RPA publish hybrid route proposals...

I would have concerns about "replacing the Trinity and Upper O'Connell Street stations on the Central route with a single Lower O'Connell Street station, close to the red luas line as the article puts it. I have read the other discussions on this subject on these boards and was in favour of the Abbey St. interchange at first but I think one point in particular hasn't been paid adequate attention.

Quite frankly there are too few metro stations planned in the city centre. In the first RPA map there were four stations within the canals. Now they are proposing three. A distance of 1.2km from Stephens Green to Abbey St. and from there onto the Mater is ridiculously long in the city centre. These figures don't compare favourably with the Dart in the centre. ok its 1.2km from Connolly to tara but only 400m from tara to Pearse. In fact the two pproposed ballymun stations are only 950m apart.

The following point has come up before. Possibly in the context of T21 metro integration with Red Luas comes out on top against integration with the Dart. However in the context of continuing on to build the completing section of the orbital metro too many people boarding stations south of pearse and traveeling to destinations on this section would be inconvenienced to the scale of an extra change or an extra 15mins to a Drumcondra interchange.

I would like to propose a compromise integrate horizontally with both Tara St station and Abbey st Luas. A tara metro station on Hawkins Street would be approximately 200m from Tara st dart station and Abbey St luas, as the crow flies (or as the tunnel is dug). To dig a pedestrian tunnel under the liffey would be difficult but not impossible, eg. the Tyne pedestrian Tunnel.

Give it some thought, mainly the station spacing dilemma.
Airmail

Even at 1.1km between stations thats longer than Dart station spacing . Blackrock-Seapoint1050m Seapoint-Salthill925m Salthill-Dunlaoighre1050m
The most important points are that these stations are both halved in catchment area and suburban. The porto metro example has stations 575m apart approx. in its main central underground section. I cant seem to find any other metro with such widely spaced central stations.

The arguement that "As for station distance, when you've got a river in the middle distance and a quay road either side it's not the same as the distance between stations without - the river has no catchment unless you're counting water taxis" dowlingm makes about the river being a barrier should mean there should be stations put exceptionally close on either side.

The upper O'Connell street stop was supposed to integrate with broadstone/DIT luas how would it integrate without a stop there?

I still think my proposal for a Hawkins St. station should be considered.

Winters, I don't know if you if you are a member of Platform 11 or not. But I do realise that the members of Platform 11 have an issue with underground train stations in the centre of the city, having spent so many years hearing that "An Lárism" is a bad thing.

The fact remains that, on any one train going through the city, the largest group of people (though not, in most cases, the majority) want to go to the centre.

I am in favour of public transport which brings people to where they want to go. I am in favour of building a world class transport system in Dublin. The German way, which usually works pretty well, would put the main East-West line through the centre and the main North-South line also through the centre, thus facilitating the largest group of people.

We are in danger of missing the opportunity to put a really central station in our North-South metro. This would, I imagine, mean that our biggest people carrier (the interconnector) would have to avoid the city centre.

Not good practise.

But maybe you want that.

The problem is the question of integration vs station location

Without question the best location for the metro station on O'Connell Street is between Abbey Street and the Spire, note the Luas stop for the St Stephen's Green Liffey Junction Luas will be outside Penny's thus forming a three wise connection, under the original proposals the Metro station was at the Gresham which left things messy

Depending on who you listen too there is a budget restriction which says a limit of 6 stations, given the RPA are going with the station box model there are only three sites the Hawkins House/Screen cinema, Dolier Street and Westmorland Street. The box is 110m long and 20 m wide, that would leave a gap of only 250 m between stations not big enough basically.

The problem is the city centre Luas link up which duplicates the Metro route the whole way from the Green to O'Connell Street, so if you are coming from the Dundrum direction you won't need metro to reach anywhere in the core city centre area and indeed have a direct rail connection into the Maynooth line at Liffey Junction. You don't need an interchange with Tara Street

The an lárismh thing is mainly a shot at Dublin Bus who are obsessed with running as many routes as possible up O'Connell Street as well as the poor service provided to cross Dublin services afterall not everyone works in the city centre, suburb to suburb commuting is still tricky. Metro West somewhat address the Tallaght Blanchardstown belt which is the third largest destination in Dublin

bk wrote:

I would like it if the RPA continued the new Luas connection up the length of O'Connell St with a stop near Parnell St. I think it would greatly help revitalise O'Connell Street and Parnell St and it would make sense with DB now terminating some bus routes at that end of O'Connell St.

