16.09.2010 Luas services resume after collision

[on the move]

http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0916/luas.html

As this apparantly wasn't posted last night, I've put it in here.

The disruption was almost 2 hours long, and I was on one of the trams affected by the disruption. Upon reaching Fatima heading Westbound, a notice of an incident in the affected area was posted on the timing screen. Within moments, the tram driver informed us of the incident, and advised us to leave the tram upon reaching the next stop. A 10 minute walk later, just past the Blackhorse junction lights, a car had collided with a tram, whilst another car was on the other side of the track. A tram doorway was left ajar where the car had collided. The car lost it's roof in the collision. Gardai, inspectors, emergency crews, and security staff were all on the scene, while services were curtailed to between Blackhorse and The Point, which led to lengthy delays. At around 9pm, full services did resume.

The area between Blackhorse and Bluebell is one of the most vulnerable on the route, with the tracks taking up 2 original motor lanes in the middle of the road with no barriers separating them from road traffic. Collisions and near misses are quite frequent, due to the poorly designed layout, which involve 2 long curves and a straight. Often the emergency brake has to be used along the route as cars and trams come within inches of colliding. During construction, it was obvious that such a layout was bound to see incidents and with proper planning, it could have been avoided by building a tunnel, a bridge, or taking it out of the area altogether. Fortunately, there have yet to be any fatalities on that stretch of the route, but the failure by the authorities to foresee this in their design, is going to cause more such incidents, and endanger more lives as time goes on.