Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

cgcsb

I think posters are reading too much into it. People can see that he's a crank, he sounds like Helen lovejoy. It's a shame we don't have a competent media that challenges the opinions of commentators but there ya go.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085667#Comment_120085667

Completely agree.

One of the main deficiencies of Irish media is the lack of any specialist transport journalists.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085033#Comment_120085033

An electric car costs about €50 k, a basic bicycle costs about €200, so for one EV, he could get 250 bicycles - even if you double the cost of the bike, it is still 125 bikes. Now what that has to do with PT infrastructure, I have no idea.

What-do-you-Colm McCarthy suggested existing buses instead of Metrolink - just as daft because the road infrastructure is too congested and not good enough to carry that many buses.

He should constrain his comments to the retention and refurbishment of Georgian Dublin - what is left of it.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086000#Comment_120086000

Or journalists of any calibre.

LXFlyer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086456#Comment_120086456

That’s a bit unfair Sam. There are some very good journalists out there. Just none specialising in transport.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120086668#Comment_120086668

Maybe.

But journalism is not just the reporter writing in shorthand, but includes the subeditor who constructs the headline (which is often misleading) but also the editors and publishers.

Now some of the correction would be after the fact, but publishing misleading articles with misleading headlines is not restricted to transport issues. Some publications are significantly better measured by their journalism standards, but others are woeful.

PopePalpatine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120083406#Comment_120083406

"What the hell actually possessed him to write that nonsense for the IT"

Probably a word in his (or the boardroom's) ear(s) from SIMI.

Murph85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120085584#Comment_120085584

I want it to go ahead. But at what cost do you draw the line ? It could absolutely have been built for the relative pittance it would cost ten years ago plus...

spacetweek

Indeed the damage people like him do is probably considerable as few Irish people over the age of 50 read Twitter and they aren't informed enough about public transport to understand that his article was factually incorrect and sensationalist.

Cue meals with your parents where your dad starts rabbiting on about how the government is wasting money on "underground thrains costing twenty billion".

cgcsb

I notice the article has gone 'sponsored' on insta and Facebook. Meaning the IT is paying for it to appear repeatedly on people's news feeds because they're not getting enough clicks. They did the same with the recent anti United Ireland poll. If people don't buy it they push for the hard sell.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120088034#Comment_120088034

Give fifty-somethings a bit more credit, eh.

Hotblack Desiato

Unfortunately the first letter today takes Frank's nonsense as gospel, the second is just crayoning which would delay the project by yet more years.

Somebody needs to challenge his crap head-on: lettersed@irishtimes.com (I've got a fair few letters printed over the years but I'm not knowledgeable enough on this issue)

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2023/01/10/metrolink-and-city-transportation/

Sir, – Frank McDonald’s article on the proposed Metro route makes depressing reading as it underlines the limitations of stand-alone planning of costly critical infrastructure (“MetroLink will lay waste to chunks of the city centre but won’t integrate city transportation”, Opinion & Analysis, January 7th).

Rather like the National Children’s Hospital, squeezed into a restricted site without much regard to its transport context, we now find another huge project being proposed, in this instance a vital transport development which appears to have been visualised with only limited regard to other transport linkages or to its impact on land use.

How can this piecemeal approach be justified? Why is the Metro route not being forensically linked to the development of a wider Dart underground? And why have earlier initiatives, such as the Mater hospital underground facility, now been discarded? What is the rationale to making a terminus at Charlemont? What is the point of a possible Metro station at the east end of Stephen’s Green and a possible Dart station at the west end? And, at the Swords end, why not continue the Metro line to link with mainline rail and so facilitate access to the airport from Belfast and the northeast generally?

Fifty years ago, the need for a comprehensive, co-ordinated approach to planning Dublin city resulted in a Dublin land use and transportation strategy published by the later-dumped An Foras Forbartha. That strategy offered an integrated, cross-sectoral vision that embraced the idea that transport and land use/housing are two sides of the same coin, to be planned and developed in tandem. Whatever chances such rationality may have had then, it has had none in an era of neoliberalism. Yet the issue raised in 1971 does not go away. It is only being continually postponed.

The various sectoral interests now posing as stakeholders in Dublin frequently appear to operate at variance in relation to both good planning and a co-ordinated strategic vision for the city and its region. A more joined-up approach to planning the city region is needed urgently. Is it too much to hope that the restructured planning board can insist on a more integrated approach to major infrastructure projects and to long-term planning in general? – Yours, etc,

ARNOLD HORNER,

Glenageary,

Co Dublin.

