NTA's 3bn Underground Metro Plan Unveiled

Stephen15

IE 222 wrote: »

Busiest period at the airport is between 6-8am with a large wave of transatlantic flights arriving before that. Given you should arrive 2 hours before your flight and up to 1 hour to travel there on a system that wont be running 24hrs it would be rather difficult to catch a Metro at 3am. So in other words your Metro is missing out on a large portion of Airport users.

Majority of lights in and out of Dublin Airport are domestic EU flights not transatlatic.

IE 222

Stephen15 wrote: »

Majority of lights in and out of Dublin Airport are domestic EU flights not transatlatic.

I don't get your point, where did I say otherwise? I said the busiest period for DUB is between 6-8am, i didnt comment on where any of the flights between these hours are to or from as I can't see why that would be relevant. I also made note that PRIOR this period there is a large wave of transatlantic flights arriving.

IE 222

IE 222 wrote: »

Busiest period at the airport is between 6-8am with a large wave of transatlantic flights arriving before that. Given you should arrive 2 hours before your flight and up to 1 hour to travel there on a system that wont be running 24hrs it would be rather difficult to catch a Metro at 3am. So in other words your Metro is missing out on a large portion of Airport users.

So is Dublin bus, Dart and luas by that logic as they are not able to transport everyone looking to go somewhere at some specific time.

Obviously if the service is not running at a certain time it won't serve people but seeing as how there will shortly be bus routes running 24hrs specifically to serve the airport, I see no reason why that wouldn't eventually happen to this

IE 222

[Deleted User] wrote: »

So is Dublin bus, Dart and luas by that logic as they are not able to transport everyone looking to go somewhere at some specific time.

Obviously if the service is not running at a certain time it won't serve people but seeing as how there will shortly be bus routes running 24hrs specifically to serve the airport, I see no reason why that wouldn't eventually happen to this

Yeah your taking one small example from a group I made regarding the effectiveness of Metro serving the airport and its overall usage.

Yes this will apply to any mode of tranport as is the case currently with the expection of a couple of bus services.

As there is no plans to run any rail operations 24hrs I dont see Meteo been any differnet. The larger widely used Tube system is shut down overnight. Usually these systems close overnight to allow repair and maintenance work to be carried out as well as other reasons.

IE 222

IE 222 wrote: »

Yeah your taking one small example from a group I made regarding the effectiveness of Metro serving the airport and its overall usage.

Yes this will apply to any mode of tranport as is the case currently with the expection of a couple of bus services.

As there is no plans to run any rail operations 24hrs I dont see Meteo been any differnet. The larger widely used Tube system is shut down overnight. Usually these systems close overnight to allow repair and maintenance work to be carried out as well as other reasons.

Still not a good reason not to build it

As far as I can see, most of arguments were had when luas was proposed (vast sums, massive disruption, only a certain catchment) and when the port tunnel was mooted

I don't think you will find many who would say they were a bad investment now that they are done

Metro will be the same.

IE 222

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Still not a good reason not to build it

As far as I can see, most of arguments were had when luas was proposed (vast sums, massive disruption, only a certain catchment) and when the port tunnel was mooted

I don't think you will find many who would say they were a bad investment now that they are done

Metro will be the same.

The example on its own is not a good reason not to build it buts its only one point from a collection of example I made that you singled out.

Not disputing if it will make an impact or not. My believe along with many others is that the mode of rail is wrong as well as the routing and lack of meaningful connections. There are also many other parts of the city that require and will greatly benefit more from a Metro or Dart than adding the southern section into a rail system thats only seen a major investment completed and opened 3 months ago.

All them projects have served the city well and a new rail system will serve the city even better if its built were its needed the most. The city is crippled as it is with congestion never mind 10 or 15 years time.

There is a total of €5bn earmarked for rail infrastructure between Metro and Dart works. That money offers a lot more potential in my eyes. Focusing on areas of South Dublin with a point to point system that has a rail system already is not best value for money and will do very little to improve the overall congestion problems that largely exist further away from this routing. Its pointless splashing all the cash on one route while knowing we'll be delaying and haven to spend even more at a later date on the areas been ignored now. Most parts of The Green Line are some of the least congested areas in Dublin.

Stephen15

IE 222 wrote: »

I don't get your point, where did I say otherwise? I said the busiest period for DUB is between 6-8am, i didnt comment on where any of the flights between these hours are to or from as I can't see why that would be relevant. I also made note that PRIOR this period there is a large wave of transatlantic flights arriving.

The majority of people using Dublin Airport are not using it during that so called busy period. They are using it throughout the course of the day.

Irish Steve

The lack of understanding about the airport, the way it operates, and the requirements for transport is mind numbing.

There are in excess of 24 million passengers a year using the place, and there are huge numbers of people working there who have to arrive before the first flights of the day, which on a good day is before 5 am, and at the other end of the day, the people working can't leave until the last flights in have been processed.

to quote a small section from a 2015 report.

Its economic importance is reflected in the estimated 97,400 jobs supported or facilitated by the airport and the €6.9 billion contributed to Gross Domestic Product.

Nearly 16,000 of that number are directly employed at the airport, and there are another 10,000 involved in close support.

The number of non EU flights is a lot higher than some people realise, with more coming on stream in the next few months, and an aggressive expansion plan being implemented by Aer Lingus, using the new A320neo long range version.

The peak periods are simple, most of the longer distance flights are wide body aircraft, so they carry a lot more people, and there's a lot of them in the early hours, as that suits the times for then returning to the US, but to add to those numbers, there are now significant numbers of long haul from the Middle East, and shortly China, as well as the Ethiopian flights. The majority of the Aer Lingus and Ryanair aircraft that are based in Dublin also depart early, and there is then another significant peak in the late evening, as those same aircraft return to Dublin for the night.

For anyone to think that the airport does not need 24/7 high quality transport links is incredible, and given the figures mentioned above in terms of the ANNUAL contribution of the airport to GDP, for people here to be arguing over the cost of doing the job right is frankly pathetic, but typical of the mindset of way too many people in high places.

A train/metro/luas or whatever every 2 minutes will not be needed during the night hours, but to pretend that the airport to all intents and purposes can be ignored by most public transport services between midnight and 6 am beggars belief, and does the huge numbers of people that work there no favours at all.

Dublin Airport is not competing with any other airport on this island, it is directly competing with places like the major London airports, Amsterdam, Paris, and other places further east, and it has a massive potential to be a very powerful hub, if properly promoted, with the right infrastructure. There are a number of issues that could block or damage that future expansion potential, and for sure one of them is the access for both passengers and staff, there are already massive pressures on car parking space for staff, which won't improve going forward.

A while back, I spent a weekend in Hamburg, which handles around 13 million passengers a year, so half of Dublin's volumes, and looking at their web site, their early mornings are a later start, and from what I could see of it, there are only 2 long haul flights a day to Dubai, and no other long haul flights, so their pattern is quite different, with smaller aircraft serving most destinations. The public transport to Hamburg has the German equivalent of Dart and Metro from a station inside the main terminal areas, with good connections to the wider heavy rail lines, and they operate from 04:34 to 00:14.

Most of the day, there is a service every 10 minutes, and it's a good service, both in terms of time, reliability and price. Dublin needs something that is of equal quality and reliability.

