Sir, – It’s a lovely idea to “hop on the Luas”.
We’ve become used to it as a convenient and swift mode of public transport. However, what happens when the service becomes so overburdened by huge passenger numbers and packed carriages that it can no longer be relied upon to get you from A to B on time?
Intensive apartment, commercial and office construction works along the entire length of the Green Line (Brides Glen/Cherrywood to Broombridge) is already making the daily commute a challenge. But what’s coming down the tracks will multiply the problem.
Here is a snapshot of a few locations where current construction developments boast “easy access” to the Luas Green Line. Brides Glen: (Cairn Homes’ Mercer Vale) 112 houses and 184 apartments; Stillorgan: (Richmond Homes’s Sandyford Central) 564 apartments; Balally: (Marlet’s Green Acre Gange) 307 apartments; Dundrum (Hammerson’s Dundrum Shopping Centre) application pending for 881 apartments; Windy Arbour: (LDA’s Central Mental Hospital site) 1,000 units. The total number of additional new dwellings along the route could reach 3,000.
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This would equate to at least an extra 6,000 daily commuters on this section alone of the Green Line.
The obvious answer to solve the problem would be to increase the number of carriages for each tram, but this is an engineering impossibility due to the sharp bend in the track between the Charlemont and Harcourt stops.
So, in the next year or two it won’t be a case of “hopping on the Luas” but hoping to God that you can squeeze sideways into a crammed carriage. – Yours, etc,
ALISON FERGUSSON,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.