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When will the penny drop that we cannot keep building large roads?

monument

It seems the penny isn’t dropping with a lot of people that continuing to build an unsustainable transport system isn’t compatible with acting on climate change — car use alone amounts to ~13% of Ireland’s carbon emissions, then there’s build and maintenance, poor land use etc.

Meanwhile, it's said off-line and on boards.ie etc that anything to do with rail is a white elephant -- it's like an echo of that Sunday Independent article from before the Dart opened calling the Dart a white elephant and saying it would be cheaper to pay for taxis for everybody.

EDITED: I should stress that I think rail is only a part of the sustainable transport mix -- my point about is how jarring it is that people have no problem with laods of dual carriageways to towns start calling rail in city a white elephant.

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cgcsb

Isambard wrote: »

If the rail link is not non-stop, it can't be high speed.

So almost every high speed rail service in the world is not high speed according to you?

cgcsb

Deleted User wrote: »

A regular high speed rail link serving the linking the City of Galway with Dublin City might be of great benefit to the people of Galway City but isn't of much benefit to the remaining 98.5% of the population whose taxes have paid for that link.

A bit like building a motorway to Galway then, no?

Deleted User wrote: »

I suppose this could be mitigated somewhat by stopping at towns along the way but then it ceases to be high speed rail.

Incorrect. It would still be high speed rail. Almost all high speed rail services on the mainland have stops. High-speed in Ireland would be between 200-250kmh, not the 350kmh lines that cross the vast interior of France and Spain.. Lots of scope for 3 or 4 stops on the main intercity routes and still beating all other modes for journey time.

Deleted User wrote: »

Or do we build high speed rail links to every town in the Country over the size of 10,000 people where each km of track costs exactly as much as a km of track on that high speed rail link to Galway.

Cork-Dub-Dub Airport-Belfast and then make improvements to the rest of the rail network and provide good integration with bus services and that'd do grand. Not every town has to be connected directly.

cgcsb

bk wrote: »

If that can be achieved with the existing alignment, without building new greenfield track and for a reasonable cost, I'd be completely supportive of that.

What wrong with some sectionsof Greenfield track. This is how most of the world's modern railways developed, by gradually replacing bad sections.

bk wrote: »

Cringe and then you have lost me again.

You are talking about a line that crosses 5 countries!

Warsaw on one end, Metro population 3m with Helsinki at the other end, population 1.5m, with Riga in the middle, population 1m and a couple of other 500k cities along the way. A line that is considered strategic due to connecting Finland to the EU.

Nope, it crosses 3 countries. The Finland and Poland extensions are 'possible future projects'. building a rail tunnel to Finland is as practical as building one from here to the UK, i.e. not very in the forseeable.

bk wrote: »

And where is the demand for this service? As a Corkonian living in Dublin, I can certainly tell you it isn't there in Cork. Belfast only has a train every two hours and there isn't even enough demand for an air route between Cork, Dublin and Belfast. That is how low demand is.

Demand comes from existing road users. The're increasing frequency on Dub-Cork to every half hour at peak so clearly there is significant demand there. The faster the service, the more demand is generated. The Dub-Belfast service is crap at present, which is why so much demand is displaced to roads. Having a crap service and justifying keeping it crap because it's crap is circular.

bk wrote: »

That is a pretty poor attitude!

By that definition we are a third world country. 1st world = NATO aligned, 2nd world = Soviet aligned, 3rd world - Neutral countries like Ireland, Switzerland, etc.

People from the Baltics hate being called 2nd world, as it reminds them of being trapped behind the iron curtain and the terrible things the soviets did to them. They feel the same way about being called this, as we do about being called British or the British Isles.

As for you throwing shade about these being "poorer countries", you might want to take a trip to them, it would be an eye opener for you.

These are very beautiful countries, with fantastic people, long, fantastic history, absolutely beautiful old historic cities and very quickly developing economies.

Dublin is a kip compared to Vilnius. Beautiful, historic old town and then the new city quarter with actual sky scrapers, unlike us!

In many ways they are far ahead of us, in terms of quality of life, infrastructure, etc. Even if they happen to be behind in terms of GDP and income.

