The destruction of St. Stephen’s Green

Thats fucking scandalous. This is going to be a disaster.

Why twin bore? All the metros I’ve used have all been single bore. It’s not like the luas style trains are going to be too big to fit in the one tunnel?

@Peter FitzPatrick wrote:

Finally a journalist exposes the level of destruction St. Stephen’s Green will endure during construction of Metro North & The Dart Underground Tunnel.

Unfortunately it’s been known about for a year

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2006/06/04/story14801.asp

A large part of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin will be closed to allow the building of an underground rail station.

Most of the park is likely to be excavated and construction will continue for two to three years, as part of the building of the new metro and rail network

@PTB wrote:

Thats fucking scandalous. This is going to be a disaster.

Why twin bore? All the metros I’ve used have all been single bore. It’s not like the luas style trains are going to be too big to fit in the one tunnel?

Single bore metro tunnels are typically in use on older systems. They do not conform to modern safety standards. If a train travelling in one direction experiences a problem eg fire or derailment, it would be disasterous for both that train and one travelling in the opposite direction. The double bore system reduces that risk

It is good that this has been publicized, but what an annoying article: he conflates two issues, a very important one, Stephen’s Green must be protected in the design of the metro and a complete red herring regarding luas and whether the metro should be built at all. Maybe the metro isn’t an ideal plan, but that discussion is over, the government has committed itself. That doesn’t mean that the RPA should, nor need, get away with tearing up the park, but using the park as a way at getting at the whole metro plan is not the best approach!

I understand the outrage, but every city with a metro has had to endure a huge whole in the ground for several years, there no other way. Where else would you put it? What would missarchi say if it got moved off Stephen’s Green?

It’s a bit of an eye-opener that you could build 100km of luas line for the cost of the metro, if that is true! On the other hand, if they cancelled the metro, would we ever see even one tenth of that amount of new luas line in it’s place?

But gunter, the PF’s objection isn’t to the disruption, or to the hole in the ground, but specifically to the permanent damage to the green.

I have been thinking about this station for over 7 months every day of the week.

This is a very old superseded sketch of the concept but it gives you a general idea.

The board is likely to receive an alternative proposal to at least consider the merits of.
3d views a model and a written statement in response to any RPA CIE plan will be provided.
The idea involves basically no disturbance to the green on the scale we are seeing.
The space in front of the arch will become a pedestrian only landscaped area with clear sight lines that formally respond to the existing context there will be no signs no poles no advertising and it will become an even more special place with character. All the clutter will go… and the bands will have an even better space.
Sight lines towards Merrion Row and Harcourt st will be enhanced with a axis aligned approach.

The luas line will be redirected around the other side of the green this can proceeded at any time down Dawson st if you wanted. Construction will then commence on metro north. After landscaping is finished the existing luas station will be re-instated generally and enhanced. Then construction of the inter connector station will commence yes there will be traffic disruption for a few years but this is a very very small price to pay.
Business will be disturbed in some way but they will get compensation ( they where going to get disturbed regardless)

The price is very small to pay in the future they will get:

– wider footpaths
– improved landscaping
– outdoor seating possible in some places
– Increased pedestrian traffic
– 1200 bicycle spaces will be provided ( min. 350 secure 24 hour security located within 40 meters of entrance )
– Taxi rank / Horse and cart area provided
– An even better tourist attraction
– The bands can kept playing
– The Christmas tree still has a spot
– Metro entrances that make every effort to not impose themselves and destroy sight lines using cast iron and unique designs that in some way match the existing fence around the green there is also an idea to make these secure at night.

There is much more but I’ll save that for later…

Dont agree with much of this article, where is the balance. The metro lines will be of equal if not more importance to the city than the park once actually built. The park is fantastic and should be easy enough to fix up after the line are built. If there is a lack in confidence of this happening then this is a different issue. There will indeed be some pain to endure while these lines are being built but shortermism should not be considered. These lines will serve the city for years longer than they will take to build. Hardly a surprise that significant work will be involved in building 2 metro lines.

Ducks worried about air vents!!!

Would anyone else like to see Saint Stephen’s Green restored to the way it was when it was laid out – no large trees, no railings, just a vast expanse of Georgian extravagance? I would:

… and Merrion Square too. Phoenix Park is a good place for trees, water features and the dumping of unwanted statues.

@CC105 wrote:

Dont agree with much of this article, where is the balance. The metro lines will be of equal if not more importance to the city than the park once actually built. The park is fantastic and should be easy enough to fix up after the line are built. If there is a lack in confidence of this happening then this is a different issue. There will indeed be some pain to endure while these lines are being built but shortermism should not be considered. These lines will serve the city for years longer than they will take to build. Hardly a surprise that significant work will be involved in building 2 metro lines.

Ducks worried about air vents!!!

You see, that’s the problem with the article; it tries to set up a choice between the Green and the metro and if that’s the choice, the answer will be metro. However, that shouldn’t be the point, the point should be: what can be done to reduce the permanent impact of the metro works on Stephen’s Green.

I really can’t believe they are running with this design; it is clear that should they build a perfect loop that the line will never be extended beyond this point.

I know there is a tight fiscal backdrop at present but this really is shortsightedness of the highest order and I have no doubt that this will unite every conservationist that hasn’t talked for years.

Is this a deliberate effort on the part of the RPA to delay the project two years whilst the revised application goes through ABP and blame the conservation lobby so that funds can continue to be diverted into the motorway programme?

@notjim wrote:

You see, that’s the problem with the article; it tries to set up a choice between the Green and the metro and if that’s the choice, the answer will be metro. However, that shouldn’t be the point, the point should be: what can be done to reduce the permanent impact of the metro works on Stephen’s Green.

dig up roads instead of the park!!!!
The rpa are worried more about disrupting traffic then digging up a park,,,

the entrance seemed to have moved since the comments in jan,,,
I might be open to considering losing trees on the Dawson st axis but….
if the RPA want to win support they need to put a very re assuring proposal together… and listen

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

Would anyone else like to see Saint Stephen’s Green restored to the way it was when it was laid out – no large trees, no railings, just a vast expanse of Georgian extravagance? I would:

… and Merrion Square too. Phoenix Park is a good place for trees, water features and the dumping of unwanted statues.

its not like that any more stand in the middle look around and tell me what you think!!!

The potential planning delays could very well be a nightmare alright.

At present, the impact on the Green, post-reinstatement (or lack thereof) hasn’t actually been articulated. To what extent ‘super-mature’ trees can be put back we don’t know – that alone could make an enormous difference. It’s difficult to separate the short term issues from the long-term impact on the park, which as has been said is what matters. Still, even the Victorian planting and landscaping heritage being interfered with is distinctly unpalatable.

I’d hate to see the Green opened up again – it’s not as if there’s an uniformity anymore (or ever was for that matter). The enormous buffer blanket of greenery is its fundamental charm. The unashamed prissyness of its floral displays and sense of enclosure merely adds to this.

@missarchi wrote:

its not like that any more stand in the middle look around and tell me what you think!!!

The middle will be completely unaffected by these works, which will impact the Northwest corner and North side.

@Andrew Duffy wrote:

The middle will be completely unaffected by these works, which will impact the Northwest corner and North side.

look for plant space and you will see what i’m talking about…. its existing
much like the connection with st stephens green and fitzwilliam hotel from the middle of grafton st…

green… they could at least use some tiles….

if you open up st stephen’s green it wont look as good as it once was…

i’m just offering to dig up roads instead of a park… that’s not to say it cannot be done well but from what I’ve seen these issues should have been addressed a while ago much like o’connell st and now they have finally moved 3 escalators after a mock up… there will be more mock ups…

@CC105 wrote:

The park is fantastic and should be easy enough to fix up after the line are built. If there is a lack in confidence of this happening then this is a different issue.

This is the issue & the point of this thread. Even if you don’t care about the damage to the Green itself, this will raise the ire of every conservation lobby & rightly so, with inevitable delay. I’d suggest that even the pro M3 lobby, given all thats happened, are quitely wondering if there was not in fact a better way.

@notjim wrote:

But gunter, PF’s objection isn’t to the disruption, or to the hole in the ground, but specifically to the permanent damage to the green.

Cheers notjim, permanent damage is the problem. I’d have no issue with the entireity of St. Stephen’s Green west & north being excavated, they can be returned exactly as is. Perhaps they figure that its easier to plunder the green itself & put up with a grumbling public than excavate valuable roadway space & god forbid, upset business.

I’m just waiting for the RPA to appease us with the notion that only the finest mature specimens will be planted as recompense. Bullshit. Its not possible. Planting anything older than 30 years, positively juvenile in the context of the green, is extremely difficult. The rate of attrition is huge and add to the fact that mature specimens are stagnant for years while they get to grips with their forced surroundings.

So we’ll have some shiny new trees that scream of botched interference, completely out of context and coupled with a proliferation of visible metro associated structures, you may as well start again.

We don’t do trees in Dublin City, what we have in the main are dotted around in an incoherent, haphazard mess as part of sticking plaster initiatives to clean up declining urban pockets. No grand vision, no landscape design.

One place where they got it right is St. Stephen’s Green.

@jdivision wrote:

Unfortunately it’s been known about for a year

http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2006/06/04/story14801.asp

A large part of St Stephen’s Green in Dublin will be closed to allow the building of an underground rail station.

Most of the park is likely to be excavated and construction will continue for two to three years, as part of the building of the new metro and rail network

Yep Breaking News – Frank McDonald does not like the Metro 😮 😮 😮 … and in other news, the Irish Times has discovered what most of us have known about for the past year….

Tss, tss jdivision, I dont like the idea at all of “most of the park is likely to be excavated” – it was my understanding from the RPA that their actions were limited to the northern fringe and nw corner, with traitors gate being reinstated afterwards. Any further light on the “most of” suggestion?

And what is the point of the turnaround loop? This is new to me, and where is the cost/benefit? All from an agency that is trying to save money by skimping on paintwork and tiles :rolleyes:

@hutton wrote:

And what is the point of the turnaround loop? This is new to me, and where is the cost/benefit?

I’m guessing it allows them to kept tunneling???? or have the option not to kept going past the green to turn the train around instead of going to bray???

I do feel sorry for the RPA i’m trying to apply for 28,000,000 million euro to help with the finishes/design as part of the Tourism Capital Investment Programme 2007-2013. But there website has a error limit in part 12 of total capital cost of 1 billion which the RPA are well over so I cannot submit the application…

One of the attachments is labeled mind the elevation

Is there no way that they could use one of the ugly office buildings on the Green e.g. the eircom HQ which is currently up for sale as the station head i.e. the parts where the public will actually access.

Then use a tunnel boring machine and minimally invasive access to put the rail tunnels under the Green itself.

On the plus side you’d also have a metro station that would have several floors of commercial space above it that could actually make money!

I don’t see why they would need to opt for an ‘open cast mining’ approach to the park itself! Fair enough if they have to dig up the grass or the paths, but the trees should not be touched!

@notjim wrote:

But gunter, the PF’s objection isn’t to the disruption, or to the hole in the ground, but specifically to the permanent damage to the green.

Nobody wants to see big trees cut down, or the ducks being discommoded, but we’re not going to get a metro without a big hole in the ground somewhere and the permanent damage to the Green is a bi-product of this. The way I understood the Frank McDonnald article, he was hinting that ‘Grand Central Station’ should be put in some other location, because of the impact on the Green.

If that is the argument, what are the alternative locations?

The only other, centrally located, site of the acreage apparently required, that comes to mind is Upper O’Connell Street. Either way, this one is going to start with a very big hole in the ground, sticking the terminus of the metro in it might not add much to the disruption that’s going to happen anyway, and it is right beside that daft loop on the BX line (unless I’ve lost track of that one). Maybe the metro trains could surface from their tunnels, run up the ski slope, tilt over and run back down the other side. You might get tourists to pay to see that!

I have to laugh at the OPW being ‘aghast’ at the extent of the destruction to Stephen’s Green. It’s a pity they’re not a bit more ‘aghast’ at some of their own little schemes.

On PF’s core point, the inevitable carnage of mature trees etc. from this quarter of the Green, again this is really sad, but it’s not that long ago that we lost all the Elms on the perimeter of the Green. To the same disease episode we lost the magnificent trees on both sides of Herbert Park and the avenue at the RHK. The point is that planting will recover, it might take a long time to be as good again, but it doesn’t take that long to be good enough.

gunter: I more or less agree with you, the Green is the only possible terminus and this will cause disruption, however, the point to emphasis is that minimizing the medium term and permanent damage to the Green needs to be an important priority: cut down as few mature trees as possible and locate as little above ground infrastructure as possible in the park itself, keep the normal exits outside the current perimeter, make sure the ventilation shafts can be hidden in copse (copses?) of trees, think of something clever for the emergency stairs.

My arguement with the FMcD article is that he isn’t emphasizing these, achievable, goals but instead is using the park in a vain exercise in campaigning against the metro itself.

Upper O’Connell Street might actually make more sense from a planning and urban development point of view too. It strikes me as yet another example of building EVERYTHING south of the river.
The City Centre should naturally focus on O’Connell Street this is where any central station hub should be.

It would also provide much better access to the IFSC and Docklands developments.

Stephen’s Green really isn’t the centre of Dublin, rather it’s the centre of a fairly small inner city Georgian suburb.

I think a big metro hub, if done tastefully and well could form part of the rebirth of O’Connell Street and tie in very nicely with the huge project about to kick off on the Arnotts site.

There’s also a better chance of feeding other tramways into a hub there than there ever will be at Stephen’s Green.

E.g. if a tram link were to be built up through Dorset Street, Drumcondra, Whitehall etc

It also ties into pretty much all of the northside bus routes and has easy access to Connolly station which is a major commuter hub.

It has to interchange with the interconnector!

@gunter wrote:

The way I understood the Frank McDonnald article, he was hinting that ‘Grand Central Station’ should be put in some other location, because of the impact on the Green.

If that is the argument, what are the alternative locations?

The only other, centrally located, site of the acreage apparently required, that comes to mind is Upper O’Connell Street.

The original (1970s) route for a link between the Kildare Line and the Northern Line was designed so that it would have travelled under the College Green/Dame Street/Temple Bar area. If it was feasible to build such a line in the 1970s then it’s hard to see how it would not be feasible now.

The main reason why a longer, more circuitous and hence more expensive route was chosen for the interconnector, was that this would enable it to “connect with the LUAS”. As outlined by Frank Allen recently to the joint committee on transport, this reason has now been removed by the selection of the preferred route for the LUAS link-up – a route which travels via College Green.

At the time it was first proposed, it would have been suicide for any politician, DTO apparatchik, DOT mandarin or anyone else involved in public transport to suggest a route for the interconnector which did not “connect with the LUAS” – the shiny LUAS with its “shiny, happy people” as Mary O’Rourke called the tram’s passengers. This was all to do with integration, we were told, despite the fact that such a route would have been fairly studiously avoiding the majority of the city’s bus routes, and the passengers on those buses.

I firmly believe that it makes more sense for the interconnector to be built along the College Green / Dame Street axis. In the absence of any other work, everybody knows that a LUAS stop at College Green would be considerably busier than a stop at St. Stephen’s Green, indicating that more people want to go to and from there. It would therefore make considerable sense to build the much higher capacity interconnector through the former location.

Anybody who has ever been in College Green knows that there is more than enough space for an underground interchange there. And, of course, digging up this area to place an interchange there need have no long term impact, as the city’s plan is to eventually pedestrianise it.

That takes the interconnector out of the St. Stephen’s Green equation.

The second thing to be done to minimise destruction of St. Stephen’s Green is to plan to build the metro, as part of the first phase of construction, out past the Grand Canal. This would (i) remove the need for turnback facilities and whatnot in St. Stephen’s Green, which seem to be the cause of much of the likely work in the park, and (ii) provide some useful transport facilities to areas south of the canal.

The area around Harold’s Cross, for example, is home to a number of places where boring machines, works exits, etc., could reasonably be situated.

@MrX wrote:

Upper O’Connell Street might actually make more sense from a planning and urban development point of view too. It strikes me as yet another example of building EVERYTHING south of the river.
The City Centre should naturally focus on O’Connell Street this is where any central station hub should be.

It would also provide much better access to the IFSC and Docklands developments.

Stephen’s Green really isn’t the centre of Dublin, rather it’s the centre of a fairly small inner city Georgian suburb.

I think a big metro hub, if done tastefully and well could form part of the rebirth of O’Connell Street and tie in very nicely with the huge project about to kick off on the Arnotts site.

There’s also a better chance of feeding other tramways into a hub there than there ever will be at Stephen’s Green.

E.g. if a tram link were to be built up through Dorset Street, Drumcondra, Whitehall etc

It also ties into pretty much all of the northside bus routes and has easy access to Connolly station which is a major commuter hub.

😀

Lol I presume you are taking the piss – to have a tram run on top of metro route all the way out, with nothing connecting..

@gunter wrote:

If that is the argument, what are the alternative locations?

Trinity’s large green spaces has crossed my mind, i know they’d most likely have a fit which perhaps could be appeased by an investment package – they would have to be compensated in some way for the temporary loss of recreation space.

Centering both metro north & interconnector around trinity would allow for entrances from college green, nassau, pearse and westland row with a link up to luas if that bloody bx line is constructed. There’s nothing easier to reinstate than grass.

As said, metro north should at least continue to a green space south of the canal to allow for future expansion with minimal disruption, but then that might just make too much sense to the rpa.

@MrX wrote:

Is there no way that they could use one of the ugly office buildings on the Green e.g. the eircom HQ which is currently up for sale as the station head i.e. the parts where the public will actually access.

Then use a tunnel boring machine and minimally invasive access to put the rail tunnels under the Green itself.

On the plus side you’d also have a metro station that would have several floors of commercial space above it that could actually make money!

I don’t see why they would need to opt for an ‘open cast mining’ approach to the park itself! Fair enough if they have to dig up the grass or the paths, but the trees should not be touched!

Would someone please explain to me how the London Tube can snake its way under an old city centre, under buildings older than it and its stations without swathes of urban fabric being demolished?
In fact, the Jubilee Line got attention precisely because it was the first to do this “open cast” method of construction – I believe. And on that point, it was done like that only on that line because the majority of its stations did not pass through sensitive areas of conservation. And, because of the open cast method, they built wonderfully airy stations. What we are doing – astonishingly – is going to be both and neither. Fan-tastic.

Trinity have made it clear they don’t want the metro anywhere below there buildings because of a so called water table?

That’s not strictly true, the point was that the proposed route of the metro brought it under the Ussher library at a shallower depth than the piles for the library, the piles are quite deep because the college is build on mud.

@notjim wrote:

That’s not strictly true, the point was that the proposed route of the metro brought it under the Ussher library at a shallower depth than the piles for the library, the piles are quite deep because the college is build on mud.

wasn’t aware of that notjim, stil possible though ?

There is a culverted river (The Styne) than runs under TCD and Hawkins st area

why is it ok to dig the crap out of an educational facility that caters for almost 20,000 people but not a park that caters for far less and on a voluntary basis ie people don’t work or attend it for college?

About 1/6 of the Green will be closed for 5 years at most – more likely 3-4. Is the hand wringing and wailing not slightly ott?

@alonso wrote:

why is it ok to dig the crap out of an educational facility that caters for almost 20,000 people but not a park that caters for far less and on a voluntary basis ie people don’t work or attend it for college?

Because its large recreation space can be reinstated exactly as is & can easily be accessed from nassau st. I’m talking college park here, not the entirety of its 47 acres. Never mind the benefit to trinity of having the best transport links possible, the city would have a centrally located transport hub, with entrances from north, south, east & west. In any case it was a suggestion as a possible alternative & obviously not likely.

I’d like to see foot fall through the green in one year, i’d suggest far in excess of 20k stop to enjoy its peace, & a multiple pass through.

Its not about temporary closure of the green, if they said it was to be closed in full for whatever number of years & will re open without its integrity destroyed, i’d say ok, we need the metro. That is not what the the RPA & IE are proposing to do.

If you think my ‘wailing’ is ott, grand.

Its moot; the route won’t be altered now and running under college park, missing the library etc, would be significant route change, but to play this game, as a fraction of college park the disruption would not have been too great, but the college, and particularly the students some of whose entire college experience would fall within the works period, would have been very opposed to the noise disruption to the library, perhaps, though, the college would have been persuadable if, in return, it was allowed to develop the nassau st car park, the car park along the southern edge of college park. who knows.

@Peter FitzPatrick wrote:

Because its large recreation space can be reinstated exactly as is & can easily be accessed from nassau st. I’m talking college park here, not the entirety of its 47 acres. Never mind the benefit to trinity of having the best transport links possible, the city would have a centrally located transport hub, with entrances from north, south, east & west. In any case it was a suggestion as a possible alternative & obviously not likely.

I’d like to see foot fall through the green in one year, i’d suggest far in excess of 20k stop to enjoy its peace, & a multiple pass through.

Its not about temporary closure of the green, if they said it was to be closed in full for whatever number of years & will re open without its integrity destroyed, i’d say ok, we need the metro. That is not what the the RPA & IE are proposing to do.

If you think my ‘wailing’ is ott, grand.

Do you reckon 20,000 a day use Stephen’s Green? i dunno about that but it would be interesting to see how many would be discommoded (surely in the EIS :rolleyes:)

And of course the 1st thing that would happen in your scenario would be the Liveline callers with their “fucking poshie southside west brits get their own bleedin Metro Stop warraboud us out here in shitsville” etc etc

The point is SSG attracts more work, lesiure and retail trips than College Green. most peds on College Green aren’t actually ending their trips there. They are on their way to retail on either side of the River, which will all be served directly by MN.

alonso: for the record and completely ot, southsiders go to ucd; the tcd has a remarkably geographically even in its intake, it has the most geographically dispersed undergraduate body of any of the universities, it might have more than its share of west brits though.

notjim I went to both. I know. I was paraphrasing a hypothetical conversation by someone who may not know that 😉

@alonso wrote:

Do you reckon 20,000 a day use Stephen’s Green? i dunno about that but it would be interesting to see how many would be discommoded (surely in the EIS )

You miss the point, its not about people being temporarily discommoded.

No point either getting bogged down in numbers or this argument, i stated 20k per year, not per day, trinities student population is just over 15k, i doubt either of us have accurate daily footfall & i’m not suggesting that the green is higher by day.

@alonso wrote:

SSG attracts more work, lesiure and retail trips than College Green

But not college green, nassau st, pearse st & westland row, no need for an entrance within the confines of the college itself.

No gain in going further with hypothetics, if your not bothered about the green being permanentaly & significantly altered, the point of this thread, well fair enough.

I think PF’s point is fair enough.

If the task is to find a patch of Dublin (with potentially good onward transportation links), that you can turn into a vast open-cast mine for a couple of years, the cricket pitch in TCD is one of the few options. It would also be (just) within underground travelator distance of the Luas bx line and the DART at Westland Row.

It could never happen though, because any subteranean ‘Grand Central Station’ is going to come with multiple levels of retail opportunity etc. and, if TCD owned the title to the ground, how would the RPA be able to cream off the lease values.

As an aside, did Trinity not float the idea of developing their Nausau Street frontage a short while back, under the guise of improving the college’s ‘urban interface’ or some such?

I always think college green and the lower part of Dame st has huge potential. Dame St is a real urban Boulevard and a quality public realm investment scheme, reducing or eliminating traffic on parts of the street could really improve it.

The buildings on Dame st tend to be quite large and grand. Surely they have the potential to accommodate some of the bigger shop units which grafton street is sorely lacking. (habitat is a prime example)

Of course the open nature of the excavation here would be a major problem but it would not be a huge change in the routing and I’m sure a system could be worked out with surrounding streets to bypass the area.

The reinstatement could then provide the improvements necessary and possibly create a new boulevard and plaza at college green as far as Georges St perhaps.

Suppose its a moot point anyway. The route’s well underway and decided by now. Still always nice to dream!

What about Hawkin’s House – kill three birds with one stone.
Get rid of one of the city’s biggest eyesores, you have a huge site for construction, then relocate O’Connell Street stop to Upr O’Connell Street (somewhere around the ski park 🙂 , thus negating need for Parnell Square stop.

@gunter wrote:

As an aside, did Trinity not float the idea of developing their Nausau Street frontage a short while back, under the guise of improving the college’s ‘urban interface’ or some such?

I don’t think so; I think they were honest about wanting to do it to increase college income; I have some sympathy with that, the college suffers all the disadvantages of a city center location, planning restrictions, high land cost etc, without fully exploiting the compensating commercial opportunities.

@notjim wrote:

I have some sympathy with that, the college suffers all the disadvantages of a city center location, planning restrictions, high land cost etc, without fully exploiting the compensating commercial opportunities.

*Cough, cough* dead hand all along western side of Westland Row for years, need I say more?

@hutton wrote:

*Cough, cough* dead hand all along western side of Westland Row for years, need I say more?

I didn’t say the college wasn’t at fault, maybe even grievously at fault: oddly enough my office is in Westland Row and I do wish we had a coffee shop on the ground floor; a cool one were people hang out all day with their laptops and outrageous young people with tatoos serve coffee and display their art on the walls while cs graduates run their startups from corner tables, like you get around universities in the us. Well when I run the college . . .

@notjim wrote:

I didn’t say the college wasn’t at fault: oddly enough my office is in Westland Row and I do wish we had a coffee shop on the ground floor; a cool one were people hang out all day with their laptops.

Jayzus, ye already have Caffe di Napoli on your street – isnt having the city’s best cafe good enough?

Some people just have it too good already :p

. . . and a sit down version of Caffe di Napoli (Flux) in the Science Gallery which is excellent if you are feeling flush, but we don’t have the sort of cafe where in people work; these are typical of university areas in the US and the continent. We don’t have a university quarter, basically.

@notjim wrote:

We don’t have a university quarter, basically.

Way off topic, but had UCD stayed in the Terrace there would have been an educational/institutional axis running from Trinity to UCD, with the National Museum, National Gallery, National Library etc strung along like pearls on a necklace.

Now instead, as proposed in the Maximising the City’s Potential document, we have Grangegorman to the Digital Hub. :rolleyes:

Also:
@notjim wrote:

I do wish we had a coffee shop on the ground floor; a cool one were people hang out all day with their laptops and outrageous young people with tatoos serve coffee and display their art on the walls while cs graduates run their startups from corner tables, like you get around universities in the us.

You forgot ‘posting on internet forums’. 😀

@notjim wrote:

I don’t think so; I think they were honest about wanting to do it to increase college income; I have some sympathy with that, the college suffers all the disadvantages of a city center location, planning restrictions, high land cost etc, without fully exploiting the compensating commercial opportunities.

Planning restrictions!, notjim.

They didn’t suffer too many planning restrictions on their recent Pearse St. / Sandwich. St. scheme.

Maybe, if TCD want to increase their commercial opportunities, that would be an argument for going with PF’s plan to stick ‘Grand Central’ under the cricket pitch, and split the lolly with RPA.

On the coffee issue. The prices in that ground floor caf in the Naughton building are just obscene. I presume this is why God hit that building with a hurricane a few weeks ago.

I can’t agree with the idea that the TCD cricket pitch (or Hawkins House) would be better locations for what is proposed for the Green. Both are too near existing DART stations to make an interchange with the Interconnector feasible or even desirable and thus would lead to another failed opportunity to provide integration between Dublin’s transport modes. The Green stop will integrate DART, metro, Luas and QBC buses like the 46A with sensible distances on all modes to the next stops. To be honest, losing trees in Stephen’s Green is a small price to pay for what this station will deliver in terms of pubic transport. This is a hugely significant project; there’s been nothing of this scale or ambition in Dublin since victorian times.

It would also create a concentrated triangle of public transport stations (400 or less metres apart) instead of trying to open up more areas of the city to heavy rail and metro.

The permanent loss of some trees is somewhat unfortunate but I generally find the loss of historic building stock in the city far more worthy of indignation than the loss of somewhat featureless, unremarkable and generally relatively young trees.

@jimg wrote:

I can’t agree with the idea that the TCD cricket pitch (or Hawkins House) would be better locations for what is proposed for the Green. Both are too near existing DART stations to make an interchange with the Interconnector feasible or even desirable and thus would lead to another failed opportunity to provide integration between Dublin’s transport modes. The Green stop will integrate DART, metro, Luas and QBC buses like the 46A with sensible distances on all modes to the next stops. To be honest, losing trees in Stephen’s Green is a small price to pay for what this station will deliver in terms of pubic transport. This is a hugely significant project; there’s been nothing of this scale or ambition in Dublin since victorian times.

It would also create a concentrated triangle of public transport stations (400 or less metres apart) instead of trying to open up more areas of the city to heavy rail and metro.

The permanent loss of some trees is somewhat unfortunate but I generally find the loss of historic building stock in the city far more worthy of indignation than the loss of somewhat featureless, unremarkable and generally relatively young trees.

Finally! Jesus, between here and politics.ie I thought I’d completely lost touch with this city. I would add to that a hypothetical scenario whereby the plan was to dig up TCD for 5 years instead. Would the indignation here be identical? Would all you’d have to do be a ctrl+F and replace “Stephen’s Green” with “TCD”? IS that a bit harsh perhaps?

@reddy wrote:

I always think college green and the lower part of Dame st has huge potential. Dame St is a real urban Boulevard and a quality public realm investment scheme, reducing or eliminating traffic on parts of the street could really improve it.

The buildings on Dame st tend to be quite large and grand. Surely they have the potential to accommodate some of the bigger shop units which grafton street is sorely lacking. (habitat is a prime example)

Of course the open nature of the excavation here would be a major problem but it would not be a huge change in the routing and I’m sure a system could be worked out with surrounding streets to bypass the area.

The reinstatement could then provide the improvements necessary and possibly create a new boulevard and plaza at college green as far as Georges St perhaps.

Suppose its a moot point anyway. The route’s well underway and decided by now. Still always nice to dream!

There are some excellent points here. Points which would have been valuable to any preliminary public consultation into the route of the interconnector, even if they did not eventually lead to a change in the route.

However, no such public consultation ever took place. At no stage was there any invitation from any of the relevant bodies for submissions from the public about the route.

Instead we were eventually treated to the sham public consultation last year, where three routes – all of which were almost exactly the same – were presented. And, of course, this was over a year after the RPA gave a clear statement that the interconnector route had already been decided in their documentation relating to the route of the metro.

