Luas Line to Cherrywood
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The findings of the inquiry related to Luas line extension to Cherrywood have now been published and are available on the Dept of Transport website below. Clonlea House demolition is accepted as necessary.
JJhttp://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=7493&lang=ENG&loc=845
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[article] Luas extension should go ahead, says report
Irish Times, Thu, Apr 27, 06The extension of the Luas from Sandyford to Cherrywood in south Co Dublin should go ahead, the report of the public inquiry into the scheme has concluded.
The extension is designed to almost double the length of the Luas green line, adding another 7.5km (4.6 miles) to the 9km (5.5 miles) route from St Stephen’s Green. A formal approval of the scheme by Minister for Transport Martin Cullen is expected in time to allow construction to begin before the end of the year.
In his report, inquiry inspector James Connolly SC recommended the line be capable of upgrade to a metro service; that noise barriers be installed at an elevated section at Leopardstown roundabout; and that the Fisheries Board should be consulted in advance of work near watercourses.
The inspector has asked Mr Cullen to cover the legal costs of Mr and Mrs Gerard Delaney whose home Clonlea House, a protected structure, is to be demolished to make way for a stop at Glencairn, Sandyford.
However, the inspector’s report avoided a contentious question of when the proposed Luas line should be upgraded to a metro line. In evidence at the hearing, the director of the Dublin Transportation Office, John Henry, called for “a detailed plan” of the upgrade which he said would be required in five to 10 years.
The upgrade to metro would involve lengthening platforms and altering road interchanges. In addition, because metros travel faster, some stops which are too close to each other would have to be closed.
However, the Railway Procurement Agency told the inquiry that an upgrade would not be required until after 2020 and it questioned “whether the time savings due to a metro travelling faster would compensate for passengers walking further to metro stations”.
According to the Government’s Transport Strategy, Transport 21, the line to Sandyford will be completed by 2010. It will follow the route of the Old Harcourt Street to Bray railway. A further extension to Bray is envisaged by 2015
Looks like mr Connolly has dodged the bullet in relation to the potential for future upgrading
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[article] Extended Luas line will need to be replaced by 2020
Ireland.com, Last updated: 26-04-06, 19:01The extension of the Luas green line a further 8 kilometres in south Dublin to Cherrywood is needed now but will have to be replaced by a Metro in 2020, a report revealed today.
Following months of public consultation the Railway Procurement Agency was given the go-ahead for 11 new stops on the route but the Government was warned it would soon need upgraded.
The line could take over three years to complete and in another 10 years longer trains would be badly needed to meet demand.
The report of the public inquiry stated: “Overall the public reaction to the proposed extension of the Luas B1 Line from Sandyford to Cherrywood has been positive, and generally financial and economic evaluations of the project indicate a positive case for introduction of the project.
“The inquiry is satisfied that there is a need for the Luas Line B1 extension as proposed and that the project is viable.”
And it went on: “The inquiry is satisfied on the information presented by the RPA that the Luas line extension has the capacity to meet users’ needs until 2020 after which upgrading to Metro will be necessary.”
Eamon Ryan, Green Party transport spokesman, said the report makes an unanswerable case for the Airport Metro to be connected to the south side of the city from day one.
“Metro trams would be twice the length of existing Luas trams, would have a far more frequent service and would therefore provide a much larger carrying capacity,” he said.
The Greens made a submission to the rail inspector that the new line should be built to Metro standards and insisted that both Luas and Metro trams will run on the same line.
Mr Ryan said: “It now makes no sense for the Government not to extend the Metro service to the southside at the same time that they are building the Metro line from Swords to St Stephen’s Green.”
He said the Metro should run from the airport underneath the city centre to St Stephen’s Green and on to the Beechwood stop on the Luas green line near Ranelagh where overground services would take over.
“If we have learnt one thing about transport planning in this city over recent years, it should be to provide the proper capacity from the start rather than trying to cut corners and then come back later,” he added.
