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DART Underground - Why it won't be built.

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13

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    #62
    Muahahaha
    Registered Users Posts: 19,610 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    D.L.R. wrote: »
    Short answer, bad planning.

    The Port Tunnel was a motorway tunnel at a time of massive motorway construction. DU is a completely different animal and a far bigger project with expertise required that we don't even have. I'm not convinced the state actually has the capacity to make it happen. We've never even managed a bog standard metro line, let alone a full sized rail tunnel with full size stations.

    We dont have expertise for tunnel boring. But the Port tunnel was bored by Japanese company Nishimatsu so theres no reason why we wouldnt award a contract to a company who specialises in metro construction, using their machinery alongside local labour as was done with the Port Tunnel.


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    #63
    BonnieSituation
    Registered Users Posts: 18,921 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    Oh look, the Scottish government are into railways...

    http://www.snp.org/improving_our_rail_services


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    #64
    marno21
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,344 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    Clongriffin spur should never become any further than an idea.

    Metro North is being built to cater for the Airport and Swords. An incredibly circuitous route adding to an already congested stretch of line is not the solution.


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    #65
    BonnieSituation
    Registered Users Posts: 18,921 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    A Clongriffin Spur in and of itself wouldn't be a bad idea in conjunction with everything else. Done correctly all of a sudden you have Belfast to Dublin Airport :)


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    #66
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    BonnieSituation wrote: »
    A Clongriffin Spur in and of itself wouldn't be a bad idea in conjunction with everything else. Done correctly all of a sudden you have Belfast to Dublin Airport :)

    Given the likely frequency of that route the majority of the time it would be quicker to go Belfast to Dublin and MN back out. Unless you're taking about all Dublin to Belfast trains diverting


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    #67
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,840 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    BonnieSituation wrote: »
    Oh look, the Scottish government are into railways...

    http://www.snp.org/improving_our_rail_services



    I Spend quite some time in the uk. They really need to start subventing train travel in England a lot more. It is so expensive v driving a car. You can tax the cars for nothing there or close to it. Even older luxury cars with big engines, it's not like here...


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    #68
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,840 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    If cie built spur. Surely they could also have massive park and ride. For airport parking and for non airport passengers using new dart spur? At least with train, you know when to get there for, if it had 20 min frequency minimum. I'd way prefer on likes of quick park etc, if they said bus will leave 9:00, 9:15, 9:30 etc or maybe every twelve minutes. But at least you would then know exactly when it's going...

    I really think Dublin airport should be served by dart at least and metro north...


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    #69
    Bray Head
    Registered Users Posts: 892 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    Deedsie wrote: »
    When you consider the numbers of passengers that use Dublin airport originating from Northern Ireland it would probably be a good idea to have a direct rail link to make it even more appealing to them? To increase the numbers further.

    Irish government makes money on all their flight tickets etc? Presume it's more than the cost of using the toll and parking at the airport?

    How would it fare compared to bus on price, speed and flexibility to the Belfast area? Not great I would say.


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    #70
    BonnieSituation
    Registered Users Posts: 18,921 ✭✭✭✭BonnieSituation


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    Given the likely frequency of that route the majority of the time it would be quicker to go Belfast to Dublin and MN back out. Unless you're taking about all Dublin to Belfast trains diverting

    For starters I was being slightly facetious. But there is merit in allowing direct access from the northern side of the airport if such a spur was built. It would be beyond mental to only allow southern side access to it. I mean for moving trains etc alone it would be worth having the infrastructure.

    How are you able to make such statements about the timing of such services that neither exist or are planned.
    How you can judge that Belfast to Dublin Airport as a route is quicker via Connolly and the metro to me is beyond bizarre.

    Also, why would anyone in their right mind suggest diverting all Dublin bound trains from Belfast to terminate at the airport.
    Mental post.

    Anyway, Dart Underground anyone?


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    #71
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    BonnieSituation wrote: »
    How are you able to make such statements about the timing of such services that neither exist or are planned.
    How you can judge that Belfast to Dublin Airport as a route is quicker via Connolly and the metro to me is beyond bizarre.

