Dublin Transport Systems

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Dublin City Transport Systems

Space Radar Image of Dublin with the Wicklow Mountains to the bottom left. [1]

Dublin is the centre of the transport system in Ireland (see Transport in Ireland). Dublin Port is the country's most important sea port. Dublin Airport is the most important airport in the republic and the bulk of passenger traffic travels through the it, with it having regular services to other airports in Ireland, Europe, North America, the Middle East and Africa. Heuston Station and Connolly Station are the city's major railway stations, Heuston connects with the towns and cities in the south and west of the Republic while Connolly serves the Sligo, Wexford and Belfast routes.

Road network

Dublin is also the main hub of the country's road network. The M50 motorway (the busiest road in Ireland), a semi-ring road runs around the south, west and north of the city, connecting the most important national primary routes in the State that fan out from the capital to the regions. A toll of €1.80 applies on what is called the West-Link, two adjacent concrete bridges that tower high above the River Liffey near the village of Lucan. Construction of the M50 took almost 20 years, with the final section opening in June 2005. A court case regarding the destruction of medieval ruins at Carrickmines Castle delayed the final completion of the route. The M50 currently has two traffic lanes going either direction but plans are afoot to increase that to three. The National Roads Authority also intends to increase capacity at many of the motorway's busiest junctions by building triple-grade interchanges instead.

To complete the ring road, an eastern bypass is also proposed for the city of Dublin. The first half of this project is currently under construction, the Dublin Port Tunnel. It is scheduled to open in 2006 and will mainly cater for heavy vehicles. When finished, Dublin City Council hopes to ban all unnecessary trucks and lorries from the city quays. The second half of the project would involve another tunnelling project, linking Dublin Port to the road network on the southside of the city. Plans for this have never been formalised.

The capital is also surrounded by what have been termed by Dublin City Council as an inner and outer orbital route. The inner orbital route runs roughly around the heart of the Georgian city from St. Stephen's Green to Mountjoy Square and from the King's Inns to St Patrick's Cathedral. The outer orbital route runs largely along the natural circle formed by Dublin's two canals, the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal, as well as the North and South Circular Roads.

Luas Tram

Public transport

The Dublin Area Rapid Transit system is the only electrified railway in the country and serves stations at regular intervals on the railway line along the east coast. A two-line light rail system called Luas opened in 2004 and has proved popular in the (limited) areas it serves, although the lack of a link between the two lines is widely criticised. A metro system linking Dublin Airport to Stephen's Green in the city centre will be the next major infrastructural project, followed by an additional underground DART line and a western Metro line (see below).

The bulk of the public transport system in Dublin is made up of bus services operated by Bus Átha Cliath (Dublin Bus), which operates a network of nearly 200 daytime routes (identified by number and sometimes suffixed with a letter, e.g. 40, 40A, 40B, 40C, 40D) and 24 "Nitelink" overnight services which run on Monday to Saturday nights, which are identified by a number suffixed with "N" e.g. 40N). Apart from some tourist buses, all Dublin Bus' services are one-man operated, and daytime fares are determined by the number of fare stages travelled through — fares are payable in coin and only the exact fare is acceptable — if passengers overpay, they are issued "change tickets" which must be presented at the Dublin Bus office in O'Connell Street to be converted to cash. Alternatively, various pre-paid tickets and passes can be bought from Dublin Bus or its agents, and are processed by a validating machine on the right of the entrance door of the bus. Nitelink buses charge a flat fare regardless of the distance travelled.

A number of other bus companies provide services in Dublin, including Bus Éireann which provides services to the more distant parts of Dublin's ever-widening commuter belt. In the absence of an overall transport authority in Dublin, obtaining information about all public transport options available for a particular journey can take some time.

The Irish Government has launched a national transport plan which is expected to cost the government €34.4 billion over the next 10 years. Most of this will go towards the Dublin Port Tunnel, seven new LUAS projects, two Metro lines, DART extensions and an underground station at St Stephen's Green integrating all services. However Irish transport plans tend to go massively over-budget. The best example is the Port Tunnel which has gone over-budget all the way in to the record books.

