Does Dublin Require 3 Railway Systems?

The future of urban transport policy lies not in expansion but in the intelligent use of existing traffic areas.  The objective of ensuring mobility for people travelling to work and shopping and during leisure time requires urban traffic management based on modern information technology.
Ernst Joos, Deputy Director of Zurich Transport. ‘Lessons in Transportation Planning from Zurich.  Economy and Ecology are not contradictions.’ (Lecture, Dublin Transportation Office, Embassy of Switzerland, Dublin, June 10 1999)

Over the past twenty-five years, those responsible for managing Dublin have failed to draw any lessons from Zurich, one of the most desirable cities in the world in which to live. If they had, they would not now be seriously proposing to add yet another railway system to the two already existing. The proposed MetroLink is a completely different system to the existing LUAS (light rail) and DART/Commuter services (heavy rail). LUAS trams will be unable to run on the MetroLink rail, and vice versa (see About, Frequently Asked Questions, MetroLink – The Basics, par 6).

Resources committed to MetroLink (€500m to date) have crowded out the development of other, less costly, options which would, by now, have made it easier to move around our capital city region.

Place-making – an approach to urban planning and design that focuses on the people who use a space, rather than just the physical structures or buildings. The idea is to create places that are not just functional, but also beautiful and meaningful to the people who live, work, and play there. This has long been overlooked by the governing networks of politicians, senior public servants, policy makers, as well as the relevant planners, engineers, economists, architects, property developers and builders. Focusing on competitiveness alone will not make our capital city a pleasant place to live, work and linger.

For some time, there has been a deliberate policy of removing through traffic from a small part of Dublin city centre. MetroLink is the most recent iteration by insiders/incumbents who did not follow through on the 1998 government decision to build a mainly on-street light rail system for Dublin.

As proposed, MetroLink (costing anywhere from €12bn to €23bn) again fails to ensure that place-making objectives are applied consistently, and with equal force, throughout our capital city.

Ballymun provides an excellent example of this failure. When the 1960s-built-suburb was regenerated during the 1990s, the main street of this residential area became a six-lane highway for through traffic. Such traffic is a major form of community severance.

The proposed MetroLink will be in a tunnel, under the main street which will still have through traffic. National and local politicians, policymakers and interest groups support this. Yet the same people are actively restricting such through traffic from the city centre.

The Government decision to extend LUAS to Finglas is an opportunity to reset the go-stop-go practices of the past twenty-five years. Our public authorities can use this to keep the experienced staff and supply chains needed to build LUAS networks serving other parts of Dublin (e.g. Drumcondra, Santry, Ballymun, Beaumont, Coolock, Edenmore, Lucan, Clondalkin, Ballyfermot, the south city centre, Harold’s Cross, Terenure, Rathfarnham, Dundrum). People in Cork and Galway would also benefit from this focus as they too adopt LUAS-type services.

Sustaining urban areas requires the application of mutually reinforcing measures consistently over decades. Instead of being focused on the creation and maintenance of places which raise the quality of life, development in Dublin has been reduced to a very limited form of building control on a project-by-project basis.

We can enhance our cities by adopting stable policies and continuous investment. But we cannot rely on what emerges from different programmes for government, each drawn up for a single electoral cycle of no more than five years. Rapid decision-making on arbitrary projects has not worked to make housing affordable, or available, in the Dublin area. Nor will similar incoherence deliver an attractive public transport network.

LUAS Disconnect

This perpetuates a lack of insight that resulted in two disconnected LUAS lines. There are no plans to remedy this lack of joined up thinking.

On April 8, 2025 the Government approved the Revised National Planning Framework. This recognises the issue of Sustainable Mobility (National Strategic Outcome 5 p.161-2). Dublin and other Irish cities and major urban areas are heavily dependent on road and private, mainly car-based, transport with the result that there is more and more congestion.

