New Plans for Childrens Hospital on Coombe site

D'Peoples Voice

trellheim wrote: »

Knock Teresa's Gardens and it would make a little bit of sense, Still think it's friggin nuts putting this anywhere but on the M50

completely agree, asking visitors to get a train, from say Tralee, to Heuston and then asking them to get a luas back out to the M50 is insane.
The more i hear people on the radio, the more I'm convinced that Irish people the only people going to a hospital are those driving the injured to hospital.
How many patients are transported from their local general hospital to a Dublin hospital via Ambulance at present? I would say a large number! So the amount of patients that are very badly injured being brought to hospital via car, would be relatively low.
Therefore we can assume the greatest percentage of travellers to hospitals are visitors - they need places to stay overnight while their loved once are in hospital, parking in pay-by-the-hour car parks are not feasible for many. We need to think of accommodation and access via our main train/bus stations!

Laydee

What about Grangegorman? Close to the Mater yet still on a big site? I hope they come to some decision about this soon.

L1011

Laydee wrote: »

What about Grangegorman? Close to the Mater yet still on a big site? I hope they come to some decision about this soon.

DIT project is going to go ahead there. Eventually.

monument

Joko wrote: »

It is silly big.

markpb wrote: »

Oh noes, I can see a tall building in the city centre! Whatever will we do!?!

dowlingm

Big new union building in City Centre - YES.
Big hospital - NO.

Okeydokey.

monument

dowlingm wrote: »

Big new union building in City Centre - YES.
Big hospital - NO.

Okeydokey.

For other things, are you not always on about the way they do things in Toronto? :pac:

dowlingm

monument

I'd love to recreate Hospital Row in Dublin - an IFSC for hospitals. It's the kind of thing the NPRF could be used to build on a central but hugely devalued site like the Glass Bottle site using idled construction crews with the existing hospital sites turned into museums and whatnot. While having our kid in Mount Sinai we participated in a Sick Kids Hospital organised study - easy to do when they are on the same stretch of road.

Oh wait - the NPRF was blown on the banks. Ah well.

monument

The Mater site is suposed to follow the same kind of model as Hospital Row, having diffrent hospitals grouped in one area.

dowlingm

True, true, but Hospital Row has a subway line (University) underneath it and a parallel one (Yonge) a couple of hundred metres east of it, plus four streetcar lines running east west (501/504/505/506) and a streetcar-in-ROW a couple of hundred metres west (510 Spadina).

Mater has A now, BX-D later but no Metro and no date for Maynooth electrification to feed line D.

dowlingm

One additional observation with respect to Hospital Row/Discovery District - Mount Sinai is at 700 University Avenue but the Ontario Power Generation building at 800 University (Princess Margaret Hospital - cancer research - is in between) has a couple of floors leased by Mount Sinai practitioners. That was where we had my wife's OB appointments, ultrasounds and blood work. Perhaps consideration could be given to splitting out some administrative or light medical facilities to a nearby mixed use building if it could reduce the footprint of the main building enough to placate ABP?

monument

dowlingm wrote: »

True, true, but Hospital Row has a subway line (University) underneath it and a parallel one (Yonge) a couple of hundred metres east of it, plus four streetcar lines running east west (501/504/505/506) and a streetcar-in-ROW a couple of hundred metres west (510 Spadina).

Mater has A now, BX-D later but no Metro and no date for Maynooth electrification to feed line D.

46A, 120, 38/A, 41s, 16 , 40s, 13, 11, 122 all stop beside the Mater (all under or well under 300m). The 140, 4, 9 and 83 also stop nearly by, around 560m.

Two intercity railway stations close by -- one 3km, the other around 2km. For the future, the Metro North station box is been put in place and Drumcondra Station isn't going anywhere. The bus routes and QBCs have some hope of being upgraded to BRT in meanwhile.

For bus and emergency access: There are bus lanes nearly the full way from the M50 to the Mater along the N1, N2, and N4. Even if you don't have blue lights no guard is going to try to fine somebody with a sick child in an emergency on their way to a hospital. There just isn't any major problems getting to the Mater or Temple Street, or the Rotunda.

