Colm McCarthy: Metro Link figures simply don't add up

[Brendan Burgess]

I was very suspicious of the need for this Metro Link and I see that Colm McCarthy has challenged the rationale for it.

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/...link-figures-simply-dont-add-up-36615041.html

"Departments must ensure that individual projects and investment proposals meet all relevant appraisal processes and value-for-money tests." So the Department of Transport will have to find some consultants who will conclude that the benefits of Metro Link exceed the costs. Notwithstanding the considerable ingenuity consultants devote to this type of challenge, they will struggle to make the numbers stack up.

The reason is that €3bn is an extraordinary amount of money to spend on a single tram line to a city suburb. The Swords line will be roughly the same length as each of the existing red and green lines. These lines, including the bits added on since their original construction, cost a total of €780m, say €400m apiece. Even if the new Swords line attracts somewhat greater patronage than the Tallaght (red) or Sandyford (green) lines - and it could - it is going to cost 7.5 times the bill for either.

There have been four big transport investments in Dublin in recent times. These were the red and green lines, the new cross-city line and the Dublin Port Tunnel. This is what they cost:

- Red/Green lines: €780m

- Cross City line: €368m

- Port Tunnel: €739m

- Total: €1,887m

...
Even if Finn McCool's bones are not encountered along the way, the scope for cost over-runs just goes with the territory.

...
The airport is also well served by bus routes from the city centre and from around the suburbs. Many routes use the Dublin Port Tunnel and journey times are no more than about 20-25 minutes from the central area.

The Swords Luas line would not offer any improvement on this score. The current journey time by public transport from Dublin Airport to the city centre is shorter than is the case at most major European airports, even ones with rail connections, because the airport is quite close to downtown.

 

[newirishman]

Dublin needs more rail-based transport. Buses don't cut it for many reasons, but the two biggest being limited capacity and impact on road-based traffic.
Look at the current commuting routes that are solely relying on a bus, i.e. along both sides of the Liffey (Blanchardstown and Lucan), along the N1 towards Santry, Airport, Swords, as well as along N2/N3 to cover Finglas, or and all routes between Luas Green and Red Lines on the south side: how often do buses not stop because they are too full.

Adding more busses will not solve the problem. Dublin needs more rail-based, ideally underground (or at least dedicated tracks), transport links.
DART capacity and speed needs improvement, there is no technical reason why you couldn't have a DART every 3-4 minutes during rush hour.
Introduce DART like service on the train lines that go west.
This of course means getting rid of all the railroad crossings (at least, get rid of those ridiculous manual ones like in Ashtown!)

Add a third/fourth rail track between at least Dun Laoghaire and Malahide, this should be not too difficult in terms of available space at least at the north side for the Liffey.

DART underground is still a good idea.

Of course, costs are an issue. But can we afford not to do this?

 

[odyssey06]

Dublin needs more rail-based transport. Buses don't cut it for many reasons, but the two biggest being limited capacity and impact on road-based traffic.
Look at the current commuting routes that are solely relying on a bus, i.e. along both sides of the Liffey (Blanchardstown and Lucan), along the N1 towards Santry, Airport, Swords, as well as along N2/N3 to cover Finglas, or and all routes between Luas Green and Red Lines on the south side: how often do buses not stop because they are too full.

Adding more busses will not solve the problem.

It's a lot cheaper to add more buses, and we can have more buses operational in a fraction of the time it'll take for any metro or underground project ... why can't we add more buses on those commuter routes if they have dedicated bus lanes?
There's no planning permission needed, no infrasucture work, just drivers and buses.

I don't think we have reached the point where we have maxxed out the capabilities of Dublin Bus. We need to bring in 'interchanges', allowing easier intersection of routes for passengers... at the moment if you have to change buses it can be a bit of a nightmare. This means passengers can get through the city but means not all buses have to.

Dublin could manage without the LUAS or DART a lot more easily than it could without Dublin Bus. They may not be as glamourous but they do the lion's share of the work.

