DART+ (DART Expansion)

Chivito550 · 17-02-2017 2:39pm

MJohnston wrote: »

Yes, I understand the improvements to reliability and frequency, which will expand options for people already near train stations which are part of the DU upgrades.

I'm not arguing that DU won't be a huge positive for DART usage I'm arguing that it doesn't geographically expand the network map.

No, it doesn't expand it, but it turns our half arsed excuse for public transport into an actual network.

antoinolachtnai · 17-02-2017 2:50pm

Chivito550 wrote: »

DU would also enable a lot more fast short distance trips though. A personal example. I work close to Stephens Green and train on the track out in Irishtown. If DU existed I'd be able to get from Stephens Green to Lansdowne Road station easily. I'm assuming with the DART lines split and therefore with less congestion, DARTs would run at greater frequencies, and so changing at Pearse would be no great deal.

Currently I walk 15 minutes to get the infrequent and often phantom number 1 bus, which crawls through traffic.

The problem is the frequency from pearse to/from St Stephens Green. Off peak you are going to have a significant wait for a train to St Stephens Green. At peak time the wait would be on average 1.875 minutes going by the business case figures; at off-peak I think it would be 5 or even 7 minutes. That combined with the escalator time (probably 3minutes at each station) will mean that you might walk it faster from Pearse, depending on your final destination.

Peak will be better certainly but when a busy northbound train and southbound train arrive at the upstairs platform at Pearse at the same time, the escalators and lifts are going to be very busy indeed. The difficulty of providing the transfer at Pearse will make it difficult for the whole system to scale up over time.

Services from Phibsboro, drumcondra, Broombridge and Blanchardstown to St Stephens Green, in addition to trains from Clongriffin, would sustain a far higher frequency of services at all times of day. And far fewer people would need to change at Pearse.

DART underground is very much designed to serve a suburban and commuter operation. It wasn't really set up to cater for fast transport around the city. I think this was a big mistake, and that an urban metro-style service is needed more than electrified services to towns two counties away.

Bray Head · 17-02-2017 3:06pm

In 25 years time there might be a half a million more people living in the east of Ireland than there are now.

If there are, it will be because of continued growth in high-paying jobs in Dublin city centre.

If this is the case, there will need to be large-scale house building both in the city centre, but also of new suburbs.

DU will be on the only way to transport very large volumes of office workers into the city centre from new suburbs.

MN will help a bit, but there is simply no way that existing modes will be able to do it.

derekbro · 17-02-2017 3:07pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Services from Phibsboro, drumcondra, Broombridge and Blanchardstown to St Stephens Green, in addition to trains from Clongriffin, would sustain a far higher frequency of services at all times of day. And far fewer people would need to change at Pearse.

Would it be possible for you to try and show on a map the train lines you would like as I'm finding it very hard to follow where the above route would go?

antoinolachtnai · 17-02-2017 3:23pm

I should do a map but let me simplify it because I didn't explain it well.

A route beginning at N3/Blanchardstown, running to Coolmine, existing stations to Broombridge, then Glasnevin, Phibsboro, Drumcondra, Summerhill (perhaps), Docklands, Pearse, St Stephen's Green, some other stops in the Dublin 8 area, possibly Liberties and St James's, then Heuston, joining the line toward Adamstown with stops at Inchicore or Kylemore, Cherry Orchard, Clondalkin and Kishogue and finally Adamstown.

How best to make provision to link this tunnel to a service from Finglas or Ballymun is something that would have to be worked out.

murphaph · 17-02-2017 5:45pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I would link the underground tunnel with grade separated junctions to both the Northern (Belfast) and western (maynooth) lines. I would run a line along the reservation from near Coolmine to serve the large population in Blanchardstown and the N3 as a priority over electrifying out to parkland and dormitory towns. I would make provision to link a further line serving the finglas or ballymun areas to be linked in to use the same tunnel in the near future. A high frequency urban style service from Blanchardstown to Adamstown via Docklands and st Stephens Green would be at the heart of the schedule.

This sounds like the proposed project plus some more. We need to get the tunnel built. With a tunnel in place the pressure comes on to extend and add grade separation but if you get hung up on these nice to haves you're losing sight of the bigger picture.

