Can Anyone Tell Me Why a Heavy Rail Link to Dublin Airport Can Not be Built in the Short Term?

Strumms

the line would probably have to go underground for part of the journey, also the station, platforms and infrastructure at the airport ? Not sure where it could be built .

KrisW1001

Far more passengers would be arriving via Heuston than any station on the Northern line. With Metrolink serving the city-based population, any mainline airport rail link that doesn’t connect to Heuston will be a waste of money.

Rather than extending the one Metro line further and further away from Dublin, why not build a second line? Networks become more efficient when they interconnect.

Ronald Binge Redux

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121101125#Comment_121101125

A rare bit of sense among the noise.

bk

“Rather than extending the one Metro line further and further away from Dublin, why not build a second line? Networks become more efficient when they interconnect.”

Because we could house the next 300,000 people in Swords like towns that are actually planned and built at a high density within walking distance of the Metrolink stations.

And all at a relatively tiny cost as it would just be running the Metrolink above ground through what are currently farmers fields. Think of how cheap the Luas extensions have been, it would be similar to that.

And no this isn’t far from Dublin, the area I’m talking about is just 15 to 20km from Dublin. To put that in context, that is closer than Bray and Maynooth at about 25km from Dublin and Drogheda at 50km. I assume you aren’t objecting to DART+ being extended to Drogheda for the same “distance from Dublin” reasons?

Of course ideally we should do both, extend the Metrolink, while planning a second Metro line. The difference is that a Metrolink extension could be done as almost an afterthought, while planning a second underground Metrolink line would take much longer and of course much more expensive. And then of course let’s not forget upgrading the green line to Metro.

The thing is, I can’t see any possible second Metrolink line that would open up the amount of development land as a northern extension would. Never mind the massive cost difference.

I think this is why some of the ideas like bringing intercity to the Airport fall flat on their face. We are in the middle of a housing crisis and we need to do everything we can to help resolve it. Metro/rail projects that allow lots of new homes to be built is the priority. DART+ is great because it opens up the West of Dublin for (more) development and Metrolink does the same for North of Dublin. Projects like brining intercity to the airport do nothing to help resolve the housing crisis, so while a nice to have, fall way down in any priority.

gjim

The problem with extending metro lines is that the PT network density drops with the square of the distance from the center. Fine if the only journeys anyone in these new towns ever need is served by the single metro line but all other journeys will either be car dependent or require new services which means more expense even if the initial extension seemed cheap. Car dependency always remains a factor in commuter towns even where rail PT is available and this will remain the case in Swords to some degree even when the metro arrives. Walking and cycling are no longer commuting options. I’m not even sure what problem we would be solving by planning to house people so far from the centre in new areas which require long commutes to reach the city - it may be marginally more comfortable to spend an hour each day on a shiney new expensive metro than doing the same hour on a steamed up double decker bus from Coolock but it’s still an hour of someone’s life lost every day.

Dublin needs density close to the centre not in new planned towns 25km out. Look at google maps - there’s plenty of brownfield or under utilized land within 10km of O’Connell bridge - it’s only this type of development - relatively concentrated density - that can support dense PT networks.

bk

Seriously people are ok with folks commuting in 50km from Drogheda, but not 15km from planned towns!

“25km out”

The area I’m talking about begins 15km out and ends 20km out, not 25km.

“The problem with extending metro lines is that the PT network density drops with the square of the distance from the center. “

This is why we would build them as planned 15 minute cities. Dense apartment buildings within walking distance of the Metro. Schools, shops, gyms, bars, in the ground floors of the buildings. This is very much inline with international best practices, commuter towns like this a very much a part of cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Of course I also agree that we need to infill and densify closer to the city too, develop brown field sites like the Dublin Industrial Estate, etc. But keep in mind the population of Dublin is projected to grow by 500,000 people. Infill will only get you so far.

Better to house people in properly planned dense towns, rather then spread across a vast expanse of low density houses across West Dublin.

KrisW1001

@bk I have no objection to DART extensions out that far, but DART is not the same kind of transport as Metro. Once you get away from the city centre, passenger journeys become longer, and so capacity per train and speed of travel become the critical factors. Metro has relatively low capacity per train, and relatively low speed (based on the publicity materials, around 50km/h including stops), but it makes up for it with really high frequency of service (up to 40 tph, peak). That's exactly what you need to serve the centre of a city, but it's not a good fit for connecting a satellite town to the city centre where the distances travelled by most passengers will be long.

bk

Again both Luas lines are already longer then the distance I’m talking about. Metrolink will be much higher capacity and speed than Luas, so it should have no problem handling that area.

