Metrolink - Alternative Routes - See post one for restrictions.

Kermit.de.frog

I find the whole discussion about changes to what's planned with the metro very quaint. If there were to be any changes to the metro at this point then you can be looking at least 2045 for delivery and that's assuming the bottom doesn't fall out of the economy in the meantime.

Just get on with it.

I notice the programme director has been very straight forward in interviews about the reputational damage to Ireland due to delays, cancellations of this project in terms of him trying to sell the project to international construction firms.

It's just mind boggling how unserious a country this is when it comes to this stuff.

If anyone wants to send this back through our planning and legal circus again to get some changes the whole thing is dead.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123528281#Comment_123528281

I asked you what the potential development was and you pointed to that poster mentioning Greenhills.

Again we don’t have updated information but your analysis lacks depth. Demand drivers goes a lot deeper than population.

And whilst Tallaght has a big population, the one you quote is from the greater Tallaght area. If you compare to Sandyford you might say it has 10x the population but when compared on a like for like basis it is actually 2x. And to add Sandyford is seeing mountains of apartments getting built along with a workforce growing from 28k daily to 50k from 2022 to 2028 alone (the whole wider Tallaght region has 17k). And that’s before you consider Carrickmines, Cherrywood and the development all the way down towards Bray west and east of the N11. The actual growth in housing units from Sandyford to that area will deliver in the next 2-3 what Tallaght is expected to add in the next 20 years.

And in between the development potential doesn’t seem to be there, or at least looking at the SHD maps. Yes some infill and no doubt a Metro would drive a lot of that, but most of the good brownfield sites are further west (a lot covered by City Edge).

And the point on Sandyford is that you either do it by a relatively cheap upgrade of the Green Line or another Luas line by the N11. The SW proposals I always see have round the houses routes and / or spurs which would cost a bomb. The issue to me always comes back to a combination of value for money and people pleasing, the reality is that with any Metro line that you are concentrating resources on something that pulls it from the rest of a geography. Clearly that is worth it a lot of the time, but is it really to get to Rathfarnham?

I will say that I would’t have an issue with going slightly south west with Metrolink past Rathmines or Rathgar if that is the general direction called for. I’d have fed in Bus Connects and then Luas lines to it, including orbital ones. I also stand by wishing we had a Grand Canal line that could provide utility to the whole southside, moving them East to West quickly.

Brightlights66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123529740#Comment_123529740

Well I will certainly try, over the coming days, to add the 2021 census figures to my spreadsheet. I obviously have them somewhere, because they showed a big increase in the population around Drumcondra, which has now an almost 50% higher population than the area around Glasnevin Junction, through which the authorities are proposing to build the metrolink.

It'd be really good if we could get a workplace map of Dublin, and I can't yet find one. I'd be surprised if one doesn't exist.

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123529790#Comment_123529790

You don't build brand new infrastructure through bedded in communities, especially when you are in the midst of a housing crisis. You build it to encourage growth, as much of it as possible. There is no potential residential development in Drumcondra whatsoever.

This is a point that you miss time and time again to facilitate you're own hobby projects which have been examined and rejected, examined and rejected again by the NTA.

Busman Paddy Lasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123529790#Comment_123529790

Same commentary as Consonata, please acknowledge these mega projects are about changing the future, not looking back to existing population densities.

Estuary Park n Ride will be a massive trip generator and could easily have capacity expansion, pulling in people from outside Swords' current census figures.

Brightlights66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123529813#Comment_123529813

You would mostly be right with the above, if Dublin already had a network of rail-based services fanning out from the city centre. (Of course, it used to have, but it doesn't now). A lot of cities do, and existing lines can often be extended to cater for new housing/workplaces.

Two issues need to be faced in relation to the point you make. Firstly, most new developments are going to be outside the current 'sphere' of housing around Dublin. Secondly, to connect those new developments effectively with the city, you have to provide improved transport opportunities for the 'bedded-in suburbs' you mention, which are within the current 'sphere' of housing and work and lie geographically between the city and most new opportunities for housing.

Your mention of Drumcondra illustrates this nicely. Could Ireland realistically build a metro to serve Swords (where colossal housing/workplace development seems to be possible) without serving inner, 'bedded-in' suburbs like Drumcondra, Glasnevin, Ballymun or Santry, in its connection with the city? Of course it couldn't, even if it can't serve them all.

