Luas red line opening date

Victor

From "LifeTimes" freesheet newspaper

LifeTimes
11 August 2004
Page 8

The RPA have admitted that there is no deadline in place for opening the Tallaght LUAS line, and it could in fact open as late as January 2005, two years after the deadline given by the Government at the last general election.

The LUAS red line to Tallaght has suffered continuous delays, one after another, since the project was started. Given that the green line to Sandyford is now operating one tram every five minutes, potential users of the red line are unlikely to be impressed with the delay. In May 2002, just before the general election, it was promised that the red line would be opened seven months later in January 2003. However, that deadline was put then back to August 2004.

Fine Gael have now posed the following questions to the Minister for Transport: Does he know when the red line is going to be open to the public? What will the final cost be of this particular project? And why is the opening date apparently shrouded in secrecy?

"Minister, wake up and give us some answers for a change," says Denis Naughten, FG transport spokesperson.

thejollyrodger

this is a joke right??? 2005 ?? FFS what is this country coming to ??

Flukey

Come on, why are you surprised? This is typical of what we would expect.

thejollyrodger

well that may be, it still doesnt make it acceptable. This country couldnt deliver a stale loaf on time

boo4842

How could it take another 6 months? What more do they have to do? I see them running up and down the tracks all the time on that line. Any technical bugs should be allready solved by operating the green line - how can they justify another 6 month delay?

Hecate

Oh yeah LifeTimes, that respectable and well known publication :rolleyes: That start date can't right.

Six months to do what? They've nearly finished fitting out all the stops and the trams have been doing end to end test running for about 2 months now, the official test period is 3 months I think, thats what it was on the green line anyway.

Early to middle of october I'd say.

John R

Hecate wrote:

Oh yeah LifeTimes, that respectable and well known publication :rolleyes: That start date can't right.

Six months to do what? They've nearly finished fitting out all the stops and the trams have been doing end to end test running for about 2 months now, the official test period is 3 months I think, thats what it was on the green line anyway.

Early to middle of october I'd say.

I would agree, October sounds about right.

Announce it's not going to be ready until next year so that when they open "early" it seems as though they are not the raging incompetents that they are.

Flukey

Yes, it certainly appears to be nearly ready. Thejollyrodger, I totally agree that it should not be that way, but unfortunately it is. Other countries aren't like that. It is one thing that you notice about people in other countries, that if they say something will be done, whether its a person in a company saying they will get back to you by a certain time, to major projects being finished on time, you can have a lot more confidence in those statements than you would have here.

sliabh

Flukey wrote:

Other countries aren't like that. It is one thing that you notice about people in other countries, that if they say something will be done.. ...to major projects being finished on time, you can have a lot more confidence in those statements than you would have here.

This is real "the grass is greener" talk. Infrastructure projects the world over are usually late! It's probably the exception that they are on time and budget. Start with the channel tunnell and go from there.

A major cause of this is how contracts are structured. Contractors need to get incentives to finish on time and I believe that this is one of the changes the NRA made to their tendering process that has meant recent projects are coming in on time.

Anyway the problem is not that it's late/overbudget vs the original extimates from the RPA. The real problem is that the RPA have admitted they lack the skills to properly estimate projects. So if you want to know whether the Luas was late or overbudget benchmark against comperable projects abroad.

All that said, the Red line has been something of an embarrassment. It was always intended to go into service long before the Green line. So someone has goofed big time.

Cuauhtemoc

There was a thread around the time the Sandyford line opened which suggested that now it was up and running on time in Brennans constituency, the Tallaght line would be quietly pushed back and back.
Can't seem to find it but that was the general gist of it anyway.