college green/ o’connell street plaza and pedestrians
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I think it is important that people in Swords realise just how much Metro will change Swords in terms of higher densities and general congestion. Personally I am favour of Metro for Swords and a metro terminating in Dublin Airport would not have been acceptable but it needs to be stated that metro will change Swords into something between Tallaght and Sandyford.
Swords is getting that way anyway. I don’t think you’d find a single person in Swords who would be against the Metro, Because everyone knows how bad the buses are.
If I got a bus into my job the whole journey would be closer to 2 hours than the hour it currently is by driving to Donabate and getting a train. I once listened to a girl on the train moan about people driving from Swords to get the train in her beloved Donabate, as that has loads of new apartments going up too.
However if you’re moving to Swords you have to take everything into consideration, and look at all modes of transport..and I’m afraid if you work on the DART line on the Southside of the Liffey the buses just don’t cut it.
Still you could watch a 90 minute movie on the bus.Denouncer I don’t think you are still apreciating the scale of what is proposed.
I do feel your pain with respect to traffic. I live at the southern edge of the city. going into the city used to take (walking included) between 1-2 hours. With the tram (walking included) 25 mins every time, not a minute more.
this is the scale of the thing : a good bus service (46A) can do 1500 people per hour in one direction. the luas as is 4000. (although both could be upped to around 6000). This underground tram will have a top capacity of 28000.
Dundrum has 15 new appartment block ranging in height from 4 – 11 storeys. sandyford (industrial estate) has had application for enormous 23 storey appartement blocks.
Whether a tram is built or an underground system is built will have no impact on how fast you get to work.
But if this underground tram is built . It is unavoidable that the bulk of growth for dublin will be concentrated north of the airport. It won’t be pretty.
I would ask you to at the very least hold your counsel till the port tunnel is opened. because that is going to be fantastic for you. There are already motions in progress for buses to use it.
What i am proposing is a tram that follows the current route plus a spur from the airport to the dart line. This is much cheaper, can carry more people to more places in the long run . And wont have a 50 storey tower block in swords . If you would like to see how 30 storey tower blocks work out in practice at the edge of a city , check out La defense in paris.
Denouncer if you don’t start campaigning for a sensible solution you will be shafted in the long run (just like the happy people in meath who won’t know what hit them when the M3 is finished).
a boyle wrote:If you would like to see how 30 storey tower blocks work out in practice at the edge of a city , check out La defense in paris.
QUOTE]
So, how do you see them working?The tower blocks, the transport works!
KB@KerryBog2 wrote:
The tower blocks, the transport works!
KByou won’t get middle income people to raise families in tower blocks unless you ‘spoil’ them ! you need parks (proper one) schools , a new hospital. nice old buildings restored, sports facilities ,gyms … the list is endless. And if you don’t get middle income families to raise their children in these tower blocks (that WILL come), it won’t work well. You could either have these block filled with immigrants which means riots of some description in the future. Or a dead town with people completely retiring into their world at night. This happens in la defense and as a consequence is expremely dangerous at night. Or the IFSC on a small city scale. Which is what swords WILL turn into.
Tower blocks can be great but like everything else they need to be done properly . However a tower block is a bigger bet.
It not unrealistic to expect housing for 150 thousand people to be added , over a thirty year period. Thats cork. And because of the airports exclusion zone most of this will need to be squeezed in around swords.
Yep a nice Metro. If I want to go to Dundrum I’ll jump on the Metro, which will stop at the airport. Tourists will get on impressed at the beautiful light rail transportation. 20 minutes later I will be at St. Stephens Green. Then, should it please me, I will head on to Dundrum knowing that on the way back I don’t have to drag bags of shopping or whatever on the bus for a 1.5 hour trip to Swords.
okaaaay you seem to be ignoring or not listening . whether its a metro or a tram makes no difference to the speed. ( the bus will be faster into the city by the way) but is it’s a metro you will be overshadowed by a fourty tower block .
I do understand wanting improvements to transport, i think you are being very naive about the consequences of a metro. If the metro can take 30000 per hour per direction. It will need to take at least 20/25 thousand to pay for itself. do you want that level of development? Are there enough greens spaces as it is ? are there enough corners newsagents as it is. Are there enough schools? i doubt it.
