Luas Development

Thomond Pk

The York St option sounds interesting as it would provide much higher capacity on the basis that a number of trams could travel Sandyford- Stephens Green and others could swing right at York St which is before the platforms at the Green. This would be particularly welcome at peak times as two places would then exist with empty trams for departure.

I quite liked the South King St and Stephen St routing but I like the York St Aungier St one a lot more as it wouldn't interfere with flows to the Stephens Green car parks as much and would leave the amenity space on South King St intact.

I am a great fan the route from Georges St onto Dame St and Parliment St as this will be an unserviced area if the interconnector is built. Capel St is one Street that could really benefit from the Luas effect and this alignment would be quite close to Murphaph's broadstone dry canal bed for an extension northside.

I see little point in linking the two lines unless the routing goes further North than O'Connell St and Phibsboro i.e. Liffey Junction would be a perfect start. The problem with going further north than Abbey St on O'Connell St is that the newly laid plaza would have to give.

Victor

Thomond Pk wrote:

The York St option sounds interesting as it would provide much higher capacity on the basis that a number of trams could travel Sandyford- Stephens Green and others could swing right at York St which is before the platforms at the Green. This would be particularly welcome at peak times as two places would then exist with empty trams for departure.

Is York Street wide enough, what about the turns?

Thomond Pk

The turn at the Green is basically unlimited because outside the College of Surgeons is for set down only and is not for through traffic. Dublin City Council is redeveloping the terrace of houses on the South Side of York St (before anyone says they are Georgian they're not they are 1940's pastiche and the demolition has been accepted by all the heirtage groups) So the turn onto Mercer St shouldn't be any real problem.

The end of Mercer St is narrow and would require an arrangement similar to that at Harcourt Road where traffic is only allowed enter when the light is green from South William St. Lower Stephen St would become Luas only, the bus lane at Georges St would have to go and only access could be provided to South Great Georges St for cars heading Northbound. There is a v in the road at the end of Redmonds Hill at DIT Aungier St onto Whitefriar St which via Golden Lane leads back to Bride St which could accomodate the displaced traffic that turns left onto Dame St from Georges St.

strassenwolf

Thomond Park wrote:

I am a great fan the route from Georges St onto Dame St and Parliment St as this will be an unserviced area if the interconnector is built.

I agree. I'm just surprised that the right turn from George's Street hasn't been included, especially ahead of the Kildare Street-Exchequer Street route :eek:

Thomond Park wrote:

Capel St is one Street that could really benefit from the Luas effect and this alignment would be quite close to Murphaph's broadstone dry canal bed for an extension northside.

It certainly would be quite close. Up to the top of Capel Street, straight across Bolton Street and into Yarnhall Street. From there, through the Linenhall part of DIT Bolton Street (relocating to Grangegorman some time soon) - ie demolish a bit of it - out across the King's Inns Lawn to Constitution Hill and the Royal Canal.

Doable?

strassenwolf

Thomond Park wrote:

The turn at the Green is basically unlimited because outside the College of Surgeons is for set down only and is not for through traffic. Dublin City Council is redeveloping the terrace of houses on the South Side of York St (before anyone says they are Georgian they're not they are 1940's pastiche and the demolition has been accepted by all the heirtage groups) So the turn onto Mercer St shouldn't be any real problem.

The end of Mercer St is narrow and would require an arrangement similar to that at Harcourt Road where traffic is only allowed enter when the light is green from South William St. Lower Stephen St would become Luas only, the bus lane at Georges St would have to go and only access could be provided to South Great Georges St for cars heading Northbound. There is a v in the road at the end of Redmonds Hill at DIT Aungier St onto Whitefriar St which via Golden Lane leads back to Bride St which could accomodate the displaced traffic that turns left onto Dame St from Georges St.

Why turn into Mercer Street at all? Could you not just continue straight on to the York St./Aungier St. Junction, then turn right into Aungier St.

Thomond Pk

I'll check the Linen Hall complex early in the week it may be possible but from Bolton St onto Upper Dominick St wouldn't be much further.

The point that needs to be emphasised in relation to O'Connell St is that DCC have just spent a lot of money doing it up, when the RPA were offered a possible Luas option by DCC they didn't even allow DCC any face, they didn't even consider it.

Now that may be fine with a single land owners concerns but to do that to chief planner of the functional planning authority that has control over the entire route of the scheme?

Thomond Pk

strassenwolf wrote:

Why turn into Mercer Street at all? Could you not just continue straight on to the York St./Aungier St. Junction, then turn right into Aungier St.

