Primetime doing a story on Metro North

GerardKeating

Primetime just started on RTÉ and they are having a story shortly on Metro North and how it will be "dangerously overloaded" from day one...

zanardi

Looks like we need a monorail, monorail, monorail!

Propellerhead

Can we do a sense of humour transplant on every twit who brings up Marge vs The Monorail? Honestly.

Remember the episode of Prime Time that had Garret FitzGerald on predicting chaos at the Mad Cow when Luas came on stream? The Sunday Business Post, the week before the Green Line opened predicted that there would be a state subsidy for Luas: http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/06/20/story366821156.asp

All Bullcrap as proved

Never mind the monorail, if people like Sean Barrett of TCD had their way all we would have would be cars (and buses for the losers).

green rover

Propellerhead wrote: »

Can we do a sense of humour transplant on every twit who brings up Marge vs The Monorail? Honestly.

Remember the episode of Prime Time that had Garret FitzGerald on predicting chaos at the Mad Cow when Luas came on stream? The Sunday Business Post, the week before the Green Line opened predicted that there would be a state subsidy for Luas: http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/06/20/story366821156.asp

All Bullcrap as proved

Never mind the monorail, if people like Sean Barrett of TCD had their way all we would have would be cars (and buses for the losers).

do people still take him seriously?

Propellerhead

green rover wrote: »

do people still take him seriously?

He was treated as some kind of guru by the so-called Doheny and Nesbitt School of Economics in the 1980s - the ad-hoc think tank of journalists, senior civil servants and economists who dominated economic debate at the time.

He seriously advocated the ripping up of the whole of the railways at one point - can you imagine the state we would be in now if DART never happened, let alone commuter rail and Luas?

BendiBus

I haven't seen the Primetime piece, but it seems to be suggesting we're not thinking big enough in terms of public transport projects. Not really correct to equate that view with Sean Barrett.

Propellerhead

BendiBus wrote: »

I haven't seen the Primetime piece, but it seems to be suggesting we're not thinking big enough in terms of public transport projects. Not really correct to equate that view with Sean Barrett.

In the Luas "debate" the real subtext was "we should do nothing rather than spend money on the 'wrong' project". Quoting verbatim from the Indo - "We cannot be certain if spending scarce resources is the right thing to do".

I have reams of articles from most of our newspapers during the ten year period between Luas being suggested seriously in 1994 and the completion of construction in 2004 that implied that doing nothing was preferable to investing in what was touted to be an "uncertain" outcome.

Skyhater

BendiBus wrote: »

I haven't seen the Primetime piece, but it seems to be suggesting we're not thinking big enough in terms of public transport projects. Not really correct to equate that view with Sean Barrett.

You can see it here: http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/

I actually agree with with the point that we are better off spending no money, than spending millions on a part-solution.
However, Metro North does not fall into this category..., but Luas Red and Green Lines do and Lucan Luas will ! !

aliveandkicking

Propellerhead wrote: »

Can we do a sense of humour transplant on every twit who brings up Marge vs The Monorail? Honestly.

Remember the episode of Prime Time that had Garret FitzGerald on predicting chaos at the Mad Cow when Luas came on stream? The Sunday Business Post, the week before the Green Line opened predicted that there would be a state subsidy for Luas: http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2004/06/20/story366821156.asp

All Bullcrap as proved

Never mind the monorail, if people like Sean Barrett of TCD had their way all we would have would be cars (and buses for the losers).

I was rubbished on this forum recently for stating the Sunday Business Post had an anti Luas/Metro agenda. Cheers for reminding me why I had that opinion.
(TAKE NOTE MONUMENT)

BrianD

I saw the Primetime item. The report was interesting the in studio debate wasn't so good ... Fahy trotting out the party line but wasn't well informed and came accross that way. The other chap was unremarkable.

The report wasn't saying build nothing. It acknowledged that the route to swords is needed but let's not make another M50 of it. They did seem to get caught up with underground stations and the length of platforms. They damned the LUAS for the wrong reasons - every transit system in the world is packed at rush hour and the LUAS should be no different. Fank Allen came accross very defensive - he denied that people were travelling in the opposite direction to get on trains before they get packed. Everyone knows that some people do this both on the LUAS and the DART. Why deny it?

aliveandkicking

BrianD wrote: »

I every transit system in the world is packed at rush hour and the LUAS should be no different. Fank Allen came accross very defensive - he denied that people were travelling in the opposite direction to get on trains before they get packed. Everyone knows that some people do this both on the LUAS and the DART. Why deny it?

