Transport Package

enterprise

I'm shocked as well tbh! Is it the same metrobest?

I agree totally with you, lets hope many more agreements happen in the future!

Enterprise retires for the nite in shock!

MarkoP11

Am I reading this right. Agreement sense, and we thought Tuesday was a big event. Someone get me a drink

More sense please it makes people happy

So can we now agree Glasnevin Junction is an equally good interchange location, or am I pushing my luck ?

Winters

murphaph wrote:

Some of it. The One from town to Swords will be underground as far as Ballymun, and underground under the airport, overground passing Swords (though this might change IMO, depending on what FCC have planned for Swords development).

The metro from Ballymun to Tallaght will be mostly above ground, the only underground stretch being under Clondalkin by the looks of things. This will help keep the costs of this metro down. If this route has to be bored it would never happen IMO.

See below (Note alignment through airport has changed.)

http://www.geocities.com/bishlit/metros2.gif

murphaph

Ok Ok, whoever you are-hand over metrobest, we know you've got him you imposter you

Thank God I'm not alone in seeing College Green as a thoroughfare more than a destination. I imagine it's so busy because the behemoth that is TCD completely blocks easy north-south pedestrian traffic for hundreds of metres to the east and Temple Bar is a bit of a rabbit warren, so only those familiar with it will use it, also remember that west of O'Connell Bridge it's a fair walk to the Ha'penny Bridge.

I really think College Green is busy today because the transport 'system' is so poor and if improved it will be much quieter.

Bill McH

Metrobest wrote:

...most Northside/Southside journeys transit, by foot or by car, through O'Connell Bridge and the College Green Area. College Green is not the destination point, it's just the key transit point.

It is a key transit point. There is a catchment area on both sides and plenty of people pass through College Green to get between these catchment areas. This is not the case with St. Stephen's Green

...horrendously disruptive. I can't see how it could be done without doing serious damage to the surrounding buildings we treasure.

It would indeed be hugely, enourmously disruptive. Plenty of treasured buildings close to the S-Bahn in Munich, plenty of treasured buildings close to underground lines all over the place. College Green/Dame Street is wide and long, College Street is wide and long.

Up at St. Stephen's Green, however, we've already closed off one side of the Green and half of another. Building it up there will not be anything like as disruptive. It'll certainly be disruptive and art gallery owners, members of the St. Stephen's Green club and such will be whinging at the disruption. But nothing like as disruptive as it would have been if it were being built at, say, College Street. Nothing like it. Why? - because its not that central.

And at the end of construction we will get what we will have "suffered" for. An underground, East-West line which is not all that central.

Metrobest, you are the man of the moment with your metro, and from looking at the most recent posts on this thread, it seems that people are finally waking up to what you have to say.;)

But if I could just ask a couple of questions of MarkoP11.
(a) which corner would have been too tight to enable the interconnector to go through College Green.
(b) would you have any explanation for why the North-South metro station at College Green is predicted to be the busiest, yet we are building our East-West line, using trains with a higher capacity than metro trains, to another location?

MarkoP11

The route is very tight the earliest a curve could commence is approximately 200m from Pearse station allowing for platforms etc which is Clare Street, Merrion Square and curve would be more than 90 degrees its impractical and probably too tight also requires a sharp bend to get back to High Street

TCD would cry fowl as such a route would pass under some of the oldest buildings and there is the matter of the new Usher library which has a basement that goes down 3 full floors which would be in the way if you got round the curve problem

The RPA figures suggest that College Green be the busiest, these figures do not account for a line to Swords, interchange at Glasnevin or a proper link to the red luas line or indeed the provision of the interconnector tunnel which would lead to a shift

Stephens Green is the best location for integration and it is a lot easier from a construction point of view

Bill McH

Thanks Marko. I'd seen that map before.

MarkoP11 wrote:

The route is very tight the earliest a curve could commence is approximately 200m from Pearse station allowing for platforms etc which is Clare Street, Merrion Square and curve would be more than 90 degrees its impractical and probably too tight also requires a sharp bend to get back to High Street. TCD would cry fowl as such a route would pass under some of the oldest buildings and there is the matter of the new Usher library which has a basement that goes down 3 full floors which would be in the way if you got round the curve problem

If we have to go to Spencer Dock, it is quite clear from that map that we could have built a tunnel along Pearse Street with a station parallel to and connected with, the current station. So no need to go under Trinity at all. Yet more disruption!

