DART Underground - Alternative Routes

alias no.9

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I never expected there'd be much support - people want to see the interconnector built, as I do, and the circuitous route has planning permission.



Oh, come, come. There is surely a difference between creating a major public space in a magnificent showcase, and building an underground station in an area between a few nice 4-storey buildings and a park?



The currently proposed route for the DART Underground project involves (going from West to East) a curve from Christchurch to St. Stephen's Green, then a sharp turn to get to a north-south aligned station at Pearse, then another sharp turn to the right and then a curve into the proposed Spencer Dock station.

The suggestion here is that there would be a direct route from Heuston to an East-West station at Pearse Station (probably under Pearse Street), via College Green, thus cutting out most of the curves without having a negative impact on passenger uptake - indeed very probably having a positive impact on passenger uptake - before the inevitable curve into Spencer Dock.



Well, the direct route via College Green would be shorter. In the absence of any information about ground conditions at St. Stephen's Green or College Green, it does seem sensible to work on the basis that tunnelling would be cheaper.



I was working on the basis that the DART Underground project has to do two things. It has to achieve integration of all rail modes - which St. Stephen's Green would do (DART, LUAS and Metro), and College Green could do - and to enable the DART network to carry up to (or more than) 100 million passengers per annum. The current proposal is for your choke point to be at St. Stephen's Green. I'm suggesting it should be at College Green.



I was in Dublin in July. I think we all know it would be difficult to build in College Green - much more difficult that just building the easy, circuitous St. Stephen's Green route, where there's pretty much no traffic in the proposed construction area. It's already effectively pedestrianised.

I'm surprised that Irish Rail never bothered to look at College Green, which is effectively a 6-lane highway, in their plans for the DART Underground project. The DRRTS plan had an interchange between North-South and East-
West lines at Temple Bar, just metres away from College Green. I'm not convinced that their proposed interchange really needed to be moved several hundred metres to the south.

Good to see you acknowledge that it would be much more difficult to build at College Green, can you now take the next step and try and understand what additional technical and logistical difficulty translates to with respect to both the tangible costs and schedule of the project and the economic costs to the city and for once and for all stop presenting this as some kind cost saving.

The next thing you might consider is that making College Green a public open space is in no way tied to Dart Underground and that if anything trying to tie them together would be the best way of ensuring that neither happens.

strassenwo!f

I have yet to see any evidence that Irish Rail were planning this circuitous route before the LUAS arrived at St. Stephen's Green. The DRRTS study was the plan for the city until that time.

I have also yet to see a single official document which doesn't mention the fact that the DART Underground project goes via St. Stephen's Green where it 'will enable interchange with the LUAS'. Until the current construction works, any other route wouldn't have done so.

Going via St. Stephen's Green will enable interchange with the LUAS. Going via College Green will too.

murphaph

Typical Soviet era metros intentionally avoided the acknowledged city centre and instead form a triangle of three intersecting lines around the city centre. My point is, there's more than one way to skin a cat. And as for circuitous....(very few underground rail networks are made up of straight lines, curves are the norm, for all sorts of reasons)

You have your opinion on this, but you know you are in the minority. This thread is only kept alive by you posting more or less the exact same question, formulated slightly differently, every few weeks.

strassenwo!f

The Soviet Union experiment had much to teach us.

But Germany would, I feel, be a much better role model for Ireland to follow, in terms of public transport.

strassenwo!f

Sorry, that should have read 'The Soviet Union experiment has much to teach us'.

murphaph

Ok, here's Munich's existing interconnector (Stammstrecke) in green (and the planned new one in red). Note the seemingly needless deviation to the north after Marienhof when heading west to east? What do you make of it? The curve clearly adds to the length of the tunnel, so shouldn't they eliminate the curve and make the tunnel shorter, as you espouse for Dublin?

strassenwo!f

murphaph wrote: »

Ok, here's Munich's existing interconnector (Stammstrecke) in green (and the planned new one in red). Note the seemingly needless deviation to the north after Marienhof when heading west to east? What do you make of it? The curve clearly adds to the length of the tunnel, so shouldn't they eliminate the curve and make the tunnel shorter, as you espouse for Dublin?

