Give Me a Crash Course in... the Dublin metro

I hear the Government announced this week that it’s going to build a metro line for Dublin. That’s great news!

Well, not quite, what happened this week is the Cabinet approved the preliminary business case of the transport authorities – the National Transport Authority and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) – for Metrolink.

Well, that sounds slightly less exciting, is that important?

It gives TII the go-ahead to apply to An Bord Pleanála for a Railway Order, essentially planning permission for the metro line, but the decision to have a metro for Dublin was made a long, long time ago.

Yes, I thought this sounded familiar...

The idea of having an underground line in the capital is decades old but was firmed up in 2000 when a metro was included in the Platform for Change Transportation Strategy.

That’s 22 years ago, why don’t we have a metro yet?

It would almost take 22 years to explain it, but the short version is: The government said in 2002 the line would open in 2007, but it didn’t get around to applying for permission for the line until 2008. It got permission in 2010, but by then the country was on its uppers and the following year the government decided to shelve the plan.

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In 2015 it was back on track, with construction scheduled to begin in 2021 with a view to delivery in 2026 or 2027. In 2018 a decision was made to combine the metro from Swords to the city with an upgrade of the Luas Green line from the city to Sandyford, then the following year that decision was reversed, and it was back to a Swords to city metro ending at the Charlemont Luas stop north of Ranelagh, and that is the line that TII intends to apply for in September.

Where will this version of the metro take me?

The line, just under 20km long, starts north of Swords in an area called Lissenhall at a stop that will be called Estuary. It will go through Swords to Dublin Airport, then on to Ballymun, Glasnevin, O’Connell Street and St Stephen’s Green before terminating at Charlemont Street, with 16 stations in all.

The airport! Fantastic, that’ll get the holidays off to a great start

Don’t pack your togs just yet. It’ll be a few years before the new rail line is whisking you off on your holidays.

Oh. How long will I be waiting?

The line is due to be completed at some point between 2031 and 2034.

Why does it take so long?

Well, there’s the planning process, due to begin in September, and then there’s the procurement process, ie choosing the builders. Then it’s hoped that construction will start in 2025, with the building phase taking up to nine years.

How much is it going to cost?

Billions. Lots of them. The Government said this week that €9.5 billion was now the midpoint of a “credible” cost range of €7.16 billion-€12.25 billion. Although Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said there was an “extreme case” scenario of the cost rising to €23 billion, which is a considerable jump from the original estimate of about €3 billion. However, the actual cost won’t be known until the planning and procurement processes is completed.

Well, it’s a lot of money, but now that an application for planning permission is about to be made at least that’s something of a guarantee that it will go ahead

Hopefully, but if you remember back, planning permission was submitted in 2008 and secured in 2010, but the economy had crashed in the intervening two years resulting in the cancellation of the project. So, unless there’s another recession on the way, it should be grand.