Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

ART is a gadgetbahn, and the guidance systems are either hugely error prone (optical patches) or surprisingly expensive (radio), and both are trivial to interfere with accidentally, so manual control is frequently needed.

One recurring problem with guided tyred vehicles is that all roads are designed with the assumption that vehicles don't repeatedly take the exact same path along them. Cities that used rail-guided buses found that the vehicles wore tyre ruts into the road surface within a couple of years, forcing much earlier repair works.

Not an answer for city bus services in Ireland, I feel. Longer buses of any kind will only work outside our ancient city centres due to the twisty narrow strrets in parts, but they could have a role if we can hand the city centre over to trams and use buses for inner-suburban collection/distribution from that network.

Does MMcD have a weekly column? If so, don’t be surprised if he isn’t actually against it, but just needs that pay cheque.

Big problem with these weekly/monthly mouthpiece articles is the author needs something to be on yakking on about whether they they believe in it or not.

Main thing is to expose their ignorance over the topic you care about and they’ll swiftly drop it to keep their credibility up and the cheques rolling in.

I do hope he lives to see metrolink being chronically over capacity

Not an answer for city bus services in Ireland, I feel. Longer buses of any kind will only work outside our ancient city centres due to the twisty narrow strrets in parts

There is nothing at all special about the street layout of Irish cities in a European context. In fact, in most cases what is surprising is the almost total lack of any trace of earlier medieval streets and street patterns in Dublin, Cork or Limerick compared to similarly sized cities around Europe.

Dublin is a product of the wide streets commission and what they didn't flatten, Corporation's traffic engineers bulldozed in the decades after 1950. There is absolutely no shortage of wide straight streets in Dublin. Most European cities, from Spain to Germany have far more issues with narrow and winding streets in the centre and yet long buses are used everywhere.

There's a view that the process has been agonised over to avoid any mistakes.

But judging by the state DART "+" West emerged from the planning process (also half a decade behind schedule), there's every chance Metrolink similarly emerges from ABP in ruins. The whole thing is a disgrace.

My understanding is the public consultation on new material is to start in the next two to three weeks.

Yep, people who don’t live close to the Luas lines are delighted it’s there when they need, but as you say the anger is about the failure to deliver world class PT elsewhere, which is failure on behalf of mainly FF and FG, and not because building the Luas broke the country or anything like that.

Anyone who made a submission on Metrolink and has been involved in the Oral Hearing process has received recent progress updates on where its at. Due process on the RO is possibly why we're not getting any announcements.

https://www.pleanala.ie/en-ie/case/314724 details of progress up until 12th June 2024 are up on the ABP website. In the Further Information section. It gives you the understanding that there's been a continuous dialogue between ABP and TII, which is the case (emails and letters back and forth are referenced).

Updates are provided by ABP to interested parties informing them of same.

We don't get public announcements because everyone with a direct stake in RO terms is being kept informed (that's my guess).

So where we are at is the two parties concluding on the Further Information that needs to go back out to public consultation asap.