This is simply a disgrace. For a line of this importance, it is impossible to imagine that such underhand behaviour could ever take place in any other country in Northern Europe.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Instead we were eventually treated to the sham public consultation last year, where three routes

I was at the consultation at DCC and they flatly refused to give out business cards or provide contact numbers for key people they had a suggestions box and thats about it not that I heard anything…

They will have consultation sooner or later and the later it is the worst it is for them…

I just hope they include the worlds best metro stations in there EIS and look at possible future options, fare structures and comparisons with a diverse range of cities all over europe and the world…

They where proudly showing a foster knock off sketch all I could do was laugh…
oh and then there was the example grand central at st Stephens green which lead me to believe CIE are behind the shabby previous entrance location and the RPA are yellow 2 pack

whats 2 + 1?

I don’t understand the Grand Central Station comparisons. Firstly, wouldn’t a European Hauptbanhof or Gare Centrale have been more appropriate? (What continent are we on?) Secondly, this is not the place for a Dublin “Grand Central” type station. There is nothing happening south of this point. The top of Grafton Street marks the end of the busy area between Parnell Square and Stephen’s Green. O’Connell Street or College Green is the obvious place.

Not in favour of underground anyway. The timeframe is too long. Dublin needs quicker help. Overground rail and electric buses running on dedicated routes. Get all these idiot single-occupant cars out of the way. That includes taxis. Deregulation is starting to fuck up the city very badly. Taxis seem to perversely pass as “public transport”, but their civic and environmental impact is the same as the private car – i.e. extremely negative. In the evenings between Wednesday and Saturday Dublin is just one big ridiculous taxi circus.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

However, no such public consultation ever took place. At no stage was there any invitation from any of the relevant bodies for submissions from the public about the route.

Instead we were eventually treated to the sham public consultation last year, where three routes – all of which were almost exactly the same – were presented. And, of course, this was over a year after the RPA gave a clear statement that the interconnector route had already been decided in their documentation relating to the route of the metro.

This is simply a disgrace. For a line of this importance, it is impossible to imagine that such underhand behaviour could ever take place in any other country in Northern Europe.

Ah, youve discovered the Irish planning “process” when it comes to infrastructure projects. The same is happening with the metro 🙁

For future reference, please bear in mind that the Irish definition of “consultation” regarding infrasturucture projects is simply defending already fixed plans at oral hearings – which inevitably get rubber-stamped anyway, as by that stage theres no alternative. Consultation me hole!

@Devin wrote:

I don’t understand the Grand Central Station comparisons. Firstly, wouldn’t a European Hauptbanhof or Gare Centrale have been more appropriate? (What continent are we on?) Secondly, this is not the place for a Dublin “Grand Central” type station. There is nothing happening south of this point. The top of Grafton Street marks the end of the busy area between Parnell Square and Stephen’s Green. O’Connell Street or College Green is the obvious place.

eh… you sure? Maybe not directly south but it’s close to the entire D2 office core which now stretches to Harcourt St. The Wexford./Aungier/Camden area is south of it too, which as we all know is where the real night time action is in Dublin

@Devin wrote:

Secondly, this is not the place for a Dublin “Grand Central” type station. There is nothing happening south of this point. The top of Grafton Street marks the end of the busy area between Parnell Square and Stephen’s Green. O’Connell Street or College Green is the obvious place.

You realise the area south of Stephens Green is an extremely busy business district, rivalling only IFSC for employment in the city centre? It’s also the start of the green Luas line – a metro terminus at college green wouldn’t connect the two which would be a complete waste.

btw totally agree about the number of taxis, I’m all for deregulation but if the bus lanes are being rendered inoperative because of the number of taxies, we’ve defeated the purpose.

Too many taxis in Dublin?

There’s not enough taxis in Dublin. Try and get one home from town at 3AM on a friday or saturday night, to see what I mean.

@Blisterman wrote:

Too many taxis in Dublin?

There’s not enough taxis in Dublin. Try and get one home from town at 3AM on a friday or saturday night, to see what I mean.

There are never going to be enough taxis to cope with the glut of people trying to get home when all the bars and nightclubs in the city close. Just like there are never going to be enough enough buses, trains or road space at 9am on weekday.

However there are times when there are too many taxis on the road. Hang around the city centre from 8pm onwards, most of the roads are filled with taxies. There have been several mornings lately where the bus I’m on is stuck in the bus lane because we’re in a queue of taxis.

Ok, fair point.

What Dublin really needs is 24 hour public transport, as well as allowing bars to close when they want.

In London, where I have a much further distance to get home, I have absolutely no trouble getting home, as most buses run 24 hours, albiet at a lower frequency at night, and also the release of people from bars and clubs is much more evenly spread out, over the night,

But, I’m getting off topic here.

@alonso wrote:

eh… you sure? Maybe not directly south but it’s close to the entire D2 office core which now stretches to Harcourt St. The Wexford./Aungier/Camden area is south of it too, which as we all know is where the real night time action is in Dublin

Arrgh comments should not always be taken literally! It’s comparatively quiet south of Stephen’s Green.

Everyone’s opinions – me included – on where public transport should be focussed are influenced by where we live, work, frequent etc. If we find it annoying that we can’t get from X to Y by public transport, we think public transport should be put in there. Noone is purely for the greater good. Everyone has an agenda.

Btw never liked the Camden-Wexford Street area for going out myself. Can’t think of one good pub except Swan Aungier Street.

@Devin wrote:

Arrgh comments should not always be taken literally! It’s comparatively quiet south of Stephen’s Green.

Everyone’s opinions – me included – on where public transport should be focussed are influenced by where we live, work, frequent etc. If we find it annoying that we can’t get from X to Y by public transport, we think public transport should be put in there. Noone is purely for the greater good. Everyone has an agenda.

Btw never liked the Camden-Wexford Street area for going out myself. Can’t think of one good pub except Swan Aungier Street.

I know what you meant but what I’m saying is that there is a very high proportion of AM Peak work trips that will benefit from this location over College Green, which though busier with ped traffic during retail hours would not be for work traffic. These work trips are non-voluntary and should be the primary focus of transport planning in the City. As I have said either here or elsewhere, ped traffic on College Green is all through traffic. They are all going somewhere outside of the area – either north to O CSt or south towards SSG as there are no attractions besides TCD which already has a DART and Mainline station in it;s back garden and forms the focus of BAC’s southside and cross city services. And to give TCD a Metro Stop would proabably cause a war.

btw I neither work nor live near the Green. My agenda at the minute would be the replacement of the left hand lane on Tara Street with a bike lane, and the removal of all left turns there, but hey I don’t see that in T21:confused:

Ah the Swan, but what about Whelans, Village, Anseo, pool at the palace, Devitts, Bleedin Horse, GB Shaw, (near the Pod complex), and for the culchie guards and nurses, Flannerys…

I took a few more photos of the to-be-destroyed part of the green.

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I think the mature trees will be the greatest loss. I know you can plant relatively mature trees nowadays but still, they won’t have the patina of time on them. They’ll probably be all quite generic from being grown on a plantation, all straight trunks and even foilage. No marks, no twists, no sign of a past. That will be a very dull corner of the Green for a very long time, while the trees fill out.

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I worry about the rock follys too. Are these easy to take apart, of will they have to be chopped up and thrown away?

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An example of how the trees have shaped themselves over time. How old are most of these trees?

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Try getting this to happen again. I like the way that its made to seem that nature shaped the park, an effect that I fear will be lost for the greater part of this century

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And what about these lads? Where will they go? Thats right, out on the streets.

Is there honestly no other alternative?

the ducks will most likely use the untouched other 80% of the park. AS will we humans

@PTB wrote:

I think the mature trees will be the greatest loss. I know you can plant relatively mature trees nowadays but still, they won’t have the patina of time on them. They’ll probably be all quite generic from being grown on a plantation, all straight trunks and even foilage. No marks, no twists, no sign of a past. That will be a very dull corner of the Green for a very long time, while the trees fill out.

Exactly PTB, cheers for the shots. The affected areas will never catch up, its not possible.

Time for a reality check:

A) The construction footprint is tiny compared to the massive engineering involved. The RPA and CIE deserve praise for keep about 80% of the Green open to the public.

E) Everything will be replaced as it was before and amazingly enough I have been told that trees can grow again.

The title of this thread is so OTT and inflamatory – it should be rebanded to ‘Metro/Interconnector Works’ without the OP hysterical editorial swing based on a IT article written by a person who does not need to take public transport to work.

I am also saddened by how few people on this board cannot see how this “destruction” of Stephen’s Green will over the long run lead to its salvation by making it more accessible to people from the entire Leinster region via DART, Luas and Metro.

@Cute Panda wrote:

B) McDonald has been anti metro from day one and this stinks of sour grapes. He was anti-Luas and wanted it underground in the city centre, now 8 years later he is against underground railways and wants more tracks on streets.

I think he was more anti some of the daft route options that were proposed for the luas, rather than the luas itself.

The ducks can just move to the canal or Iveagh Gardens. It’s not that far!

Not for this little fella 🙁

*sobs*

How could you take it away from them, how could you?!

Though fair enough the gulls parading as ducks can feck right off.

GrahamH, natural selection will account for those incapable of a short migration 😉

@CutePanda wrote:

A) The construction footprint is tiny compared to the massive engineering involved. The RPA and CIE deserve praise for keep about 80% of the Green open to the public.

Temporary closure or restricted access during construction is not the fucking point, as stated ad nauseum. Its about the significant & permanent alteration of a landscape set piece as laid out by A.E. Guinness circa 1880, that has matured in tandem, without significant interference.

@CutePanda wrote:

B) McDonald has been anti metro from day one and this stinks of sour grapes. He was anti-Luas and wanted it underground in the city centre, now 8 years later he is against underground railways and wants more tracks on streets.

I don’t agree with McDonald’s stance on ‘Metro’, save to say that if your going to go to the trouble of constructing tunnels capable of accommodating an actual metro type system, you might want to put something a little better than a glorified luas in it. An actual metro travelling @ 120kph, nothing too difficult to achieve, would reach O’Connell Street in 6 minutes.

@CutePanda wrote:

C) The Nostalgia Nazis in this country are still trying to hold us back.

This nazi grouping obviously now includes me, now perhaps that is actually a little OTT.

@CutePanda wrote:

D) Dublin need this more for the future well being of the city, more so than harking back to the legacy of the days of powdered wigs

Of course it does, despite the lack of ambition embedded in metro north. There are alternatives.

@CutePanda wrote:

E) Everything will be replaced as it was before and amazingly enough I have been told that trees can grow again.

Obviously the aesthetic benefit derived from a 120 year+ maturation process means nothing to you.

@Cute Panda wrote:

The title of this thread is so OTT and inflamatory – it should be rebanded to ‘Metro/Interconnector Works’ without the OP hysterical editorial swing based on a IT article written by a person who does not need to take public transport to work.

If as a result of these works, substantial felling in the affected areas of the green is necessary, coupled with the introduction of several above ground installations, it is reasonable to suggest that the integrity of the green as set out in 1880 will in fact be destroyed.

These works are a neccessity for the progression of the whole city and as long as the affected area of the green isnt reinstated with a generic chinese granite and stainless steel ‘plaza’ im grudgingly in favour.

Why is the date of 1880 so important?

SSG has seen various upheavals, changes, amendments, improvements, call-them-what-you-want in the 400ish years since it came into being. The corners used to be closed. The centre used to be pasture. There used to be big statues in the middle. And it’s not even 10 years since the park got the equivalent of a blade 1 haircut across its entire area, if I remember correctly- many lovely little nooks and crannies created by overgrowth of the undergrowth were destroyed 😉 by the OPW in the name of improving the safety of the users. But guess what- they grew back – differently, yes, but not necessarily better or worse – and you’d have been hard pressed to spot the scars even 6 months later.

I do understand your concerns regarding the impact of the works, but these are trees. They weren’t all planted at the same time, just as the layout of the park doesn’t date from a single period. Not only is the character of the park not bound to a single period of its evolution, it is fundamentally tied up with the layering of various chapters in its history. SSG is the very embodiment of a(n ecological) palimpsest.

Who’s to say that in 20 years’ time we won’t stand back and reminisce about the addition of yet another layer of history to the already rich tapestry of memory – personal, civic, national – that SSG represents?

PS I still think it’s the wrong location for a ‘Grand Central’ :rolleyes:, but for reasons nothing to do with those outlined in this thread.

cute panda we/me/I’m are not anti metro we just want it done right thats all…

from what I have seen so far I’m not convinced that a proper case has been made for the works…

I support a station at st stephen’s green I just want it done to high standards…

We know in time that a case will be made but it better be a good one…

http://www.irishrail.ie/projects/pdf/ExampleStationatStephensGreen.pdf

thankfully now amended but its still a dark horse…

@ctesiphon wrote:

Why is the date of 1880 so important?

Its current format as set out by Guinness dates from 1880. It has remained largely intact since then, with some minor interventions. The vast majority of boundary trees were planted at that time and are clearly rounding the 100 year+ mark, still juvenile for a beech & many other species.

Obviously the OPW are charged with ensuring its future & several replacement batches have been planted in tandem over decades to achieve layering, its common & standard parctice. A new batch of horse chestnut’s on chesterfield avenue are down are number of years now to prepare for the day when all existing will be felled, thats as it should be.

Perphas i’m being sentimental here, but the trees of SSG stand in stark contrast to the majority of our street trees, most of which should be felled & replaced.

Anyway enough of this, i’m off to the pub 😉

Cute Panda: time again to contemplate the often forgotten fact that good government arises out of the mediation of extremes, I would be annoyed if PF’s concerns derailed the metro project but I am glad he holds them so passionately and is able to express them so well, the concern and objection of people like him will help protect the park from needless damage, similarly, your views, though not so well expressed, are typical of those that help drive the project forward, between the two extremes lies the ideal, the metro is built but the damage to Green is kept to the minimum.

It is silly to pretend that the felling of mature tree would not be a loss, it will. Further, unless great care is taken, the rebuilt portion of the park will lack the sense of nature begrudgingly but beautifully tamed and it would be a huge pity if the metro exits impinged on the Green itself, as they appear to in the map at the start of this thread. Elsewhere I fear the demolition of St Vincent’s Deaf School will be a huge loss for Drumcondra’s architectural expression of it civic self. I hope the metro goes ahead, but I would feel better if it went ahead in fruitful arguement with advocates of conservation.

mind the gap…

Road closures should be avoided where possible and should only be carried out in
consultation with the DCBA.

All construction plant and equipment should be kept within the confines of St. Stephens Green so as to minimise the visual impact on the surrounding environment. DCBA

(I would prefer if everything was outside)

@notjim wrote:

Cute Panda: Time again to contemplate the often forgotten fact that good government arises out of the mediation of extremes, I would be annoyed if PF’s concerns derailed the metro project but I am glad he holds them so passionately and is able to express them so well, the concern and objection of people like him will help protect the park from needless damage, similarly, your views, though not so well expressed, are typical of those that help drive the project forward, between the two extremes lies the ideal, the metro is built but the damage to Green is kept to the minimum.

It is silly to pretend that the felling of mature tree would not be a loss, it will. Further, unless great care is taken, the rebuilt portion of the park will lack the sense of nature begrudgingly but beautifully tamed and it would be a huge pity if the metro exits impinged on the Green itself, as they appear to in the map at the start of this thread.

You don’t often get to see philosophy and common sense delivered with poetic clarity.

When they bring in the directly elected mayor for Dublin, notjim gets my vote.

🙂

As we all keep saying, it really depends on the severity of the interventions. To be honest I think we’re lucky insofar as the area under scrutiny – the north-western corner of the Green – is probably its least attractive part. In fact I don’t particularly like it as a green space: the planting is neither neat and trim or wild and scenically overgrown – rather it’s scrubby, incoherent and in places plain untidy. The proliferation of scrawny laurel bushes and random mixumgatherum of fairly young planting around the perimeter isn’t particularly attractive either, especially when combined with the wide expanses of cheap tarmac and worn out grass inside Fusiliers Arch.

I could live with this being redeveloped, and indeed probably improved upon. However, like Peter I’d have a real problem with any meddling with the south-western corner which is probably the most mature and picturesque part of the Green. Some truly stately tree specimens around here, as to a lesser extent along the southern and other sides. It would be a terrible tragedy for these areas to be interfered with.

Whilst the loss of c. 80-100 year old trees to the main north-western corner would obviously be undesirable, it’d be a relatively painless pill to swallow if the other prized parts of the Green – parts that also clearly demonstrate the heritage of the place – were preserved. Again, it all depends on the extent…

I agree with much of the above save that the pond and bridge will be obliterated if a diagonal alignment is followed. To me the unique qualities of the green are two areas; the centre of the park in formal style which has been done ad infinitum elsewhere; secondly the miniture Serpentine stretching from the Shelbourne to the Fusilliers arch which gives all the flavour of its larger Hyde Park inspiration in a much more urban setting.

The former could be mapped out, fittings removed and reinstated reasonably easily; the latter could not and the collection of mature trees is irreplaecable for its honest authenticity. I cannot believe that the RPA are proposing this it is quite simply unacceptable for a state body to propose the destruction of the premier public space in the city to save a few euros.

This solution not only destroys the authenticity of the finest city park but also puts thousands of trucks a month into the core of the central business district which will add congestion and nullify much of the benefit of the highly successful Dublin Port Tunnel for a period of years.

The only acceptable solution is that the tunnel surface somewhere in the region of the Grand Canal be it an available greenfield site in either Ranelagh, Rathmines or Harolds Cross, of course this will involve additional cost but it will give impetus to a further expansion of the network and safegaurd one of the major tourist draws to the city. We need a metro that is capable of expansion and not one that will involve the destruction of the Green twice in 10-15 years, no city can afford that type of disruption right at its core.

The basic question is are we prepared to take the pill required to deliver transport infrastructure. Is Dublin willing to do what Boston did? We’re focussed on the Green here, but all along the route of both currently proposed metros and other luas lines, people will face chaos for the best part of 5 years each. What is the alternative? Not just for this location, but for the City as a whole.

Were this particular element to be carried out, as suggested by PVC King, in a more residential area, the question of “why pick on a residential area with kids when you could do it where no one lives in the centre”. The alternatives always seem better, until they are chosen.

But you have brought up a fair point in relation to truck movements. But this will happen everywhere that infrastructure is built. How bad was it for LUAS and the tunnel? I wasn’t cycling in town back then so I have no idea. And these trucks are not 5 axle hgvs so the ban never applied to em. But this is certainly something that we must keep an eye on.

todays Sunday times has a spread from the invisible kid…

Just to be clear, i have no desire at all to see metro north or particularly the interconnector delayed. If there was no other option i would reluctantly concede that the works & required felling to facilitate same are necessary.

If the RPA insist on pushing ahead with their spectacular version of ‘An Larism’ by terminating metro north at SSG, making future (and inevitable) expansion a real pain in the ass as stated by pvc & many others … they could at least spare us the uneccessary price.

Missarchi’s suggestion does seem to be a credible alternative; Large sections of SSG North & West are essentially dead road space & could be cordoned off without significant traffic disruption. Obvioulsy it involves the temporary shifting of the luas terminus to lower harcourt, with perhaps a turn back shunt required on Clonmel Street, a relatively small & temporary inconvenience.

@alonso wrote:

The basic question is are we prepared to take the pill required to deliver transport infrastructure.

Yes, large scale disruption is often inevitable, but not irreparable consequences from same when there are alternatives – that could by the way also do the RPA a favour. Why tip toe around the green with the added trouble & expense of covering your tracks? when you can take the adjacent road space, do whatever you have to do & reinstate with relative ease.

@ST/OPW wrote:

“We’ve asked them to keep the number of trees to be felled to a minimum, 40 – 50 tops, everything will be reinstated afterwards”

@ST/DOEHLG wrote:

“The department is keeping the situation under review”, a spokesman for Gormley said, “If permission is given it will be on the basis that the green is restored to its present state”

Not possible John and 40 – 50 trees is fairly substantial.

@ST/RPA wrote:

The RPA has promised to hire an arbocultural specialist to advise on the management of the trees. Only those identified as being close to the end of their life will be removed, it says, and they will be replaced.

That would be none, these trees are only getting in to their stride.

@alonso wrote:

The basic question is are we prepared to take the pill required to deliver transport infrastructure. Is Dublin willing to do what Boston did? We’re focussed on the Green here, but all along the route of both currently proposed metros and other luas lines, people will face chaos for the best part of 5 years each. What is the alternative? Not just for this location, but for the City as a whole.

The alternative is to future proff the project by moving the end of the current line away from the central business district to a selected inner most suburb where retail and office activities will not be effected by the thousands of movements of spoil.

The alternative is to select a site which has no heritage or tourist value such as Mount Pleasant Park, Cathal Brugha Barracks or Harolds Cross Hospice.

The alternative is to ensure that he other section of the green doesn’t have to excavated in 10-15 years time when the line is extended.

The alternative is to extend the length of planning control where development contributions and higher densities can be leveraged.

This project is nothing compared to Boston’s big dig; it is a simple narrow gauge underground line; the DLR underground if you will and the costs of extending it a mile or so are less than nothing but the externalities of pursuing this version will be significant damage to the retail core for three years whilst the Mount Anvil brigade go to Dundrum instead as they have no where to be seen on a sunny day.

I mentioned this to my partner and her reaction was only in Dublin

@PVC King wrote:

The alternative is to future proff the project by moving the end of the current line away from the central business district to a selected inner most suburb where retail and office activities will not be effected by the thousands of movements of spoil.

The alternative is to select a site which has no heritage or tourist value such as Mount Pleasant Park, Cathal Brugha Barracks or Harolds Cross Hospice.

The alternative is to ensure that he other section of the green doesn’t have to excavated in 10-15 years time when the line is extended.

The alternative is to extend the length of planning control where development contributions and higher densities can be leveraged.

Ah but sure that would all make just too much sense.

@Alonso wrote:

The basic question is are we prepared to take the pill required to deliver transport infrastructure. Is Dublin willing to do what Boston did?

Likening this project or part thereoff to Bostons big dig is an unfortunate choice its akin to saying that ship is built like the Titanic.
@PVC King wrote:

This project is nothing compared to Boston’s big dig;

Although Id disagree with PVC here as in one way comparisons to the Big Dig are very apt actually because given the precedent set by other major infrastructure projects in Ireland, and similar to the BigDig the development under St Stephens Green will also have significant cost overruns, major long term disruption, poor return for investment, be badly designed and constructed, have large components shut down for repairs on an ongoing basis, not be part of an integrated transport stategy and turn most of those areas invovled into permanent constructions sites.

Pity its taking place in one of the nicest parts left in Dublin, but at this stage Id vote to desecrate the green. Dublins turned into a right shite hole anyways, may as well drive the last pylon in the coffin and be done with it, then everyone might stop codding themselves that its some kind of vibrant cosmopolitan utopian phoenix arising from the flames of the Celtic tiger, envy of europe and all that bollix. Ha ha … the greens demolishing the Green…. someone save the Keep off the Grass signs for pissterity . What happens if they find a Viking longship under there , the pro-M50 loonies on the Tara Bypass thread would argue because we didnt know it was there before they started digging, the artefact whould be bulldozed thru. Jaysus I hope they do find something of archaeological significance, gormless Gormley would be in a right bind then, couldnt blame his predecessor, I bet his solution would be to build an incinerator on the site… once again this is just getting too funny.:D

Twenty Major on this…
http://twentymajor.net/2008/05/09/theyre-wreckin-the-gaff/

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

Dublins turned into a right shite hole anyways, may as well drive the last pylon in the coffin and be done with it, then everyone might stop codding themselves that its some kind of vibrant cosmopolitan utopian phoenix arising from the flames of the Celtic tiger, envy of europe and all that bollix. Ha ha

I doubt many that post here are so deluded as to view Dublin in those terms, lets call them your terms. I’d suggest most are motivated to contribute out of affection for their capital city and a desire to see it progress, however each one defines progress.

@hutton wrote:

Ah, youve discovered the Irish planning “process” when it comes to infrastructure projects. The same is happening with the metro 🙁

For future reference, please bear in mind that the Irish definition of “consultation” regarding infrasturucture projects is simply defending already fixed plans at oral hearings – which inevitably get rubber-stamped anyway, as by that stage theres no alternative. Consultation me hole!

I am well aware that what you say is all too true.

I’m simply surprised that in the case of the interconnector – which will be the highest capacity line ever built in Ireland – that there wasn’t even an attempt to pretend that other routes had been or were being looked at.

Basically it all seems to have come down to Martin Cullen saying that St. Stephen’s Green should be the location for “Grand Central”, and that was it. And for a route of this nature, that is simply unacceptable.

I think for once M Cullen was right.

CIE brought this as part of a much wider Dublin Rail Plan in early 2004 and given the failure to complete Luas first time out at least 4 of the poins were decided i.e. Hueston mainline, Stephens Green Luas, Pearse Station Dart and Spencer Dock. The only real choice was where you put te High Street/Christchurch stop or if ore stops were added.

If one looks at the civilised approach adopted by CIE at Stephens Green and compares it to the metro it makes a very stark contrast. The most tragic thing is that we will be back here again in 10-15 years time when the line is to be extended and will face a backdrop where between 2001 and 2020 where trucks and ancillary n disturbance will have been foisted on the area probably for a period of c 9 years.

Hardy fitting for the core retail district.

This project will be the mother of all abominations executed in this state in the name of progress and modern Ireland.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

Dublins turned into a right shite hole anyways, may as well drive the last pylon in the coffin and be done with it then everyone might stop codding themselves that its some kind of vibrant cosmopolitan utopian phoenix arising from the flames of the Celtic tiger, envy of europe and all that bollix. Ha ha

@Peter FitzPatrick wrote:

I doubt many that post here are so deluded as to view Dublin in those terms, lets call them your terms. I’d suggest most are motivated to contribute out of affection for their capital city and a desire to see it progress, however each one defines progress.

Peter, how does this fit into your definition of progress? NRA prepares to sue Port Tunnel builders
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/nra-prepares-to-sue-port-tunnel-builders-1372878.html
…. €752m tunnel, which is Ireland’s most expensive piece of infrastructure…..(Lets call that your definition of progress. ) heres what you get for half a billion in France which leaves about 250 million euro in spare change.. http://www.leviaducdemillau.com/ (Lets call that my definition of progress.)

To paraphrase somebodys post elsewhere on this forum (must have been one of those people with a peculiar definition of progress ..eh Peter)… we have established we cant build an integrated above ground metro system on schedule,budget etc , and we also made a dogs dinner of a tunnel.. so now lets build a series of tunnels with a metro running thru it under one of the nicest part of Dublin city centre, now if you cant see the funny side of that then your lacking in a true sense of humour… Im still 100% behind this project, its going to be a source of endless amusement as well as cementing for all time and for all to see the fairly disastrous actions,waste and mediocre achievements of those involved, it will be their maginot line. I believe its the last sacriligeous (in the aesthetic and public interest sense) act of a bunch of inept beauraucratic gombeen institutions… I really need the laughs as i watch this whole debacle unfold…ha ha

@PVC King wrote:

I think for once M Cullen was right.

CIE brought this as part of a much wider Dublin Rail Plan in early 2004 and given the failure to complete Luas first time out at least 4 of the poins were decided i.e. Hueston mainline, Stephens Green Luas, Pearse Station Dart and Spencer Dock.

TP, as the task was to devise a line which would link the Northern DART line with the Kildare line, it seems likely that Heuston Station would be one of the points through which the line would pass.

But the others?

Spencer Dock? Why not Connolly Station, for example?

Pearse Station? Why not Tara Street? It’s busier, after all, on a line which serves both stations. This would seem to be an indication that more people want to go to Tara Street than Pearse Station.

St. Stephen’s Green? Why was it important that the line go through here?

(And please don’t say “integration” -this particular route would have been useful for integration between DART and LUAS. However, the big loop it requires would place it much farther away from the majority of the city’s bus passengers than a more central route. Don’t forget, the city’s buses carry many times more people than the Green LUAS line. It’s true that you can alter bus routes, but you can also extend a LUAS line. And, whaddayaknow, that’s the plan. And it was also the first project which Martin Cullen prioritised on taking office.)

The only real choice was where you put te High Street/Christchurch stop or if ore stops were added. .

Laughable.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

Peter, how does this fit into your definition of progress? … Im still 100% behind this project, its going to be a source of endless amusement as well as cementing for all time and for all to see the fairly disastrous actions,waste and mediocre achievements of those involved, it will be their maginot line …

I made no effort to define progress, it was just a basic point that most contributors seem to be well meaning, whereas your posts often read as the sneers of an exiled emporer type, watching his people flounder in his absence. Not so much what you say, but the way that you say it.
You are of course entitled to tell me to feck off 🙂

I don’t agree with your wider points, but obviously am concerned about possible impacts on the green.

@Peter FitzPatrick wrote:

your posts often read as the sneers of an exiled emporer type, watching his people flounder in his absence.

I often hear them in the voice of a rat perched precariously on a piece of flotsam, shrilly willing a perfectly seaworthy ship to sink. If nothing else, it makes them vaguely enjoyable to read.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Spencer Dock? Why not Connolly Station, for example?

Pearse Station? Why not Tara Street? It’s busier, after all, on a line which serves both stations. This would seem to be an indication that more people want to go to Tara Street than Pearse Station.

St. Stephen’s Green? Why was it important that the line go through here?
.

Some answers
Spencer dock rather than Connolly to deal with the congestion at connolly

Pearse rather than Tara – larger space for facilities, better sited for integrating with the city’s eastern districts, tara st site more problematic

St Stephen’s Green – I’d say a lot of office workers will be happy, also this corner of the green is at the top of one of our core retail streets so I’d say a lot of the current tara bound traffic will use this.

Spencer Dock? Why not Connolly Station, for example?

– Connolly is unsuitable for underground tunnelling.
– Spencer Dock already has a line from the northern line which leads into it
– The northern line is an elevated track (from just before Killester Station and after Grand Canal Dock station) and you need to get around 15m below ground level for the tunnel. To get under Connelly, the tunnel needs to start near Killester station.

St. Stephen’s Green? Why was it important that the line go through here? (And please don’t say “integration”

Sorry mate, Integration -Luas (Green) (possibly Lucan), Metro tram, DART, and the fact its a popular shopping area as well as many people work around there too.

Pearse Station? Why not Tara Street? It’s busier

– Very tight coming from Spencer Dock, and very tight going from Tara to the Green
– It only very busy because of the current config. the 2 DART lines. metro north tram and the Stephens Grn stop will change all that.

Don’t forget, the city’s buses carry many times more people than the Green LUAS line.

