Luas Finglas

Also there'll be fewer people switching at Broombridge once the connection with Metro is built at Glasnevin

Fantastic news. Has properly pissed off the NIMBYs which is the cherry on top.

densification wrote: »

Interesting to see Nimbys decry lack of transport when it will be right next to Finglas Luas (Green Line) and is on loads of BusConnects routes including F1 which will bypass Finglas village like the 140 does today giving an almost express route (at least by a Dublin bus standard). Also will be a short bus ride or cycle from Ballymun metro station.

They will have ignored the reality of the proposal as usual. On the Journal they're trotting out the "the traffic is bad enough already" and "there's no infrastructure for these people" lines. Meanwhile on the next article, decrying the lack of affordable housing...

Anything to protect the status quo of higher prices for me and lower prices for other people.... somewhere else.

donvito99 wrote: »

Anything to protect the status quo of higher prices for me and lower prices for other people.... somewhere else.

I’m not sure many of them are concerned about house prices at all. They fear change, they fear that new people will change their neighbourhood, they fear extra traffic. A lot of it comes from listening to politicians and activists who tell them how bad it will be if anything gets built near them. A cranky neighbour of mine just straight up hates apartments. No reason really, they’re just horrible places.

There’s no fixing these people. They need to be ignored in the interests of the greater good. We live in a republican democracy, we can do that, our elected representatives just need the balls.

densification wrote: »

Do they realise that Building high density housing massively strengthens the case for infrastructure? Between the charlestown car park and this industrial estate there’ll be an extra 2700 households on the line.

They also used the “schools are full” line when there’ll be a school built on this site ...

To be fair, our history with this is really poor. It’s not even that we built infrastructure after the houses are built - we have a history of building it many years later or not at all. There is a shortage of school spaces in several parts of Dublin, it’s been that way for years and the increased supply is only slowly coming now. Our history of transport infrastructure building is even worse. I can totally understand peoples scepticism when it comes to this.

Anyone know where the site is that they now intend for the Luas terminus. Says it is not in front of Charlestwon shopping centre but somewhere to the east of it but also inside the m50.

I still think they are making a mistake not putting it outside the M50 and beside the M2 with a park and ride. I was in Charlestown last week and traffic is as bad as ever. Whats worse they have reduced the traffic light sequencing drastically on the road to get from the shopping centre to turn right to the M50/M2 junction. It used to allow about 12-15 cars out, now it is 4 or 5 at best. Was stuck there in a jam for almost 12 minutes just to get through one set of lights. It would have been quicker to turn left and go all the way down to the roundabout at Lidl and back up the road again, which I'll do in future. So when the Luas does come to Charlestown no-one on the M2 corridor commuting into Dublin is going to use it because the traffic to get in and out of there is just too heavy, you would waste a chunk of time sitting in it to then transfer to a Luas and the same on the way home.

I think it will be a wasted opportunity by not locating it outside the M50, it will limit passengers to those who live in the area only rather than take city bound cars off the road. If there is ever a congestion charge to get into the city there needs to be viable park and ride alternatives. Whereas with this you would either pay the congestion charge and keep driving or not pay it and end up sitting in traffic congestion in Charlestown, it would become a running joke.

Yeah but Ashbourne is a growing town plus there is a ton of land between there and Finglas which has good motorway and airport connectivity and will have housing on it eventually. A park and ride outside the M50 would at least be future proofing it as an alternative to cars going into the city centre.

Will be interesting to see where they now put the terminus if its not going outside the front of Charlestown SC as per the previous plan. If the line lurches to the east of there then the opportunity for P&R outside the M50 and next to the M2 is essentiallly gone unless they later created a spur heading off to it.

ah right then I suppose that will just be a terminus with a platform, two tracks and little else. Presumably there is already enough storage for any extra trams at the Broombridge site so they dont need a big amount of space for the Finglas terminus.

Muahahaha wrote: »

Anyone know where the site is that they now intend for the Luas terminus. Says it is not in front of Charlestwon shopping centre but somewhere to the east of it but also inside the m50.

