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@Frank Taylor wrote:

Indeed it is.

The problem is that we don’t know the benefits or the costs, so the discussion is pointless. Describing an alternative route for which we also know neither costs nor benefits doesn’t help much.

The metro costs won’t be known to anyone until the final bid is made.

The key point in this is that the Luas option was not properly assessed; the solution proposed above provides the same ‘catchment’ routing in a segregated route to a point where two or three on street lines provide sufficient capacity for the long term while it is clear that a single Luas line is more than adequate for the present. Given that MN is a 100 year investment according to its supporters why can’t a 100 year approach to capacity building be implemented?

@Frank Taylor wrote:

The studies predicting the benefits have only been partially released and although the RPA has been updating their estimates regularly to compensate for the changing economy, these updated studies are also unpublished.

Even if we had full disclosure of the benefits and costs in advance it has to be remembered that the predictions are just that and that the calculation of benefits depends on a list of predictions about the long term future of inflation, the future prices of fuel, economic growth curves, European climate change policy.

The benefits study must place a EURO value on improved public health and other intangible benefits that don’t fit easily into a sum.

Externalities both positive and negative are considered in every project; however equally opportunity cost must be considered if MN were sanctioned it will lead to far deeper cost cuts elsewhere i.e. healthcare, education, alternative transport projects. Under huge pressure to green light this project in 2004 when money was abundant Dept Finance said no….

@Frank Taylor wrote:

One good thing about these cost benefit studies is that if they’re all done consistently it does give you a rough yardstick to compare a set of projects in the same sector. Presumably on this basis, the weaker projects have been discarded: Lucan & Rathfarnham Luas, Metro west, Cherrywood-Bray Luas, WRC…
Underground lines in Dublin including an airport metro were first proposed 35 years ago by the Dublin Rapid Rail Transit Study. We’ve had plenty of time to consider and refine this proposal and we have many oversight bodies to ensure that it’s worthwhile: Dept of finance, C&AG, ABP, Even the EIB has cast its rule over the project and agreed to invest.

I would draw your attention to the link you posted below and the Goodbody report which found the WRC was actually viable. When the clear truth is that it was a politically motivated unviable mess on delivery

@Frank Taylor wrote:

The project promoters haven’t done a great job given that Transport 21 has generous pr/ branding and advertising budgets. Hence these inane & repetitive discussions that have now leaked from the internet into the public mind.

With only one bidder left the RPA do their case a lot more harm than good in concealing the true costs. The number of editorials against the project including Sunday Business Post are starting to mount; if the project is saved it will be as a Luas; they should stop wasting ABP’s time and taxpayers money and get the project into a form that represents value for money.

Greg Ip of the Economistis of the opinion that raising money on the bond markets is a non-runner. Clearly as 1987-1990 displayed the country has the ability to deliver credible rectitude and deliver critcal infrastructure simultaneously; but this project is not critical, it has its advantages and on that basis is only viable at the right price i.e one with an acceptable opportunity cost.

Add the Statute of limitations to Caveat Emptor and you get a very chancy solicitor to take a fee from the complainant unless the legal enquiries contained clear and intentional falsehoods; in my experience almost all solicitors will for planning queries use the phrase “the buyer must rely on their own enquiries”

Even if the complaint were sustained which seems very very unlikely the compensation would be limited to that payable on the date of the sale as per the Greystones case of the landlocked site.

@zulutango wrote:

I agree with you, Dan. Having initially been against the proposal to amalgamate the city and county councils because it was a lost opportunity to implement a more significant administrative change, I since read the report, and am now fully infavour of the proposal.

It will, if implemented, be very good for the Mid-West region, be it Clare, Tipperary, Limerick City or County and we should all get behind it.

The trick is how do we get the politicians to take the lead on this. I attended the press conference and a number of city councillors who had not yet read the report were giving statements to the press saying it was not what they wanted. The press has run with those comments. It’s time for a proper, less reactionary debate to begin. And the media have as much a role to play as the politicians.

The antics of Cathal Crowe (Fianna Fáil) were shameful from a person of his age and position. He is effectively trying to stand in the way of the region getting back up off it’s feet, and his Clare compatriots should not thank him for that. This proposal is as good for Clare as it is for Limerick. That is a point that really needs to be driven home.

