moyross draft regeneration plan unveils plans for station

[jpsartre]

the limerick regen. agency unveiled its draft masterplans last week which include a platform/station in the newly proposed moyress town centre, (http://www.limerickregeneration.ie/p...gratedPlan.pdf). Great news, an actual plan to utilize an existing train service that benefits the residents of the city. Lets hope its just the beginning. That said I wonder if it would not have been a better idea to put in place a park and ride sevice with parking at the junction of the newly proposed distributor road and the existing track in order to facilitate commuting motorists on that side of the city and then to place a second platform further down the track at the long pavement which would serve the ballynanty/ kililee population aswell as that of moyross? Granted the fewer stops the better timewise but if I might ask a dart user this question. How long does it take a dart to slow down, stop, wait and move off again before its back up to speed. In other words (and this is just for my own curiosity as it applies to all other possibe stops along the line) what is the net time lost or gained by a train that stops at platform a,b and c and the train that just stops at platforms a and c?

[Colm Moore]

For a DART, its probably about a minute, for a loco-hauled train about 3 minutes, so I would expect a diesel railcar to take about 2 minutes to slow down, stop, doors open, passengers on and off, doors closed, pull off and return to speed.

Where are Ballynanty and Kililee on that map?

[Mark Gleeson]

We have had some contact with people in Limerick about a significant project to sort out the rail service in the area. Few if any people are interested.

We had outline plans and costings which included several extra stations on the Ennis - Limerick line. The real problem is there are too many stakeholders, Limerick County, Limerick City, Tipp North, Clare

The time to stop at any extra stations can be offset by allowing the trains to travel at higher speeds, most of the Ennis line is still stuck at 50mph, but the trains can do 70-75mph

In performance terms there is not much to choose between a DART and the more powerful commuter trains in Dublin

[jpsartre]

I was referring to the Thomondgate side of Kileely (correct spelling this time?) to the east of Kileely road, that is, the road between Watch House Cross Sq. and Hassett's cross as it is marked on the linked map above. On second viewing the line drifts quite a bit north of this area where it crosses the long pavement, (i.e. the road between the S.A.C and the 'proposed wetland') and it may not be such a great advantage to put a platform there but my main point was to get some discussion going about the proposed station and how it would benefit the city as a whole. To Mark, who did you have contact with? Point taken about the local authorities not getting their act together but I don't accept no one here is interested. The potential for a rail service in Limerick city based on the existing track infrastructure is fantastic it seems to me, but awareness of this asset and its potential among the general public is very very low. The traffic situation in Limerick is so chronic now that people, ordinary people fed up with a failing city transport system (incl. yours truly) are ready for a novel solution and I'd appreciate it if you would elaborate more on the plans and costings you alluded to in your previous post.

[dowlingm]

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

The real problem is there are too many stakeholders, Limerick County, Limerick City, Tipp North, Clare

A set up that has held back Limerick and its environs for years - and the same might be said for Waterford.

Not sure what the point of a commuter P&R there would be as opposed to a local station. The only substantial catchment not served by the existing/planned Ennis and Sixmilebridge stations is the Cratloe-Bunratty-Shannon axis and the logical place to pick them up is Cratloe - if they're going to drive that far anyway why wouldn't they just keep going, especially given the choice of parking in Moyross!

[jpsartre]

"Not sure what the point of a commuter P&R there would be as opposed to a local station"

The newly proposed distributor road will eveventually connect the Ennis road to the Dublin road via the Broadford road. Cratloe is 4 or 5 miles west of limerick city, its no use to anyone coming from north or northwest of the city such as meelick, parteen or ardnacrusha. The Corbally road is already gridlock at rush hour as is the Ennis road and thats precisely why we need rail access to the city centre from this side of town.

The completed road is some years in the offing now but it will be built and if there is no strategy in place to allow access from what will effectively be the northern orbital road to the track via a station and a few parking spaces, any land around it will be zoned for residential or commercial development and sold off to a builder. Thats what always happens. Again land to either side of this road will be rezoned for residential development and this will grow the population also - Plan for the future!