Brightlights66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123530640#Comment_123530640

(It's hard to see how development around the proposed Estuary stop might be affected by tweaking of the proposed metrolink route very much further along the line into/out of the city).

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559737#Comment_123559737

Your mention of Drumcondra illustrates this nicely. Could Ireland realistically build a metro to serve Swords (where colossal housing/workplace development seems to be possible) without serving inner, 'bedded-in' suburbs like Drumcondra or Glasnevin in its connection with the city?

Yes, easily! Many cities build trams/metro/rail to new commuter towns with nothing or not much in between. While you lose out on serving more people, it would reduce the cost of the project if you didn't need to tunnel through those areas and can go above ground through farmers fields.

A future Metrolink extension to R&L might look like this.

I've watched many videos from the likes of Copenhagen where you see their DART/S-Trains riding through farmers fields to get to distant commuters towns, one example was even a sort of hybrid train-tram that looks like a slightly fancier Luas, but goes up to 100km/h going through complete countryside between a city and town.

You don't even really need to go abroad for this, our DART really doesn't do much to serve our bedded-in suburbs closure to the city, really just passes through those communities. Few people who live around Drumcondra or Clontarf would bother to take DART/Rail versus the frequent bus services.

Of course Metrolink is different, there just isn't any way for it to avoid the cost of tunnelling under those suburbs, so it just has to be done. Of course very good for the areas it serves and passes through, lucky them, but it really isn't the driving force of the project.

Metrolink ticks pretty all the boxes as a project. The ideal Metro project serves the following:

• Major traffic generators, airports, shopping centers, universities, hospitals, stadiums. Metrolink obviously ticks the Airprot and most of the others too.
• Interconnects with other transport lines. Metrolink interconnects with 3 of the 4 DART lines and could easily be extended to the 4th. Connects to both Luas lines and multiple of the planned future lines. Connects with multiple oribtal and rdial bus connects routes.
• Serves a major commuter town, Swords obviously.
• Lots of space for future dense transport oriented development.

It really is a no brainer, almost the perfect Metro project. It will act as a core backbone of Dublins public transport network.

Brightlights66

BK, I don't think I have got this wrong. Consonata's belief is that there should be proper infrastructure in place to serve new housing/workplace developments in Dublin.

I wholeheartedly share this view.

I just can't see how any transport developments in such areas can be properly effective without a connection to other transport nodes, which are mostly in the city centre. Thus, proper connections from areas to be developed or being developed will, of necessity, need to go through 'bedded-in' areas. That's pretty simple, and all will benefit.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123560135#Comment_123560135

Metrolink will connect to two DART lines at Glasnevin, it will become one the busiest train stations in the country. That on top of all the other connections I mention above.

Consonata's point is that you digging up density charts of Drumcondra or Glasnevin is completely pointless. For these sort of areas, there is little difference in their population density and development potential (very little), so the driving force is other factors like the much superior connectivity with DART+ at Glasnevin.

The primary goal of Metrolink is too serve Swords and the massive growth potential there, the secondary goal is the airport. What area of the already developed city center suburbs it passes through isn't particularly important.

Sure, you have to pick the route though these suburbs and factors like the connection to DART, universities, distance of tunnelling, etc. will come into play.

But all of this is completely pointless. The route for Metrolink has been chosen, it is currently making it's way through ABP, hopefully a decision will be coming soon. They aren't going to change the route now!

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123527878#Comment_123527878

As pointed out previously, greenhills, walkinstown, clondalkin would all benefit from a SW metro, as would an alternative route to tallaght via rathfarnham terenure………but something something cricket ground something something golf course, isn’t that your usual retort?

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123560282#Comment_123560282

You could literally list off every existing suburb in Dublin and say the same, they would all benefit from having a Metro.

That isn't the question, the question is would they have the density, development potential and demand levels to justify a cost benefit analysis on a multi-billion Euro tunnel.

Brightlights66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123560228#Comment_123560228

Perhaps you could let Consonata speak for him/herself.

Consonata was saying that we should be concentrating on proper transport for new housing/workplace areas. I fully support this view.

What I would like to read is how Consonata envisages these areas being properly connected to the existing pieces of the transport network. I contend that it can't realistically be done without going through 'bedded-in' areas).