I mentioned above that Germany would be a good example for Ireland to follow, and you have chosen Munich. Probably the best public transport system I have ever seen. Their highest capacity line, direct, from East to West, through what is unquestionably the centre of the city. That's the way they did it. No faffing around trying to concoct a connection with a tram line.

While they might now be worrying about their route for a second line. Dublin is a long way away from even building the first. Dublin is decades behind a city like Munich.

But it needn't be; go through the various planning hoops, and build the highest capacity line through the busiest areas.

murphaph

OK don't answer the question then.

strassenwo!f

But what is your question?

The initial (green) line is quite clearly a direct route between the Hauptbahnhof and the Ostbahnhof, via Marienplatz. There are no significant curves involved in the really central part of the city, that I can see.

There is a large curve on the proposed new (red) line, but in the bit between Marienplatz and Ostbahnhof where there are no stations - so in terms of passenger uptake it doesn't really matter what it does. It still is surprising that they needed to have such a long route - perhaps they wanted to use that island in the middle of the Isar?

murphaph

Aha! So some unknown technical reason might explain the seemingly inexplicable curve?

Carawaystick

It's hardly something underground which might prevent the rail line taking the direct route now is it AMurph?

There's surely not a university with buildings foundations down in the way?

strassenwo!f

murphaph wrote: »

Aha! So some unknown technical reason might explain the seemingly inexplicable curve?

Of course it would.

But is that the case in Dublin? We don't know, because Irish Rail didn't examine the possibility of building at College Green.

It is certainly worth remembering that Irish Rail looked at two possibilities for stations in D2: St. Stephen's Green and Tara Street. One of the main reasons why Tara Street was discounted was that trains through there would not be able to go to St. Stephen's Green.

Now that would indicate to me that Irish Rail, for whatever reason, saw it as a critical factor to build the line through St. Stephen's Green. There has been no indication, that I am aware of, that the large curve is due to any technical reason.

alias no.9

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I have yet to see any evidence that Irish Rail were planning this circuitous route before the LUAS arrived at St. Stephen's Green. The DRRTS study was the plan for the city until that time.

I have also yet to see a single official document which doesn't mention the fact that the DART Underground project goes via St. Stephen's Green where it 'will enable interchange with the LUAS'. Until the current construction works, any other route wouldn't have done so.

Going via St. Stephen's Green will enable interchange with the LUAS. Going via College Green will too.

DRRTS was officially abandoned in 1987, long before Luas was conceived. Are you suggesting nothing has changed in the City or in the utilisation in the existing rail network since the DRRTS study happened in the early 1970's and as such that plan should be blindly followed?

Back in the 1970's there were plans for a Central Station in Temple Bar that would become the main bus and rail station in the city. The site for the Central Station was chosen because it was seen as a decrepit sh!thole that was in need of rejuvenation. The Central Station never happened and as such there's no fixed requirement for a modern Dart Underground to serve it. If it had been built, even just as a central bus station, there would be merit in serving it but it hasn't so it's of little consequence.

To the best of my knowledge the underground section was then intended to link with the northern line at Connolly, not quite sure how they'd have done that and online information on this report is sketchy but the current plan completely sidesteps the now oversubscribed Connolly in order to maximise the number of trains that can run on the proposed Dart Underground.

strassenwo!f

Carawaystick wrote: »

It's hardly something underground which might prevent the rail line taking the direct route now is it AMurph?

There's surely not a university with buildings foundations down in the way?

I really haven't had a chance to reply to some comments on this board - to which I would really like to comment - for several days. This is one of them.

Yes, while any direct route between Christchurch and Pearse Station should, you would think, mostly involve tunnelling largely under roads, it is pretty much unquestionable that there would have to be tunnelling under the grounds of TCD in some shape or form.

As we, on this board, all appear to be unaware of the ground conditions involved in the area - such is the dearth of analysis of this area which appears to have been carried out - the easiest way would seem to be across a chunk of Front Square and then under some of the more modern catering and other buildings which front onto College Street.

It doesn't seem to be a problem for the DART Underground project to go directly under Government Buildings and under Dublin Castle. These are two important buildings which, I trust, have foundations.

strassenwo!f

alias no.9 wrote: »

Good to see you acknowledge that it would be much more difficult to build at College Green, can you now take the next step and try and understand what additional technical and logistical difficulty translates to with respect to both the tangible costs and schedule of the project and the economic costs to the city and for once and for all stop presenting this as some kind cost saving.

