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@StephenC wrote:
What a mess this would be. There is absolutely no design input into how the heart of the city centre should look. Its seems to me that nearly every statue in the city centre will have to be relocated. There is no corresponding plan to redesign the streets in a more orderly fashion. O’Connell Street will be ruined in my view, trees removed, pavement removed, wirescape right in front of the GPO.
An absolute joke!
Stephen’s reaction is exactly what the RPA wanted, the RPA want Metro North built at all costs and never wanted to build the Luas link up; god knows they have had 10 years to do it and haven’t turned a screw. The esaiest way to prevent the link up from happening and so aid their supremely flawed MN case is to present a scheme for planning consideration with insensitive properties which will be thrown out on heritage grounds. I suggest the minister clear the deadwood from the RPA its not as if there aren’t enough unemployed planners to get it right first time.
@CologneMike wrote:
In full agreement with you Dan! (An Taisce) 🙂
It won’t be long now before the mudslinging really gets going.
We need some of the spirit from the early pioneering days of Shannon Development to get the Mid-West region back on track again.
Thanks, I got plenty of mud slung in my direction after this came to light. I’m hopefully at this point that the boundary decision will be sensible and forward thinking.
Underground DART application to be lodged
Wednesday, 30 June 2010 07:14
Iarnród Éireann will today lodge its application to build Dublin’s Underground DART designed to link-up the city’s transportation system.Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has consistently said that the Underground DART and Metro North will both go ahead despite a combined cost of around €5bn.
The application to An Bord Pleanála for the Underground DART comes as the board prepares to give its decision, expected by the end of next month, on Metro North, which will run from the city centre to Swords.
AdvertisementThe Underground DART, or Interconnector, has been described as the most important part of Transport 21
Running from the Docklands to Heuston Station and Inchicore it will allow rail passengers from Cork to connect to Belfast
It will open up two DART lines, one running from Balbriggan to Kildare the other from Maynooth to Bray intersecting at Pearse Street Station
The Underground DART will also link with Metro North at St Stephen’s Green, with the Inter-city lines at Heuston and with the LUAS.
Like the Metro North it will be a public-private partnership and the Government will not have to pay for its construction until it is completed as planned in 2018.
Dublin Chamber of Commerce has called on the Minister for Transport to publicly commit financially to the project’s completion.
The markets clearly will see through the attempt to keep the cost off balance sheet until the first 2018 payment date. Given the critical nature of this project why can’t it simply be financed in the usual way i.e. tender the construction and pay for it via government bonds and the EIB……
I sense a desperate effort to try to make MN look respectable by imposing an unworkable structure on this project to try to make both projects look as similar as to be the same. They aren’t and by linking this viable and vital project to a light rail route at a multi-billion cost the case for IC is being weakened
The sad fact is that IF mr Murray is not solvent that the taxpayer or banks will carry the can IF. the project originator gets to walk away under court protection from creditors. If he his not solvent then it should simply be repossessed and sold with any equity after court and council costs handed back; returning the land to agricultural use would be wanton in this climate. Whatever happens continued residence under these circumstances is a total non-runner.
Wearnicehats just wants a return to the days of ministerial appeals, the days of Tully and Burke……
There was a phase when developers paid way over the odds for sites, architects didn’t get instructed unless they ignored development plans and local authority planners didn’t have time to examine plans properly. Starting an examination at second instance when in so many cases first instance examination has been less than thorough will always lead to delays as did the failure to properly resource the organisation when for example housing went from 40,000 units p.a. to 96,000 units p.a.
@luap_42 wrote:
What’s the point in investigating bad LA decisions when ABP is the ultimate culprit.
I have to disagree; in the main ABP gets it spot on; there have been a few decisions I haven’t understood such as the Clarence Hotel but in the main they convert development plans and a very pro lax development standards government policy by which they are equally bound into a series of generally good decisions. The danger is that as the government passes more and more desperate measures to allow any development in an effort to stimulate construction employment that An Bord’s powers to stop poor planning will be hamstrung.
