Does Dublin need a Metro rail service?
YES:Metro North is an essential part of the infrastructure needed to support development and guarantee a better quality of life in Dublin, writes FRANK ALLEN
METRO NORTH is a response to the extraordinary growth in population and employment that has taken place in Dublin since the 1990s and is an essential part of the infrastructure needed to support future development.
Ireland's GDP doubled between 1996 and 2006 and employment grew by 40 per cent. Growth in the Dublin area was more dramatic, with employment rising in Dublin city and Co Dublin by 137 per cent and jobs in the Fingal area growing by 184 per cent.
These figures alone explain why the commute between Swords and the city centre has taken longer every year, particularly when many commuters do not have an attractive public transport option available to them. This private car dependency is also contributing to an unsustainable growth in energy usage.
We all want infrastructure to support economic development and commuters, shoppers and policymakers alike recognise that traffic congestion and negative environmental trends must be addressed.
The Government's commitment to fund major improvements in public transport through Transport 21 allowed the Rail Procurement Agency (RPA) to begin public consultation on a route for Metro North. Excellent progress has been made in agreeing a preferred route and in achieving strong support from key stakeholders.
When we began consultation two years ago, it was clear that people saw Metro as a link between the city centre and the country's busiest airport. With active participation in consultation by residents, businesses and institutions, the role of Metro North as a vital link for communities on the northside of Dublin is now much better understood.
Metro North is recognised by Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council as necessary to achieving population growth without urban sprawl. Metro North will contribute to the success of Dublin City Council's regeneration of Ballymun and the renewal of the Parnell Square area. Fingal County Council's exciting plans to develop Swords as a consolidated town with a vibrant economy depend critically on proceeding with Metro North without delay.
Hospitals such as the Mater and the Rotunda recognise the benefits of a fast, high-frequency transport service at their doorstep. We are working closely with Dublin City University to integrate its campus with regional and national transport services.
A Metro stop at Drumcondra will provide excellent interchange with Iarnród Éireann's Maynooth line service and will accommodate large crowds attending Croke Park. All of these benefits will not be achieved by Metro North on its own but through interchange with Dart, the Luas Red and Green lines and with bus services at high quality interchanges at many stops.
Visitors to Dublin from the North will be able to park their cars at a 2,000 space park-and-ride at Belinstown and travel to the city centre by Metro in half an hour.
An argument has been made that Metro North should be delayed and that implementation of the Iarnród Éireann interconnector project should be advanced in its place. This argument makes little sense.
The interconnector, whose funding is also provided for in Transport 21, will integrate Dublin's suburban rail network and create additional capacity for commuter rail services. RPA and Iarnród Éireann are working closely together to ensure that passengers can avail of high-quality interchange between Metro North, the reconfigured Dart and the Luas Green line at St Stephen's Green.
This co-operation is also intended to limit the construction impact experienced by the public from the two projects. Apart from the St Stephen's Green interchange, the geographical areas to be served by Metro North and the interconnector are different; Dublin requires both projects to be implemented rather than one or the other.
Considering the advanced stage of design and progress with planning and procurement, a decision to reverse the order of implementation would do nothing to advance the interconnector and would put the implementation of Metro North in jeopardy.
Dublin's pace of economic growth is likely to slow in the short term, but any future projections of employment and population for the region call for high-capacity public transport. There are understandable historical reasons why the Government was not able to fund the scale of infrastructure in Dublin that is regarded as the minimum required for a reasonable quality of life in other European countries.
Through Transport 21, the Government has committed to investing in infrastructure to catch up with urban growth and to make growth sustainable. If we spend the next year agonising about Metro North, the sequence in which projects should be implemented or whether we need a European standard of public transport, we will be deciding in favour of urban sprawl, continued car dependency creating worsening gridlock and a poor quality of life for Dublin's future generations.
