Luas Finglas

The €300-600m range is nonsensical and essentially meaningless. The actual estimate is likely €300m but there is such fear of projects being delivered over-budget that they double that just in case. We have seen it with other projects too, the upper end of the range is not based on calculation or logic, it's just where they decided "it couldn't possibly cost any more than this".

Also worth noting that published figures now include design team fees, land acquisition and anything else they can think of. The new section of N5 currently being built was announced as a €400m project when signing the construction contract for €260m.

Yes. There's also going to be a massive housing development at Jamestown Business Park which would have about 3000 dwellings and maybe add about 8000 people before this project is actually complete.

In fairness, the extra few KM of track shouldn't be taking this long

As the track raches closer to the M50, is there a danger (or indeed an opportunity) of it being used for N2 and N3 commuters

There are times when the morning departures at Broombridge is standing only too. With the N2 and Dart/Rail line, it's very busy

Are there any plans online for this Tyrellstown branch?

Cheers. I guess the "original idea" was to bring people from Tyrellelstown to a DART startion at Porterstown/Diswellstown Road on the orbital metro (effectively a Luas, but anyway). I still think an orbital Luas that feeds into all the heavy rail lines provides far more bang for the buck than these planned arterial routes, that all end up in a Red Line like scenario in the city centre, but what do I know.

The only positive is that with all those radials penetrating the city centre, there would be no excuse for not completely banning private car commuting within the canal rings but I just don't get spending all the resources on quad tracking Kildare and now possibly the Northern Line, stopping up the level crossings on the Maynooth line and then allowing Luas to completely ignore all the created capacity. The Blanchardstown to City Centre Luas is even more bizarre. That must almost completely parallel the Maynooth line.

I think I have a fairly good grasp of what the various forms of rail based transport are designed to achieve. Many or most of the indicated Luas radials clearly aren't intended to funnel people to high capacity radial rail. They compete with heavy rail rather than complementing it. Without tunneling Luas in the city centre then all those radial routes end up getting snarled up in what is a medieval street layout, just as the Red Line does now and that's just one line. In fact there are so many indicated radial Luas routes that they would conflict with each other and leave very little room for other modes of transport like walking, cycling, buses.

We need to build a network and not individual lines purposefully trying to avoid changes! None of the world's best public transport systems try to provide zero change journeys in the way you suggest. Changing is expected.

Many or most of the indicated Luas radials clearly aren't intended to funnel people to high capacity radial rail.

I'm sorry but thats just not true. Finglas, Lucan, and Bray we already know will have interchanges with DART stations. Lucan very likely will have two depending on the alignment selected (Adamstown and future Kylemore), and has potential for more if it is extended through CC to Poolbeg, which also allows it to interchange with the red line.

The rest are all indivative, but even then, Blanch, Clondalkin, and Clongriffin will likely be routed to interchange with at least one DART station. The UCD green line alignment would offer an ML interchange if Ranelagh-Sandyford is upgraded to a metro. Tyrrelstown will have an interchange at Broombridge as well but it is quite far for the end of the line which isn't ideal, however it is still better than having to take it all the way to CC.

Kimmage, Knocklyon, and Ballgriffin are the three which don't have an interchange with heavy rail or metro. However that is because they are in areas which makes it difficult to do so, and especially for Luas Kimmage and Knocklyon, if a passenger wants to go to CC, taking the tram would likely be quicker than changing to a DART or ML.

I am also not suggesting that transport should be all direct A to B, but I am saying the Luas has a larger direct catchment area. You are more likely to be in walking or cycling distance of a Luas stop than DART station. That is what allows it to be a better connection for communities, that can be for funneling people into rapid-transit/metro, but that can also be for communities to have better access to local ammenities (shopping centres, hospitals, parks, etc).

Personally I don't think we have the luxury of building Luas lines that parallel heavy rail for at least 50 years but heck I don't live there. We have built hundreds of km's of wide distributor roads (usually axial in nature) in the Dublin suburbs…..mostly devoid of buses. The Lucan Luas is a farce as far as I'm concerned even though I stand to benefit personally if it's built. The commuting public would be better served by using the (several) north-south distributor roads to funnel passengers at high frequency (using few buses because the routes would be short and free of congestion) to the Kildare line and we should build the damn Interconnector. The goal should be to get people from their home to the higher capacity rail network asap. Taking a radial Luas to do this means sitting on it for much longer than needs be if a more direct (perpendicular) route of feeder is taken.

Luas replacing high frequency over-capacity bus routes (that themselves feed heavy rail and metro) has merit at some point in time in the future but we are kind of putting the cart before the horse with these radials. We should get our core heavy rail and metro built and maximise the catchment areas with buses until we know which bus routes need capacity enhancement to Luas. The only exceptions to this should be actual radial Luas routes that we don't believe we can afford to do as heavy rail or metro. I don't think that list should be very long though (N11 corridor seems reasonable, as does the Finglas Luas bringing people to Broombridge).

But look, we can all point to our favourite network and say it should be like that. I guess we can agree to disagree :-)

As the new planning legislation has passed, is it the first major project to go to ABP under that new legislation? Or has the legislation been commenced?

Good question- I don’t know.

I wonder how we would find out if this is going through the new planning process?

Direct email to Darragh o Brien perhaps?

Munich's "metro" (U-Bahn) has fewer lines that you'd think by looking at the map. They make very clever use of short links between the three main trunks to provide eight distinct services.

Munich's S-Bahn network, the template on which most other cities built theirs, is defined by the central tunnel between the two mainline passenger rail stations.. so much so that a second tunnel is being built just to provide express services. For Dublin to follow this model, we would need a DART underground with a better tie-in to Connolly.