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I don’t have faith in DCC or Dublin Bus to make any of those changes. Also it would require the NRA to re-route the N1 off O’Connell street. It would also result in the subsequent pedestrianisation, or prehaps make it an area of terminating bus routes, of much of Abbey st, because being unable to turn onto O’Connel st makes Abbey street useless as a traffic artery.
as a result, this routing would require co-operation between the RPA, Dublin Bus, the NRA and DCC. And in Ireland, we all know that public bodies are incapable of any form of co-operation.
The result of that type of thinking is a fudge where proposals like a €5bn metro are devised because ‘we can’t inconvenience a few drivers’ or stand up to the NBRWU on changing bus routes; Dublin will shortly have a transport authority; taking London as an example TfL has been able to control numerous private bus operators in their calming of Oxford Street; if it works in London it can work in Dublin obce the will exists to make the City Work as was the case with the rerouting of 14/15 suite of routes from Harcourt St to Hatch Street.
It is still possible to turn from East Parnell st onto O’Connell st. so there is still south bound traffic.
Nothing that a few signs wouldn’t sort out.
The busgate has failed because the Gardaà refuse to enforce it. It’s essentially ignored by most drivers and taxis always double park on the taxi rank on Grafton St, making it very difficult for double decker buses to navigate. Also the bus stops on grafton street aren’t very practical especially the tour bus stop, at which open top buses linger for quite some time. Too many buses stop on that narrow, busy part of Grafton st. And on the right hand side you have double parked taxis.
Install cameras; the fixed penalty always arrives; with OCS DCC are quite proud of their outcome; they would welcome a budget to update it and put recessed bus-stop bays in as required.
DCC lacks any forward planning, If they really cared about the traffic arrangement in Dublin, they would make busgate permenant, remove the grafton st taxi rank and bus stops and allow busses to move both ways on grafton street, instead of diverting northbound buses via Suffolk st.
Putting Luas down there will focus their minds.
The Broombridge line will not be built in the forseable future; the final route you refer to has not received planning consent; the only routing which does have consent is the O’Connell St routing which is clearly the most logical route.
To facilitate the route you make the following simple changes to O’Connell Street:
1. Ban Cars
2. Reduce the number of bus routes using the street
3. Reduce the number of bus stops recessing them into the existing path as required
4. Relocate the taxi rankI think the Marlborough Street re-routing is a microcosm of the RPA in general; they over complicate everything un-necessarily. The route was looked at by others before and they concluded it was adequate running down OCS. Sadly the days of being able to spend money like water are gone….
Also on DCC being against banning cars on OCS, they already have banned cars Southbound from Parnell Square and as the bus gate has shown they are quite happy to do it at College Green as well.
I think the key worker location issue is probably a little overdone in the current climate but when the market moves back into equilibrium it would certainly be a major factor in staff retention. Clearly as Stephen says the City Centre has a far better ‘lifestyle’ aspect; the whole idea of Friday lunchtime team building sessions in a suburban business park just doesn’t work.
I have been very impressed by the marketing done by the Swiss for their financial industry; they are great at highlighting the urban aspects of their cities and the resulting ability to attract young footloose highly skilled graduates who wish to travel early in their careers. Dublin with so much available space really does have a competitive advantage as against competitor cities; I strongly hope that the IDA highlight the value that is on offer for tenants; the rents will always adjust after 5 years once they are at current levels.
From a civic point of view encouraging vibrancy and viablity of public transport can only be a very good thing and it is good to see a major International player go for quality of life versus bargain basement.
that’s not really a reason, you see a new bridge connecting Hawkin street and Marlborough st will be built anyway under current plans to have the north bound luas running up o’connell st, and south bound luas running down marlborough st. Also there are very low traffic volumes on hawkins and marlborough streets even at peek times. The only real road junctions on marlborough st between the quays and parnell st are Talbot st (which will no doubt be pedestrianised anyway. and Cathal brugha st, where traffic light priority can easily be given. Makinging seperation from other traffic, and dopey pedestrians that walk out on front of trams, easier
This deviates from the existing planning consent; I have no idea what financial cost a bridge would have but no doubt it would have the following costs:
1. Financial; at least €10m
2. Disruption to the Quays; which play a vital role in diverting traffic from the ‘pedestrian centre’
3. Visual; the vistas at that point are cluttered enough by the loopline.
O’Connell Bridge is easily the widest bridge in the City and with the traffic calming of College Green it is no longer fully utilised.