Given our lack of political will, vision and foresight to get it right, and the almost permanent state of hostilities that exists between the management and unions of the transport providers, I will be surprised to see a quality public transport service at the airport in my lifetime, and I'm not that long retired.

The facilities for bus passengers are primitive, little more than outdoor shelters, which for an hour wait is unacceptable, as the actual times of buses can't be relied on, and some of the ideas that were proposed a while ago for the location of any rail link were frankly bizarre, the reality being that DAA don't really want good public transport services, as that will impact the significant revenues that they earn from car parking, and massive numbers of taxi permits.

IE 222

Stephen15 wrote: »

The majority of people using Dublin Airport are not using it during that so called busy period. They are using it throughout the course of the day.

Again your twisting my statement to make your argument. I not saying the majority of people travel through the airport in the early hours but a good portion of the daily total do.

Stephen15

IE 222 wrote: »

Again your twisting my statement to make your argument. I not saying the majority of people travel through the airport in the early hours but a good portion of the daily total do.

Still its not a valid argument to not build the Metro. The metro will serve more than just The Airport it will serve The Mater Hospital, DCU and Swords Dublin's fastest growing suburb but still doesn't have any decent public transport to name but a few.

Under your proposed 5bn DART expansion how do you propose serving Swords a DART spur on from the airport spur or from Malahide simply won't cut it nor would BRT or Luas. It wouldn't be possible to be frequent enough and the journey would take too long. Metro along it's current proposed routing would be the most direct, quickest way which to serve the airport and Swords through a means of mass transport.

IE 222

Irish Steve wrote: »

The lack of understanding about the airport, the way it operates, and the requirements for transport is mind numbing.

There are in excess of 24 million passengers a year using the place, and there are huge numbers of people working there who have to arrive before the first flights of the day, which on a good day is before 5 am, and at the other end of the day, the people working can't leave until the last flights in have been processed.

to quote a small section from a 2015 report.



Nearly 16,000 of that number are directly employed at the airport, and there are another 10,000 involved in close support.

The number of non EU flights is a lot higher than some people realise, with more coming on stream in the next few months, and an aggressive expansion plan being implemented by Aer Lingus, using the new A320neo long range version.

The peak periods are simple, most of the longer distance flights are wide body aircraft, so they carry a lot more people, and there's a lot of them in the early hours, as that suits the times for then returning to the US, but to add to those numbers, there are now significant numbers of long haul from the Middle East, and shortly China, as well as the Ethiopian flights. The majority of the Aer Lingus and Ryanair aircraft that are based in Dublin also depart early, and there is then another significant peak in the late evening, as those same aircraft return to Dublin for the night.

For anyone to think that the airport does not need 24/7 high quality transport links is incredible, and given the figures mentioned above in terms of the ANNUAL contribution of the airport to GDP, for people here to be arguing over the cost of doing the job right is frankly pathetic, but typical of the mindset of way too many people in high places.

A train/metro/luas or whatever every 2 minutes will not be needed during the night hours, but to pretend that the airport to all intents and purposes can be ignored by most public transport services between midnight and 6 am beggars belief, and does the huge numbers of people that work there no favours at all.

Dublin Airport is not competing with any other airport on this island, it is directly competing with places like the major London airports, Amsterdam, Paris, and other places further east, and it has a massive potential to be a very powerful hub, if properly promoted, with the right infrastructure. There are a number of issues that could block or damage that future expansion potential, and for sure one of them is the access for both passengers and staff, there are already massive pressures on car parking space for staff, which won't improve going forward.

A while back, I spent a weekend in Hamburg, which handles around 13 million passengers a year, so half of Dublin's volumes, and looking at their web site, their early mornings are a later start, and from what I could see of it, there are only 2 long haul flights a day to Dubai, and no other long haul flights, so their pattern is quite different, with smaller aircraft serving most destinations. The public transport to Hamburg has the German equivalent of Dart and Metro from a station inside the main terminal areas, with good connections to the wider heavy rail lines, and they operate from 04:34 to 00:14.

Most of the day, there is a service every 10 minutes, and it's a good service, both in terms of time, reliability and price. Dublin needs something that is of equal quality and reliability.

Given our lack of political will, vision and foresight to get it right, and the almost permanent state of hostilities that exists between the management and unions of the transport providers, I will be surprised to see a quality public transport service at the airport in my lifetime, and I'm not that long retired.

The facilities for bus passengers are primitive, little more than outdoor shelters, which for an hour wait is unacceptable, as the actual times of buses can't be relied on, and some of the ideas that were proposed a while ago for the location of any rail link were frankly bizarre, the reality being that DAA don't really want good public transport services, as that will impact the significant revenues that they earn from car parking, and massive numbers of taxi permits.

I completely agree with you. A rail service to the Airport is essential and will be a success for staff and travellers.

Where i tend to disagree is the notion that we require:

• A high capacity tram every 2 mins
• Develop a completely new rail system .
• The Green Line to be included
• 24hrs (which i don't believe is in the NTA plan)
• Upgrading other rail links instead of expanding

To add to this the new €3bn Metro system has a very limited catchment area and in my view falls short on maximising reach and connectivity. Although a lot of staff live within the Fingal area not all will be within reach of the Metro. Many others will live in West and North Dublin or surrounding towns in Meath & Louth ect. more so than South Dublin. The new night buses a long with the inclusion of further routes would provide a much better service and reach to workers in the early and late hours of the day than the purposed Metro will.

It highly unlikely any Airport rail service will operate 24hrs as it would require operating the rest of the Dublin network as well to work effectively. 5am to midnight would be the most likely operation.

We talk about the way the Germans do things but yet when we put the funds in we do something completely different while ignoring and criticising our current German like system the Dart. As I said before, Dart is our Metro and because it doesn't have any tunnels people overlook this fact. The Germans only use Metro within the city limites as the further out you run high capacity and frequency metros the least effective they become. Ten minute Darts with platform transfers into Regional and Intercity rail is the perfect fit for Dublin.

Stephen15

IE wrote:

We talk about the way the Germans do things but yet when we put the funds in we do something completely different while ignoring and criticising our current German like system the Dart. As I said before, Dart is our Metro and because it doesn't have any tunnels people overlook this fact. The Germans only use Metro within the city limites as the further out you run high capacity and frequency metros the least effective they become. Ten minute Darts with platform transfers into Regional and Intercity rail is the perfect fit for Dublin.

Many larger German cities have a U-Bahn and S-Bahn. The U-Bahn is generally underground in the core city centre and serves the suburbs that are nearby the city. The S-Bahn serves the places which are further out and is generally overground. Some S-Bahn systems share the tracks with other regional, intercity and freight trains. Dublin needs the Metro in addition to DART expansion.

Metros are generally a considered different mode of transport to trains as they are considered an urban mode of transport so its more important to intergrate them with other urban transport modes such as trams and buses rather than intercity and regional trains.

Integrating the an urban mass transit system with intercity and regional trains would be like integrating Dublin Buses and Bus Eireann and other intercity buses it would be nice to do and handy for users of both services but not a priority. The priority for Metro integration should be buses and the Luas not intercity and commuter trains.

The Dart does not serve a similar purpose to a Metro it's frequency is too low and it shares the track with other trains it would be a Suburban or commuter rail system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail rather than rapid transport which the Metro would be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_transit.

Despite the contradicting the DART is not a rapid transport system.

