well I think your never gonna change the NIMBY culture tbh. They just have to be taken out of the equation.
Metrolink will be 18.8km with 16 stations.
An extension to metro line 14 opened this month in Paris.
Cost: €2.8 billion (€178M per km) (no cost overrun)
Given that stations are expensive, we should be able to do it for 5bn - 6bn?
Construction started in 2014, was delayed by COVID and water table issues, and opened this year.
If you add inflation of 3% to 6% per year, you get to the same cost estimate of Dublin's MetroLink (7 to 12B).
How long was it in planning?
Of course. Should have said a glut of senior planners moved.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing, it makes sense for jobs to open in councils and that to be a career route for people. The problem is that when it all happens at once instead of in a consistent, controlled way. It's a huge problem when you have long hiring freezes, I think they are almost always a terrible idea. But politics aside, it takes a long time to "recover" from them - it is just not something you can do overnight and that is the position we find ourselves in at the moment.
Ultimately the entire planning system is clearly not fit for purpose and well-intentioned laws and regulations are merely abused by nimbys to over-litigate every single tiny development. It is not sustainable.
agreed, the whole planning system needs to be torn down and replaced with a simplified continental approach. We now have judges with no education in planning and a lot of ego basically making planning decisions in contravention of policy and in contravention of the planning boards decision.
We don't.
We have judges making decisions about whether the actions of ABP, or any other government body, complied with Irish law. That's what a judicial review is, it's very limited in scope, and it can only be the job of the judiciary - I'd rather not have the government deciding on whether or not the government is acting lawfully.
More resources for ABP to prevent mistakes, and the proposed small changes to the planning laws are all that's needed. Like all process improvements, it will take time to see things getting better: you can't magically step up capacity in any organisation overnight.
We cannot adopt a "continental approach". First, because there is no such thing : each European country had its own procedures; and second, even if there were one model, those countries operate under a different, and incompatible, legal system to ours.
The planning process worked fine in the 2000s when we had money to properly fund ABP, our delays now are a result of the cubacks in the 2010s.
Great to see some positive news such as this.
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/chief-executive-of-new-zealands-largest-transport-project-resigns-to-lead-dublins-metrolink/a1871446186.html
Unfortunately I don't think it's as simple as "hire some more people to prevent mistakes". We have a growing culture of NIMBYism, supported by a legal system who make a tonne of money objecting to anything and everything. It wasn't like this in the 2000s.
It's not so simple as ABP preventing mistakes - not when others are spending huge resources to find "mistakes" or oversights, or decisions that failed to consider section 435, clause 205, subsection 17.22c, or some obscure reference to an endangered moth no one has ever heard of.
A lot of that stems from the governments decisions to put strict time limits on SHD applications, placing no limits on the number of SHD applications that could be made and not giving extra funding to grow AbP to handle all the extra work. It was inevitable that mistakes would be made and a cottage industry would spring up to find and exploit those mistakes in judicial reviews. It was almost a no brainier to commit money to a JR because you were almost guaranteed to get it back when you win.
Hopefully now that things have changed and calmed down a little, AbP will make fewer procedural mistakes that can be exploited so NIMBYs will be less likely to take on JRs because the chance of losing their money will be higher.
Go away money becoming a big issue too and no doubt plenty of objectors (rightly or wrongly) smell it.
IT had a story the other day about locals who objected and got go away money and other locals who didn’t. The headline kinda implied that one lot were smarter than the other. Moral of the story: object to everything.
That's also the FF, FG, Lab, SD, Greens, PBP way too.
No. It's none of their "way". Every party you list has either proposed Metrolink or publicly supports it (Labour, PBP and SD have all berated the government about the delays). SF too.
The only ones against it are a small number of professional contrarians in rural constituencies, and they change their mind every time they listen to the local radio phone-in.
Any chance we can leave the political doomsaying off this thread and talk about the actual project..?
fwiw I think what's required is a Planning Appeals Tribunal (PAT). Each appeals case would be decided by a panel comprising three individuals - a planner, a lawyer and a developer. All appeals on a single planning application would be held together, need not have an oral hearing, and could make summary decisions. It would have two advantages:
1.a bad-faith objector would have to do more than lodge an objection seeking 'go away' money. They would also need to be prepared to follow that through to making an appeal and presenting their case. (Even then they could have summary judgment against them)
2. as quasi-judicial proceedings, PAT's decisions would not be susceptible to judicial review, and could only be appealed to the High Court on a point of law (i.e. on the grounds that the Tribunal had misunderstood the law or applied it incorrectly).
Then (rump) ABP's role could be confined to recommending changes to strategic infrastructure projects but its decisions would be non-binding and subject to appeal to the PAT.
Bad-faith objectors looking for go-away money are a problem with private planning, not large infrastructure projects. In large infrastructure projects, the bad-faith objectors turn up at every meeting anyway, and then mount a legal challenge once the planning is granted.
In your part 2, you seem to misunderstand what a Judicial Review is. In the current situation, JRs can only be brought on points of law - they are not appeals. Putting another body in the way between planning grant and JR would just lengthen that process: a NIMBY group would drag out the procedures of your PAT, and then launch a JR.
Basically, the problem with vexatious respondents is that they are just as happy to delay a project as long as possible, in the hope that funding dries up. Giving them another place to call in just helps them.