Sir, – When the tunnel boring machine, which is to be assembled at significant cost for the central portion of the proposed MetroLink, has arrived at St Stephen’s Green, it should direct itself towards Leeson Street, continue under the Grand Canal, under Upper Leeson Street and Morehampton Road, under Donnybrook, under the Dodder and emerge beyond Donnybrook garage, where the line can be elevated over the dual-carriageway median and continue to connect with the existing Green line at Leopardstown.

This route can both address capacity concerns on the existing Green line and provide useful tram connectivity to a portion of the city and institutions not served at present: Donnybrook stadium, RTÉ, St Vincent’s Hospital, UCD, and Stillorgan village.

When considering the rail network as a network, it also seems difficult to understand the logic in not connecting MetroLink to the mainline rail service near Donabate or Malahide: the termination of rail services at park-and-ride facilities can only continue our over-reliance on cars. – Is mise,

PAUL ARNOLD,

Ranelagh,

Dublin 6.

prunudo

Love it, an elevated metro above the Stillorgan dual carriageway. And I was told on here the other day that the IT readers would see through opinions pieces from the likes of Frank McDonnell, Fintan O'Toole or Colm McCarthy.

The sooner the thing is given the go ahead and built the better, let the crayons users work on future lines.

salmocab

the TBM could hang a left at Stephen’s green head off down lesson street up onto stilts along the stillorgan dualler and meet up with the green line, that’s the man that should be running transport.

strassenwo!f

I've read Frank McDonald's piece about metrolink, and some of the related posts on Twitter, and I am curious about his comments on Croke Park.

It is an important conference centre, and it holds big matches on several days in the year, but it is not a major centre of everyday employment in Dublin. This seems to be the same kind of weakness that has many others seeing travel on a metro to the airport as a thing one does with luggage - and questioning whether it is really necessary to have a metro to the airport - rather than seeing the airport as a place of huge employment, and thus worthy of investment in helping workers to get easily to and from there, somehow. The occasional travel needs of any one person are peripheral, and it depresses me that every discussion here generally descends into the potential difficulties of taking luggage on the proposed metrolink.

Is Dublin Airport possibly the highest employer in the County?

(If I ever get to go to Croke Park, particularly for a big match, I would probably welcome a trip on the metro to the proposed station at Glasnevin, and then a long walk along the Royal Canal, watching the great stadium hove into view and feeling the excitement gradually mounting).

The change in the potential distance from the metro to Croke Park was obviously something that Frank McDonald thought odd.

For me, the most surprising aspects of the metronorth to metrolink change were, firstly, that the new route would be built through an area with a much lower population than that in the original, metrolink, plan. (Drumcondra has a population density which is around 40% (forty per cent) higher than the area around the proposed Glasnevin station, and, by any measure, more potential metro users, whether they are people living in the area or working in the area). The second surprise was that the new route would be built so close to the Northside's quite new bit of the Green line, and thus will inevitably cannibalise that line's catchment area.

To me, the current plan for Dublin's metro, in the Glasnevin-Drumcondra part of the city, broadly near to the Royal Canal, appears to be a significant long-term error.

FrankLeeSpeaking

"(Drumcondra has a population density which is around 40% (forty per cent) higher than the area around the proposed Glasnevin station, and, by any measure, more potential metro users"

Glasnevin is really about Phisborough. You are confusing names with geography. Also it provides a fantastic interchange with DART/Irish Rail. It is a no brainer to put the station at that location in Glasnevin. Then how many potential passengers will be fed into Metro there compared to Glasnevin? I would wager many multiples of a stand alone station on Drumcondra.

FrankLeeSpeaking

I agree with the posters who say ignore McDonald's wibblings in the Times. He is a crank and this hitpiece should be considered nothing more than dying screams of an increasingly irrelevant eccentric soon to vanish into oblivion.

strassenwo!f

Well, I don't have much more to say tonight, but I think we should extend, to FrankLeeSpeaking, a very warm welcome to the board!

dublinman1990

This rebuke article about Metrolink from IrishCycle.com has given a really good detailed response to Frank McDonald's article in the IT over the weekend. The good thing about it it has dismissed his article as complete rubbish.

https://irishcycle.com/2023/01/09/its-incoherent-to-say-metrolink-wont-integrate-will-lay-waste-to-chunks-of-city/

Murph85

I suggest the next incarnation of this metro, be called metro swords, it would stop it being called the " airport metro" by ignorant idiots...