That’s kind of an architectural point of view rather than an engineering point of view. It could also be argued that the power lines on o’connell st and the poles to supprt them would detract from it’s architectural value. Also, although I’m of the opinion that public transport is more important, I also believe that private traffic should also be accomidated where possible. I don’t agree that routing the luas through O’Connell st should be done just as an “up yours” to drivers
Luas coming down Harcourt Street resepects heritage in a most sensitive manner; in a route that passes between two of the most important arcitectural gems in TCD and BoI College Green solutions will be found that are pole free. Private traffic is of course essential; however the location of some car parks or access arrangements to same will need to change; for example Arnotts car-park will need to have its Abbey St entrance reconfigured to have both entrance and exit; nobody could reasonably argue that O’Connell St should be the access route to a multi storey car-park; expect Dublin Central to route their cars via Parnell Street as is the case with the Ilac Centre. The critical point is that in a small number of architecturally rich and heavily pedestrian trafficked streets; car drivers may only access these on foot. Taking London’s Oxford Street as an example private cars have been banned for years and buses are being reduced 10% yoy.
a stop at Cathal bruagh st can leave passangers less than 1 minute walk from Dublin Central, like wise at north Earl st and the Abbey, or prehaps just one between Abbey st and North Earl st to cut costs and reduce the amount of stops.
I agree the distance isn’t vast at a couple of minutes to O’Connell Street but would say two things one there is very little on the other side and why divert at all other than removing the conditions that permit a drug addict infested environment. The solution to Marlborough Street is a location specific reintroduction to S23 type schemes; I have no doubt if you took the commission assessors down there they would grant it as a clear case for location specific support; you don’t need to start an entire new planning application or spend millions building a bridge to acheive same.
I agree Marlborough Street excluding the sublime Dept for Education and few remaining Georgian Townhouses should be levelled and reconstructed when the market recovers; if the owners of the 1960’s block behind Cleary’s had been more realistic with their valuation when it went to market in 2005 it would now be gone. However routing Luas down Marlborough Street has three principal drawbacks
1. Cost; it would require a new bridge across the Liffey on a stretch where a bridge is no further than a couple of hundered meters either direction.
2. It gives the impression that Luas is in some way subservient to cars or buses; unlike the Quays which were a freight route; continuing Luas right to the top of O’Connell Street and beyond mirrors what is Dublin’s only Grand Boulevard i.e. City Hall to the Rotunda.
3. Marlborough Street is more remote from both Henry Street and Parnell Street as such it brings public transport right to the front door of Dublin Central which will come into play within 2-4 years.
Luas to my mind is far from finished in network terms once the link up is complete; additional routes up Dame Street continuing to where the Red Line intersects James’ St and into the Northside suburbs are definite runners; where Luas has a massive advantage in a turbulent fiscal environment is that it can be extended in very small and as such very affordable increments. Therefore a statment of its future strategic role an extension from the Rotunda to Christchurch and Stephens Green should be built as priorities.
@cgcsb wrote:
@ Seamus, agreed, the origional transport 21 completion date for the link up was 2008, along with the docklands, cherrywood and city west extensions. The origional completion date for metro north was 2012. And metro west phase one (Tallaght-Clondalkin) was due to be complete this year. not one of them on time.
Thank god Metro West has been abandoned; other than the Luas link up element being late it is fotuitous that the other elements are late and or abandoned.
@cgcsb wrote:
Also on the whole link up thing, why can’t both tracks of the luas go up Marlborough st? It would spark a much needed regeneration of the street and would minimize disruption to O’Connell st.
