[Article] Consortium pushes 'cheaper' metro plan

Victor

Ah, I was waiting for this and the others, some of whom have no doubt been taken care of all ready.

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/8484657?view=Eircomnet

Consortium pushes 'cheaper' metro plan
From:ireland.com
Monday, 17th July, 2006


A new consortium of north Dublin businessmen and landowners has launched a campaign in favour of an alternative route for the Dublin airport metro.

The Metro East Alliance is lobbying the Government and the Railway Procurement Agency to adopt a route to the east of the "central corridor" which is generally accepted to be the emerging preferred route.

Metro East Alliance has commissioned a report from consulting engineers Roughan & O'Donovan and planning consultant Willie Murray which claims the eastern alignment would take in up to 40 per cent more passengers, would be up to €450 million cheaper than the central corridor and give a potential "uplift" to industrial land - including IDA-backed industrial parks of up to half a billion euro.

The alliance also says the route would reduce the tunnelling required and in engineering terms be simpler to build.

The alliance includes Michael Howard, of Genvest, owner of about 45 acres close to Clonshaugh industrial estate, and builders Park Developments and Headland Developments. Gerry Duggan, an infrastructure consultant and non-executive director of Irish Rail, has been appointed to run Metro East Alliance alongside consultant surveyor Paul Pugh, a former property manager for Aer Rianta.

Mr Duggan told The Irish Times the eastern alignment would be similar to the central corridor between the city centre and Drumcondra with a stop serving the Mater Hospital.

From there the route goes to stops at Griffith Avenue, Whitehall and Santry before swinging east to Kilmore and north again to Clonshaugh and approaching the airport from the east to a terminal on the site of the current car park. The Drumcondra stop would also double as a stop for Croke Park.

In contrast the central alignment, which is emerging as the preferred route, would go under St Patrick's College heading north-west under Griffith Avenue to a stop close to DCU, and on through two stops in Ballymun, central and north, via a stop called Metropark to the airport.

Mr Duggan said the consortium was "upfront" about being landowners and developers in the Clonshoulgh/Kilmore area but said the State was also a large landowner in the area through IDA holdings and he maintained the authorities at Beaumont hospital had leant support to the plan.

The eastern alignment would also benefit northside areas with poor public transport and would connect with commuter rail and the proposed orbital metro.

While the route would not serve Ballymun directly, Mr Duggan said the proposal there was to put the rail lines "on stilts, looking in first-floor windows".

Under the Government's timetable for transport infrastructure the Luas red and Green Lines are to be linked in the city centre at surface level by 2008. Metro north, the metro serving Dublin airport and Swords in north County Dublin, is to be completed by 2012.

Bill McH

This is an interesting suggestion, and worth a bit of discussion.

I can see the logic of going through Drumcondra and, essentially, under the airport road out to the airport. However, missing Ballymun altogether would undoubtedly be a big step, and a big change to the proposed routing. I suppose people in Ballymun would have to weigh up the disadvantage of having metro travellers "looking in through first floor windows" against the disadvantage of not having the metro going through Ballymun at all.

What I would be very interested in, and I'm sure there are people on the board who know something about this, is the likely frequency on this metro line. As I understand it, a frequency of up to every 90 seconds is not unusual on metro systems around the world.

If that is the case, is the intention in Dublin to have a 90 second frequency on the City-Airport(Swords) line, or is the intention to have, say, a 3-5 minute frequency on the Airport/Swords line, with the possibility of future development of a branch line, with a similar frequency, towards Beaumont or wherever?

On a side note, does anyone find it a bit surprising that a non-executive director of Irish Rail is involved in this proposal. I always thought that the role of a non-executive director was to be able to look at a company's affairs quite dispassionately, and to be able to point out things which the executive directors might not have noticed or might have preferred not to notice.

I personally find it a bit strange that an individual who is a director of a company which until recently had plans to build their own line to the airport, and which, (in my opinion) was sadly unsuccessful in this regard, is now involved with an alternative plan to build a rail link between the airport and the city.

Slice

So basically a group of landowners are lobbying the goverment to reroute the Metro through their land and being "upfront" about it makes this somehow acceptable?

I think a metro that fails to serve Ballymun and DCU would represent a missed oppotunity to be honest. We've already seen that patronage on the Luas red line demands more than 30 metre trams possibly because of the demographics of the area it serves - presumably UCD and Ballymun would be a similar situation and would also represent a major terminus for many journeys in addition to the Airport and Swords.

To describe the Ballymun section of the Metro as "on stilts, looking in first-floor windows" is scare-mongering above all else. It's exactly the same type of scaremongering that got the Luas red line re-routed away from Inchicore.

Does the route they propose not place parts of the line in similar catchment area to the DART?

Ballymun has been promised a rail link going back to the original plans for the Luas - It would represent more promises broken if the Government fail to deliver on this once again...

peter1892

Slice wrote:

To describe the Ballymun section of the Metro as "on stilts, looking in first-floor windows" is scare-mongering above all else. It's exactly the same type of scaremongering that got the Luas red line re-routed away from Inchicore.

I thought the RPA were now looking into the possibility of running the line at-grade rather than as an elevated line around Ballymun anyway (as a result of the public consultations)?

Transport21 Fan

Did Mr Duggan not notice all them corpo flats and apartment next to the DART south of Pearse Street btw?

अधिनायक

Could this be built in addition to the Central route? You would have a fork in the line at Drumcondra with one route heading to Ballymun-Swords and the other towards Coolock and over to Howth Junction. This would follow the pattern of metro lines like the London Central line that merge split suburban lines at both ends into a single central tunnel. And the landowners would have to pay for it.