My contention is that we would certainly have looked at the option of Pearse Station-College Green-Heuston if we hadn't been desperate to find an alignment which gave us integration with the LUAS up at St. Stephen's Green - Thanks to Mother O'Rourke.

Would you be able to clarify the following - not that it matters at this stage, but anyway.

The RPA figures suggest that College Green be the busiest, these figures do not account for a line to Swords, interchange at Glasnevin or a proper link to the red luas line or indeed the provision of the interconnector tunnel which would lead to a shift

I understood that the bald figures were that for a metro between the airport and St. Stephen's Green, a station at College Green would be the busiest station.
And the presence of the interconnector at the Green had better lead to a shift! If we end up with a situation in a few years time where uptake of the metro at College Green is bigger than uptake of the metro at St. Stephen's Green, we're going to look a little silly.

Stephens Green is the best location for integration and it is a lot easier from a construction point of view

It is a lot easier - you're absolutely right. That does not mean that it is the best location in the long term. What is it they say - no pain, no gain?

murphaph

I really don't see the problem. If you come into own on an east-west DART and want to go to college green or O'Connell Street, just come up one level to the metro and head north (the interconnector will be the deepest tunnel, so you'll have to come up through the metro level to get to the surface anyway) then get get off.

It seems to me Bill that youre suggesting that College Green is central so we should serve there with the east-west DART and allow people to walk to O'Connell Street or Stephen's Green, is that a fair assessment?

Bill McH

murphaph wrote:

It seems to me Bill that youre suggesting that College Green is central so we should serve there with the east-west DART and allow people to walk to O'Connell Street or Stephen's Green, is that a fair assessment?

I would say that's a very fair assessment, Philip. College Green is very central. Travellers on an East-West line through College Green could get out at College Green and walk south towards St. Stephen's Green or north towards O'Connell Street.

If you come into town on an east-west DART and want to go to college green or O'Connell Street, just come up one level to the metro and head north

And that's what we'll be doing. I'd say few people will use the metro to go one stop to College Green, but a lot of people will use it to get from the interconnector to O'Connell Street. My point is that an area as busy as the O'Connell Street area should not require this - a change or by my reckoning a 13 minute walk from the LUAS stop at the Green to the GPO. (I'm obviously slightly fitter than the DTO Journey Planner, who puts it at 14 minutes).

I am not against changes - they are necessary in a proper network. I just can't see why we are not building our interconnector a bit closer to an area as busy as O'Connell Street. But we're not, and I think we have missed an opportunity.

(the interconnector will be the deepest tunnel, so you'll have to come up through the metro level to get to the surface anyway)

Had the interconnector gone through College Green, I'm not sure that that would have been the case. It would have made sense to have the interconnector above the metro, as the metro would need to be low enough to go under the river

D'Peoples Voice

Bill McH wrote:

Philip - Is there anywhere I could actually view the figures? Quite clearly, for example, there are an awful lot more buses going to College Green than to St. Stephen's Green. If St. Stephen's Green was more popular, it would be the other way around, wouldn't it?

For the last few years I've noticed a trend on where people are getting off the bus on my route(10,46 A/B/C/D,145 etc)
I would say that easily 40% - 50% get off in Leeson Street,
perhaps another 20% on Stephens Green
perhaps another 10%-15% on Dawnson Street
perhaps another 10%-15% on suffolk Street,
and the rest travels down Westmoreland street/O'connell Street.
I'd love if Dublin Bus provided official figures, but from my experience very few travel beyond suffolk street!! Is that because of traffic on westmoreland street, I'm not going to speculate, I'm just saying what I observed!
What's very weird is that the outbound journey does not have a mirror pattern. Work that out!!

MarkoP11

Bill McH wrote:

My point is that an area as busy as the O'Connell Street area should not require this - a change or by my reckoning a 13 minute walk from the LUAS stop at the Green to the GPO. (I'm obviously slightly fitter than the DTO Journey Planner, who puts it at 14 minutes).

