Metro North gets final An Bord Pleanála go-ahead

mydiscworld

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1005/metro_north.html

Final planning permission has now gone through. The best and final offers from the 2 tenderers should be presented in the coming weeks, at which point the Govt must make a decision to either

a) abandon it fully, or

b) postpone it for a few years (the planning permission is valid for 10 years),

or

c) commence building it now


Which option do people think is best? I know this will be controversial!


My own is option c because of a variety of reasons, inc.

1. I believe the contracts proposed mean the Govt pretty much won't have to pay a cent to the winning tenderer until it is fully built, which will take c. 5 years. At which point the country will hopefully be out of the worst problems.

The estimated cost will be 4-5 bilion euro but nobody will know for sure until the final bids come in. Net cost may be half this though through the employment of construction staff (many of whom will be on the dole presently), etc.

Once Metro North is constructed, the Govt will then pay the cost over 30 annual installments, which will be far more manageable.


2. A lot of employment created through building it & maintaining it, which could help kick-start the economy.

Jehuty42

mydiscworld wrote: »

1. I believe the contracts proposed mean the Govt pretty much won't have to pay a cent to the winning tenderer until it is fully built, which will take c. 5 years. At which point the country will hopefully be out of the worst problems.

It might not cost anything in terms of money, but the huge impact of construction (especially in the city centre)might have a political effect.

Also, can someone explain to me why this just can't be built under the Luas umbrella, to that gauge, using those trams, and operated by Veolia? It seems odd to me that we are creating a third style of operation here.

murphaph

Jehuty42 wrote: »

It might not cost anything in terms of money, but the huge impact of construction (especially in the city centre)might have a political effect.

Also, can someone explain to me why this just can't be built under the Luas umbrella, to that gauge, using those trams, and operated by Veolia? It seems odd to me that we are creating a third style of operation here.

It is planned to be low floor, standard gauge with 750Vdc overhead power supply, so basically compatible with Luas. This is (IMO) the right decision.

Sadly I don't believe it'll be built for many years now.

Jehuty42

murphaph wrote: »

It is planned to be low floor, standard gauge with 750Vdc overhead power supply, so basically compatible with Luas. This is (IMO) the right decision.

Sadly I don't believe it'll be built for many years now.

That's good. But can it not be operated as Luas Blue(or similiar), as in branded as Luas and using their fare structure and fare infrastructure? At least that way work on the integrated travelcard isn't wasted, there's is a sense of familiarity, and it keeps the number of quangos and hanger-ons to a minimum.

Metro North should just be name of the line, of the construction project. Operationally day-to-day making it a Luas line seems to make sense.

Victor

Jehuty42 wrote: »

That's good. But can it not be operated as Luas Blue(or similiar), as in branded as Luas

Quite likely.

and using their fare structure and fare infrastructure?

Quite possible.

Metro North should just be name of the line, of the construction project. Operationally day-to-day making it a Luas line seems to make sense.

Metro North was a political name as it meant we were getting a "metro" and politicians needed to boast about that.

Victor

mydiscworld wrote: »

The best and final offers from the 2 tenderers should be presented in the coming weeks,

Where are you getting that from? A contractor would get several weeks to price a house extension, nevermind this. While much work has been done, it would be imprudent for the tenderers to not fully review their pricing and other matters, e.g. the revised depot.

at which point the Govt must make a decision to either

a) abandon it fully, or

b) postpone it for a few years (the planning permission is valid for 10 years),

or

c) commence building it now

Or they could part build it, although that may need a tweak to the railway order

1. I believe the contracts proposed mean the Govt pretty much won't have to pay a cent to the winning tenderer until it is fully built, which will take c. 5 years. At which point the country will hopefully be out of the worst problems.

Not quite. The government would still need to pay for the land and some preparatory works. Thsi would run to several hundred million.

The estimated cost will be 4-5 bilion euro

The construction cost will be in the order of €1.5bn The much abused €4-5bn figure includes the financing and running foe the duration.

Once Metro North is constructed, the Govt will then pay the cost over 30 annual installments, which will be far more manageable.

Well, all along the talk has been of 25 years - and the government gets to keep any income (fares, advertising, rents).

The Scientician

Can anyone please persuade me that it's not a waste of money? The airport and Swords aren't so far from the city that they need a railway, if a decent road transport alternative exists.

shamwari

The Scientician wrote: »

Can anyone please persuade me that it's not a waste of money? The airport and Swords aren't so far from the city that they need a railway, if a decent road transport alternative exists.

The objective of the project is to service land that is currently undeveloped north of Swords, and to serve Swords / Airport / Ballymun / DCU etc enroute to the City Centre. My money is on DART to the airport getting the nod ahead of Metro...

Losty Dublin

shamwari wrote: »

The objective of the project is to service land that is currently undeveloped north of Swords, and to serve Swords / Airport / Ballymun / DCU etc enroute to the City Centre. My money is on DART to the airport getting the nod ahead of Metro...

