Fingal / North Dublin Transport Study

annfield1978 · 08-12-2014 5:25pm #1

http://www.nationaltransport.ie/news/minister-donohoe-national-transport-authority-announce-shortlist-of-project-options-to-address-future-transport-needs-in-fingalnorth-dublin/

As part of a review of future transport needs in Fingal/North Dublin, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Paschal Donohoe TD, today (Monday) announced a short-list of six project options to serve one of the fastest-growing regions in the country, encompassing Swords and Dublin Airport.
The six proposed options are:

Two heavy rail options:
- A DART link from Clongriffin to the airport and Swords (Option HR2);
- A DART link from the Maynooth Railway Line to the airport and Swords via a tunnel under Glasnevin (Option HR8);

Two Luas/metro options:
- A Luas line from Cabra to the airport and Swords via a tunnel under Glasnevin (Option LR3);
- A metro proposal from St. Stephen’s Green to the Airport and Swords (Option LR7);

One Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Option:
- A combination of a number of proposed Bus Rapid Transit services (Option BRT 5); and

One Combination Option:
- A combination of a DART link from Clongriffin to the airport and a Luas line from Cabra to Swords (Option C1).

Population and employment growth in Fingal/North Dublin will stimulate increased travel across the region over the medium term that cannot be catered for by car. Extra public transport capacity will be required, supplemented by cycling and walking for shorter journeys.
Earlier in 2014, following a public procurement process, the National Transport Authority appointed Aecom, a firm specialising in transport engineering, to identify optimum medium term / long term public transport solutions in the Fingal / North Dublin area. As part of the initial stage of the review, a total of 25 public transport scheme options were identified and proposed for initial evaluation, including:

10 Heavy Rail options;
8 Light Rail options;
5 BRT options; and
2 options combining different transport modes.

All of those 25 proposals were reviewed and assessed, including consideration of technical feasibility, cost and environmental issues, following which the six shortlisted schemes have been proposed for further design development and more detailed evaluation. This next stage will include:

Technical development of the options, both engineering design and operational parameters;
More detailed costing and environmental assessment;
Transport modelling to assess likely usage; and
Cost benefit analysis.

Full details of the 25 options and the six shortlisted options are published today on www.nationaltransport.ie, and members of the public are invited to review the material and submit their views and opinions before the consultation closes at 5:00pm on Monday, January 19th 2015.

D.L.R. · 08-12-2014 5:51pm

annfield1978 wrote: »

A Luas line from Cabra to the airport and Swords via a tunnel under Glasnevin (Option LR3)

Let me get this straight.. we're prepared to tunnel through low density suburbs but not the actual city centre?

I...

Icepick · 08-12-2014 5:52pm

the study is here
http://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Appraisal_Report_19112014_final.pdf

murphaph · 08-12-2014 5:53pm

No guts just to build metro north as proposed. Fudge fudge fudge instead.

D.L.R. · 08-12-2014 6:05pm

annfield1978 wrote: »

[*]Two heavy rail options:
A DART link from the Maynooth Railway Line to the airport and Swords via a tunnel under Glasnevin (Option HR8);

Now this is a transport solution.

We're going to have to start coughing up some hard cash to tackle transport in this city in a meaningful way. Getting beyond a joke now with all these micky mouse proposals.

Ren2k7 · 08-12-2014 6:13pm

BRT seems to already be the favoured option. This country....sigh.

Icepick · 08-12-2014 6:14pm

Let me get this straight.. we're prepared to tunnel through low density suburbs but not the actual city centre?

It's Luas connecting to the cross city at-grade line currently under construction.

cgcsb · 08-12-2014 6:18pm

Ehh we've covered this circa 2007 under the metro North EIS in which alternative arrangements were proposed and ruled out as unworkable, or with low merit.

Groundhog Day.

D.L.R. · 08-12-2014 6:18pm

Ren2k7 wrote: »

BRT seems to already be the favoured option. This country....sigh.

Cheap seems to be the favoured option you mean.

Just throwing money at rubbish "to be seen to be doing something", instead of saving a few years capital spend for a meaningful project.

Ugh I hate Irish politics.