The households with no cars in the Dublin City Council area accounts for 27% of such households nationally. In 2006 that was 77,281 households in the Dublin City Council are without cars. Areas closer to the city centre account for most these households. A city centre location is good for the thousands without cars in areas around Tallaght and Blanch, and elsewhere both around Dublin and further away, but locate at Tallaght or Blanch and bulk of these people have far longer journeys. This problem will just get worse as oil prices go up and up.

On staff travel: Mater has one of the best track records in the last few years of getting staff out of cars and on to their two feet, bikes, buses, trains etc. This just won't work half as well in a less accessible area and staff will be adding to traffic levels on a green field site.

coolperson05

I agree - We should have learned from the mistakes of the boom about greenfield sites and urban sprawl. Lets at least try keep key infrastructure in the city centre! As was pointed alot of the country live within easy access to it, so placing it 2 miles off the M50, away from all transport links except cars seems irrational - remember with petrol hitting 2euro this year apparently...People will be glad of the buses and trains! Now, ABP/HSE - fix this!

dowlingm

monument - I yield! Being from Cork I was never very au fait with Dublin northside anyway, only visiting the odd Sunday in September

Wild Bill

I think this thread is a good argument for keeping conservationists and preservationists and urbanite myopics of all sorts well away from any decision-making when it comes to major infrastructural developments :cool:

One chap wants to bundle all the kids into a communal cupboards in order to get a low-rise hospital that isn't outside the Inner City - f*** the patients and their families, eh?

When we add the "no high-risers in the city centre" to the "no urban sprawl" folk - (both these preferences can often be found in the same dysfunctional mind, btw) - then we must always settle for third-rate solutions.

My own view?

As it's a national hospital it was daft to locate it anywhere other than on the M50; and build it big enough to have a world-class facility that values children's health ahead of anal architectural/urban development fetishes.

Wild Bill

And if you want public transport than somewhere near the Red Cow would be ideal.....Newlands Cross??

It may even have Metro West some day!

monument

Wild Bill wrote: »

I think this thread is a good argument for keeping conservationists and preservationists and urbanite myopics of all sorts well away from any decision-making when it comes to major infrastructural developments :cool:

One chap wants to bundle all the kids into a communal cupboards in order to get a low-rise hospital that isn't outside the Inner City - f*** the patients and their families, eh?

When we add the "no high-risers in the city centre" to the "no urban sprawl" folk - (both these preferences can often be found in the same dysfunctional mind, btw) - then we must always settle for third-rate solutions.

My own view?

As it's a national hospital it was daft to locate it anywhere other than on the M50; and build it big enough to have a world-class facility that values children's health ahead of anal architectural/urban development fetishes.

Wow! Wild Bill swinging in and billing himself as the rationalist. So, funny, it it was not so sad. And just about breaking all the main rules on boards but trying to get away with it by not addressing anybody directly. Attack everybody in the thread and make out you're the great reasoned one. Forgot about dealing with the points people have made. More sad than funny really.

So, the Mater, Temple Street, or the Rotunda, currently opprate on the base of
"f*** the patients and their families," eh? Yes, no, maybe?

If you want to truly value childrens' health then you'd stop taking nonsence because of perceived convenience about an M50 site when co-location or tri-location is best for their health. But you can't see past perceived convenience.

Wild Bill wrote: »

And if you want public transport than somewhere near the Red Cow would be ideal.....Newlands Cross??

It may even have Metro West some day!

Riddle me this -- how do you get from Blanch to Newlands Cross on public transport? How about for example from Finglas, Ballymun, Coolock or Shankill to Newlands Cross by public transport?

So you want to -- in your words -- "f*** the patients and their families" of the 77,000 households in the DCC area alone who have no car, is that right?

And for those children and families relying on the train from Cork, Galway, Mayo, Sligo and elsewhere, you want them to go into the city and then back out to Newlands Cross and back into the city again?