Luas will continue up O'Connell Street and I can see no other choice but to continue onto Parnell Street/Back of Rotunda, Parnell Square West then Western Way Broadstone to reach Liffey Junction, thats in the plans and is referred to as Luas line D

Winters wrote:

We? Do you work for the RPA?...

No I don't. I am not involved in public transport in any way. I do not work for any transport organisation and am not a member of any transport lobby group. I am, however, interested in seeing international best practise applied to public transport in Ireland.

To that end, I am particularly interested in the way the Germans do things. Public transport is something which they do fairly well. They also have well over 100 cities with a population of over 100,000, and a handful with a population of over a million. There are therefore plenty of cities from which we can learn, not only for public transport in Dublin but also for our other cities like Cork, Limerick, etc.

In the latest plans the RPA are not dropping the Trinity stop altogether, they are replacing both it and the Upper O'Connell Street stations with a single Lower O'Connell Street station, close to the Luas red line.

The original arrangement would leave us with three underground stations, each separated by approximately 500 metres. Standard practice for central stations on most metros. In the centre of the city this would mean that, along that line, nobody would have to walk more than 250 metres to get to a station.

This new plan would leave us with two stations, separated by more than a kilometre. The max walk is now up to 500 metres. This would be quite a bit higher than the international norm.

It is true that there would be an advantage from the point of view of integration with the LUAS. This would reduce the walk for passengers wishing to change between metro and LUAS. In other words it would reduce the walk for people who are already in the public transport system. But it would increase the walk for many people who wish to get into the public transport system.

As a stand alone project - No, possibly not but with all the other pieces of Transport 21 in place yes I would. With two lines converging, logic and the DTO 'Platform For Change' document would indicate so.

As a stand alone project, I would say that St. Stephen's Green would definitely not be the busiest station. I feel sure that the Trinity stop will be the busiest, certainly the busiest on the Southside. Of course St. Stephen's Green will be the busiest station if there are two lines running through and it is, for passengers on the proposed DART line, the closest station to the city centre.

The routes of both the north-south line and the east-west line are massively dependant on suitable locations for stations (See MarkoP11 post above) and the DTOs demand model.

The two routes currently proposed have been subjected to years of scrutiny, study and design changes. Both myself and MarkoP11 have told you how the current routes came about and why they are deemed the best option.

It would have been quite unthinkable for anybody to suggest building an East-West line across the city without integrating with the LUAS.

Unthinkable.

To that extent, the proposed DART line had to go through St. Stephen's Green, as an ass-covering exercise for Mary O'Rourke. The 1975 plan for the city had the main East-West line going through the centre of the city, pretty much under Dame Street/Temple Bar. Much better, to my mind.

Where is the heart of Dublin City? Dublin city has many 'hearts' unlike say Munich or Cologne or Leipzig. Rather than the 'hearts' it would be the high trip generators' that I would like to see served although most of the time they are the same but in the scenario of building a metro line the design process uses station locations/constructability and demand models among other factors to determine routes. Metro North is no different.

Where is the heart of Dublin City? It's a good question. And I don't know the answer. I do know that Dame Street is a much busier street than South King Street or York street, under which (approximately) we are proposing
to build our new DART line. As such I would say that Dame Street is more "the heart of the city" than either of the other two. Given that choice, the Germans would build under Dame Street.

I do understand that there are financial constraints and so forth. However, we still need to do the thing properly. If finances are a concern, I would prefer to see the city centre section built first, and built properly, and gradually extended out to Swords over the years. This would, in my opinion, be better than building it all in one go but not building it properly because of a shortage of cash.

The Germans would absolutely not be paying so much attention to a tram line. We, unfortunately, have previous in this matter, with the routing of the interconnector through St. Stephen's Green because the LUAS is there. Now we're proposing to diverge from international norms in the matter of station separations so that we can integrate with the LUAS.

Tail utterly wagging the dog. Once again.:(

Winters wrote:

Between St. Stephen's Green and O'Connell Street there shall be stops at Dawson Street and Westmoreland Street.

