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DUBLIN CITY CENTRE could soon be getting an underground DART line.
Irish Rail are back on track with their plans to develop the underground DART which could cost up to €2billion.
They’ve started issuing letters to 5,000 home and business owners about acquiring the land needed for the project under compulsory purchase orders.
The railway order was granted by the high court last month after being shelved since 2011.
Irish Rail say the underground line would be “the single most important piece of infrastructure in the state” and that it would promote a modal shift from private cars to public transport.
Cash needed
The construction of DART Underground will take approximately six to seven years and it will run from the Docklands to Inchicore.
The big question is when it will start and if the project will get the cash it needs.
The National Transport Authority told TheJournal.ie that the governments current capital spending programme extends until 2016 and that the subsequent programme will have to address the funding.
A spokesperson for the NTA added that:
The business cases for DART underground have proven the strategic value of the project for the Dublin region and the entire country.
Underground
It’s projected that the underground line would increase Greater Dublin’s rail service capacity from 33 million passenger journeys a year to 100 million.
The DART Underground tunnels will be approximately 7.6 Km in length and will connect the Northern and Kildare rail lines.
Here’s a video with all the info you need to know:
(IrishRail/YouTube)
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Reckon I’ll be underground before the Dart is with the way they keep shelving the plans.
I’ll happily eat my words though if it did come to realisation
Just vote for FG and Labour and everything will work out Paul. Sure everything’s grand again these days, have ya not been reading the newspapers, sure we’re turning corners and seeing green shoots all over the place.
Easy on the herbs, there Ted! Why does it have to be underground, why can’t we design a nice light rail system above ground and go up an escalator to get on?
Hopefully they get some swanky new trains aswell, the current darts look horrible and outdated.
Will it go to the airport?
No but it would allow for a spur to the airport if needed however metro would be more suitable and faster to the airport long term.
Sadly no. The Metro North is the one which serves the airport, but at a cost of €3 billion, it is unlikely to go ahead for some time. There is a proposal by Irish Rail to have a spur line north of Clongriffin Station across green fields to the airport. However this would add extra congestion to an already busy Northern Dart line. For it to operate, the Howth Dart service would have to be taken out and replaced with a shuttle service with only operate from Howth the Howth junction.
When/If they do finally go ahead and build the metro to the airport, they should just call it DART too. They could colour-code the lines in conjunction with the Luas – so Red/Green Luas and Blue/Yellow/Purple DART.
Right now there’s DART, Luas, Dublin Bus, Commuter Rail, Arrow and they want to add DART Underground and Metro. Too many names means too many systems, resulting in too much administration, wastage and increasing difficulties in properly integrating the ticketing system. Why, oh, why can someone not just pay one amount for the month to use the whole system, rather than having to buy a load of separate tickets?
Not unless they move the airport to inchicore
Yes Shane. One of the extended lines will go to the airport .
We need a monorail non-stop line from the city centre to the airport
Just what the city needs. Some good news for Dublin.
We heard the same story 40 years ago…….There must be an election coming up..
How this wasn’t done during the so called boom years really grinds my gears.
its cheaper to build now ;) Land is much cheaper, the cost of the CPOs are a fraction of what they would have been.
Sure ….but imagine what the various CEOs will be paid !
Yes Brian it should be cheaper , they estimate it at 2 billion but I can guarantee its more likely to be 3/4 billion by the time it’s finished.
The more of dublin under ground the better
Excellent comment.
They should use the old line for something like the http://www.thehighline.org in New York. Be a great tourist attraction.
A two story Dublin…great idea!
What old line Vincent? None of the current DART will close.
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not a chance my hindu friend
I hear those things are awfully loud
They glide as softly as a cloud!!
What about us brain-dead slobs?
You’ll be given cushy jobs
Were you sent here by the devil?
No, good sir, I’m on the level
The ring came off my pudding can.
Take my penknife, my good man.
Take my can opener my good man
I swear it’s Dublin’s only choice!
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
DART Undergrooouuund!
