After this election, do you think there's a chance

strandroad

Do you think that after the elections (likely to keep this government in power, or anyway give us an FG-driven one) there's a chance they will actually un-block MN and DU? Not because they believe that a European capital deserves decent public transport, oh no, but because of the pressure from all the multinationals and businesses who cannot hire talent willing to spend half their lives commuting? How can you be a good country to do business in if everyone is sitting in gridlock instead of working? The right-wing motivation to provide public transport if ever there was one...

MrMorooka

I think with DU its planing permission was allowed to expire, and the holds on land were lifted, so it will require a lot of work to get it started again. Open to correction.

Del.Monte

You could add extending the line from M3 Parkway into Navan onto the list.

Idbatterim

I doubt it, looks like nothing has been learned, if the was the case why not commit the 150,000,000 which is nothing to enabling works started on DU? they wouldnt have been enough to stall the major money works for a few years. We know their lying about the figures is simply that, lying to kick the can down the road further. I can understand how it would have been difficult to give both MN and DU the go ahead pre - election, well for anyone outside of the dublin area (with their blinkers on) the faith of dublin, has a massive bearing on the rest of the country.

They could have postponed MN, said its ok in its original format, then give it the go ahead after the election, but before PP expires...

Make sure when these one trick pony idiots, the lot of them, come knocking at your door, you let them know you are p**ssed off with issues like this. But hey, they will do the only thing they know how, to throw more money out at welfare and tax cuts!

The long term plan is to upgrade luas green line to "metro" could they simply not do this and have it serve the airport and swords, simply have it go underground at ranelagh (this is the long term plan anyway and serve the same stops or pretty much the same stops and route as the original metro north proposal)? If they went for that option, forget calling it metro north as other posters on this forum suggested, call it Luas north, it would be a far easier sell the way I see it, the airport should also be served by heavy rail also, with the dart spur, this again can be done for pocket change, between the heavy rail and luas extension, that would be some major capacity out to the airport and the northside of dublin...

devnull

Del.Monte wrote: »

You could add extending the line from M3 Parkway into Navan onto the list.

And something in Cork, and Limerick, and Waterford. Don't forget the rural areas as well. Very important those. Ask the Healy-Raes

Otherwise Paddy from Kerry will moan that it's unfair that Dublin gets all the investment and they get nothing.

blah

devnull wrote: »

And something in Cork, and Limerick, and Waterford. Don't forget the rural areas as well. Very important those. Ask the Healy-Raes

Otherwise Paddy from Kerry will moan that it's unfair that Dublin gets all the investment and they get nothing.

Dart to Dingle?

thomasj

Local D15 radio (phoenix) are airing an interview with the CEO of the NTA tomorrow morning, discussing upcoming plans. I think its replayed in the evening. Might be worth a listen for anyone in the Dublin 15 area, who have access to that radio station and are interested.

Muahahaha

I remember with the m50 upgrade the obvious was put on the long finger again and again and again. Then finally the ERSI or some other economic think tank ran the numbers and came to the conclusion that if it wasn't upgraded it was going to bring the city to an absolute standstill. Politicians delayed it so much that not doing it was going to cost the economy more in lost productivity than the cost of actually upgrading it. So our politicians waited till a kind of end game arrived where demand on a 2 lane m50 far exceeded supply and they were literally left with no choice.

I can see the same happening with DU and MN. Which means I don't see it happening in the next electoral cycle but I do expect by year 4/5 of the cycle we will start getting reports that not doing it will cost the economy money over doing it. At that point MNCs could well pressure govt to sort it. So assuming then they do something the only worry then is that with an election coming in 2021 that needs to be bought they might instead go tinkering around the edges and go with some sort of BRT solution which won't be enough from day one.

I still think it is insane that it is not being done now when we can issue 40 year bonds at rock bottom rates. But as we all know TDs in this country just don't get heavy rail. Then you throw this new urban rural divide into the mix where 70% of voters live outside the capital and are convinced by their parish pump TDs that Dublin is always robbing them (a complete lie btw, it is the other way around- Dublin taxation subsidises rural Ireland) and it makes billion euro infrastructure investments very difficult to get over the line with rural voters who'll be asking "wheres our Metro?".

So I think what is needed for it everntually to go ahead is a kind of a perfect storm of transport chaos. To many commuting in Dublin this already exists right now but it has to get even more chaotic than it is presently before action will be taken. It's a sad state of affairs really but thats the political reality as I see it.

Idbatterim

So I think what is needed for it everntually to go ahead is a kind of a perfect storm of transport chaos. To many commuting in Dublin this already exists right now but it has to get even more chaotic than it is presently before action will be taken. It's a sad state of affairs really but thats the political reality as I see it.

Exactly, I have been said that before over the last year or so on these forums, the sooner things return to total gridlock, the better, it will be the only thing that forces the issue.