I’d say some people are now wishing cllr Cathal Crowe had kept his gob shut about renaming UL because part of it is on the Clare side of the river.

@cgcsb wrote:

Come now PVC, that’s not exactly true is it. The redevlopment of Ballymun represents a major densification of the area, the opening of Ikea, Swords Pavillions phase 3, the development of a new IT and Hospital in Swords and various other proposals for the area are definite possibilities.

Personally I think there’s no need for Metro to be underground between Swords and St Mobhi road. I’m not sure if the Phibsbobough Library is protected structure or not. But If not I would prefer the route to be above ground from Swords to a tunnel entrance in the park beside Mobhi rd, a new underground stn at Phibsborough allowing passangers to change onto the Maynooth line, emerge from the tunnel in the green space to the east of mountjoy prison continue through the site of the library, under the North Circular rd.(cut and cover), through the linear park, through the playground at canal bank and deep bore tunnel starting at the grounds of Kings Inn law library, continuing south with a stop at christchurch to change for DARTu and red line luas at Four Courts and a final stop at Stephen’s Green. The Densities between Stephen’s Green and Kings Inn could justify a deep bore tunnel.

The issue on MN is the relationship between cost and benefit; you will note that in analysing the route I left out Ballymun and commecial acitivity in Swords as the rebuilding of Ballymun is encouraging and even without MN phase 3 Pavillions will be an outstanding success; it has a great catchment of urban villages from Gormanstown to Ashbourne to Malahide and a horrendous amount of semi-rural sprawl with no adequate comparison retail provision, once retail sales bottom out the usual suspects will take space.

I agree that the area from Dominic St in has reasonable density but would also say that whether it routes via the 4 Courts/Christchurch or O’Connell St/College Green both areas will be adequately aleady be served by the Luas link up and Interconnector.

I can however see a project coming in at €750m – €950m being affordable; I agree that building a surface route in to just north of Phibsborough containing an interchange delivers the entire northern route; to cut costs further I’d CPO land and tender 25 year leases for multi-storey carparks North of Swords to people like NCP & Vincipark to keep capital costs down.

Where I disagree with you is from South of the Royal Canal; I would leave Luas on the former canal bed (the locals can trade off transport for park or sell their now more valuable homes and move to a garden suburb) from Consitution Hill I would split Luas in three routings

1. Connecting with the now extended Luas Green line
2. Connecting with Luas Red – shortest route to Capel St or Smithfield
3. Connecting with Dart at Newcommen Curve Spencer Dock via Mountjoy Sq & if capacity on the Swords routing proved inadequate via O’Connell Street.

The above covers more areas and keeps many journey’s away from An Lar and from a cashflow perspective routings 2 & 3 can be added as capacity runs out on the O’Connell St routing.

The future is about getting a lot more from less……

Board approves with condition that if it is not built to upgraded planning and design standards that no more development will be allowed outside 15km – 200km of the city this includes no more car spaces, roads anything for the next 100 years unless 5 proper metro lines are built! (even if they have permission already)

These lines are being built/have been built

Connolly – Maynooth
Connolly – Greystones
Connolly – Pace
Spencer Dock – Howth
Spencer Dock – Drogheda
Spencer Dock – Hazelhatch
Port Tunnel busway

Throw in

Mallow – Midleton
Cobh Spur
Galway – Oranmore (Twin Track)
Limerick – Ennis (new stations Parkway/Moyross/Cratloe)

And there is more than enough capacity with modest further investments in the regional cities and no radical planning changes are required other than local authorities complying with regional and national policy documents.

The other condition would be that rates/services/water prices are calculated via logarithmic formulas mtr square of land/floor space less living costs. This would herald a new era of planning and development in Ireland and the true affordable house/office ect.

Offices are already highly affordable given the quality of many of the individual buildings and level of professional service support available. Homes relative to incomes are outside some pockets close to trend values. Driving property values down further is not in the national interest given the NAMA exposure to the taxpayer. Getting the public finances back into shape by way of cutting what are exceptionally bloated public sector costs and expanding retraining capacity (bye bye FAS) are the only issues at present

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

No, but the people who live just down the road do.

