Niall
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yes, the aul dollop of tar, can’t beat it, very Irish disease!!
Henry Street looks awful, not as bad as Liffey Street though, Yikes!!!
Excellent Gabriel as usual!!!
Notice from one of the pics, that very interesting Irish disease:
Road signs half way down poles, grrrrrrrrrrrr
Nowhere else in the world is this witnessed!!
I would imagine when Luas is opened there will be calls for the linking of Lines B and A.
They will go back to the original 1996 proposal and hey presto the Dept of Finance will give it the ok.
RIP metro, on costs grounds!
Yes I remember the ’98 debacle well. Mam O’Rourke and Mary Harney et al caved in to the shopkeepers and toffs on Dawson Street and College Green.
We now have two luas lines that meet nowhere!
Why is it everytime I walk past Luas works they are going at a snail’s pace. Three/four contractors at most standing around and one working.
Completion by June, thoughts?
Royston Brady will be one of two FF candidates in Dublin for the European elections and also a candidate in the Dublin City Council elections….. both on June 11.
Took the words right out of my mouth………
O’Connell St revamp is a farce, says Brady
Irish IndependentDUBLIN’S first citizen Lord Mayor Royston Brady has labelled as “farcical” the lack of progress in the rejuvenation of O’Connell Street.
According to the Lord Mayor, seven years after the plans were first put together citizens and visitors to the capital are still waiting to see the finished product, which aims to be a Champs Elysees-style boulevard.
Mr Brady told the Irish Independent he would be seeking answers at a meeting of Dublin City Council tonight.
The Lord Mayor said O’Connell Street was an “absolute disgrace”, particularly in a year when Ireland was hosting the EU Presidency.
A major street party was planned in the Capital on May 1, he said, the day when the 10 new accession states become fully fledged EU members.
“Only half the street will be ready by May. The pyramids in Egypt were built quicker. How long does it take?” asked Mr Brady.
“My ultimatum is that it better be ready by April. They have four months to get it right – it’s not that big a street,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the City Council said the plaza at the GPO was due to be finished in April, while works up to O’Connell Bridge would be complete by December.
Great news!
After their involvement in the Carrickmines/M50 debacle, I for one, won’t shed any tears!
I agree, the days of the Minister and half the cabinet opening 3 mile bypasses should be consigned to history.
If we can’t build cheap roads bring Johnny foreigner in to build them. There is no reason why Portlaoise to Cork and Limerick can’t be one contract.
This is a very small country!!!
Does anyone else get the feeling that Luas is a glorified bus on rails that will clog streets and cause more congestion??
Why on earth did we not go for a metro?(thinking too far long-term?)
Totally agree about taxis, they should be in the Dublin colours for Dublin or the same colour as the roof sign!
So much for ‘all city centre work will be completed by Christmas’ despite, the unusually unseasonal summer/autumn?
Promises, promises, Oh how I remember 1991, light rail by 1996……. those were the days…….
Was going underground such a bad idea after all.? Instead we get glorified buses on rails with electric currents. Well done lads, take your hats off!
This is all absolute nonsense without the proper infrastructure……. Drove the Cork-Dublin road very recently. dream on lads!!!……………………….. Minor gripe, any chance of signposts on the route to mirror even a second world country?
Alice in wonderland!
Rory, to answer your question.. faceless bureaucrats, who work 3 hours a day, consultants who get paid to write fantasy and spineless government ministers who pay and listen to both of them! Then do nothing for months and years and still manage to get it wrong
Metro is a great idea! But didn’t DART start life out as the first of 3 lines in the 1980s, to be binned by the government in 1987 has someone forgotten that report????????????????????????? it took 4 years from conception to reality!
While I’m not advocating using the spur off the northern line, surely the sligo line, phoenix park tunnel- Spencer dock with underground link to meet Luas , could be utilised to a better extent?
I always find the ‘throw a piece of lumpy asphalt in a hole and leave it’ as particulary Irish.
As Irish, as the saying ‘ah sure it’ll do rightly!’ ‘Are ye mad or what?’
Once down the thing is left there until someone makes the first compo claim. What it does for the appearance of the fair city!
