Traffic chaos and cost fears eliminate underground rail option

AT THE end of last year, the Minister for Transport began the public consultation process for the proposed light rail system …

AT THE end of last year, the Minister for Transport began the public consultation process for the proposed light rail system for Dublin. Since then, consultation has been expensive and recently in this newspaper Dr Garret FitzGerald made a further contribution.

While the issues he raised were not new, his articles were timely and welcome. Before discussing the specific points raised, however, it is appropriate to remind ourselves how this process began.

Studying transport in Dublin is not new. Since the 1960s, the city has been the subject of a long sequence of studies which examined every conceivable solution to the transport problem. The Dublin Transportation Initiative of the early 1990s differed significantly in one aspect.

Conscious that most previous studies had not been implemented, the DTI set out to produce a set of practical recommendations for a transport infrastructure. These included switching investment towards public transport in the form of light rail transit (LRT), quality bus corridors (QBCs), DART upgrading and extensions, other urban rail improvements, development of "park and ride" facilities, improved access to public transport for persons with disability, an integrated fare structure and new interchange facilities.

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Success depends on a shift from private car to public transport, especially for the journey to work. DTI endorses continuing investment in national roads. It also made detailed proposals for traffic management in the city, including measures to deal with heavy goods vehicles.

Any judgment of the light rail proposal and its role must, therefore, be made in this overall context. LRT is only one part of a major city centre. It will be a successful contributor to a revitalised and accessible city centre.

Before commenting in detail on the attributes of LRT for Dublin, it is interesting to look at the role this technology plays in urban transport elsewhere. Throughout Europe, few cities are considering new underground railways. Many have instead introduced LRT in preference to underground construction.

Britain similarly has new systems operating in Manchester and Sheffield, with plans for cities including Birmingham, Leeds, Croydon and an extension to Manchester. Even the home of the private car, the United States, now has 19 cities with LRT systems. The decision in virtually all these cases is that underground railways are rejected and LRT systems are being provided.

DR FITZGERALD'S first article looked at the capacity of the LRT system. Unfortunately, the analysis was based on limited information on the proposed vehicles. The LRT project has tried to design a system that will match capacity to demand and allow room for future increase.

With trams, this flexibility is achieved in stages. Initially, door and seating arrangements allow maximum use of space. Additional capacity can then be achieved by increased frequency or longer vehicles. Thus based on the predicted peak hour loading in the year 2001, the system will have a spare capacity of 20 per cent. This can be increased to 100 per cent spare by increasing the frequency and the size of the vehicle.

The second article dealt with traffic management and the operation of the LRT. But the main point about traffic management, that the current arrangements cannot exist in the future, was missing.

A vital part of the DTI strategy is the implementation of a new plan for city centre traffic of which the LRT will be an integral part. In addition, recent analysis examines the traffic arrangements at each junction on the route before and after the LRT is implemented.

The junction by junction analysis was further supported by a traffic modelling exercise where the route was examined using two traffic management models. The result shows that the city will continue to operate, gridlock will not result and all streets will function.

It is more than 20 years since an underground railway for the city was first proposed. The plan failed because of the costs involved. During the mid 1980s, the Transport Consultative Commission again looked at the issue, and on cost grounds rejected an underground railway.

In the early 1990s, the DTI, for the third time, examined an underground option and concluded that an LRT system would better meet the DTI objectives. This conclusion was based on costs and on the DTI belief that a street system was better suited to the needs of the Dublin public.

In his articles, Dr Fitzgerald repeated many of the arguments originally considered by the DTI. This highlighted one of the difficulties in debating the merits of underground railways. Varying quotations of many millions of pounds per kilometre for construction are traded in the debate which often lacks detail. To concentrate the argument, LRT consultants have conducted a further examination of underground construction in Dublin.

FOUR questions were asked relating to cost and construction. These were the cost of a very short underground section in the city centre, a medium length system and a long underground system for the LRT. The consultants were also asked to re examine the so called "unified proposal" for a conventional underground in Dublin.

The consultants show that any short (which generally means not bored) tunnel would cause major disruption. The cut and cover method of construction on city streets, which would involve digging out a trench and putting the train system into it would, the consultants say, be unthinkable in the city centre.

They identified these difficulties also at the beginning and end of bored tunnels and, in particular, mentioned the disruption caused by station construction. The additional cost for a medium length and long underground was an additional expenditure of about £120 million and £300 million respectively.

Finally, an examination of the so called "unified proposal" identified some technical difficulties, particularly since the plan was not fully developed. An estimate of the cost, however, was almost £500 million, or more than twice the cost of the LRT system.

Inevitably, if serious consideration is to be given to elaborate and expensive plans like these, then equal consideration must be given to alternative uses of this type of finance both within and outside the transport sector. For example, one alternative would be to use the extra money to provide LRT services to areas like Ballymun and the airport, as DTI recommends.