Leo Varadkar vs David McGuinness on Dublin's transport proposals - who is correct?

[ThomasJ]

Ff counsellor david mcguinness has been fairly loud in recent times, criticising leo varadkars failure to submit any of the postphoned transport proposals to the european bank for consideration. Anyone think mcguinness is right

http://www.davidmcguinness.ie/dublin...irish-stimulus

UK Transport Secretary Justine Greening, this week, outlines Multi-Billion Investment in transport to generate ‘Jobs and Growth’Fianna Fáil Dublin West Councillor David McGuinness has expressed disappointment at the ‘laziness’ of Transport Minister Leo Varadkar not to present much needed Dublin transport projects to the European Investment Bank at a recent bi-lateral meeting between the EIB and the Irish government.

Now, leaked reports suggest a multi-billion euro stimulus plan is set to be unveiled but a parliamentary response, obtained by Timmy Dooley TD on behalf of Councillor David McGuinness, displays the lack of foresight and imagination of the Transport Minister.“In a recent PQ, Minister Varadkar acknowledged that he had forwarded none of the stalled Metro, Luas or electrification projects for consideration for funding by the EIB. This despite the EIB co-funding many such projects in places such as Paris, Warsaw, Prague, Montpellier, London (Crossrail), Nottingham and more.

This is a slap in the face to commuting Dubliners who have seen their fares increase and four out of five major Dublin Rail projects cancelled over the lifetime of this government,” outlined McGuinness.“What makes this an even more embarrassing slip up for the minister is that his counterpart in the United Kingdom, Transport Secretary Justine Greening, has this week announced a multi-billion euro stimulus plan on the UK-rail system in a bid to generate ‘growth and jobs’.

The very type of projects that are being prioritised in the UK are specifically the ones being ignored here in Ireland such as the electrification of train lines, such as the Maynooth Line, and increased rail connectivity like bringing Metro North, Metro West and completion of LUAS to Fruition,” added McGuinness“The European Investment Bank has an excellent track record in delivering rail projects throughout the European Union which directly leads to job creation, improved services for the public and growth in domestic economies. It is such a pity that Ireland does not have a Transport minister who will fight his corner and put Transport at the forefront of Ireland’s economic recovery,” concluded McGuinness.ENDS

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by ThomasJ

(McGuinness)This is a slap in the face to commuting Dubliners who have seen their fares increase and four out of five major Dublin Rail projects cancelled over the lifetime of this government

Only because FF refused to do so despite the writing being on the wall - leave the bad news to the next crowd etc.

Originally Posted by ThomasJ

increased rail connectivity like bringing Metro North, Metro West and completion of LUAS to Fruition

I have two alternative responses - pick one:

1. Supporting Metro West as a national priority disqualifies the rest of anything you say Councillor
2. Why isn't membership of FF - or at the very least standing for office on their behalf - a criminal offence yet?

[James Howard]

Varadkar does not present an impression that public transport is very much to do with his brief. All of the recent transport announcements were road-based aside from a few miles of tram-line to Broombridge and this is at a time when we have recently spent billions of euro building more than enough motorways for the country. Spatially, this country is completely banjaxed and they need to stop adding infrastructure that makes this worse and start trying to fix the mess that was made over the last 15 years.

I do think that at this point, adding tram lines makes the most sense as they help city centres gain critical mass. They are the cheapest by far which means that any money found under the mattress would make the most difference. They certainly makes a lot more sense than investing in more white-elephant motorways.

Electrification makes little sense until the rolling stock gets a lot older or if the DART underground was to be built. If the Maynooth line was electrified, Irish Rail would suddenly have a heap of relatively new 29Ks on their hands that would just be left to rot with 20 to 30 years expected service life remaining. It isn't likely that they would use the opportunity to increase frequency, so all that would happen is that several hundred million euro would be spent and no passenger benefit would result.

[richiek]

I think McGuinness is bang on the money here. If he was from a different political party, people would probably think he is right. The fact is the recent stimulus has made sure that rail based investment is so low down the current Govt's transport priorities. The likes of Metro North and Dart Underground which are both nearly shovel ready and both come out very strongly in cost benefit analysis and have the chance to shape the city of Dublin for the rest of this century. It is these two projects along with some other Luas extensions that would help in making Dublin a more sustainable future from a planning perspective.

