Dublin Metrolink - future routes for next Metrolink

So Tallaght gets a second rail line so.

This is just imagined by you with a hypothetical Metro line.

Sandyford is exploding in population along with Cherrywood.

Both Sandyford and Tallaght have very good claims for another line.

There's no difference between Tallaght and Sandyford in terms of development potential and potential to feed in passengers from surrounding areas. Tallaght has Saggart, Citywest, Rathcoole, Firehouse, Woodstown. It also has Ballymount between Tallaght and the city. Sandyford doesn't have a Ballymount equivalent.

It currently takes 40minutes from Tallaght to Abbey, versus 23minutes from Sandyford to Westmoreland. The Red line is vastly inferior to the Green Line and needs a new alignment for an upgrade.

There should be a new line to Tallaght and a GL upgrade.

Your forgetting that sandyford also has one of the best functioning QBCs in the country along the N11 into the city centre as well as the GL.

From sandyford LUAS stop to Blackrock dart station is only 3km away, but you have to cross the aforementioned N11 QBC 900m into your journey to get there.

That’s not Sandyford.

The “I don’t care where” but constantly dismissing Sandyford is gas.

Just checked, 3.3km as the crow flies. So yeah, still closer than I realised.

Yes, and it proves your points, I'm thinking from years of driving on n11, I never really considered that they were physically that close. Anyway, I'm off topic and dragging it further, apologies.

What’s the practice elsewhere regards say the SW line where the population density might not make a great case for a metro, there are plenty of areas that might be outside of the practical distance from a stop for using it but would still be better off if say a small regular shuttle was serving it. I’m thinking of place like mount prospect? that are a bit up the mountains but not far from the main road albeit might be too much of a stroll down and particularly back from the stop.

not sure of the name of the estates but there are a good few south of the suggested line near Rathfarnham/knocklyon/Firhouse and I’m sure some north of it would be better doing the short hop to a metro than battling through traffic on the bus.

do other well run places do much of this or is it not worth the hassle?

I agree, a lot of our Bus routes are running v close/beyond capacity at rush hour. We really shouldn't be normalising folk standing for long periods on the bus during their commute into town, and this is largely a capacity issue. For me personally for where I am living, the 14/15 are my main artery into town, however at peak they are likely half of the frequency that is needed on that corridor. That is something that simply never will be met given the current bus situation, especially given the delay surrounding upgrading that spine with BusConnects.

If we had a Luas line on say the N11, It would largely make the E spine redundant, depending on where the Luas terminated, freeing up 15 drivers *every hour* which are needed to be leaving their terminuses to make sure it runs at capacity, given that it would largely be duplicating the Luas + Metrolink.

There are similarly extremely wide roads which are ripe for Luasanna that are ripe for conversion and could be done relatively cheaply. The issue with the south west is there isn't really many corridors like that that won't be completely removing cars from the road entirely.

Could instead of turning up towards Charlemont, continue down Adelaide Rd to Leeson St and turn down into Donnybrook. From there it could terminate at UCD or, more radically maybe, follow the old alignment of what would've been the Eastern Bypass through south of UCD and link in with Sandyford.

It could also continue down into Dun Laoghaire or Bray, there are a lot of denser communities down there. Benefit of how wide the N11 is is you have those options to link in these communities and (relatively) cheaply.

I’m not sure how many but the 48/48A was cut.

BAC estimated they lost 6 million passengers but I suspect it was more in real terms as the population was exploding.