(By the way, BK, I didn't bring up Drumcondra in this part of the board's conversation. (That was Consonata). It was a part of this thread which mainly involved a discussion about the merits of a potential metrolink route towards the southwest of Dublin, and Consonata's introduction of Drumcondra was, indeed, a surprise. But, while we're here, I'm not digging up census figures - they are freely available on census.ie.)

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123560282#Comment_123560282

And as has been pointed out to you - just naming areas spanning massive geography is not a case for expensive tunnelled Metro. Talking about spurs and what not is just nonsense. You are trying to cobble something together to get near you.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123560312#Comment_123560312

Indeed and as my point here continually goes- even in these rough areas with crayon routes with spurs everywhere, when it comes down to the meat and potatoes of a route design you are going to miss out on masses of people supposedly living in a geography “served” (in a Dublin context at least).

And in a discussion that inherently has massive constraints attached to it, that doesn’t really form the basis of a logical route design.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561521#Comment_123561521

Nope.
you have no idea where I live except it’s in DSW.
I’ve said clondalkin, greenhills Kimmage rathmines terenure tallaght rathfarnham knocklyon Firhouse need a metrolink.

Busman Paddy Lasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123559771#Comment_123559771

The point of mentioning the Park n Ride is that is serves people outside the existing census catchment. Just pointing out another reason to not over rely on census figures.

Zebra3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561587#Comment_123561587

Needing a metro and one being financially viable may well be two different things.

It’s been pointed out many times all the selling points for the planned ML as well as upgrading the Luas GL.

I doubt any other metro line would come anywhere near it on what it can deliver.

We’d all love plenty of metro lines, but there’s such a thing a reality.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561743#Comment_123561743

All the areas I have mentioned are traffic black spots as there are no other quality PT options for people to make the modal shift to PT.

Wether it’s financially viable or not it doesn’t matter- PT is a public service that if need be gets run at a loss.

You can be guaranteed that once quality PT is in place you will see industrial brownfield sites and yes the Golf courses that a certain poster has something against- being redeveloped for medium density housing.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561972#Comment_123561972

Well that is nonsense! BusConnects has plans for improvements in this area and it is looking like the NTA/TII has upcoming plans for Luas lines in this area.

Also when people say financially viable, they don't mean profitable, they mean will it pass a cost benefit analysis. Will it bring enough benefit to an area to justify the price tag. Are there other cheaper ways to serve the same areas like Luas, what are the CBA's of those? How does the CBA compare to other potential projects around Dublin?

To be clear non of this has anything to do with "profit" but how to best and most effectively spend a limited transport budget. How does it compare to spending the same money on other projects like Dart Underground or multiple new Luas lines across Dublin.

specialbyte

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561972#Comment_123561972

"There are no other quality PT options for people to make the modal shift to PT".

The NTA's GDA transport strategy analysed this corridor back in 2016 saying:

Corridor E – N81 Settlements - South Tallaght – Rathfarnham – to Dublin City Centre

The car mode share for all trip purposes is 73%.

The public transport mode share for all trip purposes is 9%.

The principal areas of transport demand in Corridor E, outside of the M50, are concentrated in the southern part of Tallaght, beyond which there are few settlements of significant size and relatively low rural population densities. Up to 2035, the population growth in this corridor as a whole, is expected to be low, by comparison with most other corridors.

Further development on Tallaght’s southern fringe, including Ballycullen and Oldcourt area, is constrained by the limited road network capacity.

This image is from that 2016 document. A lot has happened since 2016 and I'm sure the level of BTR apartment construction in this corridor is probably larger than the NTA modelled back then.

But we have a corridor that significantly low public transport use and not a huge amount of predicted growth. The low public transport use is probably because of the serious lack of bus priority in this corridor.

That's exactly what BusConnects is going to do for this corridor. You have the Greenhills to City scheme with full bus lanes, you have the Kimmage to City Centre scheme with 2 major bus gates or full bus lanes the whole length of it and the Templeogue/Rathfarnham to City Centre corridor with significant bus gates at Terenure, Rathmines, the Canal, and Camden Street.

Look at the modelled impacts of the Templeogue/Rathfarnham corridor with the bus connects core bus corridor infrastructure built:

And more importantly IMHO look at the journey times:

The journeys are much faster, the slowest one's in future are about the same as the fastest one's today. And most importantly the journey times are more consistent, the range journey time range is much narrower. This is highly valued by regular users as they have a predictable journey time.

