Metrolink - Alternative Routes - See post one for restrictions.

Another well explained post.

Thank you one and all, and excuse the defensiveness yesterday.

I would hope and like to think that they would choose DU, (and FourNorth - the two would probably be similarly priced to a second full length metro line, in fact maybe cheaper) as it provides the most return on investment, effectively separating the existing DART network (which essentially all hones in on Connolly) into two super high capacity and high frequent metro lines (Hazelhatch to Drogheda, and Maynooth/M3 to Bray/Greystones, intersecting at Pearse). However I would like to think that the more we build, the more we will realise that projects like these don’t necessarily need to be once-in-a-generation, and hopefully there won’t necessarily have to be a choice to made between projects (not on a generational time scale anyway)

Our tax revenue is so high, anything's possible really.

Our total workforce is nearly 3 million people.

In the 80s and 90s it was just over a million.

On top of that there's the huge corporate tax revenue.

We're decades behind where we should be in terms of infrastructure.

Personally speaking, I have resigned my ambitions on having acceptable public transport in Dublin in my lifetime in terms of first world class infrastructure. But the case still stand for another 4-5 routes after we are all dead and gone. I have no issue with northeast-southwest line next - it makes perfect sense to make that the second line.

DART Underground (if done with FourNorth - which is quad tracking the Northern Line from Connolly to Clongriffin) will give a fully segregated railway line from Hazelhatch all the way to Drogheda essentially, where DARTs can be automated and run every 2.5 minutes theoretically. It is essentially another metro line. The East-West capacity of the line through the City Centre will also free up huge amounts of utility on the Luas Red Line for people looking to get from Heuston to the CC.

By allowing all (or at least the vast vast majority of) Drogheda DARTs to to continue into the tunnel, you also free up huge capacity on the Loop Line between Connolly and Pearse, meaning that you can ramp up frequency of Maynooth/M3 to Bray/Greystones services too - effectively another metro line. It gives the biggest return on investment - effectively two metro lines - for what is essentially just a 5km section of rail tunnel... ish…

Understandable cost-benefit logic applied here. However, the problem is not with the east coast and getting into the city from south and north corridors. The problem exists accessing the city from the other 95% of the countryside surrounding it.

The existing transport is two non-DART rail lines to Connolly Hueston. Serving the whole countryside!!! Other than that you're on a bus. Getting a bus to work is a lottery whether you will be in and hour before or after 9am. They are also not ideal when waiting on a wet roadside in a suit getting splashed by cars.

Let me be clear - a line north-west of the Liffey serving the whole north-west area of Dublin and surrounding countryside, and a West Line serving the whole of Kildare, and south-west of Dublin and the countryside - is woefully inadequate. Two lines serving 90% of the surrounding land mass around Dublin is unacceptable.

Whether this is a government, planning, whatever type of problem, it needs to be fixed otherwise Dublin will become inaccessible to a large portion of the population. All that area, needs to be freed up for development land to solve the housing crisis.

Those two lines and DART+ operating on those two lines, while welcome, are insufficient to serve the whole countryside and the growth which will potentially happen there.

We are crawling forward in seeing changes but at least they are coming at some point.

All of this would be solvable if we could buy land and lay tracks on several routes, inside the city, or around the city, above ground.

Is that a realistic goal? To buy up land with houses already on it and lay tracks on that land?

What would the cost be of doing above ground DART lines along the N11+N1, through Finglas or along the southside of the Liffey?

Would it be possible or is the land too developed? I am guessing buying the property and laying tracks on it would be substantially cheaper than metro?

By how much?