Recently a glossy leaflet, apparently a Public Consultation document, came through my letterbox. It concerns the proposed Luas City Centre Link - Line BX. You know, the one that should have been built when the original Luas construction drove everyone in Dublin mad, cost hundreds of millions of euro more than it should have, and was years over schedule.

That one.

The most likely routes, according to the consultation pamphlet, are A and F.

A: Length: 1.4km, journey time 8 minutes. Construction two and a half years. Route: Stephen’s Green, Dawson Street, Suffolk Street, College Green, Wesmoreland Street, O’Connell Street to junction with Abbey Street. Possible future extension. This is the cheapest option but I can’t find any projected cost.

F: Length: 1.77km IN, 1.8KM OUT. Construction 3 years. Route: the same as A as far as O’Connell Street, but continues up O’Connell St, turns right at the top, along Cathal Brugha St, right again along Marlborough St, to Eden Quay where it crosses a new bridge (and disrupts quay traffic again on both sides of the quays), through Hawkins Street, back to Westmoreland Street and on to Stephen’s Green. This will take 3 years to build, and cost 65% more than A, and somehow I fear it is the one they’ll go for.

So, work out how much traffic it disrupts at how many junctions, and the chaos approaching standstill that it will cause the bus system. I don’t think the tally needs a consultant. For the maps, see the Rail Procurement Agency website.

I know this is the equivalent of using a pitchfork to stop a tsunami, but I’m going to write three little words here on my own little patch: DON’T DO IT.

It’s years too late. Someone should have joined up the dots when the two lines were planned, but not now. Trams - ok, light rail - made sense when Dublin was a compact city, but Dublin has sprawled out of reach.

The Luas is touted as a magnificent success, and indeed it is if you take it in isolation (and if you like being crushed like a sardine and standing up for most of your journey).

But the fact is that its success is at the expense of those who have no access to it, ie the vast majority of commuters and general public transport users. Money which should have been spent on upgrading the existing public transport network (by some estimates €750 million plus), went down the many holes that were dug and redug - and redug - to lay down the Luas tracks.

For the Luas to make sense, it would have to be laid on every bus route, a thought too nightmarish to contemplate.

That €750 million did not in fact include disruption to businesses, the disruption to people’s lives, the disruption to bus routes and therefore user delays, the pollution, or the noise.

And now, with Dublin Corporation having spent years and millions upgrading O’Connell Street, the Rail Procurement Agency want to tear it all up again.

There is a wonderful opportunity here. Equip a bus shuttle service to Luas standards from Stephen’s Green to the top of O’Connell Street and loop back. By Luas standards I mean a properly designed bus, with proper shelters, proper schedules and LED timetables. And make it free. No disruption, high efficiency and a fraction of the cost.
Then the penny would drop. Why not make ALL routes like that?

If the RPA want a significant project, Platform 11 has several ideas.

If they want a really big one, why not put an underground under the M50 from Bray to the airport. Or indeed a ‘light rail’ system. That would save interminable upgrades to the M50, which will otherwise continue to cost untold millions as more vehicles choke the latest upgrade, make access from the south and west - joining the Maynooth line - to the airport a doddle, and save millions of tons of carbon in the process.

Just a suggestion.

Rail Procurement Agency

Transport 21

Luas

Platform 11