But that would assume that MN would be built to Stephens Green; it won’t it is an expensive project that delivers no value for money into a fiscal outlook that is dire.
Read this link before you consider Metro North affordable; note the inverse relationship between the fear gauge graph and the probability of MN ever seeing the light of day from its original proposal date of 2004 to the current phase of fiscal austerity; a process that will see the responsibility for economic impetus shift back to the private sector and the public sector play a supporting but subservient role.
@jimg wrote:
Yes the 170 million was the original estimate is for the link up to Parnell Sq from what I recall (which was estimated to cost less than 100 million for the straight forward link up).
Those costs are pre recession and given that the works excluding the bridge are virtually all labour intensive i.e. digging up roads and fixing overhead cables to buildings the proportionate saving on the direct logical route would be higher and therefore more likely to see cuts than for a bridge where concrete prices have not fallen as much as labour costs.
@jimg wrote:
We’ve gone over all this before a number of times but there is no operational benefits to the loop, you are not going to get 30 trams an hour in an on-street system no matter how you terminate the lines. The extra cost of building a loops only make sense for systems which have older tram stock (with doors on one side only). Even if there was operational benefit, it is temporary as it becomes useless once the line is extended.
You are probably right that 30 trams per hour is ambitious but once Luas goes down College Green that will be the end private car use at that location; post port tunnel the strategic value of the quays as a freight route is no longer a consideration and the North South car axis will be split into three versus the current ‘I feel like zipping accross town through the Main Street’ arrangement. Clearly journey times will be slower on the on-street section but with a clear priority given to Luas frequencies can be higher than on the Red Line where car traffic considerations are higher by virtue of crossing very busy routes such as Amiens St, Gardiner St, O’Connell St, Capel St, Church St, Parkgate St and at Hueston.
If College Green were substantially calmed Dorset Street would become busier as drivers use Capel Street as a substitute for O’Connell Street Southbound and either Gardner Street or North Kind St/Chuch Street Southbound.
What I would hate to see happen is that Luas would terminate at the North end of O’Connell Street and that in a few years when it is extended that a new programme of works would create disruption in Dublin 1 again. Regardless of which direction Luas is to be extended it will certainly clear Parnell Square and enter a North West Axis into Dublin 7. I would suggest that the current phase enter a point in Dublin 7 to get construction disturbance out of the City Centre and from where the network could be extended either to Grangegorman and or Ballymun/Finglas.
I don’t like being negative about public transport either but this is such a mess of a proposal: double the stops, double the disruption, double the utility diversion, an extra bridge at almost double the cost while delivering a confusing mess: Westmoreland, O’Connell St Lower, O’Connell St Upper (which has ZERO utility as a pick-up stop) are northbound only while Trinity, Marlborough and Parnell (a little over 150m from O’Connell St Upper – i.e. less than a 2 minute walk apart) southbound only.
I totally agree that the length of the line in comparison to the distance seperated makes no sense whatsoever; whilst favouring a turn back loop arrangement it needs to be girrafe (neck and head) proportioned if done to minimise costs; there are also a lot less utilities and traffic to divert once you leave the immediate core central area.
Although completed in the early 1960’s the New Ireland Assurance Company’s Dawson Street HQ most certainly has Celtic Art influences. The use of bronze detailing set on limestone was exectuted in a very dignified and enduring manner that has stood the test of time very well.
Plans for Luas link-up being finalised
Tuesday, 22 June 2010 10:57
Plans are being finalised for the long-awaited link up between the two Luas lines in Dublin city centre. The cost is estimated at up to €170m.
The Rail Procurement Agency is due to make an application to An Bord Pleanála for the new line running from St Stephen’s Green to Parnell Street.The Luas link line is planned to run from St Stephen’s Green by Trinity College and up O’Connell Street before doubling back down Marlborough Street and across a new bridge over the Liffey.
It would connect the Green line, which terminates at St Stephen’s Green, to the Red Line which runs along Abbey Street. It would also form part of a new Line D that will connect Luas services with a suburban rail station at Broombridge near Cabra.
However, business leaders in the city are anxious that work on the new line is completed at the same time as work on Metro North which is due to start in 2012.
It is understood that the RPA wants to build them separately but the Dublin Chamber of Commerce says this would add two years to construction and consequent disruption in the city centre.
The RPA advertised its plans in the national press this morning and is due to deliver its Railway Order on June 30.
http://www.rte.ie/business/2010/0622/luas.htmlhttp://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=%5EVIX
I’m a touch lost on this as the article claims it will go to Parnell Square on the one hand but to Broombridge on the other; clear as mud as they say; the cost to Broombridge is €170m yet the estimated cost to Lucan was €1bn; why can’t the route intersect with Maynooth Dart at Phibsboro and continue to Ballymun? Take out the pointless new bridge and cost falls further to certainly sub €100m if the route goes to Parnell Square prior to a proper northern route being devised.
The myth of Aircoach slow journey times from the airport to the outer CBD has been exposed……
It may not make sense to you, but that is what’s happening.
There is no railway order for BXD; it is for the flawed unnecessary bridge route of the simplistic Ciaran Cuffe inspired join the dots route which will be revised to make sense or simply conditioned by a higher authority; no doubt Dick Gleeson will present an opinion of urbanity involving full OCS exposure at DCC level extoling the virtues of redeploying the wasted bridge funds towards his figure of eight.
As you well know MN is unaffordable and will not happen; a line will be built going north but it will be on street. BXD’s route via Dominick Street makes no sense whatsoever given the straighter line up Parnell Sq….
Pretty marginal advantage though, especially when it’s fairly inevitable that the line will eventually be extended northwards, to Broombridge, or wherever.
I wouldn’t call 2 mins per tram reversal marginal; the frequency difference would be 4 minute versus 2 minute headways. Twice the capacity due to elimination of a major health and safety concern of trams crossing.
The site specific reason for taking it further out is that you get construction disturbance out of the CC in one hit . . .
Sorry, I don’t understand that
Once the loop is built beyond Parnell Square and Dorset Street it ensures that the core City Centre has its current planned routes completed; if you go to OCS and stop then in a few years when Luas is extended to Ballymun etc then the disturbance takes place in a less public transport sensitive area; a extra little distance now has the capacity to dramatically reduce future negative externalities.
@gunter wrote:
I also don’t see how a convoluted swing around at Parnell St. is any more efficient than the dead-end turn back that we’ve had on the other lines since day one.
Loops are more efficient for 2 general reasons and in the case of O’Connell St another site specific reason. Firstly trains are automatically on the right platform and no crossing clearance needs to be built into the timetable; secondly the trams don’t stop for anything other than a setdown as the drivers stay at the front of the tram at all times.
The site specific reason for taking it further out is that you get construction disturbance out of the CC in one hit; just imagine if the three Luas lines were built as per the original plan then all of the construction disturbance would be behind the City now…
That routing is clearly predicated on a scenario that Luas will not be extended in a northerly direction and provides the perfect loop removing the need for a turnback. As Luas will be extended further North albeit route unknown the removal of the turnback is no longer required; could one suggest The Black Church, Mounjoy St & Blessington Streetas the loop and ensure that Luas services Dublin Central/Cathal Brugha St in both directions from its extended northerly footprint.
That appears very shortsighted; Dick Gleeson’s figure of eight idea always seemed like a good one to me. The Eastern end of the Red Line would considerably benefit from a link to Sandyford / Cherrywood allowing occupiers to front office in the IFSC/North Wall and use cheaper back offices in the business parks.
So on that basis with a journey time of 7 minutes to Busaras and adding 2 minutes to Abbey then the City centre is already accessible in less than half an hour from the airport. One would imagine that once the link up is done it will be possible to route trams from the Point to Sandyford giving St Green in less than 35 mins from the airport. Not bad
Then it would make total sense for Aircoach and Luas to partner a new service from the end of the red line extension to the airport via the tunnel on a single ticket. When the Luas line link up is complete the options would be far more numerous. Should the lights at the airport be rigged to favour buses the journey time to the point would be 15 minutes to the point?