These countries for centuries were part of a very rich and powerful empire that ruled much of Europe for centuries. They basically only got knocked back as a result of the two wars and subsequent 60 years of Soviet meddling.

I wouldn't be getting on my high horse about them being "poor" when we have only gotten sort of "wealthy" over the past 30 years and have non of the history and architecture they have.

Didn't mean to offend you.

1874

Interested in the thread, but have stuff to do so stopped reading a few pages in,

Id be all for rail for commuting, the quality of service people might get is a big thing, IE to run such an enterprise? I would not get out of my car for that, that said, currently my journey would not be possible by train.

I do not think Ireland is suited for freight on trains unless something very specific or regular, the time and extra circumstances encountered using rail freight, freight by road would have the job done, because there is no secondary unloading and delivering at either end, so certain products out, like refrigerated items, which probably accounts for a lot of the bulk delivered by road. what else in Ireland would benefit from delivering by freight? compared to say large capacity articulated vehicles? which can stop almost anywhere.

There isnt the political will to deal with such a thing because of the nature of politics in Ireland, by the time it would be dealt with, a Govt would be out of power even if they were elected twice consecutively, there just isnt enough push by people to push politicians, who barely listen anyway.

While there may be some technical limitations, I dont understand why a rail network cant be expanded alongside the road network, and for light rail, why it cant be under or over the central median.
There does not seem to be any comprehensive plan to integrate different means of transport where you cant get to the start point of your journey as easily, ie small volumes of parking at train stations which could be acceptable if there was an alternative means to get to a train station, a local bus route in high volumes at the hours needed.
Ive come across this before, where people who live near railway stations ahve told me they couldnt get a train because the hours of operation would not be practical compared to their hours of work, thats probably always going to be the case, but an operator like IE isnt interested in managing a service with quality and the best possible useful service in mind.

[Deleted User]

Zebra3 wrote: »

Or try to live such unsustainable lives.

Right on. they should be whipped for even daring to breathe and breed.

Zebra3

the_syco wrote: »

Am talking pre-COVID levels for the below.
The reasons why I hate Irish Rail; tiny carparks & shorter trains.

The car parks in most railway stations are tiny. If not tiny, then they are unsecure.
On the Leixlip line, increasing trains meant that they just decreased the amount of carraiges. This made no sense, but little of what Irish Rail seemed to.

Leilxip train station car park fills up, and then there is no-where for people to park.
Maynooth car park isn't much better. Surrounding estates are used as overflow.
Unsure about Kilcock & Enfields, as the train fare beyond Maynooth were over the top last time I looked, not sure what the demand is like there for parking.
Pretty sure Celbridge trainstation is usually jammed. Can't comment on Adamstown. I'd assume M3 parkway is sufficent, but never parked there during rushhour.

IMO, the best way to get more people out of cars is to increase the availbilty if trainstation car parking spaces outside of Dublin, by building upwards.

Maybe the car park wouldn’t be so full of people didn’t drive their cars such short distances to the train station.

Or try to live such unsustainable lives.

Isambard

monument wrote: »

That's like saying MetroLink is being built to service the airport. Who has said there will be it will be non-stop between the three cities?

Plan for Belfast -- Dublin Airport -- Dublin -- Limerick -- Cork (with other stops) and start with bypassing the northern line to Drogheda and turning the existing line into a dedicated S-Tog-style Dart+ line.... where do you run the line? North of Swords you can run it down the centre of the M1 of you want.

And that reminds me of people saying you cannot do BusConnects because some people will be left with connecting buses... or you cannot do express buses because some people will not be served by the best service anymore.

If the rail link is not non-stop, it can't be high speed. It will be a lower than it could be speed.

If you syphon off passengers to the high speed service, the service levels for the remaining passengers will have to be lower, less demand for them.

[Deleted User]

@monument I’m really confused, what are you actually giving out about? Is it all and any roads that you want an end to or just within cities? It’s very hard to follow your meandering posts.