Waiting for Metro West! They might as well be Waiting for Godot!

sydthebeat

locating ANY new national infrastructure within the environs of inner city dublin is simply illogical due to the inaccessibility of the location.

The idea that anyone coming from anywhere west or south in the country would actually have to go as far as the main thoroughfare in the countrys capital, before having public transport access to this hospital is clearly non-sensical.

Paint it however you want but the mater site is ridiculously in accessible to the vast majority of the country.

the powers that be brazenly ignored the frustration of the majority of people in this country with the mater site proposal and went ahead spending millions of taxpayers money on this white (slightly silver glazed) elephant which was plainly politically motivated.

Thank god the An Bord Pleana saw sense and did the right thing.

It just goes to show the contempt of the political classes when Fianna Fail called for the decision of the bord to be ignored....... :rolleyes:

monument

sydthebeat wrote: »

locating ANY new national infrastructure within the environs of inner city dublin is simply illogical due to the inaccessibility of the location.

Err... the city centre is one of the most accessibility locations in the country for roads, rail, bus, and the very important accessibility to other hospitals and other services.

sydthebeat wrote: »

The idea that anyone coming from anywhere west or south in the country would actually have to go as far as the main thoroughfare in the countrys capital, before having public transport access to this hospital is clearly non-sensical.

Any site at the M50 or further out would have far worse public transport access.

sydthebeat wrote: »

Paint it however you want but the mater site is ridiculously in accessible to the vast majority of the country.

You or others saying it does not make it true.

40% (and growing) of the population lives within the Greater Dublin Area and 30% within Co Dublin alone, and the majority of the major roads, railways and intercity bus routes all lead to central Dublin.

The Mater is located where the N3 and N2 meet, right beside the N1, and less than 2km from the N4. It's just over 3km from the mouth of the Port Tunnel.

It's under 2km from Connolly Station‎ and Busaras‎, it's 3km from Heuston Station‎, and less than 1km from Drumcondra Station‎.

sydthebeat

monument wrote: »

Err... the city centre is one of the most accessibility locations in the country for roads, rail, bus, and the very important accessibility to other hospitals and other services.
.

currently... any one coming from M7 side (which would be the majority of the country would have to...

drive to red cow park and ride... luas to connolly (40 mins)....average 40 minute wait for rail to drumcondra (5 mins)... and then a 10 minute walk.

do you think that is acceptable for anyone in the country to access its national hospital?

giving distances to national roads is pointless because car accessibility to dublin inner city is normally unreliable to meet any appointment, eternally frustrating and parking is non existant. Ask anyone who has to travel to the Coombe what driving to inner city dublin is like!!

As far as i can see the only reason NOT to locate it external to the M50 is because of the lack of public transport... however the luas red line is prime here for access.
you talk about dublin residents who havent cars as transport, i would purport that in the vast majority these are singletons, students, or elderly and NOT the target familys with children who this hospital is aimed for.

markpb

sydthebeat wrote: »

As far as i can see the only reason NOT to locate it external to the M50 is because of the lack of public transport... however the luas red line is prime here for access.

One tram line is not comprehensive public transport.

you talk about dublin residents who havent cars as transport, i would purport that in the vast majority these are singletons, students, or elderly and NOT the target familys with children who this hospital is aimed for.

Perhaps, but now you're guessing and making suppositions to agree with your argument but without any proof to back them up. People have shown the figures of people living in or near the city centre an the number of people living there who have no car. Where are your figures?

sydthebeat

markpb wrote: »

One tram line is not comprehensive public transport.



Perhaps, but now you're guessing and making suppositions to agree with your argument but without any proof to back them up. People have shown the figures of people living in or near the city centre an the number of people living there who have no car. Where are your figures?

im not questioning the figures... im making a social comment on the assumptions you are pulling from these figures.

familys need cars... full stop. city centre living is in the main non family orientated. Thats simple observational common sense and the result of development policy over a number of years.

while the red line is one method of public transport.. its immediately on a par with the mater site... which arguably has half a method in a rail station 10 minutes away....add to that the accessibility of the M50 from the vast majority of residential areas in dublin.

monument

sydthebeat wrote: »

currently... any one coming from M7 side (which would be the majority of the country would have to...

