Dublin Metrolink (just Metrolink posts here -see post #1 )

dubhthach

patrickbrophy18 wrote: »

Good analogy alright. It illustrates exactly how people in this country are too fussy when it comes to large scale developments and are so reluctant to embrace change. It is exactly this reason that our country has failed to fulfill it's true potential. I will list a few previously proposed developments that would have installed people with more confidence in this country in this economic recession:

1. In the 1980's, the DART system was originally planned for Howth, Bray AND Maynooth. Political meddling caused the latter to be ommitted. No doubt some NIMBY's were responsible.
2. In the early 2000's, a massive theme park was proposed for a spot in North Dublin. It was rejected by means of local NIMBY's who only saw the negative side of the development. This not only re-enforces the fact that we are a pesemistic nation but it also makes us appear simple minded to countries that actual do fulfill their potential. Nevermind the employment opportunities that went out the window with it. This is an embarrassment to people like myself who want to see progress and see the nation as a creative and prosperous one. While the figures proposed were unrealistic, it at least deserved to be given more consideration and time to improve on the proposal.
3. A development which would triple the population of Enniscorthy. This would more than likely have generated demand for more rail services and more investment into the communities along the rail corridor. It was rejected because it was considered out of character with the surrounding environment. Again, potential success is thrown away on account of typical Irish NIMBY-ism.

We have 10's of thousands of empty houses and you think it would be a good idea to build enough houses to triple population of Enniscorthy? Would this also include schools/public services? How is building tonnes of housing a "potential success"?

where's my crack pipe as I'd like to have some of what you are smoking.

Son of Stupido

For those who think the green line can't be upgraded to metro, see below!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1005/1224280402941.html

Daithio_poster

I really hope that this goes ahead. It's a tough one to contemplate in the economic climate but I really think that it is so necessary.
As an example, I live in North Dublin, a fifteen minute drive from the airport.
A couple of weeks ago - I decided to be cheap and forgo the taxi queue. I can't get an express bus because I don't need to go all the way into town.
Once I had found the unsignposted regular Dublin buses which are hidden behind the carpark, gone back into the terminal to buy a 90 minute ticket (not available in the ticket machine, which was broken anyway) and then sat there for half an hour while 40 French tourists counted out their cents, because they weren't allowed to pay in bulk - my journey finally began.
It took an hour and a half and three separate buses to travel the few miles to my house. I didn't mind because I don't get to Dublin much and I enjoy seeing my old stomping ground and the driver was a very pleasant and helpful chap even when dealing with 40 confused French tourists - but it really reinforced to me why we so desperately need a rail link from the airport to town.
The muddle of buses and payment methods at the airport and then the inevitable tailbacks on the way into town are not in any way going to entice tourists or business travellers for that matter to make a return visit.

My own theory is that most of the big-wigs, planners and decision makers involved in the Luas and the Metro tend to live on the South side and are more familiar with it and hence transport plans in Dublin are ludicrously southside-centric.

DWCommuter

Son of Stupido wrote: »

For those who think the green line can't be upgraded to metro, see below!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/1005/1224280402941.html

"Anything can be done" = Codology from Tom Manning.

I'm sure it would be capable of an upgrade, but its obvious that it wasn't really built to facilitate it at a minimal cost. The costs would be very high. One only has to look at the route around Ballyogan to see that.

This whole story about upgrading the green line to metro needs to be consigned to the bin once and for all. It was a political ruse started in the late 1990s, due to incompetent interference.

