confusion in government on airport metro line?

Aim2Please

From the Indo

"MARTIN Cullen, freed from the stress of the Monica Leech controversy, yesterday stopped his own junior minister in his tracks.

The Transport Minister said his Fianna Fail colleague Ivor Callely was guilty of "over-enthusiasm" in claiming the Government planned a multi-billion euro metro system for Dublin.

Mr Cullen surprised Mr Callely and Dail observers by saying his pronouncements on the metro and other transport improvements were "guesswork and not based on any fact".

He said he was "blessed" to have such an enthusiastic junior minister, but "his commitment sometimes overruns with enthusiasm".

Mr Cullen said they did not want to cherrypick "the sexy metro" as a solution to everything. When he announces proposals for Dublin transport, he added, he wants to make sure they are "realistic".

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the Taoiseach should speak to Mr Callely, who would be known as "the Minister for Fantasy" after "such wild announcements". Opposition TDs roared with laughter as Mr Kenny told Mr Ahern: "I notice at a Fianna Fail meeting, Mr Callely seems to have got a rush of Valentine's blood to the head".

Mr Cullen said he was sure his junior minister would join with him "in supporting our proposals enthusiastically when we actually make them public".

Labour's Roisin Shortall suggested Mr Callely had stolen Mr Cullen's thunder, and Fine Gael's Olivia Mitchell wondered was it all a figment of the imagination, or when anything proposed would happen."

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Does this mean they might go for the Luas option through Ballymun, Swords, airport etc.. instead? Whichever they choose I hope they give the go ahead soon. All this dithering is costing the country a fortune! When is the Luas going to go to Lucan? Seems that whole area of Dublin was left out and its growing... growing...!

Anyways..back to work

weehamster

Well the minister has said that he will tell us in March under the 10 year plan. So we wait till then as we'll be here for ever trying to guess what is going ahead.

spacetweek

weehamster wrote:

Well the minister has said that he will tell us in March under the 10 year plan. So we wait till then as we'll be here for ever trying to guess what is going ahead.

Yea, they said that about a month ago. After this debacle, with your man letting the cat out of the bag so to speak, and after the PHENOMENAL amount of dithering, the plan they announce better be a really big deal. It better not be vague like "In the next few years we'll get moving on the DRP and the Airport Metro line." I want dates, I want a timescale. I want to know when they're gonna start. (I think they already have the funding under the new rolling year-on-year programs.) They should have started construction of 2 more major Luas lines as soon as they saw that the first two had been a success, which was within a few weeks of them opening! I don't understand what the delay is. The plan will make or break Cullen as Brennan's successor.

In the Dublin area we need to be concentrating on rail investment until at least the end of the decade, we've had very little besides road construction in the last 10 years.

Aim2Please

spot on spacetweek!

While they are planning the alignment for the Luas/Metro maybe they should make it so they favour more zoned residential land that has yet to have construction commence and get the law changed so that only large (family friendly)terrace/duplex style accommodation can be built along it.

As people say high density, doesn't necessarily mean high rise. People in the States quite happily raise families in large condo style apartments near subway stations all the time.

Sorry might be a bit off topic there, but ye all know what I mean!
We can only pray for a government that can see the light!

Metrobest

Aim2Please wrote:

As people say high density, doesn't necessarily mean high rise. People in the States quite happily raise families in large condo style apartments near subway stations all the time.

Of all the places we should look to, the States should be the last. Sprawling suburbia, Desperate Housewives-style, is the defining feature of US planning. Not something Ireland should import.

In metropolitan areas (the single digit postcodes of Dublin) it is now time to reach for the sky. We needn't be frightened of tall buildings. We need to create concentrated areas of purely tall buildings. In areas such as Spencer Dock, I would contend that the buildings being planned aren't tall enough. One tower does not a high-rise development make. Why not build a cluster of 20/30 floor residential buildings?

Aim2Please

yep, I agree. I was suggesting the duplex idea as an introduction to the concept to get people used to the idea of higher density living. In Ireland a lot of people still see the minimum house size as a 2 storey 3/4 bedroom with an acre of land and will not rest until they have achieved this ideal.

But that isn't sustainable in a growing city. Ultimately the inner suburbs should go to 20/30 floors and will probably have to. Ireland is definitely the exception. Its not hard to see why we think this way though. Our parents generally had loads of space for their property and this kind of thinking has been handed down to us. But for the generation growing up now I think they will see things a bit differently.

I just hope I don't have to wait until I get the free 'bus pass' for proper public transport to arrive!

loyatemu

staying slightly off topic here but duplexes are not ideal for family living. At least appartments generally have lifts up to the front door - try hauling pushchairs, toddlers, shopping etc up flights of stairs to the front door of your duplex and you'll quickly see the advantages of a semi-d.

murphaph

I don't agree that we need to go to 20/30 storeys throughout to make a critical mass. Munich is low rise throughout, much like Dublin-they dislike tall buildings but have a critical mass that warrants metro etc.. I don't have anything against 30 storey buildings in Dublin, I just think that if we had 5/6 storey apartment dwelling throughout we would be fine. Of course this is difficult to achieve now that areas of inner suburbia like Cabra/Crumlin etc. are all single dwelling areas. I do believe in some lansmark development to lead the way. As Metrobest has pointed out, Spencer Dock could have gone higher in my opinion too. There are some landmark developments on the horizon though (sorry). These would include a 30 storey block near Grand Canal Dock and of course Heuston Station and whatever it's called, 'Westgate' or some other equally uninspiring name. I believe that absolutely no more 3 bed semi-d's be allowed within the old county Dublin boundary. Except in exceptional circumstances like in North county Dublin where you own your own land and even then there should be strict restrictions. The madness has to stop.

mackerski

murphaph wrote:

Munich is low rise throughout, much like Dublin-they dislike tall buildings but have a critical mass that warrants metro etc..

You might want to qualify this a bit. Munich has plenty of tall buildings, depending on what you consider tall. Plenty of residential space is what I would consider high-rise too, though plenty of this is in areas that you wouldn't necessarily want to live (Neuperlach, Hasenbergl) or in ugly buildings from the 60s and 70s that really shouldn't have been built where they were.

These days they appear to have adopted a policy of building high in clusters in areas where they won't spoil the landscape (or areas where there already are tall buildings).

Dermot

murphaph

Munich has virtually no high rise in comparison to say Frankfurt. Sure, they have the odd tall block of flats (and yeah some of em are in rubish areas) but on the whole it's a low rise city that still manages high density-that's the point I was making (in opposition to the notion we'd need 20-30 storey buidlings across the whole of Dublin). ake vast swathes of the city like Neuhausen, Schwabing etc. These are all like 5/6 storey apartment buildings and they provide the critical mass.

mackerski

Aim2Please wrote:

Does this mean they might go for the Luas option through Ballymun, Swords, airport etc.. instead?

There's a funny thought... Want to know what's sillier than forcing the entire public-transport-using customer base of Dublin Airport to try to fit themselves and their baggage onto cute little trams? It's trying to force them to fit themselves and their baggage onto cute little trams that are also trying to accommodate passengers from a couple of Dublin suburbs, and then also running it through Ballymun - though how this might jeopardise the the safety of air travellers or their baggage or give newly arrived tourists to Ireland a poor impression of Dublin it would probably be unfair to speculate...

Dermot