Brian Hanson
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the reults of the survey are posted here:
http://www.platform11.org/dev_survey.html
thanks for all who took part
sorry – typo….delete the development projects which you feel are “unimportant” and leave the important one.
Diapora, I am amazed how you are knocking LUAS constantly and for no reason other than I think you are completly ignorant of urban light rail systems. They work and they cost money to build – END OF STORY.
If you want to know the real value and proof that the Harcourt Street traders crying poverty is utter hyperbole look at this article:
http://www.platform11.org/rail_bashing.html
Now go find me one residential or commerical property developer who is using easy access to buses as a selling point. LUAS will be a major sucess story in the history of Irish public transport (alongisde the sucess of the DART which people like you claimed was a waste as well).
You are just talking in the most begruding and little Irelander terms. It was no more expensive to build that compareble systems anywhere else and since was is Nothingham a major European capital city!
I think you need to do a bit travelling to places such as Vienna, Amsterdam and you’ll quickly realise how much of an asset to Dublin LUAS is going to be.
No disrecpect man, but you are just wrong and you need to start thinking about the big picture. LUAS in the long run will be a looked upon as a bargin considering the benefits it will being to the city of Dublin.
Public Transport Users Protest
Platform11 are in the process of organising a peaceful public protest outside the Dail within the coming month demanding that the Department of Transport and the Transport Unions finally recognise that public transport users are sick and tired of being treated like a forgotten child in a custody divorce hearing between the DoT and SIPTU/NBRU. We are fed-up with constantly having a gun put to our heads every time we use public transport – we want this sorted out and we demand that public transport users finally have their frustrations listened to.
Irish public transport users have their right to avail of dependable, integrated public transport just as in other European countries, and we should not be held hostage or used as pawns. A letter will also be presented to the Minister of Transport Seamus Brennan outlining our issues and demands.
If any individuals or groups would like to join Platform11 for the protest, you all more than welcome. The protest is for ALL Bus and Rail passengers, but groups from cyclists to concerned citizens are very welcome as well.
This protest is still in the planning stage (we are aiming for a weekday at around 1:30PM) and if you want more details, offer suggestions/ideas or just like to show up, then contact us at info@platform.org for updates prior to the protest. This will be your chance to have your voice heard by the government and the media for change.
The title of the demonstration will be “Public Transport Users – WHAT ABOUT US?â€
Originally posted by garethace
I think people are drving out to the pheriphery more and more to work etc, if this is the case.
I friend of mine who uses public transport going into town, has told me that the rush hour coming out in the evening can be much more severe than rush hour going in in mornings. Is that true?
Yes. The problem regarding congestion is not caused by people living in Dublin as much as the ones coming in from outside the M50.
http://www.platform11.org/dublin_rail.html
There is fairly high public transport, walking, cycling usage within Dublin city itself. We can thank the British for designing a compact European city. We can thank the Irish developers, planners, county councillors, brown envelopes and endless free car give-a-ways on RTE for the rest. The public transport system in the GDR needs to be redeveloped from the outside in towards the centre and not from the centre out. Sure, higher density planning will make a huge difference but the real congestion is primairly manifested in these new housing developments on the outskirts of small towns in the midlands. Building an Metro to Dublin Airport for several billion will do nothing to solve this. Park n Rides and an extended DART will.
Originally posted by Diaspora
A very good thought too!I lament the decline in domestic soccer here, particularly Shamrock Rovers.
The league just had it’s most sucessfull season in years. Just because Rovers are dead does not mean the domestic league is. Far from it. Clubs like Bohs, Cork and Longford do very well and have decent crowds and strong local followings. The problem is that people need to switch off Sky and go and support their own league and not some British corporate entity like Celtic and Liverpool.
Ireland is the only country in Europe were the poeple think a foreign league is their own league. The Irish are deeply unsophisticated race who do everything that box of lights and sound in the corner of the living room tells them to do. We are exceptionally backward and oafish in many ways. More like stupid American trailer trash than Europeans.
Also domestic soccer in this country has to compete with a political and religious organisation which dabbles in sport called the GAA and also rugby. Put this all together and the League of Ireland seem rather sucessfull all things considered.
but with a certain Kildare man at the purse-strings it’s unlikely anything will ever happen. [/B]
and this is the whole thrust behind Platform11’s thinking.
Sure we would love to see the Platform for Change or something like it to complement a fully utilised rail network. The Interconnector is a great idea, but Platform11 believes that unless public transport has something to do with putting a saddle on it, Charlie McCreevy will never release the required funds to build it. Thus the compromise of the d-Connector.
It is not in McCreevy’s thinking, railways to him are an alien burden. Urban commuiting/living is totally alien to him and therefore knowing what he is and how this country operates (and it is most certainly not in the purest approch of the DOT’s PLatform for Change), then we have to accept that this is Ireland.
