Latest news with #MetroLink
The Journal
28-05-2025
- Business
- The Journal
Construction of MetroLink project may not begin until 2028, transport committee to hear
CONSTRUCTION OF THE MetroLink underground rail project in Dublin may begin as late as 2028, the National Transport Authority will tell the Oireachtas committee on transport today. The government is expected to include the MetroLink in its National Development Plan (NDP), which is being revised at the moment by Minister for Public Expenditure and NDP Delivery Jack Chambers. The committee will be told that tendering for the construction work may commence next year, as long as An Bord Pleanála approves the project and there are no delays caused by judicial reviews. Once the tendering process is complete, construction would commence 18 months later, the NTA will tell the committee. The project's director Sean Sweeney said last week that he expects some public opposition to the route and the disruption that construction will cause to traffic. He said that in the age of social media, 'two people can run a campaign' against something. Advertisement Sweeney also noted that there were riots in the streets of Amsterdam before the metro was opened there, only for it to be broadly welcomed within days of coming online. Overall though, Sweeney said he has never worked on a project with such potential benefit to the public. 'The benefits are off the scale in my view,' he said. As for the cost of the massive infrastructure project, Sweeney said it is being 'recalibrated' following delays in the planning process. In 2021, the Metrolink was estimated to cost between €7 billion and €12 billion. 'The number is going to change,' said Sweeney. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
The Irish Sun
26-05-2025
- Business
- The Irish Sun
Dubliners are fed up with long commutes – Luas extension is practical solution to traffic, so stop delays & build it
WHILE the long-delayed MetroLink project connecting Dublin Airport to the city centre is now estimated to cost over €23billion, not all transport solutions have to break the bank. The 3 A Luas extension in rapidly developed Poolbeg will greatly reduce the car traffic Credit: Alamy 3 The new extension will provide a link with the red line at the Aviva Stadium Credit: Getty Images - Getty The The planning application is currently before An Bord Pleanala. The rapid development of Poolbeg, with 500 READ MORE ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT Writing in DUBLINERS are fed up with endless delays, long commutes, and half-baked plans that go nowhere. We don't need more glossy reports or vague promises. We need action, and we need it now. One obvious place to start? Extend the Luas to Poolbeg. Most read in The Irish Sun Phase 2 of the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan kicks in today. It will change how Moment TD in near-miss with Luas When I was Lord Mayor of Dublin, Phase 1 launched. People were sceptical at first, and that's fair. Big changes always make people nervous. But it worked. Journey times for public transport fell by 20 per cent. Public transport use went up by 11 per cent. Footfall in city centre businesses increased. Car traffic dropped by 60 per cent in just a month. That's proof. A less car-heavy city can work — and actually work better. But plans like this are only part of the picture. If we want to build a city that works for people, we have to make sure they have real alternatives to the LUAS LINE EXTENDED PROPOSAL That's why I've been pushing hard for the Luas line to be extended from the Point to Poolbeg, through Ringsend and Irishtown. This isn't just another big idea for a press release. It's something we can actually do quickly and affordably. Here's what's happening. As part of the Dublin Port expansion, a new bridge is being built across the Liffey. The Dublin Port Company is paying for it. Crucially, they've confirmed the bridge can take a Luas line. This is what people mean when they talk about joined-up thinking. The bridge is being built anyway. The Luas line is going to be extended eventually. Why not do both at the same time? If we delay this, we'll end up tearing up the same ground twice. We'll waste money, waste time, and make the job more difficult. It's like renovating a kitchen but deciding to leave out the sink, only to come back years later to install it. 