Luas Finglas

What do people think the impact the new Luas line will have on Finglas?

Assuming it gets fast tracked through in 5 years.

With all due respect to Finglas people, south Finglas is one of the worst areas in Dublin and Ireland and the Luas line runs right through it.

I know that East Finglas is a nice area.

Do you think South Finglas will become attractive to buyers and be gentrified a little.
Just 20 minutes to city center with lots of amenities near by.

I think the main benefit for the people of Finglas will be to massively expand the range of opportunity that exists for residents within employment and even education.

riddlinrussell wrote: »

I would say at a minimum that upgrading a Victorian bridge and ensuring the period features aren't damaged in the process would be quite different to upgrading a decade old motorway bridge.

I'm not claiming its feasible but I can see the costs being lower if it is possible.

Would it not just be easier to add a second bridge beside the road bridge solely for the luas that would come prefabricated?
The support structures along the verges and median could be constructed off peak/at weekends and the bridge sections lifted into place overnight, like they did elsewhere.
Can't be much more expensive than altering the existing bridge.

Muahahaha wrote: »

It will raise the price of houses that are within a short walk of the line by about 15% as it did in Cabra. That itself will bring a type of gentrification. However Finglas south and west seems to be primarily council houses or apartments on HAP. The social problems that exist there now will not disappear with a Luas line being built through the area if the exact same trouble makers are still living there. I would think some people will end up buying there on account of the Luas but that they would quickly end up regretting it when they see the Friday night joyriding, bonfires, open drug dealing and general mayhem.

Sadly you’re not wrong - from my observations, the buses are removed from the St. Helena’s area more often than any other part of the city due to anti-social behaviour.

However, bringing LUAS past there could possibly bring a focus to at the very least attempting to deal with those problems in some shape or form, as if they continue, they will be visible to a much greater number of the population who right now haven’t a clue about them (out of sight, out of mind).

It is fair to say that the Red Line continues to operate despite the very visible social issues at certain points, as indeed does the Green Line past Ballyogan, but yes it will be interesting to say the least to see how this pans out.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?hl=en&mid=1zzQWCz-LcYYncIBUTVAtt_Ojs_7mNOZA&ll=53.395634047675415%2C-6.28634715&z=13

Threw together a quick and dirty map, Dublin Commuter Coalition was talking about why it wasn't linked to the Metrolink, providing a quick hop for most of Finglas/Cabra to get to the Airport, they were looking at running along St Margarets road to Northwood, I thought why not combine the idea of a P+R north of the M50 with a link to Dardistown Station? Anyone see any glaring issues with it outside of the aforementioned bridge over the M50?

paulbok wrote: »

Would it not just be easier to add a second bridge beside the road bridge solely for the luas that would come prefabricated?

It would seem easier that way and looking at Google maps there is a slither of unused land right before the current bridge at the back of the Bord Gais site.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/53%C2%B024'22.8%22N+6%C2%B018'01.8%22W/@53.4063322,-6.3026757,393m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m14!1m7!3m6!1s0x486712013cbf069d:0x861b752f70d220cb!2sSt+Margaret's+Rd,+Northside,+Dublin!3b1!8m2!3d53.4059294!4d-6.2835143!3m5!1s0x0:0x0!7e2!8m2!3d53.4063291!4d-6.3004873

Muahahaha wrote: »

I know a little about this through a mate working in Hueston at the the time and that bridge at Hueston went way over budget and time because it was so old and problematic. They had a specialst team of stonemasons form Donegal working on it for over a year and it was painstaking work. The wages being paid were colossal too, Tiger excesses were the norm.

I dont think it can be compared to modern motorway bridges. Even if it needed an entirely new bridge to hold the weight of two trams simultaneously thats something that could be craned in and slotted together in sections pretty quickly with modern construction methods. Look at the speed they put together the bridge across the N7 at Kerry Group, theres a time lapse video by Sisk on YouTube of it being completed in a single weekend.





It will raise the price of houses that are within a short walk of the line by about 15% as it did in Cabra. That itself will bring a type of gentrification. However Finglas south and west seems to be primarily council houses or apartments on HAP. The social problems that exist there now will not disappear with a Luas line being built through the area if the exact same trouble makers are still living there. I would think some people will end up buying there on account of the Luas but that they would quickly end up regretting it when they see the Friday night joyriding, bonfires, open drug dealing and general mayhem. Its hard to see what to do there, the vast majority are decent people but they have had their area ruined by anti social behaviour.

It should confer slight benefits to the area but is obviously not a panacea.