There shall be these stations if we do get around to building the link-up, and if we go along that route (which we probably will). Even if we do it would still involve more inconvenience. Let's take an example. A journey from Swords to Dame Street. Metro to O'Connell Street, up out of the station, wait for the tram, tram to Westmoreland Street, then around the corner to College Green and Dame Street. The metro directly to a Trinity stop would undoubtedly be quicker. Under your arrangement the reverse journey would also be more complicated. Much more likely that people would walk from Dame Street (or wherever in the vicinity) rather than go through all that palaver. But they would be walking up to 500 metres, rather than the maximum of about 250 which would be the international norm.

As I have explained to you before, 'trip generators' determine where stations and lines go. Being a busy street does not necessarily make somewhere a 'trip destination'. I think you'll find in most cases that the high footfall in the College Green area is either down to students, BOI or people walking to and from the O'Connell Street and St. Stephen's Green areas. Dont forget that the Baggot Street area will be served by the interconnector and metro.

I know you have explained it to me before and I'm very grateful:D I just don't quite understand one aspect of it. And that is, as you pointed out above, the original RPA figures for the stand alone metro would, I believe, have indicated that the Trinity stop would be the busiest city centre station.

If the Trinity area is not a "trip destination", why would so many people want to use the station? If they wanted to go to the O'Connell Street or St. Stephen's Green areas, why would they not use those stations?

I would suggest that the reason so many people would want to use the Trinity stop would be because it's convenient for them. More convenient than any other station. And those RPA figures would indicate that it would be more convenient for more people than any other station. The RPA now propose not to give all of these people that convenience.

And equally unthinkable for anybody to suggest building a North-South line through the city without integrating with the Luas red line?

I'm not so sure. The metro will be able to carry lots more people than the Red Line. The amount of people who could be "convenienced" by having three stations in the city centre would, I would say, be quite a bit larger than the numbers who would be "inconvenienced" by having to walk a bit (about 220 metres) between metro station and LUAS station. We'll have to see. But I would say it is shorter than the distance between the DART lines and the LUAS lines at Connolly. And that is, supposedly, "integrated".

As far as I can see you are questioning two things here, the omission of the Trinity/Tara stop, and the routing of the DART interconnector through St. Stephen's Green and not under Dame Street.

Both of these have been analysed to death here. Perhaps just tell me what type of trip patterns you think would be inconvenienced by the current plans.

Actually the amount of analysis of the route of the interconnector has not received an awful lot of attention on this board, that I have seen. There has been plenty of discussion of the merits of the project vis-a-vis the metro, and so forth. Not much discussion of the route.

I have always questioned the route of the interconnector. Firstly I feel that it will have a distortive effect on the city, shifting things a to the south, unnecessarily. You ask for examples of trip patterns which would be inconvenienced by the current plans. Well, let's say journeys to/from locations on the Northern DART line. People can currently travel along this line to Tara Street. The spire is 7 minutes walk away. The current proposals would require people, in order to get to the spire, to change at Docklands onto the LUAS. Or they could go to St. Stephen's Green and change onto the metro. Both of those options would undoubtedly be longer and more inconvenient than the current arrangement, and make it more unattractive to go to the spire. (I'm using the spire as an example, but you realise that I am talking about the busiest parts of the north city centre generally)

Secondly, however, I firmly believe that it makes more sense to have the interconnector crossing with the metro at the Trinity stop. It is more efficient. This would probably mean that it would go under Dame Street or somewhere around the Temple Bar area. As I have explained before, this is based on my belief that the Trinity stop will be the busiest station on the metro. In other words, the most convenient station for the largest group of passengers on each train - more passengers preferring the Trinity stop to the St. Stephen's Green stop. And there will be lots of trains.

If that's true on a North-South metro, you would expect that the same thing would be true on our East-West line. I can't see why it should be any different. In other words, on each DART train through the interconnector, there are more passengers who want to go to the Trinity stop than the St. Stephen's Green stop. So why not bring them to the Trinity stop directly, by building the interconnector such that it crosses the metro at the Trinity stop.

Much more efficient. And it is a very serious issue when one considers the numbers of people that could potentially travel through the interconnector.

Not having a Trinity metro stop then precludes building the interconnector through there, so we end up not being able to bring the largest group of people on each train to the station which is most convenient for them.

The point I am trying to make will become clearer if the LUAS link-up is built. We can then make a direct comparison between demand for travel to or from the "Trinity" area and the St. Stephen's Green area. But by then it may be too late.