DART = "The Ultimate White Elephant!" 1984

MyLove4Satan

If you ever want proof that Irish economists and journalists are basically delusional ignorant and uneducated halfwits. Here you go:

https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/0214/1029617-the-dart-overrun/?fbclid=IwAR1pT2uCTxjRHWAoSCnZ-nWhlZOW0Xhi2Tyase6PcyklyKaEuYmu_QDPLAc

cgcsb

This was mainstream thinking in the anglosphere and beyond at the time. Thatcherism had decreed public transport as something for the undesirables. America had been against it for most of the 20th century. All Ireland could do back then was ape the UK or sometimes the USA. Thankfully we're slowly moving away from that and embracing more enlightened thinking but simultaneously we're also wrapping ourselves up in hyper bureaucracy. Small projects now take a decade to complete and include endless rounds of public consultation and redesign.

end of the road

but at least they were ignored, proven wrong and are still being ignored more or less.

proven wrong with dart, proven wrong with luas and will be proven wrong with others.

had these headbangers been listened to, not only would they have killed rail in this country but they would have killed all public transport, as dispite their pretending to want buses as a solution to everything, they in their backside wanted to put up the money to make the bus work.

As a matter of interest has Jim Mitchell's claim that "the line will never make any money" turned out to be true?

blackbox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118720017#Comment_118720017

I'd be very surprised if it covers its running costs, never mind paying back the capital investment. Probably worse for LUAS.

Unfortunately the social benefits are very difficult to quantify.

Peregrine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118720062#Comment_118720062

Luas covers its operating costs. I haven't seen a figure for DART specifically as it's usually mixed in with the rest of Irish Rail's operations which require large PSO funding. It's probably not far off Luas.

Anyway, the premise of Mitchell's claim is all wrong. It's a service, not a product. It's not supposed to make money.

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118720062#Comment_118720062

It's actually easy enough to quantify. That's why DART+ has a business case

Heartbreak Hank

Do many roads make money? Or street lights? Or water? never mind that last one

end of the road

the "make money" shtick when it comes to rail is just deflection by those against a particular rail project.

well in my experience anyway.

Sam Russell

You are quite right. No call for hospitals to 'make money'. It is an easy way to 'de-rail' train projects. No matter how bad the rail projects that have been proposed in the past, if they were built, we would be very happy to use them now.