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120092621#Comment_120092621

Can you stop bringing up Drumcondra and point about 40% higher population density. Drumcondra station is being upgraded to full Dart service.

Drumcondra - includes lower and upper Drumcondra:

Glasnevin - includes DCU, National Botanic Gardens, includes only the NW quadrant around the Glasnevin station.

GoldFour4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120092965#Comment_120092965

i agree with the glasnevin station but your point above is not really relevant. Some of those Glasnevin areas are over an hour walk to the station.

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093000#Comment_120093000

This is exactly my point. Sorry I'm not clear in my post.

@strassenwolf keeps bringing up "higher density in Drumcondra versus Glasnevin". But this is extremely vague and not backed up by any scrutiny.

AngryLips

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093038#Comment_120093038

Even if you compare it to Phibs or Cabra, I think Drumcondra still is a higher density neigbourhood that isn't as well served by PT.

strassenwo!f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093038#Comment_120093038

The figures are not vague. They are backed up by the census figures of those areas for many years, the most recent (that I've seen) being those from 2016, though there are probably figures available for the 2021 census.

I have not yet seen the 2021 figures, but I surely will soon.

I'd be surprised if there's much of a change.

I'd guess we'd get much the same figures from the 2021 census: A 40% higher population density in Drumcondra than exists around Glasnevin Junction is, broadly, what I'd be reckoning.

strassenwo!f

For your information, brianc89:

The local population, and the population density, are much higher at Drumcondra than around Glasnevin Junction.

To illustrate this, if you take the 7 electoral districts broadly around Glasnevin Junction (Botanic A, B and C, Cabra East A and B, Cabra West B and Inns Quay A), these have a total area of 4.759 sq.km, the total population is 24,760 and the density is 5,203 people per sq.km. (2016 census figures).

Against this, if you take the 8 electoral districts broadly around a possible metro station at Drumcondra (Drumcondra South A, B and C, Botanic B and C, Inns Quay A, Ballybough B and Mountjoy B), these have a total area of 3.814 sq.km. (i.e. smaller than the above), a total population of 27,561 (i.e. higher than above) and a density of 7,226 per sq.km (i.e. around 40% higher than at Glasnevin Junction).

I hope that helps, Brian, but I am conscious that I have not seen the most recent census figures.

marno21

Groundhog day again lads.

No Drumcondra vs Glasnevin chat. The debate is settled. MetroLink is routing via Glasnevin. Whether Frank McDonald has a bee in his bonnet about it or not.

cgcsb

The metrolink route is via a new station at Crossguns Bridge serving the Phibsboro and Glasnevin areas of D7 and D11 and providing interchange to both DART lines and potentially an intercity service in one station.

The railway order is with the board and will not change at this stage so its not up for discussion.

If metrolnk is cancelled and in 2 decades we have another version of the project it may be a discussion worth having at that point.

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093804#Comment_120093804

Botanic A has a population density of 2,500/sqkm. This is pulling the average way down, but you're excluding the fact that this includes Glasnevin Cemetery and the National Botanic Gardens. Both of these are major tourist attractions - 700k people visited the National Botanic Gardens in 2019.

Mountjoy B (20k per sqkm) is pulling the Drumcondra average way up, however this catchment is an equal distance to OCS Metro, so they're not losing out by moving the Metro station to Glasnevin Jct.

Inns Quay A (12.5k per sqkm) benefits equally from either location. And Ballybough B (11.5k per sqkm) still benefits from a full Dart service at Drumcondra.

https://www.citypopulation.de/en/ireland/dublin/

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093804#Comment_120093804

Also, Cabra East A (4k per sqkm) includes Dublin Industrial Estate (zero population).

The populated area of this townland is next to Glasnevin Metro, where the density is likely 12k per sqkm in line with the surrounding townlands.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120093614#Comment_120093614

As a person who lives very near Drumcondra, I don't think you can really say that. Drumcondra is served by probably one of the highest frequency bus corridors in the City.

The works that they did by the Cat & Cage a few years ago have made a big difference. A week before Christams, I got the bus into town at 5pm from north of the Cat & Cage and I'm not joking I was in O'Connell St. in 10 minutes! With cars out of the way and proper bus lanes, the buses can really fly.

And this is before we get to the BusConnects upgrades.

Don't get me wrong, I'd have loved for the original Metro North to have been built at the time, it would directly have benefited me. But between improvements to bus services in the area, upcoming BusConnects works and Drumcondra Station becoming a DART station, I think the area is pretty well served.