Good point there would also be plenty of space at the Swan Bar

murphaph

Lads, although I prefer, and always have prefered the 'prefered route', the RPA are putting forward these bizarre alternatives so the 'prefered route' has no real challengers. The prefered route really makes sense (assuming the RPA do not foce buses of the would be shared stretch). It links very directly the main shopping areas, it allows the best possible route north to Phibsborough and on to Finglas while maintaining a great deal of segregation. O'Connell Street has been transformed and it's unfortunate but that doesn't take away from the western carriageway of O'Connell Street being the best route for the tram as it has only one junction with a vehicular traffic carrying street (Abbey Street, which could in theory be closed once the quays are HGV free, Princes lane would have to go as a vehicular traffic carrying street I'm afraid), thus avoiding the awful Red Line type scenario where the line travels parallel to the river and crosses numerous vehicular traffic carrying streets, all requiring traffic lights at which the tram can get held up.

Metrobest

The thing is, the Stephen's Green-Airport metro would effectively link the two lies with stops at Stephen's Green (beside green Line), College Green and O'Connell Street (red line). Passengers would be better off using the metro to connect to the Red line in any event, as it would be underground and not a victim of the traffic delays that would affect an on-street tram through some of the busiest intersections in Dublin city. I can't see it working unless there is a complete removal of cars in the area, and we know what the politicians and civil servants would say to that.. "over our dead bodies!"

No point putting in a shiny Luas link unless passengers will benefit from it. The only thing slower than a bus stuck in rush hour traffic is a tram stuck in rush hour traffic. I've seen it outside Central Station in Amsterdam when there's a bad traffic jam and it ain't pretty, nothing moves! Trams just aren't efficient unless they have full, or almost 100% segregation from other modes.

Unfortunately for the RPA, it seems to be a victim of politicians' whims. First O'Rourke and now Cullen. It's crazy.

Sarsfield

Getting across the quays north & south of O'Connell Bridge (especially south) would doubtless be an exciting part of a Luas drivers day! I'm not aware of anywhere else where such an extrordinary amount of appalling driving takes place. The yellow boxes on the south side of the bridge regularly resemble car-parks. I think a substantial redesign of the whole area would be required to make this a safe place for a tram to cross.

aliveandkicking

Metrobest wrote:

The thing is, the Stephen's Green-Airport metro would effectively link the two lies with stops at Stephen's Green (beside green Line), College Green and O'Connell Street (red line). Passengers would be better off using the metro to connect to the Red line in any event, as it would be underground and not a victim of the traffic delays that would affect an on-street tram through some of the busiest intersections in Dublin city. I can't see it working unless there is a complete removal of cars in the area, and we know what the politicians and civil servants would say to that.. "over our dead bodies!"

No point putting in a shiny Luas link unless passengers will benefit from it. The only thing slower than a bus stuck in rush hour traffic is a tram stuck in rush hour traffic. I've seen it outside Central Station in Amsterdam when there's a bad traffic jam and it ain't pretty, nothing moves! Trams just aren't efficient unless they have full, or almost 100% segregation from other modes.

Unfortunately for the RPA, it seems to be a victim of politicians' whims. First O'Rourke and now Cullen. It's crazy.

Oh dear god not again. How long would it take a passenger to get off the Luas at the Green, walk to Metro stop (remember RPA dont do integration), down escalator walk to metro platform, wait on metro train to arrive, get on metro and travel to O'Connell Street North, off metro, up escalator and the walk back to Abbey Street Luas Stop? 15-20 minutes. In case you hadn't realised Metrobest you could walk the same journey in less time. If the Luas lines are linked passengers simply stay on the tram at Stephen's Green and travel the extra 3 or 4 minutes it'll take to get to O'Connell Street.

Linked by Metro = 20 minutes
Luas line link up = 3 minutes

Wonder which one is the best solution :rolleyes:

murphaph

Just to adress the concerns of Metrobest and Sarsfield wrt traffic conflicts along the preferred route, DCC wish to remove all private vehicles from St. Stephen's Green to Parnell Square. have already posted a link to this in this very thread and can't be ars*d looking for it.

The quays will be vastly different in a few months. HGVs will be a memory and cars will be directed more and more onto the inner and outer orbitals, thus allowing the junctions at O'Connell bridge to be closed to private vehicles-the cause of most incidents involving Luas.

