So much time has been lost on developing a transport system for Dublin that chopping and changing plans was the last thing we needed. That appears to have been recognised by the Government, judging by a close reading of the small print of yesterday's announcement by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke.
It is an open secret that members of the Cabinet subcommittee on infrastructure have been wrestling for the past several months with the issue of what to do. On the one hand, ministers could proceed with the already-approved Luas light-rail plan. On the other, they could ditch a significant part of it and go for a metro instead.
The significant part in question is Luas Line B linking Sandyford with St Stephen's Green. This had already been through the public inquiry process and was approved by Ms O'Rourke last September. If it was to be ditched at this stage in favour of a metro from Sandyford to Dublin Airport, it would have meant going back to the drawing boards.
Heavily-canvassed by the Unified Proposal group, with the backing of Mitsui, the Japanese conglomerate, the metro plan had its attractions. Not only could it carry more passengers - up to 56,000 an hour, probably a lot more than would ever need to be carried in Dublin - but most of the risk would be carried by the private sector.
For these reasons, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, was in favour of running with it. The only problem was that it would take between seven and 10 years to implement, even on the most benign scenario, and this lengthy lead-time was regarded by others - including Ms O'Rourke and, more importantly, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern - as politically unacceptable.
Given the increasing frustration of everyone in the capital with the growing levels of traffic congestion, results had to be delivered in the short term, particularly as the Government committed itself in May 1998 to delivering the revised Luas project, having held it up for 12 months while a city-centre tunnelling option was investigated.
Under the package announced yesterday, Luas Line B would proceed as planned while contractors are sought for a public-private partnership for a future upgrading - i.e. in seven to 10 years - of the Sandyford line to metro standard, running underground between Ranelagh and Broadstone and then on to the airport and Swords.
Ms O'Rourke has made it clear that Luas Line B would be completed as planned as far as St Stephen's Green, with services opening in 2003. It would appear that the line will ultimately serve both Luas and metro, with the trams continuing to run on-street to the Green while the metro dives underground somewhere in the Ranelagh area.
Le grand plan, as the Minister likes to call it, also envisages an orbital branch line linking serving Finglas, Blanchardstown, Clondalkin and Tallaght - similar, indeed, to the "Circle Line" proposal favoured by the Transport Users Support Group - and another branch running outwards to Citywest, via Kimmage and Tallaght.
Like the Sandyford-Swords line, both of these schemes would also be procured by public-private partnerships (PPPs). Although they are also likely to require major tunnelling, they come with the imprimatur of the Dublin Transportation Office as elements of the £8 billion-plus blueprint it is currently finalising for the capital.
Surprisingly, no mention was made yesterday of an east-west tunnel linking Heuston Station and Spencer Dock, which is another key element of the DTO package. That, apparently, is being left for later - probably for an omnibus announcement by the Taoiseach in September of the Government's investment plan for transport in Dublin.
What is already clear, however, is that the skeletal metro network now unveiled will cost at least £4 billion - vastly more than the £1.58 billion already earmarked under the current National Development Plan. And to the larger figure must be added an estimated £750 million for the Eastern Bypass announced at the weekend by Noel Dempsey.
The justification given by the Minister for the Environment for telling the National Roads Authority to proceed with planning this new motorway was that it offered "significant operational and economic benefits", it was "feasible on engineering, environmental and economic grounds" and it could be delivered on a PPP basis.
Despite the Government's disavowal of the Eastern Bypass in 1991, it became almost inevitable when ministers decided three years later to double the capacity of the Port Tunnel linking Whitehall with the north port area to a four-lane dual-carriageway. And that was done on the initiative of Bertie Ahern, then Minister for Finance.
It is clearly being driven by the spectacular growth in car ownership and, to that extent, it fits in with the old "predict and provide" thesis that governed road planning. All the authorities needed to do was to predict the level of traffic in, say, 10 years' time and then build the roads to accommodate it - or so the philosophy went.
The Eastern Bypass has also been a sort of "Holy Grail" for Dublin's road engineers for three decades. First proposed in 1971 by the Dublin Transportation Study, it was explicitly intended to cater for the "motorised city" then being planned and even to provide a fast-track route for commuters accessing the city centre.
Naas was the first town in Ireland to acquire a motorway bypass in 1984. But traffic in Naas now is higher than it was before the bypass. And the M50, which was meant to function as a bypass of Dublin for national traffic, is so congested already that its roundabout interchanges are being remodelled to provide slip roads.
It is increasingly accepted abroad that traffic will expand to fill whatever road space is made available. Thus, the only way that traffic will be reduced in St Stephen's Green, or anywhere else in the city centre, is by a conscious decision to reallocate road space in favour of public transport - such as an on-street Luas light-rail network.
As for those who argue that it makes no sense for Dublin to be putting its public transport eggs in so many baskets - bus, light rail and metro - it should be noted that many European cities from Amsterdam to Vienna have just such a combination and, providing all the services are integrated, it demonstrably works as a public transport system.
So, quite sensibly, the famous "indicative timetable" for Luas announced by Mary O'Rourke in May 1998 remains more or less on course, whatever about what is envisaged in the longer term. Contracts for trams and civil engineering works are to go ahead and there will be something to show for it all. In the end, political wisdom prevailed.