DART+ (DART Expansion)

Claudia Dalby of The Dublin Inqurier has written an article about why there isn't any more stations for DART+ South West.

https://dublininquirer.com/2021/06/16/why-isn-t-irish-rail-planning-more-stations-along-the-dart-south-west-line

Richard Efemena has been sitting at a bus stop on Sarsfield Road in Ballyfermot for 18 minutes, waiting for the 79 to take him into town.

From there, he’ll hop on another bus to Clare Hall for his night shift, he says. The journey usually takes him just under an hour.

If an electric-rail station were nearby, perhaps near the bridge over Sarsfield Road, or off Landen Road to the west, his journey might be faster.

An electric-rail station that could, say, link into the DART+ South West plans.

CatInABox wrote: »

So basically penny wise, pound foolish, as we suspected.

Love how the NTA spokesperson tells them to go ask Irish Rail, and Irish Rail say it's the NTA that decide these things.

They also all love to say that the stations are outside the scope of Dart+, is everyone spoken to just an engineer on Dart+?

If your consultation is generating almost no controversy outside of 3 items that are 'outside of the scope of your project', you go to whoever can make decisions on projects to progress and tell them they need to get a 'Dart+ Stations' scheme started yesterday.

The Greens supposedly got 2:1 funding for PT, lets see that in action with the rapid development of a Stations scheme.

cgcsb wrote: »

If they're not building the stations I'd like to see the project de-prioritised, it doesn't make any sense as is, at least until Clonburris is built. The money can be used on much needed cycling projects in the city instead, far more useful than upgrading the frequency of service to 4 rural/semi rural stations for hundreds of millions of euro.

Sorry, but I think you are fundamentally wrong here.

Firstly, investing in the infrastructure ahead of housing development taking place is exactly what should be happening, just as with the Green Line LUAS to Brides Glen. The line needs to be upgraded and I don't see any reason not to proceed with it now.

By the time that the upgrade is actually complete along the line, there will be a large number of addtional bus routes feeding into the stations along the line, and more development is likely to have taken place around Adamstown and particularly in Newcastle and Celbridge which will feed into Hazelhatch.

Your regularly repeated description of the existing stations as "rural or semi-rural" is a bit disengenuous. It ignores the reality that the bus network feeding into the railway will be dramatically improved over the next few years, and that each of Hazelhatch, Adamstown, Kishogue and Clondalkin/Fonthill all have large P & R facilities which will only be busier still if the line is upgraded.

Looking at the five stations along the line:

Hazelhatch serves Celbridge and Newcastle with a massive car park - it is a railhead for the area. The development around it is going to grow more and more.

By next June, Hazelhatch will have a new frequent bus connection from Newcastle and east Celbridge in the form of the W6, and it will have frequent buses from west and north Celbridge later this year in the form of L59 and south Celbridge and Castletown with the L58.

Adamstown will also have a new network of bus routes associated with the C Spine that will terminate at the station, creating far more direct links from across southwest Lucan (C1, C2, L51, L52 and L53).

Kishogue will act as a railhead for much of south Lucan and also the growing business park at Grange Castle. It will be served by the W4 bus which will start next June, and it and the D1 will connect both south Lucan and Grange Castle, and there will be a large car park there too.

Clondalkin/Fonthill will have a new bus service (L54) from Clondalkin and along the Fonthill Road passing outside it which will feed into the DART.

Park West & Cherry Orchard will have the G1 passing outside it, linking to Woodford and Cherry Orchard.

All of these new bus connections will greatly enhance the usefulness of the five stations already built.

That being said, I do believe that Kylemore, Heuston West and Cabra stations should be built as part of the project too. I think that they are important, especially given the development that's happening around them. But if they don't the upgrade should still happen as development along the line is going to happen.

The DART+ programme is not solely about the city itself - it is also about improving the lot of outer suburban commuters too. Trains will serve both the PPT line and Heuston, which is important, given that the PPT service is of less use if passengers are going to/from points west of O'Connell Bridge.

We need the rail infrastructure to be upgraded - deferring it again is not realistic.

When you see other countries with hundreds of km or even their entire rail network electrified it makes me laugh. It takes the NTA until Spring 2022 to submit just the plans to electrify a measly few km and add no new stations

The 1975 dart plan could have been considered radical in the context of the era and DART+ in 2021 is less ambitious than that

When metrolink, dart+, bus connects and finglas luas are complete we'll be in the same place we were in 2018/19 because growth will have eaten up that capacity

crazy 88 wrote: »

I am still doubtful the metro will even happen. Covid is bound to have a financial impact to the Exchequer in the long term. As has been done to Dart Underground so many times, this is one they can easily hang up to dry and claim bus connects and cycle lanes will solve all the problems

I'm afraid they'll postpone it also. It must be very tempting to the Department of Finance. I do think cycling and better buses are a vital part of transport in Dublin too though.

Heraclius wrote: »

I'm afraid they'll postpone it also. It must be very tempting to the Department of Finance. I do think cycling and better buses are a vital part of transport in Dublin too though.

Will they help? Yes. But nowhere near as much as required. Buses will just never run smoothly. Not entirely Bus Eireann's fault I think though. More down to things like badly designed bus lanes and yellow boxes having no meaning to drivers in Dublin

yascaoimhin wrote: »

Well, the National Train Control Centre and City Centre Resignalling Programme are both required to enable DART+. They're under construction and finished respectively.

After that, We'll probably see DART+ Fleet making the first changes to the network in the next 2-3 years, battery-powered trains will enable DART services to extend to Drogheda sooner rather than later.

But when it comes to the infrastructure, DART+ West is due for completion first in 2024

Thanks. I try to keep up to date but sometimes I'm not sure what was just proposed versus what's actually currently being built.

yascaoimhin wrote: »

The DART+ Website has a hand graphic that shows what stage each vein of the project will be at every year as far as 2023
https://www.dartplus.ie/en-ie/projects

Thanks. It returns a server error on my phone but I'll try to navigate to it from the main page. I'm looking forward to an improvement in public transport around Dublin.

Peregrine wrote: »

Initial order of 13 BEMU and 6 EMU half-length sets. BEMUs going to the Northern Line with charging facilities at Drogheda. Looks like they're quite happy to take their time with electrification of the Northern Line.

It's more the delievery times for new rolling stock is quite long so they're ordering it now to ensure that they have the stock when its needed and to lock in the electrifcition process.