Re: Re: Luas, Metro and DART – Drawings and Photomontages

Home Forums Ireland Luas, Metro and DART – Drawings and Photomontages Re: Re: Luas, Metro and DART – Drawings and Photomontages

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@Cathal Dunne wrote:

I see you’ve invented another canard to perpetuate your opposition to Metro North. However, if you are willing to use the business case of MN to justify your position, you have to accept all of it in order to be consistent. The business case, even with your “half-Luas capacity” patronage, finds a BCR of 1.55:1 for the project in narrow terms and 2:1 in broad terms. So regardless of how many people get on at what stop the project as a whole makes sense and will reap us significant economic return ergo we should proceed with it.

The RPA figures speak for themselves 3,640 maximum intra journey demand; less 666 for Bellinstown and Lissenhall give less than 3,000; Seatown with 700 plus passengers also axed. Luas with a capacity of 6,000 per hour has almost 3 times the capacity of the existing demand which underpin those cost benefit analysis which were compiled in the same manner as the one for the M3 and Limerick tunnel which will cost the exchequer €100m due to traffic levels not hitting the ‘minimum base levels’

Address current projections based on the revised project.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

If Metro North is dropped, as you so crazily hope, then that is the end of any plans for any rail line of any kind connecting the city centre to the airport and city centre for the next 20 years. They will not suddenly adopt Luas as an alternative to Metro North like you suggest, it will be completely dropped and the only discussion about rail links to the airport will be in transport engineering lectures in DIT. Even if it does come back on the agenda 20 years’ hence, it will take more than 10 years to build due to our byzantine planning process. This means that Dublin, unique amongst European capital cities, will not have a rail link between its airport and the city centre. It would also mean that, again, the people of Ballymun would be denied the rail link they have been promised since the 1960s. It would also mean that Swords continues to suffer with a sub-standard bus service which breaks down at the first signs of snow.

It doesn’t have to be this way and, hopefully, by the end of this year, it won’t be as Metro North will have cleared all obstacles and be set for boring in 2012.

No; a Luas line can go back to planning and have consent within 3- 4 years. That is just scaremongering.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

It’s not just an airport link! It’s a completely new public transport corridor which will get people to and from the airport quicker and cheaper than Aircoach and a lot more besides. On top of that, don’t be so Anglocentric – Metro North will bring us into line with what Copenhagen, Vienna and Amsterdam enjoy in terms of time taken to get from the city centre to the airport. That’s the standard we should be aiming for.

I also see you completely ignored my point about what will inevitably occur if we drop Metro North. It’ll go the same way as the 3-line DART proposed in the DRRTS in 1975. There will not be an immediate search for a Luas alternative. People will be condemned to our slow and inefficient bus service which keeps commuters car bound in our city. The €3 billion we’ll “save” will quickly be eaten up by the costs of congestion across the northside of the city.

A transport corridor whose stations with consent produice just over a third of the capacity of a Luas line at peak times.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

That is not what the map says; it also lists unsegregated light rail. The Luas proposal for Ballymun was government policy until 1997 it is therefore credible.

Oh yes it is, the map clearly shows a METRO line running through Ballymun to the airport, not a Luas line. Luas to Ballymun was government policy until it was realised that it was insufficient. This was around 2000 and this change of thinking is reflected in the PfC ergo your fantasy Luas line died back in 1999.

http://www.dto.ie/platform1.pdf

The map at p30 is pure fantasy; an underground to Tallaght from Tara St via Finglas in addition to another underground metro to Tallaght via Kimmage and another underground netro to Lucan via Bluebell. That document was the most crayonic exercise in the history of the state even more so that Martin Cullen’s road map.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

Ask anyone what their preference is between an on street tram or an underground and unless they intend to use it will say underground;

Utter rubbish. The RPA has conducted extensive consultation on Metro North with the residents of Ballymun. They originally proposed elevated rail through Ballymun as this was seen to be the cheapest means of building the line through the area. However the locals objected on the basis that the rail line would create an area where anti-social behaviour would develop. Similar concerns were expressed about an on-street line. It was therefore decided to create a cut-and-cover tunnel through that area for Metro North to address these concerns. If we were to go with your fantasy Luas line then they’d be on to An Bord Pleanála like a flash and their objections would force you to put the Luas underground. However we’d then be putting a low capacity line underground, not a high capacity Metro. It’s things like this which make me feel your proposed Luas line would fail a CBA and therefore be rejected by Cabinet.