'HUGE MERIT' Minister of State at the The National Transport Authority has already asked Transport Infrastructure Ireland to get going on early-stage planning. And the Port Company's application is currently with An Bord Pleanála. If we move quickly, construction could begin within two to three years. The timing couldn't be more critical. The glass bottle site in Ringsend will soon be home to nearly 10,000 new residents. That's on top of the people already living in the area. The local population is set to double. So why wait until they're stuck in traffic and on overcrowded buses to start thinking about transport? We already know we can build Luas extensions quickly and relatively cheaply. The Luas Cross City project, longer and far more complicated than this one, was built in under four years at a cost of about €61million per kilometre. It now carries around 10million passengers a year. People said it would be too expensive. But once it opened, it proved its value. Compare that to the Don't get me wrong, the Metro is vital. But not every project has to be a megaproject. Sometimes the smaller wins are just as important. BENEFITS FOR DUBLINERS Extending the Luas to Poolbeg will have an immediate impact. It will link the red line to the It will bring more people into the city centre to work, shop, and enjoy what Dublin has to offer. It will connect families and young people to the new Children's Hospital, Heuston Station and the This is the kind of practical, common-sense investment that makes a city better to live in for everyone. It also sends the right message to the people of Dublin and to the companies building this infrastructure. It shows that the government is serious about delivering. And when the government provides a steady pipeline of projects, it drives competition and reduces costs. Builders know what's coming and can plan ahead. That saves the taxpayer money. As a Government TD and This is not a time for indecision. The Luas to Poolbeg makes sense on every level. Let's get on with building it. 3 Poolbeg's population is set to double as housing units are rapidly being built Credit: Getty Images - Getty
Irish Times
25-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on infrastructure: stop making the same mistakes
The news that the official opening of the National Children's Hospital will be further delayed will not come as a surprise to anyone who has been observing the tortuous progress of this elephantine project. Completion of the hospital, a vital piece of the State's health infrastructure, has been delayed again until at least September, with patients now not expected to be treated there until June 2026 at the earliest. The facility has become emblematic of the apparent impossibility of delivering major capital projects on time and on budget. Concern is intensified by the fact that the Government is committed to the most extensive programme of infrastructure investment in the State's newly-appointed director of MetroLink, Sean Sweeney, has already said the underground rail line from Dublin Airport to the south-central city could cost 20 per cent more than its projected budget of ¤9.5 billion. Sweeney brings a welcome international perspective to the question of why large projects appear doomed to suffer cost overruns, delays or both. He has bluntly said MetroLink's planned completion date of 2035 will probably not be met and that there will be 'grievous' disruption to people's lives during its construction. READ MORE Such frankness is welcome. Stories such as that of the truncated HSS train line in the UK, the aborted high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco or the decades it took to complete Berlin's Brandenburg airport, have all given fuel to accusations that the modern administrative state, and democratic systems generally, are mired in over-regulation, excessive litigation and a failure of public administration. Whether fair or not, these critiques carry a particular resonance in Ireland, where a combination of decades of under-investment and a sharp rise in population is already putting intolerable pressure on creaking infrastructure. It remains to be seen whether the reform of planning legislation introduced by the last government will improve the situation, although many observers are sceptical. A report on infrastructure last week from Ibec, the business lobby, had a range of sensible recommendations on speeding up delivery, as well as calling for a review to ensure the wider public good takes priority in planning. And planning is not the only issue. The chair of the new Oireachtas Committee on Infrastructure has said it will examine the practice of 'lowballing' on public capital projects, where estimates of cost are pitched low but the price escalates afterwards. With the benefit of Apple's tax payment and significant resources in the exchequer, the Government has an opportunity to make progress on transformational investments. But it can't just continue doing the same things and hoping for a different result.
