Dublin Metrolink (just Metrolink posts here -see post #1 )

DDBarry wrote: »

I have no problem with Metro North as a project it would obviously be the most effective option in terms of passenger movement. It is the rolls royce option though, which is fine when the money is rolling in and the COBAs prove it to yield a positive return.

There have been several COBAs done and released to the public. All have been more than positive.

I dont use the Luas green line much but as far as i'm aware, Luas Green line does not have as many conflict points as the red line. So maybe better planning could avoid these problems, or maybe better policing.

I assume you're working with a traffic department outside Dublin? The Green line was built on an old train line so it has almost no conflicts with pedestrian or vehicular traffic at all so, because of that, flies along at up to 70kph. The city centre part of the Red line was build on roads so it has conflicts coming out of its ass and, as a result, crawls along between stops.

How do you propose to build a train line from the city centre to Swords without having to slow down/stop at traffic lights? How will it make any speed if it has to constantly operate slowly because of the risk of pedestrian incursion, cars straying into its path and upcoming traffic lights.

I've yet to see anyone propose a route that serves anything close to Metro North on the surface and wouldn't be plagued by conflicts and traffic lights. Feel free to try if you like

Of course, for every city the size of Dublin with an underground metro there are plenty more without. Manchester demonstrates that having an underground system is not a condition of having a good public transport network and it's actually a larger city. I'd even go as far as to say that it has better public transport than some of those cities which do ...Someone previously made a comparison between Dublin and Glasgow, well Glasgow is also an example of a city that is inferior to Manchester when it comes to public transport.

There's no need to come up with a new solution to the same problem in Dublin when there are existing solutions that we know work and work well. Luas and Dart are both successful and most of the criticisms levelled against them are to do with the fact that they've been a victim of their own success as oppose to any inherent flaw with the concepts. The only thing that's happened over the last couple of years is that the recession has put into focus the fact that taking MN underground might not be the best use of the money we have (or don't have).

abitofacomedian wrote: »

I've lived in Manchester and my wife is from Oslo, no caparison Oslo wins hands down. Manchester is building a pretty significant overground tram system, but it is blessed with many closed and preserved railway alignments similar to the Harcourt alignment. The city centre section of the Metrolink gets pretty congested too. They are planning another cross city connection on street, we'll see how that goes.



When something is overcrowded to the point of no way to improve capacity within a few years of opening that is an inherent flaw with the concept. Also, we have used up most of the low hanging fruit, the Harcourt line, the reservation for the Tallaght DART etc. If we were to continue electrifying lines and building on street Luaseanna we would get diminishing returns. Metro North and DART Underground aren't new solutions to old problems, they are evolutions of our current systems, to open them up to new areas and increase capacity and utilisation of existing infrastructure.

You beat me to it. Another point I would add is that we really shouldn't be looking to the Brits for ideas anymore - they've made an even bigger balls of public transport, outside London, than we have.

And part of the reason we have such a PT mess here in Dublin is that we slavishly followed the British approach in the past and tore up our tram system and rail lines and went for the bus option - rather than taking the European approach of preserving and expanding the tram system and linking existing rail lines and developing new lines with tunnel sections in the city centre. Another trait we've taken from our former masters is endless consultation and dithering and chopping and changing - rather than the 'can do, will do' approach in Europe.

Give me the European appraoch over the UK/Irish way any day.

AngryLips wrote: »

I didn't say anything about overcrowding. I just pointed out that the criticisms of Dart and Luas (vis a vis Metro) have more to do with the success of both systems rather than their failings. I don't think overcrowding has come up but, of course, if that was a genuine problem then we'd see three minute frequencies on Luas (which we're not). Maybe it's a problem with Dart but the resignalling project will address that.

The success of Luas and Dart is their failing - they simply weren't ambitious enough when planned to cope with increasing demand.

While Luas was in planning and in the run-up to construction, it was pointed out by quite a few people that Luas as planned was not adequate for Dublin's future needs. They were ignored. But they were proven right.

Examples include Cormac Rabbitt, the late Jim Mitchell TD and the recently deceased Garret FitzGerald.

Mitchell and Garret had experience to call upon to form their opinions - they abandoned the rest of the Dart project in the 1980s after FF and CIE made such a hames of the first phase. They had also done their research.

