THE £220 million light rail project for Dublin is being delayed by a dispute between CIE and the National Roads Authority over plans to run the Tallaght line around the southern edge of the M50/Naas Road interchange.
One source close to the project said the dispute was so intractable it would require Government intervention to resolve. Otherwise, he feared that the project, already at least 18 months behind schedule, would be delayed indefinitely.
He claimed that the Dublin Transportation Office, which is overseeing implementation of the agreed transport strategy for the city, had proved to be "useless" at mediating on the matter. As a result, "Ministers will need to knock heads together".
CIE was expected to apply to the Minister for Transport, Mr Dukes, at the end of this week for approval to proceed with Luas, as required by the legislation. This would have triggered the long-delayed public inquiry, which had been pencilled in for May.
However, the continuing dispute between CIE's Luas project team and the NRA means that the application to the Minister, accompanied by an environmental impact statement on the entire route, has been postponed in the hope of reaching an agreement.
The Luas project team proposed that the light rail line to Tallaght would skirt around the southern edge of the roundabout at the Red Cow Inn, crossing the M50 ramps on the same level as other traffic, but with a bridge to take it over the motorway.
At the south-western corner of the roundabout, there would be a Luas station, a depot for storing the trams and a major "park and ride" surface car-park to facilitate commuters transferring to the light rail line.
Mr Michael Tobin, the NRA's chief executive, said the M50/ Naas Road junction was a significant interchange where there were already some difficulties in dealing with the traffic flows. Its "gut feeling" was that these would be compounded by the Luas.
Last year, he explained, the NRA, the DTO and CIE agreed terms of reference for an independent study of the problem by consultant engineers M.C. O'Sullivan, which concluded that the layout proposed by the Luas project team would "cause problems
It recommended that the light rail route be realigned to run north of the interchange, bridging both the M50 and its northern slip roads, and then through a tunnel under the Naas Road and into the "park and ride" site, at an extra cost of £10 million.
The alternative option suggested by the study would involve creating a third tier at the interchange, to permit all traffic on the Naas Road to bridge the roundabout. This would cost £22 million, but has been ruled out because it runs counter to the DTO strategy.
The Luas project team was reluctant to comment on the matter because it was still the subject of negotiation. However, one source said that its consultants, Semaly/EPO, had shown that the preferred alignment at the Red Cow would work, based on computer modelling.
