Rip Off Ireland - Rail Transport Planning

The Ramp at Connolly Station

removing a pile of rubble for €30 million, and for no good reason

The decision three years ago to remove the approach ramp to
Connolly Station at a cost (we are now being told) of €30m to allow LUAS trams to enter the station at ground level, was irresponsible, wasteful, short-sighted and yet another example of how there is no consultation in any meaningful sense between the various transport agencies in this country. Irish Rail quite rightly argued that the ramp was useful in quickly evacuating people from the station during emergencies such as a fires, or terrorist alerts. Now people will be forced to escape down a limited number of staircases and escalators.

With the coming of LUAS and the redevelopment of the Dublin docks region, Connolly Station should have benefited from an intelligent redevelopment blueprint to truly make it a functional and strategic transport hub. Unfortunately, CIE seem to have neither the imagination, nor the business sense to understand this, and the Railway Procurement Agency appears to be just as incompetent in such matters. What kind of ‘experts’ are running this project, where they can be so short-sighted as to initially propose a LUAS line from O'Connell Street to Connolly Station and then half-way through the project, propose an extension to The Point (via some strange routes, all of which ignore the proposed railway station at Spencer Dock!) which is in itself short-sighted, as the line should cross over the Liffey to connect the Southside docks after it has left the Point and on to Ringsend and Irishtown.

If the ramp had been left in place, there could have been a stop at Harbourmaster Place, at the rear of the station. This would have allowed passengers to journey from Connolly to the Point without first having to enter the station and be 'reversed out back out. The ramp could have been maintained for its security benefits. It’s sheer madness in many ways. The lack of consultation is mind-bogelinling. We now have a situation where a ramp that should not have been demolished in the first place is being demolish for €30 million, and a station and line being built to being the LUAS into Connolly for million more that is now pointless.

What you could buy for the €30 that was spent on this demolition job:
30 Arrow railcars for regional rail services in the West and South East
or
17 miles of track relayed between Sligo and Galway.
or

New train stations at Killucan, Adare, Tuam and Gort.

The same old story. Like the proposed rail tunnel under the Liffey, waste countless millions in Dublin needlessly, so you don’t have to spend it on “unviable” regional services outside the Pale which might actually kick-start the National Spatial Strategy proper and give better value to taxpayers nationwide.

For more information please visit: www.platform11.org