And it's ridiculous than if you want a travel ticket you have to pay more for a combined Bus\LUAS or Bus\DART ticket than just single transport mode ticket. It hardly encourages best use by commuters of the public transport network.

There are advantages to rail and light rail and underground where they utilise space that buses cannot... but they are going to be expensive long term projects.

So the future funding should not be mutually exclusive i.e. buses OR rail\light rail, but how can we best make use of both.

 

[llgon]

What can't be quantified with the figures for these projects are the costs to everyone of the amount of space (which was already very limited) taken over on city centre streets by the luas lines. This cost will be ongoing into the future but is usually overlooked as nothing had to be paid upfront. In the future €3bn could be seen as a small amount to spend given that the new line will be taken underground in the city centre.

 

[DeclanDublin]

I have a sense that this is something of a trophy project. Personally, I see a greater justification for an extension on the Luas to West Dublin, the fastest growing area of the city if not the country.

 

[MrEarl]

Hello,

I think it's very clear that Metro North would not be as expensive, if they were not proposing to put so much of it underground. I'm sure they could also cut out a couple of stops along the way (perhaps even develop them at some later point), if they want to get the initial costs down a bit. However, there are long term benefits to doing both (part of the line underground and covering more stops) from Day 1.

Also, if we were trying to price the Red & Green lines today, what would they cost and how does that compare to what they cost when they were constructed ?

....Personally, I see a greater justification for an extension on the Luas to West Dublin, the fastest growing area of the city if not the country.

IMHO there is a need for both, and both projects should progress immediately. Likewise, I'd also be extending the DART now, rather than dreaming about it happening in 2038 or whenever the Government suggested it might happen.

Sensible PPP deals should help fund all of the above, if we can't do it by ourselves.

By dragging our heels, we just allow problems to go from bad to worse. With a growing population, changes needed to the level of damage we are doing to the environment, the cost of long commute times to the economy (not to mention people's quality of life), there are numerous good reasons to be more ambitious and proactive.

 

[Purple]

No money should be spent on any infrastructure which competes for space with the road network.
If we are going to run a train from the airport to the city center then it should be underground most of the way in. We then have to accept that one train line is bugger all use for alleviating road congestion so we need to look at it in the contest of a longer term plan to build an underground system for Dublin.

That or don't bother; just put more buses on the road.

 

[qwerty5]

For the guys saying put more buses on the road, can you pop onto a bus lane from Swords -> Dublin during peak times and experience the speed of getting into Dublin from Swords.
I get the SwordsExpress which is a great service every morning. At the stop I get on, 3 buses appear within a minute of each other. The bus only has to go between the airport roundabout -> the port tunnel on the M1 and this morning it was a car park. Then at the other end, with the very best traffic it takes 10 minutes to get from the exit of the port tunnel to Eden Quay. That's a good time but it usually takes longer. I've frequently spent 20 mins on that section. Colm McCarthy is fond of saying it takes 20 mins from the city centre to the airport (and he says 20-25 in the article).
That's using the tunnel. I wouldn't fancy having to go the non tunnel route that most northsiders have to use. It's been made into a bus lane as much possible and there are bottlenecks.

On a more selfish note, at the moment I live in Swords. I will not take any job south of Dublin 2. Commute using public transport goes crap and I have a life so sitting on the M50 for large portions of it and the costs associated with it are unacceptable to me. For my field of expertise there are loads of jobs in the Southside. It would open up Sandyford to me as an option. It's no big deal to me but I know guys that commute for 2 hours each way from Swords on public transport to the jobs they can get.

But yes 3bn is a gigantic number. We should have built it 10 years ago (was it 1.6bn then?). When we eventually build it in 30 years it'll probably be 30bn. That's they way we seem to do stuff in Ireland.

I don't know how to quantify the cost or savings that having a train from Swords to Dublin would make. Can anybody? I'd imagine a park and ride in Swords would serve Meath & Louth and that with the train would take 1000's of cars off the road each day which would benefit not just the people on the train route.

