DART+ (DART Expansion)

Think when Clontarf Road station opened (1997) a figure of about £1.3M was quoted in the media.

I hope there is a project at some point to upgrade stations and maximize their utility. Could be tackled as a larger "plan / goal" rather than ad-hoc upgrades of individual stations.

Improved look and feel, better accessibility, better services etc. For example, station platforms are almost 200m long, but platforms are accessed by a single point entrance. Even in a huge station such as Connolly this is true. From Seville Place, you can see the platforms which they are about 50m from the road, however the walk to them is over 700m long.

Killester is another example. The N4 bus drops you off 80m from the platform, but the actual walk to get there is 450m. How many more people would be brought within 400m of a train station with such a simple upgrade, without having to build a single station!...

Pelletstown works well as the entrance is right in the middle of the platforms with an entrance from the north and south.

But pick any station along the current network, check Google maps, and you'll see lots of them have the same issue. Entrances tend to be a one end of the platforms: Sandymount, Drumcondra, Grand Canal Dock, Spencer Dock.

It's such an easy win just sitting there waiting to be capitalised on.

Access via the "other end" mean a long walk down a "alley" beside the tracks, don't see people doing this at night...

To be clear (in case it isn't), I'm not proposing they install narrow, dark, dodgy laneways at the side of every station.

You can see the current laneway in the image above (it's on the right sandwiched between the building and the platforms). What I'm proposing would effectively be an extended platform/path north, along the red line in the image, until it reaches the road. This would not be narrow or dodgy.

In any case, Sandymount was just an example. It wouldn't be a high priority for an access upgrade. Other stations such as GCD, Connolly, Killester would be priority.

Yeah this is true. The new entrance at Preston Street is badly needed and will be busy. It's a shame they've permanently removed the bus stops at Preston Street along that busy bus corridor.

Using my previous example, from Seville Place the platform is 50m away, but the walk via Preston Street is 360m. Better but still not ideal.

I'm not sure if the new Connolly Quarter or "The Arches" includes direct access to the platforms. The platforms are 120m from the middle of the proposed development, but the walk via Preston Street street will be 510m.

Is it not time to put validators in the carriages, like most European cities?

Certainly allowing access from Collins Ave to the existing station would be a big help.

I wouldn't go relying on the old bridge actually being there in a few years if there's works to increase track capacity as proposed.

The plan that came out earlier in the year was to expand to 4 tracks from Connolly to Malahide.

I'd imagine they would avoid doing anything that would need to be built again as part of the 4 track project.

As a previous poster said though, I do think that bridges days are numbered.

I mentioned this a while back, but I can’t find the post now. I wasn’t the first person to suggest it either... The big draw of this plan that this station would serve Dublin Zoo, the country’s top (paid) tourist attraction, which has over a million visitors a year and catchment that draws visitors from well outside of Dublin. (And if you’ve ever driven there, you’ll know what a ball-ache parking can be).

The big downside to this idea is that while it’s okay from the North-western line or even from Connolly, to get to here from Heuston would require passengers to get off their national train and walk over a quarter of a mile around to platform 10 for the train that goes under the Phoenix Park.

Also, building a cut-and-cover station there could be a major planning issue, it could take a couple of years, and it would stop all PPT services while it was being done.

Someone coming in the Kildare line would be able to change to the Connolly bound train before theirs gets to Heuston. But at the end of the day Heuston to Dublin Zoo is less than 1 mile entrance to entrance so it would be hard for any public transport option to beat walking the last bit. At 30 minute frequency, the 99 bus certainly won't.

Now, I’m usually in favour of walking, but in this case, not so much: the walk is about 20-25 minutes, but with small kids (this is the Zoo, remember), it'll be longer and rattier than that. Plus, a trip to the Zoo is a lot of walking anyway, so adding another mile on top at either end is a recipe for tired, sullen and cranky children.

I take your point about changing onto a DART service further west, though - that would do perfectly well.

The big concern I suspect is that this would be a very busy station, with long dwell times to clear and load trains and a need for large platforms, and that could be a problem in the space available.

Regarding service patterns, I would hope that in the future what you would see is Cork, Galway and Waterford Intercity services linking into the Portlaoise-Heuston stopping service at Portlaoise, Portarlington and Kildare respectively (with the Intercity trains then running non-stop to Heuston), and that the Portlaoise stopping train would connect with DART at Hazelhatch and then run non-stop to Heuston, thus providing connections to/from the intermediate stations and across to Connolly.

That’s the best way of ensuring competitive Intercity journey times while building the network connectivity up.