LUAS in Harcourt Street (Update No.8)
- This topic has 180 replies, 23 voices, and was last updated 22 years, 7 months ago by
.
- Posts
If the People of Dundrum could have a Caltravra bridge why not the people of Walkinstown.
Point taken Peter, we are probably engaging in more discussion than the entire Luas team ever did
But what about an extension to City West, is the traffic there for it?
yeah I agree Diaspora, an extension to Citywest would be a good idea … thought it was in the pipeline though ??
Peter
As two men of the world we know there are many things in the pipeline. The question is who gets left with the short strawI heard Jim Mansfield wants a spur off to his huge new conference centre, golf course, airport, hotels etc. I think i heard him say it would cost 20 million, but he said he was prepared to pay any price to have it service city west.
I know I am going to be lambasted for this but I think that Kevin Roche should be allowed to build his NCC at Spencer Dock.
I think the NCC illustrates all that is wrong with the Development process in this country, it was going to the RDS sometime in the mid 1990’s. Then another minister decided to reopen the competition.
So it was going to Spencer Dock, an ideal City Centre location. Finally somone had listened to 20 years of Bord Failte in D’unbelievables voices sayings lads ders a few pound in dis.
Enter Treasury who attempt to use the NCC as a lever for a ridiculous plot ratio and here we are entering 2004 a European Capital hosting the European presidency with
No LuasNo Metro
and No Conference centre.
E-Mail Print Version Add to Clippings
Building work begins on new €50m ‘mega venue’ complex at Citywest
ADVERTISEMENTCONSTRUCTION work will begin this morning on a €50m conference venue in west Dublin which will be eight times the size of the Government’s proposed National Conference Centre.
Property developer Jim Mansfield’s project, to be called the National Convention Centre of Ireland, will hold up to 16,000 delegates with most of the work expected to be completed by next March.
Mr Mansfield intends to invest around €800m in the convention centre, a new hotel, a heritage-style village, the redevelopment of the Weston airport, which he also owns, and golf courses.
He also plans funding an extension to the Luas line to Citywest which could cost up to €20m.
He told a newspaper yesterday that when complete the Citywest complex will be a “one-stop shop” for international conventions which will compete with other large conference centres, including the NEC in Birmingham, for major European and world events.
“I want the whole package in Saggart,” he said. “Once you have the whole package, you have something to offer customers. This will be one of the finest convention centres in Europe.”
The project begins just a week after the Government advertised for submissions for its National Conference Centre which will cater for a minimum of 2,000 delegates.
Chief Executive of the Citywest hotel, John Glynn, said that most of the work would be finished by March next year.
He called on the Government to sell the centre abroad via Failte Ireland’s offices, saying that Citywest did not have the resources to market itself on such a scale.
“We are saying to the Government that money is tight, particularly with Charlie McCreevy’s budget coming up, but we are building it and we just want it to be recognised.”
He added that the decision to construct the centre was taken after computer giant IBM told them two years ago that their existing 4,000 seater centre wasn’t big enough for a planned conference.
Mr Mansfield plans on building another hotel, the Citywest Palmerstown Hotel, beside a new golf course designed by Christy O’Connor Jnr and Jack Nicklaus next year.
The minister for tourism just advertised in the press both here and in the EU for proposals for a conference centre with a minimum capacity of 2000.
i amn’t sure anyone will disagree with you diaspora, the kevin roche building was fun, we are dying for something like this and there isn’t a better location.
any new updates on the way for your website Gabriel? I’m very keen to see how things are progressing. Could you bring back the photo of the week thing also if you have time? Whats the story with testing etc? When should we see some intensive testing
Thaks Niall.
To answer in order:
I have a batch of new pics taken shortly after Christmas on both lines. I keep meaning to get them up, and I’m going to try to make some time tomorrow.
The time problem for me is not in taking them, but in getting the several hours I need to sift through, select, crop and resize, build the web-page etc.
More than once I’ve had to drop updates at this stage – last May for example I went out and took 100+ photos of every detail of construction from Hueston to Connolly, but never got the time to put the update together, and after a month they were out of date. (might be useful as historical record though).
I will bring back the weekly photo soon. (I’ve managed to keep it up on the bus side, but only because there have been a number of news scoops that I simply couldn’t afford to miss).
I’ve had some extra time pressures in the last few months which have meant that I’ve been working on another project every Saturday and Sunday since mid October, but that finishes after Jan 18th, so I’l get my free time back, and the website will get a ot more attention then.
As regards testing:
Line A now has track and overhead from Tallaght right through to St. James’ Hospital, (the final section over Red Cow was done in the last few days) and track laid beyond that as far as Abbey Street (may be gaps though).
I would imagine that testing in along the Naas Road could happen in Feb. Might delay for fear of upsetting the motorists though . . .