I see you refused to engage or address the points I raised in my post and instead went with another one of your silly pictures because it didn’t suit your agenda. There is a name for that type of posting which I won’t use

the_syco

Am talking pre-COVID levels for the below.
The reasons why I hate Irish Rail; tiny carparks & shorter trains.

The car parks in most railway stations are tiny. If not tiny, then they are unsecure.
On the Leixlip line, increasing trains meant that they just decreased the amount of carraiges. This made no sense, but little of what Irish Rail seemed to.

Leilxip train station car park fills up, and then there is no-where for people to park.
Maynooth car park isn't much better. Surrounding estates are used as overflow.
Unsure about Kilcock & Enfields, as the train fare beyond Maynooth were over the top last time I looked, not sure what the demand is like there for parking.
Pretty sure Celbridge trainstation is usually jammed. Can't comment on Adamstown. I'd assume M3 parkway is sufficent, but never parked there during rushhour.

IMO, the best way to get more people out of cars is to increase the availbilty if trainstation car parking spaces outside of Dublin, by building upwards.

monument

Deleted User wrote: »

I saw a provocative misleading image. Your comment about Hyperloop I dismissed as facetious as there are no population centres in Ireland capable of generating enough custom to warrant the construction of a Hyperloop.
You might as well have been asking when will we be building a hadron collider.

It was not facetious. But it was a trick question.

The Hyperloop as being 'developed' is a scam. It's amazing that you think that it's a high-capacity system. It's not.

That way it's going the best outcome for Hyperloop is that it'll be a repackaged version of maglev and then the vacuum or near vacuum will be dropped.

Deleted User wrote: »

but you are proposing wasting money on intercity train service at the expense of good quality dual carraigeway and/or motorways which can also be used for public transport and in the case of motorways can be funded efficiently through PPP at minimal or no expense to the taxpayer.

This is a thread about large roads which are obviously intended for connection of population centres.

Your proposals lack substance.

Sorry, but the 1970s roads engineers want your arguments back.

Dual carriageways are being built in Ireland still to housing estates of the M50, to bypass an underused toll road in Limerick, and for people in Galway to think for a while longer that too many people can drive and Galway won't still get clogged up with cars.

monument

Isambard wrote: »

High speed rail Dublin to Cork and Belfast can never happen because it implies non-stop and there simply aren't enough potential passengers for that...

That's like saying MetroLink is being built to service the airport. Who has said there will be it will be non-stop between the three cities?

Plan for Belfast -- Dublin Airport -- Dublin -- Limerick -- Cork (with other stops) and start with bypassing the northern line to Drogheda and turning the existing line into a dedicated S-Tog-style Dart+ line.... where do you run the line? North of Swords you can run it down the centre of the M1 of you want.

Isambard wrote: »

...and too many passengers from intermediate points who will be left with a worse service than they have now.

And that reminds me of people saying you cannot do BusConnects because some people will be left with connecting buses... or you cannot do express buses because some people will not be served by the best service anymore.

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

but you are proposing wasting money on intercity train service at the expense of good quality dual carraigeway and/or motorways which can also be used for public transport and in the case of motorways can be funded efficiently through PPP at minimal or no expense to the taxpayer.

This is a thread about large roads which are obviously intended for connection of population centres.

Your proposals lack substance.

the necessary motor ways are more or less built, cork to limerick will probably be the last big one and tbh that should have been before other schemes really.
good quality dual carriage ways to everywhere in the country isn't going to happen, it's not affordible and we could never afford to maintain them and the justification for them isn't there, single carriage ways replaceing genuinely dangerous roads could be justified where there is the traffic levels.
the inter city rail network we have is very cheap to run and fund and rail projects are generally in the costs of millions rather then billions unless they are massive projects like metro link which is a necessary project itself.
even the dart expansion is essentially a few different projects that come together to form 1 big project.
no good quality dual carriage ways are being shelved at the expense of some mythical wasting money on some mythical inter city line, but certainly if upgrades and additions to the existing network are at the expense of a dual carriage way that most likely isn't needed really if the railway is being prioritized over it, then that is fine.

[Deleted User]

end of the road wrote: »

good quality public transport benefits the country,

but you are proposing wasting money on intercity train service at the expense of good quality dual carraigeway and/or motorways which can also be used for public transport and in the case of motorways can be funded efficiently through PPP at minimal or no expense to the taxpayer.