I still think they are making a mistake not putting it outside the M50 and beside the M2 with a park and ride. I was in Charlestown last week and traffic is as bad as ever. Whats worse they have reduced the traffic light sequencing drastically on the road to get from the shopping centre to turn right to the M50/M2 junction. It used to allow about 12-15 cars out, now it is 4 or 5 at best. Was stuck there in a jam for almost 12 minutes just to get through one set of lights. It would have been quicker to turn left and go all the way down to the roundabout at Lidl and back up the road again, which I'll do in future. So when the Luas does come to Charlestown no-one on the M2 corridor commuting into Dublin is going to use it because the traffic to get in and out of there is just too heavy, you would waste a chunk of time sitting in it to then transfer to a Luas and the same on the way home.

I think it will be a wasted opportunity by not locating it outside the M50, it will limit passengers to those who live in the area only rather than take city bound cars off the road. If there is ever a congestion charge to get into the city there needs to be viable park and ride alternatives. Whereas with this you would either pay the congestion charge and keep driving or not pay it and end up sitting in traffic congestion in Charlestown, it would become a running joke.

Truth is P&R is a bit of a sop to the car industry. Existing P&R stops have typically much lower usage than normal stops. This isn't unique to Dublin either, that's generally how it is across Europe. P&R was to be the USA's solution to all congestion woes but in reality once you are I your car, not much can get you out and building these sites tends to promote unsustainable commuting and development.

In reality more people will walk and cycle to this stop than drive to it.

cgcsb wrote: »

Truth is P&R is a bit of a sop to the car industry. Existing P&R stops have typically much lower usage than normal stops. This isn't unique to Dublin either, that's generally how it is across Europe. P&R was to be the USA's solution to all congestion woes but in reality once you are I your car, not much can get you out and building these sites tends to promote unsustainable commuting and development.

In reality more people will walk and cycle to this stop than drive to it.

+1

TfL have a policy of rejecting any calls for new P&R sites. They take up enormous amounts of land, generate traffic jams on local/access roads in the mornings and internal traffic jams in the evenings and usually drivers have to pay twice, once for the parking and a second time for the transport. This is fine in London because the alternative means paying the congestion charge (or whatever it's called today). Lastly and maybe most importantly, they're usually completely empty in the evening and at weekends, compounding the waste of space.

This is worth reading: http://content.tfl.gov.uk/car-park-usage-at-london-underground-report.pdf

Sam Russell wrote: »

That is an average of 10 km/hr. Is that how slow the Luas is?

A bike can do 5 km in 15 mins.

Bikes have a tremendous advantage in usually only having one passenger who gets on and stays on for the duration on the journey.

cgcsb wrote: »

Truth is P&R is a bit of a sop to the car industry. Existing P&R stops have typically much lower usage than normal stops. This isn't unique to Dublin either, that's generally how it is across Europe. P&R was to be the USA's solution to all congestion woes but in reality once you are I your car, not much can get you out and building these sites tends to promote unsustainable commuting and development.

In reality more people will walk and cycle to this stop than drive to it.

I agree with everything you said, have passed the M3 park and ride a few times and the place is like a ghost town.

But I would have thought that in order to have less cars going into the city centre a carrot and stick approach is needed with P&R and a congestion charge inside the canals. People in cars have shown a remarkable ability to sit in slow moving traffic so the sheer congestion isnt making them consider alternatives.

Maybe there will never be a congestion charge in future but without one its hard to see how people are going to be incentivised to not drive into or through the city centre. We could have BusConnects, Metro, etc fully built out but many people will still insist on driving. If there were to be a congestion charge to solve that then there would have to be alternatives to help people avoid it, especially those coming from commuter towns further out.

MJohnston wrote: »

Am I correct in saying a Luas from Charlestown would only be able to turn back north at Dominick and SSG?

As of now. There's a suggestion of a turnback at Charlemont in the medium term.

Running on to Sandyford or Brides Glen will happen too I'm sure

Muahahaha wrote: »

Yeah I think I heard on The Week in Politics a few weeks back that the Dept of the Environment are considering making public transport free on the basis that doing so would work out cheaper to the state than paying the forthcoming fines to the EU for excess carbon emissions. Im not sure if it will go ahead but it is under consideration.