The kind of carpark I had in mind was something like the small parkways you see at every suburban overground station in London, enough spaces for maybe 100 cars, in this instance maybe 200 or 300 to allow for future growth. But the city needs this because traffic congestion is strangling the city centre and the situation is only going to get worse.

As for security, what about a fence?

[Mark Gleeson]

The real problem is the 4 way split in control of planning, everyone is fighting for the local team, not for the needs of the region.

Limerick could have with a little thought and not much too much money a very respectable suburban rail service

Cork is miles ahead thanks to good planning, Galway is not far behind, Limerick is left flapping around with no plan at all.

There are plans to redevlop the station and replace all the track and signaling which will enable more services to operate. What is most sad is the fact if the money proposed for the WRC north of Athenry was spent in Limerick it would do a massive amount of good.

For the record we where on radio in Limerick earlier in the year about this and do keep in contact with people in the local area, but as of yet no real momentum has emerged to push for a solution

[dowlingm]

jps

Is there really enough catchment in that area to justify connecting to rail or would QBCs be a better call, especially since the rail option basically involves circling the city? Have to admit being ex-UL I'm more familiar with the east side of Limerick and nothing much north of the Ennis road.

That said I'm sure P&R will be justified on car-park money grabbing grounds...

EDIT: By comparing Live Maps (love birdseye view!) with the PDF this seems to be the area indicated for the station, with a new road cutting south from Knockalisheen Road running past about where that all weather pitch is and the station to the west.

[jpsartre]

spot on with the bird's eye view of the proposed road and rail line intersection

You're really skeptical about the catchment area eh? Maybe if you used the approach roads from this side of town at rush hour you might not be such a doubting Thomas.

A station there will also serve a growing local population in the immediate vicinity of the site . Notice the area in magenta adjacent to the proposed station on the regen. pdf. This will be the site of a new 80 acre industrial estate. Up to 3000 jobs will be created here eventually,http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/Li...-to.4484057.jp. I'm sure the consortium behind it could be persuaded to contribute something to the cost a station there. (The local councils are very good at that kind of thing ..soliciting contributions etc.). It would certainly put their development on the map nationally. Limerick37 also have big plans for that area around knockalisheen. Sure the station planned for Moyross would probably suffice but its a big area and I wouldn't be in favour of bringing traffic into the new village centre either if there were a consensus on the park & ride facility.

The rail option does't really involve circling the city. I mean I know how it looks on a map but it only takes ten minutes, moving at a snails pace, to get from colbert station to that part of town. Try taking a bus from Colbert station to Moyross at peak periods or from the Parkway or from the Ballysimon road! (These locations along with Corbally should also have platforms on this line).
And as for bus corridors?

Arup, as you know, have been busy drawing up plans/proposals for so-called Green Routes, (bus corridors to you and me) around the city on behalf of the council. I think its a great idea but you need the roads to do it. Recently, the proposed bus lane in Raheen was knocked back by city councillors, officially because the roads there were too narrow to accomodate dedicated bus lanes. The council's plan for a green route,http://www.limerickcity.ie/GreenRout...le,7953,en.pdf, from Moyross to the city centre does not address the problem of cars coming from outside the city. That problem remains the same and my guess is it they who are largely responsible for the traffic problems, though of course they can't be blamed in the absence of a credible public transport system. If you are a bit skeptical about the catchment area for a P&R then I'm doubly skeptical as to the possibility of a QBS between Moyress & the City Centre via the Cratloe road, Thomondgate and Sarsfield bridge. Traffic Chaos! Stop the cars from coming in first of all with P&Rs, WAKE UP to the potential of the existing rail network and exploit it as any other modern European city of comparable size to Limerick would do if they were given our rail network as a present, and then start thinking about your 'Green Routes'.