DU would enable a massive reorganisation of bus routes in most of west and north east Dublin. Only when buses stop running into town and start feeding into dart and metro/Luas will we really see the huge capacity unleashed).

The capacity is not there in the existing rail network to allow this at present.

antoinolachtnai · 17-02-2017 5:59pm

I am not the one losing sight of the bigger picture.

There is immense capacity on the DART, but it is under-utilised. The ratio of passengers per km of DART track is pathetic. It is a high capacity rail system on a low-demand route. No amount of running buses will change this for the existing DART, and it will not change it for DART Underground either.

To make connections really work, you need a high-frequency service. DART Underground is not designed to provide a high frequency service except for one section. The rest is all DART-style frequencies. DART style frequencies really won't attract connections any more than the existing DART has. What is needed to achieve what you propose is frequencies similar to what Luas has.

You have to actually plan and design these things.

You can't just add a grade separated junction to the system in 5 years time; the cost of further works is very high in terms of money and disruption and you have to make provision, and no provision has been made. I do not have the DU documents to hand, but I recall that a specific design decision was made not to make any provision for this. You cannot do this; these are long-term assets and you have to make provision for the future.

I am not 'adding on' things to DU. I am mainly suggesting that a load of waste and fat be removed from the project (electrification out to the middle of nowhere) and the emphasis be moved to serving urban needs and the reality that the city area has the greatest potential for growth.

This is an immensely expensive project as it is designed - estimated at 3.3 billion euros according to the Buchanan document - . It is pretty important that you build it right. That doesn't mean you should wait forever, but you do have to incorporate some basic planning for the future.

D.L.R. · 17-02-2017 6:27pm

There's nothing in the original plan preventing a link to the Maynooth line, indeed a single track service link was part of the plan.

antoinolachtnai · 17-02-2017 7:02pm

D.L.R. wrote: »

There's nothing in the original plan preventing a link to the Maynooth line, indeed a single track service link was part of the plan.

An at-grade service link for shunting is a whole different thing from a junction that can be used to run high-frequency services.

I think this was covered in the railway order application documents, and I do not think any provision has been made for it. Maybe it could be done, but it would involve a lot of compulsory purchasing and demolition. The time to design junctions is when you are building a long term plan, not when you suddenly find out your original design was broken (which was obvious anyway).

Chivito550 · 17-02-2017 8:11pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

I am not the one losing sight of the bigger picture.

There is immense capacity on the DART, but it is under-utilised. The ratio of passengers per km of DART track is pathetic. It is a high capacity rail system on a low-demand route. No amount of running buses will change this for the existing DART, and it will not change it for DART Underground either.

To make connections really work, you need a high-frequency service. DART Underground is not designed to provide a high frequency service except for one section. The rest is all DART-style frequencies. DART style frequencies really won't attract connections any more than the existing DART has. What is needed to achieve what you propose is frequencies similar to what Luas has.

You have to actually plan and design these things.

You can't just add a grade separated junction to the system in 5 years time; the cost of further works is very high in terms of money and disruption and you have to make provision, and no provision has been made. I do not have the DU documents to hand, but I recall that a specific design decision was made not to make any provision for this. You cannot do this; these are long-term assets and you have to make provision for the future.

I am not 'adding on' things to DU. I am mainly suggesting that a load of waste and fat be removed from the project (electrification out to the middle of nowhere) and the emphasis be moved to serving urban needs and the reality that the city area has the greatest potential for growth.

This is an immensely expensive project as it is designed - estimated at 3.3 billion euros according to the Buchanan document - . It is pretty important that you build it right. That doesn't mean you should wait forever, but you do have to incorporate some basic planning for the future.

But if you electrify out to Kildare that then opens up a huge area where housing can be developed. New stations could be built along with housing.

Chivito550 · 17-02-2017 9:11pm

Deedsie wrote: »

Is that the best reasoning for investing in DART Expansion? Surely building upwards in DCC and other areas where people work in large numbers?

I still think DART Expansion is extremely important but we have to start actually building accommodation for people where they actually work.

If population forecasts for 20 years time are anything to go by then we probably will need to do both. Building up in city centre and developing land out near Maynooth and Hazelhatch are not mutually exclusive.