What, along the same route more buses carry more passengers that the Luas? Or are you referring to the whole city network compared to one narrow line.

@ctesiphon wrote:

I often hear them in the voice of a rat perched precariously on a piece of flotsam, shrilly willing a perfectly seaworthy ship to sink …

now theres an image 😀

Don’t forget, the city’s buses carry many times more people than the Green LUAS line. It’s true that you can alter bus routes, but you can also extend a LUAS line.
Laughable.[/QUOTE]

actually the luas has been a very big success. When both lines came into operation, Dublin bus lost 25% of it’s patronage because of it and has since changed alot of it’s bus routes to compensate

after spending an hour delayed this evening on our wonderful train system i would accept any bloody route for this line,
re the green luas cannot be described as anything other than an exceptional addition to the southsides transport, 20 mins to Sandyford – beat that on a bus!, Lets hope lucan, and other lines for the north side get a dedicated track along the lines of the green line, I think the red line suffers from sharing too much road space hence can at times feel like a bus. On this basis there is a real difference between the red and green line.
My main problem with the luas and other proposals for future lines – is the lack of overlap with them. The recent feasibilty study of a line through churchtown etc being one example – why have we not seen any plans to bridge the large gap between sandyford and the dart along the coast.

@Rory W wrote:

Some answers
Spencer dock rather than Connolly to deal with the congestion at connolly

A tunnel through/past Connolly deals with the congestion at Connolly. In effect, creating two extra lines at that location. I readily accept, however, that Spencer Dock is another option for dealing with the congestion at Connolly.

Pearse rather than Tara – larger space for facilities, better sited for integrating with the city’s eastern districts, tara st site more problematic

Oh gawd. Integration again.

You’ve got to ask why Tara Street is a busier station than Pearse Station. Is it because it’s more central and more people want to go there? It seems likely that that is the reason. I can’t think of any other.

It’s probably true that it’s easier to build the tunnel through/past Pearse Station. Not necessarily the best option though. Just ask the planners of Munich, who are currently building a tunnel through very tight locations in the centre of their city – indeed to within a few metres of their iconic Frauenkirche – rather than going for easier options in less central locations.

The tunnel could surely be built through/past Tara Street station, bringing more people to where they want to go. And those who wish to travel to Pearse and “integrate with the city’s Eastern districts” could change at Tara Street and do just that.

St Stephen’s Green – I’d say a lot of office workers will be happy, also this corner of the green is at the top of one of our core retail streets so I’d say a lot of the current tara bound traffic will use this.

Building the tunnel through a more central location would also keep a lot of office workers happy. And other workers and partygoers and others happy as well. It’s important to remember that the original figures for the metro indicated that the Trinity station was predicted to be busier than the St. Stephen’s Green station. It’s obvious where the busiest stops would be if the only city centre infrastructure project were to be the LUAS link-up. Again, indicating that more people wish to go to the central area, rather than to St. Stephen’s Green.

@weehamster wrote:

– Connolly is unsuitable for underground tunnelling.

This is most probably a myth.

It didn’t seem to be unsuitable back in the 1970s when a route was proposed from the Northern line to the Kildare line via Connolly Station, College Green/Dame Street and Heuston Station. I’d have to say that I wouldn’t fancy tunnelling under the station since they built an office block on top of it, but it would most certainly not be one of the engineering feats of the new millenium to build a station under Amiens Street – with easy access to the current DART, intercity trains and the LUAS.

– Spencer Dock already has a line from the northern line which leads into it
– The northern line is an elevated track (from just before Killester Station and after Grand Canal Dock station) and you need to get around 15m below ground level for the tunnel. To get under Connelly, the tunnel needs to start near Killester station.

It is my understanding that the gradients required to bring the Northern line below ground between the Tolka and the Royal Canal are less steep than will be required to bring this line down to a sufficient depth to pass under the river at Spencer Dock. So it certainly should not be necessary to start anywhere near as far north as Killester.

Sorry mate, Integration -Luas (Green) (possibly Lucan), Metro tram, DART, and the fact its a popular shopping area as well as many people work around there too.

The integration possibilities are not superior at St. Stephen’s Green compared to other city centre locations. Take College Green/Dame Street, for example, which (as mentioned above) was a suggested location for a station back in the 1970s. Obviously an East-West tunnel through here would integrate with the LUAS when it is linked, as is the plan. Also with the metro – remember that the metro documentation pointed out that a big reason for its station at St. Stephen’s Green would be that it would allow a connection with the interconnector. Obviously, if there was a different route for the interconnector, there’d be different station locations on the metro. (Indeed, there was supposed to be a Trinity stop on the metro, but this got dumped in favour of the current plan – probably a world first – to build two large stations in just one location).

And, of course you’ve also got better integration with the city’s buses at a more central location.

What, along the same route more buses carry more passengers that the Luas? Or are you referring to the whole city network compared to one narrow line.

You said it. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Integration possibilities with transport from all over the city, rather than just transport along one narrow corridor.

Clearly there are alternative routes to the current plan for the interconnector. The 1970s route for example. Or a Spencer Dock-Pearse Station-College Green/Dame Street-Christchurch-Heuston route. Or probably several others.

College Green/Dame Street seems to me, however, like the ideal location for the interchange. Dig it up, put in your stations, cover it over, replace a few statues and a fountain, and then pedestrianise the lot (as is part of the city’s long term plan). No need, therefore, to destroy one of our most beautiful parks for decades to come.

It is simply not credible that only one possibility exists. However, only one route was presented to the public, which, in my view, is a scandal.

@CC105 wrote:

after spending an hour delayed this evening on our wonderful train system i would accept any bloody route for this line,

Yeah that was hilarious yesterday listening to the coverage on Newstalk of the chaos that enveloped Dublins ‘progressive’ (is that the right word there PeterF,, progressive did I get it right) transport system, because of one signal failure. 15 min delay turned to 30,45,1 hour , nearly fell off the garden seat laughing , no serioulsy I nearly did kept hearing the word integrated,integrated, being spoken in a rodents voice in my head. All those sweaty suited sardines stuck on the line. The only thing integrated about Dublins metropolitan transport system is the sharing of problems and delays, if one limb fails another limb feels the pain.

Get used to these type of delays….. once this St. Stephen green jobbie kicks in … your guaranteed frequent ongoing disruption to all forms of traffic in dirty dublin town …PeterF you live on a luas line dont you… go buy some reading material.

Would they ever start on those tulip beds and be done with it, Im eagerly anticipating the PR machine spin as Dublin grinds to a halt and recriminations fly about. Now that the tribunals are winding up, and without a TV it will be great entertainment. Ive a few old shovels in the potting shed Id donate to the cause, as the used say on the Kilburn road in the 50s “dig deep and throw it well back’ .ha ha hah

BoB why do you post about a city you hate so much?

Yes; I often find BoB’s nick ironic since his self-flagellating brand of Irish exceptionalism: “Ireland is the worst place in the world, but I amn’t implicated because I criticize it with lazy sarcasm” most typical of someone who has never lived anywhere else but here.

@BoB wrote:

Yeah that was hilarious yesterday listening to the coverage on Newstalk of the chaos that enveloped Dublins ‘progressive’ (is that the right word there PeterF,, progressive did I get it right) transport system, because of one signal failure. 15 min delay turned to 30,45,1 hour , nearly fell off the garden seat laughing , no serioulsy I nearly did kept hearing the word integrated,integrated, being spoken in a rodents voice in my head.

If you have to falsify my post or comments of others to make an argument]
PeterF you live on a luas line dont you… go buy some reading material.
[/QUOTE]

I do indeed, your comments aside, there’s plenty of decent reading material on this site, cheers.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

A tunnel through/past Connolly deals with the congestion at Connolly. In effect, creating two extra lines at that location. I readily accept, however, that Spencer Dock is another option for dealing with the congestion at Connolly..

Where do you link this into the northern line? What about gradient? How do you keep the northern line (the countries busiest) fully operational – go via Spencer dock where you can be below the surface and avoid the canal and tolka

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Oh gawd. Integration again. ..

Well yes but what’s your problem with integration – I’m talking about integrating new areas rather than transport types but if you want to go down that road we can – however I think it’s important that new areas are opened up and linked to the city

@Seamus O’G wrote:

The tunnel could surely be built through/past Tara Street station, bringing more people to where they want to go. And those who wish to travel to Pearse and “integrate with the city’s Eastern districts” could change at Tara Street and do just that.

Not in the same way as Pearse which is an easier option and has a greater site capacity

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Building the tunnel through a more central location would also keep a lot of office workers happy. And other workers and partygoers and others happy as well. It’s important to remember that the original figures for the metro indicated that the Trinity station was predicted to be busier than the St. Stephen’s Green station. It’s obvious where the busiest stops would be if the only city centre infrastructure project were to be the LUAS link-up. Again, indicating that more people wish to go to the central area, rather than to St. Stephen’s Green.

People if they really cannot face the horror of walking all the way down a pedestrianised street can get the Metro to O’Connell bridge at the interchange at St Stephen’s Green but maybe that’s integration of transport types and we know you have an aversion to that.

I don’t get it. :confused: Why would you concentrate all this in a tight 900m corridor from Connolly to Tara to College Green? What does it give you? The current Interconnector proposal expands access to DART eastward to the Docklands and south to Stephen’s Green. Why would you have two “stacked” heavy rail lines following the exact same route for nearly 2km? What utility is there having two points of intersection between two stacked rail lines 600m apart?

The current proposal also makes sense from an engineering point of view; the branch off the northern line towards Spencer Dock is already there minimising the distruption to existing services during construction. In addition the the Midlands and Kildare lines will have access to the Interconnector providing flexability for the future. Rory W has raised a valid concern; to get under Connolly, you either sever the Royal Canal or start the tunnel much further north.

They’ve been thinking about how to do this (provide an integrated commuter heavy rail network) for 30 years. Pretty much everything feasible has been considered (including tunneling under Connolly) and evaluated. The current Interconnector is superior in nearly every respect to all the alternatives. For once we will be getting the optimal solution in terms of expanding coverage and increasing integration.

where are people getting this information that tara st is used more than pearse station at present?

I think this factoid dates from the time the redevelopment was planned; here is an example

http://www.cie.ie/news_centre/press_releases.asp?action=view&news_id=13

It does makes sense, traffic for the CBD is split between Pearse and Barrow St,

@Rory W wrote:

Where do you link this into the northern line? What about gradient? How do you keep the northern line (the countries busiest) fully operational – go via Spencer dock where you can be below the surface and avoid the canal and tolka

As I pointed out above, Spencer Dock is one option, Connolly is another. Certainly keeping the line fully operational would require a considerable amount of planning – but again, this kind of thing is done the world over (on busier lines) and similar problems seem to be surmountable. As for the gradient, I suggest you re-read my comment about it above.

People if they really cannot face the horror of walking all the way down a pedestrianised street can get the Metro to O’Connell bridge at the interchange at St Stephen’s Green but maybe that’s integration of transport types and we know you have an aversion to that.

You seem to have missed my point about integration. It is very important that we develop an integrated system. However, other potential routes could achieve exactly the same level of integration of LUAS, metro and DART, and a more central route has the added advantage that it would also have considerably better bus connections to all parts of the city.

Such a route through the centre of the city was proposed in the 1970s. However, when it was decided to cut the Green Line short, and not build it through the centre of the city, these plans seem to have changed to accomodate this. Effectively, the route now included a big loop and became considerably longer than it needed to be in order to integrate with the LUAS.

Now, a longer route is also a more expensive one. The current estimate is that the line will cost 2 billion euro. Let’s say, for example, that this cost is 100 million euro more than a more direct route across the city. For example, Heuston-Christchurch-College Green/Dame Street-Pearse Station-Spencer Dock.

By building the more direct route and linking the two LUAS lines (which is part of the plan), you achieve the same integration which is planned with the St. Stephen’s Green route. You also save 100 million euro. Oh, and because you don’t have to have an interchange at St. Stephen’s Green, you can build a much simpler metro station there. And so you can keep destruction of the park to a minimum.

The metro plans would need to be changed accordingly, but this should not be too much of a problem. The current proposal is to build two very large stations at just one location (O’Connell Bridge) – go see the pictures, it’s a crazy arrangement. Given the necessary depth of these stations – because of the river – it would very possibly be cheaper to build two stations at separate locations. O’Connell Street itself and College Green/Dame Street., for example.

So you see, there are alternatives.

@jimg wrote:

They’ve been thinking about how to do this (provide an integrated commuter heavy rail network) for 30 years. Pretty much everything feasible has been considered (including tunneling under Connolly) and evaluated. The current Interconnector is superior in nearly every respect to all the alternatives. For once we will be getting the optimal solution in terms of expanding coverage and increasing integration.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to direct me to some evidence that everything has been examined. The material relating to the interconnector “consultation” was rather thin on which routes had been studied prior to selection of the one route which was presented to the public.

As I said above, such a charade would not have occurred in any other country in Northern Europe.

Out of interest, could you direct me to some evidence that

@Seamus O’G wrote:

such a charade would not have occurred in any other country in Northern Europe.

St Stephens Green could this be Eyre Sq squared in the making…https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=3850&highlight=eyre&page=2

I was thinking about this whilst weeding the veggies last night and I came up with the solution to one problem, who do we get to demolish I mean turn the sanctuary that is St Stephens Green into Grand Central Terminal.
We should get the same crowd who made a bollix of Eyre Square to do the the work on St Stephens Green. They have a proven record in meeting the required criteria for this job, cost overrun, shoddy workmanship, uninspiring aesthetic, substandard material, worker walkouts, time delay, and massive inconvenience to surrounding small business some of which went out of business. Not to mention the exhorbitant cost, 9 million, not including litigation from small firms in the area, plus all the compo for those injured on the cheap chinese paving slabs, that is after all what the tourists come here for, to see our chineese slabs… we are on a winner. Its not like we need that wasted money for anything else either like schools,hospital beds, playgrounds etc.
Everyone can relax and rest easy knowing that this project will follow in a long line of mediocre public projects, in fact the St Stephens green development could aspire to be the epitome of mediocrity and ineptitude , is that some kind of misnomer, epitome of medicority.
Anyways if we are lucky maybe all the same people who were involved in the mini-debacle that was Eyre Sq, the designers, engineers, architects, planners, politicians will be available to relocate to Dublin on taxpayers shilling to have a lash at St Stephens Green , unless of course theres already a coeterie of such in Dubhlinn with time on their hands now that the tiger has legged it 😀

Bit off topic..

I know the eyre square redevelopment seems to have been a right mess and I’m not fully up to speed on what happened but I’d just like to point out that I was in Galway a couple of weeks ago and we sat in Eyre square drinkin smoothies, sitting in the sun and watching hordes of people, walking, talking, busking, playing and even attempting to get as many people as possible into a phonebooth.

Admittedly it was a beautiful day and the whole place was in a resultant good mood but the square was working really well. There’s no way I’d ever have even dreamed of doing similar in the old square.

Anyway thats off the point, There’s a lot of pessimism here. Lets hope that the RPA, the local authorites and everyone else involved here are SLOWLY but surely learning from past experience.

Can anyone here explain why the Metro has to terminate in Stephen’s Green?

It would seem to me, that the logical thing to do, is to continue the tunnel half a mile past there, to Charlemount, and have it join up with the Luas tracks, continuing on to Sandyford. Completely replacing the Luas Green Line.

Why aren’t they doing this?

@Blisterman wrote:

Can anyone here explain why the Metro has to terminate in Stephen’s Green?

Nope, its inexplicable.
The cost of doing the turn back loop might even get them some way up towards the canal.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

As I pointed out above, Spencer Dock is one option, Connolly is another. Certainly keeping the line fully operational would require a considerable amount of planning – but again, this kind of thing is done the world over (on busier lines) and similar problems seem to be surmountable. As for the gradient, I suggest you re-read my comment about it above. .

For someone so keen on saving money you are intent on imposing a vastly more expensive engineering solution.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Such a route through the centre of the city was proposed in the 1970s. However, when it was decided to cut the Green Line short, and not build it through the centre of the city, these plans seem to have changed to accomodate this. Effectively, the route now included a big loop and became considerably longer than it needed to be in order to integrate with the LUAS.

40 year old plan as seen in old secondary school books do not an effective plan make

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Now, a longer route is also a more expensive one. The current estimate is that the line will cost 2 billion euro. Let’s say, for example, that this cost is 100 million euro more than a more direct route across the city. For example, Heuston-Christchurch-College Green/Dame Street-Pearse Station-Spencer Dock.

By building the more direct route and linking the two LUAS lines (which is part of the plan), you achieve the same integration which is planned with the St. Stephen’s Green route. You also save 100 million euro. Oh, and because you don’t have to have an interchange at St. Stephen’s Green, you can build a much simpler metro station there. And so you can keep destruction of the park to a minimum..

I thought you wanted to go via Tara, rather than Pearse? At least be consistant. While the damage to the park should be kept to a minimum you don’t however seem to mind ripping up College Green however which is one of the busiest areas (transport and pedestrian wise) of the city as well as surrounded by some of the most historic buildings in the city.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

So you see, there are alternatives.

Yes but not realistic ones

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Perhaps you would be kind enough to direct me to some evidence that everything has been examined. The material relating to the interconnector “consultation” was rather thin on which routes had been studied prior to selection of the one route which was presented to the public. As I said above, such a charade would not have occurred in any other country in Northern Europe.

Perhaps they used common sense (linking everything together realistically) before proposing the route?

would st stephens green be a world heritage site or just a nice park???

@Rory W wrote:

I thought you wanted to go via Tara, rather than Pearse? At least be consistant.

It doesn’t matter to me which route it takes. I’d simply like to see a proper assessment of the various options for an East-West line across the city – remember, the highest capacity line ever to be built in Ireland. These include the 1970s route, the route which we were presented with in the “consultation” and other possible routes (e.g. a Heuston-College Green/Dame Street-Spencer Dock option). There is no evidence available yet that this has occurred.

While the damage to the park should be kept to a minimum you don’t however seem to mind ripping up College Green however which is one of the busiest areas (transport and pedestrian wise) of the city as well as surrounded by some of the most historic buildings in the city.

I don’t mind it at all. Because it would be easy to restore it to its current state or, better still, to eventually pedestrianise it. Munich’s Marienplatz would be a fine example of a city square under which there is a transport interchange. And it’s right in the centre of that city, with plenty of historic buildings in the vicinity of the lines. Unfortunately, in Dublin it is proposed to avoid the centre with the country’s highest capacity line.

College Green/Dame Street is busy for a reason. It’s right in the centre of the city. Construction there would cause disruption, almost certainly more than would be the case in a less central location like St. Stephen’s Green. It would just have to be dealt with, and lived with.

{It would, for example, surely be possible to build a tunnel from, say, Newtownmountkennedy, to the southside DART line without causing disruption to anyone, probably indeed without anyone even noticing that construction was underway. That is not necessarily an indication that the route chosen was the correct one, or that a tunnel was the best option.:D)

Yes but not realistic ones

Now Rory, we were talking about possible routes for the interconnector. Am I getting here your (considered) opinion or the conclusions of some high level report into possible routes. (A report which seems to be presently unavailable for viewing by the public),

I dunno. I think the T21 plan (fingers crossed it gets implemented) is absolutely fantastic. As an excuse to learn something about Inkscape, I created the attached image which demonstrates what we are getting in terms of high capacity rail in the city centre. (I’m quite a bit less enthusiastic about what is planned for Luas.) Dart 1 is red, Dart 2 is green and Metro North is blue. The slightly opaque circles represent about a 400m cachement area around the stations. Walking slowly, 400m takes under 5 minutes. Everything (except the fact that Metro North doesn’t extend further south) seems to make sense to me in terms of maximising the use of the existing infrastructure, providing coverage and integration. Squishing everything into the centre (i.e. moving the Green interchange to College Green, pushing Spensor Dock under Connolly and the Dart 2 stop under Pearse under Tara) the makes no sense to me. Dame St and College Green are covered in cachement circles. This will be easily worth some trees on Stephen’s Green; just look at it!

Yes it does look reasonably convincing alright – theres a rather obvious gap in coverage to the east of croke park however – surely a station in this vicinity would be essential at least for match days if not to serve the population in that area – difficult to acheive i know given the existing infrastructure/curves etc. Theres also an unfortunate gap in the Thomas St area, just where a station would be poised to serve the smithfield area. Seems like a fair distribution of stations otherwise…

This is drifting off topic, but I had thought at one stage there was talk about adding another stop on the lower line somewhere east of croagh park, hard to say where there would be room to do that, but more’s to the point, what is happening to the lower line in T21, will it still be used for anything?

@notjim wrote:

This is drifting off topic, but I had thought at one stage there was talk about adding another stop on the lower line somewhere east of croagh park, hard to say where there would be room to do that, but more’s to the point, what is happening to the lower line in T21, will it still be used for anything?

after irish rail lost the battle for the broadstone alignment, Minister Dempsey gave them a consolation prize by suggesting that the current Docklands station will be retained to cater for the Navan services IR wanted to send to Broadstone. As it stands, it seems that the time-restriction on the planning permission that was granted for Docklands will be scrapped, and the midland line will continue to be used in the future for Navan and perhaps some other maynooth line services

@ofjames wrote:

after irish rail lost the battle for the broadstone alignment, Minister Dempsey gave them a consolation prize by suggesting that the current Docklands station will be retained to cater for the Navan services IR wanted to send to Broadstone. As it stands, it seems that the time-restriction on the planning permission that was granted for Docklands will be scrapped, and the midland line will continue to be used in the future for Navan and perhaps some other maynooth line services

There is no harm in retaining a terminus down there but a concrete and galvenise structure is sadly unambitious and a dreadful waste of land; there could have been an interesting option to bring the Navan/Maynooth line underground and have had trains running say Navan to Adamstown as well as the Kildare – Drogheda routing already envisaged.

I have no real opinion on who should use Broadstone as it is a little edge of town for a main terminus in any event a sort of Hueston pre Luas arrangement in many respects. Like so many of the Victorian termini it was at the edge of the city i.e. as far in as the railway promotors could get without laying waste to significant tracts of the City which given the destruction of the loopline it is certainly a good thing that Broadstone is as close to Henrietta Street as the line got.

The real bonus of underground rail is that the centre should be more or less unaffected save for exits to the stations. For this reason alone the proposal to terminate a railway in Stephens Green defies belief in the context of the number of underdeveloped sites in leafy D6. The costs of the disruption will be simply horrendous for City offices and retailers in particular; sadly it appears that state agencies are simply incapable of admitting they are mortal like the rest of us and from time to time get it wrong.

The city really needs an airport link that hits key locations such as Croke Park, O’C St, Stephens Green and this route will also bring Swords and Ballymun into play as viable business locations but why can’t the line be extended to at least the DCC holding at Charlemont St which could accomodate a significant quantum of additional mixed use development to pay fopr a lot of the costs as well as extending the area covered by the special development levies.

@jimg wrote:

I dunno. I think the T21 plan (fingers crossed it gets implemented) is absolutely fantastic. As an excuse to learn something about Inkscape, I created the attached image which demonstrates what we are getting in terms of high capacity rail in the city centre. (I’m quite a bit less enthusiastic about what is planned for Luas.) Dart 1 is red, Dart 2 is green and Metro North is blue. The slightly opaque circles represent about a 400m cachement area around the stations. Walking slowly, 400m takes under 5 minutes. Everything (except the fact that Metro North doesn’t extend further south) seems to make sense to me in terms of maximising the use of the existing infrastructure, providing coverage and integration. Squishing everything into the centre (i.e. moving the Green interchange to College Green, pushing Spensor Dock under Connolly and the Dart 2 stop under Pearse under Tara) the makes no sense to me. Dame St and College Green are covered in cachement circles. This will be easily worth some trees on Stephen’s Green; just look at it!

Nice work, Jim.

Now try it using the originally planned route, with an interchange in or around College Green/Dame Street. You should find that the only circle which disappears is the one around Spencer Dock, and the LUAS line to the Point (currently under construction) should be nicely poised to deal with that.

And you might also try a Spencer Dock-Heuston route via Pearse Station and College Green/Dame Street, with the metro interchange at the latter location. I think you’ll find that your arrangement of circles is almost exactly the same as in your original picture.

That is, the city could get exactly the same transport coverage without necessitating the wholesale destruction of St. Stephen’s Green because of the construction of an interchange there.

@PVC King wrote:

why can’t the line be extended to at least the DCC holding at Charlemont St which could accomodate a significant quantum of additional mixed use development to pay fopr a lot of the costs as well as extending the area covered by the special development levies.

1. Because the locals have consistently opposed any plans to demolish the flats there
2. They will soon be able to buy said flats themselves leading to disparate ownership and even greater difficulties in securing a concensus on the future of the site

I thought DCC was preparing a Framework Plan (or even an LAP? One can only hope…) for the Charlemont Street area?

Though perhaps the… eh, hiccups with PPP redevelopment of DCC sites would have an impact on this? Don’t know the details (reported in Saturday’s Irish Times among other locations).

They’re planning a ppp, but as you say there’s problems with all of the other ones. The last plan that was drawn up was rejected by those living there as was a previous one if I recall correctly. The new leglistation on being able to buy your own flat is due to report by year end I think, which could make a redevelopment completely unviable if there is disparate ownership.

@Rory W wrote:

40 year old plan as seen in old secondary school books do not an effective plan make

Yeah I know those old plans were a complete joke, just as the transport system of decades ago was , they lacked integration, were lacking in true vision, lacked enviromental impact studies, expensive paving stones, clean modern aesthetic form… what a joke those old plans probably didnt even have an abundance of consultants working on these.
And worst of all the main train journey times on those old plans were actually shorter, which if we had them today would give us less time to sit in the carriage working on our laptops devising plans to spend billions to improve the service and time.
Iarnród Éireann admits journey times are longer http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=63096-qqqx=1.asp

Thankfully those awful days of faster train journeys are well and truly behind us as real visionaries are working on improving the lives of all those who take public transport.. just depends on when you set the clock, would that be improvements relative to the 90s,80s or 70s your looking for there.
ha ha ha I say let the same apes who oversaw development of Irelands national rail loose on Stephens Green and I dont mean the ones up in dublin zoo… add in the talk of a congestion charge and traffic diversions being put in place to prepare people for the impact of the work, before the work commences.. I think one could say the fun has well and truly started… this is going to be hilarious.

Lets get some perspective folks. We’re not the first city to build a metro line and we’re going to have to suffer some pain just like everyone else had to. Barcelona is a beautiful city but underneath most of their city squares are underground carparks and metro stations and they didn’t appear by magic.

Right now in Vancouver they’re building the Canada line and they have completely excavated Graville Street which is the central street running through downtown Vancouver.

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/9223/p1040931cx0.jpg

We are going to suffer construction and traffic disruption for a few years but these are lines we simply have to build. Let’s put the crayons away because the plans will not be changed now.

We all know that cutting corners is the worst option!
M50 junctions
Westlink Toll Bridge
Luas line link up

When you consider the huge benefit that a car free city center will bring to the urban environment then the corner of St, Stephen’s Green is a small price to pay.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

Yeah I know those old plans were a complete joke, just as the transport system of decades ago was , they lacked integration, were lacking in true vision, lacked enviromental impact studies, expensive paving stones, clean modern aesthetic form… what a joke those old plans probably didnt even have an abundance of consultants working on these.
And worst of all the main train journey times on those old plans were actually shorter, which if we had them today would give us less time to sit in the carriage working on our laptops devising plans to spend billions to improve the service and time.
Iarnród Éireann admits journey times are longer http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=63096-qqqx=1.asp

Thankfully those awful days of faster train journeys are well and truly behind us as real visionaries are working on improving the lives of all those who take public transport.. just depends on when you set the clock, would that be improvements relative to the 90s,80s or 70s your looking for there.
ha ha ha I say let the same apes who oversaw development of Irelands national rail loose on Stephens Green and I dont mean the ones up in dublin zoo… add in the talk of a congestion charge and traffic diversions being put in place to prepare people for the impact of the work, before the work commences.. I think one could say the fun has well and truly started… this is going to be hilarious.

Hmm. You would have a point if it wasn’t for a few simple facts related to things like 20% unempleyment and Ireland having a rapidly diminishing population due to emigration back then. Of course transport in Ireland was easier and faster when no-one had anywhere to go except their nearest port. A bit more of a challenge when every single person in the State has a job they all want to get to at 9 AM and there’s half a million immigrants here. But thinking like that might lead to you giving credit to the Ireland that has developed in the last 15 years wouldn’t it?

@alonso wrote:

Hmm. You would have a point if it wasn’t for a few simple facts related to things like 20% unempleyment and Ireland having a rapidly diminishing population due to emigration back then. Of course transport in Ireland was easier and faster when no-one had anywhere to go except their nearest port. A bit more of a challenge when every single person in the State has a job they all want to get to at 9 AM and there’s half a million immigrants here. But thinking like that might lead to you giving credit to the Ireland that has developed in the last 15 years wouldn’t it?

Gold star. Take the rest of the day off. 😉 (That way you can beat the traffic, eh?)

@alonso wrote:

Hmm. You would have a point if it wasn’t for a few simple facts related to things like 20% unempleyment and Ireland having a rapidly diminishing population due to emigration back then. Of course transport in Ireland was easier and faster when no-one had anywhere to go except their nearest port. A bit more of a challenge when every single person in the State has a job they all want to get to at 9 AM and there’s half a million immigrants here. But thinking like that might lead to you giving credit to the Ireland that has developed in the last 15 years wouldn’t it?

You have totally confused me here how does 20% unemployment and a diminishing population have an impact on the distance between Dublin and Waterford and therefore cause a train to run faster between these two points when you have longer dole queues. Or are you saying the number of people emigrating impacts on Irelands gravitational field causing relativistic distances and wall clock time to shrink and should be considered as another dimension in the space/time continum..your moving into the bounds of quantum non-linear correlations their boyo.

@ctesiphon wrote:

Gold star. Take the rest of the day off. 😉 (That way you can beat the traffic, eh?)

