Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

"The great DART elephant!"

  • 24-02-2019 10:28am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 4,784 ✭✭✭


    RTE does daily archived news items (reported from today , in previous years)

    Today's article is on the DART, and it's overruns.

    It includes a quote from the then transport minister Jim MItchell that it would never make a profit.

    https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/0214/1029617-the-dart-overrun/


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    The DART doesn't make a profit and only got the nod from FG as a belated electoral stunt which didn't work.

    The same feature could be put together about the Luas. The Sunday Business Post and the Indo opposed it from Day.1. - I have the press cuttings and will stick them up when I get a chance.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 876 ✭✭✭Lord Glentoran


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    The DART doesn't make a profit and only got the nod from FG as a belated electoral stunt which didn't work.

    The same feature could be put together about the Luas. The Sunday Business Post and the Indo opposed it from Day.1. - I have the press cuttings and will stick them up when I get a chance.

    I rather fancy writing something about it when I’m no longer a family carer - shall relish raking over some of the nonsense pronouncements made as “fact” by people still in the public eye.

    It isn’t only Trump and Brexit that generated fake news.

    Edit - I haven’t brought the SBP since they printed an article in 2004 full of citations from unnamed sources that the ride was the “worst” they had ever experienced on a “train”, or that the reasoning behind trams for Dublin was that, again, unnamed people considered them to be “quaint”.

    Honourable mention also goes to the old Sunday Tribune that stuck up graphics about tunnelling for an underground that implied that an underground would be dug by unseen moles and that the spoil would mysteriously vanish.

    And that’s just a small part of the guff the Luas project generated in the papers.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,819 ✭✭✭✭Zebra3


    thomasj wrote: »
    RTE does daily archived news items (reported from today , in previous years)

    Today's article is on the DART, and it's overruns.

    It includes a quote from the then transport minister Jim MItchell that it would never make a profit.

    https://www.rte.ie/archives/2019/0214/1029617-the-dart-overrun/

    Shocking that they ripped up the old railway line.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,042 ✭✭✭Rulmeq


    Just noticed one of the other videos up there: Seamus Brennan confirms Dublin will have metro to airport by 2007. https://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0731/894247-metro-to-dublin-airport/


  • Registered Users Posts: 25,291 ✭✭✭✭coylemj


    Zebra3 wrote: »
    Shocking that they ripped up the old railway line.

    Which railway line was ripped up to make way for the Dart?


  • Advertisement
  • Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,056 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    coylemj wrote: »
    Which railway line was ripped up to make way for the Dart?

    They re-layed the DSER / DWWR track. That post was, I suspect, a jibe at the ill informed nonsense coming from the Greens etc about the metro; as they make similar claims about the Luas upgrade


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,891 ✭✭✭✭Losty Dublin


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    The DART doesn't make a profit and only got the nod from FG as a belated electoral stunt which didn't work.

    The same feature could be put together about the Luas. The Sunday Business Post and the Indo opposed it from Day.1. - I have the press cuttings and will stick them up when I get a chance.

    1) Wasn't it a Fianna Fail led government that okayed it, or was it Cosgrave's watch that made the call?
    2) There was no SBP until 1989. Perhaps you mean the Tribune; it started up in 1980.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,761 ✭✭✭Effects


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    The DART doesn't make a profit and only got the nod from FG as a belated electoral stunt which didn't work.

    Why does it have to make a profit? It provides a public service.

    Do hospitals make a profit?


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,612 ✭✭✭Qrt


    Effects wrote: »
    Why does it have to make a profit?

    Neoliberalism


  • Registered Users Posts: 15,630 ✭✭✭✭whisky_galore


    Dublin couldn't possibly function without it now.

    Just goes to show that many of our transport ministers, including the incumbent, aren't particularly bright.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 876 ✭✭✭Lord Glentoran


    Dublin couldn't possibly function without it now.

    Just goes to show that many of our transport ministers, including the incumbent, aren't particularly bright.

    Plenty of our transport “experts” quoted in the newspapers are not as smart as they’d like to think they are.

    As for ministers, generally they have followed the lead of their civil servants who, for some reason, tend to heed those “experts” who believe the sky will fall if any suggested rail project would come in on time and un-mutilated.


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,647 ✭✭✭✭punisher5112


    Dart needs to be sped up, it needs more trains/carriages, we need proper park and ride facilities at the likes of greystones which would be a huge help on morning traffic to Dublin.

    Rosslare train should only run from bray to Wexford and update the line and frequency this would speed things up so much.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    1) Wasn't it a Fianna Fail led government that okayed it, or was it Cosgrave's watch that made the call?
    2) There was no SBP until 1989. Perhaps you mean the Tribune; it started up in 1980.

    I'll dig out the newscuttings soon. The Sunday Business Post reference was regarding their opposition to the Luas not the DART.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    Dart needs to be sped up, it needs more trains/carriages, we need proper park and ride facilities at the likes of greystones which would be a huge help on morning traffic to Dublin.

    Rosslare train should only run from bray to Wexford and update the line and frequency this would speed things up so much.

    There's has already been a long discussion about this on another thread. By your logic the Enterprise should terminate at Malahide too?


