Metro South proposed in Dublin transport plan

anothernight

LeinsterDub wrote: »

Isn't this thread meant to be about MS?

Sorry!

About MS, the timing is quite funny. Only a few weeks ago I was telling my friend to brace herself for some new expensive transport plan, like all the ones Dublin had before, which wouldn't make much if any difference while still costing many millions. And then they proposed Metro South.

LXFlyer

anothernight wrote: »

I think a lot of it is down to bad implementation, before we go into funding issues. I don't know if the situation has changed now, but my memory of Dublin Bus is one where customers were choosing to drive rather than to use the bus, because the service was leaving a lot to be desired. I remember that one of the fare increases was justified by saying that there was a decrease in number of bus users!

I see the website has a fare calculator and I know the stops are now shown in the bus itself, but for many years those two simple things weren't used at all. When I lived in Ireland, the "real time" information was as useful as if it wasn't there to begin with. It took more than €50 million to design and implement the Leap card, yet they didn't think to design it without requiring driver interaction for many fares. That was just shortsighted.

Hell, even the bus stop names are, in some places, completely irrelevant names instead of the names of landmarks that people would recognise.


I agree that there isn't enough funding going towards transport in Ireland, but there's also not enough thinking, and a lot of resistance to change. It's like the HSE, throwing more money at it won't help if you don't want to think progressively.

Without wanting to derail this thread any more I'd just comment:

The fare increases were principally down to government subsidies being cut - more of the burden was shifted to customers.

The RTPI was delayed for years due to the government not providing funding. For some years DB were forced to rely purely on the radio because the government withheld funding for their control system that drives the RTPI.

A simplified fare structure that avoids driver interaction would require a change in the basic funding model. That would require more funding from government.

LXFlyer

mhge wrote: »

How can we blame the customer friendly practice of forcing busloads of passengers to sit and wait for drivers in Donnybrook etc. on politicians?
Or having nothing but a yellow pole with a number on top as a bus stop? Great for tourists or visitors when you don't even know route numbers, not to mention any timetables...

With respect they're more micro issues than the broad issue of funding.

I certainly don't absolve DB from blame with regard to schedules etc. but the bigger issues you raised earlier are down to funding primarily.

The NTA are about to roll out single bus stops for all operators and have issued a manual on information design - again this will take time and money to roll out.

I'd suggest starting a new thread if you want to continue discussing this.

First Up

lxflyer wrote:

Well if our politicians were prepared to fund public transport properly then maybe we could have a decent system.

You make it sound as if the money is coming from a stash "the politicians" keep for their own amusement.

Government can only spend the money raised through tax or the loans we can afford to service and repay. So if you want a "decent" system, tell us what to stop funding to pay for it, or how much extra tax you are willing to pay to get it.

LXFlyer

Back on topic, I'd certainly be of the opinion that given the NTA recognise that the central area of south Dublin is not suitable for trams due to the narrow nature of the streets, that a more sensible route for Metro South would be to serve Rathmines, Harold's X, Terenure, Rathfarnham, Knocklyon and Tallaght.

LXFlyer

First Up wrote: »

You make it sound as if the money is coming from a stash "the politicians" keep for their own amusement.

Government can only spend the money raised through tax or the loans we can afford to service and repay. So if you want a "decent" system, tell us what to stop funding to pay for it, or how much extra tax you are willing to pay to get it.

I am acutely aware of that and have never suggested otherwise.

But people are blaming the operators for issues that frankly are dependant on funding being provided. It's all well and good saying that this and that should be done, but if the money isn't there then there's not much that can be done. And it hasn't been there for good reasons of late.

However in the case of the DB control system, that decision was during the boom and frankly was unforgivable.

Current funding levels will not deliver a radically improved system - that boils down to whether people prepared to pay for it through their taxes. Personally speaking I don't believe that our politicians or civil servants actually understand what is required.

LeinsterDub

First Up wrote: »

Government can only spend the money raised through tax or the loans we can afford to service and repay. So if you want a "decent" system, tell us what to stop funding to pay for it, or how much extra tax you are willing to pay to get it.

Said it before and will say it again. The EU investment bank are basically giving away money. Build MN with it's ROI of 2.1 and you're making money

First Up

LeinsterDub wrote:

Said it before and will say it again. The EU investment bank are basically giving away money. Build MN with it's ROI of 2.1 and you're making money

Give Michael Noonan a call will ya? This info must have passed him by.

First Up

lxflyer wrote:

Current funding levels will not deliver a radically improved system - that boils down to whether people prepared to pay for it through their taxes. Personally speaking I don't believe that our politicians or civil servants actually understand what is required.

