[Article] Cheapo solution to transport problem

thejollyrodger

Cheapo solution to transport problem
Irish Independent

THE Government appears to be heading for one of the worst decisions ever made by any Irish administration. The result, if it goes ahead, will be to deprive Dublin of an effective public transport system for perhaps a generation.

The decision in question is whether to build a metro line from St Stephen's Green to Dublin airport. Transport Minister Seamus Brennan signalled clearly last week that he intends to put such a plan before Cabinet.

Attentive readers will know that I complained about the metro plan just a few weeks ago. But this is such a looming disaster that it bears repetition. Readers may also remember my suggesting that one reason the metro was favoured over a proper commuter rail network for Dublin is, not that it is better, but that it is cheaper.

Mr Brennan appeared to confirm this in comments about the two plans. The rail project would include a tunnel linking the four main Dublin stations. This so-called "inter-connector" Mr Brennan noted grimly, would cost €1.5bn alone.

At least. We all know from bitter experience how much salt to take with official costings. But the same scepticism must, in fairness be applied to Mr Brennan's €2.5bn bill for the metro. Let us treat them both with equal amounts of salt, and say that the rail network would cost a billion more than the metro.

Mr Brennan clearly believes that such a figure makes it a non-starter so far as the Dept of Finance is concerned. He may well be right. There is no guarantee that he will get his metro money either. He may have to concoct a complex, expensive plan to, in effect, lease the metro from a private consortium, thereby almost doubling the ultimate cost.

What this shows, once again, is that many senior ministers, and key sections of the department, have no idea what is required to create a modern economy. An economy with the kind of infrastructure other, often poorer, countries have taken for granted for decades.

Their predecessors' lack of vision held back this country for the first 40 years of its existence. They have learnt only the minimum lessons since. Even more regrettably, Charlie McCreevy seems not to understand that his corner shop attitudes to borrowing for investment threaten, in the long run, the economic success which his other policies helped create.

Let us suppose that it does take €5bn to build the rail network. The cost to the Exchequer of borrowing such a sum is an annual €250m. Looked at one way, that is a lot of money. It equals the entire operating subsidy for the bus and rail service of CIE. Looked at another way - in comparison with the country's resources - it is very little.

If Dan McLaughlin, chief economist at BOI, is right, the tax overshoot this year will be enough to finance the costs of a proper Dublin rail network for 10 years - by which time €250m will be a negligible amount.

Of course, the same argument could be applied to any project, and one would soon run out of money. There are infinite demands on the Exchequer. This, however, is the most important public transport decision ever likely to come before Cabinet.

Dublin has sprawled out from Drogheda to Kildare, and beyond. Perhaps it should not have done so. Perhaps there was corruption involved in the zoning decisions. It doesn't matter now.

That is where the commuters are and there is only one way to move large numbers of them - say, 50 million journeys a year - to work and back: a modern rail system, preferably electrified, with modern signalling. The bones of this system already exist in the lines to north, west and south. As well as being modernised, they have to be linked, and a new station built to avoid the bottleneck of Connolly. The docklands provide the ideal site.

It is an elegant solution - even down to the fact that the holes for the tunnel would be in currently disused land at the docks and the Heuston station shunting yards. Anyone who has seen the entrance works for the Dublin port tunnel must question the sanity of any plan to do something similar in Stephen's Green.

Sanity, though, seems in short supply. The metro, like the Luas, is a solution in search of a problem. The new trams will make little difference to journey times in Dublin, assuming they do not make them worse.

Equally, it would be very nice to have a metro link to the airport, with stops at Glasnevin and DCU. But on a list of the country's transport requirements, this would be so far down the list as to be off the page.

The plans say the rail tunnel will follow the metro. But, starting from now, it will be 10 years before a rail scheme could begin. The people obliged to live in those towns by an unplanned housing market will have to live with a badly planned transport system for all that time. Unless there is a sea change in attitudes, it could be a lot longer than that. Mr Brennan's comment that it could be "20 years or more" before there is a metro extension to west Dublin shows what an unambitious, uninspiring, bunch of amateurs are in charge.

Brendan Keenan

thejollyrodger

Charlie Mc Creevy HAS to borrow €5bn money now to build the D interconnector and metro and finish all the motorways... this country is a pathetic joke,

GlennaMaddy

An even cheaper solution would be to utilise the existing Phoenix Park tunnel that links Heuston and Connolly by placing a inter-station shuttle on it. If you haven't heard about this solution to our disentegrated system take a look at Platform11's website www.platform11.org.

Strange how previous governments have not chosen this over the other more expensive options

BrianD

It's straightforward by talking about a metro and commissioning reports means you don't have to make a decision at all. The Phoenix Park tunnel could be upgraded and be in useful service very rapidly meaning that once the decision is made, the results would be online pretty fast for better or for worse (and it's the 'worse' bit that politicians fear most). It's also not as 'sexy' as a metro.

Hagar

Having read all the reports that Portugal was able to build 6? new stadiums and refurbish 4 more for a total of €600 million and equating that against the proposal for a single stadium, "The Bertie Bowl" , costing €2000 million it would appear that whoever is being given contracts in this country is ripping the p!ss big time.

I just wonder how much of the cost of the Luas system is padding for the big business cronies of the politicians who sign these ludicrous contracts on our behalf.

Is it just possible that we could afford a proper mass transit system if the corruption was cut out?

l3rian

cutting the corruption out?

maybe in a thousand years

thejollyrodger

some of those stadia were brilliant. Lovely architecture and thought (like the one in the quarry up the mountain). Our equilivant new landsdowne road isnt 1/2 as nice, and wont be finished for another 4,5 years. They built all their stadia in half that time.

LUAS is only coming on stream now and it will carry buggar all traffic, and its way over budget with NONE of the line connecting...