Re: Re: Metro North

The second tunnel is at Beacon Hill; a very pleasant suburb I had the pleasure of staying in a few years ago when the line was under construction. The tunnel is a few hundred metres long and was completely necessary because of grade issues; i.e. a hill was in the way for a few hundred metres versus a multi-mile route with numerous and complex underground concourses.

Why this project is acceptable is because it had a budget cost of c$250m; was an extension of an existing route. There are no simularities; the city centre section is shared with buses in the central tunnel and it cost considerably less to build than Luas. It does show that light rail is adequate to serve an airport with 31.6m passengers in 2009 i.e. 50% more than Dublin Airport for the comparable period.

Clearly a case of back to the drawing board to find a cost effective solution; money is as they say tight.