Sam Russell · 17-02-2017 9:16pm

Not everyone wants to live in a tower block in the city centre. It is not great to bring up children. There is no guarantee that the apartments will be suitable for living in anyway - they have reduced minimum standards for space, for lifts, for car parking spaces, etc.

donvito99 · 17-02-2017 9:20pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

Not everyone wants to live in a tower block in the city centre. It is not great to bring up children. There is no guarantee that the apartments will be suitable for living in anyway - they have reduced minimum standards for space, for lifts, for car parking spaces, etc.

Is it good for a child to only see their parent(s) before 7am and not again until after 8pm owing to long commutes?

God almighty the Irish aversion to apartments is hilarious...

MJohnston · 17-02-2017 9:25pm

donvito99 wrote: »

Is it good for a child to only see their parent(s) before 7am and not again until after 8pm owing to long commutes?

God almighty the Irish aversion to apartments is hilarious...

How would that even happen? A 2 hour morning commute and a 3 hour evening one? Such wild exaggeration doesn't help anything. Maynooth is currently about 1 hour by commuter rail, and DU would reduce that to maybe 30-40 minutes.

Chivito550 · 17-02-2017 9:35pm

Pure pie in the sky stuff, but let's say Bill Gates donates about 6 billion of his fortune to the Irish government to build DU and MN, under the agreement that work must start immediately, how long would each project take until it is ready for use?

MJohnston · 17-02-2017 9:52pm

5 or 6 years for MN was mentioned in 2015.

strassenwo!f · 17-02-2017 10:25pm

I broadly understand what Antoin is saying. But why add an extra spur to/from Blanchardstown into the Maynooth line, with its level crossings and circuitous route, adding extra services for areas which will have plenty if the current plan is eventually implemented? It takes what, around 11 minutes (with currently no stops), to get from Drumcondra to Connolly? Not efficient.

Why not plan for a Blanchardstown - Heuston line, broadly along the route of the defunct metro west, feeding into the Hazelhatch line, and into the DU project from the West of the city. It might need some tunnelled sections, some overground sections, but overall it could be able to hoover up people from some of the many areas of the city which need proper public transport connections with the city centre.

It would utilise some of the vast excess capacity in the tunnel part of this project.

And it would very possibly be quicker to the most desired parts of the city than a spur from the Maynooth line.

It is sensible, as far as is possible, to put trains from the West of the city into the tunnel from the West, and trains from the East into the tunnel from the East.

D.L.R. · 17-02-2017 10:35pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

An at-grade service link for shunting is a whole different thing from a junction that can be used to run high-frequency services.

I think this was covered in the railway order application documents, and I do not think any provision has been made for it. Maybe it could be done, but it would involve a lot of compulsory purchasing and demolition. The time to design junctions is when you are building a long term plan, not when you suddenly find out your original design was broken (which was obvious anyway).

You have to clarify exactly what you mean by "at grade" and "grade separated" regarding this junction. Maynooth and Northern lines are already grade separated.

liamog · 17-02-2017 10:45pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

DART underground is very much designed to serve a suburban and commuter operation. It wasn't really set up to cater for fast transport around the city. I think this was a big mistake, and that an urban metro-style service is needed more than electrified services to towns two counties away.

Dart Underground is exactly that though, it's a suburban commuter link. Designed to get people into the city from the suburbs.

Connecting to the Maynooth line isn't going to change that.
It was designed for a world where Metro North and Luas BXD exist.

The possible journeys for Coolmine to Stephens Green become.
1. Dart from Coolmine to Boombridge, Luas to Stephens Green
2. Dart from Coolmine to Drumcondra, Metro to Stephens Green
3. Dart from Coolmine to Pearse, Dart to Stephens Green

There doesn't seem to be a point in running a Dart from Coolmine to Stephens Green directly.

This is what I'm talking about when I mention the network effect.

antoinolachtnai · 17-02-2017 10:46pm

Grade separated, i.e., the paths of trains do not cross. The train turning right (say from the tunnel towards the northern line) can do so without interrupting the path of southbound trains (on say the Maynooth line or the Northern line). This is obviously more expensive than at-grade junctions, but it allows for very high frequencies.

antoinolachtnai · 17-02-2017 11:13pm

liamog wrote: »

Dart Underground is exactly that though, it's a suburban commuter link. Designed to get people into the city from the suburbs.