I would also like to know, just how much Dublin is being bled dry and for this myth of dublin gets everything to be put to bed. During the boom with the bottomless pit, we go 2 disconnected light rail lines, one mostly running on an old tram alignment. I would love to see the figures and have them put out in pubic to a wide audience, the rural politicians seem to be far better at fighting their patch than the dublin ones. I will be letting the dublin ones know this when they come knocking!

newacc2015

Muahahaha wrote: »

I remember with the m50 upgrade the obvious was put on the long finger again and again and again. Then finally the ERSI or some other economic think tank ran the numbers and came to the conclusion that if it wasn't upgraded it was going to bring the city to an absolute standstill. Politicians delayed it so much that not doing it was going to cost the economy more in lost productivity than the cost of actually upgrading it. So our politicians waited till a kind of end game arrived where demand on a 2 lane m50 far exceeded supply and they were literally left with no choice.

I can see the same happening with DU and MN. Which means I don't see it happening in the next electoral cycle but I do expect by year 4/5 of the cycle we will start getting reports that not doing it will cost the economy money over doing it. At that point MNCs could well pressure govt to sort it. So assuming then they do something the only worry then is that with an election coming in 2021 that needs to be bought they might instead go tinkering around the edges and go with some sort of BRT solution which won't be enough from day one.

I still think it is insane that it is not being done now when we can issue 40 year bonds at rock bottom rates. But as we all know TDs in this country just don't get heavy rail. Then you throw this new urban rural divide into the mix where 70% of voters live outside the capital and are convinced by their parish pump TDs that Dublin is always robbing them (a complete lie btw, it is the other way around- Dublin taxation subsidises rural Ireland) and it makes billion euro infrastructure investments very difficult to get over the line with rural voters who'll be asking "wheres our Metro?".

So I think what is needed for it everntually to go ahead is a kind of a perfect storm of transport chaos. To many commuting in Dublin this already exists right now but it has to get even more chaotic than it is presently before action will be taken. It's a sad state of affairs really but thats the political reality as I see it.

I know it sounds ridiculous. But I think there should be a Dublin party, protecting the interest of Dubliners. Bavaria in Germany, which is basically more culturally Austrian than German. So they have their own party to look after their interests in Dublin.

Dubliners should elect a party, that goes into coalition with the aim of getting better services for Dublin. All the election leaflets I have gotten for main party candidates might well be for rural Donegal. They mention nothing about Dublin on any of the leaflets

devnull

Such people already exist down the country.

They're called independents, and most set their conditions for propping up previous FF governments.

n97 mini

It would be cheaper to lift the ridiculous height restriction on building. The kids that work in the Silicon Docks don't want more ways to get to the 'burbs (or Navan), they want to live in the city centre, and they should be allowed to do so in high rise apartment blocks.

KingBrian2

n97 mini wrote: »

It would be cheaper to lift the ridiculous height restriction on building. The kids that work in the Silicon Docks don't want more ways to get to the 'burbs (or Navan), they want to live in the city centre, and they should be allowed to do so in high rise apartment blocks.

Building skyscrapers would make the place ugly. Architects who know how to make a place stick out are needed for reshaping the landscape of Dublin. We have some fine buildings.

n97 mini

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Building skyscrapers would make the place ugly

I disagree, if they're done right they can look great. Suburbs full of 3 bed semis and buses stuck in traffic are ugly.

ClovenHoof

NO.

No matter who is in power in Ireland, even a party called the Green Transport Metro and DART alliance would still be giving money to the GAA and Denis O'Brien and not building underground rail lines in Dublin.

This is Ireland. We are a land of sh1t.

Muahahaha

Idbatterim wrote: »

Exactly, I have been said that before over the last year or so on these forums, the sooner things return to total gridlock, the better, it will be the only thing that forces the issue.

I would also like to know, just how much Dublin is being bled dry and for this myth of dublin gets everything to be put to bed.

I read an article somewhere last year that quantified public spending per head of population by county. People who live in Dublin have €550 spent per resident annually, people in Leitrim have the most spent, iirc it was €23,000 per head of population for people living there.

Now thats obviously because Leitrim is populated so sparsely and they need a subsidy from central taxation to maintain their roads, infrastructure, etc. No-one disagrees with that, it is part of the social contract we live under and part of democracy in general.

But problems arise when subsidies flowing out of Dublin mean that Dublin as a city is held back because of a lack of investment in vital infrastructure. Dublin has vastly different needs to a place like Leitrim but public spending does not reflect this. And to make matters worse we have a political discourse where parish pump politicians successfully convince their electorate that 'Dublin always gets everything and vote for me and I'll ensure they don't'. The likes of Jackie Healy Rae cultivated this lie with remarkable success to the point that huge flows of spending went into his constituency all at the expense of taxpayers in much larger urban areas.

newacc2015 wrote: »

I know it sounds ridiculous. But I think there should be a Dublin party, protecting the interest of Dubliners. Bavaria in Germany, which is basically more culturally Austrian than German. So they have their own party to look after their interests in Dublin.

