Metrolink south of Charlemont

Some densification would of course happen, but nowhere near enough to make a significant difference in terms of a CBA. Keep in mind the NIMBYs in this area who would fight against tall apartment buildings.

Greenfield (or to a lesser extent Brownfield) sites are so much easier to develop then settled residential areas.

Like are we expecting the houses around Griffith Park, on Mobhi Road, to be bought up, demolished and replaced by tall apartment buildings? I’d be happy to be wrong, but I’d seriously doubt it. I don’t see the SW being much different.

Sure but two of those are literally right next to the red line and the other not too far! So why haven’t they already been developed? I’d seriously doubt a SW Metro would go that route given the proximity to the red line.

When people talk about about a SW Metro, they are normally talking about a route far south of here, something along the lines of Rathmines, Rathgar, Terenure, Rathfarnham, Templeogue, etc.

The main point is the Red Luas line was built over twenty years ago. And yet those Brownfield sites have only seen relatively minor redevelopment. It shows that redevelopment of brown field sites, is a slow, multi decade change.

As for the Red line bing choked, sort of. The issue with the Red line is limited capacity in the city center. South of James, the Red line is actually built to a very high quality, mostly grade separated, you could almost call it pre metro. If you can avoid the city center issues, it has a lot of potential for growth.

The Luas 2050 Vision proposes a new Kimmage Luas line that would connect to the Red line at the M50. That would take strain off the city center section. Also there is the Lucan Luas that would cross the Red line and help take strain off.

If however you prefer tunnels, then a more radical idea would be to build and East - West tunnel in the city center between Spencer Dock area to Hueston and connect to the Red line just south of James. This would allow the rest of the Red line to be upgraded to Metro. Such a tunnel would only be about 4.5km or so, so roughly half a SW Metro. And it would also solve the issue of the city center capacity. Other Luas 2050 lines would also benefit from it too.

I don’t think any of this will happen anytime soon, I’m just throwing out some ideas.

You know what is strange, the Construction report doesn't really match up with the options listed in the earlier tie in options report!

In the earlier tie in report, they have two Beechwood options, North and South, however they are both offline options, no inline option. The preferred option from this report was the Renalgh Inline option (as in North of Renalgh). Of course that became not practicable with the sewage pipes, so they seem to have shifted to an inline Beechwood option, even though it wasn't considered in the earlier tie-in report!

FYI, the offline Beechwood North and South were costed at €230m and €250m versus €177m for the Renalgh inline option and €187m from Renalgh at grade (2017 money). While obviously construction costs have inflated since then, I don't think I'd let the equivalent of a €60m gap stop me from going for the offline option.

But yes, my bad, I misread the report, a phased opening situation would save 14 months, not take 14 months!

But looking at the reports again, it feels like the options were a bit forced. In the original tie in report, they seemed to be hyper focused on the cheapest option, over other concerns like how long the greenline would be closed for. To the extent that they selected the Renalgh inline option over the Renalgh at grade option simply because there was a €10m difference in cost!

They seeemd to be afraid of impacting any properties next to the line.

BTW The original report says that the Green line would only be closed for 3 months for the Renalgh at grade option.

To be honest, given how much time has passed, I think you would want to do the tie-in options report again and this time include impact on Green line closure time as one of the criteria. I think the Beechwood North or South offline options would come out very positively then, they weren't far off even in the original report as they were short listed.

To be honest, given they are willing to spend 30m to buy houses just to avoid a JR, I think spending an extra €60m to shorten the closure of the Green line to just 3 months would be a non brainer.

EDIT: I think I found the new option in the original report, I think it is "Option 5(A) – Beechwood North, In-line". The original report is quiet confusing between the offline and inline options and changes how they are named throughout the report!

The cost difference between offline and inline for Beechwood North, just €9 million! €232m offline, €223m inline (2028 money). FFS, nothing!

