Integrating the two luas lines

Would turning left from Merrion Row to Merrion Street not be a slight problem due to the angle?

The problem is that the Green line trams are longer than the Red Line’s. A normal Green line tram is longer than the span of the Liffey Bridges.

The only way around this would be to have a special signalling system for the trams crossing, eg. you would have to clear the whole traffic from the Quays and the Bridge to allow the tram to traverse unobstructed. This would be chaos.

Folks,
The Green Party ‘Join the Dots!’ campaign is a campaign that encourages you to write a postcard to the Minister for Transport Seamus Brennan TD encouraging him to link up the two light rail lines that are currently under construction in the center of Dublin.

The text of the postcards is reproduced below:

“Dear Minister Brennan,
It seems ludicrous that enormous investment is being spent on building two light rail lines, which do not link up in the city centre. The initial plans showed how easily this could be achieved.
The decision not to connect them resulted from the previous Fianna Fail / Progressive Democrat Government’s failure to providing funding and vision for public transport.
Minister, on behalf of the people of Dublin we ask you to join the dots and connect the two lines.

Sincerely,
Name …………………………………………
Address……………………………………..

Good man Ciaran,

take a leaf out of the city of the secret heart and cc every public rep this side of the shannon on a standard format sheet.

The one thing I will say from the P11 responses I received is that the green party e-mail returns were all well thought out,

The one I got from Michael Woods was the best, dated Mid July even though my cc only reached him in early September, so I mailed him back to let him know his e-mail was sending 6 weeks out of sequence, the response I got was the exactly the same.

You can’t beat the soldiers of destiny

Joining the dots makes perfect sense, every time I go to the basement of Tailors Hall I am confronted by the maps of the 1997 Luas EIS, it makes me sick

whats the point of connecting the dots really? This whole project has cost far too much in terms of time and money. What has been the end result of LUAS to date? After countless ammedments, half measures, and incompetence…sadly no real long term solutions.

According to the material available on http://www.platform11.org and http://www.extendthedart.com the next step is to build the interconnector which would link subarban/DART lines to St.Stephens Green and in turn to Heusten Station, thus linking the LUAS lines far more effectively.

I believe it was Minister Brennan who admitted that LUAS is just a short-term measure to compliment future transportation initiatives. After the failure of LUAS so far, and going by the madness at Red Cow on the Red lines launch today (3 minutes to cross), perhaps LUAS should be laid asside for more radical solutions ~ ie: green flag for the interconnector (http://www.extendthedart.com/images/inter_map.jpg) to fully intergrate all modes within the Dublin area.

I am sorry but the interconnector is not a good idea – what about a line circling the city under the two canals and one under the liffey – these would minimise disruption and also enable public transport be close to the larger concentrations of population.

And what of poor Broadstone? This could easily be part of any new solution to the Airport’s lack of a fixed line system…and maybe even extending it to forlorn Navan…

As much as I despise of the Luas as being a deformed transport system, I felt a little happy boarding it yesterday – the best part is the fact that it makes travelling from Connolly to Heuston faster and a little more pleasurable the rest of the line – and that of the sandyford line – can go to hell!!!

kaisersosa, the thing is to have something for dcu and ballymun and the north fringe, if not the metro then a luas line, a luas line might be more appropriate for the densities.

J.Seerski, why isn’t the internconnector a good idea? it is clear that something has to be done to increase capacity across the liffey and something needs to be done to allow through running of the kildare commuter trains to somewhere people want to go.

Point taken, but surely linking the pre-existing rail network on the northside to mainsteam DART service is a good start.

It seems all the grand schemes to build metro this and underground that come to naught, so why not take advantage of what is already in place and then work on realistic plans to extend to the areas u mentioned in the future?

A tunnell under the liffey would be the cheapest solution – the stephens green idea is too disruptive – it wouldn’t take a genius to extend the Luas through to Connolly from Stephens green – it can be done without the underground – diverting a tunnell just for one Luas stop is loo-lah – it is more important for both main stations to have through-trains to each other.

The interconnector is viable under the liffey, with maybe two stops inbetween.

won’t the interconnector be a bored tunnel terminating at spencer dock? in this case the only work at stephen’s green would be a station, that could presumably be cut and covered with the closure of just one side of the green.

Why did they fail to integrate into the stops directional signs indicating TO CONNLLY and TO TALLAGHT ? – instead of the last minute plastic covered A3 sheets held on with plastic ties most of which did not survive the first night.

so what are the key benefits of joining the two luas line in terms of likely passanger journeys compared to other possible luas extensions of similar expense? is it just to let people from sandyford go as far as o’connell street, in which case there must be other priorities, such as point depot to east point or north from smithfield to phibsboro.

Originally posted by Papworth
Why did they fail to integrate into the stops directional signs indicating TO CONNLLY and TO TALLAGHT ? – instead of the last minute plastic covered A3 sheets held on with plastic ties most of which did not survive the first night.

Eh, probably because there are electronic indicators at all stops stating the destination of the next three trams. On the Red Line launch these seemed to be working by Saturday and they appear to be more reliable than the ones on the Green Line. Maybe they have ironed out the bugs !!
JJ