    Also, why would anyone in their right mind suggest diverting all Dublin bound trains from Belfast to terminate at the airport.
    Mental post.

    Anyway, Dart Underground anyone?

    I never said it was quicker point to point its a simple matter of frequency , if every train doesn't go to via the airport (which I didn't suggest either) it means only some would. So why would you wait for a train that goes direct to the airport when Belfast to Connolly and MN out will be most likely quicker. The point being with out a decent frequency the Belfast to Airport wouldn't be helpful


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    #72
    Bray Head
    Registered Users Posts: 892 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    While we're speculating, assume if you will, that DU, MN and the Clongriffin spur are all built.
    Passengers could get from Dublin airport to SSG in 20 minutes. They could then get on a Cork-Belfast train. Or they could get a DART to Clongriffin and get on a Cork-Belfast train that stops there.
    Why would you run or divert Belfast services via the cul-de sac that would be Dublin Airport given that they would account for a small amount of passenger origination? And would be easily linked in to via DART or MN? Makes no sense.


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    #73
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,362 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    The Clongriffin Spur is 7 km of railway line. It could be built quickly and would provide a quick route into town (Connolly) as it stands. Cost quoted by IR is €200 m, I assume including rolling stock. If it was built, Howth to Howth Junction would be a shuttle service.

    Assuming that the design anticipate MN, a proper station at the airport would be built. MN would need to be 1.6m gauge, and continue onto Swords and perhaps Donabate and connect with the Northern line there. This would introduce a large number of potential customers. 25 million passengers last year plus 25,000 employees is quite a number to move and train is the most effective.

    Metro North should not be seen as the only rail connection to the Airport.


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    #74
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,840 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    It will hit 28,000,000 give or take this year. Over 30,000,000 next year you can be nearly 100% sure...


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    #75
    D.L.R.
    Registered Users Posts: 1,282 ✭✭✭D.L.R.


    Muahahaha wrote: »
    We dont have expertise for tunnel boring. But the Port tunnel was bored by Japanese company Nishimatsu so theres no reason why we wouldnt award a contract to a company who specialises in metro construction, using their machinery alongside local labour as was done with the Port Tunnel.

    Fair point. But the question was why did DPT get built while DU didn't. DU is still a significantly larger project than DPT, and DPT was built at the height of the boom when the state was flush with cash. AND it wasn't built under the city centre. It was just an easier win for Bertie's govt. Irish govts love easy!
    Idbatterim wrote: »
    If cie built spur. Surely they could also have massive park and ride. For airport parking and for non airport passengers using new dart spur?

    I think you've touched on a major drawback of the Airport spur (built in isolation) - it would become a commuter service for the whole of north county Dublin, and the "airport" aspect would be severely undermined. The extra commuter traffic in/out of the airport would be very messy.

    The only was it could feasibly work is by quadding the northern line. Housing planners of the 50s and 60s have a lot to answer for leaving us with that sh*t sandwich.


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    #76
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    MN would need to be 1.6m gauge

    Which of course will kill any possibility of MS. MN will be the same gauge as Luas and will never run on IE rails


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    #77
    Sam Russell
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,362 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    Which of course will kill any possibility of MS. MN will be the same gauge as Luas and will never run on IE rails

    Which of course goes back to the madness of choosing the Luas gauge to be 4ft 8.5 inches, just to save a few bob on the trams.

    MS can continue other than onto the existing Luas line.


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    #78
    LeinsterDub
    Registered Users Posts: 8,229 ✭✭✭LeinsterDub


    Sam Russell wrote: »
    Which of course goes back to the madness of choosing the Luas gauge to be 4ft 8.5 inches, just to save a few bob on the trams.

    MS can continue other than onto the existing Luas line.

    Luas Green line was in a surprising use of foresight designed to be upgrade able to Metro standard your proposal would kill the possibility of a Metro from Swords to Bray. When do you envision MN using Irish rail rails?