The National Development Plan makes provision for transformational investment in public transport and sustainable mobility solutions in the main urban centres that will progressively put in place a more sustainable alternative. For example, major public transport infrastructure projects identified in the Transport Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area to 2042 – such as the MetroLink and DART+ as well as the Luas and Bus Connects investment programmes – will keep our capital and other key urban areas competitive.

In the Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2022 –2042, the National Transport Authority (NTA) continues to spin the idea that LUAS is networked, when our experience is otherwise (‘Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy 2022-2042’ asserts that ‘in conjunction with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), in December 2017 we opened Luas Cross City, linking the Red and Green lines and providing an interchange between commuter rail and Luas at Broombridge.’ p.11).

What is worse, NTA persists with this bluster despite their own strategy showing clearly that they propose more lines which are not interlinked.

In 1997, Dublin’s light rail was proposed as one interconnected system (see Figure 1). However, the Dublin Chamber of Commerce opposed on street LUAS. In May 1998, the Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrat government decided to develop Dublin’s light rail system (now LUAS) as follows

1. Phase 1 – Line A from Tallaght to Middle Abbey Street;
2. Phase 2- Line B from Sandyford to Sr. Stephen’s Green;
3. Phase 3 – an eastward extension of Line A from Middle Abbey Street to Connolly and perhaps then on to the Docklands;
4. Phase 4 – an underground extension of Line A to Broadstone then continuing with surface running to Finglas and the Dublin Airport.

This bizarre decision meant that another depot (for maintenance etc.) had to be built for Line B (now the Green Line), as the Red Cow depot (now on the Red line) could not service trams, although it was designed and built for three LUAS lines!

At the time, I estimated that the cost of connecting the two lines was about the same as the cost of acquiring a site and building another depot. The only remaining green space next to the Sandyford Business district became the depot. Recently Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council re-zoned an existing brownfield site to create public open spaces.  This was a belated response to the growth of offices and residences in that area.

Nothing was done to build the Phase 4 short tunnel under the city centre, as decided in 1998. Shortly afterwards, in 2001, the Government had an opportunity to correct its basic error when ‘A Platform for Change. Final Report An integrated transportation strategy for the Greater Dublin Area 2000 to 2016’ was published.

This proposed an on-street LUAS network (see Figure 2) as one of a set of mutually reinforcing measures designed to make it easier to move around the Greater Dublin Area. Note that this report proposed, inter alia:

1. A LUAS line through Drumcondra to Dublin Airport with a spur line to Howth Junction, which has DART and commuter rail services;
2. A Docklands loop across a then proposed bridge at Macken Street– now the Samuel Beckett Bridge.
3. The LUAS Green line was to be upgraded to Metro.

The Metro then proposed is radically different to MetroLink. The decision to extend the Green LUAS line through Broadstone to Broombridge on-street foreclosed the possibility of having a short tunnel between Ranelagh and Broadstone, as the Government decided in 1998.

To see what a mutually-reinforcing set of rail-based options for the Dublin looks like see Figure 4. Bus services were supposed to be designed to complement this.

Back to the Future

It is time for a reset for MetroLink, which it is projected will cost up to a staggering €23 billion, which is two or three times the original estimate, especially given the economic uncertainty that has arisen since Donald Trump became President in January 2025.

The application to extend the Green Line LUAS to Finglas is an opportunity to extend that project to Dublin Airport, as Cathal Daughton pointed out in a recent article. While welcome, the extension of the LUAS Green Line from Broombridge in Cabra to Charlestown in Finglas should have continued the additional 3km to Dublin Airport to create a city centre-airport rail link while the Metro is being built.

TII estimate that the 4km LUAS Finglas project will cost between €420 and €720 million. Getting to the Airport could be done by extending LUAS through Ballymun to the old airport road at Santry (see Figures 14 and 15). That route would avoid the cost of going over or under the M50, in addition to serving more residential and business areas.

