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

LXFlyer

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

I have to say the idea of speed restrictions with regards to DART Underground is something of a red herring. The tunnel is hardly carrying a high-speed rail line and a short e.g. 40 kph speed restriction on a line that will mainly carry electric trains will not change much. What would it add to journey times? An extra 30 to 45 seconds? It's not something I care strongly about but in the context of locating stations within the city centre, the idea of a short speed restriction would be very very small in comparison to ensuring the best possible locations for stations... This ignores any extra engineering and construction complexity due to having a tighter curve but would that be an issue at all?

Well another factor is why effectively duplicate the route of the Red Line LUAS which links Heuston with the O'Connell Bridge area already.

Going via St Stephen's Green opens up new journey opportunities by rail.

strassenwo!f

To be confirmed, you are absolutely right that this is a red herring. A curve from an east-west station at Pearse should be no tighter than the curve between Pearse and St. Stephen's Green in the currently proposed line. No extra speed restrictions should be required.

Monument, of course you'd be saving money. Even if you write off the work at the Mater (about, what, 5 million euro?), have to redesign the city centre bit of the line and make a couple of changes to the metro plans, and have to prepare an application to An Bord Pleanala, you can't be looking at more than 40-50 million euro in total.

Against that, you'd have a saving of in or around 200 million euro in tunnelling costs, because you don't have to build the big St. Stephen's Green loop, plus you'd have two metro stations (at College Green and O'Connell Street) which together would be cheaper than the bizarre O'Connell Bridge idea, and then you could save further costs by not having the Parnell Square station at all.

All in all you'd be well ahead of the game.

lxflyer, we've been through this issue of "competing" with the LUAS red line before on this thread. The interconnector will be bringing people to and from suburbs which are not served by the LUAS red line. Its function is to deliver people rapidly into and out of the city. They are not competitors.

LXFlyer

The interconnector will connect with the red line at both Docklands and Heuston - people can change onto it at either location if they so wish depending upon where they're coming from.

Sam Russell

The College Green argument escapes me. Pearse Station is one side of Trinity, with College Green the other. How do you get from Docklands to Pearse and then CG and onto Christ Church in a shorter distance the the proposed SG interchange? Looking at the map, it is not less distance, and would require a relocation of the Pearse interchange.

At the end of the day, if it gets built, who cares about the detailed route? The loop connection from Pearse St to Connelly is not ideal at all. It would have been better to cross the river further down stream, but it was built a long time ago. The Luas red line should have gone underground instead of around the houses.

Build it - it will be fine.

strassenwo!f

lxflyer wrote: »

The interconnector will connect with the red line at both Docklands and Heuston - people can change onto it at either location if they so wish depending upon where they're coming from.

Indeed they could.

Or, if the interconnector were built through College Green, and they wanted to get to the whole College Green, Grafton Street, O'Connell Bridge area, they could just stay on the train.

LXFlyer

And we'd have two rail services operating along the same corridor, rather than building a network that results in new options being opened up.

strassenwo!f

lxflyer wrote: »

And we'd have two rail services operating along the same corridor, rather than building a network that results in new options being opened up.

They are two entirely different beasts. One is a slow, low-capacity tram line which takes twenty minutes or so to get from Heuston to Spencer Dock. The other is a very high capacity line which would get across the city in about 7-8 minutes. And, of course, you'd still be building a network, because the metro would be going to St. Stephen's Green (and hopefully further south over the years).

murphaph

strassenwo!f wrote: »

They are two entirely different beasts. One is a slow, low-capacity tram line which takes twenty minutes or so to get from Heuston to Spencer Dock. The other is a very high capacity line which would get across the city in about 7-8 minutes. And, of course, you'd still be building a network, because the metro would be going to St. Stephen's Green (and hopefully further south over the years).

One could imagine that in a city with the interconnector and expanded luas and indeed metro north in place, that the red line could be given significantly more priority over motorised traffic. The current "excuse" for a lack of public transport priority is that "we have no underground system" so we have to accommodate private cars but once this excuse is removed, I could imagine the luas having absolute priority at all junctions along its route, significantly speeding it up.

In fact in a post interconnector/metro north world, the red line might finally be built properly by putting it in a cut and cover tunnel from Heuston to Docklands. Without the interconnector it will not be an option to partially close the red line to allow this to happen.

strassenwo!f

murphaph wrote: »

One could imagine that in a city with the interconnector and expanded luas and indeed metro north in place, that the red line could be given significantly more priority over motorised traffic. The current "excuse" for a lack of public transport priority is that "we have no underground system" so we have to accommodate private cars but once this excuse is removed, I could imagine the luas having absolute priority at all junctions along its route, significantly speeding it up.

In fact in a post interconnector/metro north world, the red line might finally be built properly by putting it in a cut and cover tunnel from Heuston to Docklands. Without the interconnector it will not be an option to partially close the red line to allow this to happen.

A thoughtful post, Murphaph, but I doubt that's how things will pan out. You, and Sam Russell above, are absolutely right that the Red line should have been put underground in the city at the beginning, but I don't think that's ever going to happen now.