This is a thread about large roads which are obviously intended for connection of population centres.

Your proposals lack substance.

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

I have to say that you have the predisposition to being quite profligate with other peoples' money.

no i'm simply being sensible with that money, building good quality infrastructure for a growing modern country.
good quality public transport benefits the country, the economy, and the people.
or we can just squander it all on more and more and more space for single occupant cars clogging up everywhere, instead of simply building a good road network and providing alternatives so that those who really need to use it can reap the benefits of that road network and only increasing the space when we actually, really have to.

[Deleted User]

end of the road wrote: »

when you look at everything on that page by RUI, whatever about specific individual project costs, the over all budget for it is quite cheap, even if the monitary number is high.
parts of it have been done anyway, such as new buses, new rolling stock all be it not enough, new rail depots, partial reopening of navan (the lot should have been done) , phase 1 of the western railway corridor, etc.

I have to say that you have the predisposition to being quite profligate with other peoples' money.

[Deleted User]

monument wrote: »

The question was: Will we not all be zooming around by Hyperloop?

Did you get distracted by the meme?

I saw a provocative misleading image. Your comment about Hyperloop I dismissed as facetious as there are no population centres in Ireland capable of generating enough custom to warrant the construction of a Hyperloop.
You might as well have been asking when will we be building a hadron collider.

monument

Deleted User wrote: »

I see a picture of cars in a traffic jam which they could have probably avoided if they had used navigation software with traffic updates.
I see a picture of cars in a traffic jam which was for all i know caused by a collision that would have been avoided if the cars had been fitted with automatic emergency braking which from 2022 is standard on all new vehicles.
I see a picture of cars in a traffic jam which was for all I know caused by a breakdown which is highly unlikely to happen when cars are powered by electric motors.

The question was: Will we not all be zooming around by Hyperloop?

Did you get distracted by the meme?

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

Do you think these optimistic 13 year old calculations from a group who can't be mistaken for anything else but a vested interest group have reduced in the meantime?
http://www.railusers.ie/transport21/costs.php#drp

...and all done without additional taxation and not at the expense of any other necessities.

My criticism of you remains that you proselytize your beliefs and facts are disregarded as inconvenient.

when you look at everything on that page by RUI, whatever about specific individual project costs, the over all budget for it is quite cheap, even if the monitary number is high.
parts of it have been done anyway, such as new buses, new rolling stock all be it not enough, new rail depots, partial reopening of navan (the lot should have been done) , phase 1 of the western railway corridor, etc.

[Deleted User]

I see a picture of cars in a traffic jam which they could have probably avoided if they had used navigation software with traffic updates.
I see a picture of cars in a traffic jam which was for all i know caused by a collision that would have been avoided if the cars had been fitted with automatic emergency braking which from 2022 is standard on all new vehicles.
I see a picture of cars in a traffic jam which was for all I know caused by a breakdown which is highly unlikely to happen when cars are powered by electric motors.

monument

Mayo_fan wrote: »

The next generation of Electric vehicles(cars and buses and even scooters) kills most of your arguments. Autonomous vehicles will make great and efficient use of these roads you object to and will be super safe.

So look at it that we are planning ahead and building the infrastructure for these green machines which aren’t far away. The heavy slow and inflexible train could again begin to become a dinosaur. If you want to go from Tralee to Dublin, don’t mind your 200kph train that departs from a station 100ks away, jump into your autonomous car set your destination, relax and using decent roads you get direct to your destination refreshed.

Will we not all be zooming around by Hyperloop?

[Deleted User]

end of the road wrote: »

rail in the great scheme of infrastructure is actually quite cheap, so no need for higher taxes.
forget about true high speed rail, it ain't happening.

Do you think these optimistic 13 year old calculations from a group who can't be mistaken for anything else but a vested interest group have reduced in the meantime?
http://www.railusers.ie/transport21/costs.php#drp

...and all done without additional taxation and not at the expense of any other necessities.

My criticism of you remains that you proselytize your beliefs and facts are disregarded as inconvenient.

