Dublin - Metrolink (Swords to Charlemont only)

There is only one entrance at SSG too so they already compromised there. O'Connell St, Tara St and Charlemont have two entrance points (although the second one for OCS looks more like an after thought tbh).

Made sense in mainland europe the 20th century with massive roads in city centres that were hard to cross. 2030s Dublin City Centre will see greatly reduced road width even compared to now. So adding an entrace across a road is not going to save anyone much hassle, the same distance/time will still be walked.

That being said I would also have liked to see a developing network of coverd or enclosed pedestrian areas in Dublin and sprawling metro stations and shopping centres have formed part of that puzzel in Canada and Hong Kong for example where extreme heat and cold drive people away from retail.

Heavy rain has a negative impact on footfall here in Ireland. Imagine a covered Henry St, Moore Street, Princes Street and future Dublin Central/ O'Connell metro station. If that were created here we'd probably opt for the street level cover or partial shelter rather than underground walkway. Itd help make Dublin City Centre more liveable and tackle car dependency.

Am I reading the Glasnevin plans right if I think there are no escalators linking the Irish Rail platforms with the ML concourse level, just stairs and lifts?

I never noticed that detail before. There's escalators on the MetroLink elements of the station but not on the Irish Rail side.

Lobby to MetroLink platforms

From the main lobby to the concourse level MetroLink has stairs and two escalators. From the MetroLink concourse level to the mezzanine level MetroLink has stairs and two escalators. From the mezzanine level to the MetroLink platforms there is stairs and two escalators to each platform. For lift users there's a lift from the lobby to the concourse level. Then a lift straight to each platform.

Lobby to Irish Rail platforms

From the main lobby to the Irish Rail platform there are just stairs and lifts. No escalators at all.

MetroLink Platforms to Irish Rail platforms

MetroLink platform to mezzanine level. Then there are 4 separate escalators to a separate area of the concourse level for Irish Rail connections. From the concourse level up to the Irish Rail platforms there are lifts or stairs. No escalators.

It's like you can feel the different in philosophies between TII and Irish Rail. TII fine with escalators. Irish Rail anti-escalators.

Source drawings are here

That's going to be an annoying trek up the stairs to the DART from the ML concourse every evening on your way home from work assuming you work in the city centre. The stairs coming up from ML also appear to surface to the open air, with no canopy. I can't believe they are actually going to build the IR part of the station like that. Is the detail just missing from the ML drawings I wonder? I know all the other stations along the DART there are designed in a fairly hostile way with minimal shelter but this is going to be a major interchange station with huge patronage, possibly the busiest or second busiest station on the network. It deserves full length canopies IMV. Hopefully it's just outside of the scope of the drawings here.

Comfort for passengers = potential loitering spot for delinquents sadly. If we had a dedicated resourced transport police they may be more willing to have a less "hostile" environment. It's disappointing but it's hard not to see where they are coming from given what they have to deal with on their own trains on a daily basis, never mind platforms.

The access to the IE lines will also be ticket barriered.

Although the eastern ends of the IR platforms at Glasnevin will definitely be under cover because they are beneath the entrance building. Anyone "wishing" to sleep rough at the station will have the opportunity with or without the western ends of the platforms and in particular the openings from the stairs up from ML being under cover.

lol

That’s the mindset in all semi state companies is it?
Good to know you have your finger on the pulse of all semi state companies in Ireland. 🤦‍♂️

It is a prevalent mindset/culture yes. Not universal of course.

I've worked in 2 of the big ones alright. And yes its my opinion and its one that is widely shared including by the government that gave us the DTO and later the NTA and TII

The was no redevelopment of Tara Street planned with Ronan's tower, a previous iteration in the mid 2010s had station improvements (proposed by Ronan, not IR) but from memory I think ABP refused it and the eventual approved project did nothing more than open up a new side entrance on Tara Street itself

You'd hope they will do something with it eventually, but given their annual station improvement budget in Dublin appears to be somewhere in the region of €0 I wouldn't confidently say it'll "definitely be redeveloped"!