Thats funny so your both basically implying that no transport plan (integrated or not) or expenditure of money will ever improve commuting times as long as population and number of working commuters increases. This implies there is no hope for improved service,(even if they dig up St Stephens Green) we can only hope for a solution that at best maintains status quo at worst limits degredation in the quality of transport to a minimum as long as the commuting population also grows. We should accept journey times will always increase as numbers of commuters increases , another definition of progress no doubt.
You can answer me tomorrow, i take it you both left early to beat all that traffic that suddenly appeared overnight out of the blue without any warning …:D

BoB. the places weren’t further away or closer as you might already know. Journey times were shorter. Journey time across all modes is dependent on demand related to supply. When there is no demand for a rail service, it will run quicker, if a lot less frequently. I’m confused as to how you arrived at your 2nd paragraph. What we are saying is that comparing ANYTHING in Ireland today with the Country of 20-50 years ago is retarded and nonsensical as they are different places. This is especiall;y true of transport demand as it correlates directly with economic activity, of which there was next to none in the glory days of rail you referred to.

If population and working numbers increase in the spatial manner of the last 15 years, yes there is shag all that can be done about it. But sure every plank on the street can tell you that. I’m amazed it needs to be explained on archiseek?!! What most here would advocate is proper integrated land use and trasport planning aimed at reducing THE NEED to travel at all, which is a derived demand. We can have 10 million on the island, full employment and 3 cars per household with feck all congestion if we did it right

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

Yeah I know those old plans were a complete joke, just as the transport system of decades ago was , they lacked integration, were lacking in true vision, lacked enviromental impact studies, expensive paving stones, clean modern aesthetic form… what a joke those old plans probably didnt even have an abundance of consultants working on these.
And worst of all the main train journey times on those old plans were actually shorter, which if we had them today would give us less time to sit in the carriage working on our laptops devising plans to spend billions to improve the service and time.
Iarnród Éireann admits journey times are longer http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=63096-qqqx=1.asp

Thankfully those awful days of faster train journeys are well and truly behind us as real visionaries are working on improving the lives of all those who take public transport.. just depends on when you set the clock, would that be improvements relative to the 90s,80s or 70s your looking for there.
ha ha ha I say let the same apes who oversaw development of Irelands national rail loose on Stephens Green and I dont mean the ones up in dublin zoo… add in the talk of a congestion charge and traffic diversions being put in place to prepare people for the impact of the work, before the work commences.. I think one could say the fun has well and truly started… this is going to be hilarious.

Ah such a pity your ‘hilarious’ japery is undermined by the fact we are talking about commuter (Dart) lines and you are taking about intercity (the big orange trains) journey times.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

You can answer me tomorrow, i take it you both left early to beat all that traffic that suddenly appeared overnight out of the blue without any warning …:D

When I leave, I’ll ‘beat the traffic’ regardless of the time I go, as I cycle.

Flawed assumptions indeed.

@jdivision wrote:

1. Because the locals have consistently opposed any plans to demolish the flats there
2. They will soon be able to buy said flats themselves leading to disparate ownership and even greater difficulties in securing a concensus on the future of the site

In 1985 Swan Grove opened and relieved the most over-crowded family units from the Tom Kelly complex what I am advised remains are mostly empty nesters who had small families in the 1970’s. The complex is unsuited to the needs of its occupants and I am sure that given the choice that most would prefer a new two bed apartment in a mixed tenure modern block without the stigma of the horrendous 1960’s Corpo design built a decade after the brits learned from their mistakes .

The value of local authority housing in such blocks is always a fraction of those with a segment of affordable housing; even the wealthiest boroughs of London have bargains if you go former local authority try £300k for a 2 bed in Hampstead vs £800k for the private sector build 200m down the road. More worryingly the built environment suffers as consesnus is required for replacement; what developer in their right mind would try to acquire 50 resi units in a non-cpo environment? If tenant purchase goes ahead these blocks will outlive both of us.

The more I think about it; the perfect election trick would be to demolish Charlemont Gardens and the football pitch behind and replace them with 6 story lego blocks to complete in 2010 in time for the local elections provide enough housing for the 4 existing blocks; then with the freed up space build the metro entrance and when complete in time for the 2012 general election; then the site value would be unlocked in a market that is vastly improved from now to pay for all the other giveaways required to bribe the population to forget the last 5 years!

The alternative is a wrecked St Stephens Green, retention of civic visual terrorism that never delivered a return a la the subsidised tenant purchase scheme and the CBD subjected to two periods of significant construction disturbance.

ah PVC the locals are next year though 😉

Just to be clear about this, continuing on to Charlemont wouldn’t prevent them digging a station for the Green will it? So what is the advantage? They aren’t putting the TBM’s in at the Green are they; I assume they are going in at the other end and will be left buried at the Green end.

Now try it using the originally planned route, with an interchange in or around College Green/Dame Street. You should find that the only circle which disappears is the one around Spencer Dock, and the LUAS line to the Point (currently under construction) should be nicely poised to deal with that.

No problem. Here you go: what will be built versus what you’re suggesting. Far better spread in the former. Regarding the Luas extension down the docks; on-street Luas and heavy rail/fully segregated light rail are not comparable in terms of speed and capacity; as public transport nodes they are as different as bus is to Luas. All this is hypothetical anyway; we are getting the system on the left which is simply superiour by any measure. Is your objection to the plan purely on the basis of the damage to the NW corner of Stephen’s Green? You’re not doing your argument any favours by OTT comments like claiming we are facing “the wholesale destruction of St. Stephen’s Green”.

Now Jim, in fairness, your second picture above does not represent what I asked you to do.

I suggested that the interchange would be around the College Green/Dame Street area. This does not mean that I feel the metro should not continue to St. Stephen’s Green. It would seem the best option as the line continues to the south. However, as I said in a previous post, a non-interchange metro station at St. Stephen’s Green would be a much simpler affair and, especially if the line is continued to the south during the first phase of construction, would cause much less damage to the park.

And I notice that you did not post your picture of what the catchment areas would look like for a Heuston-College Green/Dame Street-Spencer Dock route. Are you still working on it?:rolleyes:

How am I supposted to know what you want? The one constant message from you is that Dart 1 should run under Connolly and that the Stephens Green interchange should be moved to College Green. If you want, PM me your email address and I’ll send you the SVG file and you can fiddle as much as you want and post your ideas for all they are worth; I have no interest to be honest and don’t know why you think I’d like to spend my time producing renders of your fanciful notions. A non-interchange station at Stephen’s Green would still involve closing that end of the park and felling trees. I suppose this could be argued would only involve the slighly less than “wholesale destruction of Stephen’s Green”.

@ctesiphon wrote:

When I leave, I’ll ‘beat the traffic’ regardless of the time I go, as I cycle.
Flawed assumptions indeed.

evidently the reason you choose to cycle is because in fact you want to beat the chaotic transport and because public transport isnt facilatating you. Can you make a sentence out of point, way, over, head !

@reddy wrote:

Bit off topic….eyre square redevelopment seems to have been a right mess and I’m not fully up to speed on what happened but I’d just like to point out that I was in Galway a couple of weeks ago and we sat in Eyre square drinkin smoothies, sitting in the sun and watching hordes of people, walking, talking, busking, playing and even attempting to get as many people as possible into a phonebooth.
Admittedly it was a beautiful day and the whole place was in a resultant good mood but the square was working really well. There’s no way I’d ever have even dreamed of doing similar in the old square.

yeah that was a $9million euro smoothie you had , you make it sound like you couldnt do that in the old square , just cos you were too delicate to sit on the grass and were afraid one of the winos might bother you.
1. Eyre Square 9 million euro 2 years
2. November 2007 MS Ireland has received funding from the Dormant Accounts fund to improve the lives of MS sufferers in the West of Ireland. The scheme, which has a budget of €119,800, will be used to purchase equipment that will help with physical exercise, mobility or maintaining independence and safety, either at home or at work.
Im going to give you the benefit of a modicum of intelligence and assume you can decipher what point I would have made with these two statistics.

Like a well oiled giant eco-friendly bike THE PLAN rolls on at glacial pace clearing a sleek modern clean swath through the land grinding nimbys and those without a vertical balance vision of progress into the ensuing silt,
Developer quits €600m social housing projecthttp://www.independent.ie/national-news/developer-quits-8364600m-social-housing-project-1380627.html
Luckily THE PLAN was written using a pencil so they have their copybooks and rubbers out in DCC this morning.

Please dont say this is off-topic… isnt that the whole point of integration that in small and large ways everything is connected and so requires integration.

What we need in this country is a massive economic boom of say 10-12 years so we can increase budget surplus (albeit actually a structural deficit) and invest in infrastructure…anyone seen one of those around here lately…thanks for the laughs this morning great way to start the day .:D

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

yeah that was a $9million euro smoothie you had , you make it sound like you couldnt do that in the old square , just cos you were too delicate to sit on the grass and were afraid one of the winos might bother you.
1. Eyre Square 9 million euro 2 years
2. November 2007 MS Ireland has received funding from the Dormant Accounts fund to improve the lives of MS sufferers in the West of Ireland. The scheme, which has a budget of €119,800, will be used to purchase equipment that will help with physical exercise, mobility or maintaining independence and safety, either at home or at work.
Im going to give you the benefit of a modicum of intelligence and assume you can decipher what point I would have made with these two statistics.

that we prioritise health over all else? no. That we should not spend money on the urban environment? no. That MS in the West can be dealt with cheaply? no. That perhaps Eyre Square went over budget? Ah right. That’s your point is it? Good God. What a nasty unnecessary stupid way to make that point. Why not compare it to government expenditure on say, I dunno, the Bertie Bowl, E-voting, Cycle lanes, make-up for the ex-Taoiseach, RTE salaries, the Arts, Equestrianism etc etc etc etc

And also have you factored in the fiscal benefits brought to commercial interests around Eyre Square and the City in general. Nah thought not.

Getting a bit tetchy here! It’s important to remember that ‘waste’ is endemic in any society and that the private sector is as profligate (if not more so) than the public sector. Comparing the over-run on a build project with the pittance spent on deserving medical causes is (harshly) comparing apples and pears. There’s just no point in doing it.

@alonso wrote:

And also have you factored in the fiscal benefits brought to commercial interests around Eyre Square and the City in general. Nah thought not.

yeah those would be the same business who were taking Galway Corporation to court for loss of earnings. and they werent making any money before the square upgrade because its a well known fact everyone sitting on the grass in the green before the change were heading down to Dominick Street to spend their money..now I feel stupid for giving you the benefit of that modicum of intelligence,

@johnglas wrote:

Comparing the over-run on a build project with the pittance spent on deserving medical causes is (harshly) comparing apples and pears. There’s just no point in doing it.

yeah silly me I forgot that we use the triangular euro notes (lets call that the apples euro pot) for medical services and the rectangular euro notes (the pears euro pot) for build projects and you cant use those currencies for the other..
genius alive and well and living in ireland …:confused:

cmon get those bulldozers into St Stephens green..THE PLAN of record is THE PLAN of record until THE PLAN of record changes…i love it..

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

yeah those would be the same business who were taking Galway Corporation to court for loss of earnings. and they werent making any money before the square upgrade because its a well known fact everyone sitting on the grass in the green before the change were heading down to Dominick Street to spend their money..now I feel stupid for giving you the benefit of that modicum of intelligence,
.

When? During construction? well duh. I know as well as anyone that this redevelopment was a fiasco. But you attacked in a dubious and nonsensical way which required to be called out.

Have you factored it in? Yes or No? Do you have the figures for turnover for the area around Eyre Square before and after to answer my question? And before you start generalising without foundation please bear in mind that retailers around SSG were all ready with their lawyers while Luas was under construction. Now they look rather silly, as will all the objectors to this scheme in 10, 20 and 50 years time on the basis of the temporary loss of 16% of the Park,

@alonso wrote:

When? During construction? well duh. I know as well as anyone that this redevelopment was a fiasco. But you attacked in a dubious and nonsensical way which required to be called out. Have you factored it in? Yes or No? Do you have the figures for turnover for the area around Eyre Square before and after to answer my question? ,

@alonso wrote:

And also have you factored in the fiscal benefits brought to commercial interests around Eyre Square and the City in general. Nah thought not.

your the one who brought up the economic benefits of the square development for the area, My point centered on the waste of money, poor design and substandard materials, all recomendations for those involved to get stuck into St Stephens Green. Twas you who brought up the cost benefit analysis for the businesses…your point lets see your figures. So anyways heres a lesson for you 1st rule of debating …dont ask for anothers stats if you dont have your own in order. Please provide your figures to say business is up post the development and the 9million euro represented a good roi (thats return on investment – no more benefit of the doubt for you there boyo) for the business in the square. Dont forget to factor in the loss of earnings over the 2 year development.
dubiuos non-sensical attack indeed… so you understand the concept of fiasco but cant get your head around the idea of doing things better. I suppose thats too much to ask..
you have redefined the concept of a nation of begrudgers, begrudging a citizen a voice .. gas altogether…

cmon DCC get the finger out, Im expecting an imminent announcement of when the jack hammers are starting up on Stephens Green , I want to be there smoothie in hand. Have we lined up the pre-requisite starchitect yet to design the concourse. I mean lets face it the bulk of the the actual big design jobs have gone to foreign architects… now why is that.

Bor B: don’t get aerated: (a) I’m not in Ireland and (b) your argument was rubbish. And yes, there are differently-shaped currencies (or ‘pots of money’ if you prefer) and ‘good causes’ rarely see what was ‘wasted’ on something else, but medical waste (in a financial sense) puts most other attempts at budgeting in the shade.
For what it’s worth, the proposal to dig up the Green could be digging up what is left of the integrity of Dublin city centre; it’s a crackpot scherme and shows the utter indifference of transport engineers to urban heritage or townscape or anything else. It will go over budget and it will wreck the Green.

@PTB wrote:

I’ld question your education since you almost never capitalise and your puncuation is simply atrocious.

I don’t want to appear to be defending BoB who I find annoying and boring, but I don’t think it is a good idea to link incisiveness to education or education to punctuation and capitalization.

Anyway, to get slightly back on topic; there is a survey now for people interested in expressing a view on Dublintransport:

http://www.2030vision.ie

I guess it is supposed to address the sort of reservations that have been expressed here about consultation, but, if you go to do the survey the actual questions are fatuous.

we have a pretty good record of before… can anyone spot the soil testing???

@Rory W wrote:

Is BorB Noel O’Gara come back to haunt us – sure sounds the same

Sorry Rory I didnt know that one was still traumatised by a severe critque you recieved in college and hadnt gotten over it yet. Be strong ….:D

Heh Rory W you didnt happen to see that Transport 2012 or was that 2013 plan, it was around here somewhere, must be buried under the copies of Transport 2030 I just recieved.

Heres todays joke of the day , an oldie but a goodie especially for Rory W … boo!
NOT one of the flagship public transport projects supposed to be finished this year under the Government’s Transport 21 plan will be completed on time. The huge programme, costing taxpayers a total of €34bn over its lifetime, will instead be delayed for years — one project, the Luas Dublin city centre link-up due to be up and running within months, has not even started
Transport plan comes off the rails as major delays forecast
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/transport-plan-comes-off-the-rails-as-major-delays-forecast-1307961.html

@jimg wrote:

How am I supposted to know what you want? The one constant message from you is that Dart 1 should run under Connolly and that the Stephens Green interchange should be moved to College Green.

Actually no, Jim. You’re misrepresenting again.

The route via Connolly was one route which had been proposed in the 1970s, and we still have no idea if its merits have been properly examined.

There would also seem to be a potential route – a more central one – between Heuston and Spencer Dock, via College Green/Dame Street and Pearse Station. This was the only other potential route which I had mentioned on this thread.

(I’m sure there are other potential routes possible but we don’t, as yet, have any information as to whether any of them were examined).

I have no interest to be honest and don’t know why you think I’d like to spend my time producing renders of your fanciful notions.

A Heuston-Spencer Dock route via College Green/Dame Street and Pearse (as mentioned above) was the route which I suggested you should do up on your new program, as it would show exactly the same coverage circles as your preferred route.

At the mention of that – and despite your recent keenness to learn this new program – you seem to have suddenly become too busy. :D:D:D

@notjim wrote:

Just to be clear about this, continuing on to Charlemont wouldn’t prevent them digging a station for the Green will it? So what is the advantage? They aren’t putting the TBM’s in at the Green are they; I assume they are going in at the other end and will be left buried at the Green end.

The advantage would be that they only need to consider the exits as the tunnelling and main station fit out could be accessed via both ends of the tunnel as is the case with most TBM bored underground rail systems. The point you have raised on the nature of construction has raised far more issues however and either way it is felt that the treatment of this location is simply unacceptable from either a logical or heritage viewpoint.

There will be two tunnels and given the costs of TBMs there is no way that 2 of them will be left in the ground.

My understanding of this is that the method of construction will be similar to the hugely successful Dublin Port Tunnel whereby a TBM will leave the northern porthole and surface in the green, undergo a full service and then head back to de nortside.

If this isn’t the case it raises the question why on earth do they need to thrash the lake in the Green?

Hyde Park Corner is the perfect example of how to build a tube station serving two major heritage parks (Hyde & Green parks) without any impact to either.

I however fear that the DPT model is the one that they will follow and that thousands of trucks of muck will come out of the green for the period of construction.

Ok, that makes sense, I didn’t realised that they were turning the TBM in the Green, for some reason I thought they were doing both tunnels at the same time. Isn’t it possible to turn the machine underground while boring the loopback they have marked on maps?

I’m sure it is; but why the wholesale destruction of what is a very special setting if they don’t need to surface the TBM?

When lines are being built elsewhere all you see are the exits going in and this involves a very minor level of disturbance.

I would like to see the future projected bill board advertising revenues laid down because if these are at the level one would expect this does not have to be a grand connection paid for on a hair-shirt budget.

http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/photos/kf/aerial/002/grafton-street-aerial-1.jpg

Thank god that’s gone!

pretty close to digging up the whole of st stephens green north you would think???? 30m deep?

Point taken, but what’s the alternative?

Maybe the only way to avoid such a big box in the green is to continue the line underground south to ranelagh as the DTO originally proposed. Not going to happen due to money constraint.

I don’t see how this can be avoided, and it must surely be worth it, in order to start building a public transport network for the city. with the exception of the old trees it’s a man made landscape that can, and will, be restored, I would’ve thought.

So some flesh on the impact metro construction works will have on the green.

– The use of a faint grey symbol to denote removed trees is clearly intended to imply minimal impact.
– Despite obvious difficulty identifying trees to be removed, i’ve counted 30.
– The island is clearly in for it & its difficult to see how the proliferation of new strucutres it will host can be camouflaged.
– The plan is not accurate; according to the RPA, trees bordering the west & north side of the green do not exist & do not feature, perhaps they’re just not worthy of mention.
– This implies that all trees bordering the west & north railing are to be removed & in the case of the west side will be replaced again with a proliferation of plant type structures.
– If so, total trees to be removed will easily exceed 50.
– The massive construction box required will leave us wtih a park bearing the wounds of heavy interference and will stand in stark contrast to the remainder.
– The softness of the mature lake setting in particular, will be lost.

hmmm 50 trees or a Metro/interconnector/Luas/Bus interchange linking the city’s, region’s and island’s transport network for the first time. I’ll go with the latter thanks.

how about go with both ?

reluctane by the RPA to temporarily shift the luas terminus to harcourt street is not adequate reason to remove 50+ trees & permanently alter the green.

I don’t see how a temp. relocation of the luas stop to Harcourt Street would help. The excavation under the green would still have to happen and even if the main entry points were outside the railings it is inevitable that the tree root systems would be undermined, causing dangerous instability.

I have to agree with Alonso – the pay off in terms of public transport is worth it in the long term.

that’s the first diagram i’ve seen that includes the link up luas line evidence that it is going ahead after all. They’re only trees no matter how pretty they are

Its not about merely creating entry points from the west & north.

The clear alternative is to align metro north terminus with SSG west road space & align the interconector stop with SSG north road space.

– Both road spaces do not handle through road traffic and are under utilised.
– Both road spaces can be reinstated exactly as is.
– The Green cannot.

– Further felling along the west boundary will be required to construct the interconnector.
– With future expansion south inevitable, we are consigning the park to another bout of open heart surgery in the future.

@Peter Fitz wrote:

reluctane by the RPA to temporarily shift the luas terminus to harcourt street is not adequate reason to remove 50+ trees & permanently alter the green.

I can’t understand how you could possibly advocate inconveniencing thousands of people a day to save those trees? They’re a fantastic asset for Dublin, no argument there, but if you’re asking people to walk further to take public transport, a lot will just go back to their cars so they can admire the trees from their traffic jams 🙂

@markpb wrote:

I can’t understand how you could possibly advocate inconveniencing thousands of people a day to save those trees? They’re a fantastic asset for Dublin, no argument there, but if you’re asking people to walk further to take public transport, a lot will just go back to their cars so they can admire the trees from their traffic jams

If people have issues with walking a further 200m, temporarily, i doub’t they’re the type to take public transport in the first instance.

@Peter Fitz wrote:

Its not about merely creating entry points from the west & north.

The clear alternative is to align metro north terminus with SSG west road space & align the interconector stop with SSG north road space.

– Both road spaces do not handle through road traffic and are under utilised.
– Both road spaces can be reinstated exactly as is.
– The Green cannot.

– Further felling along the west boundary will be required to construct the interconnector.
– With future expansion south inevitable, we are consigning the park to another bout of open heart surgery in the future.

I still don’t see how you could actually accommodate all of the tunnelling and associated works outside the railings of the green & under the road space. If you look at the extent of what is planned in the posts by missarchi on this thread:
https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=7040 its difficult to imagine that excavation under the Green can be avoided. Is there a realistic way to do this?

Some encroaching on the green would still be necessary but obviously significantly less.

Road width on ssg west & north is substantial & clearly the length is there.

CURRENT ALIGNMENT CUT COVER

PROS:

large station/platforms
fast interchange with connector

CONS:

destroy the green
currently architecture not worthy of site but box could be enhanced…
single exit (excluding interconnector) backtracking

CURRENT ALIGNMENT MINED

PROS:

a little less destruction but still alot

CONS:

architecturally limited

CURRENT ALIGNMENT WEST ALIGNMENT CUT N COVER should be in RPA EIS

PROS:

minimal damage to the green
architectural green arc
may lead to outer st stephens green master plan and more pedestrisation
dual exits less backtracking easier to go south…

CONS:

platform width 11-12m nom. limited this will come down to passenger flows RPA EIS
little slower interchange with interconnector + 2-5 minutes nom.
unhappy business in the short term but benifits them more in the long term…
limited to architectural green arch… still impressive… but not huge

CURRENT ALIGNMENT WEST ALIGNMENT MINED should be in RPA EIS

limited architectural scope…
larger platform

OTHER THOUGHTS

the RPA should have a golden line that will show set back req. from edge of green in EIS…
assuming you can kill 1/3 of the tree canopy in the roots I arrived at a set back between 1.5 -2 m from the fence
I have drawings showing all this… there would also be construction tricks and details ( hope these in EIS)

the footpath on st stephens north green is getting cut by 2m???

the RPA renderings show no poles… I imagine we are going to have loads and cables with luas BX??? will wreck the space

I think they should run the luas around the green so it comes in to its current stop then goes back the way it came and around the green to dawson st… or… it just stops on the west in its curent position and some other luas line goes down dawson st… I just think it makes no sense to lose so much space to the luas in this area???

still not enough bike spaces shown… + 1500 (we need a master plan for the outer green)
change some of the car parking spaces

what do you think of those sky lights in the footpath??

I have some cad drawings but internet is *** at the moment will dump some screenshoots when its up again

just comes down to if the platform is sufficient and the neighbors don’t complain 😀
the RPA site has much more potential for a shamrock…

@Peter Fitz wrote:

Some encroaching on the green would still be necessary but obviously significantly less.

Agreed whatever happens with both the Interconnector and Metro North there will be some structures errected that will be out of character with the status of a conservation area. The bigger picture of mass transit must be considered and the requirements for entrances, ventilation and sub stations.

However the complete destruction of a Victorian planting scheme is simply unacceptable and the setting will take 30-80 years to come back to where it currently is. It might be different if there was another park of a similar standard in Central Dublin but there isn’t St Patricks Park is junky ridden, Merrion Square was done in the early 1980s and Iveagh Gardens is both impossible to find and overlooked on to close a scale.

The real reason why St Stephens Green is being trashed is because it is in State Hands and therefore regarded as compensation free as the OPW will capitulate and silence their heritage advisors.

Progress would have been to continue the line away from the retail district to assist future expansions, prevent retail choking on construction traffic and muck filled streets.

What I find particularly depressing is that the majority of posters seem to advocate transiting millions of annual passenger journeys to this location and completely ignore one of the principal draws for people to go there in the first place.

For a few million extra in actual costs tens of millions of externalities and 100’s of million of demand destruction (consumers going elsewhere long-term) could have been avoided. A shameful shortsighted decision from the people who brought Luas to Citywest before joining the dots. 🙁

I apologise if I’m going over old ground (or maybe that should be under old ground) but why do we need a terminus? why not just bring the tunnel up to join up with the current SSG LUAS stop and extend the pedestrianised zone to the whole street.

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3119657&c=1&encCode=00000000017e719d
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3119735&c=1&encCode=00000000017e7268

here are some calculations for you…

1440msq. nom.

= 1440 people@ 1 per m sq.
= 2880 people@ 2 per m sq.
= 4320 people @ 3 per m sq.

It has 7 escalators that could handle around 81900 people per hour ( excluding interconnector connections )
or 40,000 nom. per direction around double the RPA numbers

http://bombardier.com/en/transportation/products-services/rail-vehicles/metros/bucharest–romania?docID=0901260d8000d153#
(bit wide but gives you an idea)

Length 112,610 mm
Width 3,100 mm
Max. Speed 80 km/h
Seated Passengers 216
Standees 984 (4 pass/m2)

and lisboa

Operator Metropolitano de Lisboa
Carbody Material Stainless steel
Length 49,080 mm (unit)
Width 2,789 mm
Max. Speed 72 km/h
Seated Passengers 196
Standees 300 (6pass/m2)

1200 passengers per train = 36,000 per direction per hour/30 trains per hour
358 luas 40m
666.6666666666666666666666666666 luas/metro??? 20,000/30 trains per hour (the devil)

If you assumed 2 minutes to get of the platform and 2 minute wait platform would handle 86400 people per hour at 2 per m sq. ( this has not been based off proper flow modeling )

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3119657&c=1&encCode=00000000017e719d
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3119735&c=1&encCode=00000000017e7268
http://www.andrewlownie.co.uk/books/wolmar.christian/broken_rails.shtml

if its good enough for crossrail is it good enough for the green?
the length of the platform is a whopping 240m each platform 5.5m x 2 so looks like we would be close enough on st Stephens green west…

“architectural design engineer” whats that??

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/pages/visiontoreality1.html
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/pages/pedestriansimulation.html
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/pages/platformtunnel.html
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/80256B090053AF4C/Files/withtwotickethalls/$FILE/typicalcrossrailstation.jpg
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/pages/eventmarkingroyalassent.html

Not really comparing like with like…what’s your point, our metro is really a glorified tram but on separated track, I agree, by the way but they might actually have their figures right.

my point is that the platform width on st Stephens green west VS crossrail is pretty much the same as my proposal
so you think the width is there and it would work ok … now for the neighbours 😀

I think the only way people are going to take notice of how we all feel about the Metro going under stephens green is if we demonstrate about it. Its crazy putting it under the green when O’Connell street is much more suitable. Not only that the Red and Green Luas lines are going to be connected up so why do we need another train station in the same place?? Its lazy thinking and bad planning in my opinion.

So how would anybody feel about setting up demonstration??

I’ll set up a counter demo!

It makes sense to go south, the original proposal was to continue south and come up at Ranelagh and then south to Bray on upgraded metro line. the interchange at St Stephen’s Green fulfills 2 important functions, it connects with the interconnector and it provides connection into the south of the city….stopping at O Connell St makes no sense…the thing has already been pared back to the max

It makes sense to go south, the original proposal was to continue south and come up at Ranelagh and then south to Bray on upgraded metro line. the interchange at St Stephen’s Green fulfills 2 important functions, it connects with the interconnector and it provides connection into the south of the city….stopping at O Connell St makes no sense…the thing has already been pared back to the max.

maybe a counter-demo will be in order to counter your fuzzy thinking.

st stephens green makes sense because of docklands… the interconnector is bankrolling it
taking away from connolly..
trinity could also…
the thing I find interesting is you could in future tap 2 CIE lines into metro north one of them would only require 1 station and 1 – 2km of tunneling if that
and we could get rid of that bridge blocking custom house

I’ve no issue with the metro north / interconector interchange being located at SSG, just the heavy price the park itself will have to pay, which is of course unecessary & the short sightedness of metro north terminating at the green.

This was already posted on the Metro North thread but this seemed like a more relevant thread. Apart from the weird claim that moving the Fusiliers Arch is a scoop, it does give the body count: 45 mature trees felled and the replacement trees will have to be chosen to allow for the reduced root space.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n…n-1458482.html

By Paul Melia

Tuesday August 19 2008

TRAFFIC is to be completely banned from the Grafton Street corner of Dublin’s St Stephen’s Green when a public plaza is created as part of works for the Metro North light-rail system.

The Railway Procurement Agency is currently in discussions with Dublin City Council about creating the plaza at the top of the city’s premier shopping street, which could see the whole area transformed into a pedestrian-only area.

And yesterday it emerged the Fusilier’s Arch at the entrance to St Stephen’s Green will have be removed for four years during construction works.

The statue of Daniel O’Connell on the capital’s main thoroughfare will also be temporarily removed during the construction of underground stations.

No decision has been made as to where to relocate the iconic statue during the four years of building work, but it is planned to re-instate it once the stations are completed.

And it has emerged that more than 40 mature trees will have to be removed from St Stephen’s Green to accommodate an underground station, work on which is expected to start next year.

The RPA’s chief architect, Jim Quinlan, last night outlined the vision for St Stephen’s Green and the city centre after works are complete and Metro North is up and running.

“We want to try and declutter that area and create a public plaza,” he told the Irish Independent.

“It’s already a great place for people to meet and we’re going to remove traffic and create a much more pedestrian zone with more, and better, street furniture.

“We’ll move the bike stands to create space, and we’ll have to figure out where to put the horse and carts, taxis and bikes.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity and it could be extended to College Green and Westmoreland Street because we’re digging that up as well. It’s a great opportunity to create a pedestrian spine through the heart of the city.”

But parts of St Stephen’s Green will be changed forever, with up to 45 mature trees removed to facilitate construction of the underground station. Three small ‘boxes’ or escape hatches will also be built within the park walls, while air vents will be located on the island in the middle of the lake.

