David Shanks checks out Madrid's metro network and takes some pointers for Dublin
Madrid's 228 kilometre network carries 2.5 million people daily. Madrileños boast their metro is one of the biggest in the world following the opening on schedule of the 40.5 kilometre circular Metrosur extension to a network that opened its first line in 1919.
Madrid's metro chief, Manuel Melis Maynar's recent "can do" presentations in Dublin to the Government and Oireachtas transport committee on how to build a railway without being ripped off has refired transport minister Seamus Brennan's determination to go ahead with the 12 kilometre airport metro project.
The minister is now expected to seek cabinet approval for the plan before the end of this month, and he has also suggested that a special Metro Bill might be required to enable the Government to bypass parts of the planning process.
"In Paris at the beginning of the century they built the metro from foundations to opening in 20 months. They had no plant and machinery. Why do consultants tell us that now, 100 years later, it should take five or six years?" Melis told us in Dublin.
His strong message is that the people, politicians and ultimately Government must own and control the project - and be decisive - "or you are lost".
And the metro's director of projects and works, Ildefonso de Matias Jimenez, who also visited Dublin, sounded as if he had been reading Garret FitzGerald. "Really your Luas is a toy train more or less" that will have the same problems with the traffic that the buses have now. The best he could say was that the Luas would be "a help".
These men believe Dublin's emphasis should be on an underground as the basis for an entirely integrated bus, mainline and DART network with common ticketing, as in Madrid. de Matias even suggests a further metro line along the Liffey.
Red (network) de Madrid may offer to play a role in the Dublin Metro project. The Madrid/Dublin metro connections are already well established. Apart from visiting delegations, Melis has offered Irish engineers training visits to Madrid of six or 10 months, he says.
Most Dublin costs are at least twice those in Madrid. "Dublin's problem is you are growing so fast," said Melis. Materials and other costs are higher and rising, he says.
But he has mentioned figures as low as €1.5 billion and only as high as €2.6 billion to build a mere 12 kilometres in Dublin, whereas Madrid has just completed its new 40.5 kilometres for just over €2 billion.
The main savings they see to be made on the "extremely shocking" estimates for Dublin are nearly all about time. Twenty-four hour continuous tunnelling saves machinery and other costs. And "cut and cover" standard-design stations can be built above ground and lowered into spaces dug for them.
In some soils, the traditional "Madrid Method" of digging and shoring with wood and steel was preferred to using massive modern drills up to 30 feet in diameter.
Then there is the difference between the Common Law approach to property, which we inherited from the British, and Roman and Napoleonic law, which the Spaniards inherited. Here, we own our land to the centre of the earth and can be compensated royally. In Spain, after a gap of 10 metres deep, 20 metres is reserved for public facilities such as metros. Below that it's yours, for what it's worth.
From a commuter's point of view, the Madrid metro is simple, quick, clean, bright, and airy. It is also technologically highly sophisticated. On the new Metrosur, for example, they are introducing an Auto Train Operation system where the driver only has to open and close the passenger doors, and stay alert.
A really helpful feature is an airport terminal at a city station where you can check-in for the airport, only 12 minutes away. The disabled are fully facilitated and some stations even have underground car-parking.
In the past eight years, 115 kilometres have been added to Red de Madrid, doubling the network.
Even now they are only awaiting resolution of a political stalemate, thrown up by recent local elections, to build more. Almost 5.5 million people are served by the greater Madrid system.