If you got the metro from O'Connell Street it would take 4-5minutes tops, its all joined up well thats the plan

Apart from TCD there ain't much in College Green it just happens by average to be where the city centre would be if you had to put a spot on a map

murphaph

Bill McH wrote:

I would say that's a very fair assessment, Philip. College Green is very central. Travellers on an East-West line through College Green could get out at College Green and walk south towards St. Stephen's Green or north towards O'Connell Street.

But why make people walk at all? The whole point of the metro is to be fast and frequent.

Bill McH wrote:

And that's what we'll be doing. I'd say few people will use the metro to go one stop to College Green, but a lot of people will use it to get from the interconnector to O'Connell Street.

I think that's wrong Bill. Given my experiences in cities with frequent metro services people will go one stop, especially if they are arriving from the level below that metro, so they have no additional escalator movements even with the change.

Bill McH wrote:

I am not against changes - they are necessary in a proper network. I just can't see why we are not building our interconnector a bit closer to an area as busy as O'Connell Street. But we're not, and I think we have missed an opportunity.

I don't think O'Connell Street is any busier than Grafton Street, especially when you strip away all the people queueing for buses on the street. It goes back decades-the vision of O'Connell Street as the main street of Dublin. There isn't actually a whole lot on it though! Henry Street/Mary Street is a lot busier IMO, and that's without bus passengers thickening up the numbers.

Bill McH

murphaph wrote:

But why make people walk at all? The whole point of the metro is to be fast and frequent.

Well people will have to do some walking. Let's take O'Connell Bridge. Now Philip you needn't tell me that that bridge is not always packed with people. No matter what arrangement of metro/interconnector you have, people will still have to do some walking to get to O'Connell Bridge.

Given my experiences in cities with frequent metro services people will go one stop, especially if they are arriving from the level below that metro, so they have no additional escalator movements even with the change.

Well let's take Munich, Philip, as I know you're a fan of the city. If your work was in Odeonsplatz or Sendlinger Tor, or between Marienplatz/Karlsplatz and either of these locations, it would be perfectly feasible to take your S-Bahn to Marienplatz/Karlsplatz and then walk. You might change, but it would be very feasible to walk.

Similarly in Dublin. College Green is located between the two consistently busiest areas of the city. An interconnector station at College Green would have allowed people to come out and head south toward St. Stephen's Green (or other busy locations south of College Green) or head north toward O'Connell Street (or other busy locations north of College Green. Very efficient.

What we will end up with unfortunately is a situation where you can come out of the station at St. Stephen's Green and either stay around there or head north toward the busiest areas of the city. Or you can head south towards...what, exactly?

This would be a very inefficient arrangement, especially for a railway line which will be able to carry 16 trains an hour (I'd love if they could get up to about 30, which they now seem to be doing in Munich) packed to the gills with up to 1400 people.

murphaph

Bill McH wrote:

Well people will have to do some walking. Let's take O'Connell Bridge. Now Philip you needn't tell me that that bridge is not always packed with people. No matter what arrangement of metro/interconnector you have, people will still have to do some walking to get to O'Connell Bridge.

But Bill, there's nothing on O'Connell Bridge, it's just a thoroughfare, jam packed with people because it acts as a funnel between north and south city centres, just like College Green does IMO.

Bill McH wrote:

What we will end up with unfortunately is a situation where you can come out of the station at St. Stephen's Green and either stay around there or head north toward the busiest areas of the city. Or you can head south towards...what, exactly?

We're coming at this from very different perpectives. I can see what you're saying, but I suppose my angle on it is that College Green is a thoroughfare, the North Inner City is a destination as is (to a greater extent) the South Inner City, so you may as well hit one of the main destinations (and naturally the busier one is better) directly and allow a change to a frequent metro to reach the other, rather than force everyone to walk or change to reach the two primary destinations.

Bill McH

Your arrangement is the one we'll have Philip. Martin E has spoken.

murphaph

Bill McH wrote:

Your arrangement is the one we'll have Philip. Martin E has spoken.

Doesn't he inspire you with confidence Bill? Maybe the e-voting machines can be converted to issue integrated tickets eh!

Winters

Bill McH, are trying to re-invent the wheel?