Well here is the tie-in options report from 2018:

https://data.tii.ie/metrolink/alignment-options-study/study-2/metrolink-1-gl-tie-in-options-appraisal-report.pdf

And here is the report on the construction of the Beechwood Inline tie in from 2019:

https://www.metrolink.ie/media/ox0p3cjb/constructabilityreportgreenlineclosure.pdf

I wouldn't really call these current preferred options, but they do give an insight to the different options.

Looking at these reports again, they seem to be allergic to impacting properties next to the lines. With the new Metrolink CEO, I'm guessing thinking on this may have changed and we need a new options report.

You probably missed my edits, I've been squinting at the original tie in report and I think I get it now. There are two Beechwood North options and two Beechwood South options. In the initial Stage 1 appraisal they only looked at offline version of both North and South, but then for Stage two, they developed inline options for both of these and short listed that version for Stage 2 short list!

But what you won't believe is how little cost difference there is. For Beechwood South, you are only talking an extra €2m for the offline option (€254m versus €252m)!

It feels like in Stage 1 they were optimising to minimise impact on the Greenline, then they had internal discussions and instead opted to instead minimise impact on surrounding properties over the impact on the Greenline! It seems bizarre!

Yes, to be honest I did think of DU when I was writing that, but I didn't want to mention it as it is perhaps an argument for another thread. Yes, an East West Metro tunnel would likely kill off DU.

In the context of what was being discussed here, such a Metro would be more attractive then DU as it would kill two birds with one stone. Rather then having to build a 9km Kimmage Metro, you build just a 4.5km Red line Metro tunnel, which allows you to upgrade the Red line to Metro and also fixes the city center capacity issue.

So rather then spending say 6bn on a Kimmage Metro and 5bn on DU (lets say total 11bn), you spend just 4bn on a East - West Metro (numbers made up, but scaled for distance and station lengths) and get largely the same effect.

Luckily for fans of DU, I don't think any of this would actually happen. I think what will happen is that the Greenline gets upgraded to Metro and eventually the Lucan Luas and Kimmage Luas get built and take the pressure off the red line.

To be honest this is more a battle for TII and Irish Rail to hash out. Both would benefit from an East - West tunnel and their are pros and cons for both organisations. Then you add in the AIRR looking for an intercity tunnel!

I think there is a lack of clarity on the long terms plans for what happens with the city center.

You know what, that makes sense. I get the impression that they wanted to "de-risk" the Metrolink project and eliminate any potential battles with people in South Dublin.

I think once Metrolink is built, it will be a very different story. People on the green line will be screaming bloody murder for it to be upgraded to Metro, I suspect it will be like a repeat of the Luas Cross city, but even stronger this time.

And they will be able to come along and say, hey great, we have found a solution that only requires closing the Green line for 3 months now, rather then 4 years. We just need to CPO these couple of properties, isn't that great.

I know earlier I was talking about an N11 Metro option, but having looked over these docs again, I'm absolutely convienced we will see the GL upgraded to Metro.

I think initially it will terminate at Sandyford. If the demand was there, nothing stopping you extending it to Brides Glen or even further South. While there are quiet a few junctions, along the line, the line itself is largely well segregated.

You could even possibly leave the junctions as is or switch them too level crossing type junctions and just operate as a Metro at a lower frequency then the rest of the Metro line. You'd still benefit from extra capacity of 64m long trains, wider and high floor trains. You could potentially then close junctions further down the line.

The one sticking point would be the part of the line getting into Bray, that would be very much street running.

I'm referring to a offline (or otherwise called at-grade) tie in. In line tie in's require years of closure, but offline/at-grade ones need only a few months of closure as the hardest work is done beside the Luas line, not on it.

Probably something like the Beechwood North at-grade tie in listed in the tie in report, though I don't think it fully matches the reality on the ground today, so maybe some sort of modification of that.

Ideally we probably need a new tie in report to study the options given the reality on the ground today and what Metrolink is actually building.