[Not an Article] Journalist prostitutes herself to miniature

Victor

http://www.thepost.ie/web/DocumentView/did-449212331-pageUrl--2FThe-Newspaper-2FSundays-Paper.asp

`Duracell' Brennan tries to keep things moving
04/01/04 00:00
By Niamh Connolly

He is referred to as the "Duracell Bunny" - just wind him up and he sets to work.

He has made competition in the public transport sector one of the key planks of his policy, and has pushed through the penalty points system against trenchant opposition from sections of the Gardai. But Seamus Brennan's detractors are adamant that his `one announcement a day' policy will come back to haunt him unless he successfully drives through his timetable for transport reform this year.

Having quelled a "cigars and brandy" smear campaign against him in 2002, the minister moved on to win political support for extending penalty points to include a range of motoring offences.

This year, points will apply to careless driving and dangerous overtaking. So far, 82,000 drivers have received points on their licences. Full random breath testing will also be introduced this year.

Despite some pertinent questions from the opposition about the policing of penalty points and revelations about speed cameras with no film, Brennan's political opponents were forced to admit that the system has produced a new climate of driver behaviour. Statistics show there were 68 fewer road deaths since the introduction of penalty points in October 2002 compared to the previous 14 months.

But 2003 was a fractious year for Brennan - not least because of difficulties with the construction of the Luas.

Public frustration, commercial losses and roadworks-related upheaval on Dublin's streets drove the Luas to the top of the unpopularity polls, overshadowing even the problems over height limitations in the €625 million Dublin Port tunnel.

The Red Cow roundabout frenzy reached its peak with Brennan's proposals to build Luas on "stilts" over the interchange - an unfortunate term that would come back to haunt him in the shape of caustic newspaper cartoons.

His reference to "back-of-the-envelope estimates" in the government's initial costings for Luas would plague him for months, as opposition deputies made hay over inadequate cost projections for public infrastructure works.

Brennan believes that the government has now turned a corner on Luas. As reported in this newspaper last week, the Railway Procurement Agency has agreed a finishing bonus with Luas contractors for completing the Sandyford andTallaght lines by June and August respectively. Brennan described the agreement as a "seismic shift".

"They're putting extra people on site, there's a bonus if they finish on time, and they've bought out some of the risk, but will finish on budget," he said. "The dates are not movable, and I have told them it must be open in June and August."

Brennan has just returned from a trip to New York, where he was impressed by a new metro system from the airport to downtown.

"There has been a little bit of mirth around because I've talked about trains on stilts," he said. "The entire six kilometres from John F Kennedy [Airport] to Manhattan is on stilts. All of it is elevated, and it connects to nine terminals, each of them privately owned.

"You can have a metro at ground level, underground or elevated. In future, when you upgrade Luas, you have that option, you can dip it or raise it, and any development of the metro would have exactly the same tracks as Luas," he said.

An accelerated national roads programme was arguably one of Brennan's chief successes lastyear. He secured a government promise of €7 billion over three years for roads investment, representing one of the "biggest breakthroughs on roads since I got here".

"It allows us to commit on roads," he said. "I'm fully committed to getting the Galway, Cork and Belfast roads done - these three economic spines."

Hardly a month has passed without a photo opportunity of the high-profile minister opening a state-of-the-art road scheme. Among the new routes opened last year were the M1 Drogheda bypass, the M1 Dublin Airport to Balbriggan bypass, the M50's second West Link bridge, the M7 Kildare bypass, the N8 Watergrasshill bypass in Cork, the M4 Celbridge interchange, the N11 Glen of the Downs, the N19 Shannon access/N18 Hurlers Cross, the N71 Skibbereen relief road and the N25 Youghal bypass.

Brennan believes that a move by the National Roads Authority to fixed pricing for road contracts represents a significant leap forward in the country's roads programme. "It means that the Kilcock-Kinnegad motor way scheme will be completed three months early, and the Monasterevin bypass two months early," he said.

"I asked the NRA a year ago to put in fixed pricing, and since that happened all the projects are on time, because they are buying out the risk upfront,with the result that Kildare finished four months early."

Brennan's reforming zeal often runs well ahead of the government's capacity to pass the required legislation, however. Many observers believe that he overestimates the unions' willingness to accept radical change.

He has made no secret of his intention to break up the two major commercial state transport companies, Aer Rianta and CIE.

Dissolving Aer Rianta and establishing three competing airport authorities at Dublin, Shannon and Cork has proved no simple matter. Brennan initially intended to have enabling legislation before the Dáil prior to the Christmas recess.