A planning consent exists to build it up O’Connell St as per the original planning grant; why would you want to divert a tram network away from a busy thoroughfare?
@cgcsb wrote:
Back to Metro North, there’s currently 2 excavations going on, one beside abbey church on Parnell sq, one directly on front of it on the traffic island. Possibly utility diversion/ sight investigation?
Lack of planning consent suggests it is co-incidental; lack of money suggests it is certainly co-incidental. Lack of adequately funded bidding consortia suggests the project is completely dead.
I totally agree on the Luas link up
Whatever happens in terms of delivery of other projects the Luas link up is a must have project which has a particularly modest price tag and does not require any expenditure other than digging up a few roads and suspending a few wires.
It now seems very ironic that Irish Rail were berated for pushing out the IC from 2015 to 2018; maybe they have a closet economist down in Connolly Stn who saw the wind changing!! That said another absolute must have project to ramp up capacity dramatically on the 4 existing lines.
@missarchi wrote:
I wouldn’t mind some hospitals like the ones in the north of the west bank.
As they say in Blanch; Missarchi you’re a bleedin waffler…..
@missarchi wrote:
The central bank or the european union don’t even know who made money in the crash…
I think that says it all…Forget crisis past the new consensus is that Governments that spend more than they have are the greatest systemic risk to dragging the entire region back into a double dip recession. No shortage of hedge funds willing to highlight political cowardice and make a killing on it. Declare credible austerity meansures and they just move onto the next prolifigate country or company.
@missarchi wrote:
A banking system so complicated no one can audit it in it’s entirety = no accountability
Bullshit; banks are audited 5 days a week by the markets in the form of a second by second valuation of the manner in which an institution is perceived to be run; those that are prudent such as HSBC and Barclays see their share prices go up; those that aren’t get nationalised or simply fail. If ‘A slight Hitch’ is to be believed Barclays have followed HSBC in the rush for the exits on this project and AIB clearly can’t afford to keep any new debt on their balance sheet; they are a very attractive investment proposition as they have the potential for a huge revaluation if they can slim down their balance sheet profitably; the number of foreign participants just like everything connected with this project is looking very different 4-5 years after this project was deemed critical and viable; I don’t believe it was was ever either but at least then you had a property industry that could pay project specific development levies and a public purse that had the capacity to borrow; both gone for a long time.
That is consistent with Barclays Wealth economists latest research which is underweight on the Eurozone full stop; from currency to fixed income to equities; one of their more accessible recommendations is a pair trade of shorting the Euro and buying the Swedish Krone. HSBC also released a similar research position on Friday last.
AIB clearly aren’t in a position to proceed with the latest set backs on the Polish and US disposals; Hungary has gunthered sentiment towards Central Europe and the M & T shareprice has been haemoraging in recent weeks. They will survive in their current form but transactions on this scale are a pipe dream for them in their current circumstances which are positive medium term once they are prudent going forward.
Metro North should just be shelved.
But it is not all doom and gloom there are other projects that make sense such as the Interconnector and linking the Luas lines to name but two. 😉
The Tuam Motorway also needs a swift dead heading. 😮
That is the entire point; it is light rail at a full rail price; as the article above outlines the cost of Luas is €40m per kilometer and Metro North a guess from €2bn – €5bn. Taking Seattle with it’s 31m p.a.x. airport the light rail runs down the middle of Martin Luther King (MLK) Boulevard for the majority of its route.
Building a segregated underground light rail route would constitute an utter waste of money; that the country doesn’t have…..
What part of Austerity do you not get?
I’m gutted; I really thought I had taught misarchi how to post a link properly 🙁
@PVC King wrote:
I read half way through the article and thought more spam from our resident spamstress; but there was some relevant material so I’m not giving up on teaching an old dog new tricks.
Lesson 1 How to post linked material
Cowen to cut ribbon on new bypass
THE TAOISEACH will open the last section of the Dublin to Cork motorway today.
The opening will reduce the journey time from Dublin’s Red Cow roundabout to Cork’s Dunkettle Interchange from about three hours to two hours 20 minutes.