I am more inclined to think it is the electorate that needs education on such matters

LeinsterDub

First Up wrote: »

Give Michael Noonan a call will ya? This info must have passed him by.

Nope just the political will to do anything.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/ireland-accused-of-being-slow-to-tap-315bn-eu-infrastructure-fund-386515.html

LXFlyer

First Up wrote: »

I am more inclined to think it is the electorate that needs education on such matters

Well our politicians as a group don't "get" public transport and what is needed not do their civil servants.

Unless it's shiny and on rails they're not interested despite buses accounting for 2/3 of public transport in the city.

And even then we don't get the strategically important rail schemes.

At a minimum I'd expect the politicians to understand it before the electorate as they have to explain it to them.

But they don't.

First Up

lxflyer wrote:

At a minimum I'd expect the politicians to understand it before the electorate as they have to explain it to them.

You started this complaining about a lack of funding from "politicians". Now you seem to be saying something else.

D.L.R.

lxflyer wrote: »

Back on topic, I'd certainly be of the opinion that given the NTA recognise that the central area of south Dublin is not suitable for trams due to the narrow nature of the streets, that a more sensible route for Metro South would be to serve Rathmines, Harold's X, Terenure, Rathfarnham, Knocklyon and Tallaght.

Connecting MN to the Green line makes more sense, its a long and economically active route that should by rights be a heavy rail route.

But branching metro lines makes a lot of sense in a small core + low density sprawl like Dublin, so that should be the long term goal for MN/MS imo.

LXFlyer

First Up wrote: »

You started this complaining about a lack of funding from "politicians". Now you seem to be saying something else.

OK I'll make it quite clear what I was saying.

Certain posters were blaming Dublin Bus for various shortcomings in LEAP, fare increases and other public transport projects.

I was correcting that by stating that all of these projects are dependent on state funding and that if that isn't available then the transport companies can only work with what they have.

Now beyond that I would say that I don't believe that public transport has got the investment that it deserves over the years, and I don't believe that any politicians really understand the issues public transport faces because in the main they don't use it.

strandroad

lxflyer wrote: »

With respect they're more micro issues than the broad issue of funding.

With respect I disagree - they might be smaller but they point to the general attitude bottom to top. I used to commute by bus and I must have spent many many hours total waiting in Donnybrook; it was clear that DB will rather discomfort a busload of customers than a single driver. If you ever had the pleasure to try and explain a yellow pole bus stop to a tourist you'd know how absurd and lazy it is - again, an example of how it was perfectly acceptable to DB to deliver something useless and to stop at it.
So with regard to MS it's not at all surprising that projects are put on the long finger or defunded either; who cares that it takes commuters an hour on a wobbly bus to get where a half decent underground metro would take them in 15 minutes. For all the millions it takes to recycle such projects they could surely deliver on something smaller?

LXFlyer

mhge wrote: »

With respect I disagree - they might be smaller but they point to the general attitude bottom to top. I used to commute by bus and I must have spent many many hours total waiting in Donnybrook; it was clear that DB will rather discomfort a busload of customers than a single driver. If you ever had the pleasure to try and explain a yellow pole bus stop to a tourist you'd know how absurd and lazy it is - again, an example of how it was perfectly acceptable to DB to deliver something useless and to stop at it.
So with regard to MS it's not at all surprising that projects are put on the long finger or defunded either; who cares that it takes commuters an hour on a wobbly bus to get where a half decent underground metro would take them in 15 minutes. For all the millions it takes to recycle such projects they could surely deliver on something smaller?

Every bus shelter in the city has a timetable display on it listing fares and routes served and most major bus stops have timetables on them and a route list either on the head or on the timetable carousel

The yellow stops were chosen quite specifically after extensive discussions with groups representing visually impaired customers. Every stop quite clearly has the word BUS on the head - I don't think you need to be Einstein to figure out what that means.

However as I posted already the NTA are in the process of rolling out a new single bus stop design for the entire country with a full design manual for how information is to be designed.

As for waiting at Donnybrook for a driver change - I don't think that is as big an issue anymore as the schedules have been updated. But I would say that sometimes for whatever reason buses can arrive early at the driver handover point - that's difficult to allow for.

But again this is all off-topic.

Sam Russell

Mod: Can we talk about Metro South in this thread.

spacetweek

lxflyer wrote: »

Back on topic, I'd certainly be of the opinion that given the NTA recognise that the central area of south Dublin is not suitable for trams due to the narrow nature of the streets, that a more sensible route for Metro South would be to serve Rathmines, Harold's X, Terenure, Rathfarnham, Knocklyon and Tallaght.