In say all this, I can see why it was routed along the route it takes. At least its serving reasonably populated areas despite the "gap" around Carrickmines and Brennanstown.

etchyed

Daithio_poster wrote: »

I really hope that this goes ahead. It's a tough one to contemplate in the economic climate but I really think that it is so necessary.
As an example, I live in North Dublin, a fifteen minute drive from the airport.
A couple of weeks ago - I decided to be cheap and forgo the taxi queue. I can't get an express bus because I don't need to go all the way into town.
Once I had found the unsignposted regular Dublin buses which are hidden behind the carpark, gone back into the terminal to buy a 90 minute ticket (not available in the ticket machine, which was broken anyway) and then sat there for half an hour while 40 French tourists counted out their cents, because they weren't allowed to pay in bulk - my journey finally began.
It took an hour and a half and three separate buses to travel the few miles to my house. I didn't mind because I don't get to Dublin much and I enjoy seeing my old stomping ground and the driver was a very pleasant and helpful chap even when dealing with 40 confused French tourists - but it really reinforced to me why we so desperately need a rail link from the airport to town.
The muddle of buses and payment methods at the airport and then the inevitable tailbacks on the way into town are not in any way going to entice tourists or business travellers for that matter to make a return visit.

Whilst I'm in favour of Metro North, none of the problems you've described couldn't be solved by a better organized bus service. In and of themselves, they are absolutely no justification for the building of a rail line. There are far better reasons for that.

My own theory is that most of the big-wigs, planners and decision makers involved in the Luas and the Metro tend to live on the South side and are more familiar with it and hence transport plans in Dublin are ludicrously southside-centric.

"Your own theory" is a little too simplistic and conspiratorial for my liking.

Daithio_poster

etchyed wrote: »

"Your own theory" is a little too simplistic and conspiratorial for my liking.

I know that's fair enough. It is my own pet theory with absolutely no basis in fact or research

I do think that the routes into town from Drumcondra Road right over to Finglas are just too congested and make commuting by public transport unpleasant and almost unfeasible. Not to mention the nightmare of commuting from further out places such as Swords. No wonder people stick to the comfort of their cars.
I hope that the government has the foresight to push this project through and that we can enjoy the same type of benefits that the two Luas lines have given to those in the south and the south-west.

etchyed

Daithio_poster wrote: »

I know that's fair enough. It is my own pet theory with absolutely no basis in fact or research

I do think that the routes into town from Drumcondra Road right over to Finglas are just too congested and make commuting by public transport unpleasant and almost unfeasible. Not to mention the nightmare of commuting from further out places such as Swords. No wonder people stick to the comfort of their cars.
I hope that the government has the foresight to push this project through and that we can enjoy the same type of benefits that the two Luas lines have given to those in the south and the south-west.

Indeed. And sorry if my post was a bit unwelcoming, just that most of the problems you described in your first post about coming from the airport are Dublin Bus's fault, as opposed to the fault of the bus as a mode of transport.

Aard

Mr Manning is comparing the outskirts of the Green line to the Paris metro. I wonder has he ever ridden the Paris metro. Its stops are quite close because it serves a city centre of over 2 million people, in an urban area of 10 million. And fwiw, because the trains can't build up too much speed between stops, people find the metro slow and prefer to take the RER if possible.

I would understand if he had compared it to Marseille, or Copenhagen, or Seville, but I guess that those don't sound as grand as London or Paris. Also, London generally doesn't have a short distance between stops, so his argument pretty much falls apart.

BrianD

Daithio_poster wrote: »

I really hope that this goes ahead. It's a tough one to contemplate in the economic climate but I really think that it is so necessary.
As an example, I live in North Dublin, a fifteen minute drive from the airport.
A couple of weeks ago - I decided to be cheap and forgo the taxi queue. I can't get an express bus because I don't need to go all the way into town.
Once I had found the unsignposted regular Dublin buses which are hidden behind the carpark, gone back into the terminal to buy a 90 minute ticket (not available in the ticket machine, which was broken anyway) and then sat there for half an hour while 40 French tourists counted out their cents, because they weren't allowed to pay in bulk - my journey finally began.
It took an hour and a half and three separate buses to travel the few miles to my house. I didn't mind because I don't get to Dublin much and I enjoy seeing my old stomping ground and the driver was a very pleasant and helpful chap even when dealing with 40 confused French tourists - but it really reinforced to me why we so desperately need a rail link from the airport to town.
The muddle of buses and payment methods at the airport and then the inevitable tailbacks on the way into town are not in any way going to entice tourists or business travellers for that matter to make a return visit.

