Dublin Metrolink - future routes for next Metrolink

Once they have gone to procurement, we need to start thinking about the next projects to develop a pipeline. We are going to build capacity over the next decade, we need to start planning for the period from the mid-2030s.

There are far more potential projects than there is money, capacity or time to complete. The country is suddenly trying to catch up with nearly a century of underinvestment so the opportunities for improvements are almost endless.

As @bk points out, the purpose of CBA is to decide how to prioritize projects. It's not a question of investing or not investing in PT - Ryan's legacy has taken care of that in terms of government budgeting for the foreseeable future - it's a question of picking the projects that deliver most bang-per-buck and doing them first in order to maximize the utility to public for the money spent.

Would I like to see a SW metro serving Terenure? Of course I would - the more metro coverage the better for the city. But I would not like to see it prioritized on a whim and there are far more pressing bottlenecks to be addressed.

CBA is always going to be flawed - they're based on models which are approximations and may omit important factors. And predicting future interest rates is impossible so the financing discount rate is aways just a guess. But, like democracy, compared to the alternative - like having politicians pick projects on a whim or choosing on what would look good on a map, it's the least bad way of doing things. At least it forces some structure into the decision making.

Very unlikely outside the centre.

Again, areas all over Dublin notionally “close” to rail have the same argument.

If we are talking about geographically specifically, what is there to get to in the SW? The mountains?

There are citizens of Dublin to serve? A substantial amount.

SW Dublin has the most frequent bus routes in the city, and has the Red line already. Should it get more? Absolutely.

You have to couch this in terms where there are parts of South West Dublin, particularly where there are gaps in PT, which are quite low density. This isn't on accident. When you combine this with there being really no wide corridor on the surface because of this low density development, it basically means the only solution is a tunnel, and quite a long one at that, likely 2x the length of the Metrolink underground sections. This is dramatically more expensive than many other public transport projects, would be pretty unpopular with the people of SW Dublin you are trying to serve, and would mean any other project you are trying to do would have to be put on ice for the foreseeable.

We are already seeing this with Metrolink that it is taking a huge amount of resources from TII to get to a point where it can be put out for tender, likely delaying the simpler projects like Luas Finglas and Lucan. This is a decision which they have made precisely because Metrolink is such a no brainer from several perspectives. A SW metro has a much much more challenging business case.

Projects shouldnt be progressed on a piecemeal basis. The entire envisaged network should be designed as a single entity and put through APB as a single project to be progressed over a long period of time.

So if you get a area where theres opposition e.g. Ranelagh, or Glasnevin you dont argue with the residents. You just say that there are plenty of other places who'd give their right arms for this type of project and move onto a part of the network where people are supportive. Put the moaners at the back of the queue.

There was never going to be money for it unfortunately. We're lucky we got BXD at all.

My argument is as consistent as it always was.

Your “south west” argument is a nonsense. The vast majority who live in that area will not see much of it aside from perhaps an improved bus service as the lucky area that gets an underground sees buses rerouted.

This is the exact same as for those who supposedly live beside Luas or DART because it’s out in their general direction.

Unless you live within 15 mins walk of a station these things provide marginal benefit. Therefore it is integral that you either develop where there is density, develop where more density is possible or to locations that people want to get to.

So how do you improve PT for residents in SW dublin if there is no room to improve PT except by going underground? 🤔

Where though?

You just keep repeating this and refuse to deal with the point.

How do you deal with people who live somewhere like Perrystown? Walkinstown? Coolock?

I can go on.

Why does some non descript route out there (although you mention Terenure and Rathfarnham) deserve an expensive tunnelled metro over those places?

Another point I’ve repeatedly made to you is that the distance to Marley Park (which is where any type of house ends out that way) is 7/8km from Stephen’s Green. This really is not that far. Go out that distance in other directions and see where you come to.

You say those areas aren’t getting PT investment, but they are. Bus Connects and a Luas is a far better way to spend the sort of money an expensive tunnel out that way would.

Nah they splurged on rural motorways and ignored pretty much everything else. Moronic. Don't forget the M50 had to be built twice because of these idiots.

No less dumb than the days when they built houses on top of the Northern line, absolutely braindead.

Sick of people making excuses for stupidity. None of this was inevitable.

Hindsight is wonderful.  

The pre-1990s road network was atrocious - we had one of the highest road death rates in Europe, intercity transport by road was a joke - it took 4.5 hours to drive from Dublin to Limerick for example, the entire country was blessed with just 10km of motorway in total (Naas bypass) besides the first few km of the M50, the simple act of moving goods and materials around the place was expensive, slow and dangerous.  Large sections of the "national" road network were little more than boreens.

In comparison PT was also poor but at least reasonably functional and didn't cause 100s of excess deaths per year.  In my mind, it was absolutely the correct strategic decision to fix the road network at the time.  And there was some benefit to bus based public transport from the roads program.

And before anyone ask "why not both?" - resources are not infinite and if you weren't around back in the 1990s, you might just assume that the boom since 1990 was inevitable or obviously going to happen.  I can assure you it didn't feel like it at the time - the country had been so poor for so long, any economic growth seemed like a minor miracle and there was little confidence that it would continue.  Schools were falling apart (class sizes of 35 or more were common), hospitals were crumbling and victorian (we had one of the lowest life expectancies in Europe - now the highest), the quality of housing was attrocious (insulation/central heating was a rarity - everyone just wore layers of heavy jumpers indoors when it got cold).  When the country turned the corner, shiney metros for Dublin was very far down the list of things that needed priority.

It's trivial to come up with a more "strategic" plan with hindsight.  The reality is you have to play the cards in your hand and at the time focussing on the terrible state of the road network was absolutely the correct decision.  In the same way, now is the time to focus one public transport infrastructure.

The motorway network was absolutely essential. You could be an hour getting through Moate going between Dublin and Galway ffs.

I don't have a source but I think the U.S. built their interstate system in the interest of national security and it then had a massive economic boost as interstate trade was quicker and cheaper. (Hoping this isn't a mega urban myth)