years from the fares collected.

If the bonds were issued at €2 billion a year over the construction period, it could be funded entirely outside the Gov funding.

spacetweek

tobefrank

“So they think they can build it much cheaper than they did in the UK? Even though we have no experience of building similar here and they have 150 years experience!

Good luck to them if so. Can't see that happening myself.”

This is exaggerated nonsense. I think you’re referring to the Elizabeth line. This was exceptionally difficult to build. One because there are many other tunnels underneath London and the Elizabeth Line had to thread its way between them, and second, because of the large number of interchange stations, which had to interchange underground. There’s not going to be anything remotely like this with Metro Link, even the Tara Street metrolink station is not really an interchange, as there will not be a physical connection between them. Also, the extremely high level of wealth in London meant insurance costs were probably astronomical for the project.

Also, I don’t know why you keep calling it Metro North, it’s metrolink.

spacetweek

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121866927#Comment_121866927

Agreed, total boomer/silent generation assholes. So pessimistic.

Boomers are usually so selfish and silent gens can’t get their heads around how Ireland has changed so much.

No one in this country over the age of 50 can visualise that this project will finally have Dublin sitting up at the table with the big boys. Game changer isn’t strong enough to describe it.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121865962#Comment_121865962

These are fantasy numbers, you have no idea what they mean