Thomond Pk

Sarsfield wrote:

Getting across the quays north & south of O'Connell Bridge (especially south) would doubtless be an exciting part of a Luas drivers day! I'm not aware of anywhere else where such an extrordinary amount of appalling driving takes place.

http://www.archiseek.com/content/attachment.php?attachmentid=900

For a further examination of just O'Connell St check out

http://www.archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=2087&page=62&pp=25

I really feel that this position has not been understood and it must be acknowledged how much financial and PR capital has been invested by DCC in the O'Connell St project.

Sarsfield

Thanks for linking to a 66-page thread - I won't get much work done tomorrow.

As for the crossing in question, I'd be more than happy to see a dramatic reduction in private traffic in the area - just in case anyone thought my earlier comment was a jibe at the idea of Luas crossing O'Connell bridge. I'm in favour of it.

I'm not sure a complete removal of private traffic is likely, and I feel the sheer span of the east-to-west crossing south of O'Connell Bridge means the yellow boxes get ignored, people accelerate across the crossing in the hope of making it before the lights change, and regularly get caught in the middle, regardless of traffic levels. Add a tram to the mix and I see a couple of relatively high-speed collisions. I think a substantial and careful re-modelling of the junctions will be required before it is safe to run trams over O'Connell Bridge.

Thomond Pk

Sorry about that; I couldn't resist Graham Hickeys analysis, the problem with the longer threads is that you end up reading stuff back trying to track earlier points that are refered to by way of reinforcement type comments and thats why I went back to find the relevant page. It is a major glitch in V-Bulletin software that searches don't link to the exact page, it is probably the only glitch that I know of.

I have become opposed to the crossing at O'Connell Bridge primarily because I think that this area is well enough served as it is whilst the Georges St, Dame St, Parliment St will be a blackspot once the Interconnector is built if the Station is built at the Cornmarket end of High St it is quite a trek back. O'Connell St is also quite well served by Connolly and Tara St stations as well.

What I could see working would be Dawson St, Nassau St, Dame St, Capel St; but Kildare St to Exchequer St is definitely off the agenda.

strassenwolf

Thomond Park wrote:

...but Kildare St to Exchequer St is definitely off the agenda.

Indeed it probably is. That looks like it was designed in the RPA creche. The original complete route was:

Sunday Business Post wrote:

via Kildare Street and Exchequer Street over a new bridge across the Liffey between Capel Street and Butt Bridge.

possibly not specifying the exact location of the bridge for the sake of the childminder's sanity.

But I was wondering.

Could it have been called in over a crackly telephone (or whatever reason it might have been misinterpreted) so that in fact what its supposed to be is

via Kildare Street and South Leinster Street
(Sth Leinster/Exchequer over a crackly phone?)

down to Pearse Station....just like the route via Merrion Row and Merrion Square.

(and then over an old or new bridge somewhere between Capel Street Bridge and Ringsend Power Station)

Metrobest

Aliveandkicking, the first phase of the metro from Stephen's Green-Swords is in the Cullen's Ten Year Plan. That means an underground link from Stephen's Green to O'Connell Street (opp. Savoy). The fastest way to travel between Stephen's Green and O'Connell Street will be by underground; undergrounds are always faster than on-street trams, more reliable, less prone to delays.

I don't accept that Stephen's Green - O'Connell Street could be done in 3 mins by tram, because on the most likely route (Dawson/Suffolk/Westmoreland) you've got, by my recollection, a total of TEN traffic light junctions, possibly more. Now, even if car traffic is severely restricted in this area, the tram is still going to have to pause for jaywalking pedestrians, taxis, ministerial mercs and what have you.

What's worse, this routing represents an on-street duplication of the metro line, removes bus capacity, cycling capacity, and delivers the sole benefit of bringing southsiders from the Green line a little closer to their Northside destination. It is not particularly useful for interconnectivity because most destinations on the red line could not be described as prime destinations, save the most obvious one, Heuston. And that's supposed to be getting an interconnector, isn't it? Plus another thing: the red line is at capacity as it stands; how can it accomodate extra trams and routings? That's putting too much squeeze on a single piece of infrastructure. Point-to-point lines, be they tram or metro, deliver the optimum frequency.

One more point, albeit a side issue. Why is all this work going on with Upper O'Connell Street now when it's all going to have to be cordoned off and dug up again for 18 months when the metro is being built. It seems like typical, money-wasting Irish planning madness.