IE 222

Stephen15 wrote: »

Still its not a valid argument to not build the Metro. The metro will serve more than just The Airport it will serve The Mater Hospital, DCU and Swords Dublin's fastest growing suburb but still doesn't have any decent public transport to name but a few.

Under your proposed 5bn DART expansion how do you propose serving Swords a DART spur on from the airport spur or from Malahide simply won't cut it nor would BRT or Luas. It wouldn't be possible to be frequent enough and the journey would take too long. Metro along it's current proposed routing would be the most direct, quickest way which to serve the airport and Swords through a means of mass transport.

But i wasn't given that single example as a reason not to build Metro it was part of a wider collective argument. Point to point public transport clearly hasn't worked for Dublin, why build another one. Bus Connects is been welcomed with open arms as it moves away from the point to point model.

My suggestion is a Dart spur from Malahide to Glasnevin. This would allow travel to city centre in either direction (platform transfer in Glasnevin) depending on your location and not forcing everyone into one section or direction. Most were quite happy to take a Dart spur when Metro was off the card. Im sure if approval for Metro is refused calls for the spur will be made.

Again there is no requirement to transport 30,000 people an hour from Swords or Airport to the city centre. The city centre simply couldn't cope with an additional 30,000 an hour been dumped in their as it is. Journey times wouldn't be increased much more than 5/10mins but still quicker than whats available now. High frequency is only required when using small trams. All other major airports cope very well with bigger trains running every 10 or 15 mins. Its a simple case of checking the timetable and plan your journey. Darts can run a 5min schedule and Im sure if it was to be allocated exclusive running lines like Metro it will provide that if its required

BRT????? I haven't brought that into any plan at all.

IE 222

Stephen15 wrote: »

Many larger German cities have a U-Bahn and S-Bahn. The U-Bahn is generally underground in the core city centre and serves the suburbs that are nearby the city. The S-Bahn serves the places which are further out and is generally overground. Some S-Bahn systems share the tracks with other regional, intercity and freight trains. Dublin needs the Metro in addition to DART expansion.

Metros are generally a considered different mode of transport to trains as they are considered an urban mode of transport so its more important to intergrate them with other urban transport modes such as trams and buses rather than intercity and regional trains.

Integrating the an urban mass transit system with intercity and regional trains would be like integrating Dublin Buses and Bus Eireann and other intercity buses it would be nice to do and handy for users of both services but not a priority. The priority for Metro integration should be buses and the Luas not intercity and commuter trains.

The Dart does not serve a similar purpose to a Metro it's frequency is too low and it shares the track with other trains it would be a Suburban or commuter rail system. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_rail rather than rapid transport which the Metro would be https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_transit.

Despite the contradicting the DART is not a rapid transport system.

We live in a city of 2million people not 10. How many of these Metro line do you envision been built. It doesn't matter if rail lines are above or below ground. That fact is decided by availability of land.

I fully understand the differences between a Metro and rail system. As I stated there is no requirement for any such high frequency and larger trains will cover the difference between a small tram running every 3 mins compared to a 10 min Dart. They will carry the same number of passengers or there abouts.

Every Metro I've travelled on connects with regional and intercity rail so i dont no where your going with saying its not important.

ricimaki

IE 222 wrote: »

To add to this the new €3bn Metro system has a very limited catchment area and in my view falls short on maximising reach and connectivity.

Here is a before/after look at Dublin's rail network with Metrolink in place:

Can you elaborate on its "very limited catchment area"? It adds new links to Swords (Population of ~40,000), the airport (>24 Million passengers a year, plus thousands of staff daily), along with Ballymun, DCU, Glasnevin and the City Centre. It upgrades a significant stretch of the LUAS Green line, which is currently hampered by on-street running.

Although a lot of staff live within the Fingal area not all will be within reach of the Metro. Many others will live in West and North Dublin or surrounding towns in Meath & Louth ect. more so than South Dublin.

With the interchange station at Whitworth, and upgrades to DART services on the M3, Maynooth and Kildare lines, I'd say west Dublin is well within reach of the metro. I's prefer if the northern section connected to Donabate, but the Estuary P&R provides a good connection to Northern traffic. It also connects to Tara St.

Ten minute Darts with platform transfers into Regional and Intercity rail is the perfect fit for Dublin.

Please propose how you would connect North and West Dublin areas to the DART network at a somewhat realistic cost. Politicians and media are already baulking at the €3bn pricetag of Metro link.

Grandeeod

Ah bless! I remember when DART was a rapid transit system. Every 5 mins peak and every 15 mins off peak. Every 20 mins on a Sunday. Over the years politicians interfered. New Diesel services were introduced. The DART was extended to Greystones, which was a totally and utterly stupid decision. Extra services. Longer DARTs. Longer Platforms. Ultimately DART has been compromised and then invested in to keep it functional but to a less effective degree. It had so much promise and was so revolutionary for years.

Therefore, once you neglect a thing like DART and introduce Light Rail with all the bells and whistles and then propose a Metro along a similar concept, I can completely understand why a younger generation are convinced that luas and metro are more important and will cure our transport woes.

donvito99

IE 222 wrote: »

We live in a city of 2million people not 10. How many of these Metro line do you envision been built. It doesn't matter if rail lines are above or below ground. That fact is decided by availability of land.

I fully understand the differences between a Metro and rail system. As I stated there is no requirement for any such high frequency and larger trains will cover the difference between a small tram running every 3 mins compared to a 10 min Dart. They will carry the same number of passengers or there abouts.

Every Metro I've travelled on connects with regional and intercity rail so i dont no where your going with saying its not important.

Your argument that Dublin isn't populous enough surely lends to Metro and not an inherently more expensive, high capacity system, no?

IE 222

ricimaki wrote: »

Here is a before/after look at Dublin's rail network with Metrolink in place:




Can you elaborate on its "very limited catchment area"? It adds new links to Swords (Population of ~40,000), the airport (>24 Million passengers a year, plus thousands of staff daily), along with Ballymun, DCU, Glasnevin and the City Centre. It upgrades a significant stretch of the LUAS Green line, which is currently hampered by on-street running.


With the interchange station at Whitworth, and upgrades to DART services on the M3, Maynooth and Kildare lines, I'd say west Dublin is well within reach of the metro. I'd prefer if the northern section connected to Donabate, but the Estuary P&R provides a good connection to Northern traffic. It also connects to Tara St.


Please propose how you would connect North and West Dublin areas to the DART network at a somewhat realistic cost. Politicians and media are already baulking at the €3bn pricetag of Metro link.

Well 50% of it is already there as your map shows. Roughly a 1/3 of the remaining 50% is been built through green field sites as the close proximity of the airport will restrict any house building projects. It does link these places but from a realistic view anyone living beyond 1km from a station wont use it as bus or car will be more convenient.

The Dart plan will bring you to the same place as Metro will. Maynooth line users can connect at Broombridge for Luas green line already. Its €3bn for a slight increase of rail expansion in the Dublin area on top of additional €2bn upgrading current rail lines to accommodate Dart. Spending €5bn to effectively gain an extra few miles of railway aint going to fix the congestion problem facing Dublin.

LeinsterDub

Grandeeod wrote: »

Ah bless! I remember when DART was a rapid transit system. Every 5 mins peak and every 15 mins off peak. Every 20 mins on a Sunday. Over the years politicians interfered. New Diesel services were introduced. The DART was extended to Greystones, which was a totally and utterly stupid decision. Extra services. Longer DARTs. Longer Platforms. Ultimately DART has been compromised and then invested in to keep it functional but to a less effective degree. It had so much promise and was so revolutionary for years.