A total of 11 stops are planned along the 7.6 kilometre route.
Starting at Sandyford industrial estate it will run alongside Blackthorn Avenue towards Ballyogan Wood, Leopardstown racecourse, Brennanstown Vale, where a 350-space park and ride facility will be built, and on to Laughanstown Lane before ending at Cherrywood.
All trams on the green line will initially be 40m long, carrying 310 people each, but can be extended to 50m. Journey time from Cherrywood to Sandyford is about 19 minutes, giving a total journey time on the route to St Stephen’s Green of 41 minutes. Construction on the line is expected to take over three years.
And the report said road traffic inconvenience from Luas works will be within acceptable limits. The report also stated there had been adequate public consultation in advance of the application to extend the green line. The report said the two existing Luas lines carried between them over 22 million passengers in 2005.
Around 32,000 people use the green line on a daily basis while the weekly average number of users is over 220,000 people. It revealed five pedestrians were injured on the tram lines and the accident ratio for 2005 is 0.16 accidents per 10,000 tram kilometres travelled — well below that for other comparable European cities.
The M50 all over again………………….
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I generally find transportation matters very difficult to understand. In this case however I used to use the Green Line Luas but have given up at peak times due to overcrowding. I still use it off peak when it is fine.
My usual station is Milltown (behind Alexandra College). By the time the tram gets there at peak times it is usually not possible to squeeze on to the first one. Sometimes you will but more often not – and sometimes you will wait for more than two trams before finding a sardine gap. I used to go out of town (wrong direction for me) as far as Dundrum and beyond, in order to get onto a tram.
If another series of stations is added further out this will obviously move the choke point further out. Presumably then more people will do as I do – and rejoin the peak time car commuting fraternity.
This doesn’t appear to me to be rocket science? Why must I pay for this farce and for the inevitable failure and reconstruction to follow? How come the ‘experts’ are ignoring reality? :confused:
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It is not really like the m50 at all! . There is little point in upgrading the luas to metro-light status yet. As it is the luas is only just about at capacity, and there is room to increase frequency to 3/4 minutes intervals.
It would be a great waste to decommision the stretch between the green and beechwood at this stage by duplicating the line with a tunnel underneath.
The whole metro idea is a bit of a sham really . The north of dublin has the fewest people living in it. If the south of dublin only requires tram services for the next decade how is a metro going to have enough passengers ?
In any case most people drive to and fro the airport irrespective of good transport because they have lot’s of luggage. And the port tunnel will provide a much faster connection for coaches than any of the metro alignments.
The interconnector is the obvious next step as it provides improvements to all the current commuter routes and joins the dart to the green and red line.
An orbital tram (maybe metro light ) from tallaght to blanch would be a very good alternative, as the census shows that outside the m50 ,this is where most people live.
Swords deserves a luas connection for sure but the metro is simply a waste of money. Just because people repeat over and over that their is a need for a metro doesn’t make it true. The city remains three times larger then either brussels or amsterdam which have the same population.
Sure look at the dart. It is a proper metro and it still doesn’t come near to having enough passengers to justify even this metro light scheme !!!
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@a boyle wrote:
It is not really like the m50 at all! . There is little point in upgrading the luas to metro-light status yet. As it is the luas is only just about at capacity, and there is room to increase frequency to 3/4 minutes intervals.
It would be a great waste to decommision the stretch between the green and beechwood at this stage by duplicating the line with a tunnel underneath.
It is totally like the M50 in that almost upon completion in this case or in the case of the M50 within a decade of completion this transport project will have to undergo a costly ‘in service upgrade’ that will (a) cost as fortune and (b) result in significant service disruption.
This scheme could be upgraded to metro(taking the eastern alignment) immediately providing sufficient capacity for the forseeable future and the Beechwood to St Green Section could continue as Luas in tandem with the City Centre link up with the route extended on the Metro Western Alignment to Glasnevan or Finglas via Phibsboro.