I think I have spent a lot of time on this thread acknowledging that it would be more difficult to build a direct route.

Anybody who is either from Dublin, or who has ever visited the city, could tell you without a moment's thought that it would be more difficult to build a route via College Green.

St. Stephen's Green: doddle; College Green: difficult. Is that clear enough?

This is not about just about cost saving. It's about:

- cost saving: in the absence of any other information, you'd expect that a shorter route would be cheaper. College Green could provide an opportunity for a shorter route. It is, after all, largely a 6-lane highway in the middle of the city;

- worker uptake: you can do pretty much anything with statistics, and you could make a case that a route via St. Stephen's Green would be better overall for getting workers directly to their place of work, because it is actually in the major red bit of the map shown above by the poster Monument, even if it is also right beside a very large green area which compromises its usefulness as a public transport uptake and delivery node.

You could also make a case that a station at College Green would be right beside this major red area and very close to large areas of employment on the northside of the river, and is in an area of very large employment.

We discussed this above, and until further analysis is carried out, I don't think we're going to gain anything here.

- uptake by other users: in any city, there are many users of public transport who use the available services, for shopping, eating, visiting (Government or local) offices, or visiting other places of interest. I think that there should really be no question that a direct Christchurch - College Green - Pearse Station corridor in Dublin would be the best one for all of that stuff in Dublin.

I am aware that there would be a greater economic cost to the city, during construction, if a station were to be constructed at College Green. As I said above, I can't quantify it, and I can't quantify the benefit which would accrue to the city from having a station right in the centre, rather than in a quiet location like St. Stephen's Green.

- city development: St. Stephen's Green is a wonderful park - any city would be proud to have it. College Green could be a wonderful place, the main problem is that it's full of traffic - a lot of which is public transport - and it's nigh impossible to see its good points.

Marienplatz in Munich was mentioned above in this thread, and this could be a good example for Dublin to follow. It is a splendid area, devoid of pretty much any traffic (of any kind). But it has a very serious public transport function, because of what's happening below: S-Bahn trains to around 150 stations, U-Bahn trains to dozens more.

alias no.9 wrote: »

The next thing you might consider is that making College Green a public open space is in no way tied to Dart Underground and that if anything trying to tie them together would be the best way of ensuring that neither happens.

I think you're entirely right in the first bit. A route via College Green should stand on its own merits, in terms of cost and delivery and uptake of passengers.

(If construction of this line eventually involves not damaging chunks of the great park which is St. Stephen's Green, and instead turns College Green into a wonderful municipal space, so much the better).

alias no.9

strassenwo!f wrote: »

I think I have spent a lot of time on this thread acknowledging that it would be more difficult to build a direct route.

Anybody who is either from Dublin, or who has ever visited the city, could tell you without a moment's thought that it would be more difficult to build a route via College Green.

St. Stephen's Green: doddle; College Green: difficult. Is that clear enough?

This is not about just about cost saving. It's about:

- cost saving: in the absence of any other information, you'd expect that a shorter route would be cheaper. College Green could provide an opportunity for a shorter route. It is, after all, largely a 6-lane highway in the middle of the city;

You just can't help it can you. We're not in the absence of any other information, more difficult = slower = higher cost, just drop it at this stage, it's pure unsubstantiated nonsense.

- worker uptake: you can do pretty much anything with statistics, and you could make a case that a route via St. Stephen's Green would be better overall for getting workers directly to their place of work, because it is actually in the major red bit of the map shown above by the poster Monument, even if it is also right beside a very large green area which compromises its usefulness as a public transport uptake and delivery node.

You could also make a case that a station at College Green would be right beside this major red area and very close to large areas of employment on the northside of the river, and is in an area of very large employment.

The bit you've left out us the proximity to the existing Luas red line, you'd effectively end up serving the exact same catchment.

We discussed this above, and until further analysis is carried out, I don't think we're going to gain anything here.