So instead of just banging on about a metro that seems really hard to justify, if you want to improve public transport maybe let's invest in our buses first. That one bus connects corridor has the potential to totally revolutionise that corridor's public transport offering.

Even if you don't agree with anything I posted, all of the folks who make decisions about transport in Dublin do. So before you can even half pencil a metro route on this corridor you need to explain why this corridor's problems can't be solved by spending a tiny fraction of the money you're proposing to spend on a metro on good bus infrastructure.

Brightlights66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561672#Comment_123561672

You are quite right to mention it.

(I am originally from Dublin, and although I have not lived there for many years I am happy to visit often to do a bit for elderly parents. I am not convinced that Ireland has fully got the Park and Ride concept yet - Sandyford's effort, for example, beside the Green Line, seems to be well short of what it could be, or could have been).

You certainly don't want to just rely on census figures, but they can be a useful guide to what development needs to take place next.

For example, I am currently puzzled by Consonata's earlier comment, and how that poster envisages serving new developments, which will be broadly on the outskirts of the city. It seems to me, that that can only properly be done by serving 'bedded-in' suburbs, and then extending.

(Overall, in Dublin, I am puzzled that the original metronorth plan has been moved westward in the metrolink plan, so that it is now pretty much adjacent to the Green LUAS - which wasn't there when metronorth was planned. Thus, it will serve Phibsborough/Glasnevin, rather than Drumcondra, which has a population that is around 50% higher and is not adjacent to a LUAS line. On the southside, we see a push to build to improve services to the southeast, though the densities are clearly lower than they are in the southwest, as posted above).

As I say, it's all very puzzling.

Brightlights66

Any guidance to a workplace density map for Dublin, such as we had many years ago, would be most welcome.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561587#Comment_123561587

It’s my supposition because your original postings went one way, then shifted to “spurs” when the holes in it was pointed out.

Every Dublin suburb could do with a Metro.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561972#Comment_123561972

There’s traffic black spots all over Dublin, including ones where a sign post might suggest they have “rapid transit”.

spillit67

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123562233#Comment_123562233

I’d argue the Sandyford Park and Ride is quickly becoming a waste of good TOD potential.

It is no longer the end of the line and at the southern end of development.

That said, it is relatively small (spanning all the way to “Stillorgan” P&R) and does provide utility (I think particularly for those who want to go in for a late night concert or show) for locals.

On the densities, I am still waiting for your back up and you to acknowledge that population is only one factor to consider in deciding as to whether to invest or not.

You say you haven’t lived in Dublin for a while - have you been to Sandyford and beyond in the last decade?

Busman Paddy Lasty

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123562233#Comment_123562233

I imagine the metrolink website and documents have some explanations for moving the line west 😀

Seriously man, it's only 1 stop from Drumcondra station to interchange at Cross Guns. Have a look at Royal Canal Park, Bannow Road sites, Glasnevin "Dublin Industrial Estate" housing plan. These will be 1, 2 or 3 stops from Cross Guns. It is in a nice location to interchange with populations old and new and interchange with Irish Rail lines AFAIK.

CatInABox

I have to keep reminding myself that this is the thread for alternative routes and is the right place for the bullshit 🤣

Zebra3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123561972#Comment_123561972

You are embarrassingly out of touch.

“Traffic blackspot” = build a metro?

That would mean building metros pretty much everywhere across Dublin. Dublin is not Beijing. We have limited resources. Financially and otherwise.

Every euro spent on PT infrastructure has to give the taxpayer bang for buck.

We once build an airport in the middle of fcking nowhere cause somebody claimed to have delusions. When the country was economically on its’ knees.

We no longer build stuff cos somebody has a rant.

Brightlights66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123562345#Comment_123562345

Well, spillit67, I am struggling a lot in these discussions, because I don't have any workplace figures.

Ireland must surely have these, but they are very difficult to find. In terms of residential, it's clear that Dublin should be building to the southwest, probably gradually. The densities are much, indeed very much, higher there.

Indeed I haven't lived in Ireland for at least 20 years but of course I have been in Sandyford several times in the interim. I know Sandyford is ostensibly busy, but I have never found it so. I would really have expected the terminus of such an excellent line to be much busier.