Therefore, once you neglect a thing like DART and introduce Light Rail with all the bells and whistles and then propose a Metro along a similar concept, I can completely understand why a younger generation are convinced that luas and metro are more important and will cure our transport woes.

It's nothing to do with a younger generation. IÉ have said that 10 minute darts are basically the best they can do with the current infrastructure and any further improvement would require billions. If they ever do deliver 10 minute darts.

Where as luas etc is actually high frequency

Grandeeod

LeinsterDub wrote: »

It's nothing to do with a younger generation. IÉ have said that 10 minute darts are basically the best they can do with the current infrastructure and any further improvement would require billions. If they ever do deliver 10 minute darts.

Where as luas etc is actually high frequency

Had proper investment been made in the DART/Suburban network since 1984, including the boom years, it wouldn't be the shambles it is. The younger generation only see the massive success of luas and the potential of a metro. Its not an insult.

Stephen15

IE 222 wrote: »

We live in a city of 2million people not 10. How many of these Metro line do you envision been built. It doesn't matter if rail lines are above or below ground. That fact is decided by availability of land.

I fully understand the differences between a Metro and rail system. As I stated there is no requirement for any such high frequency and larger trains will cover the difference between a small tram running every 3 mins compared to a 10 min Dart. They will carry the same number of passengers or there abouts.

Every Metro I've travelled on connects with regional and intercity rail so i dont no where your going with saying its not important.

Plenty of similar sized European cities have Metros such as Copenhagen, Barcelona, Turin, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Hamburg, Munich, Lyon, Brussels and many more have Metros.

I suspect when and if built the Metro will have frequencies of every 5-7 mins off peak with frequencies of every 2-3 mins during peak this is standard practice. Higher frequencies will make more people give up the car and use public transport over extra capacity. Most people would rather stand on a train or a bus than wait for an empty train/bus.

The Metro will connect with Intercity and regional rail at both Tara Street and Whitworth Road. Connecting with Maynooth commuter which will probably be DART by then, the DART in its current form, The Northern Commuter and the Kildare commuter at Tara Street which again will probably be DART also aswell as the Rosslare Train at Tara Street and the Sligo Train will probably be stooping at Whitworth. So stop saying it won't, it would be impossible to connect everything without building an another Metro line as unlike most European cities of similar size Dublin has multiple rail stations rather than one central one like most European cities of similar size.

I also never said it wasn't important to connect with regional and intercity trains I just said it was more important to connect it with other urban modes such as bus and luas.

marno21

IE 222 wrote: »

I completely agree with you. A rail service to the Airport is essential and will be a success for staff and travellers.

Where i tend to disagree is the notion that we require:

• A high capacity tram every 2 mins
• Develop a completely new rail system .
• The Green Line to be included
• 24hrs (which i don't believe is in the NTA plan)
• Upgrading other rail links instead of expanding

To add to this the new €3bn Metro system has a very limited catchment area and in my view falls short on maximising reach and connectivity. Although a lot of staff live within the Fingal area not all will be within reach of the Metro. Many others will live in West and North Dublin or surrounding towns in Meath & Louth ect. more so than South Dublin. The new night buses a long with the inclusion of further routes would provide a much better service and reach to workers in the early and late hours of the day than the purposed Metro will.

It highly unlikely any Airport rail service will operate 24hrs as it would require operating the rest of the Dublin network as well to work effectively. 5am to midnight would be the most likely operation.

We talk about the way the Germans do things but yet when we put the funds in we do something completely different while ignoring and criticising our current German like system the Dart. As I said before, Dart is our Metro and because it doesn't have any tunnels people overlook this fact. The Germans only use Metro within the city limites as the further out you run high capacity and frequency metros the least effective they become. Ten minute Darts with platform transfers into Regional and Intercity rail is the perfect fit for Dublin.

1. If we didn't need such a high capacity system we wouldn't be getting one. This isn't the Western Rail Corridor.
2. This isn't a new rail system. It's a Luas type system with full segregation, higher frequency, bigger vehicles and as a result more capacity. Metro in Irish terms is a segregated light rail system, Luas/tram is a street level system.
3. The Green Line from Sandyford to Charlemont should never have been built as a Luas type system. It's a heavy rail alignment rebuilt with Metro in mind. NOT running a Metro service on it would be stupid. You may also notice it's packed to bursting at the minute.
4. 24 hour running hasn't been decided on yet and is an operation issue. Operations issues aren't being dealt with for a while.
5. Other rail links are also being expanded. DART Expansion to Maynooth, Hazelhatch and Drogheda/Balbriggan are all on the cars, along with the new stations along the extended Kildare line via the Phoenix Park Tunnel.

The Metro corridor is viable now and will be densified in the future. The presence of a North/South transport spine also allows feeder buses to be fed into the Metro at the many stations along with using the heavy rail lines as feeders to open up new routes.

Many people live in Meath and Kildare because Dublin has no functioning public transport network and too many journeys are easiest by car to places like Sandyford and other suburban employment centres. The lack of viability of densification due to the above is also an issue.

Grandeeod wrote: »

Ah bless! I remember when DART was a rapid transit system. Every 5 mins peak and every 15 mins off peak. Every 20 mins on a Sunday. Over the years politicians interfered. New Diesel services were introduced. The DART was extended to Greystones, which was a totally and utterly stupid decision. Extra services. Longer DARTs. Longer Platforms. Ultimately DART has been compromised and then invested in to keep it functional but to a less effective degree. It had so much promise and was so revolutionary for years.

Therefore, once you neglect a thing like DART and introduce Light Rail with all the bells and whistles and then propose a Metro along a similar concept, I can completely understand why a younger generation are convinced that luas and metro are more important and will cure our transport woes.

Metro and Luas will cure different transport woes. The DART issues are there and to be honest I think the DART Expansion plan has a number of capacity issues around the central Connolly-Pearse section that will require thinking outside the box to overcome. Capacity issues on the Northern Line are another issue that will be coming at us down the road.

IE 222 wrote: »

Well 50% of it is already there as your map shows. Roughly a 1/3 of the remaining 50% is been built through green field sites as the close proximity of the airport will restrict any house building projects. It does link these places but from a realistic view anyone living beyond 1km from a station wont use it as bus or car will be more convenient.

The Dart plan will bring you to the same place as Metro will. Maynooth line users can connect at Broombridge for Luas green line already. Its €3bn for a slight increase of rail expansion in the Dublin area on top of additional €2bn upgrading current rail lines to accommodate Dart. Spending €5bn to effectively gain an extra few miles of railway aint going to fix the congestion problem facing Dublin.

Luas Green Line is not able to cope with current demand let alone future expansion. Metro is planned to be starting in 2027. The Luas Green Line will be gridlocked by then

"Slight increase of rail expansion in Dublin for 3bn" - if Metro is a "slight expansion", what else do you propose to do with the 3bn that would be more meritorious in the context of rail expansion in Dublin.

