West Briton finds a reason for some Luas Bashers...

West Briton · 24-01-2004 1:59am #1

Here's a reason why Luas has been attacked by people with ulterior motives since the time that "they" copped on it was going to happen:

Irrespective of the housing densities per acre, development value as opposed to agricultural value is going to be the same. Mass transit determining a greater density of housing per acre isn't going to give those who hoarded land a greater payday than sprawl in South Lucan at four/five houses per acre.

silverside · 24-01-2004 7:20pm

I don;t think it's as complex as that. Irish people naturally bash any governemnt initiative which changes the status quo. Other more informed commentators such as Garret Fitzgerald pointed out the limitations of LUAS, which is not really a mass transit system, seeing as each route has the capacity of 2 QbC'S!

West Briton · 24-01-2004 11:09pm

I don't believe that Garret is a guru on transport.

Garret was infamous for remarking on the opening of DART that if he had been in government in 1979 he would never have supported it.

The same Fine Gael/ Labour government starved the railways of investment and made the fatal decision not to go ahead with the rest of the DART project. At the very end of that government, they rejected an offer from a Canadian company to build the then proposed underground from Connolly to Heuston, which would have linked up nicely with the aborted DART line from Heuston to Cherry Orchard and Tallaght, much of which route makes up the Luas line from the Mad Cow to Tallaght.

In fairness, the following Fianna Fail minority government wasn't much better.
It took years for any Irish government to grapple with the fact that Dublin was getting more crowded and a spatial strategy based on low density sprawl and the motor car, with losers taking the bus had a finite life. This doesn't seem to have penetrated all the skulls of this country's decision makers.

Garret's original problem with Luas was apparently the tightness of curve from the Green to Dawson Street. I guess that he presumed that the gauge was going to be the standard Irish five foot three and not 4' 8.5".
His main objection seems to have been that traffic would be stopped at regular intervals for several minutes at a time, as if the Merrion Gates were to be writ large across the streetscape of Dublin. His proposed alternatives seemed to be years ahead of the current project in terms of implementation.

It suited Bertie and Co. to take Garret's advice on board, as Bertie seems to have been fearful of the "disruption" that would coincide with a General Election. God forbid that Bertie would do anything to annoy any vested interests.

Victor · 24-01-2004 11:15pm

Originally posted by West Briton
Irrespective of the housing densities per acre, development value as opposed to agricultural value is going to be the same. Mass transit determining a greater density of housing per acre isn't going to give those who hoarded land a greater payday than sprawl in South Lucan at four/five houses per acre.

Not saying I agree or disagree, but can you explain this to me. The value of land is largely down to how much you can build on it.

Capt'n Midnight · 24-01-2004 11:32pm

Originally posted by West Briton
At the very end of that government, they rejected an offer from a Canadian company to build the then proposed underground from Connolly to Heuston,

How many times do people have to be told there IS already a rail link between Connolly and Hueston under the Phoenix Park.

West Briton · 25-01-2004 1:21am

I'm well aware of it. Unfortunately those in charge of our railways haven't used it as such since around 1909.

Bee · 25-01-2004 10:47pm

The entire LUAS concept was questionable (and questioned) from its inception. I was always against it from the start. Only a moron or a DCC traffic engineer could find it a good idea.I believe the Director of Public Prosecutions should consider pursuing a public interest law suit for culpable negligence against several highly placed individuals in the Gov./DCC/ Big Business with Brown Paper Bags
Guess who?

As it now stands it appears that the Minister and the RPA/LUAS senior management have been aware for some time that ALL available funding has been disbursed. It now appears that the hitherto little publicised "Contingency" fund of some €90 million has also been exhausted

Having presided over this less than prudent handling of public funds we now learn that the Construction Consortium ihas succeeded in screwing the taxpayer by getting extra sums in the region of €65 million in order to bring the project in on its new and much delayed completion date.

At a time when the remainder of Dublins Surface Public Transport network is still chronically underfunded and ineptly regulated by a multitude of idiots belonging to various agencies, this amounts,in my book,to Negligence on a grand scale and cries out for criminal investigation,the CAB should be involved.

The LUAS cost is approaching €1,000 MILLION and will be borne by the Taxpayer Full Stop.

Yet in a modern European Capital we are asked to accept public transport users being subjected to little more than abuse in relation to locating centre city bus termini. Never mind the high tax paying business motorists who have provided millions in revenue but whose interests are not properly represented by Gov. Yet the Gov/DCC are happy to give themselves Bench Marking rises with nothing in return. How about increasing traffic flow for motorists instead of removing road space with a system that will carry less than if they had tossed a a small part of the Luas moneys at Dublin Bus and painted QBC's along the Luas routes.