At about two hours 50 minutes city centre to city centre on average, the travel time now compares with Iarnród Éireann’s advertised intercity services between Dublin and Cork, which range from about two hours 45 minutes to three hours 15 minutes.
It also compares with the 7.30am Aircoach service from Cork city which arrives at Dublin airport at 10.50 am.
Morning Ryanair and Aer Arran flights from Cork to Dublin are scheduled to take 50 and 55 minutes respectively. Considering a check-in time of at least one hour before flights, travelling by road will from today also be comparable to travelling by air.
It is a long way from the late 1970s or 1980s when, according to the AA, the average journey time between Dublin and Cork was between four and 30 minutes and five hours.
The main Dublin to Cork road, the T6, then went via Kilkenny, which was slightly longer than today’s M8.
Developed at a cost of €2.6 billion, the motorway from Dublin to Cork first takes the N7/M7 southwest from Dublin, via Co Kildare to Portlaoise, Co Laois.
From there it swings south to become the M8 and continues through Co Tipperary to Co Cork and the Dunkettle Interchange, from where it becomes the N8 into Cork City.
The route, at 253km, is the longest of five major inter-urban routes designed to link Dublin with the regional cities and the Border.
The other routes link Dublin to Galway, Limerick, Waterford and northwest of Dundalk on the Border with Northern Ireland.
Just 218km of the Dublin to Cork route is to be officially designated motorway, stretching from the Dunkettle Interchange to Naas in Co Kildare. From there to Dublin’s Red Cow Roundabout there are 20km of triple-carriageway on the N7, followed by about eight kilometres of the N7 to Dublin city centre.
The distance from Cork city to the Dunkettle Interchange is about four kilometres. The total distance city centre to city centre is about 253 kilometres.
At about 238km of motorway and high-grade triple-carriageway, the cost of the upgrade works out at almost €11 million per kilometre.
This compares with €40 million per kilometre for the Luas extension to Cherrywood, which is due to open in October.
It also compares with a cost of less than €2 million per kilometre for the reopening the Western Rail Corridor between Ennis, Co Clare, and Athenry, Co Galway.
The cost of Metro North, assuming a price tag of €5 billion, is €277 million per kilometre.
The opening of the final section from Portlaoise to Cullahill in Co Laois will bypass the commuter towns of Abbeyleix, Durrow and Cullahill.
The 40km Y-shaped section will take Cork-bound traffic from the existing Portlaoise bypass to the existing M8 at Cullahill.
It will also take Limerick-bound traffic from the Portlaoise bypass to Castletown, where remaining sections of the M7 Limerick motorway are under construction.
A toll plaza is to be installed, taking in traffic on both the Limerick and Cork routes and is expected to net millions on the new route alone.
The toll will be 90 cents for a motorbike, rising to €5.70 for heavy goods vehicles. Passenger cars are to be charged €1.80.
Coining It: Motorway Fees
Motorists travelling through the new M7/M8 junction will be asked to pay a toll of €1.80 per car, rising to €5.70 for trucks, to access the newly completed motorway between Dublin and Cork.
Motorists travelling through the same junction to and from Limerick will have to pay the toll – with the Limerick part of the motorway running out after 10km.
From today, motorists heading in the Cork direction will pass the Portlaoise junction and travel for 17km along the new road to the plaza. After the plaza, they will swing south for 14km to link up with the existing M8 to Cork.
Motorists heading in the Limerick direction will pass the Portlaoise junction and travel for 17km along the new road in a southwesterly direction to the plaza. From there, they will travel on 10km of motorway before returning to the old N7 close to Borris-in-Ossory.
But as the new toll plaza serves the M7 and M8, all traffic using the junction must pay. An NRA spokesman acknowledged the anomaly, but said the Limerick motorway was due to be completed by this October.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0528/1224271297699.html
A good day for Irish transport and a bad day for Ryanair/Aer Arran etc even with a metro they still couldn’t compete with driving; but as most businesses relocate to buildings with lower parking ratio’s and if Irish Rail restore 1984 journey times on the Dublin Cork route and with Interconnector a journey from Grand Parade to Dawson Street would be quickest by rail/taxi/Dart. The major killer on all routes is in Cork and the lack of a Luas line or two.
