LUAS Network + Future Expansion

Alot of those conceptual lines will be replaced by metro. Once metrolink is built, people will scream for it in their area.

The big issue we have is that we are fundamentally too reliant on buses. We have too many buses, they are too full and we have too few drivers. We need to move from a bus driver carrying 80 passengers to a Luas driver carrying 300. Basically replace the core radial bus routes into the city with Luas lines.

We're too reliant on buses for getting into and out of the centre. Buses are an important part of any functional public transport system and ALL cities with great public transport use them extensively.

I can't understand your claim that my idea "makes no sense" given the entire purpose of it was to illustrate that we should be providing radial tram routes into the city centre to replace buses? An aim you seem to support?

Instead you are championing a plan which provides ZERO radial capacity into the city. Dropping people off somewhere west of Hueston to board an overcrowded red Luas is not adding radial capacity into the city. A plan that sees building tram lines to meander through suburban housing estates like ballyfermot and Lucan, while the streets of the city are clogged with busses, is not adding radial capacity.

If you see that the way buses are currently used is a problem, then I cannot fathom how you think NOT providing any new Luas capacity through the centre "helps solve a fundamental problem with PT in Dublin".

Name any city known for having good PT where 90% of the trams operate outside of the city centre while buses provide 70% of the transport in the city centre itself? Because that's exactly the opposite how it's done everywhere - trams, metros and S-Bahn for getting into and through the centre, buses for the suburbs, orbitals and providing specialist connecting services.

There is currently a lot of sensitivity about the restrictions on the quays and the perception of cars being banned from the city center. I'd guess they don't want to add fuel to the fire at this early stage by drawing a bunch of new Luas lines in the city center, until closer to the time that this work might start going into serious planning.

It's as if we need a generation to die off before we can even begin proper PT planning in this city…

iirc the various plans all mention that Luas can become Metro.

A luas route that took Dame St, George's St, Cuffe St, Leeson St and Donnybrook would be quite useful.

A new east-west route in the city centre should be higher capacity than the existing luas red line with less frequent stops, thats the best way to relieve the existing congested service.

That role should be done either by DART underground or a Lucan to Ringsend metro line

Place de la comedie in Montpellier is a pedestrianised square with trams along one side.

I always envisaged this was the kind of plan for college green. Have the trams along the north offer of the street. Then from the median to the south side have all the outdoor terraces for restaurants and cafes. The family friendly partner to Temple bar, which would now be literally the wrong side of the tracks 😁

The difference with most of the examples is they're actually squares or plazas. College Green, even after pedestrianisation will essentially just be a wide(ish) street and having two tram lines on it would kill any possibility of it being a real public space as you'd still need to keep most of it clear for trams.

Surely the whole point of the College Green plan is to create a central focal point / gathering space that's sorely lacking in Dublin at the moment, if most of it was still a transport corridor it could never function like that

I think the best option they have for running a tram to Dame street would be terminating it there for this reason. I think if the end of the line was just after George's street similair to how The Point station is, it would still at least allow the tram to end there with 3 platforms or 2 and a siding, without having to sacrifice a large chunk of College Green to a tramway.

Let's all sing that Monorail song from the Simpsons. All of the unbuilt Luas lines could become Metro. The next person to walk on the moon could be an Irishman.

If they did both that would also enable the line to Clondalkin they want to eventually build.