But finance minister Charlie McCreevy advised that the assets of the parent company should be separated before the legislation was drawn up. Financial consultants are still teasing out the allocation of the assets and pension funds.

A standoff with the Aer Rianta unions seems inevitable, with the workers planning industrial action at Dublin Airport during Ireland's EU presidency over the next six months. "I don't care what's going on in February - we're doing this," Brennan said. "I don't care if it's the presidency of the world. If anyone wants to shut an airport, there are other airports. But I don't think it will come to that.

"The cabinet has passed the heads of the bill, and the legislation will be before the Dáil in February.The new authorities will take office in March.

"We lost a month or two for all sorts of reasons. But when we made the decision, we announced it was to happen by July 2004.The present indications I have from the advisors in the department is that it should be before the House in February."

The proposed breakup of the other state transport monopoly, CIE, has also led to wrangles with the unions that are set to accelerate in the NewYear.The government's plan to privatise 25 per cent of the national bus market has drawn particular opposition.

"I said to the unions when they were here that a lot of these policies on competition will come through the courts in the EU, and it's better that they come through now. This will grow the market and there will be more employment, not less," Brennan said.

The franchising of routes was intended to come into effect this month, but was delayed. "We're on target to get it done throughout 2004. I'm increasingly keen to make sure to do it on a national basis, rather than just confine it to Dublin.This should be a national policy, not just a Dublin policy."

The CIE Companies Bill, due to go before the Dáil in the first half of the year, will provide for the establishment of a public transport regulator.

The legislation will bar directors of the state transport group from sitting on more than one of the three competing boards.

CIE chairman John Lynch was recently informed by the minister that he must choose which board he wished to head when IarnrodÉireann, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann are established as competing companies. "When vacancies come up on the boards of CIE, I have informed the chairman that it's my intention to start the procedure of unravelling the separation," Brennan said.

The minister's recent trip to JFK airport should prove useful for his plan for a private terminal at Dublin Airport - another political hot potato.

Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary is continuing to criticise the government over Aer Rianta's monopoly, and has targeted the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in a highly personalised campaign. Brennan will be keen to avoid a similar fate.

"I had to take a political decision a year ago as to which policy to pursue - the terminal or the reorganisation of Aer Rianta. I opted for the latter," he said. "As soon as that's through in March, I'm proposing to pursue the other policy.

"The issue for the government is: do we take a terminal supplied by the private sector which would not cost the taxpayer or the state a penny? Or do we provide that capacity ourselves at the state's expense?

"If someone is prepared to come along and provide us with a terminal that doesn't cost a penny, pay towards the infrastructure, integrate it as part of the airport, pay their bills and attract extra airlines without costing the taxpayer any money, then I think that we'd be crazy to turn that down.

"That's the policy I'm planning to pursue - to convince the government that this is where we're going."

With Ryanair's Michael O'Leary and the McEvaddy brothers vying to construct a second terminal, the process must be "hugely transparent", Brennan said. "It will be a worldwide competition, not just domestic. I don't see it in terms of those two main players."

The government received 13 expressions of interest to build a second terminal, many of them from international consortia. "I will put in place a process that will be so transparent you could eat your dinner off it," Brennan said.

Victor

The new JFK Airport metro shows how an efficient metro system can operate efficiently, he believes.

He intends to present a Dublin County metro plan to cabinet early this year. The metro would feed intobusy commuter stations and phase one of the project would link the city centre to Dublin Airport.

A cabinet battle is looming with Department of Finance officials favouring the cheaper option of a mainline spur from Connolly Station to the airport. "The Department of Finance was negative about the value for money of just one line [to the airport], so I've gone back to finance and told them to do a cost-benefit analysis for the entire 20-year system," said Brennan.

"It's not just a matter of a link to an airport. The battle we have is to convince them that it's not about one line.To make the Stephen's Green line work, you would need eight or nine stations, because only about 20 per cent of your patronage comes from the airport. This is why you need the intermediate stations to make it pay.

"If you build it as phase one of a citywide and county-wide integrated modern metro that would take maybe 20 years to complete, in that context it makes a lot of economic sense."

Brennan favours a metro running from Dublin Airport through Connolly Station and on to St Stephen's Green, but there are capacity issues at Connolly.

"It's possible that any metro could come into Spencer Dock. The RPA are now only considering one route. I told them to drop the idea of public consultations on three or more routes, and make their own minds up on what the right route is," he said.

