Some people still haven't a clue

BendiBus

I despair sometimes. Is is the fault of those promoting these projects or are people responsible for their own ignorance?

Metro is not, and never has been, a simple Airport-City link. The Interconnecor is not, and never has been, a service to link Heuston & Connolly. It doesn't even serve Connolly.

Why does ignorant crap like this get published?

http://www.irishtimes.com/letters/index.html#1225303611790

Madam, - Surely it is time to put a stop to Metro North before it costs any more money. It was always a vanity project. There was never going to be enough demand from airline passengers for access to the city centre. Even in places where there is such a demand - such as Rome, New York or Chicago - they get by with surface rail.

The underground connection between Houston and Connolly should also be abandoned as the Luas already connects these stations in 15 minutes. It seems crazy to spend tens of millions of euro to shave off another five minues.

These projects were always of doubtful value. Now they are indefencible. - Yours, etc,

BRIAN DERMODY,

Glenview Court,

Blessington,

Co Wicklow.

keane2097

Is your question whether or not some people are really fuckin stupid? Cos they are.

And I don't particularly see the point of this thread...

BendiBus

keane2097 wrote: »

And I don't particularly see the point of this thread...

The point is I'd be interested in the views of others on the following

1) Should the promoters of these projects be doing a little more promoting before the morons win the argument? Lisbon fell because one side didn't feel the need to make their case.

2) Does the media have any responsibility to protect imbeciles from making fools of themselves by declining to publish their ravings in the national press?

Aard

Why don't you write to the Irish Times and explain what the situation actually is?

BrianD

BendiBus wrote: »

I despair sometimes. Is is the fault of those promoting these projects or are people responsible for their own ignorance?

Metro is not, and never has been, a simple Airport-City link. The Interconnecor is not, and never has been, a service to link Heuston & Connolly. It doesn't even serve Connolly.

Why does ignorant crap like this get published?

http://www.irishtimes.com/letters/index.html#1225303611790

You couldn't blame the writer for being misinformed. Metro North as it's known now was originally put out as a link from the Airport to the city centre. Somewhere along the way the penny dropped in the RPA and they realised there is little demand for an airport link and the routing was extended to Swords and the airport would be served en route. This is a sensible opetion. The only bugbear I have is that it should be built to DART/heavy rail standard thus benefiting from economies of scale and future proofing for demand. It also looks like it's going to be built on the cheap now.

The author is probably confused about the rational of the interconnector. It will connect the two stations but actually increases the utility of the existing network. Ironically, poor planning has allowed for those two locations to be linked by multiple modes of transport while other parts of the city await some sort of rail based transport.

It does demonstrate how badly public transport projects are presented to the public. Take the RPA for example, who rarely show existing rail lines on their consultation maps so that the public and really grasp how it will benefit them. You can hop off here and change to the maynooth line or the coastal line etc. No wonder the public are confused!

DWCommuter

Write a reply to the Times.

Overall you're right, but the problem is two fold.

1. People do not understand what the projects are about, but its not their fault. This leads to the baloney content of featured letter. I've seen loads of this over the years.

2. The advocators of the projects and related Government department have done the minimum in terms of promoting/explaining the details of each project.

Some members of the media are also ignorant of the finer detail of these projects, but that's down to piss poor research and nothing else. For the record, Barry Kenny of Irish Rail is very quick to answer letters in the Times that criticise customer service, so maybe he should take his finger out of the proverbial and set things straight for this particular reader and others that may be of the same mindset. Its his job right?

The lobby faction are also failing in the promotion area. Its a case of "us and our cronies know what its about, so everything's cool loike!"

IanCurtis

I agree with the letter writer. Commuting from these places to the city could easily be solved with a few properly organised and properly policed bus routes - it is a matter of a few kms after all.

As it stands, it's quicker to Swords on the Swords Express than it is to Santry on Dublin Bus.

The metro is vanity, it's utter bullsh which will get shelved (hopefully) before it is started.

DWCommuter

IanCurtis wrote: »

I agree with the letter writer. Commuting from these places to the city could easily be solved with a few properly organised and properly policed bus routes - it is a matter of a few kms after all.

As it stands, it's quicker to Swords on the Swords Express than it is to Santry on Dublin Bus.

The metro is vanity, it's utter bullsh which will get shelved (hopefully) before it is started.