However a ‘living wall’ will be created, which will see plants and shrubbery shielding the vents from park users over time. “St Stephen’s Green can’t go back exactly as it was, there will be some vents on the island, but they’ll be disguised,” he said.

“A lot of the trees in place need a lot of root space, and we’re working with the Office of Public Works to see what species can go back in. We think 44 or 45 mature trees will have to be removed.”

Mr Quinlan, who is leaving the RPA later this week to take up a new position as chief architect with the Dubai light rail project, also said he expected the project to be delivered by its 2014 deadline.

But he admitted the construction works would be painful, and that “hundreds of acres” of land would be needed for the project. “There’s radar mapping now which tells us exactly what’s underground,” he said. “We’ll need quite a lot of land, but we’ve tried to ensure we’re under public roads and land. Traffic management will have an impact on the city, and it (disruption) will be more than Luas.

“St Stephen’s Green, O’Connell Street, Parnell Square, the Mater and Drumcondra all present big problems. Abbey Street to the Quays will have to be dug up, and some side streets will be closed off in Drumcondra. The 2014 deadline is a big call, it’s very complex but we’re taking an optimistic view. Some things are out of our hands, and planning could take longer (than expected).” Construction works will start at a number of locations across the city, assuming An Bord Pleanala approve the project, he added.

– Paul Melia

@notjim wrote:

And yesterday it emerged the Fusilier’s Arch at the entrance to St Stephen’s Green will have be removed for four years during construction works. […] And it has emerged that more than 40 mature trees will have to be removed from St Stephen’s Green to accommodate an underground station, work on which is expected to start next year.

Typical shoddy journalism. Nothing “emerged” yesterday, all those details have been known for months.

The plaza around SSG(N) and Grafton St could be a great addition to the city but only if it’s done well. If it’s left as an exposed concrete strip, it’ll be nothing different to what it is now.

It’s not shoddy journalism…
small boxs!!! those mattress evacuation staircases are huge… we all know there are other options
The problem with these structures is planting next to them is a real issue as they can limit any future growth to some extent… I would say these structures on the edge of the green have the potential to cause more long term damage

Which gets me thinking we are going to have a existing/proposed tree canopy/root potential drawing…

@notjim wrote:

it does give the body count: 45 mature trees felled and the replacement trees will have to be chosen to allow for the reduced root space.

“A lot of the trees in place need a lot of root space, and we’re working with the Office of Public Works to see what species can go back in. We think 44 or 45 mature trees will have to be removed.”

I think it sounds more like they are examining the possibility that some specimens can be temporarily removed notjim … which is rarely successful with anything over 20 years old. No matter where they dig in the green, or what they remove, they will encounter the root system of remaining mature trees which they’re obviously planning to doctor & hope for the best.
-Thanks for posting.

Yes, as markpb notes, it is a bad article, as well as claiming some things as news which aren’t, the most important sentence is hard to parse.

he forgot to meantion they are banning the luas :p

I actually think it is news that they’re proposing a public plaza there, no? As for presenting the other info as news, it should be presented as context, usual standard of journalism in this country…pretend you’ve an exclusive even if you don’t!!

I just love this little gem….

“We’ll move the bike stands to create space, and we’ll have to figure out where to put the horse and carts, taxis and bikes.”

If this was coming from a Lockhard or a Jarvey I`d nod sagely and agree,but this is the Chief Architect of the RPA scratchin his head and wondering how the fluich 20,000 Taxi`s currently engaged in a Civil War for rank space sufficient to accomodate 2,500 can be “accomodated”…… 🙂

Lessons to be learned in the Middle East perhaps..???

it’s hard to know if its DCC or RPA driving this grasscrete…
But it looks like the OPW!!!! according to the RPA drawing

at least the architect is being open and honest and trying to accomodate people!
but this will no doubt lead to a master plan for around the green and 2000 bike spaces…
which is not a bad thing kinda like the irish times article 4 wheels bad 46a wheels good…
should be titled spinning wheels bad standing feet good

I don’t know if I would be more worried of the taxi drivers or horsemen… 😉
speaking of which has anyone seen that street shopping development plan in DCC the college green is waiting to be rezoned ( i wish) !!!

PART 8
Railway works, etc. on Saint Stephen’s Green
116.—Section 15 of the Saint Stephen’s Green (Dublin) Act 1877
does not apply—
(a) to anything done for the purposes of surveys and inspections
under section 36 of the Act of 2001,
(b) to any railway works (within the meaning of section 2 of
the Act of 2001) carried out on or under Saint Stephen’s
Green pursuant to a railway order under section 43
(inserted by section 49 of the Planning and Development
(Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006) of the Act of 2001, or
(c) to restrict the operation of a railway, light railway or metro
(within the meaning of section 2 of the Act of 2001) on
or under Saint Stephen’s Green.

Non-application of
section 15 of Saint
Stephen’s Green
(Dublin) Act 1877

http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=10932&lang=ENG&loc=849

this going to end up in the high court or some European Court 4 sure :rolleyes:
to surveys,
inspections and
railway works and
operation of
railway, light
railway or metro.

I was in the glen a month ago and I found this sign…

That section of the Act enables the so-called destruction you’re talking about…so any legal challenge will go nowhere, in the same way the 2004 amendment to National Monuments Act allows for destruction of monuments by ministerial order.

I think your only chance of stopping this is a funding crisis, there was some clarity on metro funding in Saturdays Irish Times:

“…documents obtained from the Department of Transport set the cost of Metro North at €4.58 billion in 2004 prices.

The construction element alone has been put at about €2.5 billion at 2007 prices. The remaining costs cover operation and maintenance and the refurbishment of the system at the end of the 35 years before its handover to the State. It also covers significant bank and consultancy fees for the PPP. Under typical PPPs in the National Roads Programme, the State would put up 65 percent of the construction costs, which would give the Government a bill of some €1.5 billion to be paid over five years. The remainder would be in agreed scheduled payments to the private sector partner over the lifetime of the partnership“.

In other words 300m a year for 5 years.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0913/1221235786679.html

i did a quick/unverified calculation of metro in sofia around 1 billion eu for 20 km underground
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news_view/article/2008/08/8752/sofia_metro_contractors_chosen.html
labour rates and….

interesting…

http://www.celtcia.com/metronorth/drawings/draft/2016.pdf

@missarchi wrote:

interesting…

http://www.celtcia.com/metronorth/drawings/draft/2016.pdf

Missarchi: how much better it would be if you said what was interesting and why along with the link!

@notjim wrote:

Missarchi: how much better it would be if you said what was interesting and why along with the link!

That would suppose analytical ability, What is clear is that Missarchi has made a number of posts on this thread none of which have discussed the precisis of the discussion i.e. the wanton destruction of the City’s finest inner city park with taxpayers money.

Thankfully global markets collapsing have given me one crumb of comfort to go with a huge amount of pain; namely that the Green is safe for another decade at least; I wonder how many quango’s will be sacrificed in the required fiscal rectitude phase that is long overdue.

Jeez, if we had to keep you happy Dublin would be a model of dysfunction.

…oh….wait…

@ihateawake wrote:

Jeez, if we had to keep you happy Dublin would be a model of dysfunction.

…oh….wait…

And your classification of the park is??

Andthe surface optiomns of the railhead are?

Since the line is unfortunately not goin beyond this point, I dont see any surface options, do you? It would be nice if it exited at ranelagh and connected with luas or something, but that is not happening… if there has to be a major terminus in SSG, and it has to be dug up to accomadate it, then so be it. A beautiful park is little cosolation to countless suffering commuters and a waning economy. The green is a great asset, but this line is a necessity.
Replanting trees is easier than attracting FDI. Then again, this has all been said before.

As for classification of the green… “really pretty”;)

it’s not an either/or situation – it’s a construction impact… jaysus. We’;ll get the Green back. It may no longer conform to it’s suddenly granted utopian status conferred upon it here, but it will remain an open space. Only far more conveniently accessibel to far more people

The question that needs to be asked is it dublins most used attraction/park?

nobody seems to know including failte ireland..

the point of this thread there are at least 2 architectural options plus one not that should have more info in the EIS

2 of them have little damage… approx 25 mtr sq. and it could be 0

@alonso wrote:

it’s not an either/or situation – it’s a construction impact… jaysus. We’;ll get the Green back. It may no longer conform to it’s suddenly granted utopian status conferred upon it here, but it will remain an open space. Only far more conveniently accessibel to far more people

You won’t get the Green back for at least 50 years; the genisis of the Green is that it is a mature space that has developed a random quality put together by generations of park keepers. What you would get is a steralised version of a heritage park such as the interior of Merrion Square at best or Mounjoy Square at worst; you would also lose the main access to the space for a considerable period of time.

I see a lot of people complaining about buildings getting knocked that would not be preserved in any other serious capital but the alterations proposed to the premier innner city park would not happen in London, Paris or any other City with attitude.

A beautiful park is little cosolation to countless suffering commuters and a waning economy. The green is a great asset, but this line is a necessity.
Replanting trees is easier than attracting FDI. Then again, this has all been said before.

I totally disagree that linking the airport to St Stephens Green by rail or retaining a fine Victorian planting scheme is an either or. The options to avoid destruction are

1. Link the airport to the interconnector by 4 tracking between Fairview and Portmarnock; the Dart upgrade to Malahide future proofed bridges on that section to accomodate 4 tracks.

2. Build the metro if the price becomes realistic in light of falling tax revenues and falling construction costs in major economies. But close Luas from the end of Harcourt Street i.e. 300m of track and surface on the existing track bed.

What is proposed is really the last thing you would want to do on the grounds of reinstatement costs if nothing else; the costs of things like draining ponds, taking down stone arches, sourcing semi-mature plants all very niche and very expensive and given the furore over medical cards how do you think this type of expenditure will play out in rural constituencies?

@PVC King wrote:

I totally disagree that linking the airport to St Stephens Green by rail or retaining a fine Victorian planting scheme is an either or. The options to avoid destruction are

How many times do people have to be told it’s not an airport metro before the message starts to sink in? It’s a metro serving the city centre, drumcondra, glasnevin, beaumont, ballymun, the airport and swords. The airport is probably going to be the quietest of all the stations. Your first option only links the airport to the Dart and leaves the rest of those areas train-less and your second option is not only infeasible given the size of drop shafts required for TBMs, it also makes the Luas even less useful if it’s terminus is moved further from buses coming from the northside.

In any event, I’m still dubious of the chances of MN ever being built. This country is still too backward when it comes to infrastructure (other than roads).

@markpb wrote:

your second option is not only infeasible given the size of drop shafts required for TBMs, it also makes the Luas even less useful if it’s terminus is moved further from buses coming from the northside.

The TBM is to remain under the green so i presume it is to be sunk at the other end, and come on, an extra few hundred metres walk for a few years won’t kill anyone.

@markpb wrote:

and your second option is not only infeasible given the size of drop shafts required for TBMs,

mark what do you think the drop shaft size required is?????
I have photos but mabye you could provide all the information I think you would be suprised???

while we are in milan would the milan method work

@missarchi wrote:

mark what do you think the drop shaft size required is?????
I have photos but mabye you could provide all the information I think you would be suprised???

Mark I know you know what you are talking about given your background and that is what concerns me most.

If a 300m run from Benneton to Eircom isn’t enough then just how far into Stephens Green are they planning to go; more than 300m would almost take the excavation as far as Leeson Street.

Dublin traders want Metro North hearing
Friday, 7 November 2008 15:50
Dublin traders want a public hearing into the Dublin Metro North project, claiming that disruption costs to the city could total €2bn.

The Rail Procurement Agency has applied to An Bord Pleanála for a railway order to start the project but there is no obligation to hold a hearing.

Tom Coffey of the Dublin City Centre Business Association welcomed the concept of the Metro North but said a public hearing should still be held due to the public importance of the project.

AdvertisementMr Coffey said: ‘We are concerned that this project (in its current guise) may well prove unnecessarily damaging to the existing economy as well prove to be the least cost efficient means of achieving what we all agree is a necessary project.’

Mr Coffey said there are concerns about the adequacy of the Environmental Impact Assessment and that it was unfair that the public sector were given extra time to study its 3,000-page report while the private sector was not.

An RPA spokesman said it was expecting a public hearing to be held around February 2009.

Surely if the TBM is to be encapsulated in the medium term then all they need to put in are entrances; if the project were to involve encapsulating the machine and if they built 3 entrances then none of them would need to be much more than 1,000 sq feet each. The way that Oxford Circus has been done could be very effective with say 4 exits at various points i.e. one for Luas, one for Grafton Street and another for Dawson St which would involve minimal disruption based on small scale interventions vs a cavernous entrance; what would be required would be to have a significant interchange with interconnector underground and then three sets of escalators to the three seperate entrances with both networks merged at the higher of the two platform heights.

Presumably the TBM would be equivelent to one of the Dublin Port Tunnel directions and that the spoil would all be removed en route to Stephens Green and not from Stephens Green; which if that is trhe case you would wonder why there was ever an idea to trash the green in the first place. Preserving the park and the retail environment during the construction phase are very important.

@PVC King wrote:

Surely if the TBM is to be encapsulated in the medium term then all they need to put in are entrances; if the project were to involve encapsulating the machine and if they built 3 entrances then none of them would need to be much more than 1,000 sq feet each. The way that Oxford Circus has been done could be very effective with say 4 exits at various points i.e. one for Luas, one for Grafton Street and another for Dawson St which would involve minimal disruption based on small scale interventions vs a cavernous entrance; what would be required would be to have a significant interchange with interconnector underground and then three sets of escalators to the three seperate entrances with both networks merged at the higher of the two platform heights.

What still doesn’t seem to be clear is why the interconnector – if it is to be built and if it is to be run at the currently proposed fraction of its capacity – needs to be built through St. Stephen’s Green.

As was previously illustrated on this thread, a much shorter (and cheaper) route would achieve exactly the same purpose.:confused:

who controls the roads???? we all know a master plan for st stephens green is needed with street furniture and character.

the interconnector alignment appears related to st stephens green shopping centre and any future intentions they may have…

any way vents can be in the road or seats we have seen emergency exits in the roads in the RPA parnell stop…

the interconnetor approach has no strategic architectural potential at this stage but the apparent capacity also should be easier to upgrade or put a platform below minus the limited 3 escalators from the concourse…

it would be nice to actually see two options no damage and damage with stratergic architecture to boot…

@Seamus O’G wrote:

What still doesn’t seem to be clear is why the interconnector – if it is to be built and if it is to be run at the currently proposed fraction of its capacity – needs to be built through St. Stephen’s Green.

As was previously illustrated on this thread, a much shorter (and cheaper) route would achieve exactly the same purpose.:confused:

Stay on point

@PVC King wrote:

Stay on point

But surely my original comment is on point?

One of the reasons why it is necessary to have such a large station at St. Stephen’s Green, and to cause so much destruction, is because it is an interchange station.

A shorter (and cheaper) route for the interconnector – for example between Heuston and Spencer Dock via College Green/Dame Street – would suit more people (more people wish to travel to the centre of the city than to St. Stephen’s Green), would probably significantly enhance the chances of pedestrianisation of College Green, and would mean that the works at St. Stephen’s Green would be significantly smaller.

It seems like a no-brainer.

The only justification which has yet been produced for the interconnector being built through the Green is that it would allow it and the Green LUAS to meet up. Clearly there are other locations where this will be possible in the future.

The next step, to make the situation even better, would then be to continue the proposed metro southward.

Both of those measures would result in construction of a simple metro station at St. Stephen’s Green, without any hullaballoo and without significant destruction.

SSG is the centre of the city. It remains the commercial core of Dublin and of the country, with the prime retail streets and the heart of the office and professional services sectors in Georgian Dublin. It’s also closest to much of the city’s true nightlife ie nightlife for us not tourists. I’m still flabbergasted that people regard Dame st as more central just because it;s closer to the GPO

@alonso wrote:

SSG is the centre of the city.

The lobby group P11 used to – and possibly still do – have as their mantra that they were against AnLarism (I hope you will excuse the lack of a fada on my keyboard), but your comments do not explain two things: It is clear that if the LUAS link-up is built, that the station at SSG will not be the busiest station (the station closest to College Green will, almost certainly , be): And around 60% of Dublin’s buses which run in the area between the canals travel through College Green – while the comparable figure for SSG is around 23% . For a city which has a largely bus-based transport system i think you will need to explain yourself if you want to express the view that St. Stephen’s Green is the centre of the city.

It remains the commercial core of Dublin and of the country, with the prime retail streets and the heart of the office and professional services sectors in Georgian Dublin. It’s also closest to much of the city’s true nightlife ie nightlife for us not tourists. I’m still flabbergasted that people regard Dame st as more central just because it;s closer to the GPO

Prime retail streets? are you planning to slot in Henry Street there?

The SSG stop is expected to be the busiest as it will take Metro passengers from the Northside, DART passengers from the South West and North coastal line and Luas passengers from the south all directly into the office, retail and cultural core of our city. And the figures show this. It’s been said a million times here already – college Green is not a major trip attractor for commuters – just a filter. Remove TCD and what have you got? 2 banks and a Spar? the reason so many buses go to College Green is due to one thing and one thing only – the An Lar-ism you refer to yourself.

I consider everything from SSG to Parnell Square as our City Centre and Grafton St and environs incl the Green comprise a major hub of diverse activities. As for prime retail streets, yes Grafton st and Environs are among Dublin’s prime retail streets, along with Henry Street – but as far as comprising a retail area, the south city is far more comprehensive and diverse

@Seamus O’G wrote:

For a city which has a largely bus-based transport system i think you will need to explain yourself if you want to express the view that St. Stephen’s Green is the centre of the city.

Sadly the most common means of transport in Dublin is not the bus, but the car, whatever you may feel about that. I recently encouraged a colleague returning with me from a meeting on the North side to use a bus, he reckoned it was about eighteen years since he had been on one.

Dublin is increasingly divided into little enclaves, with the users of one rarely, or never, venturing out of their preferred turf, and for many southside residents the only items North of the Grafton Street pedestrian zone is the Airport.

@dc3 wrote:

Dublin is increasingly divided into little enclaves, with the users of one rarely, or never, venturing out of their preferred turf, and for many southside residents the only items North of the Grafton Street pedestrian zone is the Airport.

I agree and that is why we need to get the O’Connell street stop perfect… which will follow onto college green plaza and line f to heuston if done well add parnell into the mix and and free city circle tram and you might be in business…

it is so important we get these stations right in a landscape sense as well…

some of the proposals currently fall that test…

@alonso wrote:

The SSG stop is expected to be the busiest as it will take Metro passengers from the Northside, DART passengers from the South West and North coastal line and Luas passengers from the south all directly into the office, retail and cultural core of our city.

Yes, SSG will be the busiest stop if an interchange is built there. We know that. It’s obvious.

If the highest capacity East-West line ever to be built across the city is indeed to be built, it is quite obvious that the busiest station will be the one which is closest to the centre.

Come on, Alonso:confused:

And the figures show this.

Can you provide these figures, please.

The clear indication from the O’Reilly report was that, for a stand-alone metro (i.e a north-south line with no connection to anything, bar the LUAS) the College Green stop would have been the busiest. In other words, along a North-South route, College Green would be the most desired location. There is no reason that I can think of why the views of the majority of passengers travelling along a West-East corridor – such as would be provided by the interconector – should be any different. Can you?

It’s been said a million times here already – college Green is not a major trip attractor for commuters – just a filter. Remove TCD and what have you got? 2 banks and a Spar? the reason so many buses go to College Green is due to one thing and one thing only – the An Lar-ism you refer to yourself.

I only mentioned College Green because it is an alternative location which would clearly be capable of hosting an underground interchange. There may be other central locations which are capable of performing this function. O’Connell Bridge, perhaps?

But you simply cannot define College Green as a location with TCD, two banks and a Spar.:(

It lies right between the two major retail areas of the city It is in the centre of a very large business area, and it is busy all the time. This is simply not the case with St. Stephen’s Green.

The case for building the interconnector through St. Stephen’s Green is largely based on the demand for travel to locations like Baggot Street, Adelaide Road, Leeson Street, Hatch Street, etc., not St. Stephen’s Green itself. (Is the Green itself a major trip attractor? I doubt it)

I fully understand that these are areas which are vitally important to the city, and to which decent public transport must eventually go.

But, since they are all incredibly quiet areas at the weekeend, and outside the hours when people are actually travelling to and from work, it would unfortunately be a mistake to build the city’s highest capacity line through St. Stephen’s Green in an effort to serve them and to force the largest group of passengers to change to get to where they wish to go, which is the city centre.

A mistake which is, however, likely to be made.:(

I can’t believe this thread is still going…anyway, surely it makes sense to build a network of lines across the city centre rather than just duplication through the very centre, that way the city can start to really connect up and truly spread east and west, e.g. a Luas turning north-west as it goes north so that it feeds into new DIT campus and links in other areas for example.

typed this last night but the site crashed – Lucky I saved it! (or maybe not)

@Seamus O’G wrote:

Yes, SSG will be the busiest stop if an interchange is built there. We know that. It’s obvious.

If the highest capacity East-West line ever to be built across the city is indeed to be built, it is quite obvious that the busiest station will be the one which is closest to the centre.

Come on, Alonso:confused:

did you not state that it would not be busiest? That’s how i read your previous post anyway

Can you provide these figures, please.

I can’t but Iarnrod Eireann or the RPA have stated it in the past – not sure if it was in the context of the IC or Metro.

The clear indication from the O’Reilly report was that, for a stand-alone metro (i.e a north-south line with no connection to anything, bar the LUAS) the College Green stop would have been the busiest. In other words, along a North-South route, College Green would be the most desired location. There is no reason that I can think of why the views of the majority of passengers travelling along a West-East corridor – such as would be provided by the interconector – should be any different. Can you?

those that want to go to work in the South East city office core might differ. Who that works on Leeson st, Fitzwilliam or Harcourt st would prefer College green?

I only mentioned College Green because it is an alternative location which would clearly be capable of hosting an underground interchange. There may be other central locations which are capable of performing this function. O’Connell Bridge, perhaps?

Why? OCSt will have a Metro stop anyway and is served by heavy rail at Tara, and Luas lines. And your use of the term “clearly be capable” is dubious, expecially considering this thread is about the sheer scale of the surface disruption necessary. How would you build a similarly scaled interchange on College Green?

But you simply cannot define College Green as a location with TCD, two banks and a Spar.:(

tongue in cheek. But compared to the Green and the adjacent office core – (an area that I would suggest has the highest density of persons during office hours on the island) it’s shag all.

It lies right between the two major retail areas of the city It is in the centre of a very large business area, and it is busy all the time. This is simply not the case with St. Stephen’s Green.

Stephen;s Green is one of those retail areas. Serve it directly. On the contrary, College Green is one of the furthest locations away from the large business area of Dublin. I don’t honestly get your characterisation of SSG as not being busy. The top of Grafton street is thronged all day and at 9am and 5:30 the area to the south and south west is full of commuters. That sentence makes me think we live in different cities. Try walk up Merrion row at lunch time when these workers get out. You can’t. Not without using half the roadway…

The case for building the interconnector through St. Stephen’s Green is largely based on the demand for travel to locations like Baggot Street, Adelaide Road, Leeson Street, Hatch Street, etc., not St. Stephen’s Green itself. (Is the Green itself a major trip attractor? I doubt it)

Exactly. Exactly Exactly. But SSG is the centre of this retail and office core. College Green is a road artery that severs the city. If, and it’s a gigantic if, they decide to shut the entire College Green area for a decade and dig it up and then repave it for pedestrians, i wouldn’t be opposed. BUt SSG is still a better location in my opinion because people work there and in the adjacent urban quarter! College Green is a long long way from any major concentration of offices – Hawkins and Apollo House, George’s Quay(both served directly by DART already) and Central bank is about it, compared to a massive district of 5/6 storey high density Georgian offices plus mews, with major blocks interspersed in between (BoI, Greencore, Harcourt St, Eircom, Government Bldgs, SSG South, Hatch Street etc)

I fully understand that these are areas which are vitally important to the city, and to which decent public transport must eventually go.

But, since they are all incredibly quiet areas at the weekeend, and outside the hours when people are actually travelling to and from work, it would unfortunately be a mistake to build the city’s highest capacity line through St. Stephen’s Green in an effort to serve them and to force the largest group of passengers to change to get to where they wish to go, which is the city centre.

what???? Now you;ve totally lost me. Grafton St, S William St, Camden St – Georges st QUIET at the weekends? Jaysus I queued for an hour for a shaggin taxi at the SSG rank a few months ago and as for shoppers, are you serious?. Where is this city you refer to? What largest group are you referring to? Commuters are by far and away the largest group and far and away the group with the sharpest peak demand. Are you talking about the Shoppers? They want to go to the exact spot this station is located at. The EXACT spot! It IS the city centre. It’s “town” Stephen’s Green, Grafton Street, Govt Buildings, the Office Core of the city with the highest concetration of workers in Ireland, the domestic nightlife core and a major urban space all to be served at one interchange.

What have I missed?

I really honestly cannot think of a better route for this line. And any further response can be an “agree to disagree” as i cannot put my points across any better than the above.

I’m getting a bit confused by both sides here, but one thing I wanted to say, to back up alonso’s argument:

@Seamus O’G wrote:

But, since they are all incredibly quiet areas at the weekeend, and outside the hours when people are actually travelling to and from work, it would unfortunately be a mistake to build the city’s highest capacity line through St. Stephen’s Green in an effort to serve them and to force the largest group of passengers to change to get to where they wish to go, which is the city centre.

What do you mean by ‘the largest group of passengers’? The retail cohort?

The real thing knackering this city is the car based journey to work (and school- not particularly relevant here), and I’d argue that SSG is the best location for the interchange if this is the problem that’s going to be tackled. If the decision is taken to use an interchange to facilitate shoppers, then the CG argument gains currency, but that approach would be a mistake in my book.

@ctesiphon wrote:

What do you mean by ‘the largest group of passengers’? The retail cohort?

The real thing knackering this city is the car based journey to work (and school- not particularly relevant here), and I’d argue that SSG is the best location for the interchange if this is the problem that’s going to be tackled. If the decision is taken to use an interchange to facilitate shoppers, then the CG argument gains currency, but that approach would be a mistake in my book.

I intend to reply to Alonso’s post when I get a chance – it requires more thought than the answer to your question above.

It is necessary to take all train passengers into account – including commuters, shoppers, partygoers, whoever (in other words, everybody who buys a ticket). The rail network does not just exist for commuting, but for commuting and other travel, much of which takes place at times outside the “commuting” hours.

As mentioned above, the O’Reilly report indicated that the busiest station on the originally proposed metro would have been the Trinity/College Green stop. In other words, more passengers would have wished to use that (city) station than any other. This is the largest group. The groups of people who would have wished to use the other stations were all smaller. This includes the St. Stephen’s Green group.

For example, on the current network, the largest group of passengers is made up of those passengers who wish to use Tara Street, followed (I think) by the group of passengers who wish to use Pearse Station, etc. It doesn’t matter why the people who use Tara Street have decided that it’s the best one – whether they are commuters, shoppers, theatregoers, drug dealers, whatever – they are all (hopefully:D) paying for their ticket and it is simply the best station for them.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

I intend to reply to Alonso’s post when I get a chance – it requires more thought than the answer to your question above.

Ouch! But not so fast, Seamus. I suspect ‘more thought’ may be required here too. 😉

I say this mainly because I would dispute the transferability of the O’Reilly figures. That analysis was for a very different arrangement from that currently under examination. Did it include passengers from all parts of the city and the wider GDA? Did it examine the full pattern of movement? Did it analyse the network effect? Did it consider the interaction of all modes? Did it include the land use implications of the siting of an interchange?

As I understand it, it was essentially a narrowly focused Metro corridor study. We’re talking about an interchange- a very different beast.

1.1 Terms of Reference for Consultants Study

1. Review and hold discussions with Dublin Metro Group, Dublin Chamber of Commerce and Platform 11, all of whom have made submissions to the Joint Committee.

2. Obtain and report on the cost benefit analysis prepared by the RPA for St. Stephens Green/Airport [Route Central 3(b)] giving details on:
a. costs,
b. benefits,
c. assumptions

3. Examine the cost competitiveness of the proposed RPA construction cost estimates for the Metro to Dublin Airport by comparison with international Metro project costs.

4. Consider the case made for the extension of the Metro from Dublin Airport to Swords.

5. Consider the possibility of a bus alternative to the Metro.

6. Consider the possibility of an Iarnrod Éireann alternative to the Metro.

7. Make an assessment of a “do nothing” option, including implications of disbenefits.

8. Provide a comparison between and report on the implications of State funding and a PPP approach.

9. Assess the ongoing financial implications of a PPP approach for the State once the Metro is operational e.g. availability / usage payments.

10. Present the arguments for and against the Metro by international comparison to a comparable size city such as Newcastle or other city, excluding Copenhagen.

11. Give views on how the Metro project should be structured and managed so as to ensure the most effective implementation of the project.

12. Give views on the measures needed in the proposed Infrastructure Bill in order to ensure timely delivery of the project.

Having considered all of the above –

1. Form a reasoned judgement on the viability of the Metro project

2. Prepare a draft report for consideration by the Committee

3. Prepare a final report which reflects the Committee’s views.

http://www.oireachtas.ie/documents/committees29thdail/jct/metro-report/Report.doc

It goes without saying that all passengers should be taken into account. However, to state that ‘much [travel] takes place at times outside the “commuting” hours’ gives a misleading impression that the lion’s share of travel is not commuter. If calculated as time, then your answer is right (morning peak + evening peak = 5[?] hours), but if calculated as numbers carried, then it’s not; not to mention the latent demand for public transport which isn’t being met due to capacity issues at peak time.

There are myriad other factors that should be included here, such as passenger numbers in car in the peak hours vs passenger numbers in car for retail trips, i.e. the actual impact on car commuting. In addition, the likely modal shift in retail vs the likely modal shift in commuting needs to be acknowledged- there is greater potential in the latter case; etc etc.

In essence, I accept your point re servicing retail demand, but as I said before, that’s not the primary issue, nor should it be.

There are as you say a number of key segments of usage to be considered and as you say replacement of car usage has to be the objective.

There are to my mind four key user segments to be considered

1. Commuter of which there are two waves, office and service the former being concentrated in narrow slots and the latter dispersed

2. Retail

3. Leisure

4. Service consumers

Considering mode use is where the observations of DC3 come into it; many people simply don’t use public transport and have very little interaction with the city centre and many of those that do tend to do so in terms of leisure uses which generally tend to be concentrated in the burbs where car use still dominates or temple bar where taxi use or tourist use dominates.

