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Historical - The anti Luas campaign

  • 28-07-2020 9:57am
    #1
    Lord Glentoran
    Closed Accounts Posts: 876 ✭✭✭


    There is a serious point behind reposting a thread from 2003. That being the tooth and nail fight from certain quarters against the construction of the tramway and the hyperbole used against it.

    For example,
    The entire LUAS concept was questionable (and questioned) from its inception. I was always against it from the start. Only a moron or a DCC traffic engineer could find it a good idea.I believe the Director of Public Prosecutions should consider pursuing a public interest law suit for culpable negligence against several highly placed individuals in the Gov./DCC/ Big Business with Brown Paper Bags
    Guess who?

    As it now stands it appears that the Minister and the RPA/LUAS senior management have been aware for some time that ALL available funding has been disbursed. It now appears that the hitherto little publicised "Contingency" fund of some €90 million has also been exhausted

    Having presided over this less than prudent handling of public funds we now learn that the Construction Consortium ihas succeeded in screwing the taxpayer by getting extra sums in the region of €65 million in order to bring the project in on its new and much delayed completion date.

    At a time when the remainder of Dublins Surface Public Transport network is still chronically underfunded and ineptly regulated by a multitude of idiots belonging to various agencies, this amounts,in my book,to Negligence on a grand scale and cries out for criminal investigation,the CAB should be involved.

    The LUAS cost is approaching €1,000 MILLION and will be borne by the Taxpayer Full Stop.

    Yet in a modern European Capital we are asked to accept public transport users being subjected to little more than abuse in relation to locating centre city bus termini. Never mind the high tax paying business motorists who have provided millions in revenue but whose interests are not properly represented by Gov. Yet the Gov/DCC are happy to give themselves Bench Marking rises with nothing in return. How about increasing traffic flow for motorists instead of removing road space with a system that will carry less than if they had tossed a a small part of the Luas moneys at Dublin Bus and painted QBC's along the Luas routes.

    We are asked to accept a situation where a City Council spokesperson can say to the main provider of Bus Services within its area that "its your Problem where to put your buses-we just want the bloody things off the streets"

    Yet the same City-Council has steadfastly refused to prioritise the Bus network at those Critical "Pinch-Points" which surround our capital. The Traffic is going to be totally screwed. What fun we will have with the “Clueless” up and not running.

    I expect another bloody Tribunal facing the LUAS consortium down the line. Pardon the pun!

    The main players in this pungent debacle have wasted vast amount of taxpayers money .Yet as the abundance of wealth generated by profit making business people squandered by the Gov. now recedes we are left with Nothing in transport terms to show for it all and those who bear responsibility simply continue to make glib and inaccurate pronouncements in order to shore up their political reputations.

    I expect the whole debacle will come to a head when traffic flow collapses to even worse than our current Calcutta standards

    Roll on the next election

    I also wonder about the quite extraordinary statements made at the various public enquiries by the late Rudi Monaghan where he asserted as fact that any street with a tramway on it would have to be closed permanently to pedestrian traffic, and his associated Motorcycle Action Group Ireland that painted a picture of motorbikes constantly skidding under trams.

    And yet this nonsense was taken seriously by the media and successive governments, to the point that the Luas project went back for redesigns and delays. Is it any wonder that I for one am cynical about any kind of progress on the Metro project or further Luas lines, when half informed and mendacious stirring gets so much attention in the endless “debate” about Dublin transport?

    It would have been cheaper in the long run to go with the DRRTS proposals in 1975 but no, not us. Forty five years later we’re still at it.


Comments

  • #2
    Dravokivich
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Music Moderators, Politics Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 22,360 CMod ✭✭✭✭Dravokivich


    But you still aren't really bringing anything up here. If those concerns lead to redesigns, then surely there was some validity to them?


  • #3
    Losty Dublin
    Registered Users Posts: 12,956 ✭✭✭✭Losty Dublin


    Dravokivich wrote: »
    But you still aren't really bringing anything up here. If those concerns lead to redesigns, then surely there was some validity to them?

    It's perfect clear what LG means though. Public Transport infrastructure can't get build in Ireland without 1001 groups that claim an expertise or interest in some area show up out of nowhere to only to put any amount of spanners in the works and to delay or halt proceedings.


  • #4
    Zebra3
    Registered Users Posts: 13,848 ✭✭✭✭Zebra3


    As someone who grew up within a 10 minute walk of a DART station, I always found the vitriol aimed at the Luas before it opened as nothing short of totally bizarre.


  • #5
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,230 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    I wouldn’t have been strongly pro or anti either way and don’t use the Luas, but I remember one striking figure mentioned at the time.

    Off topic and just for interest. Another major rail project constructed over the same time period opened the same year. For the same price as we paid for the Luas, Australia built almost 3000km of transcontinental railway connecting Adelaide and Darwin!


  • #6
    markpb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,249 ✭✭✭markpb


    endacl wrote: »
    Another major rail project constructed over the same time period opened the same year. For the same price as we paid for the Luas, Australia built almost 3000km of transcontinental railway connecting Adelaide and Darwin!

    You absolutely can't compare the cost of building a rail line through an urban environment with another built in a rural environment on a different continent and with a different cost of construction. It's just as valuable to compare it to the cost of buying houses in Zambia or, that other equally daft comparison between the NCH and the Burj Khalifa.