The Port Tunnel was originally envisaged as a single bore, two lane road to cater primarily for trucks, and charging no toll on trucks, but a toll on cars to deter their custom, would not need substantial tolling infrastructure. However, it has been built to motorway standard as two separate tunnels to cater for all traffic (although HGV traffic will not be tolled). The tunnels are significantly deeper than originally planned to reduce disturbance to residential areas, and had to be built one kilometre longer to reach this depth and requiried many more ancillary works to facilitate this, such as demolition and rebuilding of existing bridges.

DUBLIN - FUTURE PLANS

The Dublin Metro, sometimes called the Dublin Light Metro, is a planned metro (subway) system for the Irish city of Dublin. The plan was set out in the Irish Government's 2005 Transport 21 transport plan. The name 'Light Metro' came from the fact that light rail tracks and trains/trams may be used (like the existing LUAS) instead of the standard heavy rail found in metro systems in New York and London. The Light Metro plan was adopted because such systems are also in use in other European cities of similar size to Dublin, and also because construction costs are expected to be lower with this option.

Diagram illustrating the planned path of Metro North, and interconnection with other transport nodes

So far, two lines have been planned, which will mainly serve the North and West of the city. One line is to go from St. Stephen's Green to the airport and on to Swords. The second line is to split off the first one just south of the airport, and from there pass through Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley, and Clondalkin before joining the Red Line of the LUAS to continue towards Tallaght. Some stations will be underground (mainly in the City Centre) while the rest will be either above ground or at ground level.

The line will meet at stations with the LUAS and probably the DART. One source of current debate is the feasibility of providing an interchange station between the Metro and the DART where their respective lines cross in the vicinity of Glasnevin or Drumcondra.

Proposed Timeline

2010 - Metro West Phase 1 (Tallaght to Clondalkin).
2011 - Metro West Phase 2 (Clondalkin to Lucan).
2012 - Metro North.
2012 - Metro West Phase 3 (Lucan to Blanchardstown).
2014 - Metro West Phase 4 (Blanchardstown to Ballymun).

Need for a Metro

A high-capacity public-transport link to Dublin Airport has been identified as one of the most important gaps in the Dublin network, by the RPA.Dublin Airport is currently carrying 20 million passengers per year, a figure which according to some estimates may grow to 30 million by 2015, but the airport has no rail link to the city.

Metro was chosen as the preferred option for airport access over an alternative Iarnród Éireann-proposed solution based on a new airport spur from the existing DART line. Metro will be fully segregated from all traffic which will mean it will not disrupt traffic when in operation, unlike an on-street LUAS. The metro will also bring rail access to areas current lacking it, such as Ballymun, Dublin City University, and Swords.

The population of Greater Dublin, which was 1,565,446 at the time of the 2001 census, is expected to reach 2,000,000 by 2021.

According to the Government's Railway Procurement Agency, Metro North has the potential to eliminate up to 41,000 car journeys per day from Dublin's congested roads and should be able to serve the Airport with a 17 minute journey to the city centre and Swords with a 26 minute journey. It is also expected to carry around 80,000 passengers a day, similar to current DART passenger numbers.

The proposed metro system should provide room for expansion. Stations are supposedly to be built to accommodate longer carriages and more frequent trains in the future.

Prime Ministerial Vanity ?

However it has been cogently argued that the metro north is entirely a vanity project. Some particular points are of interest:

1.It happens to service the constituency of the prime minister.

2.The report presented to the Dail in respect of metro north did not examine the possibility of using a coach service through the soon to be finished port tunnel. This has the potential to provide a much superior service with a direct connection between the airport and Busaras. The journey time would be significantly faster than the metro at approximately 13 minutes. As the tunnel is effectively reserved for heavy good vehicles only, there is ample space to provide a very high frequency bus service (http://www.dail.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/Committees29thDail/jct/metro-report/Report.doc).

3.Three separate tram routes servicing different part of the northside of dublin before meeting at the airport and continuing to Swords would provide capacity for up to 30 million passengers a year. Such a network would serve a greater area of Dublin and cost half as much as the expected 3 billion for metro north. This observation is on the basis that the two trams currently in operation costed 750 million euro and carry 20 million a year (www.rpa.ie).