5bn is for Metro + DART Expansion. DART Expansion doesn't envisage any new track so leave that out. It's 3bn for 4km of surface railway and 13km of tunnelled railway along with the upgrade of 9km of existing track. DART Underground is approx 4bn for 7.6km of new track. ??

ricimaki

IE 222 wrote: »

Well 50% of it is already there as your map shows. Roughly a 1/3 of the remaining 50% is been built through green field sites as the close proximity of the airport will restrict any house building projects. It does link these places but from a realistic view anyone living beyond 1km from a station wont use it as bus or car will be more convenient.

Lets split the route into the following:
7.7km from Sandyford to Charlemont (30%)
10km from Charlemont to Dardistown (38%)
3.8km from Dardistown to Fosterstown (15%)
4.5km from Fosterstown to Estuary (17%)

For starters, The green line was always designed to be upgraded to Metro. To upgrade it to 90M low-floor costs ~€95M. To upgrade it to 60M high-floor costs ~€134M. That's less than 5% of the total cost, for 30% of the route. It makes perfect sense to do this.URL="http://data.tii.ie/metrolink/alignment-options-study/study-3/metrolink-green-line-metro-upgrade-line-b.pdf"]See pages 32 and 34[/URL

I agree that the Dublin airport area isn't going to become a major area for house development, but if this is the sole criteria for connecting somewhere to a transport network, No bus or rail system should ever serve the airport. It does happen to fall directly between Swords and the city centre, so also makes perfect sense to serve. Its also a relatively short section at 3.8km.

From O'Connell street to Dardistown, and also the Swords area, there are tens of thousands of people living within 1km of this line.

Chris_5339762

Thinking about it more, this is just an upgrade of the Green line which stinks of knee-jerk design to appear to give a long-term fix for College Green by having the higher capacity route away from it.

What I can't stand about this plan is the following. Yes, the Green Line is overcapacity. It probably needs more capacity. But Dublin is utter rubbish for public transport, we all know that. The Red Line is overcapacity. There is great swathes of the city without any form of meaningful public transport and huge areas without even proper bus lanes. What do we do to start to solve these problems? We upgrade one of a very few high capacity corridors in the process making it more difficult to use and adding transfers to a currently seamless route.

Build the old Metro North from Swords to Stephens Green and stop with this utter disruptive nonsense. Spend the balance on something else. Get Dart Underground fully ready to go. Bring forward another Luas line and build it, eg: Lucan. Or design something for Rathfarnham which still has no plans for ANY new public transport (aside from Busconnects) through to 2040.

IE 222

Grandeeod wrote: »

Ah bless! I remember when DART was a rapid transit system. Every 5 mins peak and every 15 mins off peak. Every 20 mins on a Sunday. Over the years politicians interfered. New Diesel services were introduced. The DART was extended to Greystones, which was a totally and utterly stupid decision. Extra services. Longer DARTs. Longer Platforms. Ultimately DART has been compromised and then invested in to keep it functional but to a less effective degree. It had so much promise and was so revolutionary for years.

Therefore, once you neglect a thing like DART and introduce Light Rail with all the bells and whistles and then propose a Metro along a similar concept, I can completely understand why a younger generation are convinced that luas and metro are more important and will cure our transport woes.

Your spot on.

The idea of a brand new shiny tram wissing its way through a tunnel gives some people a serious rush of blood to the head. Some even believe the idea of driver less trams is a measure to prevent any strike action from shutting the system down.

donvito99

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

What do we do to start to solve these problems? We upgrade one of a very few high capacity corridors in the process making it more difficult to use and adding transfers to a currently seamless route.

It isn't high capacity. The green line is at capacity already. It has already been pointed out in this thread that upgrade to high floor 60m (as a starting point, designed with 90m in mind). How much of another Luas does that get? Would we even get 0.5km of Dart Underground? For pittance an existing alignment is allowed to potentially accommodate 22,320 pph in each direction.

The TBMs are in the ground, pointing towards a former heavy rail alignment that's 800m away, designed with the very project you're building at considerable expense in mind, and you decide to just pull the plug, and bury the TBMs at Stephen's Green?

Lunacy.

donvito99

IE 222 wrote: »

Some even believe the idea of driver less trams is a measure to prevent any strike action from shutting the system down.

Others believe it allows for 40tph in each direction.

IE 222

donvito99 wrote: »

Your argument that Dublin isn't populous enough surely lends to Metro and not an inherently more expensive, high capacity system, no?

No, I thought the argument from the pro Metro side was Dart couldn't offer enough capacity.

How do you come to the conclusion Metro works better in less densely populated areas.

How would a alternative Dart plan that could offer so much more be inherently more expensive.

donvito99

IE 222 wrote: »

How would a alternative Dart plan that could offer so much more be inherently more expensive.

How do you figure 200m station boxes are cheaper than 90m station boxes?

IE 222

Stephen15 wrote: »

Plenty of similar sized European cities have Metros such as Copenhagen, Barcelona, Turin, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Hamburg, Munich, Lyon, Brussels and many more have Metros.

I suspect when and if built the Metro will have frequencies of every 5-7 mins off peak with frequencies of every 2-3 mins during peak this is standard practice. Higher frequencies will make more people give up the car and use public transport over extra capacity. Most people would rather stand on a train or a bus than wait for an empty train/bus.

The Metro will connect with Intercity and regional rail at both Tara Street and Whitworth Road. Connecting with Maynooth commuter which will probably be DART by then, the DART in its current form, The Northern Commuter and the Kildare commuter at Tara Street which again will probably be DART also aswell as the Rosslare Train at Tara Street and the Sligo Train will probably be stooping at Whitworth. So stop saying it won't, it would be impossible to connect everything without building an another Metro line as unlike most European cities of similar size Dublin has multiple rail stations rather than one central one like most European cities of similar size.

I also never said it wasn't important to connect with regional and intercity trains I just said it was more important to connect it with other urban modes such as bus and luas.

As explained to you yesterday these cities built Metro lines years ago when it was cheap to do so and only begining to build railways. Im not aware, but there could be, of any other major city thats as expensive as Dublin for land and people thats in the process or considering building its FIRST underground network.

Well I wasn't expecting trams running every 2min for 18-20hrs of the day. So 3 trams in the space of 10mins will offer you the same if not less capacity than the Dart with the only difference been 1/3 of people will arrive 7mins the second 1/3 about 4 and the final 1/3 1min earlier at peak time. While off peak it will carry less than Dart but offer 1 extra service per hour. Is that worth €3bn. Also if Dart was given it own dedicated line it would also offer at least a 5min frequency which wipes the floor with Metros capacity.

Do you honestly believe people would rather be crammed into a train standing instead of waiting 5mins for a seat.

No probably about it DART upgrades wont be completed until after Metro completion at the earliest.

I don't see the Sligo service stopping at Whitworth as it doesn't stop at Broombridge. Rosslare Intercity, im not even going to comment on that. Yeah the connections at Whitworth will only offer Regional rail a link to the airport trains are already going were metro is. Maynooth line already has a connection with the Green Line via Broombridge. Dublin is most certainly not unique in the fact it has 2 major rail stations many cities have 4 or 5.

So connecting onto Dublin Bus is seen as more of a priority than rail in your eyes. If the current rail stock will struggle to meet Metros capacity capabilities how in earth will Dublin Bus be able to cater for such large scale connections.

marno21

IE 222 wrote: »

As explained to you yesterday these cities built Metro lines years ago when it was cheap to do so and only begining to build railways. Im not aware, but there could be, of any other major city thats as expensive as Dublin for land and people thats in the process or considering building its FIRST underground network.

