The planning of new rail lines in Dublin as free-standing projects is hindering the prospect of achieving an integrated transport system, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor.
Last week, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen declared that the Government's €34.4 billion Transport 21 programme was "not just about individual high-profile projects such as metro, but about the way in which projects are integrated".
However, it is already clear that the "highly efficient, integrated transport network" imagined by the Minister will not be so integrated on the ground in Dublin because people using it would have to walk considerable distances to get from one line to another.
Anyone travelling by public transport from Tallaght to Dublin airport, for example, would have to lug his or her bags from the Luas stop outside Wynn's Hotel to the metro station on Upper O'Connell Street - a minimum distance of 280 metres (308 yards).
Similarly, passengers on the Maynooth suburban railway line seeking to transfer to the Tallaght Luas line will have to walk 350m (385 yards) from the planned rail terminus north of Sheriff Street to the nearest Luas stop serving Docklands.
Neither will the most likely route for Metro North (serving the airport) connect with the Maynooth line.
The distance between the proposed metro station on Botanic Road and a planned Iarnród Éireann station at Prospect will also be 350m.
Mirroring the failure to link up the two existing Luas lines in the city centre (now belatedly being remedied), the fundamental problem is that plans for new rail lines are all being presented as free-standing projects with little reference to integration.
Planning permission for the new rail terminus at Spencer Dock, which will serve Maynooth and the proposed line to Navan, was granted recently by Dublin City Council - subject to its removal in 10 years to facilitate intensive redevelopment of the area.
This decision was based on an assumption that the proposed underground rail link between Spencer Dock and Heuston Station would be finished by then.
Under Transport 21, the projected completion date of this major tunnelling project is 2015.
The tunnel would run via Pearse Station (connecting with Dart), St Stephen's Green (connecting with the Sandyford Luas line and the Airport metro) and the Liberties. At Heuston, it would connect with the Tallaght Luas line and the Kildare Arrow service.
Though it is the single most strategic element of the Transport 21 investment programme, because it would double the capacity of the suburban railway network, the long timescale given for its construction will create more immediate problems for rail users.
According to Platform 11, which campaigns for better rail services, the planned upgrade of the Kildare line to four tracks will create a significant over-capacity problem at Heuston Station until the rail interconnector with Spencer Dock opens in 2015.
Seán Giblin, of the Lucan "Deliver It Right" campaign, demonstrated that if bus and Luas services are not improved, "there will be a peak-hour deficit of nearly 6,000 passengers arriving at Heuston with no onward connection possibility to the city centre". Even after the introduction of longer trams on the Tallaght line and a doubling of the number of buses serving Heuston to 20-plus per hour, "there will still be a deficit of nearly 3,000 passengers with no onward connection possibility to the city centre".
At the Kildare route public inquiry last January, Giblin proposed that Iarnród Éireann should send four peak-hour Arrow commuter trains through the largely disused Phoenix Park tunnel to the proposed Spencer Dock station as an interim solution.
Pat Butler SC, the inspector who conducted the inquiry, recommended this week that the Minister direct Iarnród Éireann to initiate a study of the delivery of ongoing services from Heuston in conjunction with Dublin Bus and the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) within six months.
In its submission to the RPA on route options for Metro North, which would serve Swords as well as the airport, Platform 11 also stressed the need for integration of rail services. In particular, it called for a direct link between metro and the Maynooth line. The group has proposed that the RPA should vary its preferred route for Metro North to link up with the Maynooth line at Drumcondra, where a station already exists, to overcome the problem of a long walk between Botanic Road and Prospect station.
"This should be a no-brainer," according to Fine Gael councillor and Dáil candidate for Dublin West Dr Leo Varadkar. "Failing to link the two rail lines would be an error of gigantic proportions and would be laughed at in any other country in the world."
A spokesman for the RPA said earlier this week that a number of options were now being examined in response to the recent round of public consultations on Metro North, including the location of stations on the route to facilitate easier interchange.