And on Luas frequencies, it's down to about every 3.75mins now at peak times - 16 trams an hour in each direction. My understanding is they have little scope for any higher frequencies.

That's the planned maximum frequency of Dart Underground through the tunnel.

Metro's planned max frequency is every 2 mins or 30 trains per hour per direction because full segregation will allow that.

DWCommuter wrote: »

It is highly unlikely Aard.

We need a sea change is public attitudes. Lower taxes, easy credit etc. are still the victorious pursuits of Joe Public. They will sit in chronic traffic congestion, complain and get irate, but they will not shout about PT infrastructure during an election. I believe Ireland is at least 50 years away from having a public mindset that will demand and vote based on PT. That's a few boom and busts away before we really learn a lesson.

Internet forums are not representative of how public opinion will develop.

DWC, I've long held the opinion that the majority of people are actually quite stupid - despite how clearly intelligent they may be. It comes from years of actually dealing with them and never ceasing to be amazed at how dense they can be. And the politicians we have are simply a reflection of that wider stupidity in society.

An example, the talk of new tolls recently and the reaction of people - 'I'm not paying a toll for using the M50, I'll drive through town rather than pay it'. Or 'I'm not paying the Shannon Tunnel toll - I'll drive through Limerick instead' or wherever there may be a toll.

I pointed out to quite a few that the couple of yoyos they saved in dodging a toll would be more than lost in fuel consumed by stop-starting at lights and crawling through heavy traffic - never mind the time lost in same and the stress built up.

Most never copped that and never even considered it - stupid, I tell ya, real stupid.

We are a nation full of people determined to cut off their noses to spite their faces. And sometimes, I think we deserve what we get.

DWCommuter wrote: »

We are a nation that's used to being lead so much that we lack real leaders. When potential leaders appear, they are shot down. It's insecurity. There's a Chinese proverb that I always equated with Ireland. It goes something like this, " The nail that stands tallest will always be hit with the hammer first."

Both you and I have come full circle now after a dubious start. Personally I predict many more years of talk, talk, talk and then when it seems like we may have money to do something, we will re-plan everything all over again. History repeats itself, unless you cry stop! We don't do that in Ireland.

I have been right about so much and took a lot of abuse on Boards.ie for my opinions. However it is all coming to fruition now. I check in here daily and already see the "alternative" ideas being promoted. It is only a matter of time before this filters down to political level. It will. MN and DU will be reinvented in the coming years and yet more talk and debate will ensue. I stake my reputation (which isn't too bad:D) on it.

Thankfully I won't be here to get emotionally embroiled in it.

Agreed.

We are now subsidising a rake of roads that lay empty all over the country, while our main economic engine (thats Dublin idiots) remains gridlocked all the live long day. It's beyond retarded, but then "we the people" voted for this moronic strategy.

Sigh.. what do you expect to happen when clepto-amnesiac knackers and alcoholic culchies are left to run a country by themselves? Success? :rolleyes:

1huge1 wrote: »

It could be more to do with the fact that they would rather ''waste'' more money on fuel consumption than paying for something that shouldn't be so highly tolled in the first place, trying to prove a point perhaps.

I imagine that is most people's reason for doing so anyway and I think they are not necessarily as ''stupid'' as you claim.

Actually, you're very, very wrong. As we have discovered, we haven't really paid for anything in the last decade. Turns out what we thought we paid for was actually built on the back of taxes from borrowed money - and now we're having to pay back all that borrowed money, most of which we didn't even borrow in the first place.

And funny enough, most people don't want to pay that money back, nor do they think we should have to pay it back. But they were happy enough to take the goodies funded by that borrowed money when they were being doled out by The Bert and his pal during the C*lt*c T*g*r years

You didn't pay for it through income tax because most people in this country pay little or no income tax and the nation as a whole is under-taxed compared to comparable economies elsewhere in Europe. All thanks to tax cuts designed to buy votes for The Bert.

If you think all the motor-related taxes - VRT, motor tax, fuel duty - paid to build the motorways and now pay to maintain them, you'd be wrong their too. That money all goes into one big pot and very little of it went anywhere near road construction.

Then there is the fact that around one fifth of the motorway network was funded through PPPs and are being repaid through tolls - as is the €600m buyout of the M50 Westlink toll contract.