This is an industrial area beside a motorway and an airport; very few people live there and in all but the most overheated property markets residential development would not be possible unless it is for social housing; i.e. housing that is incapable of contributing development levies.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

Grangegorman will be built as it contained in the Government’s revised capital plan. DCU’s growth has been limited by poor transport access. I and many other of my classmates ruled out DCU as a college option because of the requirement to change buses a number of times to get there. With a direct rail link there its growth will be given a great boost. The DCU stop will not only serve the university, but the whole community of Whitehall/Glasnevin.

The governments capital plan is a work of fiction which they are incapable of delivering; Grangegorman although a worthy project cannot be built as the funding model was based on the sale of their existing campus. DCU has grown from no students in the 1970s to c10,000 today; how is that limited? You and your classmates ruled out DCU because you got a better offer; TCD is a World class university, DCU is a decent one but your argument on this is ridiculous. As for the whole population of Glasnevan; a large proportion is walking distance to the Maynooth line and for Whitehall a less than 5 minute bus journey to Drumcoundra.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

This point is irrelevant as the Metro links with bus routes at virtually every stop. As I said before about your imagined rural idyll that is Swords people who live near the stops can walk and those who live too far away can get the bus to the Metro and then get on. Anyway, I find it interesting that I am being asked to justify Metro on the basis of people who live right beside it by the same man who dismissed getting the Metro from Drumcondra to O’Connell St. because people should walk the distance.

What I said on Drumcoundra is that there is a choice between a Dart/Luas interchange or walking either is comfortable; you would certainly walk on a summer day. On the subject of buses why can’t people in Swords take a bus to Dart at Malahide and people in Ballymun and Whitehall a bus to Drumcoundra?

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

International consultancies were recruited by the RPA to examine passenger numbers and demand sources for the Luas and they were proved right. The RPA repeated this process with the Metro and there’s a good chance they’ll be proven right again.

Luas had a cost of €800m for 2 lines which do not leave Dublin postcodes i.e. built up areas with much denser populations excluding the Naas Rd routing fiasco; to acheive viability for two routes at that cost was never difficult. The Metro forecasting was done much later in the middle of a property bubble which over-estimated development figures by 500% – 1000% and airport passenger number by c50%. Plot in half the City distance; loss of one third of the airport passengers; loss of 80-90% of development potential and you have very useless projections.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

So you’re telling us that the ridiculous lending to the likes of Liam Carroll, Sean Dunne, Bernard McNamara et al. to build ghost estates is more viable than a rail link running through our capital city which will benefit us form more than a century? That’s mad.

None of these individuals built ghost anything; however like Metro North they were wildly over-optimistic in their demand projections, wildly overoptimistic in their funding models and very bad at controlling cost; given the Luas experience on cost control one does not want to let the RPA anywhere near a new type of project when the country is so close to IMF management.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

Metro West and Luas F haven’t been binned – work is ongoing on these projects and they will be completed as the situation allows it. While the RPA are not managing DART Underground, they are working closely with Iarnród Éireann on this project since both of them will have stops at Stephen’s Green. Furthermore, the National Transport Agency provides even more linkage between the two projects.

MW and Luas F are dead and anyone working on them should be made redundant; the RPA are incapable of working with anyone; just look at intergrated ticketing; 6 years later there is none and that is under their watch.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

The private consortium given the tender to build it will pay for it 2010-17. We then start paying for our share out of 2017-47 tax receipts. Given that the economy will have recovered by 2017 and will be substantially larger in 2047, that gives us the fiscal basis to afford the €3-5 billion expended on Metro North.

As you well know there is only one consortium left in the tender process so they can charge what they like; there will be no competitive pricing. There is no gaurantee that the economy will have recovered to any substantial degree by 2017, it will hopefully be a more stable economy but it certainly cannot afford interest payments of €165m – €275m per year on this project and that assumes it were funded on government borrowing and not by a private party who would likely charge a 2% profit margin or €60m – €100m on top.

Its time for Noel to put away the trainset and start getting real about the real issues affecting Ireland.