What we got was the M17/18 and M11/ N25. Some sections of these roads have less than 10,000 vehicles a day and in any other country would not reach a satisfactory cost benefit ratio to justify investment. Metro North and DU does.

Varadkar has lost a chance to make his mark on Dublin.

[Inniskeen]

Colm Mc Carthy is not much impressed with the recent road investment announcements. He strongly questions the wisdom of expending scarce resources on infrastructure which doesn't (and is unlikely to) have anything like the usage thresholds necessary for viability.

Hard to see much of a case for the DART inter-connector at present given the extraordinarily modest demand at the KRP stations and the operational mess that the interconnector would create on the northern line out of Connolly. The obvious pre-requisite for the inter-connector and a DART service to the airport are dedicated suburban lines north of Connolly. This is the huge advantage Metro North has - it will have dedicated tracks and equally importantly doesn't destroy other services.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

Colm Mc Carthy is not much impressed with the recent road investment announcements. He strongly questions the wisdom of expending scarce resources on infrastructure which doesn't (and is unlikely to) have anything like the usage thresholds necessary for viability.

Hard to see much of a case for the DART inter-connector at present given the extraordinarily modest demand at the KRP stations and the operational mess that the interconnector would create on the northern line out of Connolly. The obvious pre-requisite for the inter-connector and a DART service to the airport are dedicated suburban lines north of Connolly. This is the huge advantage Metro North has - it will have dedicated tracks and equally importantly doesn't destroy other services.

The KRP is underused because the passengers are dumped at Heuston, instead of D1/D2. Build the interconnector and those stations will be successful.

Assuming Bray DARTs end up in Maynooth, trains from the Interconnector need not have a negative effect on the northern line. In fact, it would give northern line passengers a choice of destination. It is only when you start adding more termini (the airport, Balbriggan) that the northern line becomes problematic.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Colm Moore

The KRP is underused because the passengers are dumped at Heuston, instead of D1/D2. Build the interconnector and those stations will be successful.

Assuming Bray DARTs end up in Maynooth, trains from the Interconnector need not have a negative effect on the northern line. In fact, it would give northern line passengers a choice of destination. It is only when you start adding more termini (the airport, Balbriggan) that the northern line becomes problematic.

The northern line is already problematic, you cannot run a slow inner suburban service such as DART, a decent outer suburban service and an intercity service on two tracks. It is already a mess due to the lack of physical track capacity, laughably poor track layouts and bad timetable design.

The intended absence of turnback facilities at the eastern end of the interconnector means that all trains departing Heuston will have to run onto the northern line. Either the frequency on the inter-connector will be way below design capacity or alternatively the northern line will be so congested as to make it impractical to run worthwhile outer suburban services, intercity services or fast airport trains. Everything will have to proceed at the pace of the slowest service (DART) with an inevitable decline in patronage and revenue as the service becomes only viable for journeys of a few kilometres.

As currently designed DART inter-connector will be hugely expensive and deliver little of what has been promised.

[dowlingm]

We should not fall into the trap of saying roads vs rail but all projects should be publicly screened - given that every such project puts future generations further in debt the cosy cartel of CIE, NRA, NTA, the trucking lobby and DoT should no longer be trusted to get it right without the citizens looking over their shoulder.

[Thomas J Stamp]

I am assuming that the good counsellor is speaking about last weeks announcement of the €2.25 billion national infrastructure plan. You can view that plan in a number of ways, either cynically or not. A cynic may say that it has resulted in a motorway to the Taoiseach's constituancy and one to the minister in change of the plan. Are either of them "shovel ready?" what does that term mean anyway? check out the infratructure forum on boards.ie for a very full discussion on that point.

As for building the schools, and providing jobs (it is a jobs initiative) i was speaking to an engineer yesterday involved in the building of a three floor 36 room school. It took 27 weeks from when the gap in the hedge was opened, to the completion of all the work. It's all pre-cast and modular. Amount of jobs involved? Sod all.

€2.25 billion - that would build DART underground and also allow for the re-jigging of signals and track to allow the PPT to Connolly to boot. Leaves nothing else to anyone. €2.25 wont get you Metro North. It will, hwoever, give you more jobs than the roads and the schools and other projects. However, it will not give you more votes and more TD's, especially as the northside of Dublin City is about to lose a few.

Personally I am all in favour of a €5billion development plan which will see these things plus Dart Underground/Electrification of the GDA. The economic benefits to the 6th most congested city in Europe speak for themselves.

