Tradition gets IÉ into a lot of problems (shift patterns that made sense in the 60s if at all, antiquated fare structures, (until recently) bizarre connection patterns for branch lines, etc). The only reason that there is a 'traditional DART route' is a mixture of 19th century design and 1970s/80s decision to electrify. If the decision had been taken to electrify (e.g.) Maynooth ten years ago, we'd be talking about the 'traditional Maynooth route' by now.
Tradition be gone - they should do what makes sense (which is the configuration that works in terms of engineering/time and involves the fewest changes for the greatest number of potential routes), rather than looking at existing Sutton-Blackrock trips (or whatever). While of course no station should be cut out of the network while still in use, a massive, expensive project like this should not have retention of the status quo (which occured due to coincidence in some cases) as the key policy objective. I'm a bit worried now that you will have politicians talking about "Save Sutton to Blackrock" (or whatever) which is the typical Irish response to transport debates, and one of the root causes of a messy, paranoid and hyperlocal approach to Greater Dublin Area transport policy...
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28-06-2007, 14:29
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