My feeling is that, whatever route it takes between Heuston and Spencer Dock, the interconnector will be such a success that there will be a clamour for the considerable excess capacity to be used to serve other suburbs in West Dublin. I think the locations along the proposed metro west route, and maybe other locations in West Dublin, could eventually be connected directly to the city in this fashion. I think they should.

Even, eventually (and hopefully), Clondalkin and Tallaght. I know that the original route there was squandered by poor planning, but I'd guess that its obvious benefits may reopen the possiblity of this. After all, the Tallaght-Clondalkin-Interconnector is a pretty short corridor with a very large number of people living along it.

This does not mean that the Red line will wither on the vine. But I'd be surprised if a lot more money is going to be spent on upgrading it.

Grandeeod

A friend of mine once said that when recession hit, a reinvention of the wheel would commence. I see it has started on a small scale already. Hopefully politicians aren't reading. If they are then I can see CG taking flight and an emulation of the underground/overground luas fiasco.

I can see the point of SSG, despite my previous comments regarding how we got there.

monument

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Monument, of course you'd be saving money. Even if you write off the work at the Mater (about, what, 5 million euro?), have to redesign the city centre bit of the line and make a couple of changes to the metro plans, and have to prepare an application to An Bord Pleanala, you can't be looking at more than 40-50 million euro in total.

You're trying very hard to downplaying the redesigning of nearly all of Dart Underground and most of the underground section of Metro North which will have to be followed by fresh public consultation and a new railway order application.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Against that, you'd have a saving of in or around 200 million euro in tunnelling costs, because you don't have to build the big St. Stephen's Green loop,

Is the €200m savings from the loop alone? Or where are you calculating that figure from? You could remove the St Stephen's Green loop without chaining a single other thing. I don't think it would save much over the benefit.

A few posts ago you could not tell the difference between a diagram which is not geographically accurate and a map which is, but now we're supposed to be trusting you on your unexplained costings?!

strassenwo!f wrote: »

plus you'd have two metro stations (at College Green and O'Connell Street) which together would be cheaper than the bizarre O'Connell Bridge idea,

Can you explain how digging at least 2 station platforms areas and 2 station boxes would be cheaper than building 1 station platform area and 2 station boxes?

And there's nothing bizarre about the O'Connell Bridge arrangement. You repeating your self over and over again won't change that. The fact that you don't know the difference between a diagram and a map shows you don't know what you are talking about.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

and then you could save further costs by not having the Parnell Square station at all.

That's brings to mind the phrase: Seeing the cost in everything and the value in nothing.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

lxflyer, we've been through this issue of "competing" with the LUAS red line before on this thread. The interconnector will be bringing people to and from suburbs which are not served by the LUAS red line. Its function is to deliver people rapidly into and out of the city. They are not competitors.

They are not competitors, but they should be complementing parts of the rail central network, not duplicating parts.

Ie you switch from one line to the other if you want to get to a location on the other line -- the benefit of that network effect is downscaled if the lines are so close together for all of the city centre.

strassenwo!f

Monument, would you get yourself together.

I'm not going to reply to posts on this English language board from native English speakers who have, twice on the same page, talked about things being "Geography accurate" along with many other mistakes. We all make mistakes when posting, but you really need to sort this out. How you ever managed to become a journalist is a mystery.

I'm prepared to answer all your questions when you present them in an intelligible fashion.

monument

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I'm prepared to answer all your questions when you present them in an intelligible fashion.

Some of the slight text errors are fixed, but at this stage I don't really care about your reply because it has been shown that you clearly don't know what you're taking about re maps and routing, it's been shown that you have no clue about the make up of a large chunk of Dublin city centre, you seem to be plucking savings figures out of your head as you have explained the source of none of them and, worst of all, you want to nearly totally redesign the underground sections of two large rail projects for at best little benefit.

While I'm at it: your recent post covering the idea that Ireland not have access to the money to build one of these projects was already also debunked by another poster's post in the last few pages -- you don't seem to read or take in anything anybody says or when you do you do little more than repeat your stance without tackling what the other poster has said.

Unlike your last post -- all of that is on-topic and based on what you have posted.

strassenwo!f

monument wrote: »

Some of the slight text errors are fixed, but at this stage I don't really care about your reply because you clearly don't know what you're taking about re maps and routing, it's been shown that you have no clue about the make up of a large chunk of Dublin city centre, and you want to nearly totally redesign the underground sections of two large rail projects so people can advoid a 5 minute walk to a planned station you don't like the design of.

Okay.

lods

In the absence of money or political will, surely it makes sense to look at the redesign of the stations to avoid some of the major disruption the original plans would have had on the city. The upper O'Connell Street Shopping centre could be come a major station as huge excavation is needed anyway. Stephens green shopping centre is a mess & could do with being ripped down. The present design doesn't suit modern retailers Another great spot for a station.

markpb

lods wrote: »

In the absence of money or political will, surely it makes sense to look at the redesign of ...

The last thing a lack of political will needs is a new way to waste time and delay the project even further. Redesigning an already approved project is just that.

lods

When does the railway order run our or does it?

markpb

lods wrote: »

When does the railway order run our or does it?

