Metro South proposed in Dublin transport plan

This metro south idea raises its head every few years, usually when whatever transport body is currently in place feels that it has to show that it's actually doing something. (or failing that, that it's planning something, or at least talking about something).

There are several reasons why it is poor.

The key reason is that, if Dublin is aspiring to a city-wide LUAS/Metro/DART network, to accompany the bus network, it should attempt to deliver this in such a way that passengers need to make as few changes as possible to get wherever in the city they wish to go.

If this line were to happen, and that goal were to be achieved, potential LUAS/Metro lines which the city might eventually like to build, for, example between the Centre and Terenure/Tallaght and between the Centre and Finglas, would all have to be severely skewed in order to meet up with the proposed metro north/south idea, and several areas of the city which could use better public transport would lose out.

There is also the question of whether an upgrade of the LUAS Green line is appropriate when several of the above mentioned suburbs, which have been patiently paying taxes for decades, get nothing.

If the city is ever to get around to building an initial metro line, Swords to St. Stephen's Green broadly makes sense as a start. If it is to continue with that process - as it inevitably will once the success of that initial part is seen - it should continue the line towards the southwest of the city, hopefully with two branches (perhaps from the Bleeding Horse to Rathmines, Rathgar, Terenure and beyond, and from the Bleeding Horse to Harold's Cross, Kimmage and eventually Walkinstown Cross), to maximise the throughput in the most difficult, most expensive tunnelled areas in the centre.

With regard to an eventual upgrade of the Green line to metro standard, I believe that the city should be giving serious consideration to this happening via a route to/from Finglas, with an interchange with the above-mentioned earlier line at St. Stephen's Green (and hopefully with this having branches at either end, to maximise uptake at the ends either side of the city centre). For example, Bride's Glen to Finglas, via St. Stephen's Green, Christchurch, Church Street, Broadstone, the soon-to-be-completed LUAS alignment to Broombridge and Finglas. Once that tunnel were build it opens up the possibility of branches on either side of the tunnel, for example an eventual connection on the southside from St. Stephen's Green to UCD via, say, Donnybrook.

This would give Dubliners a journey of UCD to Walkinstown, Swords to Broadstone, Finglas to Terenure or Broadstone to Rathgar (and many others) with one change. And, of course, from any of those locations to the city, no change.

It would take maybe 20-30 years to develop that fully, but it would be an arrangement which would enable one-change travel in large swathes of the city, for many more suburbs than the metro north/south idea will ever realistically achieve.

You are quite right that it is total fantasy. I remember back in 2005 when Martin Cullen, Mary Harney and others announced their 'Transport 21' plan to 2015, costing 34.1 billion euro. Not 34, or 35, but the more precise figure of 34.1.

Out of that 34.1 billion, many billions were earmarked for public transport in Dublin, almost none of which ever happened.

The DTO were employed by the State to come up with a realistic plan back in 2000. Martin Cullen and the people behind him were employed by the State to do the same in 2005. Yet effectively none of the proposed improvements to Dublin's transport were ever delivered.

The current transport outfit (apparently called the NTA) produces a plan for the next number of years, nobody believes it, and if you look at the form they're quite right not to.