Metro North On Primetime

Oliver1985

Anyone see this big debate on it!
They had a video at the start lots of orange trains and old locos!!!:D

Judgement Day

Oliver1985 wrote: »

Anyone see this big debate on it!
They had a video at the start lots of orange trains and old locos!!!:D

The only thing missing was "Are you right there Michael" which RTE invariably stick on to anything rail connected.:D

Oliver1985

Judgement Day wrote: »

The only thing missing was "Are you right there Michael" which RTE invariably stick on to anything rail connected.:D

The Guy at the end really didnt like trains at all, kept going on about buses!!! :mad:

schemingbohemia

Oliver1985 wrote: »

The Guy at the end really didnt like trains at all, kept going on about buses!!! :mad:

I'm presuming that was Sean Barrett - he's been banging the same drum for years, opposed the DART opposed the Luas and keeps on wittering on the same old rubbish about Buses being the solution to all our ills, they're part of the solution but not the only solution.

CIE

Oliver1985 wrote: »

Anyone see this big debate on it!
They had a video at the start lots of orange trains and old locos!!!:D

Completely awesome. :rolleyes: Does that mean they're scrapping the RPA, converting Metro North to DART and joining it with the Luas Green Line (getting rid of that mad surface tram route for good)?

And when are they going to get an original name? That name has been used by the commuter trains out of Grand Central Station in New York since 1983.

Telchak

CIE wrote: »

And when are they going to get an original name? That name has been used by the commuter trains out of Grand Central Station in New York since 1983.

As far as I know, 'Metro North' is just the project name. When finished it will be under the Luas brand (presumably 'Blue' line) :cool:

Oliver1985

Telchak wrote: »

As far as I know, 'Metro North' is just the project name. When finished it will be under the Luas brand (presumably 'Blue' line) :cool:

No blue line is gonna be that bendy bus painted grey over the southside!!!!

Telchak

Oliver1985 wrote: »

No blue line is gonna be that bendy bus painted grey over the southside!!!!

Well Luas nonetheless

paulm17781

CIE wrote: »

Completely awesome. :rolleyes: Does that mean they're scrapping the RPA

How about scrap CIE and put it under the RPA's remit.

strassenwo!f

CIE wrote: »

And when are they going to get an original name? That name has been used by the commuter trains out of Grand Central Station in New York since 1983.

Well, for that you need to have a look at Martin Cullen's career. A bit of time spent in Zimbabwe in his youth, a bit of time spent in New York in his youth, followed by a lot of time spent as a politician in Ireland.

He was the Minister for Transport at the time of the launch of a project called Transport21 - I don't know if you remember it.:pac:

He wanted to give the impression that T21 would lead to a world-class transport system in Dublin, so he looked back at his own experience to give us parallels we might understand.

There wasn't much in Dublin's transport at the time that could be considered world-class. So no change there.

Harare, Bulawayo and other parts of Zimbabwe also came up with nothing in that bracket.

So, with little else to clutch at, he looked at New York and came up with "Dublin's Grand Central" for the metro-interconnector interchange, kind of pathetic you'd have to say when compared with the real one, and with "Metro North" for a northern metro route into and out of the city.

And, of course, what the Minister wants, even in a case like Martin Cullen, is what the Minister gets.:mad:

Oliver1985

Run the metro north down the port tunnel :pac::pac::pac::pac::pac:

Empire o de Sun

Oliver1985 wrote: »

Run the metro north down the port tunnel :pac::pac::pac::pac::pac:

wow, a metro from the M50 to the docks with no intermediate stops. That's perfect :rolleyes:

Propellerhead

Telchak wrote: »

As far as I know, 'Metro North' is just the project name. When finished it will be under the Luas brand (presumably 'Blue' line) :cool:

Source?

foggy_lad

Put it on stilts!

McCruiskeen

A fraction of the cost, no roads to be dug up, greater flexibility and just as fast.

But far too practical for an advanced country like Ireland. We need glamour projects so politicians can cut ribbons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit

Propellerhead

McCruiskeen wrote: »

A fraction of the cost, no roads to be dug up, greater flexibility and just as fast.

But far too practical for an advanced country like Ireland. We need glamour projects so politicians can cut ribbons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit

I'd be fascinated to see how you could get from the Airport to the Green in 20 mins or less by bus. Demonstrate how please.

Empire o de Sun

McCruiskeen wrote: »

A fraction of the cost, no roads to be dug up, greater flexibility and just as fast

please explain?

etchyed

McCruiskeen wrote: »

A fraction of the cost, no roads to be dug up, greater flexibility and just as fast.

