Metro North Route

[chris]

I notice the tender documentation has gone out to the various consortia. Does anyone know are there any particular advantages / disadvantages to any of the groups? Full list of bidding groups on the second page of this press release. Having realised how profitable LUAS is, I see Veolia is a contender.

[Colm Moore]

Originally Posted by chris

Having realised how profitable LUAS is, I see Veolia is a contender.

But how profitable is Luas for Veolia? Fair enough there doesn't seem to be any shenanigans going that would indicate such, but Veoila could be losing their shirt on Luas for all we know.

The real money on Metro North will be made or lost on the capital side, not the operations side.

[Mark Hennessy]

Metro Open Days next week.

http://www.rpa.ie/upload/documents/M...fletJuly08.pdf

[ThomasJ]

Extract from the article on the cutbacks In todays Independent

Other measures announced yesterday included a €20m saving in the Department of Transport on capital projects. Some €13m will be saved under the Regional Airports budget, while another €7m will be yielded from the slow progress in purchasing sites for the Metro North project.

http://www.independent.ie/national-n...n-1430513.html

[Colm Moore]

Thats a change in cashflow, not a cutback / saving.

[Mark Hennessy]

Metro North line 'could close down city and cost €8bn'

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news...y-and-cost-8b/

[Thomas J Stamp]

how government works part 22334

1. Soften up public support for a project you want to ditch

2. Tell public how much money you havent got

3. Produce pie in the sky costings for the project, the higher the better

4. Show lots of pics of babys in incubaters


haven't got to point 4 yes, but watch the letters pages in the papers over the next few weeks...............

[markpb]

Originally Posted by Mark Hennessy

Metro North line 'could close down city and cost €8bn'

http://www.tribune.ie/news/home-news...y-and-cost-8b/

*vent*

[Mark Gleeson]

Actually its going to cost us nothing until it actually carries a passenger

Capital costs remain a mystery but they are in the 2.5-3 billion range and you do get a huge amount of concrete for that

Much as we have problems with the Metro we never said it shouldn't happen it was a question of priority and specification. Yes its going to be messy while its being built but it is a essential element of the transport system

No doubt we are losing a massive amount of money currently due to its absence

[Mark Hennessy]

Originally Posted by Thomas J Stamp

how government works part 22334

1. Soften up public support for a project you want to ditch

2. Tell public how much money you havent got

3. Produce pie in the sky costings for the project, the higher the better

4. Show lots of pics of babys in incubaters


haven't got to point 4 yes, but watch the letters pages in the papers over the next few weeks...............

And this before we get some obfuscation from a new 'expert' group report which claims the metro can actually be built using buses running overground for only half the projected cost.

Cue 2 year study on the feasibility of this.

[Mark Hennessy]

Just getting round to reading the Business Post now.

The word is that current spending cannot be brought down by any significant amount.

Guess what can though?

Capital Projects! Everyone's gonna be a winner.

Originally Posted by SBP

The outlines of the government’s plan to deal with the economic downturn are now becoming clear. For a start, it is going to involve a serious curtailing of the country’s capital investment programme – which Taoiseach Brian Cowen said was the last thing that would be affected. But as the public sector pay bill continues to rise, all indications are that the capital budget is where the axe will fall.

Cutbacks amounting to billions of euro on proposed spending in this area now seem inevitable. Ministers have been asked to produce a list of building and other capital projects that can be postponed.

The capital programme will be raided because there seems to be little will to tackle day-today spending, which has mushroomed in recent years. So far, much of the focus for proposed cutbacks has been on the plethora of agencies and quangos set up by the government in recent years, although it is far from clear if this will generate savings of the order needed to balance the state’s budgets for the next two years.

And there's more:

Transport 21 Projects to be delayed:

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/st...896-qqqx=1.asp