We are asked to accept a situation where a City Council spokesperson can say to the main provider of Bus Services within its area that "its your Problem where to put your buses-we just want the bloody things off the streets"

Yet the same City-Council has steadfastly refused to prioritise the Bus network at those Critical "Pinch-Points" which surround our capital. The Traffic is going to be totally screwed. What fun we will have with the “Clueless” up and not running.

I expect another bloody Tribunal facing the LUAS consortium down the line. Pardon the pun!

The main players in this pungent debacle have wasted vast amount of taxpayers money .Yet as the abundance of wealth generated by profit making business people squandered by the Gov. now recedes we are left with Nothing in transport terms to show for it all and those who bear responsibility simply continue to make glib and inaccurate pronouncements in order to shore up their political reputations.

I expect the whole debacle will come to a head when traffic flow collapses to even worse than our current Calcutta standards

Roll on the next election

Bee

Victor · 26-01-2004 8:08pm

Originally posted by Victor
Not saying I agree or disagree, but can you explain this to me. The value of land is largely down to how much you can build on it.

West Briton, any comments?

West Briton · 26-01-2004 11:36pm

My understanding is that there are two sorts of value that land can be given: agricultural value and development value. I'm not an auctioneer so stand to be corrected.

A bizarre example of this was where the development of a road was held up over the width of two fields, where the owner held out for DV even though successive County Development Plans had marked the lands concerned as a road. The view of the local authority concerned was that the landowner was only due a small premium over and above the ag value of the land.

However, I do believe that it is no coincidence that the majority of development in the hinterland of Dublin has been sprawl based with poor public transport based on the bus only. Population densities that would justify the construction of a DART based service have only been encouraged very recently.

West Briton · 26-01-2004 11:40pm

Originally posted by Bee
painted QBC's along the Luas routes.
Bee

It would have been a bit hard to paint bus lanes among the grass and hedgerows on the Harcourt Street line.

West Briton · 27-01-2004 12:15am

I well recall the chatter prior to the commencement of the DART service. "Green Elephant!" "Half the catchment area is under the sea!" "Better to build a motorway along Sandymount Strand!" and the unspoken one, "We can't make money out of this so we're against it"

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

As for me, I will be the man with the quiet smile on his face on one of the first trams out to Sandyford.

Lord Glentoran · 27-07-2020 11:03pm

Bee wrote: »

The entire LUAS concept was questionable (and questioned) from its inception. I was always against it from the start. Only a moron or a DCC traffic engineer could find it a good idea.I believe the Director of Public Prosecutions should consider pursuing a public interest law suit for culpable negligence against several highly placed individuals in the Gov./DCC/ Big Business with Brown Paper Bags
Guess who?

As it now stands it appears that the Minister and the RPA/LUAS senior management have been aware for some time that ALL available funding has been disbursed. It now appears that the hitherto little publicised "Contingency" fund of some €90 million has also been exhausted

Having presided over this less than prudent handling of public funds we now learn that the Construction Consortium ihas succeeded in screwing the taxpayer by getting extra sums in the region of €65 million in order to bring the project in on its new and much delayed completion date.

At a time when the remainder of Dublins Surface Public Transport network is still chronically underfunded and ineptly regulated by a multitude of idiots belonging to various agencies, this amounts,in my book,to Negligence on a grand scale and cries out for criminal investigation,the CAB should be involved.

The LUAS cost is approaching €1,000 MILLION and will be borne by the Taxpayer Full Stop.

Yet in a modern European Capital we are asked to accept public transport users being subjected to little more than abuse in relation to locating centre city bus termini. Never mind the high tax paying business motorists who have provided millions in revenue but whose interests are not properly represented by Gov. Yet the Gov/DCC are happy to give themselves Bench Marking rises with nothing in return. How about increasing traffic flow for motorists instead of removing road space with a system that will carry less than if they had tossed a a small part of the Luas moneys at Dublin Bus and painted QBC's along the Luas routes.

We are asked to accept a situation where a City Council spokesperson can say to the main provider of Bus Services within its area that "its your Problem where to put your buses-we just want the bloody things off the streets"

Yet the same City-Council has steadfastly refused to prioritise the Bus network at those Critical "Pinch-Points" which surround our capital. The Traffic is going to be totally screwed. What fun we will have with the “Clueless” up and not running.

I expect another bloody Tribunal facing the LUAS consortium down the line. Pardon the pun!

The main players in this pungent debacle have wasted vast amount of taxpayers money .Yet as the abundance of wealth generated by profit making business people squandered by the Gov. now recedes we are left with Nothing in transport terms to show for it all and those who bear responsibility simply continue to make glib and inaccurate pronouncements in order to shore up their political reputations.

I expect the whole debacle will come to a head when traffic flow collapses to even worse than our current Calcutta standards

Roll on the next election

Bee

Curious where the “smart” thinking was in 2003!

devnull · 27-07-2020 11:21pm

Bumping 17 year old posts like this when you're adding nothing is not a goer, sorry.

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West Briton finds a reason for some Luas Bashers...

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