BrianD

There was some talk about the new macken st bridge being designed also as a tram crossing. This could make the merrion sq routing a possibility but where to from there to macken st.? In theory once across the bridge it could link in with the extended Red line perhaps terminating at Abbey St. This would give Green line users access to Dublin 1 albeit in a roundabout fashion.

BrianD

Metrobest wrote:

Aliveandkicking, the first phase of the metro from Stephen's Green-Swords is in the Cullen's Ten Year Plan. That means an underground link from Stephen's Green to O'Connell Street (opp. Savoy). The fastest way to travel between Stephen's Green and O'Connell Street will be by underground; undergrounds are always faster than on-street trams, more reliable, less prone to delays.

I don't accept that Stephen's Green - O'Connell Street could be done in 3 mins by tram, because on the most likely route (Dawson/Suffolk/Westmoreland) you've got, by my recollection, a total of TEN traffic light junctions, possibly more. Now, even if car traffic is severely restricted in this area, the tram is still going to have to pause for jaywalking pedestrians, taxis, ministerial mercs and what have you.

What's worse, this routing represents an on-street duplication of the metro line, removes bus capacity, cycling capacity, and delivers the sole benefit of bringing southsiders from the Green line a little closer to their Northside destination. It is not particularly useful for interconnectivity because most destinations on the red line could not be described as prime destinations, save the most obvious one, Heuston. And that's supposed to be getting an interconnector, isn't it? Plus another thing: the red line is at capacity as it stands; how can it accomodate extra trams and routings? That's putting too much squeeze on a single piece of infrastructure. Point-to-point lines, be they tram or metro, deliver the optimum frequency.

One more point, albeit a side issue. Why is all this work going on with Upper O'Connell Street now when it's all going to have to be cordoned off and dug up again for 18 months when the metro is being built. It seems like typical, money-wasting Irish planning madness.

Well Cullens metro from an airport to a public park and linking no other mass transit i.e. rail hubs is the ultimate in Irish planning madness. This proposal has to be fought tooth and nail. But that's getting off topic.

If it does go ahead, it's not unusual in other cities to have two modes of transport duplicating part or all of a route. There are many advantages of integrating the two lines - some of them not passenger but engineering/operations related e.g. shared maintenance facilities, sharing of units etc. I wouldn't be an advocate of the green line going into town and then running on to Heuston Station. I would prefer (if it used the O'connell st. route) to see it terminate at parnell sq. (for example) with a passenger change over for the red line.

MarkoP11

This is classic RPA, they are legally obilged to put forward 3 routes. The RPA are also great fans of assuming nothing changes in the future so the fact the Macken Street bridge is designed to take a tram line is to be ignored (as is the fact the population tends to increase)

The route via Westland Row is not happening not because Macken Street bridge is not yet built but because the loop line bridge at Pearse station is too low by about 0.4-0.5 m to fit the tram and overhead wires. Iarnrod Eireann will not let anyone touch the loop line as it is the most heavily used section of track in the country, TCD tried and where refused (despite offering a third track)

The game now is to prove the routes the RPA are proposing are in fact impossible on purely technical grounds and as such don't count as the 3 options

The front of TCD is not an issue the original plans managed to get round it just fine, but clearly in the context of Dublin Bus they rightly should have roadspace given they claim to carry 50+ million round that corner each year that rules out the TCD route unless Dublin bus elminate both stops outside TCD and reroute several routes via Westland Row outbound, its a case of turning the 7A/&D/45/46A-F/63/84 onto Townsend Street then Lombard Street to Westland Row but the turn onto Merrion Square could be tight but that means they miss Nassau Street , 46a can get back to Stephen's Green via Hume Street its all very messy

The O'Connell Street issue is major, its been dug up long enough DCC won't allow more digging

strassenwolf

MarkoP11 wrote:

The route via Westland Row is not happening not because Macken Street bridge is not yet built but because the loop line bridge at Pearse station is too low by about 0.4-0.5 m to fit the tram and overhead wires. Iarnrod Eireann will not let anyone touch the loop line as it is the most heavily used section of track in the country, TCD tried and where refused (despite offering a third track)

It might be difficult to lower the level of the road on Westland Row to provide the necessary clearance as it's very busy and has plenty of buildings with front doors onto pavements, etc.

But would there be scope for doing this on South Cumberland Street - its a very quiet street and closing off the section of road under the bridge would inconvenience very few people. Could it even be possible to create access to the station directly from Sth Cumberland St.?