Well I wasn't expecting trams running every 2min for 18-20hrs of the day. So 3 trams in the space of 10mins will offer you the same if not less capacity than the Dart with the only difference been 1/3 of people will arrive 7mins the second 1/3 about 4 and the final 1/3 1min earlier at peak time. While off peak it will carry less than Dart but offer 1 extra service per hour. Is that worth €3bn. Also if Dart was given it own dedicated line it would also offer at least a 5min frequency which wipes the floor with Metros capacity.

Do you honestly believe people would rather be crammed into a train standing instead of waiting 5mins for a seat.

No probably about it DART upgrades wont be completed until after Metro completion at the earliest.

I don't see the Sligo service stopping at Whitworth as it doesn't stop at Broombridge. Rosslare Intercity, im not even going to comment on that. Yeah the connections at Whitworth will only offer Regional rail a link to the airport trains are already going were metro is. Maynooth line already has a connection with the Green Line via Broombridge. Dublin is most certainly not unique in the fact it has 2 major rail stations many cities have 4 or 5.

So connecting onto Dublin Bus is seen as more of a priority than rail in your eyes. If the current rail stock will struggle to meet Metros capacity capabilities how in earth will Dublin Bus be able to cater for such large scale connections.

Of course the Sligo service will stop at Whitworth. There would likely be more passengers disembarking at Whitworth than any other stop along the route.

IE 222

marno21 wrote: »

1. If we didn't need such a high capacity system we wouldn't be getting one. This isn't the Western Rail Corridor.
2. This isn't a new rail system. It's a Luas type system with full segregation, higher frequency, bigger vehicles and as a result more capacity. Metro in Irish terms is a segregated light rail system, Luas/tram is a street level system.
3. The Green Line from Sandyford to Charlemont should never have been built as a Luas type system. It's a heavy rail alignment rebuilt with Metro in mind. NOT running a Metro service on it would be stupid. You may also notice it's packed to bursting at the minute.
4. 24 hour running hasn't been decided on yet and is an operation issue. Operations issues aren't being dealt with for a while.
5. Other rail links are also being expanded. DART Expansion to Maynooth, Hazelhatch and Drogheda/Balbriggan are all on the cars, along with the new stations along the extended Kildare line via the Phoenix Park Tunnel.

The Metro corridor is viable now and will be densified in the future. The presence of a North/South transport spine also allows feeder buses to be fed into the Metro at the many stations along with using the heavy rail lines as feeders to open up new routes.

Many people live in Meath and Kildare because Dublin has no functioning public transport network and too many journeys are easiest by car to places like Sandyford and other suburban employment centres. The lack of viability of densification due to the above is also an issue.



Metro and Luas will cure different transport woes. The DART issues are there and to be honest I think the DART Expansion plan has a number of capacity issues around the central Connolly-Pearse section that will require thinking outside the box to overcome. Capacity issues on the Northern Line are another issue that will be coming at us down the road.



Luas Green Line is not able to cope with current demand let alone future expansion. Metro is planned to be starting in 2027. The Luas Green Line will be gridlocked by then

"Slight increase of rail expansion in Dublin for 3bn" - if Metro is a "slight expansion", what else do you propose to do with the 3bn that would be more meritorious in the context of rail expansion in Dublin.

5bn is for Metro + DART Expansion. DART Expansion doesn't envisage any new track so leave that out. It's 3bn for 4km of surface railway and 13km of tunnelled railway along with the upgrade of 9km of existing track. DART Underground is approx 4bn for 7.6km of new track. ??

Right

1. The high capacity result in the use of smaller trams compered to trains. Many other bigger cities cope very well using large trains at a lower frequency.

2. Luas or Irish rail units won't or can't run on Metro. So yes it is a NEW system.

3. Green Line just requires larger trams and an increase in frequency. The Red Line carries more passengers should we not run metro along this.

4. I think.most will accept 24hrs is very unlikely. The line runs through residential areas above ground on the southern section and noise pollution and other issues will rule out any hope of this.

5. Upgrading existing lines to cater for Dart isn't expansion in the rail network. 3 new Dart stations between now and 2040 is promising

No, many people live outside of Dublin due to high house prices and the lack of supply.

Luas Green Line is struggling at the moment due to issues with trams, bad planning arrangements with the opening of Cross City and a reduction in the number of available older trams due to not all maintenance work not been able to carried out with works ongoing in Sandyford.

I gave a list of ideas in previous posts. I also don't believe DU is required as the PPT is a suitable replacement and money for that project can be sent on other works that expand the number of track miles further.

The €4bn DU project also included the upgrade works to expand Dart to current regional lines which as a separate project is costing €2bn. So all in Dart doesn't really cost as much as people are making it to cost.

IE 222

ricimaki wrote: »

Lets split the route into the following:
7.7km from Sandyford to Charlemont (30%)
10km from Charlemont to Dardistown (38%)
3.8km from Dardistown to Fosterstown (15%)
4.5km from Fosterstown to Estuary (17%)

For starters, The green line was always designed to be upgraded to Metro. To upgrade it to 90M low-floor costs ~€95M. To upgrade it to 60M high-floor costs ~€134M. That's less than 5% of the total cost, for 30% of the route. It makes perfect sense to do this.URL="http://data.tii.ie/metrolink/alignment-options-study/study-3/metrolink-green-line-metro-upgrade-line-b.pdf"]See pages 32 and 34[/URL

I agree that the Dublin airport area isn't going to become a major area for house development, but if this is the sole criteria for connecting somewhere to a transport network, No bus or rail system should ever serve the airport. It does happen to fall directly between Swords and the city centre, so also makes perfect sense to serve. Its also a relatively short section at 3.8km.

From O'Connell street to Dardistown, and also the Swords area, there are tens of thousands of people living within 1km of this line.

Right im not for one min againts the idea of serving Swords and Airport with rail.

Your distances need to start from O'Connell street - Dardistown as Green Line covers up to O'Connell st.

€95million is for the rail section only. The Portal costs at Charlemont haven't been fully factored in as massive CPO costs are going to be stacked up there as well. The Green line just needs larger trams.

Spend the €100-150m elsewhere and stop fooling people. The Dart project is also another €2bn upgrade project. The vast majority agree that this will do very little in improving the cities congestion and that more rail projects, as in building new lines not upgrading current ones, will need to be done. All were doing here is delaying the enviable.

IE 222

donvito99 wrote: »

How do you figure 200m station boxes are cheaper than 90m station boxes?

Why do you presume or insist it will be underground. Alternative Dart options allow for above ground routes and more cut and cover tunnels.

IE 222

marno21 wrote: »

Of course the Sligo service will stop at Whitworth. There would likely be more passengers disembarking at Whitworth than any other stop along the route.

How do you come to that conclusion. Was the same not said about Broombridge.

marno21

IE 222 wrote: »

Right

1. The high capacity result in the use of smaller trams compered to trains. Many other bigger cities cope very well using large trains at a lower frequency.

2. Luas or Irish rail units won't or can't run on Metro. So yes it is a NEW system.

3. Green Line just requires larger trams and an increase in frequency. The Red Line carries more passengers should we not run metro along this.

4. I think.most will accept 24hrs is very unlikely. The line runs through residential areas above ground on the southern section and noise pollution and other issues will rule out any hope of this.

5. Upgrading existing lines to cater for Dart isn't expansion in the rail network. 3 new Dart stations between now and 2040 is promising

No, many people live outside of Dublin due to high house prices and the lack of supply.

