DART+ (DART Expansion)

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123821549#Comment_123821549

The old entrance is now converted to offices so reopening it isn’t really an option.

The main reason that it was closed was the frequency and severity of the attacks on staff.

loco_scolo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123821559#Comment_123821559

Wow this comment is really surprising/shocking to me. By your logic, we should deprive all areas in the country, that are already deprived, of improved access to public transport......

I lived in that area for years, and currently live nearby. Yes, there are many social issues, but there are also a lot of very decent, hard working people who, among other things, work in offices in the city…

bikeman1

I also agree with needing a re think for the area.

Post the C2CC works, Amiens Street and the whole road up to Fairview is a much more pleasant place. The area is starting to feel a bit loved at last. The new walkway along by the canal at Docklands to Newcomen Bridge and now all the way to Phibsboro is great too. They are really trying to sort Talbot St out as well.

Why do I mention all of this? Because opening up places, putting in businesses at really good rents to fill the place and make it busy will turn this area around.

Clean it up, brighten it up and staff it. Also it needs to be open in line with rail services and not peak time Mon - Fri.

KrisW1001

DART is public transport. The clue is in the name: transport for the public. That’s not “transport for people from a good area”. It’s not “transport for people who went to the right **** school”. It’s for everyone. The only barrier to entry is the price of the ticket, and we keep that low through our taxes so that people who don’t have a lot of money can get around without needing the expense of a private car or taxis.

Yes, I’m sure there are dirtbags living around there - it’d be a very strange neighbourhood that had no troublesome teenagers in it: but the real difference is that their dads can’t pick up the phone and hire an expensive lawyer to get matters dropped or settled before they get in front of a judge.

murphaph

I think the plan for the Preston St. entrance is one of the best bits of DART+ to be honest.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123821883#Comment_123821883

I should have phrased my post better - the social issues comment really relates to why the previous entrance closed.

Just to be clear, I am not for minute suggesting that there aren’t a significant number of decent people living there.

But I was really commenting on the relevance of the population density comment that you made. The vast majority of the people living around Connolly are not going to be commuting by rail in any great number. Work or whatever services etc. is mainly going to be nearby in the local community and city centre.

I am not saying that the entrance shouldn’t happen, it absolutely should and will help, but I don’t believe that the population density around the station is as relevant as that in a suburban commuter station.

For the record I’ve worked in the area around Connolly for almost 10 years myself, so I’m acutely aware of the problems. The cycle lanes post-completion have indeed improved the streetscape.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123821883#Comment_123821883

Would help if the council stopped driving the area in to a deprived ghetto. The last 10 years has been a disgrace. More and more homeless accomodation and social housing being put there instead of elsewhere and all the attendant addiction problems and crime that goes with such.

So yes, IE might do something positive with the entrance but with the damage being done by the council it doesn't compare. Most of the problems are being shoved in to that area unfortunately.

loco_scolo

Yes the area has many problems. Let's not get pulled into that discussion here!

@LXFlyer I get the point you're making, but definitely disagree that population density is not a major factor re public transport access. The area below surrounding Connolly has 17000 people, as per 2022 CSO data. But access to Connolly is terrible.

I used to live in North Strand near the fire station and commuted to Ballsbridge for work. Connolly was a pain in the a$$ to get to, so more often than not I took the bus to town and switched.

Citizen Six

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123821549#Comment_123821549

The bunker is long gone. There's photos in one of the threads here showing the former entrance, as the offices they are now.

highdef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123822467#Comment_123822467

Clontarf Road railway station is probably only a little over 1km walking distance from North Strand fire station. I'd say it could easily be got to on foot in fifteen minutes, if not less. I'd imagine Connolly railway station is a slightly further distance but not a huge amount more but in both cases, absolutely walkable on a daily basis assuming you're not very elderly and/or have any disabilities. I wouldn't even think about contemplating using public transport for such a short distance unless I was in a huge rush for something unexpected, which would then mean I'd be taking a taxi.

murphaph

Connolly generally needs better access. It's too big a site to have so few entrances and all at the extreme south end of the site. I would like to see them replicate the Preston Street project on Sheriff Street, by opening up the vaults there to provide an inviting street level entrance. Ideally they could provide a pedestrian connection right under the station that allows people to access the desired platform directly from beneath. The plans for Preston Street also include an emergency access route to North Strand. That should become a normal entrance really.

The Mathematician

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123822863#Comment_123822863

I wonder what the reaction would be if car owners were told that they had to park 1km away from their home unless they were very elderly and/or had any disabilities? And then told that if they were in a rush, they could take a taxi?

DrivingSouth

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123824179#Comment_123824179

I would love an underpass joining all the platforms. I'm sick of coming in on platform 1 and trying to make platform 5 in 2 mins for my connection. Especially considering the vaults are there. There must be space for it

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123825636#Comment_123825636

IIRC there was a bridge at one point

L1011

Removed for DART catenary works I think, if not before.

KrisW1001

My gut feeling is that Connolly will become a much smaller station as IÉ’s long-term plans get implemented. Eventually, it’ll be just DART and the Belfast train, and post-DU even the Belfast service might shift over to terminate at the Spencer Dock surface station, as that would offer better onward connections.

murphaph

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123826933#Comment_123826933

Yeah maybe but those plans are realistically decades from fruition so I wouldn't hold off on improving access to Connolly for that reason. I'm not sure you were actually suggesting that. Apologies if not.

spillit67

If nothing else, it will be good to reorientate people’s view of Connolly.