[dowlingm]

Interesting info there jps. The only thing I'd quibble with directly is the private sector contributions given the current state of the economy, but otherwise I'll defer to your local knowledge of the commuting patterns.

[ccos]

I going to say I'm quite amazed with the phrases "regeneration", "plan" and "railway" appearing together is there something happening to Ireland.
I have to agree with jpsarte though, anytime I've travelld to Ennis I've been amazed at the lack of stops in Limerick but to make a P&R work you really need something better then a bi-hourly service.

[jpsartre]

ccos

Don't get your hopes up.

Got wind today that Jim Meade, IE's regional manager for the west was at Colbert Station aswering questions from customers so I thought I'd mosie down and make a nuisance of myself.

Firstly I asked Jim what his thoughts were on the new station planned for Moyress in the regen. plan. He said he'd got an email from somebody about it and thats it. His reply (to the email) was you build it and then maybe we'll get involved. Not an encouraging start though he was keen to point out that the Ennis line was a great success so far and Sixmilebridge was still on course.

I then asked him about the Nenagh line, (while I had him as it were). I've never used this line and I know nothing about trains & railways so bear with me. This route he said wasn't going so well though he said it would be a year from now before they could say for sure whether it was going to work or not (from their point of view i.e. ROI). The IE engineers are currently working on upgrading the line which will take them to the end of the year at which time there will be no more money available to do work on this stretch of line. At least that's how I understand it. After this there will be a bedding in period. Ultimately the goal is to guarantee a 50 minute service time as advertised at an average speed of 40mph (still seems slow to me) rather than the current 25mph. He wasn't really interested in adding further scheduled services because of the low uptake. He referred to a study done by a group at U.L which calculated that an average of 60 commuters would be using the line at this stage. However the number is in fact in the low 20's (although last weeek there was a couple of days where no's were in the low 30's). He readily acknowledged that the service was not up to standard and this was certainly a factor in the low uptake no's. For this reason the success or otherwise of the service will not be judged until they can provide the advertised service. I remarked that arrival time of 8:45 was in itself cutting it fine. He said that that there were no earlier slots available at Colbert and that many of the people who use the line would be happy if IE could manage 9:45 esp. students attending grind colleges like Bruce where doors shut at 9:00.

Finally I asked him about Park n' Rides & a suburban rail network in Limerick City that would serve Raheen, Corbally etc using existing tracks. Again not very encouraging. Cost benefit seemed to enter into everything. He was very hopeful about Tuam for example if an adequately sized carpart
could be managed at the station but was quite dismissive of short rail journeys like moyress-colber because he argued the concentrations of people weren't there and short journeys were not lucrative for them whereas long ones were. He mentioned a feasibility study by PUTS (correct?) that had looked at a line for Castletroy and the Parkway via UL but this idea had long since fallen by the wayside. He feels that that the lack of bus corridors in the city centre and the City Council's refusal to allow them prevents Colbert from linking up better with areas like Raheen and this is a big problem for them in marketing their commuter services.

On policy he said that the present government has done more fo rail in Ireland and has been more supportive of rail than any other govt. in the past. But he did admit that there is a greater emphasis being placed on making services profitable. He said a few more things as well but I think I've said enough. (Nice guy though & answered the questions directly). Any comments?

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by jpsartre

Firstly I asked Jim what his thoughts were on the new station planned for Moyress in the regen. plan. He said he'd got an email from somebody about it and thats it. His reply (to the email) was you build it and then maybe we'll get involved. Not an encouraging start though he was keen to point out that the Ennis line was a great success so far and Sixmilebridge was still on course.

Its all well and good to build a station, but unless it has good patronage it is merely a burden on the system - look at Monasterevin. Now, give them a station and pay for a train and they are much more amenable.

Ideally a station should be in a location with very high density* for both origin (residents) and destination (work/study/leisure) and connect with similar locations. While Limerick has a good rail network, it doesn't match the settlement pattern.


* Very high density does not equal very tall buildings. In the Irish context density is often defined by the presence or absence of udner-used institutional land.