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,647 ✭✭✭✭punisher5112


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    There's has already been a long discussion about this on another thread. By your logic the Enterprise should terminate at Malahide too?

    But if it were to be s much faster journey I see it as a plus. Transportation is way too slow and way too many hold ups.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,124 ✭✭✭goingnowhere


    Its important to remember

    1. Inflation in the 1980's was insane
    2. The EEC provided a grant, sent the cheque but the Dept of Finance pocketed the cash
    3. CIE took a loan out from the EIB at an insane interest rate to cover the lack of the EEC grant

    So actually on paper
    1. If you factor the VAT, interest and inflation the DART was on budget
    2. The bulk of the operating loss was interest payment on the loan

    And the DART did make a profit in the mid 1990's as the loan was split out and paid separately and is now paid off.


  • Registered Users Posts: 36,020 ✭✭✭✭LuckyLloyd


    Every single positive move with regards to Public transport in Dublin stretching back to closing Grafton St to traffic has been intensely opposed in media. There is a huge amount of money to be made from our current arrangements and the dependency on the car. Buying cars, insuring them, parking them and taxing them makes all sorts of people money. Car parks in particular offer land owners in high demand areas an easy low maintenance return. Those incentives to oppose merges with natural Nimbyism to create a toxic mix. It is profitable to oppose progress in these areas. It gains money, votes and airtime.

    The necessary solution is painfully obvious, but we simply don't have the balls to do it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,891 ✭✭✭✭Losty Dublin


    Dart needs to be sped up, it needs more trains/carriages, we need proper park and ride facilities at the likes of greystones which would be a huge help on morning traffic to Dublin.

    .

    Greystones has a good 400 parking spaces adjacent to the station, most of which are free to rail passengers. Is there a need for additional spaces here?


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,363 ✭✭✭✭Del.Monte


    20190225_125128.jpg

    20190225_125107.jpg

    Two classic pieces of anti-rail tosh from two well known transport experts before the opening of the original Luas lines. :rolleyes:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 26 London Correspondent


    Unfortunately anti rail tosh isn’t just for cosseted pundits in the meeja. We see it at the heart of the decision making process as well.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 9,224 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    Just glad I was only a kid in those days, I'd have a heart condition now otherwise.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,218 ✭✭✭markpb


    cgcsb wrote: »
    Just glad I was only a kid in those days, I'd have a heart condition now otherwise.

    There's no change, it's just as bad now.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,224 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    There's has already been a long discussion about this on another thread. By your logic the Enterprise should terminate at Malahide too?

    There could be a case for terminating at Donebate if the metro is extended there.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,224 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    markpb wrote: »
    There's no change, it's just as bad now.

    Well except we have the luas in place, it is well regarded and extensions of the system are often called for. Also acceptance of the Northern half of metrolink as the only way forward is almost universal.


  • Registered Users Posts: 28,928 ✭✭✭✭end of the road


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    There's has already been a long discussion about this on another thread. By your logic the Enterprise should terminate at Malahide too?


    there were actually 2 long running discussions. 1 in the train and rail systems forum and 1 in the main c&t forum. i will link them if i can find them.

    shut down alcohol action ireland now! end MUP today!



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,928 ✭✭✭✭end of the road


    there were actually 2 long running discussions. 1 in the train and rail systems forum and 1 in the main c&t forum. i will link them if i can find them.
    here we go
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057780805&page=7
    from about post 266 on


    a thread more or less dedicated to that discussion
    https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057889846

    shut down alcohol action ireland now! end MUP today!



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,412 ✭✭✭Markcheese


    Politically, a government (and individual ministers) should always, always defer decision.
    Commission a report, set up an action group, or a task force,give the appearance of interest and action, what ever, but under no circumstances should they actually start works.. Because it'll be all their fault...
    There'll be no shortage of journalists and experts who'll say it's a vanity, a fiasco, a white elephant...
    And its bound to have been estimated at one third the actual price, so it'll always go way over budget..

    Slava ukraini 🇺🇦



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 876 ✭✭✭Lord Glentoran


    Del.Monte wrote: »
    20190225_125128.jpg

    20190225_125107.jpg

    Two classic pieces of anti-rail tosh from two well known transport experts before the opening of the original Luas lines. :rolleyes:

    Classic tosh from Vincenzo - that second piece tho https://www.joe.ie/movies-tv/video-brendan-grace-delivered-some-classic-father-fintan-stack-lines-on-a-visit-to-red-fm-today-483906


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,819 ✭✭✭✭Zebra3


    Tbf, with regard to the Tallaght Luas, it’s a ridiculous amount of time for commuters to get from there to the CC.


  • Advertisement
  • Closed Accounts Posts: 876 ✭✭✭Lord Glentoran


    Zebra3 wrote: »
    Tbf, with regard to the Tallaght Luas, it’s a ridiculous amount of time for commuters to get from there to the CC.

    Be interesting to see how travelling from the Square to the CC by bus at peak compares in real time, traffic pinch points, the lot.

    In any case the opportunity to use the busway alignment via Mount Argus for a Metro has been lost due to the short termism of the old Dublin Corporation.


Advertisement