Dublin Metrolink (just Metrolink posts here -see post #1 )

Just had a read of Michael McDowell's article.

He describes the public consultation as "an elaborate con-job perpetuated not merely on the people of Dublin but also on the people of Ireland."

Claims Metrolink money would get you between seven and ten Luas lines, an alternative which he thinks compatible with later bemoaning the disruption that would be caused during the building of the metro line: "how long would the Luas Green line be completely out of commission? ... How long would the east side of St Stephen's Green be closed off?"

Metrolink will "cannibalise the Luas Green line" and result in its "permanent dismemberment". And high-floor trams would entail "every existing Luas station (south of Charl.) ... having to be rebuilt."

He lists a bunch of places that he says would remain unserved, including Glasnevin and Churchtown (which will be), Palmerstown and Lucan (which are planned to get a Luas), Ballymun (which will be part served by Metrolink, part by the proposed Luas to Finglas) and Deansgrange (for which there's surely no justification). He suggests a Luas line serving Cabinteely, Stillorgan, Belfield and Ballsbridge, i.e. between the Dart line and the Luas Green line! He sets up a false trade-off between Metrolink and "serving huge areas of Dublin that have no prospet of any mass transport if the money is sucked into the black hole of the Metrolink project."

He said "the Metrolink project is centred on a fixation that Dublin Airport must be served by a rail transport link," and then goes on to repeat arguments in the vein of Sean Barrett's on Prime Time. No mention of Swords throughout.

Apparently "most people have already forgotten the elaborate (Dart Underground) plan ... (which) has been quietly abandoned" and there has been "no high-level consideration of how all these broken shards of proper planning can ever fit together."

Ironically, he scolds railway-planner "boffins" for favouring their "pet projects" over alternatives, when it later proves that they are being the pragmatists and he the fantasist: "We need to have a real debate on Dublin's future - one that includes housing densities and real urban renewal of rundown areas, that considers the possibility of relocating the city's port to Bremore and buiding new high-rise city in the docklands north and south of the Liffey, one that really gets to grips with the traffic infrastructure (including a further orbital motorway to relieve the M50), one that plans urban mass transit on an integrated business. Instead we have a mess."

Could you imagine if we took his advice and not only linked the city's transport plans to a hugely complex and contentious move of the port north and the planned city that would take its place, but then brought the Dail and the public into the decision process?! There's a reason we have a civil service and representative democracy, and it's to take these decisions on the public's behalf.

I had fun identifying all the ways in which his diatribe is irrational and misinformed. But I'm also worried by his call to arms: "People worried about the line's effect on their property are simply in no position to make a high-level challenge ... That is the business of elected legislators - national or local. It is also the business of the capital's social partners ... Will nobody shout stop so that we can consider the chaos?" Rumour is he may be running for the Dail as an independent.

It’s a rental property, and one whose value might well increase with the metro. I reckon McDowell’s opposition is not principally motivated by that.