Though I also wish we had gotten the BRT on the Drumcondra/Swords Road.

In the end, the new route makes more sense in terms of connecting with Rail, etc. and will make for a better overall project.

strassenwo!f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120094869#Comment_120094869

Brian, I'm not excluding the fact that Botanic A (just about 100-200m from the proposed metrolink station) includes Glasnevin Cemetery and the Botanic Gardens. It is a fact that that those are there, and are not going to be moved elsewhere. I wish Dublin every success in trying to elevate population density around Glasnevin Junction in that environment.

Mountjoy B has a population density which is around 5 (five) times that of Cabra East A, which is where the proposed Glasnevin station is, yet the current proposals do not include a station for that large population.

If my suggestion were implemented it would include at least one, and probably two, in that high-density area.

strassenwo!f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120095090#Comment_120095090

I'd be surprised if you could add on an extra 8k to the current 4k density in that ward.

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120095426#Comment_120095426

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120095471#Comment_120095471

This townland is entirely unpopulated except in the blue areas. The majority of homes are in the south east side (beside Metro stop), so the population density here is substantially higher than 4k per sqkm.

Mountjoy B has a high density but a low total population of 4,300 people, as it's a very small area. It's also a very quick walk to OCS or Connolly Dart or Drumcondra Dart.

FrankLeeSpeaking

McDonald's 'lack of integration' comment smacks of the old 'red and green lines are different gauges' nonsense that became something of a defacto living mythology for every journalist and group opposed to rail transport back in the day. Which alone, would not amount to much, but somehow this rubbish manages to weed its way into the public consciousness.

It is also something of a fact that journalism in Ireland is an instinctive wing of the road lobby. I recall the war which the Sunday Business Post waged upon the Luas during construction, and when it was about to be opened had an 'expert in rail transport declare the Luas to be the worst train in the world'. It was akin to a retreating army lobbing shells in the direction of the enemy they were running away from.

Have no fear, as hysterical and shrill as these pundits are, they have been on the retreat since the DART was opened in 1984 and they always will be.

Pete_Cavan

A not insignificant chunk of what is defined as Drumcondra would find it easier, or at least just as easy, to get to GJ as to Drumcondra station. I can't believe this crap is still be tolerated, the same irrelevant crap has been derailing this thread for years!

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096032#Comment_120096032

Well it'll be 2025 before we see construction if at all. At that point hopefully the whataboutery will cease. 23 months to go (at least)

Pete_Cavan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096066#Comment_120096066

Nah, this guy won't stop spewing this nonsense even after it's too late to change things or even after reality has proved him wrong. I'm starting to wonder if it is actually Frank McDonald!

Murph85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120096066#Comment_120096066

Its not just a recession that can derail it this time, they can now also cancel it without a recession based on cost. The same idiots who mothballed it, when the cost would have been fantasy prices compared to now...

Hotblack Desiato

Today's letters. Shame the first one makes the usual mistake of going on and on about the airport when it's about so much more than that.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2023/01/11/metrolink-wont-integrate-city-transportation/

Sir, – Frank McDonald rails against a proposal for Dublin which doesn’t chime with his own vision for the city (“MetroLink will lay waste to chunks of the city centre but won’t integrate city transportation”, Opinion & Analysis, January 7th). This time his ire is directed toward MetroLink, a piece of infrastructure that would provide a high-capacity public transport link between the city centre and Swords via Dublin Airport and that many, including myself, would like to see delivered.

Frank McDonald claims that the proposal “is yet another example of the absence of joined-up thinking on transport in Dublin – a stand-alone project that doesn’t make coherent sense on its own and would need to be extended southwards in order to do so”. While ignoring the benefits of having a fast, segregated public transport link between the city centre and Dublin airport, your writer overlooks that the proposed MetroLink route would in fact help integrate existing public transport services across multiple locations in Dublin city. A new interchange with the heavy-rail network at Glasnevin is included in the proposal, while Luas and numerous bus services would be easily accessible from the proposed station on O’Connell Street and other city centre stations.

While it can certainly be argued that the proposed MetroLink route could have been further optimised, it is unfair to say the MetroLink proposal is incoherent and will provide no meaningful benefits in terms of transport integration within Dublin city.

Perhaps Frank McDonald would be so kind as to provide a follow-up piece which outlines his preferred approach for connecting Dublin Airport with a high-capacity, segregated public transport service with a specific route that mitigates against negative impacts on existing housing, public greenspace and buildings of interest? – Yours, etc,

MARK CONNOLLY,

Dublin 15.