Given that 40% of the country live within the GDA and 30% within Co Dublin, and there's no way the "majority of the country" are coming from the N7.

About 9% of the country live in the West which is served by the N4 ('the west' in this case excludes the mid-west or south west) and another 8% or so live in the Midlands which is also mostly served by the N6/N4/M6/N4, and those living in the 'border' region account for over 13% of the population who use the already mentioned roads alone with the M3, N2 etc.

So, the majority do not by far use the M7/N7 to access the Dublin City Centre. And in any case you can use the M50 to switch to the N4...

sydthebeat wrote: »

drive to red cow park and ride... luas to connolly (40 mins)....average 40 minute wait for rail to drumcondra (5 mins)... and then a 10 minute walk.

do you think that is acceptable for anyone in the country to access its national hospital?

That seem like a very strangely contrived route to get there.

You could just drive from N7 on to the M50 and on to the N4, which is motorway or dual carriageway bar the last 3km.

If you want to use the Luas: The Luas BXD project will allow you to get the red line and switch to the green line and Luas. So it would be Red Cow > Abbey Street >> Phibsborough and then walk that 10mins. Just one change on Luas and highly frequent service levels.

If you for some strange reason when using the N7 you still wanted to get the train to Drumcondra, another way would be to drive (via the M50 westlink toll bridge) to the N3 where you can park at the Navan Road park and ride station.

sydthebeat wrote: »

giving distances to national roads is pointless because car accessibility to dublin inner city is normally unreliable to meet any appointment, eternally frustrating and parking is non existant. Ask anyone who has to travel to the Coombe what driving to inner city dublin is like!![

The Coombe is in a less accessible location than the Mater. Let's talk about how far away dual carriageway or motorway ends:

• Dual carriageway on the N4 ends about 3km from the Mater
• Motorway ends just over 4km away on the M1/N1
• Motorway ends at the M1/Port Tunnel about 3km away
• Dual carriageway on the N2 ends less than 2km away

People manage to get to and park at Temple Street (zero off street parking) and the
Rotunda (a 100 or so spaces including staff).

As far as i can see the only reason NOT to locate it external to the M50 is because of the lack of public transport... however the luas red line is prime here for access.

No, the main reason is for health reasons and not being able to achieve co- and tri-location with a new acute adult hospital and maternity services.

Access is secondary to that.

In any case, if the red line is like you say, "prime" access one way surely its ever more prime access to another area which also has a huge amount of bus routes, train stations, and taxis?

sydthebeat wrote: »

you talk about dublin residents who havent cars as transport, i would purport that in the vast majority these are singletons, students, or elderly and NOT the target familys with children who this hospital is aimed for.

The figure is for 77,281 households in the Dublin City Council area alone, that's 40% f households. There are thousands more in areas around the M50. For the whole of Co Dublin, the figure is 111,370 households without a car (288,777 for all of the state, including Dublin).

If you think 77,281 households in Dublin City can be explained away by saying they are single people, students or the elderly you really know little about population stats.

monument

sydthebeat wrote: »

im not questioning the figures... im making a social comment on the assumptions you are pulling from these figures.

familys need cars... full stop. city centre living is in the main non family orientated. Thats simple observational common sense and the result of development policy over a number of years.

What is called "common sense" is usually or often nonsensical.

The Dublin City Council area is not confined to the city centre.

In any case there were 31,459 families with one or more children under 15 years old in the Dublin City Council area and there were just shy of 90,000 such families in Co Dublin (note: that's far more than 90,000 children, because many families have more than one child). There's been a baby boom since, so those numbers are up again.

And do you know all of those young single people living in Dublin? A lot of them have bought houses or apartments which they are not selling any time soon -- those people are having or going to have children too.

As fuel prices rises more people in Dublin and elsewhere are going to be ditching their cars. This is made worse by unemployment for one group of people and lost of other by the average industrial wage continuing to decline (ie wage cuts and new jobs at lower wages then before).

sydthebeat wrote: »

familys need cars... full stop.