This is why we push the d-Connector, because it is do-able and there is a good chance it could be done and can be a decent integrated first step, instead of waiting 15 years for an Interconnect or Metro than may never be built. We need a solution sooner rather than MAYBE later.
Look at the National Spatial Strategy and then see how the like of Eamon O’Cuiv and Tom Parlon have destroyed it at the parish pump and then you tell me that this same government with this same mentality can see the value in putting an rail Interconnector under the city.
Sorry , but I do like it either, but as they said in The Irish RM – “but this is Ireland!” This is why Platform11 is not making the public transport perfectly integrated dreamers happy, becuase we know that Charlie, Bertie and Mary have no intetion of doing that and we have accepted this reality.
Please down blame Platform11 for an Irish cultural issue we have to deal with as well. You try walking into a government minister’s office and being told, “sure lads, railways are never going to replace the moshercar and anyway dem big mosherways like they have in da States is what the people want”.
Originally posted by stira
Hang on. There has got to be a catch, i mean i just dont believe it can be that easy. Why the hell are CIE not acting if this is the case. I refer to the already on place interconnector. There has to be something not right.Believe me, it really is that easy and even Irish Rail now agree after years of telling us the Park Tunnel route was unsuited to passenger trains. Platform11 had to go to the government and tell them about it:
http://www.irlgov.ie/oireachtas/Committees-29th-Dáil/jct-debates/jct150403.rtf
Shocking to think the essential building blocks of a very useful metro system for Dublin were already in place and millions were paid out to constultants prove to the most amazing fantasies and to allow their graphic design departments to draw all kinds of lines on the map of Dublin…
Originally posted by stira
Ok, the Luas will be crowded by the time it reaches Heuston station at peak times, but the interconnector will have a high capacity for bringing passengers into the the city centre and doklands. And the one thing is, its going ot have to be built there is no getting out of it for CIE or the Gov.http://www.platform11.org/dconnector.html
http://www.platform11.org/luas_docklands.html
http://www.platform11.org/nometro.html
There are many stages that can be developed before waiting for Charlie McCreevy to refuse more money for new rail transport projects.
McCreevy said that the locations were picked because of their access to “road and rail routes”.
Trim lost it’s rail service in 1963
Cavan Town lost it’s rail service in 1963
Knock never had a rail service and the Western Rail Corridor (nearest line) lost it’s sevice in 1974 and is deemed unviable by the present government even though they are opening offices all allowing new towns and hosuing estate to spring up all along it.
Sounds like a FF re-election ploy and nothing else.
BTW he said no to Cardon Tax and yes to more motorways and tax relife on inner city car parks and Ireland now ofically is one of the most polluted countries in the EU thanks to auto emmisions and we face hundreds of million in fines. But McCreevy is doing everything to increse emmision.
something just ain’t right… The road building lobby are spending our taxes and we’ll end up paying the fines for our air quality. How come nobody talks about this?
Dublin didn’t need a second Metro
Oh dear!
There was a report about this on the 11 o’clock newsthis morning on Lite FM. The report said that the “disused” tunnel was unviable!
When the report was aired, there was no mention from the Oireachtas committee, just good old loud mouth Barry Kenny saying that it wouldnt help Dublin’s congestion and that IE is commited to the Interconnector to Spencer Dock.
To be fair to RTE they only repeated what they were told by CIE. Seamus Brennan stood up in the Dail and said the same. A few months later he stopped saying it – he realised his had been lied to, just like the previous Ministers. CIE management were caught making fools of people in government and playing on their ignorance of rail transport and that seems to be over now.
It speaks volumns I think about the mentality of the CIE management. The ran the railways like their own private little Hornby Railway Set and really did believe like the unions that we paid taxes to CIE and they only had a responsibility to themselves and their employees – integrated public transport didn;t interest them.
Now that the game is up – look at how they decided that railfreight was to be dumped by Dr John Lynch of CIE last November because, accoding to him, a world expert on rail transport and cream liquers that “Ireland is too small and has no heavy industry for railfreight” – then Norforkline (runs sucessfull freight trains operations all over Europe) and Coilte said they would run their own trains and as if by magic CIE suddenly start running their service for Norkfolline and Coillte that Dr Lynch and his freight experts at CIE/Irish Rail said were impossible a few months eariler.
Norfolkline are now running a regular freight service now between Waterford and Cork that last Noverment Dr John Lych said was to be closed because their was no traffic. The line was bringin in millions a year in containers and sugar beet. It’s just amazing and sickening when you think about it. This is the mentality of the peple running Irish railways.
They have been caught lying to the polticians, media, freight users and taxpayers to hide decades of incompetance and laziness. When you get down to the nitty gritty the main reason is that CIE management and unions don’t utilise the Phoenix Park and Spencer Dock becuase they just don’t feel like it. End of story.
