[Article] Metro ‘needs 24-hour drilling’ to meet deadline

[Winters]

The Sunday Times February 26, 2006

Metro ‘needs 24-hour drilling’ to meet deadline

Richard Oakley

TRANSPORT officials are to apply for permission to drill Dublin’s metro on a 24-hour basis. They say round-the-clock tunnelling is necessary to avoid undue delay in the centrepiece project of the government’s 10-year transport plan.

The move may be opposed by resident groups along the line of Metro North, which will link Dublin airport with the city centre.

Martin Cullen, the transport minister, will this week announce the beginning of a public consultation process on the line, which will run from St Stephen’s Green to Swords under the city centre and shopping districts.

Three possible routes for the metro will also be proposed on Tuesday, but authorities favour a central line starting at Stephen’s Green and running underground to Dublin City University in Glasnevin with stops at Trinity College, O’Connell Street, the Mater hospital and Botanic Road in Glasnevin. It would then emerge overground and continue to Swords, stopping at Ballymun and Dublin airport.

The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA), the body charged with planning light rail, said permission for 24-hour tunnelling will be sought as part of the planning process. A spokesman said this would allow the work to be carried out quickly, reducing the impact on the city and traffic.

“This is something we are hoping to do, but with the support of the community,” the RPA said. “We will be consulting people in the areas involved and reaching an agreement on how best to proceed.”

The RPA believes 24-hour tunnelling, used in the construction of Madrid’s metro, will not require legislation and will mean finishing the project in a reasonable time frame. The RPA was widely criticised when Luas development works became bogged down on Harcourt Street, in Dublin’s city centre, with firms claiming loss of business due to prolonged disruption.

There is concern that key projects in Transport 21 could cause similar long-term nuisance across the capital over the next decade. Stephen’s Green will be the location for an underground station for the metro. Metro stations are likely to be built first, using a “cut and cover” method, before a tunnel links them together. This work could coincide the linking of the two Luas lines in O’Connell Street.

Sources at the Department of Transport admit that round-the-clock tunnelling could prove controversial, but say it may only be used where the metro lines do not run under residential buildings. They believe it is essential for safety reasons in places where best practice suggests delays in tunnelling should be avoided.

Drilling at the Dublin Port Tunnel at first went on to 11pm but was later restricted to an 8pm finish after complaints from residents overhead. The only previous 24-hour boring works were under Fairview strand in 2003.

The department has yet to reveal the cost for the Metro North line, but estimates put it at more than €2.4 billion. According to the time frame set out for Transport 21, it is to be completed by 2012.

A second light rail line, Metro West, is set to start in 2010 and run from Tallaght to Ballymun through Clondalkin, Lucan and Blanchardstown. It is due to be completed in 2014.

The government recently announced plans for a bill to fast-track large-scale projects such as the metro. The bill will mean developers no longer have to secure planning permission from local authorities before going to An Bord Pleanala on projects of national importance. It will also end compensation to homeowners when tunnels are dug under their houses, providing they are at least 30ft below.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...059173,00.html

[bandraoi]

Dear god, these people know NOTHING about tunnelling.

You drill on a 24 hour basis because it's much much safer than stopping and starting.
It also means that less property gets damaged because overall you get less settlement.
There are other benefits, like not wasting more than half the time you have available on a machine that costs millions of euros but mostly it's about safety.

[dr zoidberg]

Is the Metro even "light rail"*? Unless it's going to be some kind of glorified Luas...



*this is implied where it describes the RPA as the body charged with light rail

[bandraoi]

why the **** would you put a metro line in along the line of the M50?
That's insanity.

Somebody please lock these people up before they waste another few billion of taxpayers money.

[copacetic]

Originally Posted by bandraoi

Dear god, these people know NOTHING about tunnelling.

You drill on a 24 hour basis because it's much much safer than stopping and starting.
It also means that less property gets damaged because overall you get less settlement.
There are other benefits, like not wasting more than half the time you have available on a machine that costs millions of euros but mostly it's about safety.

doesn't it say that it is safer in the article??

[bandraoi]

the residents would be a hundred times better off if they put up with 24 hour tunneling for the week or two that it took the machines to run under their houses and be out of vibration range.

Their property would be damaged much less. When a TBM passes through rock the whole stress set up in the rock surrounding it changes. Stopping a TBM gives the ground time to relax and change configuration. It is a particular problem at the face of the machine. Every time you stop it you're giving yourself huge problems. Settlement increases and there are health and safety implications for people working on the face.

A few weeks of disturbance for a metro station near your house for ever more. A metro station that will increase the value of your house by a huge amount at that.

The RPA are idiots to be thinking along these lines. Their attitude is damaging the residents and the increasing the cost of the project.

[bandraoi]

Sources at the Department of Transport admit that round-the-clock tunnelling could prove controversial, but say it may only be used where the metro lines do not run under residential buildings. They believe it is essential for safety reasons in places where best practice suggests delays in tunnelling should be avoided.

is all it says.

best practice always suggest that delays in tunnelling should be avoided unless you're tunnelling through something really really solid.