The Cherrywood extension at €40m per kilometer is impressive given the CPO costs in such an affluent catchment; clearly Tim’s message is more Luas and less €277m per kilometer or €111m per kilometer if you believe the RPA on their costings for segregated Luas.
RTE carried out an estimate of €30,000 per day in toll revenues or €109.5m p.a. which implies a gross yield 4.21% on this project; not quite the 8% that private equity seeks; but credit to the Government on this 4.21% once costs moved to an efficient online and electronic reading system is a very creditable result. I think that type of analysis is the very least that the public should see on Metro North albeit within a 25% range to preserve commercial sensitivity.
@gunter wrote:
No mystery PVC, I raised the issue because the I.T. article [posted above] brought it up today . . . . and used the Duke-of-Ormond factor that should have killed it stone dead three years ago.
Why this thread?
. . . I couldn’t find the other thread.
@gunter wrote:
Maybe you’re right, maybe this was never going anywhere, but it didn’t feel like that at the time. At the time, nothing seemed to be capable of wounding, let alone killing, this scheme, it just seemed to gain acceptance with every new document that issued from the DDDA. I recall being at a presentation in Bolton Street where Dick Gleeson of all people included slides of the ”Liffey Island” scheme as part of future Dublin and gave no indication of being remotely uncomfortable with it.
My point is: if this scheme was all as damaging and ludicrous as Frank McDonald today said it was [ – and it was – ], why weren’t people in the wider architectural, planning and civic community saying this at the time?
One possibility is that there isn’t actually a wider, architectural, planning and civic community, . . . . . or at least one that gives a toss 😡
You can just write that phase off in terms of looking for logic; there were so many proposals coming through at that stage that all anyone in heritage could do was fire fight; money was being thrown around by government like it was going out of fashion so if you wanted your pet project to be funded then don’t criticise other people’s; the concept of scarce resources was reserved only for outcasts!!!.
The real unwitting hero was of course the Fabulous Fab who managed to collapse the real estate bubble or possibly his masters at Paulson. There is a lot I will miss about tiger Ireland but looking at proposals to destroy the river that defines the city is certainly not one of them.
Its very easy to focus on the negative but as the country is clearly now starting to look towards the future after a horrific spell. The real question is how does the City replace or shackle the DDDA to ensure that it becomes much more like the CHDDA vs the plaything of a number of non-exec directors who went so far beyond their remit that it became damaging. The development of the docklands as an exemplar of sustainable high desity higher quality commercial and residential space is more important than it ever was in light of the impending arrival of interconnector in a short period of time.
I’m a little curious as to why you raised this issue and why you raised it on this thread.
That’s all grand and all, but with the honourable exception of Cagey, Rusty Cogs and an assortment of other archiseek oddballs, why was nobody else saying this at the time?
But you then say
I wouldn’t have expected outfits like the RIAI, or the IAF, or the Planning Institute, or anyone with an interest in loads-a-work to rock the boat by fostering a discussion on the wisdom of these matters, but the apparent absence of any critique from within Dublin City Council is not as easy to forgive.
What you neglect to say is that no application was ever made; hence why all the actors stayed off the stage. Big difference in cost between getting a practice to do a pitch c/w model and paying them to actually design it to the point of a full planning application. The latter would never have happened…
I think the debate on this had already taken place re their equally dumb proposal to float the Abbey in Georges Dock; I didn’t see the point in discussing it because like so many starchitect proposals around that time it was obviously never going to happen for two reasons.
1. The heritage movement would splinter into the continuity salafia faction using the judicial review *50 route if consent were secured after six months in ABP.
2. The market had no appetite for such a product as island based offices would have not been able to produce enough retail or parking to service office and residential high rise; as big as the river is the space available would be too small once retaining walls were subtracted.
