They won't be getting a feckin' taxi to do so though, that's a ludicrous scenario, betrays a real "let them eat cake" mindset.
Looks like Jim is getting slated on socials as a contrarian even by the general public, not just rail buffs.
I disagree considering McDowell was one of the main people behind the scrapping of the entire greenline metro.
The end point at Charlemont is already a luas station so its busy already, the only people who will use it are those disembarking at charlemont or transferring to the luas, I seriously doubt it will ever be busier than any of the main city centre stops. Also if McDowell hadn't helped in scuppering the entire greenline expansion then the terminus would have been in Sandyford as originally intended and this wouldn't be an issue.
Is this a parody?
Remove through-running infrastructure which brings commuters into the core and reinstate a bunch of useless 19th century TERMINAL stations on the periphery of the centre?
This is about the exact opposite of how the best rail commuter systems in the world have developed over the last century - principally by the elimination of terminal commuter stations anywhere near the centre and adding infrastructure to allow through-running.
Well McDowell certainly wouldn't be given it would probably mean knocking down his Ranelagh house.
Would Jim be happy if it was extended to sandyford instead? Move the terminus sure, problem solved
He's a Senator! I am genuflecting as I type this.
While I do not agree with mcDowell and o’Callaghan, I think their argument is that the end points of metro lines tend to be busy. Because it will be so successful people from north of swords will travel to swords to use it. Their logic is people from south of Charlemont will use it and that the area there isn’t appropriate.
in a way it’s an endorsement of how much demand there is for good PT.
Agree, but let's not forget: Boston has a metro.
(Surprisingly, the first underground service in Boston opened 5 years before the first Berlin U-Bahn service...)
I think the real stumbling blocks seem to be the OPW re: SSG and the Trinity objections, if theres anything that will slow this down its these.
I think posters are getting a bit too exercised over a small number of I'll informed objections that will not amount to anything in the decision making process. It might take a long time for the bord to get through all the minute detail before approving but rest assured, the crap about taxi ranks won't even feature in the analysis. These kind of objections are only considered for moments and then dumped. There are much more complex observations on a project like this
Sorry thought it had been obvious
The man under whose watch as Justice minister saw the poison of Heroin spread to every village and town in the land !
Jim O'Callaghan is a disgrace. Honestly I can never see the thing being built.
Personally I would be in favour if the metro extended east from estuary to the Dub-Bel line so southbound passengers can change and access Swords and the airport.
No surprise at all that someone of the "closer to Boston than Berlin" school of American-worshipping ex-PDs would object to even the beginnings of public transport use in Ireland. If you left it up to that sort of mindset we'd all be driving ten miles over and back to an out-of-town retail outlet to do all of our shopping, never leaving our house (only plebs live in apartments) without taking the car for a spin. Long-term planning be damned, pedestrians and cyclists are clearly pinkos in disguise.
Clearly a very spiteful man, politically speaking at least.
120k people in Swords?!
Hehe apologies, given the context of the thread I missed this.
Hmmmm. Methinks your sarcasm detector has failed. Though understandable as salmocabs tongue-in-cheek comment is sadly representative of how a good percentage of people view this project.
You should tell the 120,000 people in Swords that, in fact, their city does not exist.
Try reading the funding documentation behind the project before assuming you know better than chartered civil engineers.
I think we are finished with the crayons and everybody designing their own version of public transport in Dublin. What we have now is the result of years of planning by professionals of connecting our existing infrastructure, connecting to the airport and future possibility of upgrading the south luas green line to sandyford .
we can’t go back to the drawing board . It’s about standing upto vested interests and getting this built.
interestingly Ivan yates on his podcast said last week talking to current politicians in fg at John Brutons funneral said the talk is that there will be an election called for October / November. With this time frame would there be enough time to get permission granted and approved by govt. probably not and that’s the greatest danger I believe
.
It's worth pointing out that McDowell represents one of Ireland's two remaining rotten boroughs. He was very unceremoniously dumped as a Public Representative in 2007 when the electorate of Dublin South-East gave him his marching orders.
He was the first sitting Tánaiste to lose his seat, and his subsequent departure from politics makes him the "shortest-serving political-party leader in the history of the State". He stated that his time as a public representative was over. (quoted from his Wikipedia entry)
His departure was all the more ignominious given that he lost out to John Gormley.
How McDowell is given a platform in the Irish Times to pontificate about rail utterly beats me.
Charlemont place is a perfectly adequate and well used taxi set down point serving a number of hotels, large businesses and the Luas stop. I have used it on many occasions over the years. And with further redesign could comfortably hold a taxi rank as well, if that's a genuine concern.
If their misunderstanding is genuine, I suspect it's because they think terminus is synonymous with a park and ride, and that therefore there is no room in Charlemot for a park and ride.
If the misunderstanding is not genuine, I suspect it's aimed at people who wont be using the underground anyway, but who do rely on taxis, so a headline with "MetroLink will result in less taxis" will help garner people into the anti-Metro Group.
For the elected representatives making a show of themselves today (as expected), maybe an email advising them of the important points to Metrolink should be emailed.
Michael McDowell https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Michael-McDowell.D.1987-03-10/
Jim O'Callaghan https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Jim-O'Callaghan.D.2016-10-03/
What? Theres plans for multiple stops all along the route and beyond to swords
This whole thing is a running joke. I’m actually sick of hearing about it. Any line that does eventually get built will be a watered down waste compared to what could’ve been and what should’ve happened.
The intelligent plan would have been:
Of course that would make too much sense, so we are where we are now.
It’s well known that this is purely an airport link and nothing else.
Are they under the mistaken understanding that the terminus is the only other station on the route and it just goes from charlemont to the airport?
All we can hope is that the aBp planners listen to the experts and not the negative opinions of the objectors.
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