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

BonnieSituation

MJohnston wrote: »

It could also very easily be a covered walk outside, as there are lots of existing covered walkways.

Just like Berlin Schonefeld manages. Big long covered one sided walkway.

Obviously if it can use the "Train Station" that would be ideal. But not imperative.

I mean, people (and I include me in this) don't have much issue with walking to Area 16 for buses. Good signage and human guidance furniture remove a lot of psychological barriers to walks being long.

Dats me

We should probably ask @MetroLinker about the outcry at the apartments: are people just looking to be properly looked after? Or are they very, very angry like the people in Ranelagh and trying to kill the project?

MetroLinker

jvan wrote: »

Heres the thing, there's no space in the city. Something has to give way for a metro, whether its a gaa pitch, a building or part of somebodies garden (or all 3).
Either we as a society want a proper modern city with normal public transport options or the city grinds to a halt.
The politicians can't see beyond their next election.

There is quite a bit of space in the city but it is often overlooked. This would be a quick outline of what I think is vacant/unused or due for demolition and construction in the area (e.g. Hawkins House):

MetroLinker

Dats me wrote: »

We should probably ask @MetroLinker about the outcry at the apartments: are people just looking to be properly looked after? Or are they very, very angry like the people in Ranelagh and trying to kill the project?

I don't get the impression people are trying to kill the project at all. People are genuinely very keen to live in this apartment block - great location, public gym and 25m pool on the ground floor, good management structure in place, well maintained apartment building, etc.

CatInABox

MetroLinker wrote: »

There is quite a bit of space in the city but it is often overlooked. This would be a quick outline of what I think is vacant/unused or due for demolition and construction in the area (e.g. Hawkins House):

The main problem is that the current preferred method of building the station is to dig a massive hole in the ground the length of the station, meaning that the hole has to be over 90 metres in length. There just isn't any room in that area.

As to those areas highlighted in red, the area opposite the entrance into the Markievicz Leisure Centre is already going to be used as part of the construction site.

The one to the north of the Markievicz Leisure Centre would still require the demolition of the Townsend St apartment block, as it's simply too small on it's own.

You could probably use the Hawkins house site (good riddance), but the longer the interchange, the less people use it. I'd prefer it to be a simple elevator ride from platform to platform.

The other two sites are again too small, and joining them together might be possible, but highly unlikely. The entire Metrolink project has been designed for ease of construction, so it's unlikely that they'd try to build a station underneath an active train line.


All that said, I believe* that they're going to go with a Monotube tunnel, which means that the stations themselves will be built inside the tunnel. That means they'd only have to construct the entrances to the station, which may mean that they could get away with a smaller construction site.


*Not based on anything concrete, only opinion really, just from reading between the lines too hard, etc!

bk

MetroLinker wrote: »

I don't get the impression people are trying to kill the project at all. People are genuinely very keen to live in this apartment block - great location, public gym and 25m pool on the ground floor, good management structure in place, well maintained apartment building, etc.

And if this building is knocked, it will eventually be replaced by a much larger building, with a lot more homes, so that far more then just 70 families can enjoy those facilities and access to even more transport options (Metrolink).

It is pretty mad that a building in such a prime location is just 6 storeys!! It really should be more like 15 storeys given the location.

People are going to have to get used to the idea that buildings like these will need to be knocked and replaced with much taller buildings if the population density of the city is going to grow.

Peregrine

MetroLinker wrote: »

There is quite a bit of space in the city but it is often overlooked. This would be a quick outline of what I think is vacant/unused or due for demolition and construction in the area (e.g. Hawkins House):

Overlooked? None of that is any use for this project.

This gets brought up too often. Could you suggest a site where you could fit a station box without demolishing the apartments?

Here are some of the criteria:
1. 105m long
2. 27.5m wide
3. It has to be situated beside the Irish Rail station for connectivity
4. The current Irish Rail station has to remain operational
5. It has to be cost effective

Here's what Arup and TII have come up with so far:

bk

The design looks great.

I have to say that people seem to massively underestimate what is involved in building a Metro and Metro stations. They seem to think it is all underground, so nothing above ground will be disturbed. They don't seem to realise just how large station boxes need to be.

It is funny, Irish people go to cities like Paris, London, etc. and rave about the great Metros and why don't we have the same. But then they complain when we try and build one, not realising that Paris, London, etc. had to tear down lots of buildings, parks, etc. to build their Metros, but you don't see it as they rebuild the buildings even bigger afterwards or re-instate the park, etc.

MetroLinker, BTW you can use Google Maps to measure out how much space a 100 meter station box will take up. You will see all those other sites (except Hawkins House, maybe) would be far too small.

Dats me

While also recognising that the situation isn't nice at all for you, MetroLinker and I hope that you and everyone else in the block can find alternative accommodation and be properly looked after between now and construction beginning.