- uptake by other users: in any city, there are many users of public transport who use the available services, for shopping, eating, visiting (Government or local) offices, or visiting other places of interest. I think that there should really be no question that a direct Christchurch - College Green - Pearse Station corridor in Dublin would be the best one for all of that stuff in Dublin.

That's a big leap of faith

I am aware that there would be a greater economic cost to the city, during construction, if a station were to be constructed at College Green. As I said above, I can't quantify it, and I can't quantify the benefit which would accrue to the city from having a station right in the centre, rather than in a quiet location like St. Stephen's Green.

Just making stuff up to suit the narrative

- city development: St. Stephen's Green is a wonderful park - any city would be proud to have it. College Green could be a wonderful place, the main problem is that it's full of traffic - a lot of which is public transport - and it's nigh impossible to see its good points.

Modal change from bus to rail will reduce congestion in college green regardless of whether the line runs under it or not. Most people on the busses travel through rather than to or from college green.

Marienplatz in Munich was mentioned above in this thread, and this could be a good example for Dublin to follow. It is a splendid area, devoid of pretty much any traffic (of any kind). But it has a very serious public transport function, because of what's happening below: S-Bahn trains to around 150 stations, U-Bahn trains to dozens more.



I think you're entirely right. A route via College Green should stand on its own merits, in terms of cost and delivery and uptake of passengers.

(If construction of this line eventually involves not damaging chunks of the great park which is St. Stephen's Green, and instead turns College Green into a wonderful municipal space, so much the better).

monument

strassenwo!f wrote: »

worker uptake: you can do pretty much anything with statistics, and you could make a case that a route via St. Stephen's Green would be better overall for getting workers directly to their place of work, because it is actually in the major red bit of the map shown above by the poster Monument, even if it is also right beside a very large green area which compromises its usefulness as a public transport uptake and delivery node.

Stop your outright nonsense. It's already proven that:

(1) There's higher working populations 1km around the current planned stop (including south of it).

(2) There's also large green areas close to College Green.

(3) Extensive work has been done at Pearse to suit the current alignment.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

You could also make a case that a station at College Green would be right beside this major red area and very close to large areas of employment on the northside of the river, and is in an area of very large employment.

Those northside areas are to be served by Luas red and green lines, and Dart and commuter at Tara, Connelly and Docklands.

strassenwo!f

Monument, has the direct route ever even been looked at?

Just asking, 'cos you're saying that it's 'outright nonsense' to suggest that it should be.

GerardKeating

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Monument, has the direct route ever even been looked at?

Just asking, 'cos you're saying that it's 'outright nonsense' to suggest that it should be.

The original 1970's DART network plan kind of followed your route, but that was never built.

murphaph

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Monument, has the direct route ever even been looked at?

Just asking, 'cos you're saying that it's 'outright nonsense' to suggest that it should be.

The "direct route" would tunnel directly from Heuston to Church road. This would "save" even more money than your favoured route.

strassenwo!f

I'm aware that every Dublin postal district has a 'Church Lane'..:)

Which 'Church Road' are you speaking about? East Wall?

strassenwo!f

And see above on this page. It's not only about saving money.

strassenwo!f

GerardKeating wrote: »

The original 1970's DART network plan kind of followed your route, but that was never built.

That's right. The whole thing changed when the LUAS was built and it got stuck at St. Stephens's Green, because it would cause 'disruption' if it was built across the city.

That's when the whole DART Underground via St. Stephen's Green thing started.

Everybody knows, bar a few diehards on this board, that if you're going to build a DART Underground line, it makes most sense to build it through the centre. As was suggested in the 1970s. There's no reason for a circuitous route. None whatsoever.

murphaph

OK....can we let this thread die with dignity then and agree to disagree?

markpb

strassenwo!f wrote: »

Everybody knows, bar a few diehards on this board

Everybody?

GerardKeating

strassenwo!f wrote: »

That's right. The whole thing changed when the LUAS was built and it got stuck at St. Stephens's Green, because it would cause 'disruption' if it was built across the city.

That's when the whole DART Underground via St. Stephen's Green thing started.

Everybody knows, bar a few diehards on this board, that if you're going to build a DART Underground line, it makes most sense to build it through the centre. As was suggested in the 1970s. There's no reason for a circuitous route. None whatsoever.