The problem is that that isn't what the city needs. The city needs urban rail more.

Connecting to the Maynooth line isn't going to change that.
It was designed for a world where Metro North and Luas BXD exist.

The possible journeys for Coolmine to Stephens Green become.
1. Dart from Coolmine to Boombridge, Luas to Stephens Green
2. Dart from Coolmine to Drumcondra, Metro to Stephens Green
3. Dart from Coolmine to Pearse, Dart to Stephens Green

There doesn't seem to be a point in running a Dart from Coolmine to Stephens Green directly.

This is what I'm talking about when I mention the network effect.

All of these journeys are possible, I suppose. They are all going to take at least 50 percent longer than a direct train.

What is the 'point' of a direct train from Drogheda to St Stephen's Green? Not many people live up there. Those passengers can equally well change at Pearse, and there will be a lot fewer of them. Or more sensibly, a large proportion of trains from that direction could go to St Stephens Green directly.

What is the 'point' of the train from Coolmine going to Dun Laoghaire? A lot more people want to go to St Stephen's Green compared to Dun Laoghaire.

Pearse isn't really a great station for having hundreds of people change trains. There is too far a distance between the platforms.

The thing to do is model it against likely journeys and see how it works out. But there are just a lot more useful journeys to be had with the Blanchardstown-Coolmine-Docklands-Stephens Green-Heuston route.

(Drumcondra to Connolly, incidentally, is 4 minutes. And the Maynooth line would obviously need to be grade-separated from the road, but this is as I understand it part of the plan for DART Underground anyway.)

D.L.R. · 17-02-2017 11:40pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Grade separated, i.e., the paths of trains do not cross. The train turning right (say from the tunnel towards the northern line) can do so without interrupting the path of southbound trains (on say the Maynooth line or the Northern line). This is obviously more expensive than at-grade junctions, but it allows for very high frequencies.

Ok got you. Makes sense. The Northern line was always the weak link in the Dart masterplan.

liamog · 17-02-2017 11:58pm

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The problem is that that isn't what the city needs. The city needs urban rail more.

That's where we disagree, the current city needs better capacity on it's suburban rail. We've a choke point at a Connolly due to the Northern & Western Lines merging into the South Eastern Line.

Your proposal moves the choke point to the tunnel instead.

We'd have the Northern & Western lines merging at the tunnel to lead into the South Western line.

I'm in favor of a good urban rail network and a denser core for Dublin but DU is a spine to connect our suburban network. It's the S-Bahn, not the U-Bhan.
(really hoping I've got my German railways the correct way round)

derekbro · 18-02-2017 12:02am

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

What is the 'point' of a direct train from Drogheda to St Stephen's Green? Not many people live up there. Those passengers can equally well change at Pearse, and there will be a lot fewer of them. Or more sensibly, a large proportion of trains from that direction could go to St Stephens Green directly.

I think there would be a lot more people on the trains from Drogheda direction(DARTs from Malahide and Howth included) than on a train from Maynooth direction. I'm not sure why you think it would be the other way around as there are many more DART trains at the moment than trains from Maynooth.

antoinolachtnai · 18-02-2017 12:08am

The choke point there is the junction arrangements going into Connolly and the south-eastern line, its relatively low demand, its level crossings, and a shortage of platforms to turn trains around.

The grade separation and running trains towards Heuston and Adamstown means you don't really have a choke point like that anymore.

If you look at Frankfurt, they have an S-bahn which consists of a number of different suburban lines converging in one tunnel to provide a high frequency city centre service as well as a suburban service.

For sure, a modified East-West Tunnel isn't going to resolve all the urban transport needs. But it can solve a lot more than the unmodified DU plan.

dublinman1990 · 18-02-2017 12:20am

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The problem is that that isn't what the city needs. The city needs urban rail more.

All of these journeys are possible, I suppose. They are all going to take at least 50 percent longer than a direct train.

What is the 'point' of a direct train from Drogheda to St Stephen's Green? Not many people live up there. Those passengers can equally well change at Pearse, and there will be a lot fewer of them. Or more sensibly, a large proportion of trains from that direction could go to St Stephens Green directly.