MJohnston

Is it possible they could shift to a different construction method for this particular station box, which could reduce the impact to just the derelict site and the closure of Luke Street?

MetroLinker

Peregrine wrote: »

Overlooked? None of that is any use for this project.

This gets brought up too often. Could you suggest a site where you could fit a station box without demolishing the apartments?

Here are some of the criteria:
1. 105m long
2. 27.5m wide
3. It has to be situated beside the Irish Rail station for connectivity
4. The current Irish Rail station has to remain operational
5. It has to be cost effective

These sites would appear to be match apart from cost effectiveness which I woulnd't really be able to say. The trade is commercial accommodation for residential. Commercial vacancy rate is currently 12.4% in Dublin 2018.

I'm genuinely trying to be as informed as possible about the Metrolink and appreciate all the comments and info on this thread.

MJohnston

The Tara Street option is a no go because that's a critical transport artery for buses. The other two red boxes shown overlapping Tara Street and the station are likely out as well because they would cause a partial closure of the train station.

The two more southerly options overlapping Townsend Street are likely out because they would involve the destruction of even denser, more recently built buildings, and Townsend Street itself is again a fairly crucial transport artery.

College House/Apollo House options could probably have worked, but the problem is that demolition and reconstruction in that area has already long begun.

Sadly the current option seems like the least worst.

MetroLinker

MJohnston wrote: »

College House/Apollo House options could probably have worked, but the problem is that demolition and reconstruction in that area has already long begun.

Sadly the current option seems like the least worst.

Apollo House is demolished but is currently up for sale (with full planning permission of course).

With regard to bus routes, I think the O'Connell Street proposal will have the greatest impact on buses in the city according to the new bus connect map:

MJohnston

MetroLinker wrote: »

Apollo House is demolished but is currently up for sale (with full planning permission of course).

With regard to bus routes, I think the O'Connell Street proposal will have the greatest impact on buses in the city according to the new bus connect map:

Even if they could delay the College/Apollo/Hawkins House schemes, I don't think it would be suitable because it doesn't really connect to Tara station, which is what they want.

O'Connell Street will no doubt have plenty of disruption during construction, but managed, and then it would completely re-open afterwards.

But the red box idea you shared would permanently block Tara Street, so that's why I think it's a no-go.

bk

I'm not sure what your point about BusConnects is?

Under BusConnects, Townsend Street and Tara Street, already very important for buses, become even more important as they will have a number of the new, high frequency, core corridors operating on them.

Not much will actually be changing on OCS, they are just banning some turns which will allow buses to flow much faster.

CatInABox

bk wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point about BusConnects is?

Under BusConnects, Townsend Street and Tara Street, already very important for buses, become even more important as they will have a number of the new, high frequency, core corridors operating on them.

Not much will actually be changing on OCS, they are just banning some turns which will allow buses to flow much faster.

He's saying that the construction work for Metrolink at OCS will be more disruptive than any Metrolink work at Tara St.

monument

bk wrote: »

And if this building is knocked, it will eventually be replaced by a much larger building, with a lot more homes, so that far more then just 70 families can enjoy those facilities and access to even more transport options (Metrolink).

It is pretty mad that a building in such a prime location is just 6 storeys!! It really should be more like 15 storeys given the location.

People are going to have to get used to the idea that buildings like these will need to be knocked and replaced with much taller buildings if the population density of the city is going to grow.

(1) There's a housing crisis.

(2) It's 7 stores -- this is normal in such situations in similar cities to Dublin, given the conditions... the site area, the relatively narrow streets, cities this far north, etc.

(3) There's ample disused / underused sites in the city centre for densification, a number close by.

Peregrine wrote: »

Overlooked? None of that is any use for this project.

This gets brought up too often. Could you suggest a site where you could fit a station box without demolishing the apartments?

Here are some of the criteria:
1. 105m long
2. 27.5m wide
3. It has to be situated beside the Irish Rail station for connectivity
4. The current Irish Rail station has to remain operational
5. It has to be cost effective

1 + 2: Those are the measurements of the location they had beside Tara, the station box can be narrower (ie the width of Tara Street)
3: From the Irish Rail station to Tara Street is just 20-40 metres, this is no distance at all for a under the surface walkway.
4. Fine.
5. Yes it is.

MJohnston wrote: »

The Tara Street option is a no go because that's a critical transport artery for buses....

So, building on the green is fine, building on the centre of O'Connell Street is fine, but not Tara St?

MJohnston

Did you not bother reading my other post monument? The poster was proposing a station that would *permanently* close Tara Street, whereas the OCS closure would be temporary.

monument

MJohnston wrote: »

Did you not bother reading my other post monument? The poster was proposing a station that would *permanently* close Tara Street, whereas the OCS closure would be temporary.