I don't disagree with that point either. I think Dublin has lacked a quick win and sensible approach to public transport planning, before it examined the big money projects.

monument

When I seen the thread title I knew it was about this letter

With some general news journalists getting these things wrong can be put down to writing about 100s of things. Or simply being too busy. If you have the time it might be worth an email to them (but that might be wishful thinking on my behalf).

The letters page is a bit of a different beast. Although you can send an email replying to letters, its not seen as the place of the paper to change the meaning of letters. But why are letters like this published in the first? The page is seen as an outlet for the public... like boards.ie you can't moderate it too much (I'm not defending publication rather trying to explain it, I personally wouldn't have published the letter in question).

The misunderstanding of these projects is due to a number of things.

I had a friend who visited a Dart Interconnecter open day with me a few months ago, last week he mixed up the Interconnector with the Metro. I think his confusion was at least partly to do with Irish Rail renaming the project "Dart Underground". And people generally with linking the words "Underground" and "Metro". But was he paying attention in the first place and is the public in general?

The RPA seem to have done a good / ok job at trying to inform people who live along the line the benefits of the project. But they may be a bit lacking beyond that where they need to convince the wider public of the projects' merits. Michael O'Leary and others talking about an "airport Metro" in sound bites and being quoted on such in newspaper doesn't help their job.

Irish Rail on the other hand haven't really promoted, or at least jointly promoted, the Interconnector and the wider Dart project. But maybe that's a case of a nice shiny new metro being far more simple to push?

IanCurtis wrote: »

As it stands, it's quicker to Swords on the Swords Express than it is to Santry on Dublin Bus.

One takes the Port Tunnel and the motorway, the other winds along streets packed with traffic.

mickoneill30

BendiBus wrote: »

I despair sometimes. Is is the fault of those promoting these projects or are people responsible for their own ignorance?

How about a third question. Should a newspaper publish a letter that contains inaccuracies posed as fact? I know letters aren't subject to the same standards as journalism (though that's low enough too) but surely somebody in the newspaper proof reads these things and would know better or do they even care?

weehamster

Oh crying out loud, did I just see someone saying that buses is the solutions to our problems again. :cool: Please get real.

Buses do not have the capacity required to get the traffic off the roads along a single route which is the whole point of all this. Before you can even start with the bus idea, where is the traffic that restrict the bus route going to disappear to? You have to provide a real alternative to commuting with the car to reduce traffic levels.

I do understand why people have misgivings about the metro north tram. I'm not happy either with the price tag or the long term capacity issue, however Dublin is so screwed that if it doesn't go ahead, this city will be impossible to get anywhere as the average traffic speed is currently 12kph and getting worse day by day. We can't afford any further delays and half baked ideas like "a few properly organised and properly policed bus routes" don't help things either. :rolleyes:

Remember, these projects won't be running till 2014-2016. That's a further 5 to 7 years of worsening traffic congestion before the metro north tram and the interconncetor/DART expansion is open.

D.L.R.

people - metros are the norm in dublin-sized cities. there's cities in bloody Africa with underground rail lines. a bit of forward thinking here please - dublin's only going to get bigger and busier. imagine 10 years time with no new rail lines. as it stands, dublin has to be one of the worst cities in europe for public transport.

planners thus far have left the vast majority of dubliners with little choice but to drive.

we need proper segregated rail lines in dublin. if the underground option is too expensive then the only alternative is to build elevated train lines. but for some bizarre reason, some don't want the encroachment on their beautiful vistas of anonymous suburbia. go figure.

you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs so there has to be a tradeoff somewhere. i sincerely hope all you naysayers are defeated on this one, because your arguement amounts to nothing more than penny pinching and won't do this city any good in the long run.

astrofool

The fact that these projectswill pay for themselves in the long run should put an end to the arguments against tbh.

But yes, people can be absolutely moronic.

BluntGuy

I totally agree with D.L.R on this issue.

The letter-writer was somewhat mis-informed, there is something wrong with every single sentence in that ridiculous piece of unresearched tripe...

Madam, - Surely it is time to put a stop to Metro North before it costs any more money. It was always a vanity project. There was never going to be enough demand from airline passengers for access to the city centre. Even in places where there is such a demand - such as Rome, New York or Chicago - they get by with surface rail.

I would've thought it obvious to anyone what is wrong with such a ridiculous statement. It simply is not applicable in Dublin. Where is the space for a surface rail connection in central Dublin? Okay, perhaps elevated rail could've been considered in the less dense parts, but people seem to object to that as well. It's a nonsensical argument.

