DART-Airport Spur From Clongriffin

QUOTE=bk;74756537]That is where you and I differ.

I think connecting Dublin Airport to a highly integrated public transport system that brings people speedily into the city center and the third largest town in Ireland (Swords) where so many people work and many other large and busy locations, with multiple connections with DART, Luas and Commuter rail makes a great deal of sense.

I believe a DART spur to the airport makes no sense at all and is a non starter.

I believe linking the airport into the mainline train network makes a little more sense, but not at the cost of millions when most of the rail network is already adequately served by Bus services.

Other then the general positive idea of integration, no one has given me a good reason why it is a good idea to spend hundreds of millions replicating what is already deliverd by coaches for free?



I couldn't agree more.

Dublin Airport is within a few miles of 40% of the population of Ireland and is now connected by a superb, world class motorway network which puts the vast majority (probably 90%+) of the population of Ireland within 2 to 3 hours of Dublin Airport.

It seems crazy to me that the government forces Aer Lingus to fly half empty flights from Shannon to New York every day, when Shannon is just two hours from Dublin Airport. Yet Aer Lingus and Ireland doesn't have a single direct flight to the west coast of the US from Dublin!!

I mean look at all the west coast, silicon valley companies that are so important to our economy, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Oracle, etc. in Dublin, yet their managers and executives have to change in London to get to Dublin!!

How incredibly embarrassing short sighted and stupid is that?

Frankfurt, Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle airports are all connected to their national railway networks and also happen to be amongst the most successful hub airports in Europe. Berlin's new airport will also be similarly well connected once finished. It's not clear to me what the Government's aviation policy is, nor am I that familiar with the DAA's vision for the airport's development, but if it involves turning Dublin Airport into any kind of trans-Atlantic hub (as has been mooted before from time to time) then this would help in achieving that.

I'm not sure a connection to mainline rail would make much difference.

Business people are going to use cars. While value oriented travelers will use cheaper bus services that are just as fast as the rail service.

IMO if we want to improve the utilisation of Dublin Airport then the following needs to happen:

1) Extend the existing runways to regularly handle larger aircraft like the 747 and A380.
2) Build a new runway.
3) Reduce DAA fees.
4) License at least two direct non stop bus services from Dublin Airport to each city in Ireland.
5) Change AerLingus's Shannon to New York route to a Dublin to San Francisco route.
6) Eventually build Metro North.
7) Much longer down the line, if it makes financial sense connect the Airport with the mainline rail network. (In the meantime, reserve the route).
8) Subsidise Aer Arann (or someone else with similarly sized aircraft) to serve Dublin/Cork, Dublin/Shannon, etc.

I'm afraid you can't really compare airports like Frankfurt, Schiphol and Charles de Gaulle. These are major international hub airports, in the middle of Europe, which are plugged into one of the largest high speed rail network in the world.

Dublin Airport could be a hub airport. But a different type of hub airport. A hub airport where trans-atlantic flights land and then the people connect on to other airports in Europe. These passengers won't care about how you can get and go from Dublin Airport as they will never leave the airport.

Unlike other major European hub airports, Dublin will never have or need the same sort of internal connections. What Dublin Airport needs is to allow Irish people and tourists to quickly get to and from the airport primarily to Dublin City Center, secondly Swords area (employees) and thirdly the other cities of Ireland.

The last I believe can be adequately served by bus coach and internal flights for the next few years.

Question, would people think it would be better to spend 500 million connecting Dublin Airport to the rail network or spend a fraction of that money to subsidise internal flights between Irish airports?



I used Manchester Airport and rail station a few weeks ago. It seems to have it's own direct train service, certainly the one I was on was. Interesting to note that there was a maximum of 10 people on this train at about 3pm!!

BTW the train station also acts as a bus station, which from what I could see the majority of people were taking. So I wonder does the 8000 daily passengers include bus passengers?

I've just checked and you are correct Manchester serves 7,400 rail passengers per day. But also note the article shows that all but one service terminates at the airport.



But the existing figures take this into account and if you used the rail to get to Dublin, then it counted it as a rail passenger.

As you say yourself, must people don't take rail to get to Dublin and by extent Dublin Airport as Dublin Airport is already more then adequately served by direct bus coach.

So the question that no one has yet answered is if Dublin Airport is already adequately served by Bus Coach, why spend minimum of 300 million to give a service that won't change this situation at all.

As you said yourself, people in Galway will get the Bus Coach as it will take them directly to the airport, but won't get rail as they would have to change.

But the DART Spur won't change this one bit. People coming from Galway would still have to change twice. Once at Connolly onto Luas, then from Luas onto DART at Connolly.

People coming from Belfast would be little better, they would have to get the train to Connolly and then change to DART, rather then just staying on a bus from Belfast which would actually be faster and cheaper.

And all of this is going to cost us 300 million. But for what benefit?[/QUOTE]

The government are not forcing Aerlingus to do anything.

SNN-JFK is very profitable in summer, and not half empty as you claim. It did lose money in January and February, which is why EI do not operate in those months anymore (their decision)

You should also know that EI did operate to Los Angeles and San Francisco but pulled them during the financial crisis because they became unprofitable. They will probably return in time. Operating to the US west coast has nothing to do with a Shannon - New York route and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise.