A real Transport 21

[Derek Wheeler]

Im putting this in the canteen because it will involve more than just trains and Luas and I want the "public" to see and contribute to it. Im also assuming that Government and apparent transport professionals will view it too. As we approach an election, discussion about this will and should be pivotal.

The project is simple.

Leave aside, the current T21 plan and offer your own version. It would help if you aren't carried away by the DTO's Platform for change document, the original DART plan or T21's plans. Base it on what is needed now.

Think Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and provincial towns, in terms of public transport that is accessible to all and offers a real alternative to the car. Include the motorway programme if you wish, as its relevent.

Most importantly, think hard about Ireland's road traffic problem, poor public transport and devise a plan that a decent Government could implement to alleviate it.

[sean]

I'm going to like this thread.

Public transport.

Cork and Limerick. Middelton line reopened and all Cork area suburban lines electrified to Midelton, Cobh and Mallow. DART style service implemented. Limerick Commuter local services established to Nenagh, Clonmel, and Shannon Airport. One Luas line each for Cork and Limerick.

Put the local bus services in Cork out to tender - yesterday. Ban BE from entering the competition.

Galway: Double track to Athenry and local commuter serivces to same location. New Galway-Limerick-Cork intercity line over the Southern WRC. WRC to Tuam reopened for Galway commuter services subject to the presence of a credible development plan.

Dublin:
Local: Twin track DART to Navan. Resurrect and accelerate the original Irish Rail "Dublin Rail Plan" including the Interconnector, Airport DART spur quad track and electrification to Kildare, DART to Drogheda. Construct an interchange station at Glasnevin Junction, a Drumcondra South station on the Midland line and overhaul Newcommon Curve into Connolly. Run Maynooth to Bray DARTs on the Midland line.

Opportunistically add "middle road" passing loops to all twin lines running out of Dublin city in areas where there is greenfield and/or free space on the alignment, especially at any new stations.

Build Metro as presently proposed except with proper high platform/floor trains, and include an interchange Drumcondra South.

Build high quality Luas lines on unserved corridors close to the Central area.

Give DB 300 extra buses and the freedom to create, amend and terminate routes as they see fit. Put Alek Smart in charge of DB because I get the feeling he knows more about bus based public transport in Dublin than the whole Dept. of Transport put together.

Bring all local transport in Dublin City under the control of a single authority with a strong mandate to oversee construction of new infrastructure and to deisgn an integrated fares structure such as Berlin and to design and to distribute an all-inclusive system map. Give it also the mandate to take over the branding of DART, Luas, Dublin bus and other local bus services under its control.

Connolly-based intercity lines and associated long distance commuter services:
Merge the Sligo and Rosslare Intercity lines with proper trains into a single Intercity service running through Dublin calling at Glasnevin, Drumcondra South, Connolly, Tara St. and Pearse. Ditto for commuter serivces Arklow-Longford.

Heuston-based long distance service
Use the track slots freed up on the Drumcondra line and Connolly terminal platforms, by the previous moves re: Sligo-Rosslare and the Midland line to move the terminus of important Intercity and long distance routes from Heuston to the Connolly terminal via the Phoinex Park Tunnel and the Drumcondra line. Cork, Limerick and Galway IC services, as well as Athlone, Kilkenny and Portlaoise Commuter services.

Electrify the line to Cork and Limerick and begin an overhaul of the Dublin-Cork mainline.

Midlands (Getting a bit selfish here)
Reinstate the Mullingar-Athlone line and double all tracks within 20-30 miles of Mullingar in all directions. New unmanned station at Newtownforbes for extension to the Longford Commuter service.

Roads:

Conclude the present motorways programme and don't start a new one. Bypass all towns on primary national routes preferably with dual carraigeway and increase investment in the secondary and non-national routes which are still a disgrace.

Take those stupid GATSO vans off the motorways and put them on the secondary and tertiary roads esp. late at night which is where they are really needed.

Overhaul and expand the school bus system, replace all buses over 7 years old and create new bus routes.

Hire a considerable new force of driving testers to have road tests on demand, eliminate waiting lists, abolish the provisional license and replace it with a sticter learners permit, which bans driving unaccompanied and is enforced. But a driver is given a Certificate of Waiver for the need for accompainment and other restrictions if they end up stuck on a test waiting list for more than a couple of weeks.

Miscellaneous.

Build a nuclear power plant and begin a renewables programme, tithing a portion of their output to Irish Rail and the RPA.

[ccos]

Building of a Tram in Cork from Kent station via the bus station (using the old Railway route) and Patricks Bridge, out to the RTC and University Hospital and a Line south towards Carrigaline.

[Colm Donoghue]

Galway:
build a park and ride at Derrydonnell cross.get enough busses to run it on weekdays.
build another park and ride at Oranmore to be the car park for a future train station, but a bus park and ride immediately.
Tuam Road/Claregalway. build a relief route around Claregalway. Grade seperate the N17/18 Junction.

Limerick/Cork:
Join these with a Dual carriageway.

Cork:
Get some kind of public transport system running. i.e. a proper bus system. train network to be improved with Middleton line and stations on northside.
Get the pike on the M8 accepting eazypass
Implement the Ceannt station upgrade (face the Lee)
Implement a light rail to Ballincollig.
Implement a QBC from Carrigaline to the city.

Bypass every town on National Primary routes with a grade seperated ring road. allow expansion to Dual carriageway easily in future (not like N9/Nenagh etc). allow NO development on ring roads (see N80 in Carlow, M50 in Dublin)
This will mean the people who are in a town are the people who want to be there. For years bypasses were held up through out the country by small shopkeepers bemoaning the loss of trade from people who have spent the last half hour stuck trying to get through their small town....

Derry road: abandon all ideas about upgrading then existing N2 north of Ashbourne. apply a 7.5tonne limit in Slane. Re route the entire N2 onto a three lane M1 and re-designate the N33 to Ardee as the N2. It is rediculous to have two motorways to Ardee and 5 miles away from Ardee

Northern line:
triple track rural sections to allow passing by higher speed services. i.e north of HJ&D and probably south of Skerries.
get northern line services to connect at HJ&D (at least off peak) to allow connections to Howth and Sutton. similarily at Connolly to allow Western line connections.

Maynooth line:
Electrify . remove level crossings at Clonsilla, ratoath road, that boreen in Clonsilla whose name escapes me but has a new shiny overbridge about 250m east of it. Automate all other Level crossings.

IE general stuff
Upgrade the City centre signalling. rewrite the timetable to maximise the throughput of trains through the city centre.
fix GCD to allow trains terminate on centre platform and northbound services use the southmost platform.
Get enough drivers and railcars to provide an increased level of service.
Figure out how to run a customer focused service.
sort the website out
Upgrade Drogheda Navan Line. run passenger services from Navan on this asap. Plan to run a shuttle bus service to connect with arriving and departing trains at Navan
ditto Drogheda
Ditto any commuter train station where the patronage warrants this, bearing in mind the reduced demand for carparking and pressure to buy new land for carparking. I'm thinking anywhere the station is more than a mile from the centre of it's population catchment area. Portarlington, Rush and Lusk, and Hazelhatch spring to mind.

double track LJ to Limerick line where easily possible, improve signalling to increase frequency possible and start Limerick commuter services.

Scope out building a massive park and ride at Sallins connected to the M7. Possibly even a new station.

Build the interconnector.

Integrated ticketing: Either implement this or don't no half hearted pseudo -integration. If people are so mad about contactless smart cards that's fine. make every subsidised public transport operator in the country accept them.
Operate the smartcards so if you use them so a cheaper card would have been better value, stop charging. i.e. if you use a smartcard for the luas every day for a whole month, the card stops charging when you've bought the cost of a monthly ticket.
change social welfare passes to smart cards, that can be read on Dublin bus.



Most towns: institute pay parking in busy areas. Use funds from this to run a free carpark and shuttle bus. This should get additional funding from Co. Councils and Central Govt.
Tax free carparking at work as a BIK. The value to be determined by the cost of parking directly outside the place of work. Start with the illegal carpark on the lawn at Leinster house.
Implement the (or some) spatial strategy. Stop scattergun decentralisation.
Institute bus links instead of rail where a new improved road would help provide a better service, or the same service cheaper.


Take most of Smart aleks Ideas and implement them.
Hire Alek to implement his secret really good plans for megabucks

[Donal Quinn]

buy every outboard motor in the world and attach to north coast (bring NI along if they can agree)
start the engines and motor the island south, picking up vine saplings in bordeaux
drop anchor outside gibraltar and charge a toll to all the shipping traffic (who says dreams aren't self financing)

keel beach in achill becomes the best beach in the world. nice one

maybe call it "transport 2100 miles???"

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edit: ok that's facetious but seriously shouldn't our suggestion for P11's T21 have some relation to fiscal and economic reality?

[CSL]

x4 the toll on the M50; make it the same as the Port Tunnel, also make it at all parts of M50 not just the bridge

. Implement immediate Carbon tax on petrol to €2.50/litre

Exempt PSV's from above . If I do that I've got plenty of cash.

Now : start digging proper underground metro.

Set up independent toll pass apportionment agency, make it responsible for issuing passes and apportioning revenue given the current eazypass mess

Set up independent clearing house agency make it responsible for ireland-wide transport ticket revenue sharing across agencies and companies; implement bid/offer spread to allow efficient market operation. Force all companies especially DB and IE to abide by the revenue sharing; move the DOT people who insist on a particular zonal/other system to a bureaucratic job that will suit them


Activate canal cordon for private vehicles = congestion charge and make it €20/day


implement proper funding system for all public transport projects; base them properly on funding , include proper lifetime costs including environmental damage [ ppm CO2 +CO + maintenance +capital cost ] . Include all road projects