Perhaps it may happen. As for the ministers I am not sure if the accusation of anti public transport is 100% correct. Ask the private bus companies about that today, for example.

[James Howard]

If we are talking about fantasy investments, I think that if this amount of money were to be spent on local transport in Dublin, we should be considering a supplementary tax for people living in Dublin to cover it as 60% of the taxpayers will never derive any meaningful benefit from it.

By if this amount were to be spent, it could possibly be spent a lot more effectively. For example, one of the main justifications for the development of a second interconnector between the city centre stations is that the existing one cannot be used effectively due to platform constraints at Connolly. But Connolly has a huge amount of under-used space in the form of maintenance sheds and sidings. Surely, it would be possible for a fraction of the cost of DART underground to add 3 or 4 new platforms to Connolly and redevelop the storage and maintenance facilities in Docklands which nobody wants to go to as an actual station. It might require a loop across the canal but this would probably achieve most of the objectives for a fraction of the money. It would also create enough space to terminate more Northern line and Maynooth line trains at Connolly and relieve some of the pressure on the Loop line.

Personally I think that the best solution to Dublin's public transport issues is to plaster the city with trams. We need to be thinking about cheaper, simpler solutions rather than massive engineering projects that aren't affordable. In terms of the services I use, the biggest improvement for my transport needs over the last few years has been Dublin Bikes.

If I had to choose between all the railway "improvements" over the last 10 years and Dublin Bikes, I would take the latter. And that cost the city pretty much nothing.

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by James Howard

If we are talking about fantasy investments, I think that if this amount of money were to be spent on local transport in Dublin, we should be considering a supplementary tax for people living in Dublin to cover it as 60% of the taxpayers will never derive any meaningful benefit from it.

When is the WRC tax (money p!ssed up a wall for no meaningful benefit to the people who live in the West, never mind Dublin) happening?

As for Dublin Bikes "not costing anything" - don't kid yourself. JC Decaux ain't a charity and Dublin public space was definitely worth something to them, and therefore to everyone else too.

[Thomas J Stamp]

Originally Posted by James Howard

If we are talking about fantasy investments, I think that if this amount of money were to be spent on local transport in Dublin, we should be considering a supplementary tax for people living in Dublin to cover it as 60% of the taxpayers will never derive any meaningful benefit from it.

By if this amount were to be spent, it could possibly be spent a lot more effectively. For example, one of the main justifications for the development of a second interconnector between the city centre stations is that the existing one cannot be used effectively due to platform constraints at Connolly. But Connolly has a huge amount of under-used space in the form of maintenance sheds and sidings. Surely, it would be possible for a fraction of the cost of DART underground to add 3 or 4 new platforms to Connolly and redevelop the storage and maintenance facilities in Docklands which nobody wants to go to as an actual station. It might require a loop across the canal but this would probably achieve most of the objectives for a fraction of the money. It would also create enough space to terminate more Northern line and Maynooth line trains at Connolly and relieve some of the pressure on the Loop line.

Personally I think that the best solution to Dublin's public transport issues is to plaster the city with trams. We need to be thinking about cheaper, simpler solutions rather than massive engineering projects that aren't affordable. In terms of the services I use, the biggest improvement for my transport needs over the last few years has been Dublin Bikes.

If I had to choose between all the railway "improvements" over the last 10 years and Dublin Bikes, I would take the latter. And that cost the city pretty much nothing.

walking is cheap too. and good for you.

Originally Posted by dowlingm

When is the WRC tax (money p!ssed up a wall for no meaningful benefit to the people who live in the West, never mind Dublin) happening?

As for Dublin Bikes "not costing anything" - don't kid yourself. JC Decaux ain't a charity and Dublin public space was definitely worth something to them, and therefore to everyone else too.

the idea of "local taxes for local people" is not a runner in a modern society. why stop with a dublin only tax? on that basis why should the employed of Dalkey pay for the unemployed of Ballymun?

Besides, the GDA is the biggest money generator for the entire country. if we have a transport system that helps that generator produce more money then it will help the entire country and so the entire country pays for it.

[James Howard]

Walking is cheap, but the Dublin bikes system is a far more effective means of getting around the city centre and hopefully soon not just the centre. A bike-rental scheme would probably work even better in Cork, Galway and Limerick given how much smaller these cities are. This conversation is also entirely moot as it is making national headlines that they have found 36 million euro down the back of the sofa to pay for redundancies.