My own theory is that most of the big-wigs, planners and decision makers involved in the Luas and the Metro tend to live on the South side and are more familiar with it and hence transport plans in Dublin are ludicrously southside-centric.

Well I think you must have been unfortunate. You can't miss the bus services as they are all signposted from the airport terminal. Dublin Airport actually has a great bus options now. For example, Airport to the Sean Moore road over is an 18 min trip with aircoach.

There's zero justification for building an airport-city rail link unless it is a swords-airport-city route. There's no business for it!

BrianD

DWCommuter wrote: »

"Anything can be done" = Codology from Tom Manning.

I'm sure it would be capable of an upgrade, but its obvious that it wasn't really built to facilitate it at a minimal cost. The costs would be very high. One only has to look at the route around Ballyogan to see that.

This whole story about upgrading the green line to metro needs to be consigned to the bin once and for all. It was a political ruse started in the late 1990s, due to incompetent interference.

In say all this, I can see why it was routed along the route it takes. At least its serving reasonably populated areas despite the "gap" around Carrickmines and Brennanstown.

I don't know why they keep trotting out this metro guage rubbish. They've built a tram line. That's all it will ever be. End of story. It will only every be a Metro if the completely close it and rebuild everything. The only saving is that they can re use some track. I'm surprised at the RPA that they can still push out this ridiculous theory to the public. Then again they may well be an uninformed as I think they are.

I'm stunned that the Irish Rail Users or whatever they call themselves can express surprise about the build. 5 years ago is when they should have expressed their concerns.

dowlingm

What would it take to (light) Metroise Green Line:

• Acquire 2.65m Citadis trams (similar to Paris T3) or similar.
• Chop the platforms back to 2.65m width.
• Optional: extend the platforms to permit double or triple unit trains, do the same for the power infrastructure.
• Send the 2.40m trams to other LUAS extension.
• Accept that the 2.65m trams won't be interoperable with Red Line.
• Grade separate any junctions

Connecting Green Line to Metro North would be a whole other story, essentially requiring extending the tunnel under Green Line for a good way out and then chopping out the line to permit a portal from the -1 level to the basically elevated level of the inner Green Line wherever there is a suitable distance between bridges.

Having wide distances between stops is tricky because then you're basically going to require a parallel An Lar bus for people who can't, for mobility reasons, walk a distance of 400-600m to the middle of the interstop zone and then however many metres off the route they live.

monument

BrianD wrote: »

I don't know why they keep trotting out this metro guage rubbish. They've built a tram line. That's all it will ever be. End of story. It will only every be a Metro if the completely close it and rebuild everything. The only saving is that they can re use some track. I'm surprised at the RPA that they can still push out this ridiculous theory to the public. Then again they may well be an uninformed as I think they are.

A metro can mean a lot of things.

What exactly do you think it means?

DWCommuter

BrianD wrote: »

I don't know why they keep trotting out this metro guage rubbish. They've built a tram line. That's all it will ever be. End of story. It will only every be a Metro if the completely close it and rebuild everything. The only saving is that they can re use some track. I'm surprised at the RPA that they can still push out this ridiculous theory to the public. Then again they may well be an uninformed as I think they are.

I'm stunned that the Irish Rail Users or whatever they call themselves can express surprise about the build. 5 years ago is when they should have expressed their concerns.

In fairness to Rail Users Ireland, they did express concerns 5 years ago. I assume they are just restating those concerns now.

However its worth pointing out that the issue on the Green line extension/conversion to metro issue that RUI put forward 5 years ago was based on the fundamentals of a route that could easily be converted to a metro at a later date. If the Green line extension was built along the original Harcourt street alignment, then upgrading it was easy. But the route would not have served the more densely populated area that the current extension serves.
With that said, the current extension was built with minimal grade separation and was always going to be a glorified tram line despite the width of the alignment allowing for wider metro style vehicles. (Thats just a repeat of the original green line metro story) This is why Mannings comments are bonkers and ultimately disingenuous .