Ren2k7 · 08-12-2014 6:18pm

D.L.R. wrote: »

Now this is a transport solution.

We're going to have to start coughing up some hard cash to tackle transport in this city in a meaningful way. Getting beyond a joke now with all these micky mouse proposals.

DU and MN would do just that, provide a level public transportation that would propel Dublin into the 21st century. And on top of all that they have an advantage over all the other proposals, they are read to go TODAY.

Ren2k7 · 08-12-2014 6:22pm

D.L.R. wrote: »

Cheap seems to be the favoured option you mean.

Just throwing money at rubbish "to be seen to be doing something", instead of saving a few years capital spend for a meaningful project.

Ugh I hate Irish politics.

Cheap? Certainly, and likely a factor in how they came up with a near perfect rating for the insane BRT proposal.

D.L.R. · 08-12-2014 6:33pm

Icepick wrote: »

It's Luas connecting to the cross city at-grade line currently under construction.

Its a waste of an expensive tunnel to end up stuck in city centre traffic.

Ren2k7 · 08-12-2014 6:37pm

Metro North is dead, long live Optimised Metro North.

LR7 is an optimised version of the original Metro North proposal that has been developed by the
RPA. It proposes providing a similar service at significantly reduced costs. It produces the same
preliminary appraisal results as Metro North but at a significantly reduced cost and therefore
presents significant benefit.

So a cheaper MN. How did they get it cheaper? Oh right: Fewer stations, at grade through Ballymun and other parts, shorter length of stations reduced rolling stock. Bravo.

D.L.R. · 08-12-2014 6:56pm

Ren2k7 wrote: »

Cheap? Certainly, and likely a factor in how they came up with a near perfect rating for the insane BRT proposal.

Passenger Volume/Capacity isn't even a consideration, and apparently BRT journey times are on par with Metro North :pac:

Icepick · 08-12-2014 7:13pm

D.L.R. wrote: »

Passenger Volume/Capacity isn't even a consideration, and apparently BRT journey times are on par with Metro North :pac:

2 Estimated Journey Time Swords Centre (Pavilions) - Dublin City Centre (STG):
Optimised Metro North - 27 min
BRT Docklands to Swords via Tunnel - 27 min

Will BRT fly over junctions?

murphaph · 08-12-2014 8:39pm

Icepick wrote: »

Will BRT fly over junctions?

Under them, in a motorway tunnel with no surface access so cannot serve the areas it passes under. There's some merit in using the tunnel as a remedial measure, but long term it has to be metro of course. Faffing around with buses in tunnels and trains that avoid settlements to allow them to be built cheap (and serve nobody) is really just annoying at this stage. I wonder how high the stack would be if you piled up all the reports on transport in Dublin?!

Van.Bosch · 08-12-2014 10:04pm

Is this a wind up? Did they not state numerous times that BRT would not provide sufficient capacity, yet here it is again.

If MN is off the agenda just come out and say it...

Idbatterim · 08-12-2014 10:33pm

this is beyond a joke, we can afford amongst other things a world class welfare budget? but not a decent transport system for our capital city? How can we have our say on this? The rail infrastructure here in particular (Dublin), is equivalent to our water infrastructure!

A BRT for an airport that can handle 35 million passengers?! the quickest growing major airport in europe this year AFAIK...

Ren2k7 · 08-12-2014 10:35pm

Van.Bosch wrote: »

Is this a wind up? Did they not state numerous times that BRT would not provide sufficient capacity, yet here it is again.

If MN is off the agenda just come out and say it...

In its appraisal report to the NTA it was said of Metro North:

The following characteristics of Metro North should be taken into account during scheme
appraisal:
- The scheme satisfies the project objectives and, having already been developed to detailed
design, is technically feasible;
- The proposed route serves a very dense catchment area and many of the major trip
generators within the study area;
- The service has a very high capacity potential which would need to be examined against
estimated demand through detailed modelling;
- The service offers excellent journey times owing to the level of frequency and segregation
proposed;
- The proposed Metro North alignment has formed the basis for spatial plans within the study
area for some time, therefore it integrates excellently with future planning proposals;
- The scheme has already been through the required statutory planning processes and was
granted planning approval to be developed; and
- The cost of the scheme is high relative to all other schemes being assessed.