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    #79
    medoc
    Registered Users Posts: 966 ✭✭✭medoc


    marno21 wrote: »
    Clongriffin spur should never become any further than an idea.

    Metro North is being built to cater for the Airport and Swords. An incredibly circuitous route adding to an already congested stretch of line is not the solution.


    After DU and MN is built a heavy rail spur to the airport could be looked at. Maybe the merits will stack up for it then, especially if Dart electrified and after Dart Underground is built. It can't ever be the only solution of rail based access to DUB.


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    #80
    Chivito550
    Registered Users Posts: 7,694 ✭✭✭Chivito550


    LeinsterDub wrote: »
    Luas Green line was in a surprising use of foresight designed to be upgrade able to Metro standard your proposal would kill the possibility of a Metro from Swords to Bray. When do you envision MN using Irish rail rails?

    Would there be too many stops on the current green line and too many bends after Sandyford for it to be upgraded to a proper metro?


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    #81
    Idbatterim
    Registered Users Posts: 17,840 ✭✭✭✭Idbatterim


    surely it makes no sense not to connect the metro north to the dart line at donabate and provide a massive park and ride there too?! and I mean doing this from the get go, not at a later stage!!!


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    #82
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    The park&ride would be better at the Lissenhall junction, than in Donabate, but other than that yes, the metro should connect to Donabate station.


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    #83
    Zebra3
    Registered Users Posts: 13,850 ✭✭✭✭Zebra3


    D.L.R. wrote: »
    Fair point. But the question was why did DPT get built while DU didn't.

    HGVs removed from Drumcondra area with the construction of DPT.

    Anyone know where An Taoiseach of the time was based?


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    #84
    markpb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,250 ✭✭✭markpb


    Zebra3 wrote:
    HGVs removed from Drumcondra area with the construction of DPT.

    There were far more HGVs going through Fairview and up the Malahide road than Drumcondra ever saw.


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    #85
    strassenwo!f
    Registered Users Posts: 1,512 ✭✭✭strassenwo!f


    I grew up in Dublin, around D2 and D4, and worked there at times in the nineties and noughties for periods of a year or two. I now visit the city several times a year, to visit my parents and see some friends, but for the early part of November I was actually in the city to work, for about three weeks.

    Unfortunately, the place is a bigger mess than it ever was. On one Thursday evening, around 4-5 pm I had to go from Marino to Parnell Street to collect something, then from Parnell Street to Clare Street, and the whole thing took over two hours.

    This is not sustainable.

    One of the things I noticed, again, driving into the city from around Griffith Avenue, is how obvious it would be to build the proposed Drumcondra metro station between the two railway lines in that area. But the plan is to do something else, to avoid disruption, so the eventual station on the proposed metro is in a location which is not optimal for the main body of people who will use it, i.e. those people in the centre of Drumcondra.

    With the DART Underground, the subject of this thread, there also seems to be a similar fear of building through areas which are 'too busy'.

    The sensible choice is to build underground through the busiest areas, but that penny still isn't dropping in Dublin. Because the authorities are terrified of causing disruption.

    I lived in Frankfurt, in Germany, for a time, and I occasionally had to travel on a bus (for 3 stops), S-Bahn (4 stops) and tram (4 stops) to do what I needed to do. Basically the equivalent of a journey from Marino or Whitehall to Dundrum, all done in around 25 minutes. I don't expect Dublin to be able to reproduce that super service overnight, but I would expect that it would be going in that direction, and with the institutional fear of causing disruption in Dublin there is clearly a very long way to go.


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    #86
    Bray Head
    Registered Users Posts: 892 ✭✭✭Bray Head


    strassenwo!f wrote: »

    The sensible choice is to build underground through the busiest areas, but that penny still isn't dropping in Dublin. Because the authorities are terrified of causing disruption.
    The authorities are simply terrified of spending large amounts of money.
    I did a search of parliamentary questions asked about MN and DU in the last year. Bear in mind there are 44 TDs for Dublin constituencies and another 4 in Kildare North. The two projects would be useful for people in all of these constituencies barring maybe Dublin South West.