A real plan with real commitment would have seen a metro running from Cherrywood to Swords via the airport and with a branch to Tallaght. But we procrastinated, built a tram system around the southside of the city (more or less) and left the northside to stew in the current dilemma that is metro north.

In conclusion. The Government are bull****ters. Their agencies are just mandarins that clean up the bull**** without actually admitting that it was bull**** in the first place.

DWCommuter

monument wrote: »

A metro can mean a lot of things.

What exactly do you think it means?

I'll take this one....

A rapid transit, metro, subway, underground, or elevated railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with high capacity and frequency, and which is grade separated from other traffic. ...

Thats not the luas anyway.

You're turn next.;)

monument

DWCommuter wrote: »

Thats not the luas anyway.

You're turn next.;)

Sounds like It could be Metro North and it could be the Green Line with a (costly) upgrade.

Zebra3

http://www.irishtimes.com/letters/index.html#1224280470263

More rubbish in today's Times. :rolleyes:

spacetweek

Zebra3 wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/letters/index.html#1224280470263

More rubbish in today's Times. :rolleyes:

Don't see anything about the Metro there, is it archived? What did it say?

spacetweek

The "upgrade Green line" article points out something I'd always noticed - the Racecourse stop is miles away from the racecourse and serves no purpose whatsoever. The whole point of trams is that like buses, they generally drop you very near your destination (i.e. coverage is higher) compared to underground rail/commuter rail which is more based around the idea of dropping you off in some kind of transport node from where you switch to another mode (or walk) in order to complete your journey. What exactly, then, is the point of a tram stop that serves a destination that requires a 20 minute walk to get to the destination? They would have been better off providing nothing at all.

As for the upgrade, Stephen's G.-Sandyford is feasible but not the rest. I think an upgrade will consist of the existing Luas service running Bray-Broombridge and the Metro sharing the Ranelagh-Sandyford segment. That leaves 3 level crossings: Stillorgan and Milltown (which can be closed) and Beechwood (which cannot). The metro would also not stop at all stops (e.g. Stillorgan, Beechwood, Cowper).

runway16

spacetweek wrote: »

Don't see anything about the Metro there, is it archived? What did it say?

A chap wrote in to make comments on the project. He felt it was the wrong plan and that the Dublin-Belfast rail line should be diverted to the airport, and further diverted to serve Heuston station. He's not wrong in my view - that should happen anyway and seperately of metro, but he missed the point, as most people seem to, that the metro is not just an airport rail link.

He also argued that we cant fill the "0.7 billion euro tunnel"..... again missing the point that the tunnel was designed to get heavy vehicles in and out of the port quickly and is tolled so as to discourage private cars for that very reason.

These are easy points to explain to people - but it isn't being done. Why aren't the RPA out explaining this??

It makes me wonder if the agenda is really to have the project cancelled through misinformation.

Sponge Bob

The project will be cancelled as impossible to finance...if anything. Have you not read this discussed from here ??

monument

spacetweek wrote: »

Don't see anything about the Metro there, is it archived? What did it say?

Here's a link to the letter in question;

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2010/1006/1224280470263.html

LeinsterDub

spacetweek wrote: »

The "upgrade Green line" article points out something I'd always noticed - the Racecourse stop is miles away from the racecourse and serves no purpose whatsoever. The whole point of trams is that like buses, they generally drop you very near your destination (i.e. coverage is higher) compared to underground rail/commuter rail which is more based around the idea of dropping you off in some kind of transport node from where you switch to another mode (or walk) in order to complete your journey. What exactly, then, is the point of a tram stop that serves a destination that requires a 20 minute walk to get to the destination? They would have been better off providing nothing at all.