[Jister]

jpsartre - did he give anything specific about Sixmilebridge? There is still no sign of a planning application and its coming close to the proposed launch time of April / May

[jpsartre]

jister

He didn't give specifics and I didn't ask him for any. I just asked him about the limerick-ennis service and how happy they were with the uptake. He said they were more than happy with it and then added that the Sixmilebridge station (without my prompting) will be open next year. Note, he did not actually say it was 'on course' as I posted earlier, just that it would be opened next year.

Victor

Not quite sure what you mean by under used institutional land but Moyress is a very large residential area on the edge of the city. I don't see the parallel with Monasterevin. It may be a burden on the system to add another stop there but my concern is with the current lack of capacity on the roads. IE's reluctance to consider a stop in Moyress because short journeys are not lucrative for them simply means the roads will have to take up the slack and that's just not sustainable. Maybe the RPA were right a few years ago when they suggested a Luas for cities like limerick. A very expensive proposition though.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by jpsartre

Not quite sure what you mean by under used institutional land but Moyress is a very large residential area on the edge of the city. I don't see the parallel with Monasterevin. It may be a burden on the system to add another stop there but my concern is with the current lack of capacity on the roads. IE's reluctance to consider a stop in Moyress because short journeys are not lucrative for them simply means the roads will have to take up the slack and that's just not sustainable. Maybe the RPA were right a few years ago when they suggested a Luas for cities like limerick. A very expensive proposition though.

Trams, as such, probably aren't the best solution for Limerick.

------------------------------------------------------------

Compare the area around Ranelagh Luas stop to the areas west of Harold's Cross Green.

Ranelagh http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...21887&t=k&z=16

Harold's Cross http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...21887&t=k&z=16

The density in Ranelagh is pushing 10,000 people per square kilometre (parts of Dublin City centre are twice that). For Harold's Cross it’s about a third of that. That’s despite Ranelagh being mostly two- and three-storey houses (although many were in flats, a lot have been changed back to single occupancy houses). I imagine the percentage of people living in apartments is actually higher in Harold's Cross.

The problem with Harold's Cross's density is there is a large amount of land given over to the cemeteries, hospice, school sports grounds, convents and parks, indeed some land whose use is bordering on agricultural - all perfectly good uses in themselves - but not suited to central locations.

Population densities http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showp...7&postcount=13

You can find the names of the Electoral Divisions here: http://www.electoralareacommittees.ie/

And populations and areas (you need to work out density yourself) here: http://www.cso.ie/census/documents/A...0by%20Area.pdf

------------------------------------------------------------

Moving to Limerick, Jackman Park sports ground is right next to Colbert Station (on the other side you have surface car parking). I don't know how often it gets used, but it’s probably marginal in the land use hierarchy. However, some of the land surrounding the sports field is left fallow and is overgrown - some recently converted to car parking. This is a gross misuse when people are screaming out of homes that are accessible to work, study and leisure opportunities. Go a little further out and you have the waste land that surrounds the former Cork Direct Curve, open grass land and only then do you have housing.

Develop these areas before putting more people in Castletroy, Dooradoyle, Ardnacrusha and Sixmilebridge. And it’s not as if people are losing their local park - much of these areas appear to be overgrown and some used for [http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=ss7tf2g8f8dg&style =b&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=27667733&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&encType=1]joyriding[/url].

Now that I mention Castletroy to get from Limerick to Castletroy, you have to cross open agricultural land. Castletroy / Ballysimon / Annacotty are built with Castletroy golf course in the middle - that means people need to go around the golf club to get to work. Indeed Annacotty is so far out (7+km) and disconnected from the city that the CSO don't treat is a suburb, but as a separate town.

While the Moyross plan is a step, both Limerick City and County Councils will need to up their game hugely. The biggest enemy of sensible transport in Limerick is Limerick County Council and their policy of sucking every piece of life it can fromt he city.


I think I'll go have a lie down.