The key uses are I think Commuter as this body of people essentially provide the design parameters for maximum loadings and retail/service consumers who if the right connectivity is provided will use the city centre and public transport or if not use similar facilities on the periphery.

The main office sub-districts are

1. Harcourt / Adelaide Rd
2. Dawson St / Baggot Street / Stephens Green
3. IFSC
4. South Docklands
5. Civic Offices / 4 Courts / Smithfield
6. Burlington Road / Wilton Place
7. Spencer Dock / North Wall

If the interconnector route is assessed against these locations you get the following walk times

1. 3-10 mins
2. 0 -10 mins
3. Interchange at Pearse Station existing rail link
4. 5 – 12 minutes
5. 3 – 10 minutes
6. 10 -15 minutes
7 Interchange with Luas BX

To consider the locations that an inner metro alignment would offer the distances would be

1. College Green 5 – 7 minutes from both High St and St Green
2. Connolly a further 5 – 7 minutes interchanging at Pearse

I can appreciate it is easy to talk about walking times of 10 – 15 minutes when one is fit and a parking space beside your office costs €6 an hour with a futher €10 congestion charge; but I have no doubt that if direct trains ran from places like Adamstown and if significant park and ride sites fed the Kildare and Nothern lines in people would go for conveneince and employers if given the choice would not give their staff free parking.

When you compare the route of the interconnector to the metro you have to wonder why the metero was ever prioritised

1. Stephens Green – good location
2. O Connell St – good location
3. Mater – medium density inner suburb
4. Glasnevan or Drumcoundra – low – medium density greying suburb
5. DCU – sprawling suburban campus
6. Ballymun – low – medium density new town
7. Santry – sprawling suburb
8. Airport – good location
9. Swords – good location

The bit in the middle doesn’t stack up for significant underground sections; this is luas or qbc territory; I think we need a repeat of the speach CJ gave in 1980 in his blue Charvet shirt

Yeh some fair points there PVC but you are, in my opinion, mistakenly assessing the Metro Corridor as it is today rather than the corridor in the future. Ballymun will not be low density in a decade and without intimate knowledge I’d profer that Santry has potential to intensify. DCU certainly has. In any case given the admitted need for Metro at various locations along the route, how does one tighten the belt, quite literally, in the middle? The solution is to identify sites along the route in existing suburbs and build on them. Had your argument applied no suburban rail would ever have been built.

Also “leisure uses which generally tend to be concentrated in the burbs where car use still dominates or temple bar where taxi use or tourist use dominates”

hmm dunno about that. Theatres, Cinemas and all the good pubs that good citizens drink in are nowhere near Temple Bar

@PVC King wrote:

4. Glasnevan or Drumcoundra – low – medium density greying suburb

I have a GAA frog in my mouth;)

@PVC King wrote:

3. Mater – medium density inner suburb

You appear to have forgotten about the hospital and, um, my house.

@alonso wrote:

did you not state that it would not be busiest? That’s how i read your previous post anyway

My earlier post stated that if the metro line, as originally planned, were to be built, the figures indicated that the stop/station at St. Stephen’s Green would not have been as busy as the stop/station at Trinity/College Green. This was for a line along a North-South axis which was proposed to be built through both locations.

The interconnector, which runs approximately along a West-East axis, clearly cannot be built through both St. Stephen’s Green and College Green (or a location in its vicinity – such as was originally proposed in the 1970s).

The mistake which appears to be being made is to built the higher capacity West-East interconnector line through the area – of the two – to which there seems to be less demand to travel. And, probably, to spend a lot more money for the privilege.

@alonso wrote:

those that want to go to work in the South East city office core might differ. Who that works on Leeson st, Fitzwilliam or Harcourt st would prefer College green?

I’ve no doubt that many who work in those locations would differ, and would prefer a station at St. Stephen’s Green rather than College Green. Of course they would. My question is, what is the overall situation which would best suit the passengers on the highest capacity line ever to be built in Dublin, and on the eventual network generally?

@alonso wrote:

Why? OCSt will have a Metro stop anyway and is served by heavy rail at Tara, and Luas lines.

Well, St. Stephen’s Green will be served by the metro, and is served by a LUAS line – perhaps also others in the future. Precisely why it is so important that the interconnector be built through the location as well, given that people will be able to change as a network is developed, is something that hasn’t been clear from the figures (or other documentation) yet produced.

@alonso wrote:

And your use of the term “clearly be capable” is dubious, expecially considering this thread is about the sheer scale of the surface disruption necessary. How would you build a similarly scaled interchange on College Green?

Maybe it is dubious. I obviously haven’t been able to do any site investigations. However, the proposed interchange in the rapid rail plan for Dublin produced in the 1970s was located in the vicinity of College Green/Dame Street. I hardly think that a panel of experts would have suggested an underground interchange where it simply wasn’t possible to build one, and I am sure that they would have done some research to that effect.

(Worth noting also, that it was proposed to have an interchange – in that area of the city – between two heavy rail lines, not one heavy rail line and what is effectively an underground tram).

As this is a thread about the proposed impact on St. Stephen’s Green of the metro works, it is vital to remember that the impact on the Green is due both to the plan to terminate the metro at the Green and to build the interconnector through there.

@alonso wrote:

tongue in cheek. But compared to the Green and the adjacent office core – (an area that I would suggest has the highest density of persons during office hours on the island) it’s shag all.

Alonso, that really is not correct. At times of the day when there is no demand to get to or from “the adjacent office core”, areas like College Green, Dame Street, O’Connell Street, etc, see loads of people getting on and off buses. Why don’t you pop down on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, or any weekday between half-nine and around five, and see how many people are trying to get to or from the “adjacent office core.”

@alonso wrote:

Stephen;s Green is one of those retail areas. Serve it directly.

Hang on a sec, Alonso, you simply cannot pretend that St. Stephen’s Green itself is a serious retail area. (And, nor, obviously, are the adjacent Georgian streets). It has its shopping centre and a couple of other shops dotted around the North side of the Green. What else?

I think you may perhaps be mixing it up with the very important retail area in Grafton Street and its environs which, overall, would surely be as well served by a station at College Green as it would be by a station at St. Stephen’s Green

@alonso wrote:

On the contrary, College Green is one of the furthest locations away from the large business area of Dublin. I don’t honestly get your characterisation of SSG as not being busy. The top of Grafton street is thronged all day and at 9am and 5:30 the area to the south and south west is full of commuters. That sentence makes me think we live in different cities. Try walk up Merrion row at lunch time when these workers get out. You can’t. Not without using half the roadway.

I have never said that St. Stephen’s Green is not busy, and I know that Merrion Row is indeed packed at lunchtime. But how many people are trying to get to or from there at that time. Practically nobody.

@alonso wrote:

Exactly. Exactly Exactly. But SSG is the centre of this retail and office core. College Green is a road artery that severs the city. If, and it’s a gigantic if, they decide to shut the entire College Green area for a decade and dig it up and then repave it for pedestrians, i wouldn’t be opposed. BUt SSG is still a better location in my opinion because people work there and in the adjacent urban quarter! College Green is a long long way from any major concentration of offices – Hawkins and Apollo House, George’s Quay(both served directly by DART already) and Central bank is about it, compared to a massive district of 5/6 storey high density Georgian offices plus mews, with major blocks interspersed in between (BoI, Greencore, Harcourt St, Eircom, Government Bldgs, SSG South, Hatch Street etc) .

Now, Alonso, you can’t honestly say that St. Stephen’s Green is the centre of any retail core. It lies at the edge of a retail area, which could be well served by a more central station such as was proposed in the 1970s.

It also does not lie at the centre of any office core, which requires a station to be built at St. Stephen’s Green. It lies at the edge of an important office area which includes much of Georgian Dublin. Many of us have been able to view the way things are done in other cities, and it is simply not credible that we are expected to view St. Stephen’s Green as the local station for, for example, people working on Adelaide Road or Fitzwilliam Place. These locations must be catered for by extensions of the network. (Building the interconnector through St. Stephen’s Green in order for it to be seen as a location which “serves” these areas is, in my view, a total cop-out). And the Government offices on Kildare Street, Molesworth Street, Nassau Street, etc., well would their staff be seriously discommoded by having to walk to or from Pearse Station or a station in or around College Green?

@alonso wrote:

what???? Now you;ve totally lost me. Grafton St, S William St, Camden St – Georges st QUIET at the weekends? Jaysus I queued for an hour for a shaggin taxi at the SSG rank a few months ago and as for shoppers, are you serious?.

In fairness, Alonso, those were not the streets which were mentioned in my original post. I mentioned Baggot Street, Leeson Street, Adelaide Road and Hatch Street, the latter two of which are extremely quiet locations at the weekend. There’s also nothing happening on Upper Leeson Street or Lower Baggot Street at that time. Upper Baggot Street is, I hope, not within what is considered to be the catchment area for the interconnector, while most of the the people who are present on Lower Leeson Street at weekends are unlikely to be looking for public transport at any time when it operates.

Grafton Street, South William Street and George’s Street are all busy at weekends. Would it be difficult to get to a station at College Green (or its environs) from any of these locations? Would it be significantly easier to get to a station at St. Stephen’s Green?

Now, I grant you, Camden Street would require more of a walk.

@alonso wrote:

Where is this city you refer to? What largest group are you referring to? Commuters are by far and away the largest group and far and away the group with the sharpest peak demand. Are you talking about the Shoppers? They want to go to the exact spot this station is located at. The EXACT spot! It IS the city centre. It’s “town” Stephen’s Green, Grafton Street, Govt Buildings, the Office Core of the city with the highest concetration of workers in Ireland, the domestic nightlife core and a major urban space all to be served at one interchange.

I hope I have answered the basic meaning of “the largest group” in my reply to ctesiphon’s question above, though I will return to that shortly, when work allows (And I hope I didn’t offend him – I was only trying to clarify what I meant by the phrase).

I hope it is clear that I am not talking about the shoppers. I’m talking about the commuters, the shoppers and any others who will use the highest capacity line ever to be built in Ireland. There was an original plan to build this line through the environs of College Green. When Minister Mary O’Rourke decided that the LUAS Green line would not, as planned, be built across the city, the cross-city (East-West) heavy rail plans changed (apparently) to accommodate this. As far as I am aware, we have yet to see any figures which show that this was the correct decision.

@notjim wrote:

You appear to have forgotten about the hospital and, um, my house.

Glad to see you moving up in the World!

In comparison the Mater probably employs the same number of people as Stephens Green Shopping Centre and the HBoS offices next door; it would attract a similar number of patients / visitors as the shopping centre but owing to the number of staff that work unsociable hours I would estimate that a large number of them live within walking distance and would not be tied to a single transit route.

hmm dunno about that. Theatres, Cinemas and all the good pubs that good citizens drink in are nowhere near Temple Bar

That is probably correct in terms of indigenous Dublin patterns but I think it is fair to say that if you remove drinking / dining from Temple Bar / College Green that there is no predominate use and that the land usae intensity in pedestrian terms drops off significantly.

I have a GAA frog in my mouth

You can reasonably give the most successful sporting organisation in the land a €20m grant towards their stadium in the context of double digit GDP growth; you can’t build a €4-6bn metro line to serve say 19 GAA weekends, 4 rugby matches and 3-4 Soccer matches the latter 2 which were always served by rail whilst the majority opted for the walk from the city centre and will move back to an almost completed stadium.

Yeh some fair points there PVC but you are, in my opinion, mistakenly assessing the Metro Corridor as it is today rather than the corridor in the future. Ballymun will not be low density in a decade and without intimate knowledge I’d profer that Santry has potential to intensify. DCU certainly has. In any case given the admitted need for Metro at various locations along the route, how does one tighten the belt, quite literally, in the middle? The solution is to identify sites along the route in existing suburbs and build on them. Had your argument applied no suburban rail would ever have been built.

Most rail was never suburban rail to begin with but intercity rail where mostly Victorian developers persuaded rail companies to open additional stations to facilitate the exodus of the midddle classes from slum city centres to model towns which were created. The costs in providing rail to these new suburbs were marginal as the railway companies were buying farmland and only needed to build stations.

The Metro is a multi-Billion euro project which will require over 50% of its Dublin City Council area route underground; the end result being a few stations which are predominently low/ medium density and will have significant nimby brigades who if they have their metro will be hell bent on preventing further development.

In the context of falling GDP and renewed growth from 2010 – 2020 being in a range of 2.50 – 5.00% p.a. the idea of spending €4bn -€6bn on intensifying land use at Santry, Ballymun, DCU is a nonsense.

€1-1.5bn would connect Swords and the Airport to the existing rail network and four track the northern line from Spencer Dock / Connolly to the point where the airport line would depart. This would also release a lot of development land between the existing rail line and the airport.

We are in a much more disciplined fiscal environment where viability is no concept it is the kernal of all investments. Has one study ever been produced that the Metro breaks even on an operational basis and this is excluding the 8% annual funding cost where debt would mature 20 to 30 years down the line.

But alonso the amenity value added making a general hospital more accessible from the city and the transport network is not comparable to putting to expediting access to the SGC. Having a major hospital on the metro corridor will make this city a better place to live.

It is just a pity not to take the opportunity to turn this area into a medical quarter by moving beaumont to the mountjoy site, of far greater benefit than the usual promised miture of cafes, mens perfume shops and high end apartments. Colocating hospitals is a huge plus for patients outcomes and research and beaumont needs to be demolished and rebuild and is the RCSI teaching hospital, the site will be linked to the current RCSI site in SG and any new site in Swords.

And of course it will save the legs of tourists coming to stand gawping outside my house.

on a side note where there ever shamrock poles on st Stephens green west?

Seamus – your arguments for the alignment of the interconnector via college green seem to be wholly based on the 1970s plan – I’d like to think that Dublin has changed since then.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

(And I hope I didn’t offend him – I was only trying to clarify what I meant by the phrase)

Not at all- I was playing hurt because I’m jealous of alonso getting all the attention. Always the bridesmaid… 😉

@notjim wrote:

And of course it will save the legs of tourists coming to stand gawping outside my house.

Some of us prefer to walk- it heightens the anticipation!

@Rory W wrote:

Seamus – your arguments for the alignment of the interconnector via college green seem to be wholly based on the 1970s plan – I’d like to think that Dublin has changed since then.

I totally agree; virtually all the big office hubs in Dublin were built early 1980’s or post 1995; long gone are the days of upper floor offices in a terrace of interconnecting Georgians. The real traffic generators are the large office complexes such as Harcourt Centre, IFSC 1, etc with pre 1999 development plan parking restrictions.

What surprises me most about this discussion is that people seem to think that the area between O’C St and the Airport is suddenly going to densify to support a €4bn rail. To make a mile stretch of underground and a stop viable you would expect c200,000 passengers a week or 10m a year.

Three stops at best on the proposed metro have that St Green, OC St and the airport which assumes that 50% of passengers using the airport will use metro a statistic not acheived by any European airport. Add another 20m passenger journeys for Swords, Ballymun and you get 50m journeys or 1 journey per week for the entire population of County Dublin which is optimistic.

50m passenger trips a year at €2 a ticket only generates €100m in gross income take off energy costs, ticket issuance, cleaners, maintenance and Health and safety etc and you would be lucky to net €20m of this figure and this assumes that you continue to fry users of other networks by continuing not to introduce integrated ticketing.

To service the debt on the capital costs at Government bond rates would cost in excess of €200m a year.

All so Notjim has a convenient commute to TCD;

€4bn invested elsewhere could provide a sustainable transit network for the entire East Coast region so that the growth of the city is not dependent on going from an unsuitable start of two storey density patterns to waiting for devlopers to errect 8-9 storey schemes with every nimby in existance placing banners titled developer don’t put my castle in the dark. This can be done on commuter rail in a hub and spoke development pattern with a fraction of the difficulty and at a fraction of the cost.

Dublin is a great City but it isn’t Tokyo

I can promise to start having lunch at home if that helps the economics of this thing.

PVC we have to remember the Metro North Economic Corridor Plan as well. There will be a degree of intensifcation of the existing urban footprint but we have to look at the route as a whole, and the entire network itself as a whole.

Seamus I see your points and respect your views but we’ll probably have to leave it here – we’re going round in circles and God help us (and the readers) if we end up discussing an inner orbital rail line 😉

notjim that’s the sort of moxy and self-sacrifice for your country we need to drag us out of the mire – fair play

@ctesiphon wrote:

Ouch! But not so fast, Seamus. I suspect ‘more thought’ may be required here too. 😉

I’m glad to see – from your subsequent post – that you were not offended. More thought is indeed required to take account of your statements in the post which I am now quoting, but I did mean to clarify (as soon as possible) what I originally meant.:)

@ctesiphon wrote:

I say this mainly because I would dispute the transferability of the O’Reilly figures.

A sensible approach. As you note below, the factors involved may be very different when the whole city (and surrounding area) is taken into account.

@ctesiphon wrote:

That analysis was for a very different arrangement from that currently under examination. Did it include passengers from all parts of the city and the wider GDA? Did it examine the full pattern of movement? Did it analyse the network effect? Did it consider the interaction of all modes? Did it include the land use implications of the siting of an interchange?

As I understand it, it was essentially a narrowly focused Metro corridor study. We’re talking about an interchange- a very different beast.

I agree. In order for the originally planned major city interchange to be moved from the College Green/Dame Street area to St. Stephen’s Green, one would imagine that a proper analysis would have taken place of all of the factors which you mention.

Yet I’m not aware of any such analysis having been carried out or, at any rate, being in the public domain.

Are you?

Or was it the case that, for the West-East high capacity line, which can and should be built across the city, the analysis in the DTO effectively amounted to:

“Hey, lads, c’mere, lookit, if we build it through St. Stephen’s Green, we can also connect with the LUAS!!”

(In other words: hang the extra cost; hang the likely damage that this will cause to the Green by interchange construction; and hang the analysis of movement patterns, mode interactions or network effects.)

In the absence of any sign of the aforementioned analysis, I know which I’ll believe.:mad:

@alonso wrote:

PVC we have to remember the Metro North Economic Corridor Plan as well. There will be a degree of intensifcation of the existing urban footprint but we have to look at the route as a whole, and the entire network itself as a whole.

Alonso

I’ve no doubt you support rail travel to the exclusion of road transport you have a long track record on this site in that respect. I do not accept the Metro North Economic Plan as it lists a very optimistic view of both macro economics and how nimby’s (local objectors) impact the planning system and delay the delivery of construction projects for years.

The Irish economy must be taken in the context of the figures below and not a report that is historic; even 2 months ago you could argue that construction and securitisation were the only problem, unfortunately the malaise has now spread right accross the economy; hard choices need to be made and Metro North is now even less viable than before; other methods of linking the Airport and Swords to the City Centre need to assessed.

Retail sales slump 6.2% in September
Friday, 14 November 2008 12:48
The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office confirm the slowing Irish economy. It says the volume of retail sales decreased by 6.2% in September compared with the same time last year, while there was a monthly decrease of 0.5%.

The CSO also says that provisional figures show the volume of retail sales slowed by 5.6% in the third quarter of the year. It says this was the largest annual decline in the volume of quarterly retail sales since the second quarter of 1983.

It is also the third quarter in a row showing an annual decline.

AdvertisementBreaking down the figures, they show sharp falls in areas linked to housing – with furniture and lighting sales down almost 20% while sales of electrical goods slumped by 15.7% and hardware, paints and glass sales fell almost 12%.

Motor sales dropped another 7.4% in the month, while bar sales were down 2%. After increasing in August, sales at department stores declined by 1.4%.

Today’s statistics also show that the value of retail sales fell by 3.8% in September of this year compared to September 2007. They increased by 0.6% in the month. The CSO says this is the sixth month in a row of declining values in retail sales.

In the months from June to August, the largest volume decrease was seen in the furniture and lighting sector, with sales slumping by 14.6%. Sales of textiles and clothing rose by 1.1% in the quarter.

Alan McQuaid, chief economist at Bloxham Stockbrokers, said the figures proved the Government had missed an opportunity to stimulate the economy with last month’s Budget

He said: ‘All in all, the retail sales figures for the year to date are extremely disappointing, and suggest that the risks to GDP forecasts remain clearly to the downside, and all the more reason why the Government should have introduced fiscal stimulus measures in last month’s Budget.

‘Instead, what we got was an income levy and increase in the standard rate of VAT, which will make Irish goods more expensive at a time when there is already a mass exodus from the Republic across the border to avail of cheaper prices in the North.

‘This trend is set to increase in the run-up to Christmas, especially now as the euro is at record highs versus sterling with the British pound effectively at a level of almost 1.09 to the old Irish punt.’

I think one of the problems with the metro north discussion is people fail to realise the number of people who will drive or take a bus to use it. It’s simple – people want certainty of service. Last night I waited 30 minutes for a bus that was due about 2 minutes after I got there. It never turned up. Cue huge numbers of people on the bus, a much delayed trip and a journey that should take 30 minutes taking over an hour – at 8.30pm!! People will go to the metro becuase within a degree of certainty they will know the journey time. That will alleviate some of the pressure on the Dart. I predict that if it’s built, metro north will exceed passenger projections.

exceeding passenger projections isn’t success

What is? If it exceeds projections, it’s working. The point is to give people a better life (call it work-life balance if needs be) by making it easier to get from A to B, even the St Stephen’s Green argument falls into this in terms of losing an amenity (for however long it takes) to benefit others

I have no doubt you are right that more people will use the service than currently use buses. However the catchment for a metro will be c1 mile or 15 minutes walk and with the exception of say Swords, Airport and possibly Drumcoundra I can’t see the 10m pax stations required to make this stack up at the projected costs.

In London Boris Johnston axed £4bn of previously announced transport projects such as the Thames Gateway Bridge and Docklands Light Rail extension to Dagenham. The reason given was that they weren’t economically viable and weren’t sufficient priorities to be delivered before 2020; this followed a thorough review of the entire TfL programme and a ranking of projects with Crossrail coming top and other projects granted delivery on a sliding scale thereafter.

Would an early 2009 review of all Transport 21 projects and the announcement of revised delivery dates or a ranking based on importance and a sliding scale of dates for delivery based on the health of the fiscal position.

What would be crazy is if intergration of the two seperate commuter networks as centred on The Heuson routes and Dart/Northern Commuter networked were sacrificed to deliver a scheme that clearly does not stack up on financial grounds unless a Reganesque supply side view is taken. The days of development levies are gone for at least the medium term this needs to be assessed on real economics and take its place in the que.

PVC how are you saying it clearly does not stack up. Have you got the exact costs and the land use forecasts for the corridor? Wthout these we’re all just throwing out suggestions and conjecture. Both sides have valid arguments but without the figures no-one can state something as fact,

@PVC King wrote:

I have no doubt you are right that more people will use the service than currently use buses. However the catchment for a metro will be c1 mile or 15 minutes walk and with the exception of say Swords, Airport and possibly Drumcoundra I can’t see the 10m pax stations required to make this stack up at the projected costs.
.

I disagree, like in London people will get crosstown buses to use it, people will drive from Dundalk to the first stop (wherever it is in the end) as will people from Drogheda and most of Meath. People from Finglas to Coolock and possibly Darndale will get buses to it because of regularity of service and journey time.

the fact is Dublin needs a functioning transport system that is immune to traffic and is dependable
one that allows you to live in the south work in the north or live in the south and work in the north west.

the problem I have is that it affects the daily lives of so many people in Ireland…
has the m 50 made things better? why did we build it???
the people of Dublin deserve a proper transport system…
whether that is an Irish gauge or not…

@alonso wrote:

PVC how are you saying it clearly does not stack up. Have you got the exact costs and the land use forecasts for the corridor? Wthout these we’re all just throwing out suggestions and conjecture. Both sides have valid arguments but without the figures no-one can state something as fact,

Land values are irrelvant as development land only has a value when their is demand fr the end use product. The figures demand side are truely terrible; the worst we have seen for decades take for example retail sales down 6% yoy; the banks on their knees and unable to lend for all but the securest propositions.

The three top banks have fallen in value from €30bn 18 months ago to about €5bn today. Where have you been for the last 12 months? Retail yields a year ago were 2% this week a building will be released on Grafton Street but since you are such an expert on the property market I’ll let you clarify the yield quoted.

When the banks are again lending for spec dev you will have a point but that point is years away and the type of scenario seen between 1995-2005 where any development stacked up is never coming back.

I disagree, like in London people will get crosstown buses to use it, people will drive from Dundalk to the first stop (wherever it is in the end) as will people from Drogheda and most of Meath. People from Finglas to Coolock and possibly Darndale will get buses to it because of regularity of service and journey time.

People in London don’t use buses to cross town; a typical journey would be Heathrow – Canary Wharf which involves Heathrow Express; change to Hammersmith & City line and then Jubilee Line which takes an hour; cross rail will cut this to 30 mins; its alignment has a number of brownfield sites capable of releasing 5,000 units each where significant development contributions will come from. I further don’t buy that someone from Dundalk is going to park North of Swords vs the Airport and even if they did would you want the park and ride facility clogged up with long stay parking?

This project needs to be assessed on the basis of current demand and contemporary development levels; above all it must be assessed on the basis of capital cost per annual passenger and ranked against all other transport projects on the table. Blind faith predicated on 90,000 home per year output is so out of date reality now exists for the first time in a generation.

PVC i wasn’t referring to land values forecasts, lanmd use forecasts – ie the size of the catchments

@PVC King wrote:

People in London don’t use buses to cross town; a typical journey would be Heathrow – Canary Wharf which .

That’s not what I meant. People regularly get the tube and then switch to buses. It’s why your day pass on the underground is valid on the buses.

@PVC King wrote:

This project needs to be assessed on the basis of current demand and contemporary development levels

Why? It won’t even be finished till, at best, 2013, more likely 2014 or 2015. Surely then the country will have come through some sort of recovery. At which time we’ll all be moaning again about our creaking infrastructure and continued sprawl due to lack public transport infrastructure to support high density developments etc etc.

This metro will be a huge asset for the city for hundreds of years.

Just build the flippin thing already. Every other (half-way decent) country in the world can do it for god’s sake

@jdivision wrote:

That’s not what I meant. People regularly get the tube and then switch to buses. It’s why your day pass on the underground is valid on the buses.

Integrated ticketing now that would be something; how would that affect the maths behind the viability

PVC i wasn’t referring to land values forecasts, lanmd use forecasts – ie the size of the catchments

Idaho 1928 please discuss land use

huh?

The reference is the 1930’s dust bowl and the lack of land use.

Land use is a product of economic demand and follows economic activity it is never something that can be assumed to alter organically. It never moves at a constant rate and is likely to see its most static period or highest rate of disintensification in 50 years over the next 10.

A fair assumption would be 20,000 housing units nationally per annum over the next decade of which 10,000 p.a. will be one off houses, 5,000 will be in Connaught / Munster / outer Leinster leaving 5,000 units pa in Leinster. If output falls to 5,000 units in the entire GDA what share will be built in a strip 2 miles wide and 10 miles long; what propospective homeowner will want a sustainable box when you can snap up a spacious pile for a fraction of the cost of 2006 prices?

We are in a different era now and all projects must be reassessed

yeh fair points PVC, but we live in hope that the zoning process will one day target development towards the right places ie rail corridors and perhaps a smaller ratio will be made up of one-offs and unsuitabel development in one-horse towns all over the State. Hope not expectation.

I see the hoardings have gone up around the Fusiliers Arch on the Green. Dublin is going to be a depressing city for the next few years.

@Service charge wrote:

I see the hoardings have gone up around the Fusiliers Arch on the Green. Dublin is going to be a depressing city for the next few years.

On the contrary, if metro north goes ahead there will be an air of excitement and anticipation about the city.

You will be right about Dublin being a depressing city – if nothing new is built as looks likely.

I agree joe, and people will have a new appreciation for the city once the hoardings come back down, espeically if there is a shiny new train system underneath.

pfff, about damn time. It’s not actual construction, it’s most likely ground investigations as they have yet to get the go ahead from either the Bord, or indeed the bean counters at Finance and Transport.

Funny how hoardings can be seen as depressing by some. The way things are going it won’t be long before we’re crying out for hoardings around the city, a sure sign, next only to cranes, that the economy is moving and growth is occurring.

http://www.rpa.ie/upload/documents/Metro%20North%20Con%20Update%20ENG%201108.pdf

Some answers for ye.

ah sure may as well chuck it up here

@&quot wrote:

As part of the Metro North Railway Order application process, Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) placed the Metro North Railway Order application on display on the 17th of September 2008. If granted this Railway Order will allow the RPA to construct, operate and maintain a metro line between Belinstown in North County Dublin and St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin City Centre via Dublin Airport.

To enable us to build the proposed underground station at St. Stephen’s Green, RPA is now undertaking a limited level of investigative and survey works over the coming weeks.

We are digging an exploratory trench to show how the Fusiliers’ Arch foundations were constructed and we are carrying out a full digital survey of the monument. The Fusiliers’ Arch was built in 1907 and commemorates the soldiers of the Royal Irish Fusiliers who died in the Boer War 1899-1902. This work will take approximately five days and will allow the RPA to develop the best possible method of protecting the Fusiliers’ Arch during the proposed station construction.

Pedestrian access via Fusiliers’ Arch to St Stephen’s Green will be maintained during the works.

Other monuments will also be surveyed in the coming weeks, including those of Lord Ardilaun, Robert Emmet and the O’Donovan Rossa Memorial.

RPA will also be carrying out a digital survey of the Pulham Rock surrounding the North West Lake and island. This will involve draining the lake for five days. All affected wildfowl will be temporarily relocated to the adjacent east lake by the Office of Public Works for the duration of the survey work.

Pulham and Son were one of the foremost landscape gardeners of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They specialised in the creation of picturesque rock gardens, constructed from both natural and artificial rock, as was the fashion of the time. The Pulham Rock and associated features were constructed here in the 1880’s. The survey will be carried out, in conjunction with detailed historical research and materials’ analysis to help devise the best system for removing and later reinstating the Island which is necessary to build the metro stop.
In consultation with the Office of Public Works, the Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government, Dublin City Council and the National Museum of Ireland, RPA will assess all information gathered to minimise the impact of all works.

