Dublin Airport Metro to have unconnected terminus?

This is a last very desperate move by the RPA to get an Airport ‘metro’ line built.

Note how the figure is below €1.9billion to make it more appealing. This figure doesn’t even include the cost of the train, ticket machines and even escalators. That figure is just for the boring of the tunnel.

This is also a move to make people think that the RPA actually do something useful other than wasting taxpayers money and they can continue getting paid easy money. The RPA should be scrapped. They really haven’t got a clue.

Irish Rail should be handling anything to do with rail. IE originally designed the Luas (B4 the RPA got their hands on it and messed up the plans) and the DART and have many years experience with rail. There is nothing the RPA can do that IE can’t.

This would firstly reduce the cost of any project. IE actually have a excellent record of keeping costs of a project either very close to or below budget. IE have their very own in-house engineers, so when it come to designing issues like the route, they design the route to go where it is needed and makes sure that it is integrated with other lines.

All this ‘metro’ line is for is to get from O’Connell St to Dublin airport. And all for wonderful value of €1.9b + the rest + inflation. If we are desperate to like the airport to rail then IE have a plan to create a spur line from the existing DART line in Baldoyle to the airport. The cost, €400million. This line would also serve the 12500 new houses that are expected to appear in this area of north Dublin over the next few years, saving 12500 extra cars from driving down the Drumcondra and the Malahide roads which are jammed up at the moment.

There is simply far too many cars commuting. This seriously effects our quality of life. As for business, they are loosing over a billion Euro and year because of it. The airport ‘metro’ will do very little to improve this.

Please, stop talking about a ‘metro’ line or building new roads and talk about IE simple and cost effective plan uniquely called the GREATER DUBLIN INTERGRATED RAIL PLAN or GDRP. Click Here
The GDRP actually deals in reducing car numbers by giving people a real alternative to commuting.

The RPA are simply involved in a price war with CIE at this stage. It is not even about integrated public transport anymore. They just want the money to build any kind of metro, no matter how unintegrated or pointless it is.

Just give CIE the money to build the Interconnector/Dublin Rail Plan and enough of this codology.

@hutton wrote:

All change for Metro terminus – From the Sunday Independent

NICK WEBB

THE Railway Procurement Authority is now looking at starting the proposed Metro transport system from near O’Connell Street on Dublin’s north side rather than St Stephen’s Green as it seeks to reduce the cost of the proposed system.

RPA chairman Padraic White said the initial “hardcore cost” of the Metro would be up to €1.9bn.

It had been suggested that the construction would cost up to €4.8bn but White said that this figure referred to 20-year costs for the system.

ENDS

😮 !!!

So there you go – “Integrated transport/ planning”, my ar$e! I just love the Irish concept of non-connected/ non-compatible mass transit systems. What gauge will it be this time? I hear 3’6″ is making a comeback.

Looking forward to another fine white elephant :rolleyes:

@P11 Comms wrote:

Dublin Airport is 3.5 Kms away from the DART (already fully integrated with with Regional and National Rail, Luas and Bus service) and there is nothing in between but empty countryside.

This line is already at capacity – the last thing it needs is more trains on it. It doesnt matter that there is nothing between the airport and the line if there is not capacity on the busiest train line in the country to run it. Unless you want to remove some of the northern suburban, Malahide and Howth services

@Rory W wrote:

This line is already at capacity – the last thing it needs is more trains on it. It doesnt matter that there is nothing between the airport and the line if there is not capacity on the busiest train line in the country to run it. Unless you want to remove some of the northern suburban, Malahide and Howth services

Sure, that’s how things are right now at this present time. But Post-DASH and with the arrival of Spencer Dock, the situation will change and extra capacity will be released on the Northern Line

If the Dublin Rail Plan is fully implemented, then you are talking 6 double decker trains per hour from the airport to Hueston under the city centre in each direction.

Couple this with the already integrated nature of the present IE rail network and the RPA’s ‘bit of an oul metro’ is just a farce and offers appalling value for money.

The plan has been updated on the P11 website: http://www.platform11.org/inter_faq.html

If there is no Metro, then the only projects left for the RPA are integrated ticketing and the extension of the Luas lines.
With the integrated ticketing project almost finished, tortuously late but not as noticeably, they will have little or nothing to do. The plans for the IFSC, Cherrywood Extensions are well advanced and by no means justify the existence of a separate Agency at this point. If the Metro plan dies, the RPA’s raison d’etre (apart from connecting the two lines they built separately) disappears.

They need to get sign off on a 3.4 billion euro plan (to be spent over a number of years). That’s always going to be hard to do. It’s not clear that the minister for transport or the taoiseach think it’s worth spending so much money on rail transport. Bertie publicly stated that the airport metro was too expensive even though it was to go through his own constituency. Improving life for people living along the Kildare and Maynooth lines must be somewhat further down his priorities.

I’d guess the government sees more votes in a short term spending of the same money on current expenditure in health and education. I doubt they will ever reject the plan but rather do nothing and keep saying that a decision is imminent.

If they haven’t approved the plan by the next election, you know what to do.

I’d be interested to hear impartially what the disadvantages of the IE plan is compared to the metro though.. there must be some? Even though overall it seems pretty clear that platform11 have by far the superior strategy. Would the IE plan mean a longer journey time form the city to the airport for example? …I realise this would still probably be a minor point compared to the integration the other plan would offer… Just trying to get the facts straight!

@weehamster wrote:

IBut I’m hopeful that the government will announce the go ahead of the Interconnector and the DART extensions either this year or next.

I agree. Bertie stated in the Dail that Interconnector/Dublin Rail Plan was impressive. Everybody who comes across it and compares it to the Airport Metro is struck by how more practical and integrated the CIE plan is. I was on the Gerry Ryan show this morning and even he said as I was explaining why we need it with the limited imformation I fed his producer the night before agreed it was the solution to car congestion in Dublin as the majority of the traffic is coming from outside the M50.

Just about everybody with the exception of the RPA is on board at this stage. The best plans are nearly always the most simple and achieved incrementally over time in stages which deliver results at each stage and CIE/IE have been doing just that. The shift towards the announcement of the tunnel and the DART extentions is organic at this stage.

It’s a matter of “when” and not “if”.

The RPA can never back this plan because they would be effectively voting themselves out of existence (and a job)?