 

[odyssey06]

For the guys saying put more buses on the road, can you pop onto a bus lane from Swords -> Dublin during peak times and experience the speed of getting into Dublin from Swords.
I get the SwordsExpress which is a great service every morning. At the stop I get on, 3 buses appear within a minute of each other. The bus only has to go between the airport roundabout -> the port tunnel on the M1 and this morning it was a car park. Then at the other end, with the very best traffic it takes 10 minutes to get from the exit of the port tunnel to Eden Quay. That's a good time but it usually takes longer. I've frequently spent 20 mins on that section. Colm McCarthy is fond of saying it takes 20 mins from the city centre to the airport (and he says 20-25 in the article).
That's using the tunnel. I wouldn't fancy having to go the non tunnel route that most northsiders have to use. It's been made into a bus lane as much possible and there are bottlenecks.

If you had a €100 million for sorting out bottlenecks do you think it would significantly improve transit times? And how quickly would improvements be in place?
If you're waiting on the Metro to sort this particular route out, it's going to be a long time. Maybe €3 billion on a Metro is the right solution, but I think we should also be asking ourselves what can €100 million get us in the next 3-5 years.

 

[qwerty5]

If you had a €100 million for sorting out bottlenecks do you think it would significantly improve transit times? And how quickly would improvements be in place?
If you're waiting on the Metro to sort this particular route out, it's going to be a long time. Maybe €3 billion on a Metro is the right solution, but I think we should also be asking ourselves what can €100 million get us in the next 3-5 years.

Dunno. Would 100m be enough? On certain sections it'd require buying up large amounts of old houses. They've been tinkering with the bus lanes for 20 years under various marketing names to make them sound fast.

They expanded the M50 hugely in the last decade. Now it's full again.
And I don't think expanding bus lanes from Swords is going to remove any traffic on the M50 from Swords <-> Sandyford.
Swords is still expanding. The council seem to be happy to approve 100's of houses and there's shag all improvement in the routes to the city.

I'm sure 100m would help. Then in 10 years we'll be right back here again considering trains as the roads have filled up.

I'm in my 40's now. I'm not expecting it during my working life anyway.

 

[shweeney]

Colm McCarthy is notoriously anti-public-transport. Didn't he oppose both the Dart and the Luas? What would traffic be like in the city if you closed those down tomorrow?

 

[odyssey06]

Colm McCarthy is notoriously anti-public-transport. Didn't he oppose both the Dart and the Luas? What would traffic be like in the city if you closed those down tomorrow?

That depends, what did we do with the money we didn't spend on the Luas in that alternative universe?
If we had put it into bus lanes, buses and park and rides and expanding the DART ... maybe it'd be lighter.

 

[DeclanDublin]

Underground rail is probably the way to go in the long term but probably the most pricey. I do see the argument for build it and the people will come. I notice on a regular commute to Balbriggan, that there's lots of development along the train lines at every stop. Many are apartments too.

 

[dereko1969]

If you had a €100 million for sorting out bottlenecks do you think it would significantly improve transit times? And how quickly would improvements be in place?
If you're waiting on the Metro to sort this particular route out, it's going to be a long time. Maybe €3 billion on a Metro is the right solution, but I think we should also be asking ourselves what can €100 million get us in the next 3-5 years.

Everyone is talking as if Metro Link is the only transport proposal in Project 2040 - it's not, there is also extending of DART to Drogheda, and one of the most important ones is https://www.busconnects.ie/ which has been funded and will transform bus routes in Dublin (and in the regional cities). Bus Connects will cost the guts of a billion and involves better bus lanes, more orbital routes and just a more sensible network for people to use.

People seem to be forgetting that Fingal is where we have the space to develop housing closer to Dublin, and to densify that housing. No amount of extra buses elsewhere in the GDA will support that. Metro has always been about Dublin Airport for some people, it really isn't about the airport at all. The number of people commuting in from Swords to the city centre and the south of the county is massive and only a rapid rail system can deliver a solution to them driving.

Colm McCarthy is notoriously anti-public-transport. Didn't he oppose both the Dart and the Luas? What would traffic be like in the city if you closed those down tomorrow?

This a thousand times, he really is clueless about public transport benefits.