The big dig:D how deep they want to dig nobody knows!
Thats a nice arch into the green… it lasted what 100 years?
I think the RPA are trying to be more proactive now…
Im still curious if this is an RPA position

http://www.jobsarchitect.com/index.php?post_id=1241

Chief Architect – Ireland
Posted by: Collins McNicholas

Posted date: 2008-Oct-29

Location: Dublin, Ireland

Requirements:
Appropriately qualified Architect, with a minimum 10 years Senior level experience

Experience management of large team(s) in a multi-disciplinary multi-project based environment.
Experience working on high-profile large-scale projects.
Knowledge of Institutional Frameworks / bodies in Ireland is a benefit
Experience of working on railway infrastructure and / or urban design projects an advantage.
CAD proficiency is essential – Microstation / AutoCad desirable.
Full membership of a relevant professional body, e.g. RIAI, RIBA, APM, ILI ( or IFLA associated body)
Excellent (internal and external) communication skills required.

mabye we will end up in afgan kabul 😀

http://www.jobsarchitect.com/index.php?post_id=1248

The Pulham Rock and associated features were constructed here in the 1880’s. The survey will be carried out, in conjunction with detailed historical research and materials’ analysis to help devise the best system for removing and later reinstating the Island which is necessary to build the metro stop.

It has far from been proven why this area needs to be removed to build a metro stop; indeed it is far from proven that this project can even break even in operational terms let alone service a debt mountain of c€4-5bn.

What is required is that the emperor prove that he is wearing clothes and that if found to be wild fowl that he be relocated to CIE or FAS.

Why should it have to break even in operational terms? Almost no public transport in the entire world covers its operational costs. The DART doesn’t, Dublin bus doesn’t, the London Underground doesn’t, and the New York Subway doesn’t come within an asses roar of covering even half its operating costs.

The reason for building it is the life benefits it gives to the people using it, and businesses that will profit from easier access, and better land uses resulting from increasing densities along it’s route.

even banks, pension funds, and governments around the world cannot break even and they can print money!!! Im sorry you have no pension due to fluctuations have a nice day…:D
the day the bank manager and staff go personal guarantors on deposits and pensions I will be laughing all the way to the bank…

on a side note strategic infrastructure deserves strategic planning with strategic architecture minus strategic advertising I hope we can all agree on that;) Im still humming about the college green interchange but that is more so related to inter connector and making people in docklands a little less happy…

The last 5 years have been how high can you go now for architects its how low can you go…

@Fergal wrote:

Why should it have to break even in operational terms? Almost no public transport in the entire world covers its operational costs. The DART doesn’t, .

The Dart did make a profit operationally until an election promise of extending Dart to Greystones was implemented post 1996

@Fergal wrote:

the London Underground doesn’t,

Excluding fleet replacement for rolling stock built pre 1960 LUL turns a profit; the wider TfL loses money however most of that is due to running buses in Greying suburbs reminiscant of most of the proposed route for metro.

@Fergal wrote:

and the New York Subway doesn’t come within an asses roar of covering even half its operating costs.

Funny that a google search for New York Subway subvention or operating subsidy doesn’t reveal a figure beyond the overall ‘mass transit subsidy’ of $770m p.a.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE0DF173DF93BA25756C0A963958260

That is a total subvention of $38.50 per citizen per year for all forms of transit combined; on that basis to extrapolate these figures the total subsidy in New York for commuter rail, subway and bus totals $38.5m total assuming a population of 1m people i.e. Dublin / North Kildare / South Meath North Wickla.

You point to build it and they will ocme at a time when global purchasing managers indexes are averaging 35 or a 30% decline in year on year output. The financing costs on this project at government bond rates would be €200m per year assuming that it even broke even.

You propose a subvention of 5.19 times the overall subvention per citizen in New York for all transit networks inluding subway, commuter rail and bus just to build a single line.

If that’s what passes for viability I’m glad I pay my tax elsewhere

I would be interested to hear your sources for that. As far as I know the DART has never been profitable, although that is partly because the initial investment of the infrastructure is still on it’s books as a loan to be serviced from operating expenses. The cost of extending to Greystones can hardly have been that significant – it doesn’t even get a full service.

A sourced table of figures from WIkipedia gives the proportion of operating costs met directly by fares – basically no European public transport operator is breaking even on operating expenses. Some of the sources are quite old however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio

And as for the Metro, the 5 billion figure that was obtained from a FOI request is the total PPP contract cost to build the system and operate it for 30 years, including buying rolling stock, paying drivers, manning stations, and maintaining equipment. I’ve heard that the actual capital cost of the infrastructure will be roughly 2 billion. Now, I doubt a PPP is the best way to finance a project like this, but it does mean that no money is owed by the state until the system is built and it is operating. 5 billion over 30 years is a lot less than 5 billion tomorrow, whatever way you look at it.

@PVC King wrote:

You point to build it and they will ocme at a time when global purchasing managers indexes are averaging 35 or a 30% decline in year on year output. The financing costs on this project at government bond rates would be €200m per year assuming that it even broke even.

You propose a subvention of 5.19 times the overall subvention per citizen in New York for all transit networks inluding subway, commuter rail and bus just to build a single line.

Ah but now you are comparing recurrent and capital costs; we don’t know if the MN will break operationally, nobody has said, but it isn’t useful to compare the operation subsidy of the long build NY underground with the debt servicing cost of MN.

@PVC King wrote:

If that’s what passes for viability I’m glad I pay my tax elsewhere

Tax exile or emigrant? Just curious.

http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/HARVARDDESIGN63PRINT.pdf

lets just leave it at that?:D

underwater sky lights!

Now we can see all the discarded Dutch Gold cans and other miscellaneous junk.

@Morlan wrote:

Now we can see all the discarded Dutch Gold cans and other miscellaneous junk.

yeah it also has built in wind screen wipers! 😉 and bird shit + leaf remover water jets…

The bank of Scotland doing mock ups… sorry about the quality

It’s going to be destroyed. Whatever comes back is going to be another of the undead parks, like Eyre Square.

If what’s put back is in any way representative of what was there before then we’ll be fine; the space is too popular, central and also a good detour on many common walking routes for it to fall into disuse or lose its popularity.

It could be an opportunity to replace some fairly bland decidious trees with a new mix of stately conifers, broadleaves and exotics,…. who am i kidding, the contract will go to contempary landscape architecture firm ‘x’ and we’ll get angular paths in shiny chinese stone and 50 birch trees.

@igy wrote:

If what’s put back is in any way representative of what was there before then we’ll be fine

Anything constructed can be put back more or less as is, but its clear now that all of trees on the north east corner will be felled.

Everything lining the railings as far as the blue van, if not further is to go, and the park overall will always bear the scars of this serious mauling.

The contrast will be stark – The new batch of pavement lime trees planted by the OPW 4 or 5 years ago ( a fine job ) are also visible in the shot, if you get your microscope out – this is the average maturity of replacement we’ll be getting once all is done.

Of course there’ll be a few 25 – 30 year olds thrown in there so the RPA can say, look, see, no difference! but the truth is planting semi mature specimens is often unsuccessful, the tree itself will literally stand still for a number of years while it attempts to acclimatise, whereas the younger fella will establish quickly and get going.

We’ll look back and wonder was there no alternative.

no we won’t! we’ll look back and say, like with every urban rail project, why didn’t we do this 10 years earlier?

Did they do this in London when they laid out the Tube? Or in Paris with the Metro?

I don’t know, but i’m sure there was some disruption. Does anyone know? Is it in any way relevant to this discussion?

When they built the Paris metro, and the first lines of the London Underground they just dug up the streets. Here is a picture of the Paris metro under construction, to compare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paris_Metro_construction_03300288-3.jpg

I just can’t help but notice that two of the world’s largest subways run under two of the world’s finest cities and were laid predominately over a century ago, without colossal disruption of prized city assets. Unless Hyde Park and the Tuileries Gardens were excavated… but somehow I don’t think they were.

Not to mention, all the statues need to be taken down on O’Connell St? How close to the surface are they tunnelling? And if statues need to be taken down, what does that say for building foundations along the route.

Hopefully the economic collapse will rid us of this turbulent project. We’d get about ten Luas lines for the same cost.

the economic collpase does nothing but add to the urgency of public transport investment

the London and Paris systems caused huge disruption. Probably not to parks as they were the stomping grounds of the rich. But certainly to the ordinary street scape. Almost all the city centre sections in both Cities were cut and cover. I don’t think many people back then cared if a few trees were killed, they were more concerned with practical issues like putting food on the table and not contracting TB

😡 I’m really starting to get pissed off at the moaners here who don’t want this project for really petty reasons. So for ye, I will state the bleeding obvious.

DUBLIN WILL BE ECONOMICALLY UN-VIABLE TO WORK AND TO DO BUSINESS IN IF WE DO NOTHING ABOUT THE CHRONIC TRAFFIC PROBLEM WHICH IS GETTING WORSE EVERY YEAR. SO GIVE IT A BREAK, GET REAL AND GET WITH THE PROGRAMME.

Luas is NOT good enough. If it was, they would have planned a cheaper low capacity Luas line instead a more expensive medium capacity Metro Tram line. Then there is the high capacity DART Interconnector, the most important of all the projects, without it the rail system in Dublin will grind to a halt due to congestion on the existing lines.

I not happy at what is happening to the Green, or the monuments/statues, but I know that in 25 years nobody would have given a shite as the statues and monuments will still be there, covered in bird shit and new trees in The Green would have started to mature. The difference this time is than we’ll have 2 quality underground rail lines through the heart of the city and nobody will have remembered the inconvenience of the construction.

@weehamster wrote:

I’m really starting to get pissed off at the moaners here who don’t want this project for really petty reasons.

You can put your block capitals away weehamster. Where did i state that i didn’t want the project or that it wasn’t necessary ? The interconnector and to a lesser extent, metro north, are crucial infrastructure projects for the city, thats not the issue. If you’d read back through any of the thread you’d realise that much of the comment was concerned with alternative construction sites to SSG that could be reinstated exactly as is, i.e. not permanently altered.

To see O’Connell Street being dug up again a few years after its been completed is frustrating, but necessary it seems, and anyway, nobody should know the difference once all is done.

Why the adjacent under utilised road space cannot be used to at least reduce the impact on the green has not been answered, and that is pretty much the point.

At the end of the day, yeah parts of the Green will be temporarily disrupted but the Long Term benefits to Dublin could/ should be enormous. I for one am willing to put up with an untidy St Stephen’s Green for a number of years if it is for the common good. It is more important now than ever to get the Interconnector and Metro North built. Terrible decisions in the past have left us where we are today, the result being a traffic ridden Dublin and virtually no Integration of Public Transport whatsoever

The point he is making is that the RPA are required to demonstrate 2 options and they have not… that’s the EU for you and that is what consultation is…

@Richie K wrote:

At the end of the day, yeah parts of the Green will be temporarily disrupted but the Long Term benefits to Dublin could/ should be enormous. I for one am willing to put up with an untidy St Stephen’s Green for a number of years if it is for the common good. It is more important now than ever to get the Interconnector and Metro North built. Terrible decisions in the past have left us where we are today, the result being a traffic ridden Dublin and virtually no Integration of Public Transport whatsoever

but Richie K what you haven’t discussed is how the LONG TERM BENEFIT to Dublin who be less if the workings were done in the Iveagh Gardens or if some such. Obviously it is too late for this debate, the tender documents have gone out and so on and so forth but it is silly to think the answer regarding the park has something to do with the long term benefit of the MN.

The reason the Green will be dug up has nothing to do with the TBMs being removed, the Green is being dug up to build a station underneath. The actual tunnels themselves do not require much surface intrusion. Taking the TBMs out in the Iveagh Gardens would make no difference to the Green.

@missarchi wrote:

The point he is making is that the RPA are required to demonstrate 2 options and they have not… that’s the EU for you and that is what consultation is…

during public consultation, the RPA presented three route options all terminating at Stephen’s Green, therfore they have fullfilled that requirement, and a combination of two route options was selected based on the public consultation process

@cgcsb wrote:

during public consultation, the RPA presented three route options all terminating at Stephen’s Green, therfore they have fullfilled that requirement, and a combination of two route options was selected based on the public consultation process

station options…;) which CIE have produced 3 for Heuston alone…

any way the CIE and RPA appear to be re tweaking there designs but I would only think minor things

@cgcsb wrote:

during public consultation, the RPA presented three route options all terminating at Stephen’s Green, therfore they have fullfilled that requirement, and a combination of two route options was selected based on the public consultation process

Indeed.

And, as they stated in the documentation, all of these three routes would terminate at St. Stephen’s Green where they would be able to integrate with Irish Rail’s proposed interconnector.

However, this all took place a full year before the interconnector route options had been presented to the public for any form of consultation.

When the various interconnector route “options” – all of them effectively the same – were eventually presented for consultation, interchange with the metro and LUAS at St. Stephen’s Green was a key factor.

These were somewhat circular justifications presented by both Irish Rail and the RPA.

The critical factor, i.e. the location of the interchange, a topic which is very relevant to this thread and which quite obviously would have influenced both Irish Rail and the RPA in their choice of routes, was never subject to any consultation.

Stephen’s Green was the only option for the Metro and Interconnector because it had to meet up with the Luas, and much more convenient for the main shopping, business, and nightlife areas than College Green, which is not much more then a big traffic junction these days.

Fergal, have you read the whole thread?

Figures? Really? You need figures to prove that SSG and the area around it have more activity in retail, office employment and nightlife than College Green. Go for a walk.

If the Metro terminus was moved to College Green, I assume that there would be no stop at O’Connell Bridge, or Parnell Square, and there would be a stop at about the Carlton on O’Connell street.

Comparing these two options, and what amenities and parts of the city are served best by them:

Stephen’s Green Option (with stops O’Connell bridge, Parnell Square)
Closer to:
Shopping on Grafton Street, King Street
Offices on Baggot Street, Leeson Street, Mount Street.
Goverment Buildings
Museums on Kildare Street
Nightlife on Harcourt Street, Aungier Street, Georges Street
Temple Bar (from O’Connell Bridge)
Museums on Parnell Square and the Gate (Also one of the densest residential areas in the city)
The Rotunda

Equal distance to:
Luas Red Line
Henry Street
Parnell Street

Further from:
Trinity College.

The College Green option seems to be worse, or no better for access to any part of the city, with the exception of Trinity college, which is already served by a DART stop on its doorstep.

I know College Green is the real centre of Dublin, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that it has been badly neglected for a long time now, and is not a significant location for business, shopping, or entertainment. The action in the city centre is based around Henry and Grafton streets, and College Green is just a spot in the middle.

@Fergal wrote:

If the Metro terminus was moved to College Green, I assume that there would be no stop at O’Connell Bridge, or Parnell Square, and there would be a stop at about the Carlton on O’Connell street.

Fergal, if you read the thread I think you will find that nobody on it has been proposing that the metro terminus would be at College Green.

I know I have certainly never suggested any such thing, anywhere, and I’m not aware of anyone who has ever promoted such an idea.

It does appear that there is still some misunderstanding about the difference between an interchange (where two or more lines meet) and a terminus (where one or more lines terminate). This misunderstanding also manifested itself during an earlier sub-discussion on the thread.

Perhaps you could rewrite your post to take account of this.

I did skim the whole thread. It seemed to me that terminating the Metro at College Green was what was being proposed. I know there were also proposals to build the station over the roadway around the Green, although I don’t think the roadway is wide enough to avoid damaging the Green. And Stephen’s Green has the advantage of being an interchange between the Luas, Dart and Metro, which is something that would be very hard to replicate elsewhere, especially as the original plan to join the Green Line and Metro North is never likely to be done, due to major technical difficulties.
If you could spell out your vision for how the Metro, Luas and Dart should be laid out in the city centre I would genuinely be very interested in hearing it.
I do recognise that damaging the Green is a shame, but I would not say it is a tragedy, and in this case, the rewards more than make up for it.

this is what I wanted two sketches…

I don’t have a problem with the metro north route city centre I have a problem with the station location options that I never saw…

Alonso what do you think about interconnector hitting college green/bridge then connolly or
college green pearse… Would the numbers be better? 😉 csgb is going to come in and say you cannot build any where near it (connolly) but i’m sure there is somewhere west or south 😉 they count 5600 on off for docklands. It is really worth connecting docklands? instead of connolly without a hop… they have already built a load of bollocks on top of it:D and it has a luas connection or is the plan to shut connolly down?

You asked for my comment and here it is. Are you suggesting building a station on the interconnector line under connolly? That station is already operating above capacity. The section from College Green To Pearse risks disturbing the foundations of Trinity. The congestion on College Green would only get worse if there were a dart station there because there’ll be thousands of extra pedestrians and no where for them to fit on the allready chocoblock sidewalks. it may be ok though if a more pedestrian friendly enviornment is created on the Green and Dublin bus stops it’s policy of forcing every bus in it’s fleet down there. Besides what’s wrong with connecting the two DART lines at Pearse via Stephen’s Green? It’s the most practical option

cgcsb here is a quick stab with the crayons…
Im not saying inter connector is wrong just what if… around the connolly no go?
6 could be moved south one block…

“the college green triangle” another reason for one gauge if CIE are going to 4 track the north line would it not be better to have a express route via the airport + metro north? straight into college green??? I mean do they have the space to expand the line…
there is also the idea that metro north will not run at capacity for quite some while…

Contract based on undermining planning code cannot be enforced

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0112/1231515545183.html

Given the economic downturn, the prospects of St. Stephen’s Green being destroyed in the near future are probably limited.

Perhaps this is the time to have a good look at all the public transport options for Dublin. Most particularly, in relation to this thread, the location of “Grand Central”.

I wouldn’t be too sure Seamus; the problem the government has is that it needs a stimulus package but the market for Irish bonds is so bad we can’t borrow to fund one, hence the deflationary public service pay cut just when deflation is a problem. If the MN consortia are able to finance the building of the metro against the metro as an asset, I’d say the government will go ahead.

Maybe, notjim. However, even if the successful metro consortium can come up with the readies – and I hope they can – the prospect of this location being the site of an interchange in the foreseeable future is somewhat remote, as no Irish Government is going to be spending 2 billion+ on Irish Rail’s line for some considerable time.

The next step should surely be to encourage the relevant authorities to continue the planned metro a bit to the South – Harold’s Cross, perhaps – so that what is to be built at St. Stephen’s Green is no more than a straightforward metro station. (That is, the turnback facilities would be located away from the Green).

Construction of a straightforward metro station at St. Stephen’s Green might even be possible without any impact whatsoever on the park itself.:)

This project is dead it was entirely predicated on unrealistic growth projections that the economy would grow at 5% plus per year. As not Notjim rightly points out less is definitely more in the current climate and retaining a government agency for a project where the funds aren’t there to build will go down wonderfully when teachers, nurses and gardai are asked to take a 20% pay cut.

I fully agree with Notjim the only way this will be delivered is if a private operator can make it work; there are some funds available for the big infrastructure players who are not too highly geared such as Hoctief but whether they would commit €3bn to this when they could have Gatwick Airport which carries 30m plus passengers and is already built for less than €2.5bn is unclear. What is clear is that exchequer needs to be very prudent going forward as the next S & P downgrade unlike the last will affect the price paid for existing debt.

Totem poles be gone with them above and below…

the old super pole

@missarchi wrote:

the old super pole

I don’t think that a couple of lamp posts errected by the local council will mitigate the destruction of the only decent City Centre public recreation space the city has

@original post by Peter F wrote:

No amount of money will return the green to what we have now – a perfectly maturing & indeed a perfect city park, its integrity will be destoryed. It has survived intact for near on 130 years & yet in 2008 this generation sees fit to thoroughly vandalise it.

It seems the final decision lies with John Gormley as this level of vandalism will require an amendment to the 1877 St. Stephen’s Green Act.

John Gormley, you cannot let this happen

Nor starving the rest of Dublin’s transport budget to give Boomie Bertie his Drumcoundra monument.

No amount of money will return the green to what we have now

Money? No. Time? Yes.

Nor starving the rest of Dublin’s transport budget to give Boomie Bertie his Drumcoundra monument.

These attitudes are short sighted. It does not just go to drumcondra as you know well, and luasanna everywhere will not cut it. This will be a central spine in Dublins network, off of which a larger more integrated system can be supported. A well educated work force just doesnt cut it anymore in such a competitive global economy, not to mention the damage to Irelands reputation and capability in the future should the project be withdrawn. Im just repeating myself from Metro North thread :/

@ihateawake wrote:

Money? No. Time? Yes.

These attitudes are short sighted. It does not just go to drumcondra as you know well, and luasanna everywhere will not cut it. This will be a central spine in Dublins network, off of which a larger more integrated system can be supported. A well educated work force just doesnt cut it anymore in such a competitive global economy, not to mention the damage to Irelands reputation and capability in the future should the project be withdrawn. Im just repeating myself from Metro North thread :/

Agree with you 100%

The report has much going for it but I was let down by this item

“cultural heritage” and “high quality interchange”

Almost every country in Europe has culture in interchanges…

Greece, Italy, London, Sweden, Paris you name it they have got every thing from buried ruins to contemporary architecture…

Busaras has a little as well you might say…

@missarchi wrote:

The report has much going for it but I was let down by this item

“cultural heritage” and “high quality interchange”

If one looks at the number of areas that were to be Dublin’s cultural quarter with great fanfare reams of consulatants reports etc I guess at

1992 Temple Bar
1998 Smithfield
2002 IFSC
2004 Hueston
2007 Grand Canal Square

What makes you think the state would purchase some of the most valuable real estate in Europe to deliver what they have failed to deliver constantly in the past in areas where planning conditions could be used to deliver it at a much reduced price.

yeh but how much would it cost to purchase that amount of developed land in the office core of the city

@alonso wrote:

yeh but how much would it cost to purchase that amount of developed land in the office core of the city

They don’t need to but it would enhance any future proposals.
I’m more pleased with the elevators in St Stephens Green unless they put them in the shopping centres or retail there is also space in some of the lanes… but they need to set them back at least 1.4m in the park
Plan B is semi validated you only need to look at the sizing reports…

http://www.rpa.ie/Documents/Metro%20North/Metro%20North%20RO%20Oral%20Hearing%20Evidence/MN%20RO%20Oral%20Hearing%20Supporting%20Documentation/Station%20Sizing%20Report%20March%202009/Station%20sizing%20-%20Final%20Reportv2_Part2.pdf

(min)

5.6m platform x 2 (2040)
13 ticket gates
198 m sq. concourse
4 escalators onto the platform
Staircase 2.6m wide to interconnector
4.1 metre wide passage way to platform

The OPW used to own it but in their wisdom sold it off. Now it’s owned by RCSI with Bernard McNamara involved in the leasehold in a messy way.

@Global Citizen wrote:

I could never understand why The Green would need to be disturbed to facilitate any underground rail service.
On its south east corner sits an ugly office block once owned by Eircom.
Few would lament it’s demolition, if it were to rise up again as a multi purpose building above a multi purpose underground.

I totally agree with the suggestion of relocating the terminus to underneath the Eircom building. I had exactly the same thought myself some time ago but I despaired that it would be worth mentioning as we seemed to be so close to a start date for getting the project off the ground.

Perhaps now, with a possible delay in the offing, it would be worth re-looking at other options, such as the Eircom building, which might not only benefit Stephen’s Green but might also allow the redevelopment of a corner of ‘The Green’.

It seems to make perfect sense.

The Eircom building is now getting to the stage that it probably is not up to the standard that companies are looking for in modern office space.
It will probably end up being demolished and rebuilt in the next 10 – 15 years anyway, (if the economy ever picks back up).

If the Eircom site is used:

1. The building can be demolished.
2. Site excavated.
3. Underground infrastructure put in place – with links into College of Surgeons, travellators installed for quick access to Grafton St, King St etc.
4. Retail, cultural infrastructure installed at underground and ground level.
5. Energy efficient, 21st century office space on upper floors.
6. Initial outlay for acquisition of office block recouped with sale/ lease of development.

Result:

1. Underground infrastructure in place.
2. 100 – 200 year old trees in Stephen’s Green intact.
3. Ugly, (moving towards obsolescent), office building replaced with 21st century office, retail, cultural infrastructure.

Sounds like an idea worth exploring to me!

The Eircom building is not one that would be demolished for a number of reasons;

1. Block C starts 2 floors down
2. Daimer Hall is protected
3. Eircom is good space with functional air-con etc

If you were going down that route it would be more likely that Russell House / Stokes Place owned by Treasury Holdings would be the one as it will be redeveloped in a manner capable of delivering a higher percentage uplift in floor space due to a road network and surface carpark forming a large proportion of the site.

It is however more remote and developing underground pedestrian routes under buildings is very time consuming. A Cross rail interchange will open at Tottenham Court Road W1 in 2016, TfL have already taken vacant possession of a number of the buildings that will form part of that scheme as of Feb 2009 a full 7 years prior to completion.

I fully agree that St Stephens Green cannot be wantonly destroyed in the manner proposed but equally I can’t see the location for a rail terminus inside the canals without disproportionate expense or irreversable destruction.

Is Daimer Hall the Unitarian church?

@PVC King wrote:

The Eircom building is not one that would be demolished for a number of reasons;

1. Block C starts 2 floors down
2. Daimer Hall is protected
3. Eircom is good space with functional air-con etc

Points 1 and 3 are poor reasons why the Eircom building sould be ruled out as a potential site for the metro station.
So what if block C starts 2 floors down.

And is the fact that the place has fabulous air conditioning hardly a good reason to preserve it ?

I think the park in Stephens Green provides far more air conditioning for the centre of Dublin.

@Global Citizen wrote:

Points 1 and 3 are poor reasons why the Eircom building sould be ruled out as a potential site for the metro station.
So what if block C starts 2 floors down.

And is the fact that the place has fabulous air conditioning hardly a good reason to preserve it ?

I think the park in Stephens Green provides far more air conditioning for the centre of Dublin.

The point being made is simply that the three Eircom blocks are good commercial space that have a solid commercial value of hundreds of millions of pounds; due to extensive site coverage and the space remaining in good condition there is not sufficient commercial angle in demolishing these buildings to replace them with alternative structures. The fact that Block C starts 2 floors down means that if you built a station concourse you would remove existing space and remove the ability to add more space within existing building lines or the increased building lines that would be acceptable to planners. When the external air temperature is 30c no neighbouring space will provide a comfortable working environment; given the amount of IT equipment that a telecoms company uses M & E services are vital to productivity.

In situations where the space is of poor quality and site coverage low by modern standards there would be a clear angle and it would be possible to ask the developer for a significant development levy. If you demolish the Eircom holding you might create a 30% uplift in value and face a development levy of 20-30% removing any incentive to do it as the development risks would outweigh what would be likely to be a net single digit return on what would be very significant investment. In contrast the railway sidings at both Inchicore and Spencer Dock would have no opportunity cost.

@NotJim wrote:

Is Daimer Hall the Unitarian church?

Yes the Unitarian Church is called Daimer Hall and is a very fine example of a Victorian Neo-Gothic Church; if it survived the late 1970’s and early 1980’s I’d be confident it would not be at risk unless relocated stone by stone to an appropriate location but even that would concern very many people.

Thanks PVC King, I didn’t know the name of the Unitarian Church and yes, if it survived the building of the Eircom Building it can hopefully survive anything. This is completely off-topic but I would love to know what’s going to happen with all the RCSI owned buildings around here; there is a big court battle over the Eircom Building but there are also all these rumours that RCSI is thinking off moving, added to that, the DIT property on Aungiers street would be an obvious expansion for them.

the past…

@notjim wrote:

Is Daimer Hall the Unitarian church?

yes – http://ireland.archiseek.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/stephens_green/west_unitarian_church.html

I came accross this. Did this appear earlier. Maybe not.

do you know when it dates from Devin ?

Date not given, but it looks to me to be about 1890-1910.

It has fog of western front feel about it! cold winter…
Where do I go for a hot chocolate?

@Devin wrote:

Date not given, but it looks to me to be about 1890-1910.

Looks like it, many of the trees siginificantly pre-date the green’s formal layout in 1880.

@Devin wrote:

Date not given, but it looks to me to be about 1890-1910.

Doesn’t traitor’s gate commerorate the Boer War? Would that place it 1910 at the earliest:confused:

The Boer War ended in 1901 so i would suggest middle to end of the decade. The Arch looks quite new and clean.

@tommyt wrote:

Doesn’t traitor’s gate commerorate the Boer War?

Exactly the type of langauge used in the 1960’s to justify the destruction of a lot of fine buildings as they were ‘colonial relics’ according to the mohair suit brigade.

Regardless of age it is a fine piece of work in classical style that could hold its own anywhere in Europe but these arches are rarely as well executed due to the exceptional quality of craftsmenship and perfect symmetry to its original setting.

I note David Slattery was the conservation consultant to the RPA, he doesn’t really have a very long track record in non-development situations or non-profits.

It is interesting how they went from pulling it down to retaining.
There is a drawing somewhere on the RPA website don’t expect any dimensions

The whole multi-billion euro Metro proposal should be put on hold since the country is allegedly bankrupt and the tax payer burdened with enough debt.

New buses will suffice for the time being!

A present cultureless buffoon Taoiseach who was former minister for finance and who was totally unaware of the impending global downturn in the markets and the impending finacial crisis despite enough warnings, and who never put something by for a rainy day either (while we were rolling in it), would pursue such an idea in these times.

@GregF wrote:

The whole multi-billion euro Metro proposal should be put on hold since the country is allegedly bankrupt and the tax payer burdened with enough debt.

New buses will suffice for the time being!

A present cultureless buffoon Taoiseach who was former minister for finance and who was totally unaware of the impending global downturn in the markets and the impending finacial crisis despite enough warnings, and who never put something by for a rainy day either (while we were rolling in it), would pursue such an idea in these times.

I’m not sure putting more people out of work in the construction sector and clogging the streets with more buses is necessarily the most “cultured” option.

@PVC King wrote:

I note David Slattery was the conservation consultant to the RPA, he doesn’t really have a very long track record in non-development situations or non-profits.

Ahh David Slattery – the bane of conservation campaigners everywhere! Whenever there’s a few ‘awkwardly located’ historic buildings on a development site, he’s the one to call. All the big developers use him, though I don’t know why. His reports are stone age affairs – photos and bits of text glued on to a page, then colour-copied – and he still dines out on his restoration of the Custom House 20 years.

business park?
Will modernism traditionalism and national treasure combine?

@GregF wrote:

The whole multi-billion euro Metro proposal should be put on hold since the country is allegedly bankrupt and the tax payer burdened with enough debt.

More interesting has been the complete wipe out of the greens; instead of pushing unviable metro’s in the Times Eammon Ryan would have been far better stopping other white elephants such as the Carlow to Waterford Dual Carriageway and Western Rail corridor.