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@Thomond Park wrote:
It is totally like the M50 in that almost upon completion in this case or in the case of the M50 within a decade of completion this transport project will have to undergo a costly ‘in service upgrade’ that will (a) cost as fortune and (b) result in significant service disruption.
This scheme could be upgraded to metro(taking the eastern alignment) immediately providing sufficient capacity for the forseeable future and the Beechwood to St Green Section could continue as Luas in tandem with the City Centre link up with the route extended on the Metro Western Alignment to Glasnevan or Finglas via Phibsboro.
It almost like you spout what the papers say !!The city has a third of the density of comparable cities.
200,000 people live in fingal. 700,000 thousand live south of the liffery. both the green line and red line are around the 10,000 per hour mark, How will fingal provide 30,000 per hour ? it is a joke. For a sprawling city like ours. 5 luas lines would cost the same as one bit of a metro , and move so many more people. Even the dart only moves around 20 000 per hour. And it has carriages that are up to 8 long! Come on. This metro is a white elephant there are much better things we could do with 3/4 billion.
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I along with many others having been saying this long before any newspaper came to a similar conclusion (with the exception of Frank McDonald).
If this city is to increase density it needs to provide infrastructure before developments are built.
For too long in this country people have been working and living in places for years before infrastructural and service provision catches up.
The M50 is the prime example of this and Luas B1 will join the list quite shortly when an in service upgrade to Metro is undertaken; Luas carrying 22m passengers a year is simply underspec to allow Dublin to grow.
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Thomond Park wrote:I along with many others having been saying this long before any newspaper came to a similar conclusion (with the exception of Frank McDonald).
If this city is to increase density it needs to provide infrastructure before developments are built.
For too long in this country people have been working and living in places for years before infrastructural and service provision catches up.
The M50 is the prime example of this and Luas B1 will join the list quite shortly when an in service upgrade to Metro is undertaken]
Now mr Thomond we finally agree ! YES absolutely. we build then we service. BUT reversing this through the buidling of one high density route is not as good an option as building 4/5 medium density routes.
And i will tell you why! it will take so much longer to redevelop the strip along this high density route. To redevop several medium density routes with medium density housing will happen much sooner.
This is why frank mcdonald is against the metro. The numbers simply don’t add up . We will have to demolish 1 km either side of a metro line and buil 5/6/7/10 storeys to get the requisite numbers.
The facts on the ground work against this. In the mean time only the narrow strip along the metro is being redevelopped while the rest of the city sprawls like goodo.
There is only a set amount of money and it needs to be spent to provide the most improvement to the most amount of people
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I can see the point you are making and I do agree that more Luas lines are desirable but I think that if investments are to be made then priorities have to be integrating the existing transport networks and high demand spots such as
1> City Centre
2> Airport
3> Sandyford
4> Dart lines
5> Suburban LinesBuilding 4 or 5 additional Luas lines is great in theory but unless the above are connected with sufficient capacity then the commuting public will not be able to rely upon the service; if this happens they will jump back into their cars. The point that publicrealm makes above sums it up for me if capacity exists people will use public transport if it does not they will drive and as a result clog up the core commercial districts with unnecessary traffic.
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Thomond Park wrote:I can see the point you are making and I do agree that more Luas lines are desirable but I think that if investments are to be made then priorities have to be integrating the existing transport networks and high demand spots such as
1> City Centre
2> Airport
3> Sandyford
4> Dart lines
5> Suburban LinesBuilding 4 or 5 additional Luas lines is great in theory but unless the above are connected with sufficient capacity then the commuting public will not be able to rely upon the service]
With respect to linking up things , this is why i put forward the interconnector so forcefully. It links everything( built or unbuilt).