The Journal
25-05-2025
- Politics
- The Journal
Ireland is wasting a golden Green Line opportunity to appease misguided south Dublin fears
IRELAND HAS AN open goal. Rather than scoring, we're about to stumble, trip and faceplant. Of course, what else could we be referring to, other than the Luas Green line metro upgrade? We'll explain in more detail below, but essentially, this would upgrade the section of the Green Line running from Charlemont to Sandyford to metro standard. This will allow far more trams to run on the line per hour. These trams will also move faster along a metro line compared to a 'standard' tram line. The result? More people will be moved around in a shorter amount of time. In an area which desperately needs it – the Green Line is already operating near capacity. Commuters are often packed in at peak hours in the mornings, and sometimes people can't get onto trams at all. This problem is set to get worse in the coming years as the population living near the Green Line rises. Upgrading to a metro would be a straightforward way to alleviate this. Even better – the hard work is already done. When the Green Line was built in the early 2000s, it was constructed in a way which allowed for it to be easily upgraded to a metro. If done as part of the MetroLink project, as intended, the upgrade would also be relatively cheap – it's estimated it may only cost about €300 million . Providing a metro service for a decent section of the south of the city for just €300 million would be incredible value. For context, the northside MetroLink section is estimated to cost just under €10 billion, rising to over €20 billion in a 'worst case' scenario. So a cheap infrastructure upgrade which will benefit thousands upon thousands of people. And yet – Ireland isn't going to do it. The upgrade was originally shelved due to political pressure and local lobbying a few years ago. Earlier this week, Fianna Fáil TD Shay Brennan suggested this decision should be reversed and the Green Line should be upgraded as soon as possible. Here's why he's right. The Plan Metrolink Metrolink The Green Line upgrade was originally meant to be rolled in with the MetroLink plan. The proposed MetroLink involves building an entirely new metro line with 16 stations running from Swords, just north of Dublin airport, to Charlemont, in the south city centre. This next part is where there has been confusion. The Green Line already runs from Charlemont to Sandyford, so why would the metro go along the same route? Because – the metro on the southside section never involved building an entirely new metro line. It was always intended as an upgrade to the Green Line. This is why the Green Line was built to Metro standard in terms of the track bed and track widths. So we could easily replace Luas trams with larger higher capacity metro carriages. Advertisement The MetroLink northside project provides a golden opportunity to do this. Once the project is finished with the northside section to Charlemont, it could continue and do the upgrade works between Charlemont and Sandyford. This would also allow a full metro route to run between Swords and Sandyford, allowing people to rapidly cross the city. This was the original plan, because transport officials recognise that the Green Line is already near capacity. It will have to be upgraded to a metro sooner or later. This is an important point, so it bears repeating – the upgrade *has to* happen. Or the Green Line will be completely overwhelmed in the coming years. Given that the upgrade has to happen, why not do it now, rather than later? A few reasons have been put forward. Opposition to the plan The key sticking point is fears around disruption to the Green Line. In 2019, media reported that it may have to be closed for up to four years to facilitate upgrade works. Then transport minister Shane Ross came out strongly against this , both in the media and in meetings with transport officials. Other prominent south Dublin politicians also fought the plan . These politicians tended to have constituents near the Green Line, who opposed metro works. The end result was that the Green Line upgrade got removed from the MetroLink project. Transport officials cited the opposition to 'significant network challenges during the years of construction' as a driving reason for the change. It was only later that it emerged that the entire Green Line would actually not have been shut. Instead, sections of the track would have been closed over a period of four years. While this would no doubt cause significant disruption, it would not be nearly as much as a closure of the entire line. For example, the initial 18 months of upgrade works would have been at the Beechwood station only. The Green Line could continue to function south of Beechwood and north of Ranelagh. Consultants for the plan also suggested an alternative way of upgrading the Green Line, which they said could reduce the closure period by 'around 14 months'. Now, obviously closing parts of the Green Line at all is not ideal. But what's the alternative? Leaving the line to run as is, until it gets completely overwhelmed with passenger demand? All transport officials have recognised that the Green Line should be upgraded to a metro to improve capacity. If this must be done, better to do it sooner rather than later, as capacity problems are only getting worse with more and more people living near the route. Metro West There have also been some suggestions that, instead of upgrading the Green Line to a metro, MetroLink could instead 'go west'. This would involve building a line out towards Rathfarnham . Something like this has been proposed by several politicians, including the likes of former Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. Honestly – this is just confusing two things which have zero relation to each other. This is because a western metro would basically be an entirely new project. The Green Line is already there and ready to upgrade. By contrast – you can't just 'extend' MetroLink to west Dublin. You have to build an entirely new metro line. Related Reads MetroLink's new project director Sean Sweeney to be paid €550k Metrolink station could be renamed to honour pub set to be demolished during project construction Firms tell planning hearing Metrolink tunnel will hit building basements unless plans redrawn A western metro would likely have a similar cost to the northside MetroLink section – so, say in the region of €10 – €20 billion. This means the €300 million to upgrade the Green Line would be 3% the cost of €10 billion to build a new western one. Or potentially, 1.5%, if building a new line ended up costing closer to €20 billion. The two projects don't even remotely compare. A hypothetical western line isn't even a firm idea as things stand. It would have to go through rounds of design, public consultation and planning, just like MetroLink. Given MetroLink was first announced in 2005 and building still hasn't started 20 years later, there's approximately a 0% chance a western route would be ready to go by the time the northern line is expected to finish up construction. By contrast, the Green Line is there, ready to be upgraded cheaply. Trying to frame the Green Line upgrade as an 'either/or' compared to an imaginary western line makes absolutely zero sense. 20-year delay Finally, let's come back to what transport officials said in 2019, when it was decided that the Green Line upgrade would be shelved. They said a proposed upgrade of the Luas Green Line may not be needed for 'up to 20 years' . That announcement was already made more than six years ago. It was recently reported that the northern MetroLink would be completed 'in 2035' . That would be 16 years from 2019 – not far off the 'maximum' of 20 years the Green Line could continue without the metro upgrade. And that's if the MetroLink timeline doesn't slip further, which it almost certainly will. Department of Transport / YouTube It's very conceivable that building work on the MetroLink could finish at Charlemont sometime in the mid 2030s. And, rather than continuing south and doing the extremely straightforward Green Line upgrade, the MetroLink team would pack up and go home. Then, with the Green Line undoubtedly heaving at this point, transport officials will have to do the upgrade as an entirely separate project to MetroLink. The Green Line metro upgrade would have to go through planning hoops separately. All the tendering, separately. Then construction, separately. Rather than costing €300 million, the price would soar, possibly into the billions. And it would mean that people along the Green Line would have a much worse transport service for years and years more than needed. This would all be unimaginably stupid. And yet, it is exactly the plan as things stand. The politicians opposing the Green Line upgrade need to have a deep, introspective look at themselves. They understand everything which has been outlined in this article. And yet, they still oppose the Green Line upgrade. They should have a think about why. And if they want to be the ones held responsible when people spending their mornings crammed like sardines on the Green Line realise that they've been duped out of a metro service due to political wrangling. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Metrolink service still disrupted by storm damage in St. Louis
ST. LOUIS — Storm damage is still causing delays for people using public transportation in the St. Louis area. Metro Transit's overhead power system is disrupting service on parts of the MetroLink system. Debris and repairs are also disrupting bus service. A tornado that first touched down near Clayton pushed 20 miles northeast. The storm's path caused a billion dollars worth of property damage and killed at least five people. That damage includes the public transportation system. Blue Line MetroLink trains are not running between the Brentwood I-64 and Forest Park-DeBaliviere stations due to the damage. Instead, shuttle buses are transporting riders between the following stations: Brentwood I-64 Richmond Heights Clayton Forsyth University City-Big Bend Skinker Forest Park-DeBaliviere Riders should expect at least 30 minutes of additional travel time through this area. The shuttle service and rail disruption are expected to continue through Monday, May 19, while crews work on repairs. Limited service is available on the #18 Taylor Metro bus route, operating only between Taylor and MLK Drive and the Central West End Transit Center. Full service has resumed on the #42 Sarah route, but detours and delays remain likely across the system due to ongoing cleanup and repairs. Metro encourages riders to check or the Transit app for updates. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