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  • #7
    endacl
    Registered Users Posts: 22,230 ✭✭✭✭endacl


    markpb wrote: »
    You absolutely can't compare the cost of building a rail line through an urban environment with another built in a rural environment on a different continent and with a different cost of construction. It's just as valuable to compare it to the cost of buying houses in Zambia or, that other equally daft comparison between the NCH and the Burj Khalifa.

    I’m well aware. Just thought at the time it was a striking coincidence.

    Chill.


  • #8
    BloodyBill
    Registered Users Posts: 957 ✭✭✭BloodyBill


    endacl wrote: »
    I’m well aware. Just thought at the time it was a striking coincidence.

    Chill.

    Stepping off the tube in London and travelling to Dublin is like going to small town from a city. The Luas is a gimmick that is small, unbelievably slow and not fit for purpose. It doesn't even have an orbital route...it goes on roads that buses served just fine. Its like something for a seaside town in France.


  • #9
    Lord Glentoran
    Closed Accounts Posts: 876 ✭✭✭Lord Glentoran


    BloodyBill wrote: »
    Stepping off the tube in London and travelling to Dublin is like going to small town from a city. The Luas is a gimmick that is small, unbelievably slow and not fit for purpose. It doesn't even have an orbital route...it goes on roads that buses served just fine. Its like something for a seaside town in France.

    You can rest easy - Luas Finglas has the usual indolent construction target of 2030. All the better to do nothing as usual until everyone’s hands are forced by the perfect storm of ever increasing Traffic and restrictions on fossil fuel usage.


  • #10
    markpb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,249 ✭✭✭markpb


    BloodyBill wrote: »
    Stepping off the tube in London and travelling to Dublin is like going to small town from a city. The Luas is a gimmick that is small, unbelievably slow and not fit for purpose. It doesn't even have an orbital route...it goes on roads that buses served just fine. Its like something for a seaside town in France.

    Hyperbole much? Luas carried 48m people last year which is only 2m less than the entire Irish Rail network (IC, suburban and DART). I can't speak for the red line but the SSG -> Sandyford section of the green line manages the same speed as DART. The southern extension is slightly slower and the northern extension is painfully slow but without going underground, that was always going to be the case.

    Also, I'd like to see a bus that can get from Sandyford to the city centre in 20 minutes in rush hour traffic?


  • #11
    Lord Glentoran
    Closed Accounts Posts: 876 ✭✭✭Lord Glentoran


    Meanwhile in 2003 - and no shovel lifted yet in 2020 for any kind of rail link to Swords or the Airport. Do people get bonuses for this kind of procrastination?
    Metro link to airport opposed by Department of Finance
    From:ireland.com
    Saturday, 10th January, 2004

    The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, is to bring to cabinet in the next two months his final proposals for a metro link between Dublin city centre and the airport.

    He is expected to tell colleagues that the link can be built for less than €2.5 billion, and could be open to its first passengers by the end of 2009.

    However the proposals could be seriously hampered by the fact that the project is feasible only as the first stage in a much more ambitious 20-year underground scheme, costing up to €20 billion.

    The Department of Finance is still opposed to the project on the basis of a report it commissioned which suggests that a much cheaper alternative exists, the extension of the Dart to the airport, via a new spur line.

    The minister has now received indicative costs from the Rail Procurement Agency (RPA) that the Metro link could be built for €2.4 billion, half the figure he was given last year.

    This could be done through halving the time for the planning stage of the project from four to two years with new legislation to speed up the planning process.

    Legislation to transfer underground property rights to the State is also being prepared.

    The route of the proposed line has yet to be finalised however. It will run overground from the Airport, through Ballymun, going underground at Dublin City University in Ballymun.

    The final plan is being drafted to include a route passing through Connolly Station, Tara Street and St Stephen's Green at the insistence of the minister.

    According to sources in the Department of Transport, Mr Brennan remains confident he can convince colleagues of the merits of the project, and that it remains a realistic proposal.

    Last year the plan was put in jeopardy following an initial report from the RPA that the airport link would cost up to €4.8 billion, and take at least seven years to build.

    This included four years of planning.

    Despite the latest figures, the proposal is still facing considerable opposition from the Department of Finance, which commissioned its own report on a rail link to the airport.

    The report has advocated a spur from the Dart line as an alternative.

    Mr Brennan is believed to have told Government colleagues on the cabinet sub-committee on infrastructure that the project is a feasible when considered as the first stage of a larger metro scheme. It would greatly increase public transport capacity in the city, while the Dart spur would have a limited impact.

    However, according to Government sources there is still a considerable barrier to the project over the overall spending commitment. The feasibility of financing through public-private partnerships is still under consideration.

    "It would just be the first of ten planned phases over a 20-year period, so the Government would be committing itself to a much greater spend than €2.4 billion, and a lot of debt, whatever way it's financed,"said the sources.


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  • #12
    tabbey
    Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    markpb wrote: »
    t the SSG -> Sandyford section of the green line manages the same speed as DART.

    It does not.

    The maximum speed on Luas, both red and green lines, is 70 kmh (43mph), and drivers rarely exceed 65 kmh.
    Dart emus can reach 70mph although normally run at up to 60mph.


  • #13
    donvito99
    Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭donvito99


    tabbey wrote: »
    It does not.

    The maximum speed on Luas, both red and green lines, is 70 kmh (43mph), and drivers rarely exceed 65 kmh.
    Dart emus can reach 70mph although normally run at up to 60mph.

    Well if you were to take average speed...

    Sandyford to SSG is about the same distance as Seapoint to Connolly.

    The latter takes a timetabled 22 minutes and I believe the former's journey time is about the same? The Luas has more intermediate stops also.


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