Is journey time between Dublin City Centre and the Airport an issue?

NTA published a number of Dublin Airport passenger surveys over the past twenty-five years .  These reports show that most passengers: take less than one hour to get to the Airport (see Figure 5); are travelling for holiday/leisure/visiting family friends (see Figure 6); and are not going to Dublin City Centre (see Figure 7).

The NTA reports show the purpose of passenger travel has scarcely changed over the past twenty-five years. This suggests that most passengers are not pressed for time.

As regards the landside origin/destination of these passengers, NTA collected the data in surveys done in 2001, 2011, 2016 and 2022. The published reports do not, however, contain summary data for the years 2016 and 2022. The reports of the 2016 and 2022 surveys do not contain any explanation for this omission. The published data from the 2001 and 2011 reports show that less than one-quarter were going to/coming from Dublin City Centre (See Figure 7).  Any passengers that need faster journey times between Dublin Airport and the city centre have the options of getting taxis which can go through the Port Tunnel and use bus lanes.

Why has the National Transport Authority (NTA) stopped publishing data on the landside origins/destinations of Dublin Airport passengers? Without such data, how can trends be assessed as a basis for investment?

This does not correspond with what Robert Watt (then Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform) wrote in 2017. Among the outputs in 2014 from these economists is the Comprehensive Expenditure Report 2015-2017, a review of agri-taxation measures, and an evidence-based Strategic Framework for Investment in Land Transport. This work is high-quality economic analysis undertaken by Irish Civil Servants [my emphasis].

Arrival times for passengers departing Dublin Airport

TII claim that MetroLink will result in morning peak journey time savings of fourteen minutes from St. Stephen’s Green to Dublin Airport. During weekdays, the morning peak (mainly into Dublin) is from 07.00-10.00 with an evening peak from 16.00–19.00 (mainly out of Dublin).

NTA reported on the departure times of departing passengers. The reports for 2001 and 2011 did not contain this data aligned with peak hour travel times, see Figure 8. However, the 2016 and 2022 reports did, see Figure 9.

The 2016 and 2022 results offers insight on the impact of airport travel at peak commuting times. Note that the fourteen minute time saving is on a journey that is in the opposite direction to the normal city-centre inbound traffic we hear about in traffic bulletins covering the 07.00-10.00 morning peak.

For 2022 (see Figure 9), over 70% of departing passengers travelled to Dublin Airport outside the peak commuting times of 07.00-10.00 and 16.00-19.00. This is up from the 60% reported on for 2016. This lack of fit between peak commuting times and the times when most people travel between the Airport and the city centre is not a robust basis for offering a cost-benefit of this MetroLink project.

Commuting in the Dublin area

Census 2016 maps (Figures 10 and 11) suggest that most commuting within the Greater Dublin Area within the M50; along corridors; to the North West (Blanchardstown N3/M3 corridor); the west (north/south of the N4/M4 Lucan Clondalkin area); the south-west (N7 Naas Road, N82 Tallaght).

Neither Dublin Airport nor Swords stand out as places which call for exceptional investment to enhance public transport for people who live and/or work in those locations.

The reports of the latest Census do not reproduce these maps. The Central Statistics Office (CSO) did not give any reason for dropping these maps from the Census 2022 report on commuting.

North Dublin Compared to other parts of Dublin

More people live in the north part of Dublin City than in any other part the Dublin area (see Figures 12 and 13). This has been the case for the past thirty years.

Why is this area getting less attention for enhancing public transport than the route to Swords?

Fingal East and Fingal West are based on the study area used for the NTA/AECOM Fingal/North Dublin Transport Study. These areas do not correspond to the new Dáil constituencies, which replaced Dublin North for the 2024 General Election.

Comparing the North part of Dublin City to Cork is revealing. Earlier this month, the NTA began public consultation on the Emerging Preferred Route (EPR) for an eighteen kilometre twenty-station LUAS line for Cork. This is to support the objective of Cork becoming the fastest-growing city in Ireland over the next twenty years, with a targeted growth in population of 50 to 60 percent.