Agreed. Whatever project/s that gets the nod needs to service populations and locations which are already in situ and in need of additional linking, on top of a favourable cost benefit analysis and sufficient and realistic funding options. As it stands, while Metro north links a lot of places up with what should be a good service it will cost a lot of money and if anything, this will be it's downfall.

foggy_lad

This approval only lasts ten years, so are people really so optimistic as to believe we will bi in a position to afford either metro north or dart underground anytime in the next ten years?

The RTE News report also included this,

It has been reported that Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar will announce before the end of the year the postponement of both Metro North and the Underground DART. The combined cost of which is estimated at €5bn.

mydiscworld

I will be quite interested to see how much the winning tender comes in at, especially the construction cost.

€1.5bn estimate from Victor seems a good price to me

BrianD

Jehuty42 wrote: »

That's good. But can it not be operated as Luas Blue(or similiar), as in branded as Luas and using their fare structure and fare infrastructure? At least that way work on the integrated travelcard isn't wasted, there's is a sense of familiarity, and it keeps the number of quangos and hanger-ons to a minimum.

Metro North should just be name of the line, of the construction project. Operationally day-to-day making it a Luas line seems to make sense.

Should be branded as DART rather than a new brand. LUAS name should be abandoned and DART used as well.

The integrated travel card is supposed to work across everything. It doesn't matter what it is.

The option is not to build for the forseable future.. I don't think that DART spur should also not be built.

CIE

How can you brand a RPA operation as DART, which is Irish Rail...?

(That of course brings back the fact that when the LHB 8100-class EMUs first arrived, there was no "DART" branding; the EMUs had the CIE broken-wheel logo and naught else.)

robd

shamwari wrote: »

The objective of the project is to service land that is currently undeveloped north of Swords, and to serve Swords / Airport / Ballymun / DCU etc enroute to the City Centre. My money is on DART to the airport getting the nod ahead of Metro...

Don't believe Airport DART will get nod at all. Pretty sure Leo is well aware it is a senseless solution. He's a reasonably smart bloke and not a FFailer. It only serves airport which Dublin Bus and AirCoach already do quite adequately with option of using Port Tunnel.

My guess is it will be parked for 3 years due to current situation with regard to international financing. Lots of waffle about international markets etc. Reckon 3 years will be picked as that gives breathing space but doesn't make it sound like it's been put out to pasture. 5 years would give this impression.

Unless there's a miracle in financing terms over the next 3 years this quite simply won't get built.

BrianD

CIE wrote: »

How can you brand a RPA operation as DART, which is Irish Rail...?

Decals and paint usually!

Makes no odds who built it or operates it. The user doesn't care as long as it moves them about. Integrated ticketing is vital but what also is vital is branding and and marketing. I'm not talking about fancy marketing campaigns - the DART brand needs to be omnipresent across all modes of transport reinforcing that it is a unified system. In 'yer face as they say.

Jehuty42

BrianD wrote: »

reinforcing that it is a unified system

But it's not. And with the introduction of Metro North, it stands to get even less unified.

Also, we had a unified brand for transport up to 1984, it was called CIE.

CIE

BrianD wrote: »

Decals and paint usually!

Makes no odds who built it or operates it. The user doesn't care as long as it moves them about. Integrated ticketing is vital but what also is vital is branding and and marketing. I'm not talking about fancy marketing campaigns - the DART brand needs to be omnipresent across all modes of transport reinforcing that it is a unified system

Yes, it does make a great deal of "odds". The passenger (not "user"; that's a computer term) is not the operator and doesn't get to say what goes on the outside or even the inside. RPA does not operate DART; it operates Luas, which is absolutely not DART and never will be, nor is DART a brand that the RPA can avail of, since it belongs to Irish Rail (not the same entity; they may run vehicles with steel wheels on shiny rails, but that's where the similarity ends). And as already mentioned, it's not a unified system.

BrianD wrote: »

In yer face as they say

Back atcha, as they also say.

jehuty42 wrote: »

Also, we had a unified brand for transport up to 1984, it was called CIE

I don't understand why the new "brands" suddenly started popping up. It costs the exchequer to create these brands, never mind to uncreate them and make new ones in their place. Why couldn't they stick to the basics, e.g. focusing on integrity of rolling stock and infrastructure, and if anything create a more unified fare system between rail and bus beyond using the same weekly, monthly and annual commuter tickets? Like I mentioned, the 8100-class were delivered with the broken-wheel CIE logo and the green paint; the only thing special beyond that was that they were to be the first electric trains running in Ireland on the general railway network since the Drumm battery electrics, and they were a replacement for the 6100-class push-pulls (which were the first 2600-class DMUs). No passenger confusion would have ensued if they had simply retained the CIE logo and merely have been the new equipment for the "Dublin Suburban Rail".

murphaph

The reason you see so many livery and brand changes in Ireland is because the services are generally diabolical so they create flash new brands to paper over the cracks and try to convince people that "this time it'll be different". Think "City Swift" with their stupid named bus stops where the name of the stop could be different depending on which side of the road it was on :rolleyes:

In Berlin the underground rolling stock, buses and trams have been plain yellow for about 80 years now. Sometimes they change the shade (maybe once every 20 years+).