@Cathal Dunne wrote:

, it gives Northwood Business park a stop, it serves DCU with a rail connection and it facilitates quick travel from the southside of Town to the northside and vice versa.

When someone argues that a €3bn – €5bn investment is required because it serves a logistics park you know that you are discussing matters with a very dim individual.

You previously stated that DCU was the only university in the country without a rail link; lets look at these universities.

Cork – none
Galway – None
UCD – None
Limerick – None
Belfast – Very long walk from Botanic station
Jordanstown – None
TCD – already served – but by accident and not design.

You miss a number of big pictures; firstly the bigger planning picture i.e. what type of Dublin is wanted going forward and secondly how the bigger planning picture is impacted by the fall out of the Metro North approach to the domestic banking sector between 2002-08 and the resultant inability to raise funds at realistic prices on bond markets.

@Devin wrote:

What?? The problems with the city centre are use, not density. The densities in the city core are quite good. Any problems related to density in Dublin are due to the chronic suburban sprawl extending for 30, 40, 50 miles outside. A certain amount of infilling and appropriate intensification can be done in the core, but there are no fundamental problems with density.

You are both right; the overall density in Dublin’s core area has historically been poor much of it to do with the Docklands and inner western areas such as Cork Street areas to the being completely under-use; for example Carroll Transport on JR Quay as a haulage yards or the substantial DCC facility on Marrowbone lane being used as a giant storage area for every type of municpal lighting and cleaning device ever invented. Equally there has been a huge hangover from the 1960-1990 period of mono-use developments particularly office schemes which have deprived the pre 1960 Core of a retained population.

If there was a defined ‘Core’ as opposed to various peoples opinions it would be helpful; but if one asks a much more pertinent question; which areas of the City within 2 miles of O’Connell Bridge have the greatest potential for medium to high density redevelopment in a manner that is sustainable and respectful of existing urban quality then clearly the Docklands and Hueston are the obvious way to extend the ‘Core’ and ensure that the Dublin of the 21st Century is a real city and not an agglomeration of dormitary towns.

If the interconnector were built and if the Luas lines joined up; Dublin would have a very strong public transport platform from which to build. When does the bus terminus for Dublin Airport get completed?

+2

Call it unaffordable or unacceptable opportunity cost i.e. more comprehensive Luas network over time and you get the same result; wrong project.

It is mind-boggling that a country can think nothing of pouring billions into failed banks and yet objects to the sensible expenditure of about €3 billion on a rail line which will provide benefits to us all.

Ask yourself why those banks failed. Too many sunny assumptions and too many interest roll ups on construction loans. If as a nation people had thought like

But why is this a good thing? Swords is far away from Dublin because, well, it is not Dublin. Do we really want to maintain, never mind vastly expand, Swords as a giant commuting suburb? How is this sustainable? Just because people use a rail line, or live in high density housing, doesn’t mean it is sustainable to travel for an hour or more from door to door. Rather it facilitiates a detached, dependant community based around the model of a dormitory town.

Then maybe all the banks would still have €10bn caps and the city a much better footprint.

In reality, the shops and nurseries became empty units or estate agents, the squares were inept and windswept, and speculative developers crammed as many tiny flats into their plots as possible. In Stratford you can see the grimmest results – aesthetically stunted, architecturally bumptious towers crowding round wasteland. Does this invalidate the idea? Should we, as some Tories suggest in their screeds against the ludicrous myth of “garden grabbing”, celebrate the end of the attempted “urban renaissance” and return to the pseudo-rural suburban sprawl of the 80s, and the depopulation and desuetude of our cities?

Such polemical journalism is exactly why only Oxford educated Blairites read the Gaurdian. Conversely moves by Eric Pickles to give communities more power by removing centralised housing targets foisted on local authorities from Whitehall previously have sent the BPF into a very unfreindly view of the new coaition govt. Very few toys left in the housebuilders prams.

Retail at these locations falled in many cases because the public open space simply wasnt attractive enough for people to engage in cafe culture; if retail units tilted towards leisure fail sitting under hundreds of flats then the design of the specific local environment is clearly the problem not policy.