You are welcoming the most intensive development in the country with open arms , which baffles me. You are also ignoring that for the price of this metro you could build a tram following the same route (with same speed , at 4/minute frequencies) , a main heavy rail link to the airport. and 2or possibly three more trams lines on the north side alone. This would spread the devopment pressure across the whole of the northside. Maybe you like high rise living. Maybe you have faith in the planning system. Maybe lessons have been learnt from the high rise ballymun , the scattered tallaght, and the joke liffey valley. I think you are nuts!!
That is absolute rubbish; the DART has thrived on low to mid rise densities; the arrival of Metro will not lead to ‘high rise’ but will facilitate higher densities in the 5 to 8 storey range at a number of locations.
Thomond Park wrote:That is absolute rubbish]No i don’t think so. the tram resulted in office plans for the industrial estate being shelved and replaced with very intense housing development. I think i am right in saying that three applications for tower blocks went in (one 15 storey , one 23, and another inbetween) in ballinteer gort mhuire’s application included a ten storey block. This was adjacent to 2 storey terraced houses.
The route that the dart takes was always developped with medium intensity, and it was mostly developped before the dart started. What has happened in dundrum and in swords is a huge number of semids . These can only be balanced in terms of high rise. So there will be more extremes. To see how correct this is we shall have to wait for the census to come out.
Now dundrum hasn’t turned into a ghetto, far from it. In fact it has never looked better (for the most part). But there is a whole leap between a capacity of 3 thousand and 30 thousand an hour a direction.
in any event it is plain common sense to build a network of 6/7 trams across the whole city (including one to swords). instead of one concentrated metro north route.
As has been stated many times by users of the line the Luas cannot handle current volumes from Miltown inbound at peak times; roll on Cherrywood and it will be impossible to get Luas from Dundrum at peak times.
In contrast the segregated DART system has ramped upto to ten car sets or will do when the old sets return from Prague; this is exclusively served by 2 to 7 storey developments which with the exception of Blackrock village and Dun Laoghaire serves almost exclusively 2 to 3 storey areas. Yet it is packed to the rafters at peak times.
In your analysis you completely overlook existing high density areas such as Phibsboro, Ballymun, Santry Cross and Swords Village not to mention the approximately 5 to 7million passengers that will use the airport each year.
Also before the Dublin and Kingstown railway there were a couple of villages and the Pembroke estate en route.
Thomond Park wrote:As has been stated many times by users of the line the Luas cannot handle current volumes from Miltown inbound at peak times]Thanks for supporting my argument there Thomond . The housing development has outpaced the provision of transport capacity. Now multiply the capacity by ten .
Then take the route and for a third of ban any development (airport exlusion zone) ,
then take another third and ohh it is already largely developped — oooh like ranelagh and charlemont.
then take the last third and ooohhh there a spot for a 40 storey , thanks very much. cash back !
As you have just said there is an explosion of developement south of dundrum. How can you see that and then say that the development in swords will be restrained to 4-7 storeys ? when metro capacity is provided? To make the metro work you need to add a hundred thousand people give or take a few tens of thousands. where will they go ?
Wait —- — hang on — are you smoking something ?
A. Boyle, I think that you are getting too wound up on the wrong issues here. High rise living is perfectly acceptable by and for middle income families. Look at Manhattan, where incomes – and rents – are even higher. The main reason growing families move out to the NY or CT suburbs is due to the schooling/taxation/rent mix, nothing else. Just walk in Central Park any weekend, look at the age profile of the people there – singles, young marrieds with toddlers and OAPs.
Also, it is not accurate to compare a possible development in Swords with La Defense. Firstly, La Defense was constructed primarily as an office park, not a residential zone. Secondly, the transport issues are different because in most French cities the richer people live in the city centre and the poorer population lives in the outer suburbs. That is not the case in Ireland. Thirdly, the French legal framework supports the political process, rapidly enforces compulsory purchase and drives policy in a way that is almost impossible to imagine in Ireland. Think of the farce of Tara, Carrickmines, Glen of the Downs, etc.