The point I was trying to make is that we are past the era of mega-projects and given Irish Rail's record of spending vast amounts of money and ending up with little or nothing in service improvements to show for it, it is time to think of smaller projects that achieve a good proportion of the same objectives.

In my opinion, it is a waste of money to be investing in building further motorways, but it is not much less wasteful to be investing billions in a tunnel to nowhere (particularly when a similar tunnel AND a tram line largely achieve the same purpose already) and/or billions more in a single rail-line that makes the tunnel somewhat useful.

The public transport system in Dublin is a shambles and is getting worse. My personal experience of Dublin Bus recently has been limited to around City West and while the Luas offers a frequent but slow service if you are within walking distance of the line, the bus-service is a disaster and has gotten drastically worse over the last couple of years.

The same is repeated all around the city. If you are to make public transport a viable option for the vast majority of Dublin's population, what money there is needs to be spent on improving the bus network and possible on some tram lines. Blowing the whole lot on a single line to one area of the city is simply not fair and this is what I was alluding to when I made the comment about taxes and their distribution.

Sure it would be nice and shiny to have a rail tunnel under the city and we could all have some fun on the underground but in terms of practical benefits, it would achieve a lot more to spend the money in a way that helps the population of the entire city.

[Thomas J Stamp]

what you say is true of Metro North (or indeed west) but isnt as true as Dart Underground, because it will facilitate high frequency (well, you know) EMU trains on the Commuter lines from Kildare and Louth, with interchanges to both Luas lines in high usage and handy areas. Thats far form the limited impact of a stand alone metro line. Throw in the few million to re-jig Glasneven and North Wall junctions to allow intercity trains use the PPP and Connolly/Docklands/go right to Belfast and you suddenly have a flexible dynamic system which we most certainly do not have now.

The €36 million is not going on redundancies.

Dublin Bikes is great, but it cant be used at terminal railway stations ( i am led to belive) because all the bikes will be taken in the morning rush hour and the other ranks wouldnt have capacity to accept them.

[Inniskeen]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

what you say is true of Metro North (or indeed west) but isnt as true as Dart Underground, because it will facilitate high frequency (well, you know) EMU trains on the Commuter lines from Kildare and Louth, with interchanges to both Luas lines in high usage and handy areas. Thats far form the limited impact of a stand alone metro line. Throw in the few million to re-jig Glasneven and North Wall junctions to allow intercity trains use the PPP and Connolly/Docklands/go right to Belfast and you suddenly have a flexible dynamic system which we most certainly do not have now.

The €36 million is not going on redundancies.

Dublin Bikes is great, but it cant be used at terminal railway stations ( i am led to belive) because all the bikes will be taken in the morning rush hour and the other ranks wouldnt have capacity to accept them.

I am afraid that in the absence of additional physical track capacity north of Connolly, DART interconnector and DART to the airport is a nonsense as it is simply not possible to provide services that will be competive with alternative bus services or sufficiently attractive to entice people to leave their cars at home.

In the absence of additional tracks north of Connolly it might be better to dedicate the existing lines to express DART to the airport, fast outer-suburban commuter services and cross-border trains. The area between Clontarf Road and Howth Junction (and potentially the Howth branch) would be better served by a separate high frequency Luas service directly accessible from the city centre and via interchanges at Clontarf Road and Howth Junction.

[James Howard]

Originally Posted by Inniskeen

In the absence of additional tracks north of Connolly it might be better to dedicate the existing lines to express DART to the airport, fast outer-suburban commuter services and cross-border trains. The area between Clontarf Road and Howth Junction (and potentially the Howth branch) would be better served by a separate high frequency Luas service directly accessible from the city centre and via interchanges at Clontarf Road and Howth Junction.

This is the sort of solution that would make sense in our present financial circumstances. Put in a relatively cheap tram line to serve the shorter journey and dedicate the existing heavy rail system to longer-distance travel.

The DART interconnecter will start making sense when the 29Ks are approaching the end of their operational lifespan which will then make it economically sensible to look at electrifying the inner suburban lines and replacing the 29Ks with EMUs. But if they were to build it now, Irish Rail would suddenly have a heap of 29Ks with no purpose.

[dowlingm]

or convert the Howth Branch to a tramway as the ultimate extension of said "coast LUAS"?