This is how out of touch with reality and their public remit they are and this is why we need a serious overhaul of public transport in this country to make the most of what rail infrastructre we already have and stop rubbish such as train drivers and guards getting taxis home from Longford to Dublin and the entire intercity network stopping at teatime because the CIE unions through decades of nepotism and inter-generational emloyment have evolved to a few dozens families in Dublin holding the rest of to randsom and denying us a decent public
transport system.I foound this on the P11 website:
http://www.platform11.org/too_narrow.html
Goldmine of interesting information. I hope hese guys don;t wear annoraks and live with their mammies
The tunnel was built to hadle rolling stock much larger than what runs today. The average width of modern rolling stock is 9.0′ – Park Royal coaches were 9.10″ and were passing each other in the park tunnel up until the early 1990’s. The tunnel is caverous inside and can handle anything.
There is a picture of a Galway train from 1973 at the bottom of this page going into the tunnel with Park Royal coache in 1973:
http://www.platform11.org/dconnector.html
also you don’t widen the tunnel at all – if needed. You lower it – overhead catenery could be installed inside the tunnel if needed with only minor modifations. Chances are the tunnel is ready to go as is:
http://www.platform11.org/lower.jpg
The tunnel is HUGE – CIE are spoofers and guess what’s happening this morning:
from breakingnews.ie:
TDs to visit disused Dublin rail track
23/07/2003 – 8:31:12 amMembers of the Oireachtas transport committee are due to visit the disused rail track under the Phoenix Park in Dublin today.
The track connects Heuston and Connolly stations.
The Oireachtas transport committee is examining the possibility of developing the line in an effort to encourage more commuters to use rail services.
Non of this would of happened without Platform11 – pity they didn;t exsist years ago and have called CIE to task for their carry on over the years.
I don’t know where I came across this as it was while ago when I did but as far as I understand it, the tunnel is to narrow for modern day rolling stock and that is one of the principal reasons for not using it. Widening a tunnel is as expensive as build ing a new on apparently.
It’s alie
Fine Gael are again holding a Public meeting on the Phoenix Park rain link, this time concerning the feasibility of the Spencer Dock station in releation to the Phoenix Park rail link. Platform 11 will be there along with Denis Naughten.
The meeting will take place on Wednesday 23rd July at 8pm in the Oasis Centre [off Seville Place], Dublin 1.
What about the people who can’t or don’t drive? Are you suggestion some form of Henry Ford/Robert Moses transport-Darwinism where the Provisional-Holders survive and rest die? I can’t agree with this at all. We need a decent road AND rail network to benefit all society and not just the ones who get a corporate cars and need somewhere to smoke their cigareetes.
You are wrong about the car being the answer to our transport crises – the evidence against your asertion is ovewhelming – the most socially disenfranchised societies on earth are the one based on the car culture. I rather live in Venice than in Los Angeles – however, I would be perfectly happy living in Vienna or anywhere else were transport is balanced towards several modes and all strata of society. We needs trains and motorways.
Secondly, factor the cost of road accidents into car transport and then tell me that’s the winner by far. The last time a person was killed while being a passenger on train was in Ireland was in the 1980’s.
How many have been killed in or by cars and lorries since then. How many high speed rail freight route could have been built for cost of all the HGV made potholes around the nation? Not to mentioned having a countryside that is pleasent to walk and cycle through without being pushed off the road by some oaf in Celtic jersey, screming into his mobile driving his artic at 70mph on a country road. He’ll stil be doing that motorway or not.
The motorway is only half the answer.
There are a million people between Sligo and Limerick and railways operate in regions of even lower population and no cities at all over Europe and some are private companies that even make a nice profit.
The only place on earth where the population excuse is used to shut railways is Ireland and the UK. Nowhere else does this even come into the picture. They just adapt the rail operations to the needs of the region it serves.
You have been conditioned by the CIE/Lord Beeching mentaility – CIE are idiots who cannot run public transport and do not even understand rail transport. Also people now have cars and they will drive to stations. So the populations of the town surround the station is not an issue as much as it was 50 years ago. For example Limerick Juction should be a major hub with a big car park – but CIE/Irish Rail cannot see this potential.
Also, the WRC connects directly into Ireland’s largest bulk port at Foynes and on the Sligo-Tuam section huge tracts of forestry are reaching maturity. There are already too many lorries on the roads. Something has to be done as the west is little more than a race track for artics at this point and it’s damaging tourism. I was reading a post on a cycling newsgroup where it was pointed out over and over again that Ireland is no good for cycling holidays becuse of the reckless and huge number of tracks on our country roads.
it will be a great asset for the west and will balance the coutry and it tailor-made for the NSS.