It's also the fastest service compared to DART, Luas and BRT.

Basically it ticks all the boxes. And that explains why it's the most expensive option, it does things right and doesn't try and get something on the cheap, like the other options try and do.

High quality services cost money, this is a fact the government really needs to take note of instead of attempting to pass of inferior BRT or Luas projects to the public. Do the thing right NOW, and it will deliver many times its costs back to the state, not to mention being future proofed for decades.

Idbatterim · 08-12-2014 10:37pm

even if we have to wait longer for metro north, we have had the sham of a transport system for decades, why the rush now? Either do it properly or leave it until it can be done properly IMO!

I drove from airport into town today, 1 hour into city centre, the flight from Leeds to here was 35 minutes in the air! The notion of the luas to the airport is also a joke...

D.L.R. · 08-12-2014 11:30pm

"Optimised Metro North" interests me.

It does away with Parnell and O'Connell Bridge stations, instead placing a station at Upper O'Connell Street.

This leaves too big a gap between SSG and Upper O'Connell IMO.

But it does create the opportunity to do this:

Of course this undermines the whole idea of a less costly Metro North :rolleyes:

Idbatterim · 08-12-2014 11:35pm

368 million is the cost of the luas cross city! was there even a need for it if they had simply gotten the finger out and built metro north?

roddney · 08-12-2014 11:37pm

In all fareness the last 4 boxes in table for report are environmental impact stuff which is of low value. The table is misleading in that no weightings are given to criteria.

Ignore last 4 criteria and things are more even.

More interesting is statement in report that Dart Underground is a given.

BMJD · 08-12-2014 11:41pm

And so the govt begin the sweet whispering into the ears of the voters of North Dublin. They will drag this out long enough so that they won't have to actually commit to anything ahead of the next election.

D.L.R. · 08-12-2014 11:47pm

roddney wrote: »

More interesting is statement in report that Dart Underground is a given.

What page?

Ren2k7 · 09-12-2014 12:16am

D.L.R. wrote: »

What page?

It's used as a baseline for their "do minimum" assessment of Dublin public transport going out to 2030.

Ren2k7 · 09-12-2014 12:18am

I love how they came up with the name "Optimised" Metro North. Sound much better than the Austerity Metro, which I'm sure Paul Murphy or RBB are itching to use.

Idbatterim · 09-12-2014 12:34am

I love how they came up with the name "Optimised" Metro North. Sound much better than the Austerity Metro, which I'm sure Paul Murphy or RBB are itching to use.

I am sure he would decry even a BRT as excessive and a waste of resources which would be far better contributing towards world class welfare rates than leaving a decent transport legacy...

cgcsb · 09-12-2014 1:21am

The whole document seemed to be orientated towards an 'optimised metro' which actually doesn't sound too bad at first then you get to the part where platforms would be reduced to 60m instead of 90m to save 70m. Fast forward 20 years and due to crush loading at peak times, perhaps someone has been killed at this point, 700mil is spent extending platforms.

Idbatterim · 09-12-2014 1:32am

The whole document seemed to be orientated towards an 'optimised metro' which actually doesn't sound too bad at first then you get to the part where platforms would be reduced to 60m instead of 90m to save 70m. Fast forward 20 years and due to crush loading at peak times, perhaps someone has been killed at this point, 700mil is spent extending platforms.

exactly, in the scheme of things, 70 million is nothing, isnt the entire cost of the project put at 2,500,000,000?! The 200,000 saving mentioned, from running it above ground in ballymun etc, that is a significant enough saving. The rolling stock, at least if they get the platform lengths right from the start, they can always purchase more rolling stock if and when needed at a later stage...

LeinsterDub · 09-12-2014 9:56am

Ren2k7 wrote: »

Metro North is dead, long live Optimised Metro North.

So a cheaper MN. How did they get it cheaper? Oh right: Fewer stations, at grade through Ballymun and other parts, shorter length of stations reduced rolling stock. Bravo.

I for one can't wait for the in service upgrade 5 years into its life like the luas.

Fingal / North Dublin Transport Study

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