Luas Central – Which Route?

That really is the question isn’t it – does the comparitively short walk through the city’s finest and soon to be most pedestrian friendly streets warrant a light rail link? The cost is huge, and no doubt it would have been cheaper had it been done at the same time as the Green Line. The alterations necessary to accomodate it seem neither aesthetically nor practically appropriate on the face of it – I haven’t read the Light Rail Order pertaining to this area so cannot comment on the details, but on the face of it is any link at all necessary, i.e, if a bus route was proposed to link the Green to O’Cll St at a cost of €50-€60 million it’d be laughed out of it.
Would a link via Westland Row to the IFSC offer greater value for money?

I agree with Stphen C on this one that there is a viable route that will deliver some serious benefit as it will open up some areas for higher density development if it were to go down Pearse St. Trinity Court has destroyed this once fine street ensuring that all the local facilities have closed due to the bad element associated with it.

Trinity College can print as many glossy brochures displaying the inner yard as it likes but it has destroyed Pearse St by turning it’s back on it, there is as John Devlin says a full dead kilometre between Westland Row and College Street, you can’t even buy a piece of fruit.

I also agree with Peter that it is not going to kill anyone to move from Stephens Green to O’Connell St, it would be fine to have built Luas on this route in the original phase but to do so now would be an error.

I feel that many arguing for this route are doing so purely on aestetic grounds as they wish to see Luas turning the arc around the front of Trinity, it is the only time that I have ever seriously questioned Frank McDonalds reasoning.

Commitment to the a full implementation of the Iarnrod Eireann Dublin/East Coast Rail plan is the only solution to the Dublin Transport question,

I think linking the lines is vital, as they should have been from the start.

Dawson St, Nassau St and College Green make sense as the shortest route, and would provide a link between the two main shopping areas (yes, I realise it’s easily walkable). And I agree that having trams running around College Green will look lovely (though that’s not enough reason to build it on its own).

In the short term, the Westland Row route has advantages, as it would integrate with DART was well as the Red line, but we should hopefully be getting the Interconnector a couple of years later, so it will be integrated at Stephen’s Green anyway. Therefore I would advocate going the shorter and cheaper route.

I don’t see a problem with busses and trams sharing road space on Nassau Street. If you eliminate cars from Dawson Street and Nassau Street, there shouldn’t be any problems.

Any more travel advice?

it should run on an elevated line down Dawson Street, climb over Trinity College, do a loop-the-loop, come back down at Hawkins House and have a floating terminus on the River Liffey with ladders and slides linking on to the Boardwalk at Eden Quay

There’s mixed signals coming out here – is the idea to physically link the Green line with the Tallaght line, or just to bring them close together – with the Green trams looping round O’Cll Monument and go back the way they came?
If the latter is the case, which I thought it was, this scheme is nothing short of ridiculous and hugely wasteful of public money if it’s simply to bring people closer to the other line. It’s about 8 mins walk from the Green to here. The trams would take at least 3 anyway.

No it was Mary O’Rouke giving into the likes of the AA rather than Garrett’s Measuring tape & numbers thing (which he denies doing anyway)

Joining of Luas lines
05 Nov 2004

“Join the lines as soon as possible’ say Dublin City Businesses

The Dublin City Business Association (DCBA) has welcomed the announcement from Minister for Transport, Mr. Martin Cullen T.D. on his intention to join up the Luas lines and has called for its progression as soon as possible.

The significant impact of the Luas on business in the city centre is demonstrated by the increase in customer volumes since the operation of the Southside and Northside Luas.

The popularity of Luas is attracting new customers to the city centre and this is a very encouraging illustration of the success of government policy on transport. “We are delighted that the Minister is pursuing this and would encourage him to progress it as a matter of urgency. It is obvious that the public wants it joined up.” Said Tom Coffey, CEO of the DCBA.

Dublin City Centre accommodates 250 million visitors each year and although access has improved significantly through Quality Bus Corridors, extra bus capacity, cycle lanes etc. the DCBA believes that the public transport service needs to be effectively integrated and expanded. “We are disappointed by the performance of the Dublin Transport Office in delivering an adequate public transport system for the needs of the city as it is now.

Its performance needs to be reviewed and, where relevant, the organisation needs to be reformed and made more accountable. Dublin is a great city and needs an effective public transport service to reach its full potential. Plans without effective and on time implementation are not much use to the public.”

The DCBA is the representative organisation for city centre retailers and property owners. Collectively its members employ 25,000 and contribute in excess of €400 million annually to the Exchequer. “

Article Ends

http://www.dcba.ie/press/index.cfm?id=278

Any thoughts?

7/7/2005

Agreed that the if the Luas link discussion should be moved eleswhere – perhaps here is more suited.
And just as this is a public transport thread, perhaps it is appropriate to acknowledge the day’s shocking events in London – our thoughts are with the people of our neighbouring capital.

@jimg wrote:

it is nonsense to suggest that I am being “incredibly disengenious” to include short journeys in my calculation. I did it for simplicity and in actual fact it understates the advantages of having a linked up system. If you restrict the analysis to longer journeys, the relative advantages of integrating the system actually increases. For example, if you only consider journeys of five stops or greater in length, then there are almost THREE TIMES as many journeys possible on the linked up system.

I can’t believe that people are refusing to accept this? It’s almost an axiom of transport systems that when you increase integration, the utility of the entire system increases. Imagine what trains/the DART would be like in Dublin without the loop-line bridge (ah sure, it’s only a twenty minute walk from Connolly to Pearse!). Imagine the London Underground if they hadn’t developed every opportunity to provide interchanges between lines where they come close to each other.

@jimg wrote:

There are a number of active “fronts” in the discussion…the one I see to be most active in is the question of the utility of integrating the system. Whether the green line is extended via O’Connell St or any other route does not have a huge bearing on my argument in that regard. Obviously if you don’t see any value in joining the two lines, the question of route is almost moot. Also if you see no utility in joining the lines, then any aesthetic cost (or financial cost for that matter) associated with doing so will seem excessive.

Agreed jimg with much that you say – a point well made about the Loop Line. Saying that, I do point out that my objection to the cost and potential aesthetic damage of this link is that there doesn’t seem to be sufficient utility derived if it goes solely to O’Connell Street.
I appreciate that it brings you right up to the Red Line and so in that way offers greater integration, but unlike the Loop Line, it does not offer full integration allowing you to travel continuously, nor does it allow the efficient moving of rolling stock from one line to another. Having to get off in O’Connell Street and walk over to the Abbey Street stop and wait for another tram for a potentially very limited amount of people in itself generates inconvenience.

I’m not sure how you can rate these various elements and come up with a winner, and I do not deny that this link would indeed be hugely convenient for people as a handy way of getting to the northside and back – but not much faster.

I know this is really going around in a circle because the central issue as you say Jim is the utility derived – and of course we don’t even know if the terminating-at-O’Cll St concept is even a runner on the part of the relevant authorities.
Just the aesthetic issue I feel consitutes a substantial element in this proposal, and along with the vast financial factor, and the greater transport needs of the capital at a time of great pressure on public funds for competing infrastructural projects, that this link is not a priority and the Luas could be better integrated and the public better served with an alternative cross-Liffey route.

I read in todays Irish Times that the Ten Year Capital plan is being held up ‘by the evil economists’ in the Department of Finance well those are Tim O’Briens words in the Irishmans Diary section.

Will the routes be made public or for the Ministers eyes only?