[Article] Limerick rail link to airport ruled out in study

Schuhart

Zoney wrote: »

Actually, people need to be able to get from A to B regardless of how few other people are also going from A to B.

Yes, but if only a few people need to get from A to B you don’t need to provide the same facility as if lots were making the journey. In all honesty, your post is just coming across as confused.

Zoney wrote: »

To respond to the moral slant you have introduced (unfairly imo, it's peripheral to the debate - there are a lot of areas money is wasted other than just in transport); people need to get from A to B to access these educational services, health services, etc.

But surely the point is that we should avoid wasting money in any sector, and ensure that resources are deployed to best advantage. Equally, if people need to travel for whatever reason, should we not make sure that resources are deployed according to objective assessment of demand.

Zoney wrote: »

My point about comparing with the road network, is that the justifications above are already recognised for road infrastructure.

I think you are correct to say that people tend to suspend their critical faculties when it comes to road. But you are clearly wrong to suggest that suspension of critical faculties is the best way of ensuring resources are used effectively.

Prof_V

Regarding costs, Dempsey said on Tuesday (answering a question from Peter Power) that the capital cost would range "from €245 million for a very minimal service to €633 million for a 25 minute journey to Limerick and a 65 minute journey to Galway" (http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20071023.XML&Node=2697#N2697). This seems to explain some of the discrepancies in the figures, although there's still a lot that's unclear in the absence of the study itself.

highlydebased

While I would love to see it happen, it wont. Not entirely practical. I'd much rather drag my suitcases onto a bus rather than a train if I was heading from Limerick to the airport.

The cost would not be justified, indeed for such a short journey.

Poxyshamrock

€700million is complete and utter bull****.

bk

Some one above asked, if rail can't work here, where can it work.

You see it is well understood that rail can work very well in some circumstances, but not at all in others.

What you need to first understand is that the majority of people prefer to use their own car over rail most of the time as typically it is cheaper, more flexible and more comfortable. So in order to get people out of their car and into rail, their has to be a good reason.

Rail typically works very well getting people into and around a very traffic congested city (like Dublin) as typically taking rail is far faster then by car and parking is expensive.

Rail can also work well between large cities when typically over 300km and with a good fast and frequent service.

Rail almost never works in rural areas with low density.

A rail line to Shannon wouldn't really attract many customers because, firstly Limerick isn't all that big a city, congestion is relatively mild and therefore a train wouldn't be all that much faster (and might actually be slower) then by car or by bus.

Therefore it would be a waste of money. Better to focus on ensuring a good road infrastructure to and from the airport and a quality bus service on it.

Zoney

bk wrote: »

A rail line to Shannon wouldn't really attract many customers because, firstly Limerick isn't all that big a city, congestion is relatively mild and therefore a train wouldn't be all that much faster (and might actually be slower) then by car or by bus.

Hah! I suggest you try getting into/out of Limerick at rush hour, or indeed Galway. Dublin doesn't have a monopoly on traffic congestion (though I grant you that it is worst) I will admit that since providing a new N19 dual carriageway bypassing Shannon Town, traffic congestion into the industrial estate and airport is now "mild", as is congestion in Ennis after the DC bypass on the N18. This is undoubtedly a temporary situation, roads tend to fill up when people feel they're pretty freeflowing.

paulm17781

Zoney wrote: »

Hah! I suggest you try getting into/out of Limerick at rush hour,

Is all this traffic going to Shannon?

No one is saying rail isn't needed. People are saying rail to shannon isn't needed.

bk

Zoney wrote: »

Hah! I suggest you try getting into/out of Limerick at rush hour, or indeed Galway.

But the question is, is the congestion bad enough that it would take over twice (preferably three times) as long to go by car then by rail to Shannon?

Because is is only with that type of congestion that people start looking at rail as an alternative.

Poxyshamrock

I've often spent 2 hours getting from Shannon to Limerick

galwayrush

I was in Holland 2 weeks ago, I was able to commute all over the country by Train, Tram, so well organised and very reasonable cost wise,
btw, Milan's main airport Malpensa,about 60 km out, is connected to the City by Rail.

Schuhart

galwayrush wrote: »

I was in Holland 2 weeks ago, I was able to commute all over the country by Train, Tram, so well organised and very reasonable cost wise

Is there any point in mention that the Netherlands is a far more densely populated country? As in ten times as densely populated as Ireland. They also aren’t particularly noted for randomly dotting the countryside with designs out of Bungalow Blitz.

galwayrush wrote: »

btw, Milan's main airport Malpensa,about 60 km out, is connected to the City by Rail.

I won’t quibble on the distance, even if Google does suggest its 45 km.

The key point is Malpensa handles over 20 million passengers – comparable to Dublin Airport and ten times what Shannon sees. Milan itself has a population of over 1 million, and services a far larger population than even the GDA – something of the order of 7.5 million.

It only makes sense to compare the whole of Ireland to Milan and its environs – and it certainly does not make sense to compare Milan to the Mid West region. There is an inexplicable lack of a sense of proportion in an amount of our debate on regional development.

E92

Zoney wrote: »

Of course, it is interesting that traffic volumes from Shannon to the N18 (i.e. the route of the N19), and N18 to Ennis/Limerick do demand dual carriageway. Yes rail couldn't capture a vast percentage of this traffic, but really, if a rail link isn't viable along such a heavily trafficed road corridor, where is rail viable?

It definitely seems though that road projects need no justification - people just see that they "make sense", while the same doesn't go for rail.

And it comes down to this, I do not believe this "study" was remotely objective or careful - I am sure it was carefully arranged to provide a political "look it's not possible" situation. Seriously, looking at the road traffic patterns and infrastructure provided it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

The fact that the new HQDCs/Motorways are as much as 10 times safer than their predecessors is reason enough to be building them IMO, not to mention the avoidance of bottlenecks and the chance to go 20 km/h faster(at least in theory).