Thankfully the global picture looks a lot better of late and a recovery is coming next year, but in an economy that is growing at any less than 8% a year this project is decades away from viabilitiy.

TT

I knew that if I thought you were serious I’d not have said it!

so you’re saying only a Celtic Tiger economy (8% grovth) can build rail? That’s a bit much. Any transport investment that makes sense in a boom retains it’s logic in a dovvnturn… in many vvay it makes even more sen$e coz con$truction co$t$ are lovver

@alonso wrote:

so you’re saying only a Celtic Tiger economy (8% grovth) can build rail? That’s a bit much. Any transport investment that makes sense in a boom retains it’s logic in a dovvnturn… in many vvay it makes even more sen$e coz con$truction co$t$ are lovver

Oh indeed, that sounds logical, but realistically and materially, the Irish tax payer is all of a sudden burdened with massive debts, so where is this billions of euro money to be found when the government coffers are non existant?

Can’t we leave this argument for the other thread so we can avoid reading it.

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=6511&page=11

@tommyt wrote:

@PVC King wrote:

Exactly the type of langauge used in the 1960’s to justify the destruction of a lot of fine buildings as they were ‘colonial relics’ according to the mohair suit brigade.

I agree PVCK, I am from impeccable west brit stock meself, all my mother’s family took the queen’s shilling and it is my heritage, AFAIK I have distant relations shamefully commemorated on that arch-I just think it’s one of the great Dubcentric term for our numerous monumental follies-now renaming the streets who were named after obscure lord lieutenants and minor married-in royalty in favour of philo, oul brendan behan, bang bang and the like, that’s my particular drum banging soapbox;)

Excellent post. Destroying Stephen’s Green would be an unmitigated act of vandalism. So what if these buildiings/parks were built by a now deposed oligarchy – they represent the most beautiful parts of Dublin (only beautiful parts of Dublin).

@notjim wrote:

Can’t we leave this argument for the other thread so we can avoid reading it.

Indeed. Any further cost-benefit analysis done on metro north should include the quality of life improvement on not having to read the same two posts over and over again on every discussion board in the country if they just build the feckin thing.

Tender bids are below 2 Billion.
Paid for with infrastructure bond at 5%.
Thousands off the dole during construction of 4/5 years, with social security savings and added VAT and tax receipts.
Political will firmly behind it.
Not looking good for the anti metro constituency……..
only thing left for them are misinformation rants on message boards.

I am not going to respond to Marmajam again as always he waffles on with bland generalities such as linking bonds and solving unemployment without a rats as to how either operates. I will however say 3 things

One; I will not continue to remind of the economic reality there is enough economic analysis the most recent downgrade of soveriegn debt by Standard and Poors today. However if prudent public finances finally arrive this will probably mark the floor of negative sentiment towards what is a truely dreadful fiscal position. Talk of white elephants doesn’t assist international perception of a balooning deficit.

Two – the infrastructure bond would be subordinate debt to ordinary NTMA debt and if a bond were likely to default which it isn’t but if it were the government would if they were smart pay senior debt and put infrastructure bonds for completed projects to one side so as to protect their ability to raise even more senior debt; subordinate is junk in the medium term if things go wrong. The premium for secondary debt would be at least 150 bp in a good market so taking that senior debt at at about 530 bp that gives a minimum interest rate of 6.80% or €136m a year to fund without repaying the capital that is assuming the RPA actually don’t over-run as per usual. I can think of better uses for an annual liability of €136m in the context of the scarcity of money.

Three – the unemployment in the construction industry is in all reality structural; there was an army assembled to deliver 100,000 resi units a year, that demand won’t be around for a decade if again ever. People need to emmigrate, Brian Lennihan senior should have been celebrated for that statement in the 1980’s and not pilloried. You never know they might even get somewhere where a metro link to the airport stacks up.

If the public finances are brought under control Ireland Inc has a great future, well educated people with an edge for deals only problem is is if you spend scarce spend money on infrastructure and not cutting edge education the whole attraction of paying one of the highest salary bases in the World (deservidly so at present education levels) evaporates. Its all about patience globally things are levelling out.

You’re a naked and not very bright bluffer PVC Queen. Every argument self defeated by the usual schoolboy howler.
I guess the reason you’re spouting this psuedo economic guff here is because you’d be laughed out of it in the appropriate forum. You’ve studied the subject but understood nothing.
At a capital cost of less than 2 billion, income from MN will more than pay the debt. Savings on social security, plus tax and vat revenue from construction and employment, more than pay costs during construction.
Unless we adopt your plan of shipping 100,000 overseas……………..
I love the way you slip in fantasy nonsense arguments to hold your whole estate agent economic ideology together.
On the contrary construction of MN will send out positive signals.

Wait now for more gobbledegook jargon – the prance of the 7 hundred veils.

Get a room.

In my humble opinion, the ‘R word’ that I will not say aloud is 90% hype. Continually talking about how dreary things are can only make the situation worse. I must say I dissaprove of PVC’s stance of give in to the recession, throw in the towel and let our young talent emigrate. At least building infrastucture projects is doing something positive even if it’s not profitable right away, it will provide some economic dividends. Better to build the metro, create employment, cut carbon emmisions, collect income tax revenue from that employment and enjoy the lasting impact of good public transport, rather then spend the money getting private businessmen out of debt

@PVC King wrote:

I
People need to emmigrate .

People only need to emigrate because once again there is nothing here for them. Much of the blame for this can be attributed to the way in which we handled our environment and land over the past 15 years and how we sacrificed sustainable necessary infrastructure such as the interconnector, Metro north, Luas Lines, SChools, Hospitals, Colleges, Water and Wastewater, Broadband, Wind Farms etc etc etc in the name of building houses houses and more houses all over the shagging place. Now we need to redress that GAPING hole in our infrastructure and investing in it now has the double whammy of costing less while saving on welfare plus avoiding the brutal impact emigration can have on a society.

Ireland did not benefit one bit from decades of emigration. The country is a basket case again and only last weekend did we as a nation begin to reject cowboy gangsterism to any great degree. Maybe we should opt for a different approach this time and try to retain our brightest rather than ship them out, primarily permanently, to benefit other societies.

It is claimed that the construction of a train line to the airport which would not be on mainline rail is bad practice:

Metro North project questioned

BRIAN KAVANAGH

THE CONSTRUCTION of Dublin’s controversial Metro North rail system will not guarantee maximum accessibility to Dublin airport.

Moreover, it will not ensure the airport’s future as a vital travel hub, a new planning report argues.

A Spatial Vision for Dublin was published yesterday at the Stephen’s Green Hibernian Club, by members of the Dublin City Business Association, which commissioned the report, and author Hendrik van der Kamp.

Although Metro North has been touted by the Government as central to Dublin’s economic development, speculation intensified at the beginning of the year that the project would be shelved due to an estimated cost of some €5 billion.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has proposed deferring the project and prioritising smaller, more labour-intensive construction initiatives.

The report uses the example of Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, which it says, like Dublin airport, was for a long time poorly served by public transport, relying almost solely on bus connections to Amsterdam and other cities across the Netherlands.

It found that the deliberate effort to create a working main network railway station in the airport, rather than a mere shuttle rail service to and from the city centre, proved a huge success.

The report also claims that Dublin should not be satisfied with simply connecting the airport with the city centre, as mainline rail access has proven a model of success across Europe.

“It may be of benefit to see Belfast, Dublin and Shannon connected together through a single high-speed railway line, which would link up the three major airports in the country,” Mr van der Kamp. said. “It would provide a . . . fast connection to the west of Ireland, and Galway could be connected to this via the Western Rail Corridor.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0610/1224248536121.html

well it’s too late in the planning process now. Just build the shaggin thing and get this 10 year saga over with. Isn’t construction to begin in September? it cant come fast enough, cos at this stage I’m sick of hearing of people cominig out with aledgedly brilliant alternitive solutions when construction is 3 months away. They had years to voice their opinion and chose not to.

The IMF will just freeze the thing if they come in to put our expenses in order. Surely there are cheaper options than something costing five billion euro? I mean, you could bail out Anglo-Irish once with that.

havent the costs been reduced to €3bn because of the downturn?

This tripe is from the IT where the tree hugging Frank MacDonald and his betters have been relentlessing briefing against MN.
They keep referring to the cost as 5 Billion. This is like saying that your 300,000 house cost 700,000 since that’s what you’ll pay over the 30 year mortgage.
However I have been informed that the consortia bids have come in below 2 Billion.
They also tried a scare article last year about traders being up in arms at the cut and cover of O’Connell St (it will be tunnelled).
They are a disgrace.
Look at who commissioned the study.
The DCBA have always been against MN. Shock!…they arrange a report against MN.
Further, they failed to research their facts.
Schipol is in the Randstand which has a population of 10m in an area the size of Munster.
That is the rationale for a mainline link there.
Funnily they are planning a link to the Amsterdam metro as it turns out………..wait for it………….Schipol is not accessible enough.
As I said the IT is a disgrace.

The airport link is only one component of MN.

The mainline option was looked at but decided against as it would have involved big investment for limited benefit. It will have it’s day in the longer term.
MN was decided on with it’s potential as (a) an important spine and link in creating a very necessary public transport system for Dublin and (b) as a spur to investment and develpment in Nth Co Dublin.

If you follow the IT take on this it is clear they are in the camp of that other odd academic Barret (Professor of transport economics Trinity)
He is against public transport investment and wants the money spent on more roads.

Interestingly, shortly after both LUAS lines were opened he wrote a long article in the IT saying the lesson of LUAS is that no more money should be spent on rail lines. At that point it was anticipated that a subvention would be required for LUAS. LUAS has been such a success the subvention was never needed and runs at an operating profit.
Barret seems to have gone quiet on that issue.

In my opinion any report that mentions the WRC lacks any credibility

@cgcsb wrote:

havent the costs been reduced to €3bn because of the downturn?

That’s why Enda wants to defer it until the prices skyrocket again :rolleyes:

And the notion that somehow connecting the major airports by rail, mentioned here as Shannon, Dublin and Belfast is of value. Can somebody explain that?

@kefu wrote:

And the notion that somehow connecting the major airports by rail, mentioned here as Shannon, Dublin and Belfast is of value. Can somebody explain that?

Because when you book a flight from Dublin to Timbuktu for 5 euros on Ryanair, and then realize it’ll take you 10 hours and 100 euros to get to Dublin airport, you say to yourself: “Why the fuck isn’t there a mainline rail connection to the busiest airport in the country?”

I can definitely see the benefit of linking Dublin airport by rail to Belfast – for Belfast people. Maybe the British government could be prevailed upon to pay for it.

Its like everything has turned into boards.ie

Kennedy rejects criticisms of Metro North’s access to airport
Posted on 11/06/09 by Michael Kennedy

Michael Kennedy, Dublin North Fianna Fáil TD and campaigner for Metro North, has rejected claims that the transport project will not provide sufficient accessibility to Dublin airport.

Deputy Kennedy said: “According to a recent news article on the planning report by the Dublin City Business Association, the Metro North project ‘will not guarantee maximum accessibility to Dublin airport.’”

“I wholeheartedly disagree with this misleading claim and the insinuation that Metro North won’t deliver an efficient service for people travelling to the airport.”

“The fact of the matter is that when Metro North is completed, it will ensure that passengers will get from the city centre to Dublin Airport in 17 minutes. Can you get more a more accessible service than that?”

“We are the only country in Europe whose capital city does not have a rail link to the airport. The service will revolutionise transportation modes for every citizen in this country.”

Deputy Kennedy has also hit back at suggestions from members of Fine Gael that major projects like Metro North should be put on hold in the face of the current economic climate.
“We learned the hard way in the past that delaying major infrastructural projects can have a strong negative impact on the progress of our economy,” he said.
“To suggest that stalling the Metro project will somehow reverse the current economic situation is both misleading and incorrect and I am pleased that this government has the foresight to be able to make this crucial decision now.”
“The Indecon report commissioned by Fingal County Council indicates that up to 37,000 jobs could be created in the new Metro North economic corridor from Ballymun to Swords. This is a major incentive to bring this plan to fruition.”
“Projects like Metro are vital for our economic progress. The project itself will provide major employment for the building sector while also giving some of the farthest reaches of Dublin and the surrounding counties a quick rail link to the city – and this has its own economics benefits,”

“Like the Luas before it, Metro North will incentivise people to choose the environmentally friendly option and get out of their cars and onto public transport. This project will single-handedly take 20,000 cars off the roads,” added Deputy Kennedy.

@jdivision wrote:

In my opinion any report that mentions the WRC lacks any credibility

Any reference to the ultimate politically motivated elephant certainly causes concern. The point that is however well made is that rail links that aren’t integrated don’t do well as they do not provide the requisite connectivity. Frankfurt is a great example of how to do it right it has a mix of direct connections to the CC and intercity express trains that stop there. For example someone from Koln or Stuttgart can get on in their city and go direct Metro North offers nothing to the national rail network.

I can definitely see the benefit of linking Dublin airport by rail to Belfast – for Belfast people. Maybe the British government could be prevailed upon to pay for it.

Airports generate jobs, Belfast is a small regional airport which leaves the population with two choices for most destinations, transfer flight via Heathrow or go overland via Dublin. Anything that adds a population of 500,000 plus people to your catchment is a good thing as it has the potential to increase passenger loadings driving down fares or increasing profitability.

Ireland did not benefit one bit from decades of emigration

Ireland benefitted massively from Emmigration as the financial resources, skills and ideas brought back to Country by returning emmigrants were crucial to the economic turnaround in the 1990’s. Living in Boston, London or Hong Kong is problem in what respect?

Projects like Metro are vital for our economic progress. The project itself will provide major employment for the building sector while also giving some of the farthest reaches of Dublin and the surrounding counties a quick rail link to the city

A lot of the jobs on the project will be highly specialist and will be undertaken by people from overseas; in the case of the port tunnel a large proportion of the workers were brought in because there is no tunneling industry. How many people will be directly employed and of that number how many will be unemployed construction workers. €100,000 a job done via the IDA where the average job lasts 10 -20 years or similar amounts in post graduate training targetting specific industries are the only sustainable ways to buy the country out of an unemployment in the medium to long term.

The guy is also getting very carried away with his multiple Counties; I know Fingal is now an independent constituency but that is stretching it way too far. The catchment is far to small for the price tag. It may be the most direct way from Stephens Green to Swords in linear terms but the subsidy required is simply not sustainable; the latest S & P downgrade means perception needs to be tight fiscal control.

PVC I vvas referring to long term emigration, the hundreds of thousands that are lost forever. It took 40 years to truly recover from the emptying of the island in the 1950’s and the turnaround in the 90’s had more to do vvith the demography and education of those that remained, as vvell as 1 or 2 major interventions such as FDI and the IFSC that vvere both results of the above factors as vvell as our lovv corporation tax regime.

VVhile i’m no fan of hyperbole and the grandstanding so beloved of our politicians vvhen it comes to “creating” jobs, I still fully believe that the benefits, even in the medium term vvill far outvveigh the costs. Not for one second vvill i ever claim that investment in transport vvill solve unemployment, but it vvill help. Firstly it vvill employ some directly – secondly, as vve savv in the 80’s along the DART (in vvorse socio-economic conditions) and the 00’s along the Luas, urban rail does attract and create employment. MN vvill make the economic engine of Ireland, Dublin Airport, infintely more accessible to the city centre making it easier both to do business and attract business. The catchment required to support it is there novv, the catchment to require an upgrade vvill be there by 2020.

Hold that thought for a decade and vve’ll come back as in fairness, none of us knovv the ansvvers.

If you were talking about Miami or Hong Kong airports I’d go for economic engine as both airports punch way above their weight in terms of passengers to population; they are hub airports where a large proportion of the passengers are connecting. Dublin Airport is far from the economic engine of Ireland it is simply a medium sized European airport offering flights to Europe and a limited number of North American cities; there is not one scheduled daily flight to Asia, West Africa or Latin America.

The economic engines of which there are many are the larger FDI projects such as IBM etc that are dotted all along the M50 and services such as the fund management industry and tax driven advertsing companies such as WPP which are based in the City Centre. Given the choice of office between identical buildings in Mount Street and Dublin Airport where would you want to work?

I agree that Urban Rail decides commercial location decisions but the question is not whether urban rail creates jobs; the real question is which investment in urban rail delivers most upside, clearly that is the interconnector.

I take your point on 1950’s emmigration it wasn’t pleasant and left a lot of rural communities devistated. I would however contend that unlike the 1950’s when the choices were how far you could get away depended on how much you had for the ticket that contemporary emmigration is different. People don’t land in Liverpool anymore with a brother or cousins address and an aspiration to peel carrots in a hotel.

The Irish workforce are very well regarded in the major global centres and the types of job secured are typically professional. I have no doubt that the Celtic Tiger would not have been on the same scale unless people returned from senior positions in the US, UK, Germany etc to bring in practical experience.

all good points PVC, esp on the “standards” of today’s emigrants. And yes the Interconnector is the closest thing to a silver bullet for Dublin transport. I think the main thrust of my argument would be the drastic need to prepare for the next upswing in our economic fortunes by borrowing to invest in infratructure while it’s at it’s cheapest but yeh fuck knows – i’m no big city economist, I just like new trains 😉

The labour thing is one thing but the IDA have had a decade to train for this?
Where people trained while the port tunnel was going? It was the time…
And send people overseas… Also the ticketing for luas is not controlled by an Irish company i.e the money? The luas is not made in Ireland? Are the tracks made in Ireland?
Was it even designed in Ireland?

2 lines better than one… If they are done correctly…

@missarchi wrote:

The labour thing is one thing but the IDA have had a decade to train for this?

The IDA have a clear mandate buy jobs that are likely to exist in 20 years time; they have a clear cost matrix that is proportional to the likely tax take from corporations profits and employees salaries. I have no doubt no transport infrastructure project would ever meet their very strict criteria.

@missarchi wrote:

Where people trained while the port tunnel was going? It was the time…
And send people overseas…

Great stream of consciousness; your point is?

@missarchi wrote:

Also the ticketing for luas is not controlled by an Irish company i.e the money?

They won it in a tender but no doubt the costs of ticketing are a minute proportion of the major inputs such as route, stations and ongoing costs such as energy, labour etc. Relevance?

@missarchi wrote:

The luas is not made in Ireland? Are the tracks made in Ireland?

Probably not, again rolling stock is a small proportion of overall cost. Relevance?

@missarchi wrote:

Was it even designed in Ireland?

Yes and that the same people are designing the Metro adds a very high risk factor to the project costs being in line with budget.

@missarchi wrote:

2 lines better than one… If they are done correctly…

And built in the right place; the region needs all projects to be ranked and prioritised in line with revised expectatations. If the proponents of this scheme are so confident what have they got to fear from a review based on sound principles of cost benefit analysis and comparison to International subvention levels including all input costs.

The land catchment a mile either side of any major rail line is going to attract a vastly disproportionate amount of commercial and residential activity. Which makes being careful with major investments all the more important in the context of a smaller investment pot.

Building a line on a different guage to the majority of the rail network and on a different ticketing system that interacts with just one existing branch line of the main rail network for the type of prices being discussed needs urgent review.

@cgcsb wrote:

well it’s too late in the planning process now. Just build the shaggin thing and get this 10 year saga over with. Isn’t construction to begin in September? it cant come fast enough, cos at this stage I’m sick of hearing of people cominig out with aledgedly brilliant alternitive solutions when construction is 3 months away. They had years to voice their opinion and chose not to.

Or maybe their opinions were ignored?

The people who produced the DRRTS in the ’70s came up with a significantly different East-West route between the Kildare line and the Northern line.

A shorter, cheaper route, which – in conjunction with the development of the metro north or the linking of the two LUAS lines – would result in overall efficiencies in passenger movement.

That proposal was clearly ignored. The public consultations about the interconnector only included the longer, more expensive, circuitous options via St. Stephen’s Green.

We’vve been discussing the reasons why St. Stephen’s Green is to be the location for the interchange for a while and, in my opinion, no coherent analysis of why this is preferable to a more central location has yet been presented.

As discussed earlier in the thread, we’ve yet to see any figures relating to projected passenger movements in the city which justify building a longer, more expensive route. Hopefully they will be forthcoming.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

That proposal was clearly ignored. The public consultations about the interconnector only included the longer, more expensive, circuitous options via St. Stephen’s Green.

We’vve been discussing the reasons why St. Stephen’s Green is to be the location for the interchange for a while and, in my opinion, no coherent analysis of why this is preferable to a more central location has yet been presented.

That is a very fair point there is a significant discrepancy between the DRRTS proposal and the interconnector in terms of route length and specific alignment and there are significant cost implications of extending the route.

Dublin as a medium density urban centre in the 1970’s was very much concentrated between say the Customs House and the Four Courts East to West and Parnell Square to Stephens Green North to South.

In the 1980’s the area between Harcourt Road and Lower Mount Street emerged as the main private sector office area. In the 1990’s areas such as IFSC, Grand Canal Quay emerged, in this decade this spread to Hannover Quay and Spencer Dock.

Areas such as Parnell Square stagnated and the former office mecca of College Green turned into outer temple bar i.e. its main function changed to leisure tilted at stag weekends.

What is clear is that Stephens Green is in employment terms probably the most intensively used location in Dublin; Pearse Station serves an area that was in the 1970’s decaying but has transformed into a viable educational and office quarter. Spencer Dock is now what Wilton Place was in the 1980’s and is surrounded by hundreds of acres of heavily leveraged development land which NAMA is crying out to see properly sefved by public transport. The area around Guiness is not much different.

As logical as your idea is to link Heuston and Tara Street or Connolly directly the chance to develop large scale projects along its route would be problematic due to the fact that so many ideal sites were developed as low quality low rise apartment buildings in the past 15 years. There would also be significant heritage concerns on virtually all the route from Customs House to Christchurch (Hawkins Street Excluded).

That is a very fair point there is a significant discrepancy between the DRRTS proposal and the interconnector in terms of route length and specific alignment and there are significant cost implications of extending the route.

Indeed.

Yet, as far as I am aware, we’ve not seen any official justification for the change in route alignment, and elevation of costs. When the line was presented for public consultation, the only justification for routing the interconnector through St. Stephen’s Green was that it would enable interchange with the LUAS, despite the fact that a preferred route for the LUAS link-up had already been selected, and this preferred link-up route would have brought other putative interchange locations into play.

Dublin as a medium density urban centre in the 1970’s was very much concentrated between say the Customs House and the Four Courts East to West and Parnell Square to Stephens Green North to South.

It’s still the busiest area though, isn’t it, in terms of where people actually are? (And, in volume terms, where they want to get to, and get from)

I mean, what other part of the city is continually busy 24 hours a day, seven days a week?

In the 1980’s the area between Harcourt Road and Lower Mount Street emerged as the main private sector office area. In the 1990’s areas such as IFSC, Grand Canal Quay emerged, in this decade this spread to Hannover Quay and Spencer Dock.

As a network is developed, ready access to Lower Mount Street should be achievable from Pearse Station and Grand Canal Dock. It already is, for users of the DART line. I wouldn’t see St. Stephen’s Green as a station of choice for people wishing to get to this street or its environs.

Similarly with Harcourt Road: it’s about 800 metres from the proposed interconnector station on St. Stephen’s Green, as the crow flies, and closer to a kilometre on foot along roads. (This is also, approximately, the case for important office areas like Fitzwilliam Place, Adelaide Road, Wilton Place/Terrace, etc).

I don’t think that Dublin should aspire to an end situation where, after significant investment, these important employment locations are so distant from the rail network.

In reality, these areas will eventually need to be properly connected to the network by the metro or LUAS.

It is, in my opinion, short-sighted, to build a longer, more expensive route when the reasons for this choice will be nullified by other infrastructural development which will need to take place if Dublin is to have a decent transport network..

As for the other areas which you mention, The IFSC (at Connolly) and Grand Canal Quay are already served by the existing parts of the proposed network, Spencer Dock will soon be served by the LUAS, which will connect with the DART, while Hannover Quay’s integration into the network may well also happen thanks to LUAS and Mr. Calatrava.:)

Areas such as Parnell Square stagnated and the former office mecca of College Green turned into outer temple bar i.e. its main function changed to leisure tilted at stag weekends.

Parnell Street, it seems to me, has turned a corner, and I do think you are doing College Green a disservice. It isn’t, I agree, the perfect spot at the moment, but even now – in its shabby state – it is much, much more than just a focal point for stag parties, as discussed earlier on this thread (and also on this one,)

According to the RPA’s presentation at the inquiry into the metro, there are a number of locations suitable for a metro/interconnector interchange. While they chose not to divulge the contents of their deliberations into the pros and cons of the various locations, I suspect that College Green would be among this number.

What is clear is that Stephens Green is in employment terms probably the most intensively used location in Dublin; Pearse Station serves an area that was in the 1970’s decaying but has transformed into a viable educational and office quarter. Spencer Dock is now what Wilton Place was in the 1980’s and is surrounded by hundreds of acres of heavily leveraged development land which NAMA is crying out to see properly sefved by public transport. The area around Guiness is not much different.

I think you are possibly using the term “St. Stephen’s Green” here as a general term for the Green itself, the neighbouring Georgian areas of Dublin, and the more modern developments between the Green and the Canal, as the numbers of people employed in St. Stephen’s Green would not be enormous in density terms, compared to several other areas of Dublin.

If this is the case, please remind yourself of my point about future development of the proposed network.

More importantly, you should also remember that the eventual network will not only be used by people who are employed in one particular place. It will be used by people who travel to and from locations for a whole host of reasons. Overall usage of the system, whether that be directly to a place of employment or for purposes which (by and large) generate employment, needs to be considered.

Pearse Station is already part of the network. As mentioned above, Spencer Dock soon will be with the arrival of the LUAS. And a shorter route probably would not have a different impact on the situation with Guinness.

As logical as your idea is to link Heuston and Tara Street or Connolly directly the chance to develop large scale projects along its route would be problematic due to the fact that so many ideal sites were developed as low quality low rise apartment buildings in the past 15 years. There would also be significant heritage concerns on virtually all the route from Customs House to Christchurch (Hawkins Street Excluded).

Well, in fairness, it is not my idea. As you know, it was produced in the 1970s by others, when I was but a chisler.:p

I really can’t see that development opportunities are going to be, or should be, a factor in the construction of much of this cross-city tunnel. As the city is pretty built up, in any case, within the areas which are being spoken about on this thread – whether along the proposed circuitous route, the shorter route proposed by the DRRTS, or some other route – development opportunities which are geographically closely related to the tunnel project are probably going to be minimal.

I would imagine that there will be development opportunities related to proximity to rail lines which can be put through the tunnel when it is built but I don’t see this as a particularly relevant factor which deserves imminent consideration when discussing the future of St. Stephen’s Green.

As for the heritage issue, one would guess that there will be concerns in the Christchurch area. But elsewhere?

The question you have to ask yourself is where is the centre of the city?
And that would have to be O’connell st bridge or the Carlyle group.

Most people will head west from tara?
Tara was put in when a metro was never possible In Ireland and it is to close to Pearce.
Tara with the bank and the river next to it is a lost opportunity.
Will docklands and the north wall bottle site happen in the next 20 years?
Should docklands get such an easy foot in the door and waste another 7 minutes when it is already so close to the city? should the sligo line be able to run into metro north at drumcondra or the junction into granny morgan? you could build a metro line to docklands instead of the circle bridge in another 10 years?

5:10 pretty amazing (the architecture is crap)

If the University of Regina in the U.S can do this for trees on their campus surely we can do the same for Stephen’s Green?Move the trees to a temporary location elsewhere in the green or the Phoenix park and when the metro work’s complete move them back.Giant tree spades can remove trees up to 40 inch’s across and lager trees can be moved by other means.
Simple!

Tree Relocation
In preparation for campus construction, the University of Regina initiated one of the largest tree moving projects in North America.

More than 240 trees, some up to 15 metres (60 feet) in height, were moved to locations around the University of Regina campus. Approximately 65 trees were cut down, as they were either in poor condition or too large to be moved successfully. The relocation took place in September 2002.

Trees moved include Scotch Pine, Colorado Spruce, American Elm, Green Ash, Little Leaf Linden, Shubert Chokecherry, Common Hackberry, Ornamental Crab, Golden Willow, Bur Oak, and Amur Maple.

Fast Facts
There are no naturally occurring trees in Regina; each tree on the University of Regina campus was hand planted.
The largest tree spade in North America – the 124-inch BIGGER DIGGER – was built in Alberta and used on the tree relocation project.
The tallest tree moved was a 15-metre Scotch Pine.
The total cost of the project was $350,000 – the replacement value of the trees moved was well in excess of $1 million.

There was an announcement this week that the LUAS green line is to be extended northward from St. Stephen’s Green to Broombridge. I welcome this,because it would remove the need for the proposed DART tunnel to be built through St. Stephen’s Green, though I am disappointed that funding doesn’t seem to be available for measures to reduce the obtrusiveness of the project in the centre of Dublin.

Actually, they’re building BXD in such a way that the DART station box can still be excavated after BXD has been built.

I’m sure I’m not describing this in a technical manner, but I hope yo understand what I mean :crazy: They’re going to do a lot of piling under the tracks during BXD construction. These will later act like stilts when DART and Metro stations are being excavated beneath them. You can see the drawings here.

DART Underground is the single most important transport project for Dublin, and WILL go ahead eventually. Stephen’s Green is the only sensible place to put a station in that area.

The Luas line extension doesn’t negate the need for either DART Underground or Metro North but it has been decided for now that this is the only one of these three infrastructure projects in the capital that will proceed. In my view there remains a very strong case for DART Underground to effectively link and reorder rail lines in the city.

Its true that shelving the DART and Metro projects does save the Green from being (probably significantly) compromised. There are still problems with the Green of course, more or less ignored by those in control in the city. St Stephen’s Green is a beautiful urban setpiece that has unfortunately been continuously compromised over the past few decades due to speculative development and local authority indifference. The latest blighting of the Green has been the dreadful street layout put in place about 2005 to facilitate one way traffic etc. It has created a large area of redundant space on the north side of the Green between Grafton and Dawson Streets that now functions as a taxi rank. The west side, dominated by the Luas stop is also poorly resolved. The other two sides have over engineered traffic lanes that diminished the street quality of the Green. Its all looks pants to me…but hey maybe it does exactly what it says on the tin.

I don’t know what readers views are on the proposed changes under the Luas project. Will it resolve the Green for the better?