Two of the Metro lines in Amsterdam are 20 km, so the same length as I’m proposing.

This is all very much a normal distance for Metro. Also don’t forget, nothing stopping people at say the 20 km end from getting the Metro to Rush & Lusk and change onto the DART+ there if it was faster (not that I think it would be).

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121095817#Comment_121095817

Interestingly on this, the latest rail review reports says they want to upgrade to 4 tracks from Connolly to Malahide (I think)

That would increase capacity significantly and allow running trains to the airport.

I genuinely believe I'll be dead or close to dead or old enough that I won't ever be using a plane again by the time the metro is built.

gjim

"Better to house people in properly planned dense towns, rather then spread across a vast expanse of low density houses across West Dublin."

I'm not sure where this is coming from? I've suggested densifying close to the city before building "new towns" 20km (or whatever) from the centre - where did you get that I was advocating covering the countryside in semi-detached housing? The traditional centre (between the canals) is nearly 16km2 and there's over 200km2 within the M50. Dublin already has an enormous footprint relative to its population, I see no social benefits from extending the footprint before exploiting the massive amounts of brownfield, greenfield and underutilised land close to the centre.

The problem with building new towns, disconnected from existing centres is that they are only "cheap" if you forget about all the amenities people need and expect to be able to enjoy daily life. A "15 minute" new town is only any good if there's stuff within 15 minutes. So either you duplicate all the amenities (from hospitals, schools, sports/music/etc. venues, restaurants, shops, parks, etc, etc.) in the new town, at great expense, or you offer poor lifestyle to the new inhabitants.

Investing in dense buildings close to the centre - even if the land costs more - means that the new inhabitants immediately have access to all the amenities of the city. And that any new amenities are of benefit to existing Dublin city dwellers. More can be spent on providing quality public amenities as the spending doesn't have to cover multiple separated "centres".

There's a lot of theory around this subject - historically called the "new towns movement" - and historic experience with this approach in the post war years has been a mix bag - often negative. It typically takes decades before new towns become genuinely liveable and some never do.

MJohnston

@bk

I don't see why you wouldn't stop the Enterprise at this station, to allow passengers to change to the Airport (or any other Metrolink station). Sure it isn't a destination at the moment, but it would be with a Metrolink station there.

Well this is obviously based on optimistic thinking, but if the Belfast to Dublin train was to become High Speed as proposed, I think a stop around here would probably compromise the high speed nature of it.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121103255#Comment_121103255

Your proving my point: in population and area, Amsterdam is a larger city than Dublin.. And yet, its longest metro lines are the same length as the cut down length of one of ours.

Metros are not long-distance transport. The clue is in the name "metropolitan railway".

Luas is a symptom of the same disease.. We have a bad habit of trying to make single projects fix all problems, and overextension of Luas is an example. The western extents of Red Line are so far from Dublin they should really have been served by a new DART service. The Green Line just about gets away with its length because it's mostly on dedicated track which gives it relatively high speed for a tram.

To fix our carbon emissions, we need to densify our cities. To do that in Dublin, we need a high-frequency transport network that lets people get from one part of the city to another, not a collection of non-intersecting lines reaching ever further away from Dublin.

bk

"Your proving my point: in population and area, Amsterdam is a larger city than Dublin.. And yet, its longest metro lines are the same length as the cut down length of one of ours."

Errr.. Hate to break it to you, Dublin has a larger Metro population then Amsterdam!

Dublin Metro Population: 1,270,000

Amsterdam Metro Population: 1,174,000

They also have an extremely close population density. Dublin and Amsterdam are about as close as you can get to two comparable cities.

As a result, the length of Metro lines is very comparable. I'm sorry, but you are dead wrong about this.

"To do that in Dublin, we need a high-frequency transport network that lets people get from one part of the city to another, not a collection of non-intersecting lines reaching ever further away from Dublin."