There's no need to permanently close it.

MJohnston

monument wrote: »

There's no need to permanently close it.

Are you trolling me here? Go back and read the context that you waded into!

marno21

monument wrote: »

(1) There's a housing crisis.

Indeed there is, but that's not caused by Metro nor will not building Metro make it better

In fact if projects like Metro were built in the past they would have opened a lot more serviced land which could have created clusters of very well serviced land for dense housing development near stations.

Metro if built will open up land in north Dublin for more housing and increase the attractiveness and usefulness of housing near the line.

There are approx 100 properties to be CPO'd for Metrolink, which will result in a large multiple of that being built because of Metrolink

The balance between individual interest and national interest is very much skewed in the wrong direction here. I am aware that people will be inconvenienced by this but a line has to be drawn somewhere and Ireland is not a particularly good country for drawing that line

CatInABox

MJohnston wrote: »

Are you trolling me here? Go back and read the context that you waded into!

Err..... I actually don't know what your talking about. I read it as closing Tara St to construct a station, and then reopening it.

I'd still prefer it to be closer, and I think that the proposed location makes more sense, but I don't think that anyone was talking about closing Tara St permanently.

MJohnston

CatInABox wrote: »

Err..... I actually don't know what your talking about. I read it as closing Tara St to construct a station, and then reopening it.

I'd still prefer it to be closer, and I think that the proposed location makes more sense, but I don't think that anyone was talking about closing Tara St permanently.

I replied to post 7303 which contained an overlay of possible alternative locations for the Tara Metro station box. I pointed out that the Tara Street option shown here (the one running along Tara Street):



is a no-go because it would permanently close Tara Street - even if you close the hole back up again after excavating the station box, you'd still have to put the station entrances and concourse in the middle of the street!

Best case scenario Tara Street would be permanently reduced to two lanes, likely scenario is it would have to be closed permanently.

I hope we're all on the same page about what I mean now!

CatInABox

MJohnston wrote: »

I replied to post 7303 which contained an overlay of possible alternative locations for the Tara Metro station box. I pointed out that the Tara Street option shown here (the one running along Tara Street):



is a no-go because it would permanently close Tara Street - even if you close the hole back up again after excavating the station box, you'd still have to put the station entrances and concourse in the middle of the street!

Best case scenario Tara Street would be permanently reduced to two lanes, likely scenario is it would have to be closed permanently.

I hope we're all on the same page about what I mean now!

There's ways around that though, I wouldn't think that it's a major problem. Have the entrance in the Dart station, you'd need a tunnel between the two anyway. There's ways to engineer around it, so that the street would be minimally impacted.

MJohnston

CatInABox wrote: »

There's ways around that though, I wouldn't think that it's a major problem. Have the entrance in the Dart station, you'd need a tunnel between the two anyway. There's ways to engineer around it, so that the street would be minimally impacted.

Ah but then you're adding big costs - CPOing the same number of buildings as the current station plan as well as the extra costs of a connection tunnel to Tara Street (and some kind of payoff to Ronan for permission to use part of his Tara House site, potentially). There's also possible extra engineering problems from being much closer to the Liffey than the current site. You'd also have to consider the fact that you'd be then causing major traffic disruption on both OCS and Tara Street.

If we're talking about the idea in isolation? I agree you could plan your way to making it work. It's possible, if not plausible.

But as an alternative to the existing plan? It's just not going to happen.

MJohnston

I still think the best alternative will be keeping the same site, but using an alternative method of excavation.

D.L.R.

One small apartment block and people are throwing wobblers left and right. No wonder we can't get the big projects built. Lack of an executive mayor doesn't help.

roadmaster

D.L.R. wrote: »

One small apartment block and people are throwing wobblers left and right. No wonder we can't get the big projects built. Lack of an executive mayor doesn't help.

The way politicians operate in this country a mayor with power could be worse they may side against any big project for fear of upsetting voters and not getting re-elected

ricimaki

Designing an underground metro isn't as simple as choosing where the stations go and joining the dots. Having enough space for a station box doesn't mean you can just pop a station in there. They'll be running TBM's through there, so nearby structures with deep foundations could be effected. Any underground water, electricity, gas piping etc. has to be well understood and moved, which can have significant costs. Moving a station a few meters can effect 100+ meters of tunnel leading into the station. Whilst it is more than likely possible to build at any of those red boxes, there can be significant costs to make it possible, and have side effects for several surrounding premises.

D.L.R.

roadmaster wrote: »

The way politicians operate in this country a mayor with power could be worse they may side against any big project for fear of upsetting voters and not getting re-elected

DCC don't represent commuters who live in the neighbouring councils, that's the core problem with Dublin's governance.