IF THE lessons from the French cities of Grenoble and Strasbourg mean anything, the construction of a light rail transit (LRT) system in the 1990s can be used as a powerful lever to gain major environmental improvements and raise civic design to a new plane.
The tram is making a comeback all over France. Apart from Grenoble and Strasbourg, LRT systems have already been installed in Nantes, Rouen and Saint Denis, they are under construction in Montpellier, Orleans and Valenciennes, and are planned for Bordeaux, Caen, Clermont Ferrand and even Nice.
The change wrought by LRT in Strasbourg has been truly astonishing. Five years ago, 40,000 ears a day crossed its main square, the Place Kleber. Now the entire square is a paved pedestrian plaza, done with typical French panache, with an underground car park.
Dublin Corporation could follow Strasbourg's example by playing an active and visible role in spearheading the tram's introduction here. Instead, it has remained very much in the background, leaving the CIE project team in the driving seat to take all the flak. Perhaps the new city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, will take a more progressive view.
And there is some flak. Much of this is related to the disruption which will be caused by the construction of such a major engineering project with all that means in terms of "street closures, traffic diversions, changes to bus routes and stops, footpath restrictions and many other changes", as transport consultant Mr Tony Young put it.
This could go on for two or three years, from the relocation of under street services to the first operation of LRT.
"But all this is not a reason for not progressing the project it is a reason for ensuring that the project is advanced in full acknowledgment of these problems and with determination to minimise their effects," Mr Young said.
"It is less than four years now since the first light rail vehicles glided through the streets of Manchester, but no one now doubts the benefits that light rail has brought to the city and to the region," he added. Indeed, Manchester's Metrolink has won an environment award from the AA.
An immense amount of detailed design work has already been done by CIE to bring LRT to the capital. Not only have the designers had to choose the best routes for the trams, they have also had to confront a number of "pinch points" where buildings would have to be demolished to make way for the new transport system.
There has already been some controversy over the fate of Arran Quay Terrace, one of the pinch points on the Tallaght tram line, because it involves demolishing nine houses. City councillors have rowed in behind the residents, even though the corporation once had plans to pull them down for one of its road schemes.
As a result of the protests over Arran Quay Terrace, the CIE project team is currently re-examining other route options in closer detail including Dame Street, the Liffey Quays, Blackhall Place and North King Street. The team must do this, in any case, if it is to defend the "preferred technical option" at the light rail public inquiry.
The obvious alternative of running along the quays was ruled out at an early stage because the trams could not negotiate the "bumps" leading to the Liffey bridges particularly at Queen Street. Also, by choosing an alignment running east from Benburb Street, an important "beachhead" would be established on the north side.
The narrowness of Mary's Abbey, and its congestion by fork lift trucks laden with fruit and vegetables, suggests that the entire south side of the street would have to be demolished but the design team insists that not all of it may have to go. However the substantial building at the corner of Capel Street is a certain casualty.
The team is in the process of agreeing with the Corporation a framework plan for Mary's Abbey to minimise the need for large scale demolition. Market traders are being consulted about how their needs might be serviced from Capel Street or from backland sites on either side of the LRT reservation.
Yet running two tram lines through Mary's Abbey means that its use is bound to change in the long term, from wholesale to a more consumer oriented mix of markets related retail. What this underlines is the need for strategic management of the markets area, probably in the context of the corporation's Historic Area Rejuvenation Plan for the north inner city.
For the purposes of public consultation, and to fulfil what they see as their wider obligations, the architects on CIE's project team prepared a framework plan for Mary's Abbey which suggests a new north south pedestrian route past the almost forgotten Chapter House and linked in an impressive market hall behind Cape Streets.
But the CIE project team's brief extends to the limits of the pink line, as the LRT reservation is delineated on the maps. Much as its architects might like to devote more time to preparing a strategic management plan for the wider area, their primary function is to get the LRT line through the city the rest is up to the corporation.
However, it is unclear at this stage if the corporation would be prepared to use its powers of compulsory purchase so liberally exercised for its own road schemes to ensure that, where buildings are demolished, there would be a sufficient land "take" to facilitate redevelopment, or urban reinstatement".
Upper Abbey Street, through which the Tallaght tram would run, also presents a problem. For example, the developers of the large shopping centre now being built on the Jervis Street Hospital site seem to have taken little or no account of the LRT plan its main entrance is from Mary Street, with a multi storey car park on the Abbey Street frontage.
The CIE project team sees the integration of LRT into the cored of the city as crucial. Mr Gerry Mitchell, a landscape architect is looking at street furniture, monuments and buildings of architectural importance in the conservation area stretching from O'Connell Street to Harcourt Street in order to recommend the best approach, in civic design, terms.
The Dublin City Centre Business Association, which enthusiastically supports LRT, has said the design of this central axis of the city is of such importance that the Department of the Environment should make a special allocation of £10 million to ensure that "penny pinching" will not get in the way of achieving the highest standards.
There have also been extensive discussions about a traffic plan being prepared by Semaly, the French transport consultants, on the LRT project. Unusually for Dublin, it is based on the need to give the city's new public transport system priority, leaving private traffic to find its own level on a radically reorganised network of through routes.
The corporation is concerned that LRT will result in a "significant displacement" of traffic. As a result, one of its traffic engineers said it would be "mandatory at the design stage to ensure that the granting of appropriate priority to LRT does not have adverse strategic consequences, causing gridlock over an area of the city".
Another issue to be resolved is how the LRT "wirescape" is to be supported. In the city centre area, the design team's preference is to string the wires from buildings on either side of the route to minimise visual impact. Discussions are also under way with the corporation to integrate any poles which may be required with lamp standards.