The RPA was heavily criticised for its original €2.4 billion estimate for the metro, after it emerged that the Madrid metro cost a fraction of that.The estimate is now down to €1.2 billion, but is unlikely to be reduced further.

Brennan's packed agenda for 2004 includes seeking a government decision on the proposals of Aer Lingus for an institutional private placement of shares and regulation of the taxi industry.

And the cabinet will decide early this year whether to raise the height of the Dublin Port tunnel to accommodate `supercube' trucks. Brennan has warned that contractual costs would be the major determining factor in the decision. It will be a crucial year for him.


Brennan portfolio and timetable for 2004

Aer Rianta: legislation to come in February, new airport boards to be established in March

CIE break-up: boards to be gradually dismantled and legislation to be passed mid-2004

Dublin Port tunnel's height restriction: decision expected in January

Taxi regulation: appointment of a regulator; new codes of behaviour and colour scheme

Aer Lingus: various investment options to be brought to government, including institutional investment

Penalty points: extension of system planned

Roads: extension of inter-urban motorway network and bypasses Brennan portfolio and timetable for 2004

sceptre

"There has been a little bit of mirth around because I've talked about trains on stilts," he said. "The entire six kilometres from John F Kennedy [Airport] to Manhattan is on stilts. All of it is elevated, and it connects to nine terminals, each of them privately owned.

In case one of the minature's minions is reading...

It's not because of what you're describing, dunderhead. It's because you insist on calling them "stilts"

antoinolachtnai

I cannot understand Seamus Brennan's fascination with running a train to the airport. Anyone with a calculator can see that you'll be able to get to the terminal far faster by express bus (21 minutes or so, any frequency you want) through the port tunnel than you could get there by one of the congested rail lines (30 minutes at least with limited frequency), or by a new metro line which stopped every few minutes along the way (30 minutes, maybe 40, and with only enough demand to keep it running from 6am until midnight).

Victor

Trains can carry a lot more people and a rail link would mean you could say get a direct link from Belfast or Dundalk to the airport. The bus option is only better at shorter distances, not for intercity or cross-city services.

antoinolachtnai

I don't think it is at all true to say that trains would carry more people in this particular instance. You could potentially carry 6000 people/hour to the city in a single lane of traffic using buses (assuming 120 buses/hour fully laden with 50 passengers each). By comparison, a train would only be able to deliver 2000 people/hour to the city centre (assuming 5 slots per hour made available for the service, which is very optimistic, and a full capacity of 400 people/train)

The rationale for the whole project is to provide a fast link to the city centre. The intercity links you suggest are not on the cards, because there's isn't the volume there to justify a regular train link from the airport to Dundalk or Belfast. You could run a service four or five times a day or something like that, granted, but it wouldn't really be much use for meeting passengers coming from planes. You would need 100 people an hour going to Dundalk to make a viable rail link. You won't get that, given that there are only around 1000 passengers arriving into the airport per hour. I don't think you would get much more from linking to Belfast either, because Belfast has decent regional air links.

There wouldn't be much difference in speeds, because there's a good motorway up to Dundalk (and will be to Belfast too, sometime).

If you could somehow make the station a stop on the line from Dublin to Belfast, that would be a different matter, because you would be combining the Dublin and Airport volumes. This is the sort of arrangement that is in place at Prestwick, Stansted and Gatwick. But Dublin wouldn't be anything like that. A mainline link to the airport would only be a spur line.

There is no question of providing a cross-city service from the Airport in the short term as far as I can see. There is just no capacity on the Loop Line for it. I suppose you could have a train going to Euston via the legendary Phoenix Park Tunnel, but without a stop at Connolly I don't think you wouldn't really have that much patronage.

The bus service is perfectly capable of providing a cross-city service. When the bus driver comes out of the tunnel, he can turn up the quays and then left on to the Macken St. bridge giving rapid access to the south city and the Stillorgan QBC or any of the other QBC's. Alternatively he or she could drive further up the canal or the Quay to get access to some of the other suburbs.

All of the distances we are talking about are extremely short distances. Some recently-built modern airports for cities far bigger than Ireland (KLIA comes to mind) are at a far greater distance from the urban centre, but have no rail link to the city centre. Similarly, a large proportion of passengers travelling between Narita and Tokyo (6 million passengers as I recall) travel on the 'Limousine Service' (a.k.a. bus) rather than on the rail service which is provided, because of its convenience (costs for bus and rail services are roughly the same).