Luas Green Line is struggling at the moment due to issues with trams, bad planning arrangements with the opening of Cross City and a reduction in the number of available older trams due to not all maintenance work not been able to carried out with works ongoing in Sandyford.

I gave a list of ideas in previous posts. I also don't believe DU is required as the PPT is a suitable replacement and money for that project can be sent on other works that expand the number of track miles further.

The €4bn DU project also included the upgrade works to expand Dart to current regional lines which as a separate project is costing €2bn. So all in Dart doesn't really cost as much as people are making it to cost.

1. Why would you use large trains at lower frequency when it vastly increases the upfront capital costs? Especially in a country where initial capital investment is a massive hurdle?

2. Why would you want to run Irish Rail or Luas trams on a Metro line? Irish Rail use a different gauge immediately ruling that out and Luas trams can run on the Metro line but there would be no need for them to do so. We're not building a Metro line to run Luas vehicles on it.

3. Both are not possible because the at grade sections (Broadstone-Ranelagh and Sandyford-Brides Glen) are at capacity and the segregated section also has issues with level crossings, hence the need to close these as part of the Metrolink project.

4. I will say no more on 24 hour running as its an operational issue and we are at far too early a stage to consider operational issues for the Metrolink.

5. What are you trying to say here?

Lack of supply in Dublin/close to Dublin will be solved by building high capacity transport links in addition to building high rise along existing high capacity links or close to the city centre.

What is your alternative for the 3bn being spent on the 26km of Metrolink at a price of €115m/km?

Stephen15

IE 222 wrote: »

As explained to you yesterday these cities built Metro lines years ago when it was cheap to do so and only begining to build railways. Im not aware, but there could be, of any other major city thats as expensive as Dublin for land and people thats in the process or considering building its FIRST underground network.

Well I wasn't expecting trams running every 2min for 18-20hrs of the day. So 3 trams in the space of 10mins will offer you the same if not less capacity than the Dart with the only difference been 1/3 of people will arrive 7mins the second 1/3 about 4 and the final 1/3 1min earlier at peak time. While off peak it will carry less than Dart but offer 1 extra service per hour. Is that worth €3bn. Also if Dart was given it own dedicated line it would also offer at least a 5min frequency which wipes the floor with Metros capacity.

Do you honestly believe people would rather be crammed into a train standing instead of waiting 5mins for a seat.

No probably about it DART upgrades wont be completed until after Metro completion at the earliest.

I don't see the Sligo service stopping at Whitworth as it doesn't stop at Broombridge. Rosslare Intercity, im not even going to comment on that. Yeah the connections at Whitworth will only offer Regional rail a link to the airport trains are already going were metro is. Maynooth line already has a connection with the Green Line via Broombridge. Dublin is most certainly not unique in the fact it has 2 major rail stations many cities have 4 or 5.

So connecting onto Dublin Bus is seen as more of a priority than rail in your eyes. If the current rail stock will struggle to meet Metros capacity capabilities how in earth will Dublin Bus be able to cater for such large scale connections.

Barcelona Line 9- Still under construction

Copenhagen Metro- Completed 2002

Rome Metro Line C- Still under construction

Amsterdam Line 52- Still under construction

Turin Metro- Completed 2006

Lisbon Metro Red Line- Completed 1998

Milan Metro M5- Completed 2013

Sofia Metro- Completed 1998

Budapest Metro M4- Completed 2014

These all examples of Metros built within the last 20 years prices haven't changed that much in that period and these are just the examples I could think off the top of my head I'm sure there have been many more not just but around the world. We have to start somewhere by building the Metro line just because its not as cheap as it was 40 years to build doesn't mean we shouldn't build it.

Most metro systems have grown with the city here in Dublin the problem is just getting 1 line built. When and if the line is built then we will see the benefits and build additional lines.

The Metro will not be crammed in at all times it will be relatively busy most of the time and very busy at peak. Even with 10 min frequency the DART will still be crammed at peak times. Rush hour happens in every city around the world with crammed trains it's not viable to give everyone a seat. A HFV metro system would be far more suitable for standing passengers than an 8 car DART with separated carriages and a standard railway seating arrangement rather than bench style seats.

It's more important to connect with Dublin Bus and Luas as more people use those modes than intercity and regional trains. There will be far more people using the Metro from the airport to connect to buses and Luas in the CC than there will be people connecting to Intercity and Commuter trains from the airport. I suspect people going to the airport from outside Dublin will still go by coach to the airport or drive as it would be quicker and more convient for them.

ricimaki

IE 222 wrote: »

Right im not for one min againts the idea of serving Swords and Airport with rail.

Your distances need to start from O'Connell street - Dardistown as Green Line covers up to O'Connell st.

The stretch from Charlemont to O'Connell st. with Metrolink is separate to the LUAS line, as it only stops at Tara st. and O'Connell upper. It will also offer users the choice of extra stops on the LUAS vs faster journey times to O'Connell st. on the Metro.

€95million is for the rail section only. The Portal costs at Charlemont haven't been fully factored in as massive CPO costs are going to be stacked up there as well. The Green line just needs larger trams.

You're correct, the portal costs should be included here. This suggests a Portal cost of €177M-€187M at Ranelagh, including CPO's. That's still less than 15% of the cost for 30% of the route.

The Green line is already in the process of moving to longer trams, and that hasn't gone well so far. Outside of the reliability issues, the tram is too long for some bridges/junctions, with the rear sticking out and blocking traffic. It really isn't feasible to go for longer than 55M.

Spend the €100-150m elsewhere and stop fooling people. The Dart project is also another €2bn upgrade project. The vast majority agree that this will do very little in improving the cities congestion and that more rail projects, as in building new lines not upgrading current ones, will need to be done. All were doing here is delaying the enviable.

Metrolink is a new rail line! It just so happens to also be upgrading an existing one at the same time. Dublin absolutely needs more rail lines. Tram lines are relatively cheap to build, but very quickly run into capacity issues. Heavy rail lines are extremely expensive to built in urban area's, but offer the best long term capacity. Metro's offer the best balance. I'd love for Dublin to have a DART system equivalent to some of the German S-Bahn networks, but they are far too expensive to build, and lack the political motivation in Ireland.

Stephen15

The problem with the Dart is it would actually be cheaper and be more feasible to build the Metro than expand the DART if you expanded the DART you would have to do a lot more CPOs in the city centre then if you went underground and built a Metro. I support DART expansion absolutely 100% by electrifying the Maynooth, Kildare and Northern Lines but the compromise for that would be that you would have to operate the services to Connolly or Hueston rather than Pearse or GCD due to the restrictions of the loopline bridge.

To serve Swords and the airport with a DART spur and to support 10 minute frequency on each line with many different spurs you would need to four track the line from GCD to Howth Junction including the loopline bridge. That would cost far more than building the Metro which would provide a just as good if not better service to the Airport and Swords.

It would be a great thing to do but it's just not feasible with buildings so near to railway lines and Dublin property values so high. It would cost more in CPOs alone to heavily expand the DART network to cater for so many extra Darts going to many different place aswell the current issues with the Enterprise than to bore tunnels and build the Metro line in over ground sections and build station boxes.

