LUAS Network + Future Expansion

This is the one TII put out recently in their stuff about the 20 year anniversary of the Luas.

Looks like a very ambitious plan for the 10 years between 2040 and 2050.

So they've sh!tcanned the central corridor along Thomas/Dame which would have opened up a whole city-wide network of possibilities. Now the long term 'vision' for trams in Dublin is one single East-West tram route along the north fringe of the centre which is already over capacity.

And three disconnected orbital routes.

Hopeless.

But fortunately plans in this country are rewritten every 10 years so much of this hairbrained nonsense will very likely never happen.

Alot of those conceptual lines will be replaced by metro. Once metrolink is built, people will scream for it in their area.

There is currently a lot of sensitivity about the restrictions on the quays and the perception of cars being banned from the city center. I'd guess they don't want to add fuel to the fire at this early stage by drawing a bunch of new Luas lines in the city center, until closer to the time that this work might start going into serious planning.

It's as if we need a generation to die off before we can even begin proper PT planning in this city…

A luas route that took Dame St, George's St, Cuffe St, Leeson St and Donnybrook would be quite useful.

A new east-west route in the city centre should be higher capacity than the existing luas red line with less frequent stops, thats the best way to relieve the existing congested service.

That role should be done either by DART underground or a Lucan to Ringsend metro line

Place de la comedie in Montpellier is a pedestrianised square with trams along one side.

I always envisaged this was the kind of plan for college green. Have the trams along the north offer of the street. Then from the median to the south side have all the outdoor terraces for restaurants and cafes. The family friendly partner to Temple bar, which would now be literally the wrong side of the tracks 😁

I think the best option they have for running a tram to Dame street would be terminating it there for this reason. I think if the end of the line was just after George's street similair to how The Point station is, it would still at least allow the tram to end there with 3 platforms or 2 and a siding, without having to sacrifice a large chunk of College Green to a tramway.

Let's all sing that Monorail song from the Simpsons. All of the unbuilt Luas lines could become Metro. The next person to walk on the moon could be an Irishman.

If they did both that would also enable the line to Clondalkin they want to eventually build.

Parts of Lucan are quite close to Dart South West so they have that. The areas of Lucan that will be served by Luas Lucan are by and large just housing estates. I spend quite a lot of time in the area and it really doesn't seem high density enough to justify a metro.

I think a Luas through the Liberties is perfectly fine. It will go to the Stephens Green area which is where a lot of jobs are.

If they're going to build a big plaza in College Green I think a Luas line going through it would greatly hamper the utility of it. The Luas is fairly loud if you're right beside it.

Here’s a couple of ideas…

Link 1 connects Red line to Green at College Green. The High Street to Dame Steet section could eventually be taken over by Luas Lucan, but in the meantime it provides a Heuston-Southside link.

Link 2 provides an alternative N/S link between Red and Green - this is mainly for the benefit of Red line, which could now run to Finglas.

Link X is where I’d like to see the Lucan line continue: Pearse station, Merrion Square, Baggot Street, then to the canal end of Leeson St to meet the future Green realignment.

The reasoning behind this is that on-street sections in the city centre are are slower than lines in the periphery, so to reduce that bottleneck in the centre, split the services into different city-centre destinations, then re-combine them before leaving the centre.

This kind of branching doesn’t add much end-to-end capacity, but utilisation would increase, because passengers have a greater choice of destinations available to them, and within the city, there are more access points for travel further out of the city. Also, having multiple lines in the centre means it’s possible to implement city-area services without killing long-distance capacity.

Thoughts welcome, but do keep in mind that this was 20 minutes with a drawing program, and not some highly-researched plan..

Would DART Underground not provide that while providing all the other benefits to the rail network?

Granted yes a dedicated metro going all the way to Ringsend would serve the purpose better but it seems a bit daft to build both DART Underground and a metro to Lucan when they would both have very similar routes, given how much these things cost.