I wonder what % of housing is council owned in south Finglas along the planned Luas line.

It seems to be the area bounded by Finglas road, Cappagh Road, Ratoath road and Tolka valley road which is most deprived with high anti social behavior. Would this quite large area be mostly council houses?

Yes I know the majority are decent people but I don't envy anyone trying to raise kids there.

cgcsb wrote: »

Seems like trying to do what Dublin bus does, provide meandering radial routes in lou of a reliable orbital service.

Apologies for digressing. But this needs to be countered.

To be fair apart from the 16 around Beaumont, and possibly the 37 along Blackhorse Avenue, there are very few ”meandering” high frequency radial routes left since Network Direct.

It’s another cliche that keeps being trotted out here.

Every QBC has at least one core high frequency route that stays on the QBC.

Serving the estates at the outer end is fine for them as that is where people live.

As the NTA found out from BusConnects, you also do need a network of less frequent routes that continue to link communities and the city, which do take more indirect routes, and the revised network plan reflects that.

To clarify something else, the orbitals didn’t get invested in back in 2010-11 due to funds being withdrawn by government as a result of the recession, but there’s been a sea change in the orbital services since the NTA funded enough buses to improve frequency on most of the existing orbitals. We just need to see more of them (and local routes) per the revised network plan.

riddlinrussell wrote: »

The idea would be more that, in this case it reaches the better park and ride site, and then a max speed section from there to Dardistown would allow for a lot of single transfer journeys to the airport, as opposed to say Luas to Charlestown, bus to Northwood, Metro to Airport. Presumably there is already a bus from Finglas to the Airport though so maybe its moot..

There is one planned to link Charlestown and the Airport under BusConnects (new route 8).

Currently none do. The NTA haven’t been particularly enlightened in terms of extending PSO routes like the 4, 140, 27b for example to the Airport and offer much improved local direct connections with the north city suburbs.

That isn’t helped by the DAA charging all bus operators, including PSO services, to use the Airport. Nuts.

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah AFAIK the 40 service that runs through Finglas South/West suffers a lot from kids pelting it with rocks and services then get withdrawn.

When I lived in the Charlestown area I used to drive down the Tolka Valley Road many Friday nights to go to Ashtown via Cardiffsbridge and River Road. The Tolka Valley road had such frequent problems with joyriding that the council put in these absolutely massive speed bumps placed every 50 or 60 metres along the entire length of the road, I counted one night and iirc there was 15 of them in total. It stopped the joyriding on the main road but it just moved to football pitches and parks instead. You would see bonfires as well, people would bring their weeks rubbish to throw on to it. Mattresses a common sight too and then the council has to clean up all the springs that were left over. That whole area from north of the Tolka Valley, behind Tesco Clearwater and up towards Cappagh suffers badly from anti social behaviour. And going by whats posted on the Gangland thread it is getting worse not better, people are coming from outside the area to buy their drugs there.

Would agree with you that the Luas will bring more attention to the problems in the area and in time hopefully they will be addressed. But I cant see it suddenly happen overnight with the opening of the Luas. That part of Finglas needs a big reset button to be pressed and it requires huge Garda resources to put an end to the anti social behaviour that happens on a regular basis.

Totally agree with everything you’ve written. Google some road names and include the word courts and it tells a lot sadly.

And no it won’t change overnight. But LUAS arriving will make the issues known to a much wider cross-section of the population than those who use the 40 beyond Finglas Road.

A trip on the 40 is eye opening to say the least (at either end!).

orangerhyme wrote: »

It should confer slight benefits to the area but is obviously not a panacea.

I wonder what % of housing is council owned in south Finglas along the planned Luas line.

It seems to be the area bounded by Finglas road, Cappagh Road, Ratoath road and Tolka valley road which is most deprived with high anti social behavior. Would this quite large area be mostly council houses?

Yes I know the majority are decent people but I don't envy anyone trying to raise kids there.

yeah definitely not an overnight pancea. Im not sure what % of the housing is council owned but would be interested to know myself. Certainly to look at them they appear to be all council built from the 50s and 60s. Some tenants would have bought their own houses, others wouldnt so its hard to know.

I do know the houses prices in that particular area are usually the cheapest to be found anywhere in Dublin that is inside the m50 and there are good reasons for that. I had a friend buy off the Cappagh road during the Tiger just out of pure desperation to "get on the ladder" before prices rose even further and she would be locked out of buying in Dublin forever. She had zero connections to the area and didnt do her research. She regretted it within 2 weeks of moving in and then sold it taking a big hit on the loss, she just couldnt live in that environment where you see anti social behaviour on a daily basis and ended up moving back to Co.Meath with her parents for a few years until she got financially back on her feet from the loss that was suffered. .