Press Release
LUAS – Look Back in Horror
Date: 22 September, 2003
From: Derek Wheeler, PRO, Platform11
Issued by: Platform11 Press Office
LUAS: The Facts
Essentially what should have been a straightforward, light rail transport project for a mid-sized European city has turned into one of the most remarkable and bizarre episodes in the history of public transport planning, political interference and incompetence in European railway history. Quite simply in plain language, the Railway Procurement Agency, an organisation that is essentially a fostered grandchild of CIE, is not up to the job and should be removed from the LUAS project immediately. CIE in any name, shape of form, is pathologically incapable of delivering public transport in Ireland that works for the society and economy of Ireland while delivering value to the Irish taxpayer. This coupled with the on-going reality that Irish politicians cannot view rail transport in this country as anything other than a political football has led to this mess.
The Big Questions
Why did the RPA build two unconnected lines at once? Why did they start out in the suburbs and progress the construction towards the city centre at the same time when they could have completed the Sandyford-Stephens Green line initially, and then tackled the Tallaght line? This was entirely due to interference from Mary O’Rourke (then Minister for Public Enterprise), in the face of opposition from the then Light Rail Project Office (LRPO).
The Results of these Decisions
This then led to massive cost over-runs as a result of:
Having to build two separate depots (originally only one was planned at Red Cow) and duplicate facilities
Then having to additionally upgrade the Sandyford line to Metro standard (as requested to by the department at the last minute after originally turning down this suggestion from the LRPO) .
The extension from Balally to Sandyford was turned down by politicians originally and then they did a volte-face.All of these factors have led to outrageous cost over-runs which could have been avoided if the politicians had not interfered in the way that they have. The requirement to build both lines simultaneously also came from government and not the RPA.
A Better WayThe Sandyford line is essentially a “no brainer”. The route follows the course of the old Harcourt Street route closed by CIE in 1959. Basically, all that was required was to lay the tracks and build the stations on the intact railway route. The Sandyford-Stephens Green line could have been completed and finished in a relatively short time, and Dubliners would already be enjoying the benefits of light rail transport. The Tallaght line could have been then tackled, and the experience and knowledge acquired in building the first line could have been used during the construction of the Tallaght, to avoid the Red Cow insanity. Instead of employing two separate working crews for the two projects, one could have been used on each LUAS line consecutively.
Best Practice
This is how it is done everywhere else in the world. But as Platform11 has been highlighting since our inception, proven international rail transport methodology has never been understood by CIE, even when some of their offspring break away and rename themselves the “Railway Procurement Agencyâ€. The RPA has inherited CIE’s incompetence. All that happened was some of the same old clowns started a new circus and Irish taxpayers are paying an appalling price.
Political Interference
On top of this the whole project has been blighted by political interference from the start. The Red Cow situation is a shining example of this. In what other country would a national transport minister be getting involved in detailed suggestions concerning “stilts� Why did these discussions not take place at the public enquiry? The answer is that the politicians refused funding for anything more than the situation that pertained at initial design stage. To have central government involved to the degree that they have been in interfering with the work of a light rail transport project is nothing short of farcical and uniquely Irish.
The Future
All over the world light rail is successful and serves cities and commuters well. Perhaps the most tragic aspect of the RPA’s surreal management of the LUAS project and the politicians meddling is that they may have killed light rail transport in Ireland forever. Sadly, the incompetent RPA have made “Light Rail†a dirty word in Ireland, and considering the assault of the Irish taxpayers by the CIE-schooled managers of the LUAS project, one can hardly blame them.
Platform11’s View
Many Dublin schoolchildren grew up singing the street rhyme “CIE are Robbery†but it took the CIE managers putting on a different clown uniforms and setting up a new circus called the Rail Procurement Agency, to really make that children’s song a tragic prophecy. The Politicians at the same time have decided that Todd Andrews is still the mentor of choice when it comes to rail transport policy on this island and that his disastrous legacy and failure to understand precisely what railways are, and why the Irish economy/society needs them, continues to this day. Platform11 along with the tax payers of this country have had enough – we need rail transport that works for Ireland. Irish people have travelled to the continent and witnessed first hand how rail transport works and why it is important to a nation and its economy.
Integrated transport is quite achievable. Dublin must have this it order to increase competitiveness and to improve the quality of live of its citizens.
ENDS 22/09/03
Walked over the Millenium Bridge in London this morning, guy on a cleaner/mower chemically cleaning the hard metal walking surface and a guy walking in front sweeping debris up!!!
Now that’s what I would call a clean.
Funny, as you approach it, there is a sign saying HSBC Bank gates, I wondered do they sponsor it and what a good idea if they pay for its upkeep?
I also notice they surface is way tougher than the Dublin one and no stupid lights underfoot, they are under the bridge and to its side, i.e PRACTICAL.