The interconnector has been planned and re-planned, analysed and re-analysed and completely scrutinised by many groups over the last 7 or so years since its full inception in its current form. Ove Arup came up with the design after initially looking into a second city centre Liffey crossing to relieve the Loop line.

Initially is was to join the Maynooth and Kildare lines but by using the curve from the Northern line the current and improved plan is for the interconnector to allow Northern line to Kildare line running thus avoiding any north - south metro line deviations and underground travelators.

DTO trip modelling clearly show that 'the city centre continues to be the most popular destination' and that 'the south-east inner city remains a primary and growing destination'. (DTO - Platform for Change)

It would be inaccurate to state that College Green is the most popular destination in Dublin City. The location of Trinity College has made College Green into a bottle neck for public transport and pedestrian footfall. It is a vital node but not a destination. The current transport plan is trying to create a mesh of transport lines that spread out the catchment areas in the city but also provide important interchanges.

As well as the above reasons, geotechnical, ease of construction, site access and egress and traffic disruption are key reasons why the current alignment was chosen. It wasn't chosen by politicians on a whim, it was designed by engineers and planners. The station boxes, if designed properly, will have entrances at both ends and will thus serve areas like lower Harcourt Street, Leeson Street, Baggot Street, Dawson Street, Kidlare Street, Pembroke Square, Merrion Row etc. High employment areas.

Bill McH

Winters wrote:

Bill McH, are trying to re-invent the wheel?

Not at all. I am suggesting a move a few hundred metres to the north. (Not going to happen, of course - but this is only a messageboard)

DTO trip modelling clearly show that 'the city centre continues to be the most popular destination' and that 'the south-east inner city remains a primary and growing destination'. (DTO - Platform for Change)

Of course it is a primary and growing destination. It has a very good train service, and now it has a very good tram service. Who in their right mind would use the Kildare line, for example. But I bet you that, post-interconnector and post-Metro, that Inchicore, Ballymun and lots of other places will be growing destinations as well.

It would be inaccurate to state that College Green is the most popular destination in Dublin City. The location of Trinity College has made College Green into a bottle neck for public transport and pedestrian footfall. It is a vital node but not a destination. The current transport plan is trying to create a mesh of transport lines that spread out the catchment areas in the city but also provide important interchanges.

It may not be a destination. But would you not agree that College Green and the immediate area around it is currently the biggest public transport hub in the country, not counting anyone using the train at Tara Street.

As well as the above reasons, geotechnical, ease of construction, site access and egress and traffic disruption are key reasons why the current alignment was chosen. It wasn't chosen by politicians on a whim, it was designed by engineers and planners.

I would certainly not suggest that building an underground station at College Green would be easy. It would probably be more difficult and disruptive than any other location in the city. But the whole city is going to be a building site anyway.

The station boxes, if designed properly, will have entrances at both ends and will thus serve areas like lower Harcourt Street, Leeson Street, Baggot Street, Dawson Street, Kidlare Street, Pembroke Square, Merrion Row etc.

Unfortunately, places like Harcourt Street, Pembroke Street, Merrion Row, Baggot Street are damn quiet places for the entire weekend. And demand to get to a lot of those areas is actually pretty quiet after about 9.30 in the morning. Sure enough, if you're in Upper Baggot Street at lunchtime it all looks very busy. But just have a look at how many people are getting off the no. 10 bus at 1 O'Clock in the day and you get a picture of the public transport demand at that time of the day. Very small. This is not the case at a more central location.

High employment areas.

Where, pray, are the low employment areas in Dublin. And was I suggesting building the interconnector through any of them?

murphaph

The Marienhof (a public space near Marienplatz in Munich) has been a building site for ages due to station construction, so I'd expect Stephen's Green will be a similar building site and closed to the public for a similar timescale. I've no problem with digging it all up for a year or so to get a transport hub as an end result so long as they put it back close enough to how they found it. While the green is being dug up though, they should ensure an entrance to the Mezzanine level is placed in all 4 corners of the square. If the authorities are clever they'd do like Munich did under Karlsplatz (although not in exactly the same depressing style) and create shopping space under Stephen's Green. The rents from such retail space in what will be the city centre transport hub could be a 'nice little earner' as they say.

mackerski

Bill McH wrote:

It may not be a destination. But would you not agree that College Green and the immediate area around it is currently the biggest public transport hub in the country, not counting anyone using the train at Tara Street.