In 2022, Cork City had a population of just 224,000. Growing by 50% (to 336,000) would mean that Cork’s population would still be less than the 346,000 people now living in the north part of Dublin city in 2022.

A LUAS loop for Dublin North City

In 2015, I commissioned two maps from the All-Island Regional Observatory (AIRO). These showed the then existing and proposed rail-based commuter services superimposed on, firstly Dublin’s Economic Core were measured as having more than seven hundred jobs per square kilometre; and secondly population density in the Dublin area, based on the then most recent Census 2011.

In March 2024, I recommissioned an update based on the 2022 Census and the proposed MetroLink. On these, I superimposed a proposal for a North City LUAS Loop (see Figures 14 and 15)

This North City LUAS loop would better serve the over one and a half million people in the Greater Dublin Area than the proposed MetroLink, as it recognises that most commuting takes place within the M50.

This forms a network with the existing LUAS system, unlike the proposed MetroLink. It also serves parts of Dublin in which most people live. Furthermore, it would cost about €7 billion, i.e. less than a third of the estimated €23 billion MetroLink is projected to cost, and extends the proposed Finglas LUAS to sustain a programme of experience and supply chains required for LUAS in other urban areas, such as Cork and Galway.

Ever since the 1998 decision to build LUAS, siloed thinking has prevailed. The public authorities did not follow through on the decisions taken then. MetroLink is just the latest example of that kind of ‘ad-hocery.’

They have misdirected investment, as is clear by the failure to create a single integrated LUAS network as the key element of a series of mutually -reinforcing measures to enhance our capital city region.

Firstly, this proposed North City LUAS loop serves the northern part of Dublin’s Core Economic Area and the populated areas comprehensively, taking in Phibsboro’, Cabra, Finglas; Poppintree, Charlestown, Ballymun, Northwood; Santry, Dublin Airport, Swords, Drumcondra; Coolock, Beaumont, Kilmore, Edenmore, Donaghmede;

Secondly it is integrated with LUAS and could link with a Docklands (North and South) LUAS loop using the Samuel Becket Bridge which is designed to carry LUAS.

Thirdly, it offers two rail-based links between the Central Business District and Dublin Airport in addition to transport services which use the Port Tunnel, i.e. a direct link on LUAS via either Drumcondra or LUAS CrossCity; an indirect using DART/Commuter services at Howth Junction. There are also links with heavy rail services on the Maynooth/Mullingar/Longford line at both Drumcondra and Broombridge.

It would also serve important trip attractors/generators including Mater/Cappagh/Beaumont/UPMC medical centres, Croke and Tolka Parks, all the DCU campuses, the Marino Institute of Education in addition to industrial areas at Coolock/Clonshaugh and Santry Finally it offers services to more areas experiencing social deprivation than the proposed MetroLink route.

It would also serve important landmarks including Mater/Cappagh/Beaumont hospitals, Croke and Tolka Parks, all of the DCU campuses, the Marino Institute of Education. Finally it offers services to more areas experiencing social deprivation than the proposed MetroLink route.

In its January 2025 Annual Review AECOM – an international consultancy company – called for programmatic thinking as a basis for investment in our future:

As the world of infrastructure evolves, programmatic thinking is reshaping how organisations across the world approach planning and delivery. This shift to a cohesive, programme-based perspective is also gaining traction across the island of Ireland  It requires not only consistent, multi-annual funding but also a cultural change within individual delivery organisations in how projects are planned, prioritised, and executed.

As proposed, MetroLink is the polar opposite of this kind of thinking. It reflects the politics of grand gestures more than quiet competence applied consistently over many election cycles.

Ten years ago, NTA summarised the case for light rail in Dublin see Figure 16.  Despite the population growth, this still makes sense.