No disrespect but you obviously have no experience of underground if you think an underground is safer than an on street system; regardless of peoples perceptions the reality is that stations create more anti-social behaviour than Luas platforms because the entrances provide a focal point to congregate as opposed to open access platforms. Regardless of the views in berties boomier Dublin; the city and country cannot afford to build an underground due to the misinformed views on anti-social behaviour.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

The way you go on you’d swear it’d just be one man and his dog on the metros going from Stephen’s Green to Swords. The fact is that cities with lower populations and lower population densities than Dublin also have underground Metro lines which are well-patronised. Another fact is that DART and Commuter rail services are in huge demand in the same Dublin through which metros will travel. They had to double capacity on the DART service to keep pace with demand as people responded to its high-speed, high capacity nature. Add to this that the 90m metros will have only 2/3rds the capacity of a DART train and there is no doubt that metros will be packed once they start running.

The capacity with stations as sanctioned is about a third of a Luas line. with those loadings one 90m Luas every 20 mins would satisfy peak demand.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

When the RPA can’t get demand above half that of a Luas line capacity then what other conclusion can you draw other than nice idea but unaffordable when the IMF are running the country

Well since Metro North is included in the four year plan which was agreed with the EU and IMF, then they mustn’t have had any problems with proceeding with this project which has a positive CBA.

The 4 year plan which was put together on the back of a cornflake box was brtoad brushstrokes; all it proves is that they are ok with one project of that size not that it has to be a Luas line that will have usage of less than a sixth of its design capacity.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

They had a finalised route in 2004 but decided to change it as you well know to include a stop at Inchicore and only tunnel from there. That was a self-imposed delay by CIÉ and it results in their project being significantly behind that of Metro North. The way it’s looking, it could be 2013 before we have to think about the boring of DART underground which would almost be outside the bounds of the four-year plan. In any case, the track works around the tunnel are expected to continue so we can start on Metro North now and do DART underground later.

They did not sit on the idea for 5 years until 2009 before changing their route at the last second; they were not given the funds until about 2007/08 to undertake detailed design. You can’t spend €3bn just because it is the project that is first in the former ministers pecking order. Dart Underground is an opportunity cost that Luas North can’t pay; like Anglo its bankraupt.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

A lot of Spanish names in there; I can’t see Spanish banks doing anything other than defending their balance sheets in the context of Portugal looking like it will be IMF’d within the next 2 weeks and Spain then being lined up for the CDS tug of war that will define the Euro’s future. Barclays private equity probably won’t do it; leaving Mitsui as the only credible player; will they still build it for nothing?

Well given that the consortium has spent millions on bidding for this project and will be looking to sign the contract to build the line this year, it is highly likely that yes, all parties to the consortium would like to build it.

A consortium may have spent up to 5% of the project value on initial design and pitching; they still need to raise the other 95% of finance; in this climate would you lend money to a Spanish construction firm to build an Irish Government project that will lose a lot of money operationally; at an attractive rate of interest? I’d rather buy Hungarian debt……

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

Celtic Metro Group

MetroExpress (Global via Infraestructuras S.A., Macquarie Capital Group Ltd, Allied Irish Banks p.l.c. and Bombardier Transportation (Holdings) UK Ltd). Contacts for the consortia listed on RPA website.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

So it is actually funded by a nationalised bank; the more you look at this project the more it is a complete fiction.

Oh yes, a complete fiction which has its railway order, a complete fiction whose enabling works budget has been granted, a complete fiction which, after a few procedures will get the go-ahead in the Summer of this year. What’s a complete fiction is your fantasy Luas line.

Well I’ve news for you; the proponents of the fantasy Luas line will be in Government in a few months time and AIB will be 99% owned by the taxpayer; €3bn isn’t going to happen.