I doubt it, I think this was more about getting a station in Spenser Dock, were CIE have a lot of prime development land, but maybe I an cynical.

But a lot of discussion is pointless now, your "direct" route cannot link to the "Northern" line easily anymore, since the Port Tunnel is in the way, so the loop around the green would be needed to get around this.

strassenwo!f

markpb wrote: »

Everybody?

'Everybody' is an exaggeration. I'm sorry.

But many (I'd be afraid to say 'most') people in Dublin, let alone the rest of the country, are unaware that the DART Underground project is even on the table.

Next time you meet somebody who hasn't heard of it, show them a map of Dublin and ask them to sketch out a route betwen Heuston and Spencer Dock, via Pearse. I'm pretty sure it'd be much like the route that the poster Telchak posted above.

At the moment, all we have to work with here is that the circuitous route goes via St. Stephen's Green to meet up with the LUAS. There may well be other technical reasons not to build this route via the centre of the city, but we haven't heard of them.

And the fact that Irish Rail appear not to have even examined the possibility of doing so, possibly (or very probably, probably) because the LUAS wasn't there at the time, doesn't help us to find out about any such technical reasons which might exist.

Until we get such information, we should work on the basis that Irish Rail planned the route via St. Stephen's Green because the LUAS was there.

Once again, sorry about the 'everybody'.

strassenwo!f

murphaph wrote: »

OK....can we let this thread die with dignity then and agree to disagree?

As far as I know, the only thing being discussed on this forum which is about to die is the current plan for the DART Underground project. When is it..the 24th or 25th of this month?

Given that the LUAS link-up will happen soon - which will of course also allow us to assess passenger demand in the city - it's going to be considerably more difficult next time to say that 'the DART Underground project goes via a strategically located station at St. Stephen's Green, where it will meet with the LUAS...', without presenting other evidence for their proposed detour.

Sierra Oscar

Doesn't look good for DART Underground. Looks like the Government is going to go with a Luas link to the airport.

strassenwo!f

monument wrote: »

Stop your outright nonsense. It's already proven that:

(1) There's higher working populations 1km around the current planned stop (including south of it).

I’d imagine we are all very grateful that you found and posted the above map (I certainly am), which shows that St. Stephen’s Green is in the largest of the ‘small areas’ on the map. College Green is right beside this area.

As I have said repeatedly on this thread, the largest area of highest density employment in the city is between St. Stephen’s Green and College Green, and your map shows this quite explicitly. There are other areas in the city with employment levels of over 5,000 - St. Stephen’s Green is near to one, College Green is close to others.

monument wrote: »

(2) There's also large green areas close to College Green.

Not really. There's nothing like a 22-acre park right beside the area.

The immediate area around College Green is pretty dense – obviously much denser than at St. Stephen’s Green, because it doesn’t have a 22-acre park right beside it – and should be readily accessible from all sides.

There are large green areas in TCD – one of which, the rugby pitch, might even be suitable for insertion of a TBM, if it is eventually decided to build the interconnector in two stages – but that’s all really more of a problem for the Pearse Station catchment.

monument wrote: »

(3) Extensive work has been done at Pearse to suit the current alignment.

There’s been a couple of escalators built. This was, of course, done before Irish Rail even went to ABP, in anticipation that ABP would grant Irish Rail a railway order. Which ABP duly did.

Irish Rail’s plan is for a North-South underground line through the station. But those escalators would be equally useful for an East-West underground line. You’ve got to have some way to get people between the overground line and the underground line, quickly.

monument wrote: »

Those northside areas are to be served by Luas red and green lines, and Dart and commuter at Tara, Connelly and Docklands.

The volume of the proposed interconnector is vast. Theoretically, up to over 100,000 passengers per hour. This would totally dwarf anything that the LUAS can manage.

I’m sorry Monument, I don’t buy it. Coming from Hazelhatch, those wanting to go to the south of the city get a 3-4 trip to a station beside a park in St. Stephen’s Green; those wanting to go to the north get to change onto a 10-12 LUAS trip into the city. Those coming from Kilbarrack face pretty much the same disparity.

It’s undoubtedy the highest capacity line which will ever be built in Ireland. It is important that the route is good.