All in all I think Metro would be the most economically viable solution to serve Dublin. IE 222 proposes spending 5bn on DART expansion alone but realistically bit realistically 5bn could very well turn into 10 to 15bn with the amount of CPOs needed around the city centre to expand the DART line around the city centre area that wouldn't provide that many more advantages over Metro if any at all.

3bn on Metro and 2bn on electrification of the Maynooth, Kildare and Northern Lines would be far less likely to go over budget and even if it did go over it would likely be 1 or 2bn over than 5bn over budget.

LeinsterDub

Grandeeod wrote: »

Had proper investment been made in the DART/Suburban network since 1984, including the boom years, it wouldn't be the shambles it is. The younger generation only see the massive success of luas and the potential of a metro. Its not an insult.

I assume you mean DU because realistically it's the only real solution for the capacity issue?

trellheim

If you had to build MN or DU .... which ? .. You can only do ONE in the next 30 years so you cant rely on any of the other's infrastructure.


DU for me but you'd need to kill off CIE or operate it with a private sector

Wanderer78

trellheim wrote:

DU for me but you'd need to kill off CIE or operate it with a private sector

There's no conclusive evidence to support that privitisation of critical public infrastructure actually truly saves money, in fact there's mounting evidence to support it leads to a rise in costs due to activities such 'rent extraction' and 'increasing worker insecurity'.

Fian

magicbastarder wrote: »

i know this is pie in the sky stuff, but it'd be great if (where possible) a cycle lane could be provided alongside any lines being developed above ground. one along the green line would have been a boon for cyclists.

Assuming they go with the automatic driverless metro, they are unlikely to permit cyclists to access anywhere near the track. They are explicit that full segregation from roads/pedestrians are an "absolute requirement" if the driverless option is chosen. Also they are going to use the existing luas line so i guess there is little opportunity to add a cycle track, it's not as if they are constructing a new line. Clearly there is no prospect of a cycle track for the underground section (i know that is not what you were suggesting) so it would have only run from sandyford to charlemont, where it would have linked into the canal cycleway.

Pity though, they should have added one when the luas line was being constructed. I live next to the luas line in dundrum so would have been perfect for my commute too.

LuckyLloyd

I wanted Dart Underground. I think it was the more important project than Metro North. I think FG are an awful bunch of shysters who do not believe in Public Infrastructure investment.

However, we must roll with the punches. I'd much rather Metrolink than nothing. The idea that I'd sit here picking every half baked objection under the sun out to argue against this because I'm salty about plans from 1975 being kicked down the can over 40 years is nonsensical. This project will immeasurably improve Dublin PT. As such, I want it built accepting that it isn't perfect. For it is so much better than what we have (or don't have rather).

And do you know what? If this is built and is successful Dart Underground will become a much easier sell politically. So let's ****ing get on board with this.

LuckyLloyd

trellheim wrote: »

If you had to build MN or DU .... which ? .. You can only do ONE in the next 30 years so you cant rely on any of the other's infrastructure.


DU for me but you'd need to kill off CIE or operate it with a private sector

Stupid stupid stupid, utterly ****ing stupid. Focussing on a current operator or its short term labour concerns as a reason not to build a piece of infrastructure that could deliver value for centuries to come is so ****ing silly. Posts trotting out this nonsense to argue against DU are shameful, but people of such politics are beyond shame.

tabbey

LeinsterDub wrote: »

I assume you mean DU because realistically it's the only real solution for the capacity issue?

DU (DART Underground) is absolutely essential for increasing capacity, but it is only part of the solution, there must be a degree of four-tracking on the classic routes to Dun Laoghaire, Malahide and Clonsilla.

This should have been done, or at least planned, years ago. The longer the authorities leave it, the more difficult and expensive it becomes.

This city and suburbs are choked from morning to night due to inadequate public transport infrastructure. A living city needs adequate rail lines, just as we animals need arteries.

bk

Copenhagen is a great example for us to look at. A city similar population size to Dublin.

They have 4 S-Train lines, like S-Bahn, heavy rail lines similar to our DART. The lines converge in the city center, though unlike us, they are fully segregated from other heavy rail.

They then decided to complement this by building two Metro Lines which opened in 2002 and 2007.

Those lines have been so successful that they are currently building 2 more Metro lines and are currently planning for another 3!!

This clearly shows a couple of things:

- Segregation from other services is what is important for mass transit. More important then Metro v Heavy Rail. Our mixing of heavy rail is poor.

- Both Metro and Heavy Rail (S-Train) services can happily co-exist side by side, complementing one another.

- Cities of similar size to much larger then Dublin are going for Metro for new lines, even when they have existing heavy rail networks and it has been very successful.

Stephen15

My proposal instead of DART underground would be to build it as Metro line 2 with 90m HFV platforms from The IFSC to Blanchardstown stopping at Connolly, O'Connell St. (to connect with both Luas lines and Metro Line 1) then go South of the river stopping at Christchurch and Hueston like the current DU proposal then head overground over a bridge over the Liffey towards a stop at Chapelizod then connecting with the Maynnoth line at Castleknock and on to Blanchardstown Shopping centre. It could also have a spur at Chapelizod to Lucan.

MGWR

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

I wanted Dart Underground. I think it was the more important project than Metro North. I think FG are an awful bunch of shysters who do not believe in Public Infrastructure investment.

However, we must roll with the punches. I'd much rather Metrolink than nothing. The idea that I'd sit here picking every half baked objection under the sun out to argue against this because I'm salty about plans from 1975 being kicked down the can over 40 years is nonsensical. This project will immeasurably improve Dublin PT. As such, I want it built accepting that it isn't perfect. For it is so much better than what we have (or don't have rather).

And do you know what? If this is built and is successful Dart Underground will become a much easier sell politically. So let's ****ing get on board with this.

"DU" was and still is a joke. Redirecting Northern Line service further away from the city centre, and merely building a link to existing services with electrification schemes that don't even reach their present-day termini and don't even themselves reach the city centre on this plan? Reactivating the PPT made more sense, sorry. End result is having what you still have, but you can't get off at Connolly anymore on the Northern Line.

Compare Philadelphia in the USA and its Center City Commuter Tunnel, which linked the former Pennsylvania and Reading commuter services under SEPTA, resulting in Reading Terminal (13 platforms) closing and the end of SEPTA's diesel railway passenger services to places like Newtown, Bethlehem and Reading; just like the "CCCT", if "DU" is built in Ireland it'll result in fewer services and less service overall, plus bigger delays on the railways while waiting in the city centre for trains to arrive from the outer suburbs.

BTW, the perfect candidate for an underground DART was to join the Harcourt Line with the Broadstone Line, connecting Bray to Blanchardstown and Maynooth, and potentially reviving Broadstone as a diesel terminus for trains to Sligo, Westport/Ballina and perhaps Navan. But thanks to all the dough wasted on Luas, that's now gone.

Irish Steve

What is this obsession with going to shopping centres? The reality is that their main activity periods are the weekends, when most other places are closed, there are plenty of other areas that should be being considered, as they have relevant traffic at least 5 days a week.

If you're going to build from Castleknock to Blanchardstown, then the hospital has to be considered, as does the massive industrial complexes in Mulhuddart and the whole North West industrial estates area, as well as the massive new high density residential developments going in around Hollystown and Kilbride, which are poorly served by any forms of public transport at the moment. In the same vein, there's huge apartment complexes around Clonee that would benefit from not having to depend on bus services, given the time they take to get into town.