It’s very much an enter / exit from the east, west and south. The facade of the building doesn’t actually look that way though, it’s been reengineered over time to be like that. I suppose it’s a near 200 year thing with Connolly fitting in unfortunately to the area…

Even just the psychological element of being able to exit easily onto Amiens Street at basically the Five Lamps should help footfall. Fingers crossed something amazing goes into Aldborough House before it falls down on us…

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123827325#Comment_123827325

Yep, I don’t see Connolly becoming “just a DART station” any time in the next 20 years. In the meantime, any improvement to access, especially to the DART platforms, will be a good thing - it’ll still be needed.

riddlinrussell

The IÉ mentality that train stations are bunkers with as few ways in and out is maddening. So many 'easy' wins in terms of increasing catchment, especially for city stations, if they basically just put an entrance at each end of every platform and a bridge/underpass at both ends.

AngryLips

Let's face it, all this talk of the new entrance for Connolly is just hot air because, as shown with Irish Rail at Tara and Pearse, Irish Rail cannot be trusted to keep secondary entrances opened during operational service. The expensive new entrances at the two other stations are closed most of the day outside rush hour. But the excuse to close the old Amien Street entrance on the grounds of anti social behaviour is also total BS - antisocial behaviour is usually the product of bad design, Broombridge station is a prime example of this.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123839987#Comment_123839987

From my understanding, it wasn’t anti-social behaviour that closed this: the additional DART entrance on Amiens St was closed because the building that it was in was closed to the public.

There were two station buildings at “Connolly”: the old Great Northern terminus (Platforms 1-4) and the later City of Dublin Junction Railway (5-7) through-station. The CJDR building used to be a separate DART station with its own entrance hall, but when Connolly was renovated between 1997 and 1999 to move the main entrance to the south of the complex, the DART ticket hall was combined with the mainline one and all of the entrances were moved into the main Great Northern station building (this is when the IFSC entrance was added at Harbourmaster Place).

Open to correction on this, though, as it’s only a hazy memory of one trip in the 1980s.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123840539#Comment_123840539

You could enter P5-7 from the main entrance pre-refurb - the entrance from P4 to P5 was already there as was the subway.

I'm not sure if there was any, or anything left more specifically, original CJDR entrance - the entrance that was closed at that time was much newer construction than the CJDR station.

The main entrance from Amiens Street at the time was escalators straight up through what was most recently the pub.

edit: Geohive suggests there was no original CJDR entrance hall, and it was always through the GNR station. As well as the subway there was also a footbridge from P1 to P6/7 just after the main trainshed ended.

loyatemu

the subway from 4/5 to 6/7 was renovated and widened around 20 years ago in a project they grandiosely named "Dartlink", not long after this was completed they closed the Amiens street Dart ticket hall. IDK if anti-social behaviour was a big issue, either way I got the impression they wanted everyone entering through the main hall.

They also renovated the main hall shortly afterwards, including putting in automated lockers to replace the old left luggage facility (then they removed the lockers a few years later).

Zebra3

I always got the impression that part of the reason the old entrance was closed was to increase footfall going past all the then new businesses inside Connolly. But maybe I’m just a cynic.

Former Former Former

In fairness to IE, anti-social behaviour is a problem around Connolly and security is expensive. For a company that is never flush with cash, it's not a big leap to say "f**k this, close the doors".

KrisW1001

Yep, Connolly always struck me as a terrible introduction to Dublin: “Welcome to the Republic - watch your bags.” The Loop Line itself is a major contributor to that, as it made the whole area really unpleasant to live in. It’s not so bad now with electric trains, but imagine the soot and smoke from steam engines settling down over your house all day.

(As a structure, it’s also ugly a.f., but that’s only a secondary issue)

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123846246#Comment_123846246

They were going to replace it years a go with a much more transparent golden arch bridge. Don't know what happened to that idea.

Yes, that area is dreadful, depressing, and getting worse with proliferation of homeless accomodation, too concentrated social housing and drug services and the rest all being crammed in. Shame. It will be a no-go area in the not too distant future if it isn't getting there already. Blame the authorities. They see it as a dumping ground. A young lad stabbed 20 times on Eden Quay just the other night. All sorts of scrotes and miscreants hanging in and around Connolly.

goingnowhere

The original CDJR did have a station on Amiens Street, it was a GNR(I) style affair with a covered cab road. This was demolished in the 1970's in favour of the new blockhouse style unit which lasted in public use until the early 2000's

This had access to platforms 7/6, this area was totally rebuilt during the DART project which took away part of the footbridge. The steps up from street level are really steep and bear in mind up until the 1970's trains to Sligo, Galway, Westport operated from Pearse so thats where passengers traveled to/from

Zebra3

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2025/10/03/cairn-offers-75m-package-to-clontarf-golf-club-members-to-relocate-to-kinsealy/

Paywalled piece from yesterday, but it does say this:

He indicated that Cairn would engage with Dublin City Council, CIE (which owns two acres at the site) and the club to secure rezoning and planning permission for the land, which is located 4.3km (2.6 miles) from O’Connell Street.

Had no idea CIÉ owned any of that site. Interesting.