When I worked in La Defense I initially lived in the city centre and it was a 30 minute or so metro-ride. Never waited more than 3 minutes for a metro. Later, living to the west of Paris I could take the RER to La Def. (every 15 mins) journey time also 30 mins. If I wanted to drive to work there were zillions of underground car spaces to use. If I wanted to go anywhere there was a bus, or a train, RER or Metro emanating from underground linked termini below the Grande Arche. Back then the La Defense transport system handled about 400,000 journeys every day and it worked (well, when they were not on strike!) Everyone used the RATP or RER and a figure I remember was almost 90% of our employees (services co.) used public transport to come to work. We had a transport company representative come to our building once a month and set up shop in an office where you could buy your “carte orange†or seasonal pass, at a discount that would make Bus Eireann/Luas/Dart wince! Many Dart stations do not even allow turnstiles, where they have one they are located in front of the ticket office, not where they should be. Could we build something comparable to la Defense in Ireland? I very much doubt it, every gobshite would have a petition started, every shoneen would be in on the act to buy a bit of land to make a killing, every politico would be driven to bertiespeak bumbling to placate the electorate and hold on to office and every union official would be throwing shapes to get more money for the dossers.
Those are the lessons we need to learn from, not Ballymun or Tallaght.
KB2AHhh The slow and suspenseful dropping of the Penny…..
The single most important item missing from the Irish Political stage is the ability to take a decision.
The present Taoiseach is probably the World Champion at “Consensus” politics.
Concensus being a relatively new term for “Failure to make a Decision”.
The RATP “Carte Orange” setup you mention is testimony to the role which the RATP plays in PROVIDING Public Transport in Metropolitan Paris.It`s not seen in France as anything peculiar for the agency to get it`s hands dirty selling it`s ticketing options.
Here in Baile Atha Cliath our Bus Services CASH fares remain within the jealously guarded gift of the Dept of Transport whilst the Off Bus Ticket Sales are NON-Controlled.Over the years this form of “Gaelic” price fixing has eroded the universal benefit of OFF Bus Prepaid ticketing,namely DISCOUNT,since the cash strapped operator has over the years attempted to rack up income in the only manner it could by INCREASING Off Bus Ticket prices or by eliminating the discounts which once applied. to Pre-Paid tickets.
It`s not all bad news though,as the CIE company`s have put quite a bit of welly into the Taxsaver Ticket range which DOES provide a very flexible AND integrated range of tickets benefiting from a Revenue Taxback feature.
However the present Smartcard fiasco continues to wobble along with €16 Million already spent and NOTHING to show for it which surely proves the lack of a decision maker anywhere in the Capitals infrastructure !!
you are absolutely right about the ratp. but you did forget to mention ,that they go on strike . You when it’s little isabelle communion. or they had a late night . Or they just neeeeeeeeeed a break.
competing agencies ought to be a really good thing, if their was a transport minister who could take decisions. And there is the nub , all the transport decisions affect bertie’s constituency directly or indirectly.
So while brennan seemed to be competent ( he reorganised the road contracts so that the price thats named is the final price) his hands were tied behind is back . no interconnector / because that means no metro for the next 7 years. Do NOTHING with aer lingus and of course do NOTHING with aer rianta (it still exists! ).
Then he was switched for actually thinking he could decide what happened to aer lingus , and was replaced with cartoon character of a minister.
You have definitely hit the nail on the head. I would hope the next administration would bring in a toiseach not dependant on that constituency.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
………. the La Defense transport system handled about 400,000 journeys every day and it worked (well, when they were not on strike!)
A Boyle,
I did remember to say it, anyone who has worked in France could not forget les greves!
😉
KB2It amazes me that whenever high rise (anything over 4 storeys) is mentioned it’s always the same old Ballymun rubbish is trotted out. No-one mentions Ardoyne House in Donnybrook (11 storeys I think and the only social problem seems to be running low on tonic for G&Ts) or the Millenium Tower at the Grand Canal Harbour where people seem to be able to live perfectly fine as well.
The example of Sandyford is given as to “Oh my God It’s 23 stories tall” – it’s hardly a ghetto at Beacon South Quarter, people want to live there because it’s in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area and has the Luas link to the city centre. Is’nt it better that this area is developed for accomodation and consign the offices elsewhere/further out rather than people having to car commute. A similar thing can happen in Swords with the metro once the planning is clearly thought out.
I’d sooner live in Swords in a good family sized apartment and get the metro than have to commute in from somewhere like Kells, and no I wouldn’t do it on a bus – the traffic is just too bad out there.
As a northern line commuter the spur to the airport off the Dart line is a non runner – the line is at capacity already at peak time and this would only make things worse (particularly when the interconnector is finished). The only way that a decent link to the airport is created (a la Heathrow) is to build the metro – don’t forget it is possible to run express metros to the airport as well.
Express isn’t required the ‘all stops’ journey time is quoted at 22 minutes
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