Parts of it must be constructed within ten years, other parts have up to 15.

Aard

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Monument, would you get yourself together.

I'm not going to reply to posts on this English language board from native English speakers who have, twice on the same page, talked about things being "Geography accurate" along with many other mistakes. We all make mistakes when posting, but you really need to sort this out. How you ever managed to become a journalist is a mystery.

I'm prepared to answer all your questions when you present them in an intelligible fashion.

No more of this. Attack the post, not the poster.

Mod.

carlmango11

lods wrote: »

Stephens green shopping centre is a mess & could do with being ripped down.

...wat

GerardKeating

lods wrote: »

Stephens green shopping centre is a mess & could do with being ripped down. The present design doesn't suit modern retailers Another great spot for a station.

Did they not recently announce some plans for an internal refit ?

Aard

There is an intention by the owners of Stephen's Green SC to renovate the building and allow for a cinema and larger units.

Also (in reference to a previous post), no need to tear it down to allow for excavation of a MN station: there just happens to be a massive park right next door where the same thing can be achieved without having to raze a building, remove the debris, and somehow get the owners to play ball.

lods

GerardKeating wrote: »

Did they not recently announce some plans for an internal refit ?

Yes , they've announced that a few times

murphaph

An U Bahn station, Hermannplatz, not too far from where I live that was completed about 90 years ago. The station was co-funded by a large department store who have their own direct access to the station. That sort of thing should be on the table in Dublin too.

brownbeard

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/225m-spent-on-shelved-dublin-transport-projects-1.1642778

Article in the Times today about money wasted etc... Briefly mentions a proposal for the metro at half the cost.

Sam Russell

brownbeard wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/225m-spent-on-shelved-dublin-transport-projects-1.1642778

Article in the Times today about money wasted etc... Briefly mentions a proposal for the metro at half the cost.

The Dart Underground proposal – which would link Heuston and Connolly stations and integrate all suburban rail services – has cost almost €44 million.

I thought it linked Spencer Dock, Pearse and Heuston. If it gets that wrong, what else is wrong?

TheBandicoot

Internal Government documents describe the Metro and Dart Underground as “very large, risky projects that are unlikely to attract private funding on the scale required”.

Any comment? This seems at odds with what I have read on this thread and intuitively agreed with- that these projects are shoe-ins for attracting foreign investment from the likes of China and are almost guaranteed to be massive successes, scoring highly on every cost benefit analysis done on them. Is the government just wrong here?

ardmacha

murphaph wrote: »

An U Bahn station, Hermannplatz, not too far from where I live that was completed about 90 years ago. The station was co-funded by a large department store who have their own direct access to the station. That sort of thing should be on the table in Dublin too.

It certainly would be wise to build passages from the basement level of the shopping centre to the Green before somebody puts LUAS on top.

strassenwo!f

brownbeard wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/225m-spent-on-shelved-dublin-transport-projects-1.1642778

Article in the Times today about money wasted etc... Briefly mentions a proposal for the metro at half the cost.

It would be hard to expect that any civil service department would get it right first time with a major departure into underground projects such as this, in particular questions like the whether (we should build it) and how.

If the projects get built, it won't be money wasted, and if they don't then at least some amount of the allegedly "wasted" money will have been well spent as a learning process for the DOT (and its various offshoots), and at least most of the remainder should not be lain at the door of the DOT: the Government of the time and the Dept of Finance had given the DOT the go-ahead to proceed with these projects in the belief that they would be built.

I know things have got a bit heated over the last page or two on this thread, and I just want to make a couple of comments on this without, hopefully, getting up anyone's nose.

Firstly, it is very relevant to have discussion of the routes of the metro and interconnector projects, and not just the funding aspects of these. A lot may change before these are built.

Secondly, it's clear to me that one only has to make a comment to the effect that "the plans are already there, and approved by ABP, so why is there any need for anything else" to receive a whole load of "thanks" from the board.

In the context of both of these points, it is relevant to look at the environment in which the interconnector was originally planned (basically a join-the-dots exercise linking all the rail lines then present in Dublin), back in the early parts of this century: "It goes via St. Stephen's Green to connect with the LUAS."

The metro was planned to fit in with all of that.

That environment has now changed, because St. Stephen's Green isn't the only place where the LUAS could link up with the DART Underground project. And the metro plans would be able to slot in there too.

Despite the ABP approval, after what many would say was a fairly gentle appraisal of the metro and DART underground plans, one thing is clear. Now that the necessity for the proposed DART project to go via St. Stephen's Green to meet up with the LUAS has been removed, there will need to be very good reasons produced, figures, etc., to explain why it is taking a more expensive route across the city.

Nobody on this board, (and some here are well acquainted with the ins and out of the project), has yet taken the opportunity to produce the needed figures. I'd like to know why, and when the time comes for these projects to be built, I'd imagine that the country brethren will too.

strassenwo!f

Sorry, I meant, I'd like to know what those figures are, and when the time comes for these projects to be built, I'd imagine that the country brethren will too.