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

OK. what credible funding model have you got for High Speed Rail or any Rail solution for that matter other than higher taxes.

rail in the great scheme of infrastructure is actually quite cheap, so no need for higher taxes.
forget about true high speed rail, it ain't happening.

GT89

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Impressive public transport is the only way to reduce car usage.

Irelands public transport is shockingly bad, but thats because of our population.

People expect a country of 4.5 million to be able to provide good pubic transport and for those companies to still turn a profit. Its not going to happen.

The government need to accept that they need to improve transport links. Rail, Bus, Trams, even metro systems in places like dublin and also accept that its a loss making venture and not expect it to be profitable.

Its 2.5 hours from Galway to Dublin by train. Its 2-2.5 hours by car (while obeying the speed limits). I know which choice id make and that would be by car.

I don't think it is that awful. For example I think Dublin Bus for example has improved dramatically over the last 10 years. I can't think of many city bus operations in Europe that provide WiFi and USB ports for passengers on standard services.

I actually think public transport in Dublin is quite good I don't have a problem with it. I'm never waiting more than 15 mins for a bus on the route that serves which I think is quite good. I do agree that there is a lack of rail infrastructure in Dublin a Metro would be great. Outside Dublin I would agree that public transport is fairly piss poor.

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

A regular high speed rail link serving the linking the City of Galway with Dublin City might be of great benefit to the people of Galway City but isn't of much benefit to the remaining 98.5% of the population whose taxes have paid for that link. I suppose this could be mitigated somewhat by stopping at towns along the way but then it ceases to be high speed rail.
Or do we build high speed rail links to every town in the Country over the size of 10,000 people where each km of track costs exactly as much as a km of track on that high speed rail link to Galway.

that's no different to anything anywhere, a new hospital in cork for example would be no good to someone in cavan even though they have helped to pay for it.
once my tax is contributed to the pot, i know it will go to services in other parts of the country that i won't benefit from, that is just life.
true high speed rail isn't going to happen in ireland so it's irrelevant
.

[Deleted User]

end of the road wrote: »

no, i just happen to believe that what the poster stated is possibly correct.

OK. what credible funding model have you got for High Speed Rail or any Rail solution for that matter other than higher taxes.

end of the road

Deleted User wrote: »

EOTR, you've just thanked the last post. Does that mean that you acknowledge the benefits of a funding model which takes the burden off the state for provision of infrastructure; a model which wouldn't be so easily implementable for rail especially as privatisation of rail elsewhere has been so unsuccessful.

no, i just happen to believe that what the poster stated is possibly correct.

[Deleted User]

A regular high speed rail link serving the linking the City of Galway with Dublin City might be of great benefit to the people of Galway City but isn't of much benefit to the remaining 98.5% of the population whose taxes have paid for that link. I suppose this could be mitigated somewhat by stopping at towns along the way but then it ceases to be high speed rail.
Or do we build high speed rail links to every town in the Country over the size of 10,000 people where each km of track costs exactly as much as a km of track on that high speed rail link to Galway.

[Deleted User]

EOTR, you've just thanked the last post. Does that mean that you acknowledge the benefits of a funding model which takes the burden off the state for provision of infrastructure; a model which wouldn't be so easily implementable for rail especially as privatisation of rail elsewhere has been so unsuccessful.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Motorway surface once laid to standards with adequate drainage and in mild climates such as one experiences in Ireland need to be resurfaced every 25 or more years. the operators of PPP schemes in Ireland based their projections on not needing to renew road surfaces before the projects were handed back to the state.

I think they actually have to put a new surface down just before handing back so effectively we won't need to surface a motorway for the first 50 years

[Deleted User]

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Its 2.5 hours from Galway to Dublin by train. Its 2-2.5 hours by car (while obeying the speed limits). I know which choice id make and that would be by car.

I'd actually take Express Coach on those accursed Motorways which EOTR dislikes so much in preference to Train as it is less expensive, more reliable and a generally more pleasurable experience than the Train.
EOTR neglects to mention that once good motorways become available then Coach services become viable and undermine the customer base for Train services.