The luas (Green) is running close to capacity. But increasing the frequency to 4 minutes would do the trick. There just are not enough people to warrant quadrupling the service. And you see if we built 4/5 luas lines . At that stage we could close the city to traffic except for access, like in strasbourg (who had the same low density problem we had) . This would allow trams to run up to two minute frequencies on the street.
I am saying the 4/5 luas lines can provide up 100 000 per hour over a much wider catchment area. whereas this metro light tops out at 40 thousand on a narrow strip. Such a network of trams would not get in the way of buses either.
The interconnector also allows for darts to progressively run to higher and higher frequencies ( 7/8,maybe 10 times an hour) . there is already an north south rail link , why duplicate it ? east west does so much more.
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No argument on the interconnector,
On de basis of Bertie’s political expediency the metro is a done deal between Swords and Stephens Green whatever happens; my opinion is that the most expensive section of this is the underground section between DCU and Stephens Green. For the sake of a few hundred million more it could be extended to Cherrywood providing similar capacity to the DART on a much more western alignment. The real danger here is that Luas will not be able to cope between and Dundrum and Harcourt St whilst Metro will be virtually empty from Swords to Phibsboro.
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Thomond Park wrote:No argument on the interconnector,
On de basis of Bertie’s political expediency the metro is a done deal between Swords and Stephens Green whatever happens]
see we don’t disagree that much. I would argue that the swords line be luas (there are in fact plenty of things that can’t be done to cleverly improve segregation). And when it comes on stream run additional services between sandyford and harcourt.It would be very easy to add a short spur round the corner on hatch street, to allow for trams to turn around. This is where the big extra demand is. it is also almost entirely segrated as it is.
Leave the provision of large capacity to heavy rail , that’s what it is there for!
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As an occasional user of the green line, I want to echo publicrealm’s comment. The current line is already beyond capacity during peak hours. Adding 7km to the end of it will exacerbate the problem and the line will become unusable as a rush hour option for commuting to town for anyone closer than Dundrum (as publicrealm points out, it is already useless for people living closer than Milltown). Effectively this tram line will only be used for relatively long commutes which is not really what this transport mode is designed for. The M50 analogy is very much appropriate in this case. I want the Luas system to be extended but I’d rather see some completely new lines built. Given the pattern of commuting in Dublin, two separate lines running to the centre would provide double the useful capacity that a single double length line would provide. Assuming (by ensuring connections) the two lines could share depot facities, then it would not cost any more to build a new 7km line west of the green line maybe taking places like kimmage and harolds cross.
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Cullen gives go-ahead for Luas extension
14 August 2006 14:49
The Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, has signed an order giving the go-ahead for the start of work extending the Luas Green Line from Sandyford to Cherrywood in Dublin.
The extension, which will be 7.5km long and is due to be completed by 2010, is being co-funded by the Exchequer and a group of private developers.
It is expected that the extension will increase the number of passengers on the Green Line from more than 10 million a year to more than 18 million.
RTE NEWSAmazing! 3 years to complete this section.
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plus there are two m50 bridges . they will have to be built without closing the motorway.
and a good strech runs on top of a road which is going to be rebuilt beside the luas . now while this road is a separate council job , it means trying to coordinate ripping up an old road without closing it all together.
hopefully they will get the contracts right so that the amount tendered is the amount paid, giving an incentive to finish as fast as possible . Even if it means a higher tender price.
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yes but few people live there and there is little scope for high density housing in the medium or long term.
The city needs to find space for a lot of people to live so on whole it is a good routing. The entrances to the estates which cross the line are relatively small.
It would be a good idea to redo one of the entrances as an underpass at this stage so that the area could be reorganised in the future to allow full segregation without shutting the line down.
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Not every section of a route needs to be at high density particularly when the line is already close to capacity and areas such as Cherrywood and Fassaroe haven’t been factored in.
The re-routing of this line is as big as half the white elephants seen at bi-election time e.g. Greystones DART, M3, Knock Airport etc.
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