4.Another rail tunnel is proposed. This runs through the city in an east-west direction. It is designed to link the two main train stations, the DART line, and the two tram lines. The tunnel would create the opportunity for 2 full service (heavy rail) metro lines through the city, with a much higher capacity than the metro light. The tunnel itself would pass through the most densely populated part of the city (www.irishrail.ie).

5.Approximately a third of the metro north line cannot be built on as it is a designated airport exclusion zone(www.fingalcoco.ie / see development plan).

6. The north of dublin is the least populated part of the city (www.cso.ie). It is also witnessing less growth in population in comparison to the west of dublin (www.dublinbus.ie / bus network review).

7. It is unclear that any savings will be made in designing the tunnels for light rail ,instead of heavy rail. This is because much of the cost goes into the job of tunnelling.

METRO North

Schematic map of proposed hybrid East/Central MetroNorth Route including omission of the Trinity/Tara stop, as well as integration with other services.

After a study of the Metro North project, the Railway Procurement Agency has selected a shortlist of three broad corridor options. There is a "West Route", a "Central Route" and an "East Route" with the Central route being preferred on grounds of cost and construction feasibility.

Irrespective of the route chosen, the line will go underground at the city centre, terminating at St. Stephen's Green. Again irrespective of the route chosen, it is proposed to have a station in the vicinity of O'Connell Street.

Following a period of public consultation on the routing, the RPA will prepare more detailed engineering plans, including the exact location of stations, before seeking tenders for the line's construction.

Central Route (17km - 14 Stations)

The central route will emerge from the tunnel just south of Dublin City University. From there it will travel on an elevated structure through the centre of Ballymun and cross over the M50 motorway. The Central route will pass Dublin Airport somewhere near the Great Southern Hotel. There is a possibility to change this route to go underground at the Airport to a station at the short-term car park. From the airport, the route will continue to Swords on an elevated structure to finally terminate at ground level just north of Swords.

Possible stations include: St. Stephen's Green, D'Olier Street, O'Connell Street, Mater Hospital, Botanic Rd., DCU, Ballymun (Centre), Ballymun (North), "Metropark" (P+R), Airport, Airside, Swords, Estuary, Lissenhall (P+R).

West Route (22km - 16 Stations)

The west route will emerge from the tunnel at Broadstone for a short distance at ground level. It will then climb to an elevated stretch over the Tolka Valley and run underground through Finglas. The route will climb to cross the M50, continue towards Dublin Airport at ground level and run underground at the Airport to a station at the short-term car park. From there, the route will continue to Swords on an elevated structure, finally terminating at ground level just north of Swords.

Possible stations include: St. Stephen's Green, Tara Street, Rotunda/O' Connell Street, Broadstone, Cabra Road, Liffey Junction, Tolka, Finglas, Finglas (North), M50 (Derry Road Junction) (P+R), "Metropark" (P+R), Airport, Airside, Swords, Estuary, Lissenhall (P+R).

East Route (17km - 13 Stations)

The east route will emerge from the tunnel at between Griffith Avenue and Collins Avenue near Whitehall. The route will then continue northwards on an elevated structure along the M1 motorway through Santry. It will cross over the M1 north of the M50 junction and will pass through the Airport on an elevated structure, with a station near the Great Southern Hotel. From the airport, the route will continue to Swords on an elevated structure to finally terminate at ground level just north of Swords.

Possible stations include: St. Stephen's Green, Hawkins Street, O'Connell Street, Mater Hospital, Drumcondra, Griffith Avenue, Santry, Clonshaugh Road (P+R), Airport, Nevinstown, Swords, Estuary, Lissenhall (P+R).

Possible combined route

In early June 2006 the RPA announced that as a result of initial feedback from the ongoing public consultation they were considering a further route option which would run from the city centre along the East Route as far as Drumcondra before going underground to join the Central Route, with an additional station at Griffith Avenue.

METRO West

The RPA is carrying out feasibility study for the proposed Metro West line. After this a shortlist of options will be identified and maps will be available. The route options will then be brought for consultation.

Metro West is intended to link the areas of Tallaght, Clondalkin, Lucan, Blanchardstown and Ballymun. Metro West is planned to connect with the Luas Red line, the Kildare and Maynooth rail lines and Metro North.