    A mere EIGHT TDs did asked a question on MN and three of these - Timmy Dooley, Michael Healy-Rae, and Robert Troy - are not from Dublin. The TDs who did were Tommy Broughan, Roisin Shortall, Brendan Ryan and Alan Farrell.

    For Dart Underground a mere TWO TDs asked about it: honourable mentions to Catherine Murphy and Brendan Ryan.

    It never ceases to amaze me how little interest Dublin's politicians take in Dublin's infrastructure.


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    #87
    prunudo
    Registered Users Posts: 7,027 ✭✭✭prunudo


    Bray Head wrote: »
    The authorities are simply terrified of spending large amounts of money.
    I did a search of parliamentary questions asked about MN and DU in the last year. Bear in mind there are 44 TDs for Dublin constituencies and another 4 in Kildare North. The two projects would be useful for people in all of these constituencies barring maybe Dublin South West.

    A mere EIGHT TDs did asked a question on MN and three of these - Timmy Dooley, Michael Healy-Rae, and Robert Troy - are not from Dublin. The TDs who did were Tommy Broughan, Roisin Shortall, Brendan Ryan and Alan Farrell.

    For Dart Underground a mere TWO TDs asked about it: honourable mentions to Catherine Murphy and Brendan Ryan.

    It never ceases to amaze me how little interest Dublin's politicians take in Dublin's infrastructure.

    I think you answered your own point.

    It never ceases to amaze me how little interest Dublin's politicians take in Dublin's infrastructure

    The authorities are simply terrified of spending large amounts of money.


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    #88
    Carawaystick
    Registered Users Posts: 8,779 ✭✭✭Carawaystick


    strassenwo!f wrote: »

    Unfortunately, the place is a bigger mess than it ever was. On one Thursday evening, around 4-5 pm I had to go from Marino to Parnell Street to collect something, then from Parnell Street to Clare Street, and the whole thing took over two hours.

    This is not sustainable.

    You chose to travel to and from a major public transport construction site at rush hour, and then complained about the traffic?


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    #89
    strassenwo!f
    Registered Users Posts: 1,512 ✭✭✭strassenwo!f


    Carawaystick wrote: »
    You chose to travel to and from a major public transport construction site at rush hour, and then complained about the traffic?

    I'm not really sure you're getting my point. It is that the traffic in Dublin is mental, primarily because the public transport options are decades behind pretty well every similarly-sized city in the EU, with all due respect to the valiant efforts of transport providers like Dublin Bus.

    As an illustration of this, the area you mention (Parnell Square/Street) was planned to be a major public transport construction site back in the nineties, when the original linked LUAS lines were to be built.

    Thanks to Mary O'Rourke chickening out of causing disruption in the most central parts of the city, the disruption is only happening now and almost two decades have been lost in the development of this line to Broadstone and beyond.


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    #90
    aliveandkicking
    Registered Users Posts: 961 ✭✭✭aliveandkicking


    strassenwo!f wrote: »
    With the DART Underground, the subject of this thread, there also seems to be a similar fear of building through areas which are 'too busy'.

    The sensible choice is to build underground through the busiest areas, but that penny still isn't dropping in Dublin. Because the authorities are terrified of causing disruption.


    I'm afraid I have to call bollócks on this particular point. Have you seen Dublin city centre over the last two years? Many of the busiest areas in the city have been building sites for two years. The Luas cross city works have caused far more disruption than either MN or DU would have. It's not a fear of building anything in busy areas that the problem is, it's a fear of spending big money and lack of political will.


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    #91
    marno21
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 14,344 Mod ✭✭✭✭marno21


    aliveandkicking wrote: »
    I'm afraid I have to call bollócks on this particular point. Have you seen Dublin city centre over the last two years? Many of the busiest areas in the city have been building sites for two years. The Luas cross city works have caused far more disruption than either MN or DU would have. It's not a fear of building anything in busy areas that the problem is, it's a fear of spending big money and lack of political will.

    And won't provide near the benefits either of the above two schemes will.


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