Given all this is the result on 14 years of incredibly bad government from a party that was elected to power on three successive occasions by the majority of Irish voters, I would suggest that is evidence of stupidity on a monumental scale.

Then there is the determination of so many to cost themselves money - cutting off nose to spite faces - to make a stand on a point of principle which is based on a fundamental misconception, ie not paying tolls on motorways because they believe they've been paid for when they really, really haven't, while not realising sitting crawling in traffic is costing them more than a €2 toll.

And finally, and back on the main topic of discussion, there is the stupidity involved in refusing to invest in critical infrastructure that will provide significant economic and social benefits for decades to come - while at the same time making an economy emerging from depression more competitive and sustainable into the future - because someone in a pub or on an internet message board or a rambling, ranting, eejit in a newspaper told them we don't need it and can't afford it, when the evidence across Europe and elsewhere in the world points to the exact opposite.

So, given what I've witnessed in the last decade and a half, and particularly in the last three years, as well as from dealing with tens of thousands of people on many issues and in many guises over 20-odd years, I can safely say many, many, people are stupid beyong belief.

1huge1 mentions that some people think tolls are too high. The problem is that for most of that cohort of people ANY toll - even 50c - is too high. I remember a rake of problems with this in Fermoy when their bypass was built because of trucks.

I would have dealt with this by reductions in speed limits and narrowing of lane widths to force goods traffic avoiding the toll to slow. EU law says that toll roads must have free alternates? I doubt it says the free alternate can't have guards camped out there for tachograph checks.

I agree to a limited extent with what Jack Noble says, but the reality is that what makes Ireland's debt unsustainable is NOT infrastructure debt. The decision to guarantee bank debt but more importantly to extend guarantees and make repayments even once it was clear that the problems with Anglo etc. were not liquidity but solvency - the debt arising from those decisions are what turned Ireland's debt from sustainable to unsustainable.

Watched the news tonight, where Nama has lost €1.1bn. While there's certainly controversy around it, people still get more up in arms about spending similar money on infrastructure (namely MN). This ties in with the above comments on the stupidity of the general public. The idea of "Nama" and losses and profits and income is sufficintly nebulous for the lay person as to not warrant much attention or debate. OTOH, it's quite simple the idea of "Metro North == billions for Dublin that we don't have". The merits and of course failings are far more apparent, and more easily debated. Thus it doesn't get done. So many other instances exists of "wastes" of millions, if not billions (hello, tax breaks), of euros, but because of their relative intangibility, they're let slide.

It's been said before: people don't know what's good for them.

Updated density maps here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056341438

DDBarry wrote: »

Liverpool, bradford, and edinburgh dont have one, these are the same size as dublin in my mind anyway.

Liverpool isn't doing to bad.
http://www.merseyrail.org/ You do have to note that Dublin does national-type functions that Liverppol doesn't.

DDBarry wrote: »

I dont use the Luas green line much but as far as i'm aware, Luas Green line does not have as many conflict points as the red line. So maybe better planning could avoid these problems, or maybe better policing.

The Luas Green Line isn't far off the standard needed for a metro, simply because it was built largely on an existing, abandoned railway line.

Certainly on O'Connell Street, Luas Red Line should have been grade separated.

AngryLips wrote: »

Of course, for every city the size of Dublin with an underground metro there are plenty more without. Manchester demonstrates that having an underground system is not a condition of having a good public transport network and it's actually a larger city. I'd even go as far as to say that it has better public transport than some of those cities which do ...Someone previously made a comparison between Dublin and Glasgow, well Glasgow is also an example of a city that is inferior to Manchester when it comes to public transport.

Manchester has a substntial rail system and Metrolink is being massively expanded.

http://www.tfgm.com/pdfmaps/metrolink/11-0657-Met-FUTURE-PS-GEO-210711v2.pdf
http://www.tfgm.com/pdfmaps/GMPTERaildiagA4.pdf

And Glasgow has its (small) underground a loads of suburban rail lines.

strassenwo!f wrote: »

What are the four major hospitals which are served by metro north?

I wonder if he is splitting the Mater.

But Mater (main, private and future children's hospital), Temple Street, Rotunda.

Also Royal Victoria, Dental Hospital, Holles Street and Bon Secours Private Hospital, Glasnevin. I wouldn't count Baggot Street or Grangegorman.

http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/maps/map.html?showDoc=1&