I've another friend who likes to dabble in the odd property play in 'up and coming areas' and he took full advantage of the Broombridge extension by buying a 3 bed in Cabra a few years before the Luas completion and then flipping it about two years after. He came out of it with almost 60% capital appreciation on his initial investment mainly because he benefitted from the perfect storm of house prices rapidly rising anyway, the Luas opening up and adding value to the area and then the CGT exemption that the government offered on top. His plan is to take advantage again with the extension to Finglas but he will only look at Finglas east rather than west and south. Says that west and south is just too much of a long term risk, he would be depending on the area getting cleaned up to get a good return on investment whereas Finglas east is a much safer punt as it is largely settled and doesnt suffer extent of anti social problems that south and west do.

cgcsb wrote: »

If you live anywhere west of Drumcondra on the northside you have to get a taxi to the airport. There's no practical public transport route.

To be honest that applies for most of the north city suburbs south of the airport either side of the R132.

It’s only the Drumcondra Road / Swords Road (R132), Swords, Malahide & Portmarnock, and Lusk, Rush and Skerries that are served by PSO city buses from the airport.

This LUAS project will help connectivity with the planned route 8 at Charlestown, but there’s a lot more to do.

Muahahaha wrote: »

yeah definitely not an overnight pancea. Im not sure what % of the housing is council owned but would be interested to know myself. Certainly to look at them they appear to be all council built from the 50s and 60s. Some tenants would have bought their own houses, others wouldnt so its hard to know.

I do know the houses prices in that particular area are usually the cheapest to be found anywhere in Dublin that is inside the m50 and there are good reasons for that. I had a friend buy off the Cappagh road during the Tiger just out of pure desperation to "get on the ladder" before prices rose even further and she would be locked out of buying in Dublin forever. She had zero connections to the area and didnt do her research. She regretted it within 2 weeks of moving in and then sold it taking a big hit on the loss, she just couldnt live in that environment where you see anti social behaviour on a daily basis and ended up moving back to Co.Meath with her parents for a few years until she got financially back on her feet from the loss that was suffered. .

I've another friend who likes to dabble in the odd property play in 'up and coming areas' and he took full advantage of the Broombridge extension by buying a 3 bed in Cabra two years before the Luas completion and then flipping it about two years after. He came out of it with almost 60% capital appreciation on his initial investment mainly because he benefitted from the perfect storm of house prices rapidly rising anyway, the Luas opening up and adding value to the area and then the CGT exemption that the government offered on top. His plan is to take advantage again with the extension to Finglas but he will only look at Finglas east rather than west and south. Says that west and south is just too much of a long term risk, he would be depending on the area getting cleaned up to get a good return on investment whereas Finglas east is a much safer punt as it is largely settled and doesnt suffer extent of anti social problems that south and west do.

Nice informed answer, thank you

I think an apartment would be ok to live in but houses are so easy to break into I wouldn't feel safe.

Modern apartments are basically fortresses above ground level with 2 to 3 doors to get past and could have security/concierge in reception.

To swing it slightly back on topic, I can only see residents having an issue with the Luas going through the green at Farnham. This is used by local teams so seems the most likely issue. That and any property that might be impacted.

Other than that, it's hard to see too many objections. Any of the bus routes will cross the link so it's an easy connection for areas that aren't walk able to a Luas stop.

Muahahaha wrote: »

Its long been a bug bear of mine that the 140 doesnt continue on from Ikea and into the airport. That simple 4km extension of the route would open up an airport route all the way from Rathmines through Phibsboro, Glavnevin and Finglas. It would give around 150,000 people a direct route to the airport for the first time . I once emailed Dublin Bus about it, got transferred to the NTA who came up with a non response that 'we're keeping it under review'. Its a shame really that it hasnt been done, such a simple extension would give everyone living along the 140 route a big win.

I contacted a local politician to see about getting a connection between D11 and the airport. This is what the NTA sent back at the end of last year.

"Currently, there are no plans to extend the Route 140 service to the airport and while we plan to introduce 24-hour services on a number of Routes later this year, starting with Route 41, Route 140 has not been selected for this service at this stage. We will consider these requests in future plans and as Dublin Bus works closely with the National Transport Authority (NTA) in relation to our service provision we will discuss your requests with the NTA also.”