DART+ (DART Expansion)

So the example given does not count as it is well resoruced? The poster provided a clear example if what can be achieved.

The issue is simply ambition and political will. Nothing more, nothing less. It is classic Irish attitude of low expectations.

I had a row with a friend who said "Dublin is too small for a metro", ignoring the examples of other cities I gave him.

Another said that driverless cars would mean there would be no need for a metro. I explained that these cars would be the same size as existing cars but no luck

If Dublin had its own mayor with local taxes and a local budget we would have a chance.

Oh don't get me wrong it can be done, and indeed should be done. I just doubt the likelihood of it happening. Paris is a mega city so plans of this scale are more likely to happen. Also there's a cultural gap, if the French government decides to cancel an investment in a particular area, the people only take minutes to correct their government, they will simply down tools get out and burn stuff until the government remembers that it is a servant of the people. In Ireland government can withhold services and infrastructure and Irish people will, at most, write a few shitposts on social media that only like minded people can see.

The Irish Times mentions that construction work is expected to finish in November, with it opening in December. This makes sense as that will be around the yearly change of timetables.

As I saw on twitter (can't find the tweet), Pelletstown opening before the timetables changed caused issues with punctuality and running times as a result!

So the Dart+ website says that capacity on Maynooth line will be increased from 2025 onwards ...is that timetable still valid?

I presume the initial capacity increase will come from new/extended rolling stock rather improvements to the infrastructure which would come later.

A little bit down the page there's a few bullet points, one of which says:

"The project will see:

• Increase train capacity from the current 6 trains per hour per direction up to 12 trains per hour per direction subject to demand. Passenger capacity will increase from 5,000 in 2019 to 13,200 passengers in 2025."

I guess it's not a promised delivery date if you remove all reference to it after announcing it.

I don't know what the proposed inland route that has supposedly been examined and rejected actually is (is it even set out in the pay-walled Business Post article?). I don't imagine that the inland route could be just the other side of Bray Head - the required incline would seem prohibitive to get a rail line from south of Bray Station up to the level of Newcourt Road and follow around the contour south from there (it would never go near the Bray Golf Club lands which are all higher again). An earlier inland turn south of Bray Station would be impossible without ploughing a massive cutting through the heart of the town.

The only options I could see working would be just heading dead straight south of Bray Station and tunnelling the whole way under Bray Head to pop out more or less beside the current southernmost tunnel and rejoin the existing alignment on the north approach to Greystones. Such tunnels are perfectly feasible from an engineering perspective but €€€€€!

A more radical approach would be to turn inland north of Bray station, abandoning it, and pick a route along the the Dargle valley which would give you a more feasible climb to skirt around the bulk of the town and then head south through the Kilruddery estate between Bray head and Little Sugarloaf. You probably still need a tunnel, albeit shorter, through the high ground in the Windgates area to again rejoin the existing line north of Greystones. The replacement station could perhaps be placed on the undeveloped section of the old golf club lands and you could also put in a second station serving the south end of Bray (which would be a bonus benefit, the current Bray station is not optimally placed to serve most residential areas in the town). But again, €€€€€.

It does all seem like kicking the can down the road. Serving the transport demand from south of Bray to Dublin is a growing headache. The idea of building essentially a second dual carriage way route between the M11/M50 merge and Kilpedder/Newtownmountkennedy has been proposed and subsequently rejected in favour of improving public transport links (which is correct imo) but then you've got to build up significant additional capacity somehow.

Well the NTA are talking about using some of the new BEMU (battery electric multiple units) trains that are on order to potentially operate to/from Wicklow, and they would be extensions of existing Greystones DART services.

the "passing loop" basically involves doubling from Greystones station to the first tunnel, which would allow 3 trains per hour in each direction (currently max 2 per hour). It's expected to be part of Dart+ but that part of the plan hasn't even gone to consultation yet.

As mentioned above, if you want to double the whole line, a tunnel under Bray Head is the only practical (if expensive) option - there's far too many houses etc in the way going inland, it would be difficult to connect to Bray and Greystones stations and you'd probably have to build a tunnel anyway at Windgates.

Would double-tracking from Bray station south to around where the cliff walk begins help further with additional paths? Could provide a new station too at Putland Road.

I often wondered was the lack of commitment to any major infrastructural improvements south of Bray was more to do with the constraints further north along the line rather than the cost of any project. Given the population growth in the towns along the east coast of Wicklow and Wexford I think a good reliable and quick service would be well received. Which could cause management further headaches with capacity issues.

Always thought Clontarf Golf Club was a good place for a portal to join the line into Connolly (in theory anyway). But private interests usually block these ideas. Look at the GAA club on the northside which forced the metro to move. The state is too weak to do anything about private self interest. They barely faced down a swimming pool at Tara ffs.

In Spain when there's a major public project the local municipality contacts directly impacted parties only, e.g. People who own or rent the property that will be taken.

Anyone else can look up up coming projects in their area on a public works website if they're interested. If they don't keep tabs on the website they find out when the diggers turn up. There are no non statutory public consultations or media campaigns. They deliver public works for about 60% of what we pay in Ireland. Spain also has rampant corruption but vastly superior infrastructure in most of the country, perhaps with the exception of remote islands, so maybe its a trade off do we want good public scrutiny or fast cheap projects. Perhaps we can meet in the middle somewhere.

Yes of course. Labour costs a little over half what it costs in Ireland. Their construction industry is well stocked and there's a lot of youth unemployment. Materials are only slightly cheaper though. Their lack of endless public consultation saves a lot of hidden costs, the more up drag a project our, the more it costs generally. They don't drag things out, in Ireland we drag the arse out of things with governance and consultation.

Let's not pretend that we don't have experience. We have built a national motorway network, the luas and T2 in the last couple of decades ...what more experience do we need?

One small positive is that Clonsilla-Maynooth was twin tracked in 2001.

The whole country should have a continuous programme of level crossings and bridge heightening with a goal of say 10 crossings and 10 bridges a year. DART+ will eliminate all the remaining crossings in County Dublin and there's a separate project to closes the last few on the Dublin to Cork line. So the remaining focus should be the bridges on the Cork Commuter Rail and the Dublin to Galway Line. There should also be continuous double tracking, at least 50km a year until we have double track to all the cities free of level crossings and low bridges. The electrification projects can then just plough through