As for bus-routes, once again, where is the space? Those advocating bus routes need to inform us all exactly how they are going to increase capacity by such an amount that the metro works won't be needed. I'm simply dying to know, because the way I see it, even if the bus system was given 10,000 new buses and 50 new QBCs, they'd still be congestion (- where do all the displaced cars go - M50 anyone?)

The underground connection between Houston and Connolly should also be abandoned as the Luas already connects these stations in 15 minutes. It seems crazy to spend tens of millions of euro to shave off another five minues.

I think other posters have already explained what's wrong with this.

These projects were always of doubtful value. Now they are indefencible.

-

Pfff...

I can't believe I actually read that.

Also, I think the Metro should be of a heavy-rail standard too, there's no point doing a cheap job since they're only going to be saving a relatively small amount based on the overall expenditure of the project. I e-mailed the RPA about this and they assured me they'd be built-in extra capacity for the system (up to 40,000 passengers an hour in each direction). But for a modest increase they could have DART standard (80,000 per hour in each direction) capacity and be properly future-proofed.

But then again, it was somewhat foolish of me to think that one of the most significant investment projects in the history of city would be properly planned.

Typewriter

BluntGuy wrote: »

Also, I think the Metro should be of a heavy-rail standard too, there's no point doing a cheap job since they're only going to be saving a relatively small amount based on the overall expenditure of the project..................................................But for a modest increase they could have DART standard (80,000 per hour in each direction) capacity and be properly future-proofed.

But then again, it was somewhat foolish of me to think that one of the most significant investment projects in the history of city would be properly planned.

I totally agree that metro north should have been heavy-rail from the start. I also think green line luas should have been DART too.

But since they built the green line to 'metro standards' why cant they extend MN to Beechwood and have it connect with the green line (as sugested by eamon ryan of the greens)

I know people have being saying that with the twisty bendy green line extension that this is no longer possible but i have seen the proposed metro 'trains' used as on-street trams in Porto, Portugal (pic's attached) which is a very steep city with lots of twists and turns.

So why not have a full direct north-south metro/tram line? It would be much more useful and alot easier to sell to the public.


http://www.irishconstruction.com/page/172

BluntGuy

IMHO those trams look awful painted like that. :cool:

But I do get your point. A direct link from North-South would be far more beneficial. As it stands now though, they just need to get the metro done... whether as heavy-rail (as it should be) or the cheap, Luas-esque design they've gone for to save a few bob (I just hope it isn't regretted).

Of course I'm not even bringing the Interconnector into this, a project I believe, needs to be given priority...

steve-o

green_jesus wrote: »

So why not have a full direct north-south metro/tram line? It would be much more useful and alot easier to sell to the public.

It simply can't be done without closing the Luas for a very long time during construction. There's nowhere inside of Miltown for a tunnel entrance/trench to be constructed while keeping Luas running.

ODS

Irish Times Letter Writer wrote:

The underground connection between Houston and Connolly...

So is the Texas Connection now to be axed? Darn :eek:



Irish gauge heavy rail is the only way to do this. Linked to the coast line at Donabate - and so alleviate congestion at Connolly... Particularly useful if Luas Green Line was to be retrofitted and completed to Bray, linking back in with the coast line. City would gain an integrated parallel north-south rail corridor, not the stand-alone underground tram white elephant... No point trying to talk to the RPA however - they're just the NRA on tracks :rolleyes:

http://www.rpa.ie/ wrote:

Metro offers a fully segregated high performance, high capacity rail line for Dublin

Integrated, integrated, integrated...

BluntGuy

Metro offers a fully segregated high performance, high capacity rail line for Dublin

I wish that was true... but it doesn't. It offers a medium-capacity, mid-speed tram line for Dublin. It's way under spec and it isn't future-proofed in any way. And for what? To save a few quid?

The cost of tunnelling is going to be ENORMOUS whether or not the guage is the Irish standard for heavy rail or the International standard for light-rail. THERE IS NO POINT COST-CUTTING NOW ONLY TO REGRET IT LATER.

Like I said before, they can DOUBLE the capacity for a relatively modest increase by upping the spec to heavy-rail. The majority of the cost goes towards tunnelling, so in the overall context of the project the difference in cost caused by using the different guage and larger heavy-rail trains used isn't huge.

The only good thing is that it will segregated from traffic, but they seriously need to up the spec of MN or at least future-proof it so that it can be upgraded to heavy rail in the future. Sadly though, they'll do neither, and in 20 to 30 years time we'll be regretting the cheap-job we did on this project.