What is the 'point' of the train from Coolmine going to Dun Laoghaire? A lot more people want to go to St Stephen's Green compared to Dun Laoghaire.

Pearse isn't really a great station for having hundreds of people change trains. There is too far a distance between the platforms.

The thing to do is model it against likely journeys and see how it works out. But there are just a lot more useful journeys to be had with the Blanchardstown-Coolmine-Docklands-Stephens Green-Heuston route.

(Drumcondra to Connolly, incidentally, is 4 minutes. And the Maynooth line would obviously need to be grade-separated from the road, but this is as I understand it part of the plan for DART Underground anyway.)

If you look at a standard commuter journey made by via any of PT mode particularly urban rail; the pattern of that journey doesn't radically change that much as it's mostly a set routine from one place to another for those commuters every single day to make them get to work. But; if you make a rail journey, just for the point of making a leisure trip, well the pattern of that trip in itself would be more unpredictable. This is because a journey pattern for a random leisure trip is a completely random aspect of going from one place to another.

To take your example; people could go by train from Coolmine to Dun Laoghaire because they would be commuters would go to work every day. That is a routine that is a set journey for them every single day. Leisure trips are not like that whatsoever. Their own course is more of a unpredictable nature. DU could make more leisure trips on their service because the possibilities for that to happen are endless without a definitive conclusion for passengers number uptake that will use the service from one place to the other.

If the original plan of DU was built & opened in full; the amount of journeys on that line going from place could be a extremely high number per user going from Hazelhatch to Balbriggan because it goes right through underneath the heart of DCC.

However; if you had put DU between Blanchardstown & Adamstown. You could leave DU with a completely different service requirement than compared to the original proposal. Whether that would be a success or a fail is left for Dubliners & the NTA to decide in any case.

It will be interesting to see your map for the new proposal for further analysis. I can't wait to see it.

antoinolachtnai · 18-02-2017 12:21am

derekbro wrote: »

I think there would be a lot more people on the trains from Drogheda direction(DARTs from Malahide and Howth included) than on a train from Maynooth direction. I'm not sure why you think it would be the other way around as there are many more DART trains at the moment than trains from Maynooth.

Because a lot more people live within the catchment of a train to Coolmine-Blanchardstown than live within the catchment of the existing DART.

Because the existing DART runs along the coast, its catchment is very limited. The 53km service only carries around 16 million people per year. It is really not a very successful railway line.

The Luas by contrast, is only about 36km but carries twice as many people per year, despite having a much smaller capacity.

liamog · 18-02-2017 12:34am

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The choke point there is the junction arrangements going into Connolly and the south-eastern line, its relatively low demand, its level crossings, and a shortage of platforms to turn trains around.

According to the latest Heavy Rail Census it's actually the busiest section
Heavy Rail Census 2015/

Daily Boardings Inbound to City Centre

Northern Line 23,928 (14,432 DART, 8,103 Commuter, 1,393 InterCity)
South Eastern Line 25,524 (22,081 DART, 1,326 Commuter, 2,117 InterCity)
Heuston Lines 12,413 (2,887 Commuter, 9,526 InterCity)
Sligo Lines 11,407 (9,396 Commuter, 2,011 InterCity)

antoinolachtnai · 18-02-2017 12:43am

That's because it has more departures and more access to platforms than the other lines. Anyone who can read a map can see that the catchment of the DART is severely limited by geographical features. The other lines would deliver far more passengers if they had as many stations and passengers. The Luas, which is more than twice as busy per km as the DART proves the point.

There is immense latent demand for high quality public transport services in Dublin (as I am sure everybody here agrees).

liamog · 18-02-2017 12:47am

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

That's because it has more departures and more access to platforms than the other lines. Anyone who can read a map can see that the catchment of the DART is severely limited by geographical features. The other lines would deliver far more passengers if they had as many stations and passengers. The Luas, which is more than twice as busy per km as the DART proves the point.

There is immense latent demand for high quality public transport services in Dublin (as I am sure everybody here agrees).

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

The choke point there is the junction arrangements going into Connolly and the south-eastern line, its relatively low demand, its level crossings, and a shortage of platforms to turn trains around.

emphasis added by me

Ok so you're now at the point where your saying that the busiest part of the current network has the lowest demand ???

DART+ (DART Expansion)

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