The cynic in me though thinks even if PT were free you would still have people driving into the city who could have taken the free PT option. There does seem to be a level of snobishness from some people when it comes to PT.

Most models will show you in cities like Dublin that the commuter is quite price insensitive when it comes to public transport fares.

Setting the fare to 0 typically results in reducing the number of people walking and cycling rather than attracting car users. If you can afford your own car bus fare isn't an issue, you drive because you have a car and somewhere to park for free or cheap.

A tax on parking spaces that makes them more expensive tobuse than the bus would yield a better result. Making pt free only attracts car users taking leisure and family trips.

Melanchthon wrote: »

I am saying though that even at non peak times I don't think in reality the Luas is that fast through the city center. Think about it, you've got O'connel street stop, bridge over, d'oleir street possibly hit lights there, Trinity stop, Dawson street stop, then Stephens green.

They are doing that in 6 minutes during non peak times. I am skeptical as all hell. Also focussing on non peak times is strange, its peak because it's shifting the majority of people then, unlike cars public transport shouldn't slow during peak times.

In terms of capacity it doesn't matter about the trams going onwards, the system at peak is already basically at capacity on the many trams between say Talbot Street to Central park, that's without the extensions and very large amounts of people moving into high density developments close to Luas stops.

If the answer is that it will stay at current levels due to working from home then why are these expensive places being built and densification being advocated with the key appeal of public transport to place of employment. It doesn't add up.

First of all the journey times quoted of 6 mins between Marlborough/O'Connell (GPO) and St Stephen's Green are from the actual LUAS timetables that are on the NTA Journey Planner website. At peak they have 9 minutes.

When talking about capacity lets take it step by step:

1) The track through the city centre is at/near capacity in terms of tram frequency, that is correct. However, existing services that start/terminate at Parnell would be extended to start/terminate at Broombridge, and those currently starting/terminating at Broombridge would start/terminate at Finglas. Therefore you are not putting any additional trams on the line south of Parnell. That will need more trams to deliver of course.

2) When talking about the space on the trams themselves, trams heading south from Marlborough stop in the am peak are nowhere near full, and that was before they were all lengthened (they are now 55m long v 43m long) - the problems were all in the opposite direction. Similarly in the evening peak, the issues were heading south from the city, not north.

3) I certainly don't think that the majority of users from a Finglas extension will be going beyond St. Stephen's Green, so while it will of course see more users, it won't be to the extent you are implying.

Sam Russell wrote: »

They could increase the Luas capacity by giving it absolute priority such that it is not held at lights. It takes longer for a Luas tram to cross O'Connell St if it has to stop at the edge of it, so make sure it does not stop.

I was on a tram pre-covid at Benburb St waiting to cross to Heuston for at least 5 mins waiting for the light to go ahead. The same happens waiting to cross O'C St. With that sort of delay, no wonder they are slow in the city centre.

To get motorists out of cars, it is necessary to tackle parking - both in terms of cost and enforcement (lifting offending cars to the pound) - then reduce the number of spaces gradually over a few years - street by street - a few spaces at a time.

Cheap PT fares would help.

A five minute wait at Benburb Street is not normal.

O’Connell Street is complex as you have two tram lines crossing one another and a significant number of high frequency bus routes. When they did give Red Line trams priority there before, it caused mayhem, and I don’t see that happening again. Realistically it is a location where they have to follow the light cycles.

Sam Russell wrote: »

The trams could wait at Jervis or Abbey for a short while and both trams cross non-stop over O'C St, actually synchronising even, shortening their time crossing. It takes the same time, or less if they do not stop, for trams to cross no matter what, but many buses can cross the tram line together. Trams wait a minute or two at O'C St. - that is a minute or two on every journey.

Sam, Red Line trams already cross O'Connell Street together as it is, most of the time.

You really cannot look at that junction in isolation - you have to look at the impact of not synchronising with the lights either side of O'Connell Bridge as well by not following the light cycle, particularly given the short distance from Bachelor's Walk to Abbey Street.

It is rather more complex than you seem to think.