Frank Allen is chief executive of the Rail Procurement Agency
NO:The proposed Metro line to Dublin airport is just another example of bad - and very costly - planning, writes FRANK MCDONALD
FRANCIS RAMBERT, director of the Institut Français d'Architecture, got it right recently when he diagnosed Dublin as being "sick with urban and suburban sprawl". We all know this is true; indeed, the Los Angeles-isation of the city has created a commuter belt extending outwards for 100km, with the M50 as its congested distributor road.
The plan to build a metro conjures up images of Paris and other major cities with underground rail networks. But Dublin isn't Paris. The French capital has a population density of 20,000 people per square kilometre, compared to Dublin's 1,500 per square kilometre. This raises the issue of horses for courses, and shows we're not at the races.
Metro North, a 17km line between Swords and St Stephen's Green, will do nothing to serve Dublin's sprawling suburbs, with the single exception of Swords. All it will do is to add yet another disparate element to the city's public transport services, which comprise buses, Dart, suburban rail and Luas.
This fragmented way of getting around doesn't qualify as a public transport "system". It is difficult to transfer between modes, there is still no integrated ticketing and the bus service, in particular, is unreliable due to American-style traffic congestion. No wonder most Dublin commuters choose to travel to and from work by car.
Nobody could deny that the two Luas lines have been a great success, even though they still don't connect. According to the 2006 Census, Luas resulted in a 66 per cent increase in the number of rail commuters in the Dublin area, compared to 2002.
That's a vote of confidence in high-quality, surface-running public transport. But now the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA), which brought us Luas, wants to go underground for Metro North. One of the main selling points is that this line would serve Dublin airport, where passenger numbers have exploded. But even with a rail link to the city centre, how many airport users would avail of it?
The rather surprising evidence from other European cities, even where airports are served by mainline rail, is that less than 30 per cent would take the train. In any case, if Dublin airport is the priority, it could be served much more economically by a spur off the Dart at Malahide, or by diverting the Dublin-Belfast main line.
Metro North would be extremely expensive. Although the RPA and the Department of Transport have refused to release even ballpark figures, The Irish Times established that the cost was estimated at €4.58 billion in 2004. Allowing for construction inflation since then and design changes that add to the cost, it's probably close to €6 billion now.
At least 100km of surface-running light rail lines could be built for the same price, and probably a lot more. This would turn Luas into a network serving many more places than Metro North. Even augmented by Metro West, the cost of which has not been disclosed either, Dublin would only be getting a total of 42km of metro under current plans.
The economic analysis of Metro North as a stand-alone project is not impressive. Even with "value engineering", such as no-frills stations, the benefit-to-cost ratio is nearly three times lower than the equivalent calculation by the RPA of a city centre link between the Tallaght and Sandyford Luas lines, running down Dawson Street.
Yet this vital link, dropped by the Government in 1998 due to sheer political cowardice, has been long-fingered again as the RPA concentrates on the metro project. Sure, it would cause disruption - but nothing quite as devastating as digging up a quarter of St Stephen's Green to carve out Martin Cullen's "Grand Central" station.
In economic and even transportation terms, Metro North would only stack up if it was extended southwards to Sandyford, Cherrywood and Bray - in effect, supplanting the existing Luas line. This would involve yet more expensive tunnelling between the Green and Ranelagh.
The major transport project in Dublin that does make sense is CIÉ's proposed rail interconnector, or "Dart underground", between Heuston Station and Spencer Dock, running via the Liberties, St Stephen's Green and Pearse Station, Westland Row. This would knit together all of the suburban rail services, transforming them into a real network. Inter-agency rivalry between the RPA and CIÉ, with each jockeying for position (and public funds), should not be allowed to get in the way of an objective assessment of the priorities for investment - especially in these financially-straitened times. Otherwise, the danger is that Metro North will consume most or all of the resources available.
The Government (including its Green Party Ministers) needs to pause and reflect on the priorities before the RPA enters into a contract with one or other of the four consortiums bidding to construct, operate and maintain Metro North. And that could happen as early as August.
Frank McDonald is environment editor of The Irish Times and author of several books on Dublin