MarkoP11

IE's website lists all bridges of restricted clearance http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/bridge_heights.asp

You need minimum 5.375m, 5.2m + 75mm + kerb height (~10cm) . Beresford Place is 5.44m

Assuming IE have a typo on there page Cumberland Street is 3.25m Westland Row is 4.93m

strassenwolf

MarkoP11 wrote:

IE's website lists all bridges of restricted clearance http://www.irishrail.ie/about_us/bridge_heights.asp

You need minimum 5.375m, 5.2m + 75mm + kerb height (~10cm) . Beresford Place is 5.44m

Assuming IE have a typo on there page Cumberland Street is 3.25m Westland Row is 4.93m

Thanks for the link.

But yeah, Cumberland Street doesn't look all that great an option. I thought it might have been.

Thomond Pk

South Cumberland St has the lowest clearance of any of the rail bridges I know of in Central Dublin, the Westalnd Row bribge will not be touched as Irsih Rail have it wrapped in cotton wool so to speak, it is the only bridge over a major road in Dublin that isn't platered with billboards and that is a big ask of CIE.

The more I think about it the more that the York St/Aungier St/Dame St option makes sense with a possible future link up via Dawson St to the docklands. The real aim in this is to ensure that at some future time hopefully quite soon that the link up can accomodate an extension towards Phibsboro and Ballymun. If the Central line is chosen then Ballymun and tallaght lines will need to co-habit a good section of the red line, because Luas will never go further up O'Connell St than Abbey St, Fitzgerald, Gleeson & Co would revolt on a massive scale.

Traffic

46a can get back to Stephen's Green via Hume Street its all very messy

Traffic flow on Hume St is to be reversed in the coming months

murphaph

[rant]Fcuk DCC and their precious O'Connell Street. One look at aerial photography reveals the alignment from College Green to Parnell Square East to be the widest streets (Boulevards even) in the city. DCC has spent some money on nice trees/kerbing and it looks lovely and I agree with their general strategy of diverting traffic to the orbitals and pedestrianising more of the city centre (including amost the entire prefered route) but it's OUR CITY, not DCC's CITY. If we want a quiet, emmission free tram to run along a street that will be carrying no cars then so be it. The kerbing will only need disturbing on one carriageway and DCC won't be paying-it'll be covered by the Exchequer. The metro (if it ever materialises) can swing west to integrate with Jervis before heading north.[/rant]

Any route via Capel street (if we're talking about exteension northwards) wil result in another red line scenario-multiple intersections with traffic carrying streets-the prefered route does not have anywhere near these problems and post Port Tunnel will be a virtual clear run. The only issues is the RPA's belidgerance towards BAC which is completely out of order. Grafton Street is actually reasonably wide and it might be possible to have a dedicated bus lane for southbound buses allowing them to stop without hindering trams. In any case I think there is a workaround and the benefits of the prefered route and onward extension up O'Connell street far outweigh the slight problems of sharing roadspace with buses and DCC's over protective stance wrt O'Connell Street.

morlan

murphaph wrote:

[rant]Grafton Street is actually reasonably wide and it might be possible to have a dedicated bus lane for southbound buses allowing them to stop without hindering trams.

Grafton Street? Buses using Grafton Street??? :eek:

Metrobest

BrianD wrote:

Well Cullens metro from an airport to a public park and linking no other mass transit i.e. rail hubs is the ultimate in Irish planning madness. This proposal has to be fought tooth and nail. But that's getting off topic..

I can't let you get away with that statement, Brian D! Stephen's Green is so much more than a public park, you know that, it's the central business and shopping district of Dublin. The airport serves 17m passengers annually and looks set to grow further. Between these two points are Ballymun, Glasnevin, Phibsboro, Mater hospital, DCU, etc - congested suburbs with the worst public transport in Dublin. Why would you "fight" this proposal?

Be it tram, be it metro, O'Connell St will have to be dug up again. The pity is that it's not being done now, as the government continues to dither on the metro it knows Dublin needs, and which would effectively link the two luas lines in central Dublin.

MarkoP11

morlan wrote:

Grafton Street? Buses using Grafton Street??? :eek:

Back when I was ............. Yes two lanes of traffic seems mad now but it worked

Nope never going to see buses or trams on Grafton Street

murphaph

MarkoP11 wrote:

Back when I was ............. Yes two lanes of traffic seems mad now but it worked

Nope never going to see buses or trams on Grafton Street

Eh Lads, Grafton street carries thousands of cars, buses and trucks everyday!