It's not that I don't think we should invest in public transport, 'cos I think we should. It's just that there's no point in investing in these great civil engineering showpieces which wouldn't really provide a service any better than the blue bus we have already.

Victor

Originally posted by antoinolachtnai
I don't think it is at all true to say that trains would carry more people in this particular instance. You could potentially carry 6000 people/hour to the city in a single lane of traffic using buses (assuming 120 buses/hour fully laden with 50 passengers each). By comparison, a train would only be able to deliver 2000 people/hour to the city centre (assuming 5 slots per hour made available for the service, which is very optimistic, and a full capacity of 400 people/train).

You have a train frequency of 12 minutes, when it could be brought down to 1.5-5 minutes. Car passengers are much more likely to change to train than bus (because they are snobs).

Originally posted by antoinolachtnai
If you could somehow make the station a stop on the line from Dublin to Belfast, that would be a different matter, because you would be combining the Dublin and Airport volumes.

This is what I was intimating at. Belfast / Northern Ireland lacks in scheduled international links (furthest direct destination is Amsterdam) although it has a selection of charters. Being able to get relatively directly to Dublin Airport would mean Dublin would compete with Belfasts way-point airports in the UK.

Originally posted by antoinolachtnai
There is no question of providing a cross-city service from the Airport in the short term as far as I can see. There is just no capacity on the Loop Line for it. I suppose you could have a train going to Euston via the legendary Phoenix Park Tunnel, but without a stop at Connolly I don't think you wouldn't really have that much patronage.

It could stop at platform 7 (or 8 if it is built). Surely you mean Heuston (Dublin) not Euston (London).

Originally posted by antoinolachtnai
The bus service is perfectly capable of providing a cross-city service. When the bus driver comes out of the tunnel, he can turn up the quays and then left on to the Macken St. bridge giving rapid access to the south city and the Stillorgan QBC or any of the other QBC's.

From Congested Westland Row east, most of the bridges have restricted heights and / or there are level crossings.

A third track / passing loops on either the existing Northern line or on the metro means express or semi-express services can be offered with times of 12-15 minutes to the city centre.

antoinolachtnai

All of what you say regarding the Belfast line assumes that you divert the Belfast line to go via the airport. This isn't really on the cards is it? No one is proposing anything more than a spur. That's why a link the stuff about the airport link contributing to an 'integrated rail network' is complete bunkum, because it won't.

You would need to build an awful lot of passing loops to get even a 'semi-express' service from Dublin to the airport. The other trains would have to wait in exactly the right places when the express train came along.

According to my timetable, it currently takes 16 minutes to get from Connolly to Malahide on a non-stop service. I can't understand how you could run a train along the same line on a frequent basis and get it to the airport in 15 minutes. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would require massive upgrading, and not just a couple of passing loops either.

You have a train frequency of 12 minutes, when it could be brought down to 1.5-5 minutes.

The reason I have the train frequency at 12 minutes is because there is no capacity on the loop line to let you get any more than that through. That's all academic anyway, because you won't have enough demand to run the express train to the city any more than once every thirty minutes. That isn't frequent enough to be more attractive than the bus.

Car passengers are much more likely to change to train than bus (because they are snobs).

This is a silly generalisation. Car passengers like to get from A to B quickly and in comfort, same as everyone else.

From Congested Westland Row east, most of the bridges have restricted heights and / or there are level crossings.

Macken St. railway bridge has a nominal clearance of 4.38m. You can get a single-decker bus through here with no problem, and you could probably get a double-decker (4.2m) through too, although I have never seen it done.

A third track / passing loops on either the existing Northern line or on the metro means express or semi-express services can be offered with times of 12-15 minutes to the city centre.

passing loops? on a metro or suburban line? Aw, c'mon. Has this been modeled anywhere? You'd have so much signalling, switching and speed limiting that the capacity and speed would be pretty abysmal.

Think about it. You have your express train travelling between the city centre and the airport. It has to pass Dart Trains which may be stopped in the 5-10 stations it passes through. It has to avoid running into the returning Airport train. It also has to keep out of the way of the Belfast trains. You have to do all this with a very wide margin of safety, because the passing loops will be extremely busy, carrying trains in both directions on a single track at very high speeds. It might work on a good day, but if there were any delays anywhere on the system which threw the timetable even slightly off, I suspect the whole thing could get completely locked up.

If we could find a way to allow the Dublin Airport train to stop at Euston, of course, that would solve all our probems.