What’s it called?
They should have done it years ago instead of the Luas.
So we’ll have an underground running right underneath an overground? An Irish solution to an Irish problem.
no it won’t. The Dart underground will run through the south inner city from Docklands to Pearse to Stephens Green to Christchurch to Heuston station and beyond to Hazelhatch.
The luas runs through the north inner city to Connolly from Heuston.
The really big thing is the interconnection at Pearse. You are coming from Bray and you change at Pearse to go to Heuston or north to Malahide via Docklands
Why Docklands to Inchicore? The mind boggles??? Should be city centre to airport!!!!!
It connects to Heuston then onto west Dublin and Kildare.
Whys That Joe?
very few journeys to the airport originate in the airport. Dublin City doesn’t have the population density to support such a white elephant.
The airport is well serviced. Commuters are not. Hence the chronic traffic problem.
20 million people use Dublin airport each year. The metro will go to swords, of course Dublin has the population for a metro. Many cities around europe a lot smaller than Dublin have undergrounds.
Bobby 20m might use the airport, but only a small fraction of these people go between the the city and airport.
no one outside the M50 will use it, no on fron West Dublin will use it , etc
And you know this because? hundreds of thousands of people live along the proposed route to swords.
Doesn’t the luas pass close to Inchicore and go on to the docklands?
Inchicore is used because it connects west dublin and kildare with central Dublin. The Luas does not serve these areas.
Plenty of stops to various locations on the way negating the need to walk too far, city centre to commuter locations to be picked up and dropped off at an EXACT time and reasonable duration of journey. If this does not happen it won’t work as people just won’t leave their cars. Most people will just see this as a ‘that’s grand, sure it’ll take a few cars off the road so ill drive in a bit quicker.’
Bobby 1.45m live in the greater Dublin area. Your claim of hundreds if thousands living along the line is just nonsense
1.8 million people live in the greater Dublin area. Will reach 2.2 million by 2020. Just under 1.3 million live in the 4 Dublin councils today. And that’s Fact brian…….
and what about the hundreds of thousands along the line??
At least 130 million trips are to be made on the line each year. That’s a pretty busy line. Dublin is big enough and busy enough for a metro.
Dublins big enough, but the demand to the airport isn’t
A third of the people using the airport travel to the city centre! Look up the NTA Dublin airport travel survey 2011
4 million tourists visited Dublin last year, most of which enter the country via the airport. The vast majority of them will visit/stay/travel in and around central Dublin. The airport line will also serve many suburbs in Dublin before and after the airport. At least 133 million trips will be made on the line each year. 25+ million people will use Dublin airport in the next 10 years. Demand for this line is huge.
24% of the people.
http://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/NTA-Survey-at-Dublin-Airport-20112.pdf
And this is serviced adequately by busses
Brian, what you fail to understand is that this line is more than just an airport line. The airport is 1 stop out of 16. It will serve hundreds of thousands of people in central and north Dublin. As I said before at least 130 million trips will be made on the line each year. This will be a very busy line. It will take thousands of cars off the streets of congested Dublin.
Ah good! Something my great,great,great,great,great grandkids will have to benefit from
Whilst still paying for the bailout..
Ah here your grandkids aren’t that great in fairness..
Doesn’t the LUAS do the exact same thing already?
Thank God for this positive development.
Underground transportation is desperately needed in our congested and slow-moving city. Trying to travel through Dublin at certain times of the day is an absolute and unsustainable nightmare, due to Dublin’s over-reliance on surface-level modes of transportation.
So many cities in Europe and around the world have, long ago, discovered the unparalleled and irreplaceable virtue and benefits of below-ground (and below-traffic) speedy transportation.
STILL no dart line from Dublin airport to city centre
Sigh
When’s cork and Galway and limerick goin to get a public transport system. Galway is a nightmare goin west , cork could also do with something to link satellite towns to city,
The Luas should have been built in Galway/ Cork.