Clearly the CHDDA era was very successful but that was because they had British Land and Hardwicke underwriting it; it was also accompanied by a tax break that was location specific to Financial Services; that went sometime around 2000 and once it went financial services companies decamped to locations as remote as Wexford.
What to do next with this key development zone? For starters don’t spend a fortune on an in depth inquiry; secondly build any new structure in a manner that dovetails with both Nama the principal landowner and Dublin City Council the local authority. If one lesson is to be learned from this it is that local authorities should not be competing in the same City; a coherent plan is required to get the north docklands fully developed in time for the interconnector’s delivery in 2018.
KB you could be right but then again there may be a special situation in the form of a distressed seller who is selling for a lot less than it cost to build either to trade up or simply repay the bank and migrate either elsewhere in Ireland or further away. If the price is close to what it would cost to build plus say up to €25,000 for the site which carries built planning consent; then I’d take your view as a credible option. The downsides of commencing a new project could be
1. Planning risks which if you aren’t a true country lad may be elevated
2. Construction cost over-runs (lets be honest firms may start to wind up vs taking jobs below cost to keep work at any price coming in)
3. A bank removing finance mid way through the project or the cost of money rising still further
On a more academic level; I find this interesting as there are hundreds of thousands of bungalows straight from a plan book which were not great day and will age terribly; a bit like 1960’s office buildings many of these will be retro-fitted as time goes on. As Tayto said there may be some merit in going to de pub and meetin de lads but more for getting an indicative construction rate per square foot than an auwl enginear
The second tunnel is at Beacon Hill; a very pleasant suburb I had the pleasure of staying in a few years ago when the line was under construction. The tunnel is a few hundred metres long and was completely necessary because of grade issues; i.e. a hill was in the way for a few hundred metres versus a multi-mile route with numerous and complex underground concourses.
Why this project is acceptable is because it had a budget cost of c$250m; was an extension of an existing route. There are no simularities; the city centre section is shared with buses in the central tunnel and it cost considerably less to build than Luas. It does show that light rail is adequate to serve an airport with 31.6m passengers in 2009 i.e. 50% more than Dublin Airport for the comparable period.
Clearly a case of back to the drawing board to find a cost effective solution; money is as they say tight.
I agree and would say that the major issue will be getting more light in; no other group than architects understand light better. I’d also agree with what Paul Clerkin said above in relation to the dogleg that seems to come as standard with bungalows; if you had one objective in isolation it would to my mind be to bring the entrance space into the main living space with the most light possible.
I’d ask for a fee basis in 2 parts; part 1 design fee and part 2 supervising the works; financially I suspect you could do very well on this if you can hold for 5 years plus and acheive a good design executed by a reasonably priced contractor.
@layo wrote:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2009/0227/1224241892788.html
Anyone see this opinion letter in the Irish Times sometime last week by enda kenny? Absolutely shocking, he was ranting on about what he’d do if he were Taoiseach. He said that he’d immediately shelve Metro North as many current public infastructure projects that current government are going ahead with are going to further damage the economy under the current economic climate…almost makes Fianna Fail look attractive again, Kenny’s a gob****e in my opinion. 7000 guaranteed jobs will be created in constructing the metro. Construction’s going to last what? 5 years? we’ll be out of the recession(hopefully) by then and with a much more effective public transport system in Dublin. Wasn’t a major mistake in the last recession not investing more heavily in large public transport projects?
Wind the clock forward 16 months and much of what is in the letter has come to pass; from the opinion polls the ‘silent majority’ you refer to have sided with the side of financial responsibility. Whether FG can and will deliver same is a moot point but clearly they have an agenda for financial responsibility. Reading back through your posts the stimulus angle is about the only technical argument you have ever made; just think Greece…….
It is completely true; no route would be elongated and no existing routing would be extended; therefore it is a stand alone route that adds no capacity to existing services.
You really should stop being so pedantic and develop some ideas that may in fact pass an objective and contemporary cost benefit analysis.
