No priority for Luas trams at busiest junction in the State

Luas trams moving through three level-crossings at Dublin's Red Cow interchange will not have priority treatment at the traffic lights, it was revealed yesterday.

The chairman of the Railway Procurement Agency, Mr Padraig White, acknowledged to the Oireachtas Committee on Transport that trams would be faced with three sets of traffic lights as they moved through the Republic's busiest junction.

The Red Cow interchange connects the M50, with its 80,000 vehicles a day, and the N7 with more than 60,000 vehicles. They are the State's first and second busiest roads respectively.

With Limerick or Cork-bound traffic on the M50 needing to access the N7 via the junction, the delays on the three-lane exit ramp and across the roundabout can reach 40 minutes at peak times. Lengthy delays are also already experienced on the Naas Road southbound where Luas is to travel along the median as it approaches the intersection with the Red Cow interchange.

Luas will be required to await a green light before swinging left across three lanes of outbound traffic. Following this, the tram moves into a potential "holding position" between the junction it has just left and the level crossing of the southbound "on ramp" of the M50. There is room in the holding position for just one Luas tram.

On a green light the tram may move forward, closing access to the M50 southbound from the Red Cow intersection. The tram then crosses over the M50 proper, on its own bridge, before another light-controlled level crossing with traffic emerging, northbound, from the M50 and approaching the Red Cow intersection. While the tram crosses this level crossing, exit from the M50 northbound is closed.

Members of the Oireachtas committee expressed some surprise at the lack of a priority signalling system for Luas yesterday, but the Railway Procurement Agency maintained the level crossings could be managed together in a total of 70 seconds.

Mr Michael Sheedy, the Luas project manager, said the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, had recently visited the junction to observe the separate needs of transport users. While "extreme concerns had been expressed as far back as 1998 and 1999", the junction's design involved all the transport players including the Dublin Transportation Office, local authorities and others.

However, members of the committee were sceptical. The Green Party transport spokesman, Mr Eamon Ryan, told The Irish Times the result would be Luas trams lined up on the Naas Road.

He said an initial "mistake" had been made in not extending the Luas bridge beyond the M50 approach ramps and he predicted that commuters would find the bus would give a quicker route into town.

The National Roads Authority has already expressed concern about the level crossings. Mr Michael Egan said the authority was worried about the situation. "The decisions on Luas were taken a long time ago when maybe traffic levels were less."