[MarkoP11]

The only sane way to build a tunnel is by 24 hour tunneling, its faster cheaper.

Now clearly it will annoy people but keeping things moving is the best policy

You do need to stop the machine every now and then to replace the cutting bits, do that on Sunday and it woudl keep most people happy, Unlike the Port Tunnel the metro passing under your property implies you are close to a metro station and thus stand to gain significantly from its construction

[dr zoidberg]

Originally Posted by bandraoi

why the **** would you put a metro line in along the line of the M50?
That's insanity.

Somebody please lock these people up before they waste another few billion of taxpayers money.

Why is it insanity? The Metro will link up with the other rail projects and allow people to get out of their car. As it is there are no interconnecting bus services meaning no matter where you go you have to go through the city centre. So people have no choice but to use the M50.

[Winters]

Originally Posted by bandraoi

why the **** would you put a metro line in along the line of the M50?
That's insanity.

Somebody please lock these people up before they waste another few billion of taxpayers money.

Where are you getting this from? Thats not in the article and certainly not the plan.

The metro west links up the suburbs and popular trip destinations of Tallaght, Clondalkin, Liffey Valley, Porterstown, Blanchardstown, Mulhuddard and Ballymun not to mention linking the red luas line, Kildare DART line, Maynooth DART line, Lucan luas line and metro north. It doesnt go along the m50 but rather through the populated areas except for near the airport where there is currently little development.

[Transport21 Fan]

It really is astounding what we have to go through in this country in order to have a modern nation. Everytime a major infrastructural project (which other countries don't even think twice about) is announced, hysterical chicken littles come screaming out of the closet with their eyes bulging and arms flapping with all kinds of forewarnings of doom and disaster...and how they are much more clever than the people who are building this stuff and spewing the most ignorant and uninformed gob****tery to back up their opinion.

and you just know that as soon as the Metro opens, all the "bloke down the pub told me..." experts will be queuing up for the first trip on it and going "sure Jaysus this is great!" as if their previous four years of terror and visions of apocalyptic disaster never actually happened.


It's like a cultural disease we have in this country whereby anything new or different = doom and disaster.

Everytime somebody makes a hysterical comment about the Metro, the RPA should just whip out some news clippings and political comments about the Luas. Why even stop there! Go back to the electricfaction of the Dublin United Tramways and see the same carry on over 100 years back.

It is incredible sometimes that we Irish are not still all up the trees peeling bannans and picking nits out of each other's heads.

[BendiBus]

T21, most of the current hysterical ranting, and the doom predictions are coming from you alone

[MarkoP11]

Originally Posted by bandraoi

why the **** would you put a metro line in along the line of the M50?
That's insanity.

Somebody please lock these people up before they waste another few billion of taxpayers money.

Number 1 destination in Dublin is the central business district (Metro North/Iarnrod Eireann/Luas), roughly College Green to Harcourt Street to Baggot Street to Merrion Square
Number 2 destination is the Airport and its environs (Metro North)
Number 3 destination in Dublin is the Tallaght Clondalkin Lucan Blanchardstown axis (Metro West)

Can't fault the general idea but the lack Tallaght Harolds Cross Green section is a right pain, strangely if you watch the DoT T21 video presentation it is there

It makes a lot of sense in fact the real question is the ability to board in Tallaght to the Airport without a change that doesn't look to be happening

There will be a lot of tunnels and 24 hour is the only way, its not a new idea the RPA have known about this for years as have Iarnrod Eireann but there are legal hangups about the critical infrastructure bill

[bandraoi]

Originally Posted by Winters

Where are you getting this from? Thats not in the article and certainly not the plan.

The metro west links up the suburbs and popular trip destinations of Tallaght, Clondalkin, Liffey Valley, Porterstown, Blanchardstown, Mulhuddard and Ballymun not to mention linking the red luas line, Kildare DART line, Maynooth DART line, Lucan luas line and metro north. It doesnt go along the m50 but rather through the populated areas except for near the airport where there is currently little development.

that sounds to me like a loop around the city, following much the same path as the M50.
Metros are usually placed in high density urban developments linking directly to the city centre and possibly a loop line following closely around the city centre, not through low density suburban developments and certainly not looping at the peripherary of what should be the main metropolis.

[bandraoi]

Originally Posted by MarkoP11

The only sane way to build a tunnel is by 24 hour tunneling, its faster cheaper.

Now clearly it will annoy people but keeping things moving is the best policy

You do need to stop the machine every now and then to replace the cutting bits, do that on Sunday and it woudl keep most people happy, Unlike the Port Tunnel the metro passing under your property implies you are close to a metro station and thus stand to gain significantly from its construction

madness and ridiculous

cutterheads are expensive, mindbogglingly so.
you replace them when you need to, not because it's sunday and you certainly don't stop when it wears out and then keep an entire workforce on standby waiting for Sunday so you can replace the cutterhead.