Which is exactly what Metrolink will do, it will intersect with three of the four heavy rail lines (and could easily be extended to the 4th too). It will also intersect with the two Luas lines. You really don't get much more "intersection" then that and of course it is high will be very high-frequecy, much more then Dart+.

bk

Btw fun facts about Metros here:

https://cms.uitp.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Statistics-Brief-World-metro-figures-2018V3_WEB.pdf

"The average line length globally is 20km and the average distance between stations is 1.25km. There are substantial variations between the longest and shortest line: 82.4km (line 11 Shanghai) and 1.8km (line U55 Berlin) respectively"

So it seems the average length of Metro lines Globally is 20km, so Metrolink should have no problem serving the area North of Swords between 15km and 20km.

loco_scolo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121106462#Comment_121106462

What's the argument here? Dublin is extremely comparable to Amsterdam in terms of city area, metro area and greater metropolitan area in terms of population and density.

25minutes commute time from Swords to city centre is extremely good.

KrisW1001

Amsterdam the same size as Dublin? No. Metropolitan Amsterdam is 2.4 million people; Metropolitan Dublin is 1.2 million. The hinterland of Amsterdam (its commutable area) dwarfs Dublin's in population. A 19 km metro line through Amsterdam has an enormous catchment; 19km in Dublin does not. But the Dublin one was supposed to be longer.

My observation is that by stretching out of the city, Metrolink is being shoehorned into a role that metro systems are not well suited to: serving outlying population centres. Talk of extending that single metro line out beyond Swords will just make that wrong choice clearer, and doing so while nothing in the city south west of Stephen's Green has any kind of mass transportation is a colossal wasted opportunity.

I feel that this is being done because, for various reasons, it is prohibitively expensive and slow to build a heavy-rail line in Ireland. Actually, it might be fast and cheap to do it, but nobody knows because effectively no new heavy rail has been built in this country for a century, whereas there is recent experience in building metro-like services (the Green Line is a classic "pre-metro"). I think it's also significant that Metro can be built without involvement from Iarnród Éireann, while DART would require them to be in charge of its construction. Looking from the outside, you'd think TII and IE hate each other...

Why is a metro bad for outlying regions? A metro has high frequency, but the trade-off is lower journey speed and and lower capacity per individual service (like a car's mpg versus top speed figures, that 25 minute service length is not available at the same time as the "with one train per 90 seconds" statistic). Outlying areas of cities tend to follow a tidal pattern: lots of demand for journeys in the mornings, lots out in the evenings, and that requires higher capacity for a very short time period. That's what commuter rail is good at: a long train every five minutes, running at higher speed.

Regarding interconnection, here is exactly where MetroLink will interchange with the existing rail lines. I count two:

From that map it's also pretty clear that Dublin has two huge mass-transport deserts - one in the Northeast, one from Glasnevin around to Coolock, and one from Rialto around to Dundrum. Metro does a very good job of reducing that Northern desert and connecting the North of the city to the centre. I have zero problem with that. It's once it goes north of the M50 that the questions needed to be asked.

loco_scolo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121107077#Comment_121107077

The two cities are more similar than you think. Up to county Dublin border, Dublin is denser than Amsterdam with the same population (c. 1.5m). However, outside the county border, the population density falls rapidly for Dublin versus Amsterdam. What's your argument here - that places like Drogheda, Navan, Trim, Naas, Newbridge etc., need heavy rail rather than metro? The map below probably backs that up.

1a) Dublin City is 118sqkm, density 5032/sqkm, population 592k

1b) Amsterdam Municipality is 219sqkm, density 4000/sqkm, population 871k

2a) Dublin Urban is 345sqkm, density 3660/sqkm, population 1.26m

2b) Amsterdam Agglomeration is 448sqkm, density 2500/sqkm, population 1.11m

3a) County Dublin is 922sqkm, density 1580/sqkm, population 1.46m

3b) Amsterdam Urban is 1140sqkm, density 1400/sqkm, population 1.58m

4a) Greater Dublin Area is 2880sqkm, density 593/sqkm, population 1.71m

4b) Amsterdam Metropolitan Area is 2580sqkm, density 980/sqkm, population 2.52m

I used Wiki for most numbers, but used the CSO census website to get guesstimate the GDA. Officially, the GDA excludes Louth but includes all of Meath, Kildare and Wicklow, including all the rural farmland and Dublin/Wicklow mountains. Officially the GDA is 6000sqkm, density 300/sqkm, and population 2.08m.

KrisW1001

"What's your argument here - that places like Drogheda, Navan, Trim, Naas, Newbridge etc., need heavy rail rather than metro? The map below probably backs that up."