I'm getting conflicting messages from you on this one, Bill. To me, a hub is something that is pretty position-independent, certainly within a tolerance of a few hundred metres. A destination is another matter - hubs are particularly effective when placed near destinations, but I can see no logic in trying to reverse that logic and plan your destinations around the location of existing hubs.

Tara St. is the perfect illustration of this. Today, it's the most useful destination point for much of the South city and most of the North city. But it's a long walk to much of its hinterland and for years it lay right on the edge of its natural hinterland instead of centrally, as you might plan it from scratch. Similarly, if College Green is today a major hub, I see no reason at all to assume that it's a good place for a future hub, and less reason still to assume that it should be placed on the no-interchange path from a DART line.

Dermot

Bill McH

mackerski wrote:

I'm getting conflicting messages from you on this one, Bill.

Dermot, My apologies if you are getting any conflicting signals at all.

We are about to build an East-West railway line through the city. Each train will be able to carry up to 1400 people, and there will be capacity to provide 16 services per hour in each direction. (I wish there were a higher capacity, like in a city such as Munich)

My suggestion is merely that we go through the most central area of the city.

If you wish to find out where the centre of our city is, maybe somewhere like the Dublin Bus timetable might be a good place to look. They have loads of flexibility in providing services to locations in the city which require them.

Perhaps you might let us know what you find, vis-a-vis College Green and St. Stephen's Green

mackerski

The conflicting messages are still there. You're saying that the route of any given line should attempt to encompass a geographically central point, regardless of actual passenger demand at that point. I'm saying that any given line should seek to serve useful destinations having regard to those (like College Green) that will already be served by other transport modes on the planned network.

As to the Dublin Bus timetable as a driver of where the destinations should be, I think we should discard it completely. My experience of Dublin Bus is of a network delivering travellers from their respective suburbs into some arbitrary point in the centre, from which they can bloody well walk the rest of the way. Any pedestrian flows resulting from this reflect today's imperfect world, not a best-practice for the future.

Dermot

murphaph

Bill McH wrote:

If you wish to find out where the centre of our city is, maybe somewhere like the Dublin Bus timetable might be a good place to look. They have loads of flexibility in providing services to locations in the city which require them

Bill, this simply isn't true. BAC have some say in where they run their buses but DCC have a lot of influence. BAC were booted out of Fleet & Abbey Steet Middle remember. I don't pretend to know exactly how the power is split between BAC and DCC but maybe some of our more BAC au-fait posters will. It's not as straightforward as looking at a BAC timetable, that much I know because remember when they ran buses out of Abbey Street Middle, I was living in Leixlip at the time and regularly used 66/67s and then having moved to Blanch I used the 39 a lot. When these buses pulled into Abbey Street they were virtually empty-most people having left the buses along the north quays, mostly heading south over the river to wherever. In fact, BAC have been booted out of so many streets that the O'Connell Street-College Green axis has been artificially increased in it's apparent importance over the past few years IMO. Remember when 25/37/39/70/66/67 buses all left from Middle Abbey Street and went down Capel Street, nowhere near their current departure points?

Bill McH

Mackerski wrote:

As to the Dublin Bus timetable as a driver of where the destinations should be, I think we should discard it completely. My experience of Dublin Bus is of a network delivering travellers from their respective suburbs into some arbitrary point in the centre, from which they can bloody well walk the rest of the way. Any pedestrian flows resulting from this reflect today's imperfect world, not a best-practice for the future.

I'd go along with that. I hope that our new transport plan will really enable us to come up with a bus network which does not involve bringing all buses into the city centre. I see Garret mentions in today's Irish Times that 55% of all buses pass through College Green. Mad.

But buses going to the centre is a necessary evil in the city which we currently have, i.e., a city where use of the train is really a minority pursuit -until the arrival of LUAS, non-bus public transport was very useful only along the DART line, not great along the Maynooth line, and not worth bothering about on the Kildare Line

mackerski wrote:

The conflicting messages are still there. You're saying that the route of any given line should attempt to encompass a geographically central point, regardless of actual passenger demand at that point. I'm saying that any given line should seek to serve useful destinations having regard to those (like College Green) that will already be served by other transport modes on the planned network.