Sir, – Frank McDonald notes what MetroLink is not connected to, but omits to mention what it connects.

MetroLink connects Dublin city with Swords, a growing town of over 40,000 residents.

MetroLink connects Dublin city with its airport, the only major European capital city not to have a rail link to its airport.

MetroLink connects with the Red and Green Luas lines at O’Connell Street.

MetroLink connects with the Dart, and northern and south eastern commuter rail at Tara.

But Frank McDonald, like many other opponents of MetroLink, only believes in MetroLink if it connects with the southside.

But Dublin is more than the leafy southside and its Dortspeak residents.

The city and county has a population of 1.5 million, and all its residents are entitled to have a Metro. – Yours, etc,

JASON FITZHARRIS,

Swords,

Co Dublin.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120095933#Comment_120095933

It is also something of a fact that journalism in Ireland is an instinctive wing of the road lobby.

I think it's more newspapers/media "not refusing ink". Complex projects with competing interests and challenging problems to solve are a god send for the media looking for controversy to talk about. Most road projects are humdrum, but infrastructure in the cities is a different story. The Dublin tunnel had its fair share (remember the leaks and the seismic fault lines). The children's hospital is the current target. The day after these things open to the public is the day perspective arrives and all the nonsense just evaporates.

cgcsb

The one to watch is Finglas luas. Quietly the team are preparing to submit a railway order without any public or political opposition and few significant cost or engineering barriers. It could be under construction even in late 2024. Mark my words the concrete will not be dry when calls to extend to the airport start. Extending it to the airport in its self would be worthwhile project, it would offer good journey times from the airport to Finglas, Cabra, Stoneybatter and anywhere on the maynooth DART line with a change at broombridge.

If that happens metrolink is in trouble. And yes I know there's no comparison between metrolink and finglas luas but this is Ireland, its about what you (government in this case) can get away with.

Podge_irl

I don't understand how it would be in anything but the govt's interest to have the project started before the next election. The cost overruns will be the next few govts issues to deal with.

p_haugh

If anything, Luas finglas could be at least extended to Northwood along Margaret's Avenue, to tie in with the metro there. That provides a link to the airport with only a quick interchange. Would be much faster than a winding Luas going all the way to the airport.

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120098277#Comment_120098277

No glory on opening day

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120099413#Comment_120099413

Could well be back in govt by then, but there is certainly no glory in cancelling a project after all the work put into it when potential recriminations on costings and disruption are a problem for the next couple governments.

Despite the pessimism of all and sundry and the frustratingly oft-repeated expectation that it will be canned, it would not be a popular move. There is no benefit to it in an electoral sense.

strassenwo!f

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120095709#Comment_120095709

Brianc89, I'm really not sure what point you were trying to make about Cabra East A.

The southern part of that ward, which you highlighted in blue, is already adjacent to the LUAS, and all within 200-400 metres of the Cabra LUAS stop. The western end of the ward could indeed sensibly be redeveloped from its current light industrial use to residential, to vastly increase the population in that part of the city.

Yet the western boundary of that ward will be part of the LUAS route to Finglas, between Broombridge and St. Helena's, and presumably any conversion of the western end to residential would be designed with proximity to the proposed Finglas LUAS in mind, not the metrolink.

When the line to Finglas is built, hopefully soon, pretty well everywhere in that ward would be within 400-500 metres of a LUAS stop (with appropriate measures taken, like a new bridge or two over the canal, or a well-lit underpass; or, given that the canal is almost unused in that area, a walkway across the canal might be devised). The Broombridge and Cabra stops should be very accessible from that ward.

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120100059#Comment_120100059

Don't change the subject. You keep referring to Drumcondra having higher population density, but when I point out the nuances of this you go back to Green Line cannibalism again - it's 900m to Cabra Luas (for humans, you know, humans use transport, not birds).

Population density in Glasnevin Jc is comparable to Drumcondra if you consider the higher population density on the eastern end of Cabra East A, plus the high tourist numbers in Botanic A.

Drumcondra already has a station which will be upgraded to full Dart. To what end do you insist on pushing this argument?

spacetweek

Michael McDowell in the Irish Times praises Frank McDonald's anti-Metrolink article as a "cogent piece". Circlejerk.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/01/11/radical-change-is-needed-to-make-dublin-a-liveable-city/

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120100679#Comment_120100679

Christ, as if either of those two dinosaurs would ever accept "radical change"