The proposals already put forward for the next Planning Act are better, in that they limit the scope of people who can appeal against planning to those who would be directly affected, or members of existing civil-society groups whose remit would cover the project. That won’t stop FIE and company, but it will stop the phoney “Nxx Alternative Campaign” or “XYZ Action group” objections that are secretly bankrolled by property owners whose potential future profits will be negatively affected by the new infrastructure.
There is already a Planning delays to infrastructure thread, most of the last odzen posts should be there.
That thread should probably be sticky-ed at this stage as unfortunately tapping a sign doesn't work on the Internet.
Looks like TII are expecting approval early next year now, all going well. It's annoying that they don't tell you where he gave the update, but it is just fm104, I guess I shouldn't expect much.
Christ. Early next year. 2.5 years for a decision.
This doesn’t sound very certain: “Assuming that the railway order, which is not in our control, is granted early next year…”
It’s clear the spokesman didn’t hear anything back from ABP and is just speculating.
The photo accompanying the article must be from Metro North. In the background you can see Opening December 200X. The final digit is missing but you can see it’s the 2000s. Typical form for transport reporting.
How long will procurement and tendering process take? More than a year?
So construction might start in 2026.
So 2033 might be earliest opening.
If we didn’t talk about planning delays there’d be Fcuk all updates on metrolink to fill this thread- bar delays that is.
If they’ve any sense, they’ll have the tender ready to rock the moment permission is granted. So you could see preconstruction within the same year.
Sadly there is no 'actual project' - right now it is all imagination land and the only rail line being built is between Limerick and Foynes for no customers of any kind. I'd love to be more positive about this project but the likes of the Civil Service has a vested interest in killing it as it cuts into their 'entitlements' and 'gravy' and they tell the Gombeen politicans you mention above what to and not support. There is no getting around this.
Ah now. "The Civil Service" isn't one thing, and even if it was, there's more work for them in planning and managing a multi billion spend like Metrolink than there would be if it's cancelled.
With respect, by blaming "the Civil Service", you're veering into the exact kind of guff engaged in by those populist politicians we both despise.
This project is proceeding. People have been hired to run it, and bar some idiots, the whole of Irish politics is pushing for it. Some cynicism around political promises is normal and healthy, but at this point, for this project, it's misplaced.
This is a wild statement. What vested interest does the civil service have in killing it?
Also the civil service is a vast, diverse and loose group of organisations with different and some times opposing vested interests.
Which would be fine (for the thread I mean) — then at least you'd know something is happening when there's a new post. Right now it's purely off topic discussion.
We've all seen the effects of COVID. There is no noticeable crush on the southern Green Line any time I'm on it, which is usually at 'rush hour'. I can't see that it needs to be replaced.
Thus, why the metro terminus at Charlemont, with a view to eventually replacing a line which is now working very well?
Why not build to other areas, like south-west Dublin, which in several areas seem to have a poorer connection with the city than the areas served by the southern Green Line?
That, to my mind, should be the focus.
Infrastructure Is built for the future, not for the present. There are thousands of apartments being built in Sandyford, Clay Farm and Cherrywood right now. The LDA has its eyes on land at Central Bank Sandyford and Leopardstown Racecourse. There is a huge amount of underdeveloped land around the ghost Luas stops near Cherrywood. Large parts of Sandyford business park are still extremely low density warehouses that will almost inevitably be rezoned or redeveloped in the future.
The population along the Luas line will explode over the coming years.
That’s not to say that other parts of the city don’t need better public transport too but an upgrade of the Luas line would have been relatively cheap and served a fast growing area. Cutting the metro at Charlemont will be seen as extremely short sighted in the future.
How hard will it be to convert that line to Metro in the future, I understand they have to leave the tunnel boring machine in the ground and would be infinitely more cost efficient to just keep it going with the same TBM but let's say in 10 years they decide they need to extend the metro to sandyford.
Is it accomated in the plans to do that?
Markpb's post above pretty much hits the nail on the head, but I'd like to provide a bit more context around it. There's no noticeable crush on the southern Green line because the NTA have spent millions on a capacity improvement program, which involved lengthening all of the platforms, and extending the trams to the longest in the world. A few years back, overcrowding on the Green line was a huge scandal, with each delivery of a new tram being front page news on the national papers.
The overcrowding problem has been solved….. for now. The NTA currently projects that another capacity upgrade will be needed in the next ten years, with another upgrade needed soon after again. This is the green line doing exactly what it was designed for. It was designed to unlock development potential along the route, and that's exactly what happened. Cherrywood along is going to bring tens of thousands of people onto the line, bumping it right back into the overcrowding zone, and that's just one development. There's dozens of other developments, not of the same size, but it's going to get bad soon enough.
The other thing that the Green line was designed for, was an upgrade to Metro standard. They don't have to do any work on the tracks at all, just need to sort out some junctions and raise the height of the platforms.
The Charlemont station was chosen as a terminus so that there's an interchange station, as it can't happen at St Stephens Green.
Ultimately, any southside route chosen will have to go through a route selection and cost benefit analysis. Realistically, this process will show that the green line upgrade to Metro standard will be far and away the most cost efficient use of public funds, serving more people than any other route, faster, and with more positive benefits for Dublin.