Dermot, I am no transport expert, as you will have guessed. I am sure that my reasoning would stand out as entirely simplistic to any transport expert.

I agree that College Green itself is really a pretty short street and demand to get to College Green per se is probably quite small.

But, there is plenty of passenger demand - at all times of the day and evening - to get to areas to the north of a line running along Dame Street-College Green-College Street-Pearse Street. This would include demand to get to immediate areas like Westmorland Street, Hawkins Street, Townsend Street, Tara Street, Fleet Street, Anglesea Street and Temple Bar. There are loads and loads of office workers who wish to go there, plus loads of pleasure seekers who also wish to go to the same area. Further north there are streets like O'Connell Street, Abbey Street, Parnell Street and Henry Street, all within about 5-10 minutes walk of College Green.

All of the above are destinations. They are busy, busy areas. But all of the northside locations will be quite remote from the interconnector, and all of the above mentioned southside locations will require a walk of at least 7 minutes to get there. (or a one-stop journey on the metro).

There is plenty of passenger demand - again, at all times of the day and evening - to get to areas to the south of a line running along Dame Street-College Green-College Street-Pearse Street. This would include demand to get to immediate areas like Grafton Street, Nassau Street, Suffolk Street, Dawson Street, George's Street. These are all within a couple of minutes walk of College Green. Further south are places like St. Stephen's Green, about 6 minutes away.

So either side of that line, you have buckets of demand. At all times.

So, yes, you're correct to say that College Green is an arbitrary point. But it is a point which is in the centre of the busiest areas of a relatively small city.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with the line through St. Stephen's Green. And I think my comparison with the southside DART line is valid.

I have already suggested to Philip that he walk from Harcourt Street tram stop to the Garden of Remembrance - the pattern I am suggesting he view is valid at any time of the day (or night)

Could I now suggest to you, Dermot, that you walk from the St. Stephen's Green shopping centre along the northside of the Green to Merrion Row, then down Upper Merrion Street, Merrion Square, Lower Merrion Street and Westland Row to Pearse Station - broadly the route of the interconnector. This needs to be done in an evening or a weekend in order to see it properly -but there is no immediate catchment area to the south or west of this route (i.e. basically the area between the interconnector and the canal). There is demand to get to that area for about 2 hours a day - 10 hours a week. And there is demand to get from that area for, what, 2-3 hours a day - 10-15 hours per week.

Not, in my opinion, good enough for a railway line with the potential of the interconnector.

mackerski

Bill McH wrote:

Could I now suggest to you, Dermot, that you walk from the St. Stephen's Green shopping centre along the northside of the Green to Merrion Row, then down Upper Merrion Street, Merrion Square, Lower Merrion Street and Westland Row to Pearse Station - broadly the route of the interconnector. This needs to be done in an evening or a weekend in order to see it properly -but there is no immediate catchment area to the south or west of this route (i.e. basically the area between the interconnector and the canal). There is demand to get to that area for about 2 hours a day - 10 hours a week. And there is demand to get from that area for, what, 2-3 hours a day - 10-15 hours per week.

I know those areas, but a better tester would be to plot circles around the actual stations to be served - the alignment itself is irrelevant when you can't disembark along it. I still think you're arguing against yourself here. You're pointing to the rush hour as the time when the interconnector stations will deliver value. We know that a big difference between DART and Metro is the capacity of any single train and the longer distances covered by DART.

All of this says to me that DART stations should be optimally placed for commuter traffic. My view is that in a world where one of the two DART lines will serve Tara St. and another Stephen's Green, and where it's easy to change lines in any case, that College Green doesn't need the DART as much as Stephen's Green does.

Offpeak travellers, of course, will never have had it so good. Many of these will be indifferent to their actual end point - one end of Grafton St. will be as good as the other if you plan to wander along the street window-shopping. The trains will have plenty of free seats, and if you want to be on the northside, you just change lines.

It's worth admitting at this point that I'd have been perfectly happy with an Interconnector that served College Green instead of Stephen's - I think the end result is very similar in either case.