No, families don't, and many don't have cars.

You're living in a bubble, and confusing a 'need' with a 'want'.

Many families don't need to own a car to have access to one (borrow one, rent one, use the likes of gocar.ie), and I know other families who have a car but hardy use it.

sydthebeat

id love to know where you are getting your figures from....

2006 total state population was 4,239,800

the great dublin area (fingal, dublin city, DLRD, south dublin) figure is 1,187,176

by anyones maths thats no where near 40%.... 28% to be exact.
and within that figure only half is within the dublin city environs.

so THE VAST MAJORITY of the country live outside the environs of dublin city, believe it or not.

The route i gave is the only route available using public transport, which i thought was the main reason for arguing against using an M50 location anyway. If its possible to argue for the mater site by inferring the M50 as a suitable car route.... then its just as easily argue an m50 site on the same grounds.

ManAboutCouch

We should probably be looking at under 15's, rather than population as a whole.

FYI, 25% of the state's under 15's (864,483 of them in 2006) live in County Dublin. This increases to 37.7% in the GDA (Dublin + Meath, Kildare & Wicklow)

Telchak

sydthebeat wrote: »

the great dublin area (fingal, dublin city, DLRD, south dublin) figure is 1,187,176

The GDA includes Wicklow, Kildare, and Meath. They add over 530,000.

irishguy

From expert medical advice it needs to be co located with a suitable hospital. There isnt a suitable hospital on the M50 where it could be located, so you could locate it there so you can access it easier by car or you could have it located where you can get the best medical attention.

If it was my child I know what I would pick.

Also can you name the best children's hospitals and there locations. You will find none of them are located on a greenfield site outside a city. If you look at long term growth forecasts the greater Dublin area has some of the highest population growth rates in the country (which will will be even higher because of the recession)

The biggest problem with this proposal is the relatively poor public transport infrastructure in the greater Dublin area.


If the Dart underground and Metro north were in place then it would make this site massively more accessible.

Wild Bill

monument wrote: »

The Mater is located where the N3 and N2 meet, right beside the N1, and less than 2km from the N4. It's just over 3km from the mouth of the Port Tunnel.
.

These are crowded city streets, national routes in name only.

If you are talking access by car (which suits perhaps 80% of the population best) then an M50 location is the only rational solution.

For those dependent on public transport the Luas Red line plus bus routes are already in place.

If you can't figure out how to get from Blanch to Red Cow by PT then phone a friend

(or even look at a map and some Luas/bus timetables)

monument

ManAboutCouch wrote: »

We should probably be looking at under 15's, rather than population as a whole.

FYI, 25% of the state's under 15's (864,483 of them in 2006) live in County Dublin. This increases to 37.7% in the GDA (Dublin + Meath, Kildare & Wicklow)

Thanks -- I don't know how I thought to look up stast on households with under 15s but not the count of under 15s them self.

sydthebeat wrote: »

id love to know where you are getting your figures from....

The CSO.

sydthebeat wrote: »

2006 total state population was 4,239,800

the great dublin area (fingal, dublin city, DLRD, south dublin) figure is 1,187,176

by anyones maths thats no where near 40%.... 28% to be exact.
and within that figure only half is within the dublin city environs.

With all due respect, could you please ask me or search Google before trying to claim I'm wrong.

I said 40% live in the Greater Dublin Area (GDA), as ManAboutCouch points out, that's more than Co Dublin.

Also large chunks of the Fingal, DLR, and South Dublin councils areas are within the natural and international standard of a continuous urban area that is Dublin city. Dublin city and the Dublin City Council areas are not really that interchangeable. There's wholesale levels of confusion among Dubliners about the areas which were created with the main aim of weakening local government in the city. Nealy half of the population of the GDA lives within the M50 and the vast majority live within or just around it (source: NTA area breakdowns of the CSO 2006 census data).

sydthebeat wrote: »

so THE VAST MAJORITY of the country live outside the environs of dublin city, believe it or not.