When there is a population to support such a system
I would think Cork city is large enough for a tram system, you and size……
Its very clichéd but instead of the Subway the Dubway.
Wow and construction started in 2012, they kept that quiet!!!
It didn’t, the project was shelved.
IM SURE TRINITY COLLEGE ECONOMIST SEAN BARRETT IS HAVING SLEEPLESS NIGHTS OVER THIS AND IM DELIGHTED,WHAT AN IDIOT TOTALLY ANTI RAIL ANTI ENGINEERING INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS,HE SAYS A BUS BASED SOLUTION FOR DUBLIN BASED ON PRIVATE BUSES NOT DUBLIN BUS WHAT A CAVEMAN HE IS,THIS DART UNDERGROUND PROJECT IS SO NEEDED FOR DUBLIN EXCELLENT PROJECT WELL WORTH THE MONEY.
Doesn’t Dublin have an updated transport system since someone painted a map like the London underground system
Irish rail can’t manage to keep Dunlaghoire station clean never mind run an underground system. Instead of cleaning the place they put new tiles down recently and whoever did the job was definitely not a tiler. Shoddy work as usual and brown envelopes seems to be the only reason. Our main port for tourists and the station is a disgrace. I would hate to see the house the station manager lives in if the station is anything to go by.
Our main port for tourists?
So why mention dun laoighre? Dublin port and rosslare are the tourist ports. Dun laoighre has no ferry in the winter and only the HSS every odd day operating at about 50% if it’s designed speed because passenger numbers are so bad
This is a pointless venture, in this current economic climate. They need to get their priorities right and amalgamate the Red and Green line Luas first, before anything else.
That process had already started!
This is another step of overall improvements in the capital’s transport infrastructure.
Which few people will use!
Emma it’s happening, ( much to the annoyance of green line users)
Green Line South Dubliners don’t want the Red Line junk heads who ride for free cluttering up their leafy commuter belt. If the Liffey wasn’t there they’d have to dig it.
To be fair, would you like to be around junkies in a claustrophobic environment? Honest question. I worked in the abbey st / talbot st area for years. It is not a nice place to be.
Wonder will the train actually fit in the tunnel??
The current DART is too darn slow though. And expensive. The DART to Greystones costs a fortune.
If people stick to their cars which I’d say they will, this could just be a big white elephant.
Its slow because the 2 lines currently used are congested. Dart, commuter and intercity trains use the 2 lines.
Don’t get dragged into a discussion on something that will never happen : “Isn’t that what you tend to do during an election?”
Well, sir, there’s nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!
What’d I say?
there’s one in dun laoghaire………
YAWN….. must be an election on
The video with all the info we need to know was uploaded to YouTube on 19th August, 2010. I’m guessing plans might’ve changed since then…
Is a line connecting Connolly or Pearce with Heuston not simpler ? Or should I say Amiens St /Westmoreland Row with Kingsbridge !
Should go for dublin airport to city centre
would be handy to have an underground, but it’ll be interesting to see whether it actually goes ahead this time … the new Luas line is going to be very handy ! gotta give em credit for that, sick n tired of relying on Dublin Bus !
LUAS red line already connects these areas more or less, the missing stop or two certainly does not add up to a seven year 2 billion project – this would be a waste of money. if it is going to go ahead it need to be to the airport
Will only benefit the country if the work goes to irish companies ..what will happen as usual foreign company will win the tender bring in forei workers most the money will leave the country and the seven ywars of construction wont benift ireland but we willhave another 2 billion to add to our debt
The new service could be called the “Apple-dart”!!!
A good light rail system, can be built and look futuristic for a fraction of the price! This underground crap, has got to stop and we can do something different in this country for a change!
Waste of money. There are 3 lines in places towards Kildare, if 1 train breaks down everything stops!
If there are constant “signal failures” everything will stop!
All this does is connect Greystones/Maynooth and Heuston/Connolly (just use the Phoenix Park tunnel).
Does nothing much to ease congestion (or property bubbles) as the passengers will still have to start their journey from the same place as before.
have your say