Dermot

Winters

Bill McH wrote:

Of course it (City Centre) is a primary and growing destination. It has a very good train service, and now it has a very good tram service. Who in their right mind would use the Kildare line, for example. But I bet you that, post-interconnector and post-Metro, that Inchicore, Ballymun and lots of other places will be growing destinations as well.

Dublin City has a very poor train and tram service. The DART and commuter servies do not penetrate the City Centre, all three 'central' stations are outside of the primary trip destination areas, and the one and a half tram lines that we do have do not connect in the centre.

Post T21 places such as the ones you mentioned, Inchicore, Ballymun and many many more places outside the core business district will be growing trip generators not trip destinations.

Bill McH wrote:

Unfortunately, places like Harcourt Street, Pembroke Street, Merrion Row, Baggot Street are damn quiet places for the entire weekend. And demand to get to a lot of those areas is actually pretty quiet after about 9.30 in the morning. Sure enough, if you're in Upper Baggot Street at lunchtime it all looks very busy. But just have a look at how many people are getting off the no. 10 bus at 1 O'Clock in the day and you get a picture of the public transport demand at that time of the day. Very small. This is not the case at a more central location.

The purpose of the interconnector and metro is to deliver as many peak time commuters to as near to their desired destination as possible and studies such as the Platform For Change have shown that St. Stephens Green is better placed than College Green to meet that objective.

Bill McH wrote:

Where, pray, are the low employment areas in Dublin. And was I suggesting building the interconnector through any of them?

No you werent but Inchicore and Ballymun could certainly be..

Bill McH

mackerski wrote:

a better tester would be to plot circles around the actual stations to be served - the alignment itself is irrelevant when you can't disembark along it.

That is a good point - you can't disembark along it, so the alignment is irrelevant. It does not, however, negate my earlier point that there is no catchment area south or east of the St. Stephen's Green-Pearse section of the interconnector for most of the day, and absolutely none at weekends. Even if you had an absolutely straight line between Pearse Station and the Green.

You're pointing to the rush hour as the time when the interconnector stations will deliver value.

Not so. The point is that a station at College Green would have been able to deliver very good value all day, every day. The station which we will build at St. Stephen's Green will not be able to do this for the very reason that it has no catchment area on one side of the line for most of the day, and none at weekends.

All of this says to me that DART stations should be optimally placed for commuter traffic. My view is that in a world where one of the two DART lines will serve Tara St. and another Stephen's Green, and where it's easy to change lines in any case, that College Green doesn't need the DART as much as Stephen's Green does.

It is not a question of need, Dermot, in this case. (And anyway, leaving aside the interconnector, St. Stephen's green is getting the metro). But let me try and explain what I'm thinking.

My understanding of transport is that the most efficient journey which a passenger can make is one which requires no changes. The next most efficient one is one where only one change is required, then two, and so on. The best arrangement for everyone is one where we have a network which brings trains/trams to a large number of locations, and there are interchange points which allow everybody to change, if necessary.

Munich's S- and U-Bahn arrangement would be one where the most changes that are required on the network would be one. If you also have to use the tram or the bus in Munich to get to the U-Bahn or S-Bahn, you might have to make two changes in the overall journey. Most journeys on our "Platform for Change" network would also have required at most one change.

Correct so far, I hope.

What follows is probably very simplistic, but sure why not press on.

I have seen statements that College Green was predicted to be the busiest city centre station on the proposed Metro to the airport. What that says to me is that, along that line, the station which is most efficient for the largest group of passengers - not the majority, just the largest group - would be College Green.

Now that's a line which is proposed to go to College Green and St. Stephen's Green. But College Green is predicted to be busier.

So, if we could build an East-West line going through either of them, which would we pick? The obvious answer would be College Green. If it's the most efficient location for the largest group of passengers on our North-South line, I think is a reasonable assumption that it would be the most efficient location for the largest group of passengers on our East-West line.

And since our DART trains through the interconnector will be carrying lots more people than our metro trains, that means that there would have been a helluva lot more people making the most efficient journey if the interconnector had gone through College Green - no change.

But as Winters points out above, there are probably all kinds of geotechnical and other issues about building through Dame Street/College Green, to which I am obviously not privy. As I said earlier, there is probably no other location in the city where the disruption involved would be anything like as massive. What, for example, would we do with the 55% of buses while we were building it?:eek:

But, perhaps in a perverse kind of way, that is precisely what makes it stand out as exactly the location we should be going with a ground-breaking project like the interconnector.

