Dublin Metrolink - future routes for next Metrolink

I don't believe there is a credible threat of any new urban rail service in Dublin being under used. It's never happened, it will never happen and there's no cause for fearing it happening. Even if density is low in some parts, trains will mostly be rammed from Tallaght onwards anyway.

Ok so in other words let the people of DSW sit in traffic?
DSW already has the worst bus journey times with regards to distance travelled.
There simply is no other way to improve PT in this area.

In an ideal world I'd love to see a Metro South West. But resources are finite and the government has to try and benefit the most people possible with the funds they have when deciding on what transport projects to invest in.

There are other considerations such as balancing regional development but that is unlikely to improve the case for a Metro in Dublin South West either.

By going ahead with this you would be choosing not to do other projects, and letting people in other parts of Dublin and the country sit in traffic. This project would just be far more expensive for the benefit than other projects.

I've never driven in the South West of Dublin personally, but I have taken the bus. It is indeed a bit of a nightmare journey time wise.

I suppose Firhouse, Ballyboden, Rathfarnham, rathmines, is also a dead zone of low density housing according to you?

yes 9km of gridlocked traffic in and around Rathfarnham templeogue, terenure.
I could go over and over this but you don’t seem to get this point?
Also why are you talking about the N11?
The green line LUAS will be upgraded to metro standard, the dart already runs in that area of Dublin and the most high frequent successful QBC runs along the N11.
What needs to be done on the N11? Monorail is it?

Yep. Full of low rise housing estates and no places of interest for the general public to go other than golf courses.

Shoehorning in Tallaght is the only way to make a Metrolink work out that way and really the opportunity is there to build some proper high density transit around Ballymount in time.

Have a look at the Dublin City Housing Taskforce and their map of live planning applications, granted planning developments and under construction developments. The SW is relatively speaking one of the most sparse in Dublin. Even if you ignore the here and now and look to the future, this in no way justifies a Metro.

My personal take is the next Metrolink needs to be East to West & touching the Canals. This provides the most utility to the most people (including those in the SW).

It means Bus Connects and long term a couple of Luas lines that feed into the city centre and also Tallaght - Sandyford directions.

I’ve pointed this out to you before you just don’t listen. I grew up in an area 25 mins walk from the DART, 40 mins from the Luas and 15 mins from Stillorgan QBC. But if I told them where I was from, they’d think I was covered off by them. It’s just not the case for scores of the south east of the city. That is also the case for the Red Line and other “rapid lines”.

That is why you build them where there is population density.

If a Metro was built in the SW, a large chunk of it would not be within 10 minutes walk of a station still. A Metro just makes no sense.

feeder busses and bikes.

A suburb can have gridlocked traffic with relatively few commuters - it depends on the capacity of the roads.

If a road is capable of carrying 600 private vehicles an hour at reasonable speed and you have 1,000 people trying to drive the road during peak, you'll have gridlock. But it would be madness/overkill to spend money on a 20k passenger/hour metro line to the area to solve the problem. It's a 1k passenger/hour problem and a PT mode suitable to those sort of numbers (along with tolerance for future growth, if it's possible/likely in the area) is what should be considered.

If you want to make the case for metro SW, you'd need to show likely passenger numbers not point at the state of the traffic.

The corridor might be somewhat low density but it's a lot higher density than intercity, DART ro Navan or anything in Galway.

Cork luas isn't happening in our lifetime due to politics anyway.

But that’s not the point.

The point is the cost of construction and tunneling clearly is an enormous cost.

The DART is obviously hamstrung by its location. It was 1 mile in land on the southside then much of the south east would be covered already. It’s a historical sunk cost though.

I can kind of get the chicken and egg stuff with the SW. For example, the existence of the Stillorgan QBC is naturally densifying further that part of the city and that leads for calls for a Luas / Metro. I’ve made the point on the number of developments. They just aren’t there in the SW.

The fact that it leads to mountains is a problem too. There isn’t a Sandyford. There isn’t a Cherrywood. There isn’t the Bray and Greystones corridor growth there beyond the SW.

If a Metro was planned for the SW, quite clearly the planning objectives would change substantially and you might see a lot more densification beforehand. That’s where the golf course point comes in.

I do think that multiple Luas line really is the best option for SW Dublin, there is just no real justification for a metro unfortunately. I would see a SW line as follows

It would replace the Bus Lanes from Christchurch down as far as Harold’s Cross - a very easy fix (it could even run down a centre partition as with the Red Line on the Naas Road)

From Harold’s Cross south, a few metres of garden would need to be CPO’d to accommodate the tracks but there is plenty of green space on the eastern side of the road that could be built into also to minimise the CPO’ing as far as Rathfarnham

After that, I would see the line turning down the Wilbrook Road which seems very narrow, however there appears to be plenty of green space on both sides of the road to build into for a tram line

Finally reaching Ballyboden, the line would turn onto the Ballyboden Road (most likely as an on-street tram) for the last kilometre or so to a Knocklyon P+R station to the west of the M50

This is just a bystanders perspective, and I’m aware that some of the land-take and road-reprioritising required may be controversial but this could a good route for it. Combined with Luas Kimmage, this would unlock the SW pretty well

Right now Dublin is likely to get a 10billion Metro, 4billion+ Dart upgrades and extensions, 3billion+ Bus Connects and CBC upgrades, plus several more billions for overruns, add-ons, Luas extensions etc.

But you claim this is already too low and unfair on Dublin?!!

Adding an additional 10billion Metro SW would be an insane overspend of money in Dublin relative to the rest of the island.

"Fairness", in this case isn’t "10 billion spent on transport in Dublin, therefore Cork, Limerick, and Galway each need 10 billion spent on PT, and if we can't afford that then all 4 get 2.5 billion each"

It's spending 'somewhat' in proportion to the scale of our cities on public transport.

Maybe we have a little more ambition and use some smaller French cities PT networks as a model for what Cork and Limerick should be targeting in order to, in some way, counterbalance Dublin.

Its maybe putting a billion into a genuinely ambitious Busconnects project for Galway with QBCs, Bus Gates and a car free city core.

Dublin should absolutely get a very significant chunk of the funding, and have a continuous stream of projects for years to come, but big projects in the other cities can't just sit waiting until Dublin is 'done'.

All that does is further increase the 'gravity' of Dublin for the entire population of the country, which isn't sustainable.

I think the government should be trying to spread investment and wealth around the country.

Cost benefit analysis is undoubtedly very important when determining which public transports to invest in but there is danger in relying solely on it. This can lead to investment being focused in more well off areas, as higher populations and levels of economic activity will obviously offer more benefit in cash terms. This then never gives other areas a chance to catch up. This has been a major problem in the UK and has contributed to the divide in the country between the North and London/the South.

Regardless I don't think this really matters in relation to a South West metro as there are just so many other projects that have would have a much better cost to benefit ratio anyway. Metros are extremely expensive.

I never mentioned railways in Mayo, the projects I mentioned were electrification to the intercity rail lines, so Dublin - Cork, Dublin - Galway, Dublin - Waterford and Dublin - Belfast. All of which also benefit Dublin by the way. And then Luas lines in Cork and Galway. Both of which I think make a lot of sense and would be far less expensive that a metro in the South West of Dublin.