LUAS Network + Future Expansion

Nope. When you look at capacity, this will “solve” Sandyford.

There really is no need to overcomplicate this by trying to force the eastern bypass alignment into a radial Luas line as proposed. GL upgrade to Metro at least as far south as Sandyford-this should be an absolute no brainer and assumed in any planning related to PT in south Dublin. It's even more of a no-brainer than DU because it's just an upgrade of something we already have. We could pump buses into ML from the badly served areas of south Dublin like Rathfarnham, Terenure etc. and that would buy us time to fix the issues there. N11 Luas to Bray is an obvious corridor, low hanging fruit if ever there was any. Branch off N11 to continue to make use of existing Sandyford-Bride's Glen Luas alignment (assuming Metro never goes south of Sandyford) while providing good interchange to ML at Sandyford.

We have to start thinking about redundancy and interchange more and stop cheaping out to "save" a few quid by delivering bargain basement solutions. The proposed hybrid route plus the Green Line would be hobbled by an incident at Kilmacud. Having two independent parallel routes linked by an orbital Luas adds resilience to the network. If one goes down, the other is still somewhat reachable. There is an obvious enough onward path for an orbital Luas following the R113 towards Tallaght. Other options like Barton Rd. East also seem fairly wide, but might involve a short tunnel section(s) under Dundrum to really work reliably. We need to be prepared to look at putting Luas underground where necessary to avoid bottlenecks. We've got a lot of wide distributor roads that lend themselves well to Luas, but not fully automated metro but there are still many shorter choke points that nullify the benefit of those wide suburban roads. Tunneling under them should be considered.

Looking at it again (and it was mentioned before on this), is the potential bottleneck around Sandyford of trams. Another line at least would need to be added along the Kilmacud to Sandyford stretch. Doable by removing the parking I would think.

Balkanisation isn't merely geographic but also financial. If money is concentrated in one place, that's where the investments will go. On that note, before expanding the network it might be beneficial to try running the existing one better. Scalability comes to mind.

Which is not happening.

What we are referring to is a light rail line running over an old railway line to Bray and also over a protected site for a road. There is a minimal amount of “new” track, none of which would go underground.

On the road, that would be the same Eastern Bypass that was never built, meaning the South East has some of the worst traffic in the State. This is the one part of the orbital route for the city never constructed, meaning traffic pours directly into this part of Dublin. And despite this, more and more building has been put down there.

“Rebalance”- the best infrastructure will be quite clearly focused on the northside. Already roads are focused on this, it will be the same for transport.

DSW also serves the Northside btw.

I think 'will be' is a key caveat here. Especially given that we have a government that has defunded DART SW in favour of yet more regional roads and tokenistic reports on some 'west on track' brain farts.

Anyway it was a tongue in cheek statement.

What are you talking about?

who is making unnecessary or artificial journeys just for the craic?

The service industry and hospitality are not sustainable. Pushing a city past its carrying capacity is a form of bailout. Dublin's businesses are so far removed from capitalism the place might as well be occupied by Russian military at this point. Dubs have been put to sleep by the lullaby of money and a thorough Muscovification is well underway. Instead of putting people on a path to car ownership and home ownership, the techno-fascist absentee billionaire class want to turn it into a colony of perpetual backpackers and contactless payment subjects whose bank accounts will be frozen if they are caught criticising their company. That is how Russians live. Ireland can do better than that. No expansion of the Luas network is necessary. Businesses just need to apply sustainability, quality and productivity to their industrial processes and invest in their customers and staff respectively.

Impressive

Is it meth? Sounds like meth.

How is hospitality not sustainable? No Luas extensions?

Which road access across the canal will remain open for cars?

Will cars be able to cross the canal at baggot street or charlemont street for example.

If brewing is going to be outsourced to East Asia, it is suggestive of an economic downturn. What is essentially a class war is being framed as an infrastructure problem. Businesses ought to stop punching down and commit to smart investments instead of upgrading CEO pay scales. As such, a capitalist state has no obligation to subsidise inefficient companies with more thoroughfares and ports of entry for prospective customers. Besides, what exactly is there to do in Dublin? The city has become a cultural and commercial wasteland, fragmented into pockets of low-output service establishments à la 15-minute city.

Inefficient companies?

Dublin has the 3rd highest GDP of any city in the EU.

We need investment in transport as priority to sustain and build growth in the future.