Going back to A Platform For Change (1999), still Ireland's best and most ambitious transport investment plan, the Metro South plan in that was to do both - upgrade Luas Green to Sandyford to Metro, and branch at Ranelagh southwest to serve all destinations as far as the Square in Tallaght. That should probably still be the long term goal.

D.L.R.

spacetweek wrote: »

Going back to A Platform For Change (1999), still Ireland's best and most ambitious transport investment plan, the Metro South plan in that was to do both - upgrade Luas Green to Sandyford to Metro, and branch at Ranelagh southwest to serve all destinations as far as the Square in Tallaght. That should probably still be the long term goal.

Yeah. You ideally want a trunk tunnel in the centre with branches into the suburbs to take advantage of all that capacity. Especially in a low density city like Dublin.

The northside could also potentially branch off and serve Beaumont, Artane, Howth Junction and then take over the Howth Dart branch entirely.

But, and sorry for the cynicism here, I don't have too much faith that we'll get anything like that. Even the bare minumum stripped down Metro that terminates at SSG will be a miracle imo, given the state's stingy attitude to urban transport investment.

cgcsb

IMO the real need for metro South is in South West Dublin. A line from SSG serving Portobello, Kenilworth Sq, Terenure, Rathfarnham etc. would serve some of Dublin's oldest and most densely populated suburbs. More importantly, this quadrant of Dublin has only narrow arterial roads with sporadic bus lanes and no scope to widen them or provide above ground BRT or light rail. Most other arterial corridors have much better scope for Bus and luas provision.

lateconnection

A planning application has been lodged to develop the site earmarked for the future potential Metro South tunnel portal, at Grand Parade, near Charlemont.

http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=2373/17&backURL=%3Ca%20href=wphappcriteria.display%3ESearch%20Criteria%3C/a%3E%20%3E%20%3Ca%20href=%27wphappsearchres.displayResultsURL?ResultID=3829621%26StartIndex=51%26SortOrder=APNID:DESC%26DispResultsAs=wphappsresweek1%26BackURL=%3Ca%20href=wphappcriteria.display%3ESearch%20Criteria%3C/a%3E%27%3ESearch%20Results%3C/a%3E

Dr_Bill

Dr_Bill wrote: »

Dublin has a couple of problems:

Poor Planning has contributed to urban sprawl due to low density, no tall buildings please...
Poor public transport stymied by vested interests by Unions, Councils, Irish Rail, LUAS & Dublin bus.
No actual appetite by successive governments to do anything about it & more recently no money either.
Public attitudes against proposals such as Metro North, Metro South, Dart Underground. Public then frustrated and confused why M50 is a car park. No by-in on the basis we don't need it. We might not need it right now but we do need it later, but by then its too late.

Result:

Nothing changes & public left wondering when they visit other European cities how fantastic their public transport system is and why we couldn't have something similar back at home.

The reason the public won't get behind these ideas is because they know the finished product won't link up to where they want to go. As per usual, There will still be a 20 minute(at least) walk between where it ends and the next point. If you have a car, just take the car.

D.L.R.

lateconnection wrote: »

A planning application has been lodged to develop the site earmarked for the future potential Metro South tunnel portal, at Grand Parade, near Charlemont.

http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=2373/17&backURL=%3Ca%20href=wphappcriteria.display%3ESearch%20Criteria%3C/a%3E%20%3E%20%3Ca%20href=%27wphappsearchres.displayResultsURL?ResultID=3829621%26StartIndex=51%26SortOrder=APNID:DESC%26DispResultsAs=wphappsresweek1%26BackURL=%3Ca%20href=wphappcriteria.display%3ESearch%20Criteria%3C/a%3E%27%3ESearch%20Results%3C/a%3E

At first I thought this was a CPO for the portal lands, and got all excited. But no, its plans for a development which would make a portal impossible, much like the proposed development behind Pearse.

The state is remarkably wishy washy about protecting these assets from private interests.

Victor

Kerching €€€

Idbatterim

At first I thought this was a CPO for the portal lands, and got all excited. But no, its plans for a development which would make a portal impossible, much like the proposed development behind Pearse.

The state is remarkably wishy washy about protecting these assets from private interests.

question, why didnt these idiots buy these sites when they could have been picked up for a pittance? Expecting to hear that there was no money, no will more like. This is an extremely rich country and it borrowed tens of billions to keep living standards very high. Funny what they can and cant find money for :rolleyes:

spacetweek

Schemes aren't guaranteed until they get underway. Metro South is just talk at this stage.

Are there not other places you could put the tunnel portal? What about Dartmouth Place, or Peter Place?

marno21

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/transport-bodies-fear-new-dublin-6-offices-may-hamper-luas-1.3042842

TII & NTA fearful of redeveloped office block being an issue for future Metro South stop.