Yep I agree but I suppose you can't blame him being defensive with the culture of the media in this country being anti public transport. The SBP, Indo/Herald and even Frank McDonald in the IT are all just waiting to jump on the anti Luas/Metro/DART bandwagon with scare stories and poor taxpayer stories. The Irish media should rename themselves as disaster scenarios r us!

ixus

I regularly used to hop on Luas at Windy Harbour and go back to Dundrum at rush hour. Otherwise you could be there for 15+ minutes waiting to get on...

paulm17781

BrianD wrote: »

hey damned the LUAS for the wrong reasons - every transit system in the world is packed at rush hour and the LUAS should be no different.

But if you get on at Stephen's green in the morning, you often don't get a seat there. That to me says under capacity.

Slice

But if you get on at Stephen's green in the morning, you often don't get a seat there. That to me says under capacity.

This is the case with almost every city centre station in Dublin or any other city though

markpb

paulm17781 wrote: »

But if you get on at Stephen's green in the morning, you often don't get a seat there. That to me says under capacity.

That's probably more to do with the fact that all the people changing from bus or Dart to the Luas funnel into the system at one place. If it was extended north to terminate somewhere else, it probably wouldn't be as bad.

I do agree that the Luas was built with too little capacity, I always manage to get on in the mornings at Stephens Green even if it isn't always comfortable

paulm17781

Slice wrote: »

This is the case with almost every city centre station in Dublin or any other city though

City centre but that is because they have been running, Stephen's green it is the first stop. If you get the DART at Bray / Greystones you are pretty much guaranteed a seat. The Luas is under capacity and it will only get worse as the line gets extended.

Calina

I was living in Brussels when Luas was being discussed etc etc etc...

I'm pretty sure that even in 1997 there were people around with the view that the Luas as designed would not have the capacity to carry the number of people who would ultimately want to use it. I realise I only got this from the Irish Times which is of course the paper of record, but still and all...

I haven't actually been on a Luas in Dublin yet - it's completely the wrong side of the city for me - but it looks nice. The problem I have with some of the comments above - re: better to do nothing than to do something wrong - is that ultimately, maybe - and like I said I wasn't here at the time - the Luas was put forward as a less expensive solution than a Metro because then, as pretty much now, we weren't that enthused about spending the money on designing a proper system for the city with proper integration.

What's this it is - pennywise and pound foolish?

ardmacha

I'm pretty sure that even in 1997 there were people around with the view that the Luas as designed would not have the capacity to carry the number of people who would ultimately want to use it.

Garret Fitzgerald wrote a number of articles which pointed out that the number of people living along the southside LUAS, when extended, would be similar to the number living along the DART, which has the sea on one side. So the LUAS could attract the same custom as the DART, but would not have the capacity and its ability to increase capacity was compromised by the 5% of the route that ran on the street.

The LUAS was seen as a cheaper solution, but also as a quicker one by some politicians taking the short term view as always.

jdivision

aliveandkicking wrote: »

I was rubbished on this forum recently for stating the Sunday Business Post had an anti Luas/Metro agenda. Cheers for reminding me why I had that opinion.
(TAKE NOTE MONUMENT)

So the head of the RPA says it needs a subsidy and it's The Sunday Business Post that has an anti-Luas agenda? Newspapers report on what's said by others unless it's the Sunday Indo which reports its own views.

BrianD

Nice and all as it is, the green line will be severely compromised once extended. There is only limited scope for an increase in capacity. the situation will be worsened if it is (bizarrely) extended to Bray.

Why not take the Cherrywood-Bray funding and put it on the DART. Makes far much more sense.

The fact that the Red line is getting a branch rather than an extension will probably not be as detrimental as the green line plans.

murphaph

jdivision wrote: »

So the head of the RPA says it needs a subsidy and it's The Sunday Business Post that has an anti-Luas agenda? Newspapers report on what's said by others unless it's the Sunday Indo which reports its own views.

All papers have an editorial position!

Lord Glentoran

GerardKeating wrote: »

Primetime just started on RTÉ and they are having a story shortly on Metro North and how it will be "dangerously overloaded" from day one...

Hasn’t been a problem then, hasn’t it? The Irish solution - don’t build it at all

:rolleyes: