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Metrolink - Alternative Routes - See post one for restrictions.

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Comments

  • #272
    Consonata
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,450 ✭✭✭Consonata


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123731603#Comment_123731603

    Except it isn't 450m, its about double that.

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  • #273
    OisinCooke
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 202 ✭✭OisinCooke


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123731603#Comment_123731603

    I’m sorry, but I really do not understand your point at all. Are you proposing that the metro utilise this alignment as part of its route? That is a completely stupid idea.

    The GL alignment would swing the metro wayyy of course and the correction needed to bring it from Liffey Junction back up towards Collins Ave would be stupidly expensive and wildly unnecessary.

    It would unnecessarily elongate the journey from Swords, the airport and all of the as of now UNSERVED areas of north Dublin toward the city centre, and cost far more money than just digging the straight line tunnel. I say UNSERVED, because Drumcondra - the dead and buried horse which you so tiredly keep flogging - is currently already served, and will in the very near future be even better served, by direct trains to the city centre.

    The cost is another element which you seem to forget about too. Digging the tunnel is arguably the least expensive part of building a metro once the TBM is in the ground. Resurfacing the line at Broadstone to use the 1.5km of track (yes, only 1.5) to then have to dive underground AGAIN at Liffey Junction, would mean the Metrolink project would need 3 TBM sections instead of just 2 as things currently stand and make each one less efficient and less likely to pass a CBA.

    As well as this, where do you propose to reroute the GL on its way to Finglas?? A tram is the perfect model for Finglas - metro would be complete overkill - and a metro is the perfect model for Swords - a tram would be severely underperformative. You hardly propose rerouting the metro to Finglas and the GL to Swords do you…?

    Your argument about the lines being too close and affecting catchment is also completely moot. The stations are far enough apart, as @Consonata has demonstrated, to support seperate catchments. Luas has stops much closer together for local service and Metro has stops spaced farther apart for a more express style service. The alignment spacing does not matter if the STOPS can be justified, which in ALL cases I (and I think everybody else on here would agree with me), believe to be the case.

    Also if catchment at the two Cabra and Phibsborough stops are slightly affected, it’s not the end of the world. This northern part of the Green Line already serves TUD’s main campus at two different stops, a mainline rail and bus interchange, and will go on to serve the very busy suburb of Finglas, and a major Park and Ride facility in Charlestown with a promised increase in tram frequency from the 7.5 minutes you quoted, so I think it can afford to lose a few passengers at two of its more quieter stations and not face closure.

    Finally I’m just confused about your consistency on this case of ‘building a brand new rail line so close to an existing one.’ You yourself have suggested very (VERY) often that the metro be built under Drumcondra Road instead and that the Luas Balgriffin Line be placed directly above the metro, on the street. This, if I’m not mistaken, under your logic is the direct duplication of an existing rail alignment with a new expensive one… isn’t it…?

    I think I speak for everyone - posters, readers, and moderators - when I ask that you please give it a rest on the obsessive Metrolink alterations. It may not be a perfect plan but it is a great one and it’s the one that is in ACP as we speak - it is not going to be changed. You have been asked countless times by mods and other members on here to accept that and have been given counter argument after counter argument proving that the current alignment is better than all of your suggestions but yet you keep harping on about Drumcondra and the Green Line’s alignment. Please. Just stop.



  • #274
    loco_scolo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 797 ✭✭✭loco_scolo


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123731603#Comment_123731603

    ~606m for a seagull, absolute minimum. No idea where you're getting 450m, let alone 300-500m. ~850-900m for a human.

    1000023190.jpg


  • #275
    Brightlights66
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 133 ✭✭Brightlights66


    I hope I can answer some of the points raised in the last three posts.

    Firstly, Consonata. I struggle to find the point of showing the route of a 13 minute walk between LUAS at Cabra and Metrolink at Glasnevin. Nobody is going to make such a journey. But, it does nicely illustrate how a great deal of those people in that eastern chunk of the current LUAS catchment, broadly between Cabra and Broadstone, would be using the metrolink (with its 90 second service) rather than LUAS (with its 7.5 minute service). Metrolink would effectively remove much of the eastern LUAS catchment in that area. (How much more efficient would the southside DART be, for example, if it had an eastern catchment?)

    Loco_Scolo, please draw a straight line along Cabra Road between the entrance to the Cabra stop and the approximate location of the metro tunnel: 450-460 metres. Similarly with Broadstone and Berkeley Road, and you can see that much or most of the eastern LUAS catchment will be wiped out in that area.

    Re Oisin Cooke's post, there are two paragraphs in particular where there seems to be a misunderstanding:

    The third paragraph: "It would unnecessarily elongate the journey from Swords, the airport and all of the as of now UNSERVED areas of north Dublin toward the city centre, and cost far more money than just digging the straight line tunnel. I say UNSERVED, because Drumcondra - the dead and buried horse which you so tiredly keep flogging - is currently already served, and will in the very near future be even better served, by direct trains to the city centre."

    Under the current plans, Glasnevin Junction is going to be served by all DART and suburban trains travelling to/from Dunboyne, Hazelhatch, Maynooth, etc. Everything. There are, at present, no plans to serve Drumcondra with trains which use the Midland Line. That shouldn't be difficult to tweak.

    And the eighth paragraph: "Finally I’m just confused about your consistency on this case of ‘building a brand new rail line so close to an existing one.’ You yourself have suggested very (VERY) often that the metro be built under Drumcondra Road instead and that the Luas Balgriffin Line be placed directly above the metro, on the street. This, if I’m not mistaken, under your logic is the direct duplication of an existing rail alignment with a new expensive one… isn’t it…?

    I don't see any inconsistency. When we discussed the Balgriffin LUAS recently on this board, nobody really knew where it might originate on the southside. The most persuasive argument was that it might originate in Harold's Cross (or maybe even further south) and go (I imagine) Clanbrassil Street, Patrick Street, Christchurch, High Street, Bridge Street, Church Street, North King Street, Dorset Street, Drumcondra Road and on towards Balgriffin. (I am not yet fully persuaded that the Patrick Street and Bridge Street gradients could be managed, but we shall see).

    In any case, if the metrolink were routed through Drumcondra it would be going from the city centre in a north-westerly direction, to serve DCU, Ballymun, etc, as its early stops on its way towards the Airport and Swords. The two DART lines would be there going east-west. And the LUAS, coming in from Dorset Street on its way to Balgriffin, would be going in a north-easterly direction towards Balgriffin. Along with all the buses going through Drumcondra, and the high residential and working population in the area, it could be a spectacular interchange.

    You need these lines to interchange, but you don't want unnecessary duplication, and that Drumcondra arrangement seems to tick all the boxes for me.



  • #276
    loco_scolo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 797 ✭✭✭loco_scolo


    https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123734816#Comment_123734816

    Here's that straight line measured in smoots. I've no idea what a smoot is but it's 526metres, apparently. I'm sure lots of people will make this journey to stand over the tunnel and wonder how many smoots away the nearest station is.

    And if anyone living on Berkeley Rd is walking to the Luas to get to the CC, then someone needs to show them a map…

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  • #277
    Busman Paddy Lasty
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,366 ✭✭✭Busman Paddy Lasty


    This duplication nonsense has to stop.

    If somebody lives in the Luas catchment they'll continue to get the Luas. If they are going further south they'll change at O'Connell St. This is a complimentary service not a duplication.

    As said already, one the section in question there're 5 Luas stops and only Mater metro stop. Somebody who lives near the metro line can't just get on wherever they like. It's tunneled and you can only get on at a station.

    Nobody is going to walk from Cabra or the NCR to Eccles St. to get the metro. It just isn't happening.



  • #278
    KrisW1001
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,764 ✭✭✭KrisW1001


    https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/08/19/depicting-the-metro-as-primarily-an-airport-service-is-an-example-of-michael-olearys-myopic-thinking/

    Fairly straightforward rebuttal of O'Leary's ill-informed criticisms of MetroLink, but in passing, Eamon Ryan reveals that a route southwest to Tallaght was the Department of Transport's preferred continuation of Metrolink. This was heavily hinted at during the decision to proceed or not with Metro South.

    I'd agree with this, as Tallaght is big enough to support a Metro line now, and it would also relieve Luas Red, allowing that service to extend to the Docklands.

    If this line heads southwest, then Green Line South should be used as the southern leg of a second Metro line, sweeping the western side of the inner city (Christchurch, Smithfield) before swinging east towards Beaumont, Coolock and perhaps terminating around Clongriffin DART. Doing this also allows the start of the Metro section to be chosen freely, as there's no requirement to connect with Metro North.. and that solves a lot of very thorny construction issues between Chalemont and Beechwood that could not be avoided if you have to make Green Line the extension to the current Metro.

    ( I hate to even mention where the inner northside DART connection might be on this imagined Metro 2 line, but it would need a major rebuild at that very small station.)



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