I don't see why a feeder bus wouldn't work perfectly here . The stop was only going to be used for big days anyway ?

KC61

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I don't see why a feeder bus wouldn't work perfectly here . The stop was only going to be used for big days anyway ?

A couple of reasons:
1) Sandyford is closer
2) Sandyford is cheaper

This Metro North, is it just another name for a Luas line? As in, what kind of carriage is going to be used? Dart or Luas or something else?

If its something else it seems kind of nuts to have 3 different light rail systems in 1 city

Excuse my ignorance if I'm way off the mark on this, I'm not at all familiar with this project

oharach

Deleted User wrote: »

This Metro North, is it just another name for a Luas line? As in, what kind of carriage is going to be used? Dart or Luas or something else?

If its something else it seems kind of nuts to have 3 different light rail systems in 1 city

Well then try arguing with the Germans' 3-pronged approach: S-Bahn, U-Bahn, Tram.

• Dart is our S-Bahn.
• Metro North will be our U-Bahn.
• Luas is better quality (more off-street/segregated running) than the average German tram, approaching the service quality of a Stadtbahn.

Metro North and Luas are theoretically interoperable with relatively minor works, but this won't come to fruition in practice, so we'll have two light-rail systems. Dart is heavy rail.

etchyed

Deleted User wrote: »

This Metro North, is it just another name for a Luas line? As in, what kind of carriage is going to be used? Dart or Luas or something else?

If its something else it seems kind of nuts to have 3 different light rail systems in 1 city

Excuse my ignorance if I'm way off the mark on this, I'm not at all familiar with this project

Metro North will use Luas-style trams or light rail vehicles (LRVs) but they will be significantly longer than Luas trams and separated from other traffic, meaning their frequency will be much higher. The rationale behind this is that it's cheaper than operating a full heavy rail system with complex signalling. In theory Metro North will be interoperable with Luas but this is unlikely to ever happen.

DART is not light rail. Although the planning of rail in Dublin has been a mess, it's disingenuous to describe "3 different light rail systems". There will be a heavy rail system and an interoperable system of on-street and underground light rail. That's not really nuts.

EDIT: Sorry oharach, didn't see your reply. The comparison to Germany is apt.

Empire o de Sun

Co

oharach wrote: »

Well then try arguing with the Germans' 3-pronged approach: S-Bahn, U-Bahn, Tram.

• Dart is our S-Bahn.
• Metro North will be our U-Bahn.
• Luas is better quality (more off-street/segregated running) than the average German tram, approaching the service quality of a Stadtbahn.

Metro North and Luas are theoretically interoperable with relatively minor works, but this won't come to fruition in practice, so we'll have two light-rail systems. Dart is heavy rail.

Commuter is more like S-Bahn than Dart.

Dart is something in between U-Bahn and S-Bahn, S-Bahn is designed to serve the outer suburbs and satelite towns, like the Commuter.

Dart serves an area that is nearly completely within Dublin.

LeinsterDub

KC61 wrote: »

A couple of reasons:
1) Sandyford is closer
2) Sandyford is cheaper

So not following. Are you saying they should of when to Sandyford instead. If so where?

Thanks

KC61

LeinsterDub wrote: »

So not following. Are you saying they should of when to Sandyford instead. If so where?

Thanks

Getting off at Sandyford LUAS stop and walking to Leopardstown race course is a faster way than actually continuing all the way to racecourse on the tram. Racecourse stop is a long distance from the course.

It is also cheaper - Racecourse is in a later zone.

D.L.R.

Empire o de Sun wrote: »

Co

Commuter is more like S-Bahn than Dart.

Dart is something in between U-Bahn and S-Bahn, S-Bahn is designed to serve the outer suburbs and satelite towns, like the Commuter.

Dart serves an area that is nearly completely within Dublin.

Nah, their medium haul "Commuter" services are the Regionalbahn lines. S-Bahn and Dart are much the same in terms of scope.