I think the end result is very similar in either case.

Unfortunately, Dermot, I don't think it is. College Green would have been very accessible to loads of people in the North City Centre. It is not going to be as efficient to get to these areas as it might have been.

Metro or no metro, the North city centre will suffer, relative to areas of the city which cannot provide a decent catchment area for most hours of the week.

Bill McH

Winters wrote:

Dublin City has a very poor train and tram service.

It is poor, by the standards of many other cities. But by current Irish standards, the DART service to the south east city centre is fantastic. Maybe this has skewed things a bit over the last 20 years? Not entirely the reason, of course, areas like Merrion Square, Fitzwilliam Square, Baggot Street are nice parts of the city to work in - the canal, parks, etc in which to enjoy a sandwich, for example.

Post T21 places such as the ones you mentioned, Inchicore, Ballymun and many many more places outside the core business district will be growing trip generators not trip destinations.

Forgive me, but I don't understand this. Surely a trip generator in the morning (for most people) becomes a trip destination in the evening.

The purpose of the interconnector and metro is to deliver as many peak time commuters to as near to their desired destination as possible and studies such as the Platform For Change have shown that St. Stephens Green is better placed than College Green to meet that objective.

As I posted above, this does not seem to tie in with the prediction that College Green will be the busiest station on the metro. Though maybe this is down to different organisations (DTO/RPA)doing the studies?

Perhaps in 10 years we'll be able to measure which organisation was doing the correct measurements, based on usage of the metro.

Though, of course, I'd acknowledge what you said earlier about the factors (geotechnical reasons, disruption, etc) which would have mitigated against building the interconnector through College Green.

Metrobest

murphaph wrote:

The Marienhof (a public space near Marienplatz in Munich) has been a building site for ages due to station construction, so I'd expect Stephen's Green will be a similar building site and closed to the public for a similar timescale. I've no problem with digging it all up for a year or so to get a transport hub as an end result so long as they put it back close enough to how they found it. While the green is being dug up though, they should ensure an entrance to the Mezzanine level is placed in all 4 corners of the square. If the authorities are clever they'd do like Munich did under Karlsplatz (although not in exactly the same depressing style) and create shopping space under Stephen's Green. The rents from such retail space in what will be the city centre transport hub could be a 'nice little earner' as they say.

The whole of Stephen´s Green shouldn´t be closed off during construction. The metro station box will be parallel to St Stephen´s Green West - if it affects any of the park it should only be a thin sliver of grass beside the luas platforms which doesn´t have any historic trees or statues and so forth.

I think the government were unwise to talk of the Green becoming "grand central station" of Dublin - it makes it sound as if the whole Green will become a tree-less labyrinth of rail tracks! Done properly, the park will be retained in all its glory, beneath it will be an underground hub. It would be useful to have a couple of public transport information boards at each corner of the park with times of next tram, next metro, and next DART. I think it will be lovely for a commuters on a sunny day- before getting their evening train home to Hazelhatch or Swords they can sip a latte in the park or feed the ducks. Far more relaxing than sitting on a sweaty Dublin Bus for up to ninety minutes!

As far as the Interconnector goes, the level of disruption will depend on the positioning of the station exits, assuming there are more than one? The exit to the ticket concourse of the metro station above should be taken care of during the build phase of the metro - luckily both stations have been designed by the one company in a rare display of joined-up thinking. Assuming the interconnector station isn´t being constructed by cut and cover (surely not, given the alignment - Just imagine the "save our park" treehuggers who would delay it by years!), it should not be a huge problem for the daily life of Dubliners.

Constructing metro is disruptive but so long as it´s planned and people are kept informed of what´s happening, things should be fine. The front of Centraal Station in Amsterdam has been a metro construction site for almost two years now but it doesn´t really cause much disruption, except the obvious visual disruption of the big machinery inside the station box.

MarkoP11

Interconnector station is below the metro station, the pain is when the metro gets built

The real question is how the RPA intend to extract 2 tunnel boring machines in the city centre, at least IE have the cop to use a freight yard, logic would mean the metro tunnel continues beyond the canal