If Metrolink was scrapped, what are the alternatives?

loco_scolo

A half baked rant about building anything in Ireland, with a tag on paragraph about considering the alternatives for metro.

Truly sounds like he's almost given up, which is great!!!

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/12/27/michael-mcdowell-before-the-metrolink-juggernaut-becomes-a-money-pit-lets-pause-and-look-at-alternatives/

Sam Russell

The IT are always printing articles against Metrolink, and McDowell always obliges.

Idbatterim

Laugh Out Loud! The predictability of it all, is why I started this thread... Seriously though and I am not saying it should be done at official level yet, but could for example running it above the m1 and then the m50 all the way to that big junction at whitehall , and then go underground, save billions, along with terminating it at OCS or Westmoreland Street for example?

I really hope it proceeds as planned obviously

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539964#Comment_121539964

Literally nothing could save billions as you'd have to start the entire process from scratch and it would be further delayed by years.

Idbatterim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539970#Comment_121539970

yeah, this is logical. But do any decisions here EVER have basis in logic? no...

Chris_5339762

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121390839#Comment_121390839

I've only just discovered this thread, but I disagree here. Anywhere else I've been - Manchester, Munich, Strasbourg.... their trams all feel much faster in the city centre and go round corners much quicker. And none of this nonsense about trams not passing each other on corners - only in Dublin does one tram wait for the other to go around the bend.

Also of course every other place has tram prioritisation which is appalling in Dublin

csirl

In fairness to the OP, too many people are counting their chickens on this thread. No project in Ireland is immune from being cancelled unless construction is well underway. A dip in the economy and a change in Govetnment could see it on the shelf ("postponed") very quickly.

Those who say it MUST be built need to think more politically. The metro is only one line (half a line as they"ve already cancelled the southern part). The majority of voters - including those in Dublin - will see little or no impact on their daily lives from metro north. Its a local issue from a political perspective.

BTW Im a huge fan of metro and one of those who thinks we should be building a network, not a single line. But I"ve seen too many projects cancelled over the years - maybe only 10% ever come to fruition.

Idbatterim

The thing in a normal world, absolutely must be built. But we live in a country, that does nothing right and certainly has not on transport, since the foundation of the state... That's the problem!

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540032#Comment_121540032

But I"ve seen too many projects cancelled over the years - maybe only 10% ever come to fruition.

This is clearly not true. Even assuming you just mean PT projects there has not been plans for 10 times as much as what we currently have.

A change in government is always a big unknown but it would take far more than a dip in the economy to logically stall ML. People act as if the 09 crash was some minor blip in finances...

Idbatterim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540063#Comment_121540063

Ill tell you what was a minor blip, the pittance, that it would have cost, to just bloody build metro north, compared to the current cost... Keep thousands of construction workers here during the recession and actually have a proper line linking swords all the way to sandyford

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540067#Comment_121540067

We had no choice. We had no access to debt markets and our spending was tightly controlled.

Do I think austerity was a mistake? Yes. But it wasn't one we freely chose. So it's completely pointless to focus on it.

Sam Russell

Well, legislation could have been passed to keep all infrastructure planning permissions open for a further decade or until funding was available.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540117#Comment_121540117

Could it? I suspect it would not be as simple as that but I don't really know. The business case would have been damaged with the cancellation of Dart Underground and there is still all the various environmental assessments and other international conventions to adhere to. But maybe.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540032#Comment_121540032

Repeating Podge_irl but this is patently false. I’ve been following PT for years and the only major actual plans cancelled were Metronorth and DART underground and there were obvious reasons given the country had gone bankrupt. Of course there were lots of ideas - going back to Abercrombie’s proposals in the first half of the 20th century but these weren’t plans - just ideas.

Idbatterim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540108#Comment_121540108

Hang on a minute, they borrowed tens of billions. They had a fortune to keep welfare and PS pay and pensions pretty much as were, given the scale of the hole in the finances. Optically it was a problem politically, but it was a serious mistake and that is the problem you have with good management of things V the outcome you get, when you make bad decisions, for political reasons. The country loses its **** over a few euro that tubridy took advantage of , and it was wrong. But tens of billions being wasted, due to years of inaction on the farcical planning system and trying to please every one of the five plus million of us on this rock, when it comes to getting through projects, yeah...

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540305#Comment_121540305

We borrowed tens of billions from the EU and IMF and it came with incredibly strict conditions.

The conditions were, imo, short sighted and wrong but they nonetheless existed.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540171#Comment_121540171

Well, it would have saved Metro North and the M20. That alone would have been a winner.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540376#Comment_121540376

My question is more whether its legally possible. I doubt an open ending planning approval is though maybe they could have extended it further.

I just suspect its not as simple as passing legislation to do so.

spillit67

A lot of the blame lies with Merkel who hugely contributed to the energy crisis, Brexit and Europe’s current housing/infrastructure issues.

Herself and Wolfgang playing to the gallery in Germany was disastrous for us. She was a short term tactical leader rather than a strategic one for Europe.