Yes, that's exactly the argument. I'd include Swords as a borderline member of that group too, as it's separated from the city by a very low density area (which can't densify due to the airport approaches).

Ironically, it's the presence of the airport along its route that makes Metrolink less effective as a metro here, because the airport enforces a low-population zone around it, and metro works best when the whole length of a line runs through well-populated areas.

Ronald Binge Redux

It's all theory and no practice because shag-all has been built yet. We'll be killing the environment in North County Dublin a little bit more every day for another decade, unless the next Government puts an RPG up the backside of Official Ireland's institutional navel gazing and procrastination.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121107875#Comment_121107875

Why does the airport enforce a low population zone around it?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121108504#Comment_121108504

Noise, and possible bits dropping from above.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121110063#Comment_121110063

Thats directly under the flight path, but even then many airports have quite built up areas around them.

Testcard

Metrolink solves a commuting problem, particularly for Swords and the Northside. Putting a heavy rail link into the airport allows travellers to and from (nearly) all parts of Ireland to access the airport by rail. Look at Schipol and Charles De Gaulle and Manchester airports. A mix of long distance and local trains/trams serving those airports.

We need both Metrolink and Heavy Rail at the airport. Arguing that we should only have one (Metrolink only) misses the point.

Sam Russell

A heavy rail spur/link from Clongriffin to Castleknock via the airport would be 16 km, most over open countryside. It would connect the northern line with the Maynooth, Sligo line. A bit of an extension would connect it with the Cork line at Hazlehatch or thereabouts. It would add 5 km to do that.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121129304#Comment_121129304

We need both Metrolink and Heavy Rail at the airport. Arguing that we should only have one (Metrolink only) misses the point.

Not really, spending Billions to just save a few minutes for the small number of intercity passengers who are continuing onto the airport seems foolish.

I'm not saying it will never happen, but we have so many more important projects to spend that money on first.

ArcadiaJunction

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121129631#Comment_121129631

Looking at google earth this is actually a brilliant idea.

loco_scolo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121130184#Comment_121130184

It's pretty much the Metro West plan? But not 1600 gauge heavy rail. Any suggestion of Cork-Belfast intercity via that route would be unpopular I would say.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121130563#Comment_121130563

Cork to the airport might be popular, plus the intervening stopping points. Likewise Limerick, Galway and Waterford - with perhaps a change on the way.

Belfast to airport, plus intervening stops would also have customers.

It would make a huge set of possible connections. - without expecting a link every ten minutes or even every hour.

Add in the twin track for the main lines, and eventually o/h electricity, and trains will begin to be the preferred mode of travel by public transport.

That with just 25 or 30 km of new track.

bk

Yes, it basically partly replicating Metro West, but at a much higher cost.

You'd have to build a second tunnel and station under Dublin airport.

Much cheaper just to extend MetroLink to the Northern line and then build Metro West south of the airport as was planned. Gets you basically the same service, but you to save on the cost of a second underground tunnel and station, by reusing the Metrolink ones.

The other issue with this heavy rail alignment, is that it wouldn't really make sense. Are we saying rather then having Belfast to Dublin passengers go direct to Connolly, they instead have to go to Dublin Airport and change onto Metrolink for the city?! Or that passengers from Cork, rather then going direct to Hueston have to go to Cross & Gun and change onto Metrolink to get to the city!

It doesn't really make sense, most intercity passengers are going to Dublin City, not the Airport. It doesn't make sense to inconvenience the majority for the needs of the minority of passengers!

I say this on my observation of the intercity coach services. When I think the coach to Cork (and recently Belfast) it is easy to see that 70 to 80% of the passengers get on/off at Dublin City, only 20% are so go onto the airport.

Building Metro West and extending Metrolink to the Northern line would allow for a quick and easy change to the airport for Intercity passengers, without impacting the majority of intercity passengers heading to the airport, at a lower cost and with other benefits beyond a simple airprot link (e.g. opening up development land North of Swords and all the other Metro stops along the MetroWest route that would allow people in Blancharstown,Lucan,etc. a quick trip to the airport and other locations around the city).

Sam Russell

Not all trains would go to the airport. Just some - depending on demand.

The train could skirt the airport, or be on an elevated viaduct.

It is not necessary to think of the bestest solution and then dismiss the whole concept because the cost would be enormous. Or think of a ridiculous solution and dismiss it because it was rediculous.

Improve the idea if it needs to be..