To be very clearly about this, size wise compared to the size of the state: Dublin City is 0.163%, Co Dublin is 1.31%, and the GDA is just under 10%. Is shocking thing not nearly 25% of children under 15 in just over 1% of the country? And nearly 40% (37.7%) in just 10%?

sydthebeat wrote: »

The route i gave is the only route available using public transport, which i thought was the main reason for arguing against using an M50 location anyway.

It's not the only route using public transport. You gave a very convoluted way of using public transport from one location -- I have already given others and there are others including using bus routes, and BXD will more than likely be built before a children's hospital at the Mater or anywhere else.

sydthebeat wrote: »

If its possible to argue for the mater site by inferring the M50 as a suitable car route.... then its just as easily argue an m50 site on the same grounds.

No, it's not. Because it's not just about getting to the hospital -- [1] most importantly, it's about the important of co- or tri-location with an adult, maternity hospital, [2] it's about access to the hospital for children and their families, [3] access for staff.

On co- or tri-location:

It's not happening on a greenfield site! You're dreaming otherwise!

Just on access:

[A] By car from Dublin and beyond: Locate it south of the Westlink bridge and everybody north of it gives out that they have to pay the toll and drive further than others. Locate it north of the bridge and everybody south of it gives out for the same reasons.

By train from outside Dublin: Only a Blanch suits intercity rail, but it's only the Sligo line. The lines from Cork, Galway, Limerick, Mayo, Kerry and Waterford go into Heuston -- these would require transfers Luas/bus to Connolly station, train to Castleknock Station and bus/taxi to Blanch hospital which is not suited to co- or tri-location. That's a fairly high amount of transfers needed. With the Mater, people could get a short taxi or a quick Luas transfer, and, in the future, a quicker Dart/Dart or Dart/Metro transfer.

[C] By bus: By far the best local, regional and intercity bus access in the city centre. The Mater has a fairly amazing amount of bus connections to large parts of Dublin and beyond.

On staff travel:

From consultants to cleaners, you want more refreshed and happier staff, not staff travelling longer distances.

Wild Bill wrote: »

These are crowded city streets, national routes in name only.

As I already said: Let's talk about how far away dual carriageway or motorway ends:

1. Dual carriageway on the N4 ends about 3km from the Mater
2. Motorway ends just over 4km away on the M1/N1
3. Motorway ends at the M1/Port Tunnel about 3km away
4. Dual carriageway on the N2 ends less than 2km away

Wild Bill wrote: »

If you are talking access by car (which suits perhaps 80% of the population best) then an M50 location is the only rational solution.

If you say so, sure, let's forget the importance of everything that's been said so far in the thread. :rolleyes:

Wild Bill wrote: »

For those dependent on public transport the Luas Red line plus bus routes are already in place.

Which are by best in the city centre.

sydthebeat

monument wrote: »

The CSO.

laughable... you link to an online newspaper as your source???

which assess the "greater dublin area" as including kildare, meath and wicklow... well, heres some news for you... ask the families living in these areas where they would like to see the new hospital built... inner city dublin is NOT going to be high on their list of choices.

PS the 'greater dublin area' actually has no statutory or governmental definition, so perhaps youd like to carlow, laois, offaly, westmeath and louth in that as well??? go on.. for the craic...

dont put forward figures claiming to be one thing when they are another completely.....

as for bi-location or tri-location....

we only do this kind of build once in every 50-60 years so lets do it right....

for the money it would cost due to traffic issues, work time restrictions, elongated construction schedules, augmenting existing services etc a more suitable hospital can be constructed for the money we are being asked to pay.

no matter what way you argue.... and even if the bord didnt specifically refer to the access issues.... it is crystal clear that the selection of the mater site was motivated by those in high political office at the time, which little regard to the suitability of the site.

thankfully this has been recognised and correct steps have been taken stop this project before it became a very expensive disaster. Is just such a pity that we have already payed 30 million in professional fees and are not 6 years further down the line to having a proper piece of national infrastructure.