Line B has track and overhead all the way from Sandyford to the canal, with the exception of Taney bridge, where overhead was being errected today. Track then continues to Harcourt Street and the Green, but is not fully finished yet, and there is no overhead.
I would imagine that testing as far as Ranalagh is possible very soon.
Both lines will have to run a near full schedule of empty trams for three months prior to public opening (this may be some form of legal/safety requirement).
Full end to end testing is due on Line B from late March, and Line A from late May – but beware, these dates (unlike the rails) are not set in stone . . .
Finally . . . . not architecture related per se, but it does affect the overall colour of the city – Dublin Bus has started the programme to respray all vehicles in one single identifiable livery, rather than the mish-mash of different brands and colours they use at the moment. Vehicles will be done as and when they would normally get their 3-year, 250,000Km body overhaul & respray, so there will be no extra cost involved (livery was designed by staff, not consultants).
Livery is yellow and two-tone (Dublin) blue.
See http://www.allaboutbuses.com/31206-av134new.html for main viewand http://www.allaboutbuses.com/31227-rv412.html has a good rear view.
Gabriel Conway
Editor – Bustravel Ireland
http://www.allaboutbuses.comLooking forward to seeing your pictures Gabriel.
I was out in Tallaght earlier this week and saw one of the shelters had been assembled on the stop at Kingswood. Its not glazed yet for obvious reasons. See picture attached.
JJ
the new bus livery is nice, now what would be great would be having the taxis match. will the franchised buses match to, as they do in london, or will each company decide its own livery?
Does anyone else get the feeling that Luas is a glorified bus on rails that will clog streets and cause more congestion??
Why on earth did we not go for a metro?(thinking too far long-term?)
Totally agree about taxis, they should be in the Dublin colours for Dublin or the same colour as the roof sign!
Ninety five per cent of the area over which Luas travels will be entirely separate to road traffic, so no it won’t cause more congestion.
It will take hundreds of cars a day off the roads. It’s not a perfect solution, and it is almost exactly like a glorified bus, but it’s certainly not going to make things worse.
What about all this nonsense at Connolly Station. A farce and a waste of money they are labelling it. Personally I think the ramp should have been removed regardless of Luas as it now opens up the Docklands to the rest of the city. A bit of judicious redevelopment of Amiens St and there could be a seemless trasnition from O’Connell St to the Docklands. However I also think it makes good sense to have Luas connect with Connolly as at the end of the day it is a major transport interchange. Having the ‘Connolly’ stop at the Harbourmaster would not really be logical.
All this proposed business of having the trams dock at Connolly and then come back on themselves and head down Mayor St is a bit of a nonsense though. I think that the trams should continue on from Connolly and down Sherrif St (I am not sure how this would woork with exisiting buildings). This would extend the benefits of the Luas to residential areas on the other side of Sherrif St and make the Docklands expand northwards. It would also leave Mayor St free as the main thorroughfare of the area.
I agree, it looks great with the ramp gone, it opens the IFSC up, this end of the IFSC is the most closed off and so this is a big improvement, it will open up a nice plaza too framed by transport links.
one problem with running the luas down sherriff street is the incline on the sherriff street bridge. an advantage of running it down mayor street is that it will be close to the south quays, encouraging people to cross the new footbridge at stack a. obviously having it backing out of connolly is stupid, but i think the mayor street route makes sense.
most of this 30M isn’t money wasted, it has just been transfered from the RPA to the DDDA, so the DDDA can now spend it not buildig the U2 tower.
now, why doesn’t the luas continue from the point up east wall road so that it can serve the east point business park, oh, and my house. it wouldn’t be so expensive because they are going to be widening the east wall road anyway and so there would be no need for all this service repositioning.
The Sherriff St bridge is going as part of the redevelopment.
Regarding bridges I think The Macken St bridge should be built first for two reasons.
Firstly it looks better, and will give the Docklands a sense that something is happening.
Secondly it would provide a better accesss point to the LUAS from JR Quay. The walk from stack A to Matt Talbot bridge is pretty short anyway.
Btw, I’ve been shamed by Niall into putting up a Photo of the Week, nice shot taken this morning of testing in progress on Line A.
http://www.allaboutbuses.com/luas
Regards
GabrielDid you read the article last in last Sunday’s Tribune with Peter Coyne of DDDA. HE reckoned that the tender for the new footbridge at Stack A (or chq as we should now callit ) would be issued this month and the bridge finsihed by the summer!. He also reckoned that work on the Macken St Bridge would start later this year.
The Macken St bridge is a must. It is ridiculous that there are no crossings from Matt Talbot down to the (appallling) East Link. The area where the bridge crosses from the north side has already been cleared pending works.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
