[Articles] DART Underground

[Oisin88]

People, be reasonable and see the big picture here please.

Originally Posted by ColmmacO

I am usually very sceptical about local residents groups who commission consultants. Usually the consultant will be given a brief to find an alternate site and then come up with reasons why the alternate site is better than the proposed site, rather than taking the logical approach and investigating whether the proposed site is suitable. So usually from the outset their report will be biased in favour of the residents group. I have also never come accross a consultants report commissioned by such a group that hasnt found in favour of the residents.

Read the facts first.

The report is available on www.iot.ie so you can judge for yourself. In this case the report looked at the Irish Rail plans first, and as I recall spent alot of time on them. Remember also that the original engineers were probably told "we want it to go from here to here" and had to work with that. It also looks like they didn't bother to bring in the population centres along the way (see http://www.inchicoreDARTstation.com)

Originally Posted by ColmmacO

My opinion would be that if Irish Rail have actually consulted properly with the locals, and have given assurances to perform all reasonable distruption and noise abatment procedures,and have adhered to all european and national environmental directives then they should be cleared to go ahead with the plan.

(1) Considering CIÉ/Irish Rail don't have a track record with consulting with anyone except their property developer and FF hack loaded board, do you think that it is likely that they consulted properly with any residents along the route?
(2) CIÉ/IR Failed to comply with the Aarhus Convention, which is a European directive which it has taken Ireland 10 years to implement (not quite there)
(3)Assurances from CIÉ are not worth the paper they are printed on, and you as a passenger should know that.
(4) It is way more than noise abatement etc. Consider that you lived in a small terraced house with no front garden and a small road in front of you, and then a soccer pitch. Now consider a gantry big enough for a Tunnel Boring Machine big enough for 2 railway sized tunnels, all the spoil for 3.5 Km coming out, and all this operating on a 24 hour basis for 5 years? And all this when there is a 72 acre site a few hundred metres away, largely empty and an even larger industrial site to the west of that with multiply vacant units.

Originally Posted by ColmmacO

This project will make a huge difference to hundreds of thousands of people all over dublin, and should not be held up unduely by a small minority.

If the project is delayed it will be completely Irish Rails fault for not looking adequately at the alternatives. There is no plausible reason why the tunnel boring machine launch pit should have been put in the pond field and not further west in the works estate. If the job is going to be done at all:
(1) It should be done properly
(2) All stakeholders must be consulted fully (not just informed by glossy brochures and spin)