But far too practical for an advanced country like Ireland. We need glamour projects so politicians can cut ribbons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_rapid_transit

Another boards.ie poster with the solution to all Dublin's public transport woes. Where on Dublin's streets could an efficient segregated busway be built? I'd really love to know.

dRNk SAnTA

I feel like the only person in Ireland who CAN'T STAND Miriam O'Callaghan, every debate on primetime needs a second mediator to stop Miriam from interrupting the guests, and her bias is always so obvious.

CIE

McCruiskeen wrote: »

(BRT) A fraction of the cost, no roads to be dug up, greater flexibility and just as fast.

But far too practical for an advanced country like Ireland. We need glamour projects so politicians can cut ribbons

LOL, bus "rapid" transit. Halfway (and half-assed) done in Dublin already; what do you think the QBCs are? (These were supposed to have been up and running in the mid-1990s and how long did it take to actually implement them?)

BRT's anything but a fraction of the cost (i.e. when rail is done properly); you should dig deeper into what has been spent on it. Certainly buses last a fraction of the life of rail vehicles (not even trolleybuses last as long as trams, and you need double the wire because of the negative return feed), and note that roads cost more to maintain than rails do. You'll also never get a bus to have the average speed of a railway vehicle.

As for dedicated bus corridors, most places they've been built is on former railway alignments. So now these former railways have less than half the passenger-carrying capacity they used to have, with more of the sulphur compounds.

McCruiskeen

Just checked this thread again and see I'm getting slaughtered. I don't think my highlighting of Bus Rapid Transit was that unreasonable. To respond to some of your specific points.

I'd be fascinated to see how you could get from the Airport to the Green in 20 mins or less by bus. Demonstrate how please.

At the moment it takes about 25 minutes to get to the airport from O'Connell Street. There is no major difficulty in getting to the Airport from the city centre. It is not very far away. A hugely expensive metro would only shave a few minutes off. This is just not needed.

By giving buses greater priority this speed could be increased. I have a cynical view of rail in Dublin because of the cost and absolute abysmal slowness of the Luas. Getting the bus is almost as fast as using the Luas on the Tallaght line. And the bus is a little bit slower on the Sandyford line.

BRT's anything but a fraction of the cost (i.e. when rail is done properly); you should dig deeper into what has been spent on it.

Hang on an minute. I understand that the current cost of the Metro North is muted to be around 3 billion. That is 3,000 million. I don't know the exact cost of prioritising buses, but I AM pretty sure it will be a fraction of this cost.

LOL, bus "rapid" transit. Halfway (and half-assed) done in Dublin already; what do you think the QBCs are?

QBCs operate at about the same speed as the Luas. If priority was given at traffic lights and a few less stops they would operate faster. With an integrated ticketing system, where people could just jump on and off this speed would increase again and there would be no advantage to light rail. The Luas rarely gets above about 40mph as far as I can see.

An underground metro would obviously be faster as no traffic but not much, but with 15 stops in 13km distance, it just ain't gonna be worth it.

dowlingm

McCruiskeen - can you define what you mean by Bus Rapid Transit? Your invitation to simply look at a wiki link invited a bit of a shoeing to be fair.

Do you mean single deck, bendy or double deck?
Do you mean fully exclusive lanes or just a QBC which might be shared by other PSVs, illegal stopping cars etc.? If fully exclusive segregated lanes, how would this be routed through the city centre?
Would these be diesel or electric trolleybuses?

Metro would be:
capacity of several buses per driver (or per departure if automated as in Vancouver)
fully exclusive
electric so no emissions along the corridor
substantially underground so actually adding to net road capacity (less parallel buses) rather than subtracting from it as well as a lower noise profile.

I'm no cheerleader for MN - I would throw it on the bonfire in a heartbeat if it endangered Interconnector - but let's be realistic about promising everything would be grand if we just stuck on buses.

Incidentally, one of the biggest North American believers in BRT (fully segregated except in the CBD, bendy buses), the City of Ottawa has realised that it has maxed out the potential of BRT and is planning a light rail tunnel under the city. It was not cheap to build despite early promises. Wiki:

The Transitway was estimated to cost $97 million when it was first proposed in 1976. However it experienced severe cost overruns and eventually escalated to $440 million. This is almost as much as it cost to build the Calgary C-Train, which is about the same size. Ottawa's costs were about $14 million/km for BRT, while Calgary spent about $15 million/km for LRT.