Dubliners should elect a party, that goes into coalition with the aim of getting better services for Dublin. All the election leaflets I have gotten for main party candidates might well be for rural Donegal. They mention nothing about Dublin on any of the leaflets

It is not that ridiculous of an idea IMO. Even out of the main parties you'd do well to identify any Dublin based politician that can be said to be unashamedly pro-Dublin. Dublin based TDs cannot be vocal about Dublin simply because in their own parties they are outnumbered by rural politicians by about 3 to 1. So if (for example) Dublin based TDs like Leo Varadkar, Richard Bruton, Paschal Donohue etc came out and said 'Dublin needs €2bn in investment for DU and MN' they would be told to shut up by the party leader and chief whip for fear that their statements might alienate Fine Gael voters in rural areas who by now are convinced 'Dublin gets everything' when in fact the truth is taxation levied on residents of Dublin subsidises large parts of rural Ireland

Grandeeod

For a start, DU is dead in the water. With the Government allowing the expiry of the land acquisition issues, every particular site, right down to an airvent is not only under threat, but will most likely be compromised or simply built on. DU as originally planned will not happen. In fact as a project, I fear it will never happen and may well end up reinvented in 20 years time with another 20 years of BS tagged on.

As for MN, words fail me on that one. It won't happen either.

Long Time Lurker

blah wrote: »

Dart to Dingle?

What would be the point. Only 7 people would ever use it in any week and the rest would just look at it from the bar while lavishing praise on local TD Padraig Shaggy Sheepdip for bringing the train to Dingle :-)

KingBrian2

ClovenHoof wrote: »

NO.

No matter who is in power in Ireland, even a party called the Green Transport Metro and DART alliance would still be giving money to the GAA and Denis O'Brien and not building underground rail lines in Dublin.

This is Ireland. We are a land of sh1t.

Speak for yourself.

Grandeeod

KingBrian2 wrote: »

Speak for yourself.

There's a little truth in it though. Surely you can admit that.

KingBrian2

Grandeeod wrote: »

There's a little truth in it though. Surely you can admit that.

It is very true when it comes to the footpaths. Full of dog ****. My bro just stood in it today.:(

flutered

Long Time Lurker wrote: »

What would be the point. Only 7 people would ever use it in any week and the rest would just look at it from the bar while lavishing praise on local TD Padraig Shaggy Sheepdip for bringing the train to Dingle :-)

you must be thinking of the comical alan rail service from nenagh to limerick

Jamie2k9

Was reading in one of the papers today that the EU have approved some rule changes to Ireland (not publicly stated yet) but the next Goverment will have around 10 billion extra between 2016 and 2020 and the paper said some capital spending may start sooner than previous dates announced.

I would expect electrification of Maynooth/Balbriggan/M3 Parlway would likely be prime candidates as the cost is not major and results would be seen quickly.

Charles Babbage

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Was reading in one of the papers today that the EU have approved some rule changes to Ireland (not publicly stated yet) but the next Goverment will have around 10 billion extra between 2016 and 2020 and the paper said some capital spending may start sooner than previous dates announced.

I would expect electrification of Maynooth/Balbriggan/M3 Parlway would likely be prime candidates as the cost is not major and results would be seen quickly.

More important to quad track Connolly to Howth Junction.

thomasj

IE/NTA havent mentioned this as a goal let alone reach the design/planning stage. The length of time to plan and construct this would take many years. Just look at how long it took to 4-track the kildare line. Not to mention in the case of the howth line you need to acquire land including peoples houses .

Surely we should be aiming for projects that can be implemented in the shorter term, those that have gone through a bit of planning. The electrification projects are ideal for this.

Captain Chaos

Charles Babbage wrote: »

More important to quad track Connolly to Howth Junction.

There is zero chance of that happening as much as it really, really needs to happen, as they would have to evict and demolish a few hundred people and their houses and apartments there are built right next to the running lines.

No government in this country would have the balls never mind the money for that, it was done in France for the TGV lines however.

Jamie2k9

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Charles Babbage wrote: »

More important to quad track Connolly to Howth Junction.

There is zero chance of that happening as much as it really, really needs to happen, as they would have to evict and demolish a few hundred people and their houses and apartments there are built right next to the running lines.

No government in this country would have the balls never mind the money for that, it was done in France for the TGV lines however.

Fully agree, DU would need to be extended if it was ever going to happen.

joeysoap

I don't altogether disagree with muahahaha, and Dublin does need a lot of new infrastructure. And while we definitely don't need a dart to Dingle (maybe Drogheda) there is a lot needs doing with rural infastructure too . Anybody familiar with the (supposedly national road) from Kells to Mullingar will know how bad the last 15kms into Mullingar are. Bends and twists would not be out of place on a snakes and ladders board. And if your from Sligo and want to travel to the east coast , but not Dublin, well as the joke says I wouldn't start from there.