There were quite a lot of political eulogies to her in the European context when she went which made no sense to me. The centre ground of politics who had been decimated by some of her decisions stood around and applauded. I get that she was long tenured and a strong leader, and looked positively spectacular vs. a Trump or Brexit Britain, but she did not favours for most of centre politics in the end.

The bailouts were a great chance to implement European wide infrastructure spending minimums but they shied away from them. It’s all well and good to say we had €500m for one of these projects but we all know the remainder was not there. There were some innovative things that could have been done with the debt crisis that could have delivered infra and kept jobs but they went for the easy ones.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540117#Comment_121540117

Lolz, no chance. We have extremely favourable property laws and rights in this country.

I suspect we would have required a Constitutional Amendment.

And what people seem to forget is that in Ireland that self confidence was destroyed in 2008. We had gone from building lots of houses and public infrastructure projects to thinking of ourselves as mugs who got ahead of ourselves. The majority of this country veered into a snarky, Vincent Browne watching, territory from 2008 to 2013 or so. We quoted Morgan Kelly’s lines and derided Bertie Ahern’s quotes of the 2000s. The thing is that whilst this country was going to pop with credit going mad and the planning of houses was off, Bertie Ahern was not actually wrong about the fundamentals of our demographics. We were a rapidly growing country with youthful demographics that needed lots of housing. Our chickens came home to roost when we stopped building.

I do not think there is a chance in hell that any constitutional amendment that proposed limiting property rights at that time would have got through in that climate.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540460#Comment_121540460

Have you any legal qualification for such a view?

They extended the NCT certs by six months. They have changed the planning laws many times bypassing LCA planning and going directly to ABP. Now resetting ABP now with the new legislation.

So what is your learned opinion of all that?

Under Covid many impossibles became not just possible but fact.

spillit67

I am not a practising solicitor/barrister but did it in college. I’d actually love to be in college now to see how the the C19 period is being taught.

The C19 powers were pretty extraordinary. The State shied away from testing some of these in the courts (see hotel quarantine) and only dealt with the cranks who are too thick to figure out how to fight a battle.

My memory of a year doing Property was that there is an extraordinary level of protection afforded here. The policies of Railway Orders and CPOs need to fit into several tests, including proportionality and time limits. Whenever any infrastructure project is put forward, you’ll see these words all over them in engineering documents to protect their asses.

Idbatterim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540360#Comment_121540360

They didn't dictate how we achieve the figures, or what areas, only that we adhere to them And honestly, given this country, if they proposed welfare cuts, tax increases and ps pay and pension adjustments to the troika, im sure they would have agreed , that is where the hammer should fall. Not a country with a second to third world transport infrastructure...

Idbatterim

We talk about planning and resources here, the same massive schemes going through planning again and again and again, is a scandal, on several obvious grounds...

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540616#Comment_121540616

PS pay and pensions adjustments and tax incereases rather famously did happen and faced absolutely massive opposition. No government could have forced through spending on a metro in the face of that.

It's irrelevant whether it would have made long term sense. Absent more borrowing, which we couldn't do, there was no way to fund it. Should the troika have relaxed rules to allow more borrowing when it was financially possible? Absolutely but they didn't and that is nothing to do with us.

Idbatterim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540667#Comment_121540667

Of coursevthey faced massive opposition, they were tinkered with... pity control wasn't lost to the troika and allow them do, what should have been done. .. proper property taxes, bring way more into tax net, welfare cuts, not more bonuses the longer you are on it... overhaul of ps pay and pensions. Pity the once in a generation chance was missed...

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540631#Comment_121540631

They aren’t the same schemes though.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540032#Comment_121540032

I don’t agree with this.

If you take a family in Shankill for example, Metrolink makes going to DCU far more likely. Get the DART and integrate at Tara for Metrolink north.

Same goes for people getting the bus or whatever. Also the case with Dublin Airport based jobs.

I think most Dubliners will know of someone close to them benefiting from it immediately.

That’s before we get to the leisure travel element of this.

It’s been said that there is only two other projects that have got this far in the planning process that were cancelled. We need to stop overegging this.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540540#Comment_121540540

So after a one year college course that included property law. Wow, that makes you an expert, knowledgeable enough to post on an anonymous website. Even strong enough knowledge to know whether a constitutional amendment might be needed.

However, I'm pretty sure that the AG might know more and be better informed.

orangerhyme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540032#Comment_121540032

I'm pretty certain it'll be built assuming our economy stays relatively stable.

We needed it 20 years ago.

I agree we need more then just one line, really we should start planning the second line once this one starts construction.

Also it should be extended to Donabate in the north and Sandyford in the south.

I don't think it's true that it won't affect most Dubliners.

It will take a huge amount of cars and buses off the roads, I know you can argue "induced demand", but still it's true. Loads of buses won't be necessary anymore. This will improve congestion at least a little.

This allows Dublin bus to increase capacity in other areas also.

Also it impacts property prices all along it's route and spurs development too.

The likes of Ballymun and Northwood will see an explosion in development.

Also it'll accelerate the development of the Carlton Site on O'Connell Street which will impact every Dubliner.

This will be the busiest station other than Tara St maybe so will see huge footfall so the developers are more likely to proceed with it.