Time Magazine

Lads, the Central route's not going to happen.

How they plan to put three tunnels under TCD without disturbing all the listed buildings (which is every single one, basically) while tunneling under three libraries - one of which has foundations ~20m beneath the proposed depth of the Metro is beyond me. This is the Minister, remember, who couldn't organise a safe method of counting votes electronically.

Not going to happen.

अधिनायक

All three proposed routes go under TCD. The new libarary foundations have to be avoided but it may well pass under the long library and the arts block.

gobdaw

Slice wrote:

To describe the Ballymun section of the Metro as "on stilts, looking in first-floor windows" is scare-mongering above all else. It's exactly the same type of scaremongering that got the Luas red line re-routed away from Inchicore.

No way will the Ballymun section be on stilts, and if it is passangers will be getting vertigo rather than looking in first floor windows.

The suggestion of stilts is obviously to overfly the M50 embankment. I'm afraid to estimate what height the metro would need to be to clear that and allow clearance for HGVs on the motorway.

Its inevetable that that section will have to be tunnelled, especially if the Metro North is to serve the terminal. Where will the money come from? The Government cant spent the taxes flooding into Revenue at present!

markpb

gobdaw wrote:

The suggestion of stilts is obviously to overfly the M50 embankment. I'm afraid to estimate what height the metro would need to be to clear that and allow clearance for HGVs on the motorway.

From what I remember, the section on stilts was from Albert College Park where it stopped travelling underground. Putting it on stilts gave grade seperation at the Ballymun Road/Collins Avenue junction which would have been a disaster.

After that it could travel at-grade most of the way to the M50 but we would have ended up with a roller coaster so the entire stretch to Metropark was supposed to be raised.

A Dub in Glasgo

The original proposal from the RPA had an evelvated section (ie on stilts) from Albert College right up the centre of the Ballymun Road and straight through the main street. The stilts got higher as the metro climbed to go over the M50. Myself and many others objected to this element of the Metro in written submissions.

RPA have now said they are looking into the matter

MarkoP11

??????? wrote:

All three proposed routes go under TCD. The new libarary foundations have to be avoided but it may well pass under the long library and the arts block.

TCD doesn't have a arts block thats in UCD, there is a route across TCD which avoids all major obstacles which is to go college green side which is now possible since the Hawkins Street station is not happening. The new library has a double basement and is anchored by steel blots going 25m down no way but to go around it and to the west is the only way

All routes cross TCD even the money grabbers proposal. If the money grabbers had bothered to check they would realise post T21 a metro line will go east west through their lands anyway

Its going to serve Ballymun and DCU no question, the central route is the best performer on numbers anyway

DerekP11

Transport21 Fan wrote:

Did Mr Duggan not notice all them corpo flats and apartment next to the DART south of Pearse Street btw?

You'd think that others would have noticed that Mr. Duggan is a non-executive director of Irish Rail, which in turn is linked to CIE, who just happen to be the biggest property developers out of all the semi-states.

Sometimes, the ulterior motive must take precedence over the lines on a map.

Might be worth exploring the route and its relevence to either lands owned by CIE or a distant subsidiary/connection. Possibly think Airport DART connection from Northern line around Grange and beyond

The new Ireland = I can get away with anything, once I arrogantly declare my conflict of interests.

But I may be wrong of course.:D

अधिनायक

MarkoP11 wrote:

TCD doesn't have a arts block thats in UCD, there is a route across TCD which avoids all major obstacles which is to go college green side which is now possible since the Hawkins Street station is not happening. The new library has a double basement and is anchored by steel blots going 25m down no way but to go around it and to the west is the only way

Ah come on!
http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/trinity/arts_block.html
Maybe it has another name. You know, the pig ugly building with the Lecky library in its basement.

Its going to serve Ballymun and DCU no question, the central route is the best performer on numbers anyway

Would a line that served a few greenfield sites not have a higher potential catchment? Any chance that both could be built with a shared central section and the Coolock branch paid for mostly by the proposers?

I think it's very begrudging to dismiss a proposal for fear that someone might get rich out of it. Who cares?

DerekP11

अधिनाय&#2325 wrote:

I think it's very begrudging to dismiss a proposal for fear that someone might get rich out of it. Who cares?

All I can say to that is this.

Maybe if there had been more scrutiny and begrudging in the 1980s, the westlink toll bridge wouldn't have turned into the fiasco it did, so that someone might get rich out of it.

Bill McH

Does anyone know what previous projects Mr Duggan has been involved with as an Infrastructure Consultant, apart from his position as a non-executive director of Irish Rail? Perhaps that would help us in discussing the merits or otherwise of this proposal.

अधिनायक

DerekP11 wrote:

All I can say to that is this.

Maybe if there had been more scrutiny and begrudging in the 1980s, the westlink toll bridge wouldn't have turned into the fiasco it did, so that someone might get rich out of it.

Begrdugery and scrutiny are different things. Scrutiny is rational risk/opportunity analysis whereas begrdugerey is jealous resentment of anyone who seems to have more than you. Ireland didn't have much in the 80s but our bregudgery supplies ran a constant surplus.

The criteria for the success of the metro are the level of service provided, passenger numbers and cost to the state. Personal enrichment of any of those involved is utterly irrelevant and concentrating on this factor will always lead to loss of focus on the real success criteria.

jd

MarkoP11 wrote:

TCD doesn't have a arts block thats in UCD,

???? Pardon??
What is that building by Nassau street?
jd