DART Underground
FACTS
DART Underground will deliver a second high capacity DART line which will run underground through the heart of Dublin City Centre. It is an ambitious and challenging project requiring 7.6 kilometres of twin bore tunnels at an average depth of 24 metres, or some 80 feet, below ground.
The tunnels will connect the Northern and Kildare rail lines, with underground stations strategically located at Spencer Dock, Pearse, St. Stephen’s Green, Christchurch and Heuston Station, as well as a new surface DART station at Inchicore. DART Underground will facilitate two expanded DART lines, one running from Maynooth to Greystones and a second from Balbriggan/Howth to Hazelhatch/Celbridge in Co. Kildare. It will mean DART trains on the Northern line will by-pass the congested Connolly Station, enter the tunnel just after Clontarf Road DART station and continue on to the underground stations.
Trains will emerge from the tunnel at Inchicore and continue on to all stations to Hazelhatch/Celbridge. This in turn frees up Connolly Station and facilitates a new high frequency DART line with greatly increased capacity from Maynooth through Connolly and all the way to Greystones.
DART Underground is set to be developed with a capacity for up to 20 trains each direction per hour, allowing up to 64,000 commuters to use the line hourly. With capacity for DART services to operate up to every 3 minutes, the line will complete the transformation of Iarnród Éireann’s Greater Dublin area’s rail service capacity from up to 33 million passenger journeys annually now to over 100 million passenger journeys.
The Railway Order planning application was submitted on 30th June, 2010 and the An Bord Pleanala oral hearing took place from 22/11/2010 until 08/04/2011. An Bord Plenala will now consider all evidence submitted before making a decision on whether or not to grant the Railway Order.
The project is being developed as a Public Private Partnership (PPP). Four major international consortia have entered the pre-qualification phase in the PPP procurement process for DART Underground. Under the PPP contract the successful private partner will be responsible for the design, construction, financing, commissioning and maintenance of the tunnel, stations and associated facilities over the period of the PPP contract. At this stage, the contract is envisaged to last for between 25 and 35 years, including the design and construction stages. In return the private partner will receive an annual availability and performance based payment.
Subject to the granting of the Railway Order it is anticipated that construction of DART Underground will commence in 2012 and that the system will be operational in 2018.
PURPOSE
Dublin is a busy, growing city, with the population of Dublin and surrounding counties, the Greater Dublin Area, forecast to reach over 2 million by 2022. Much of this growth will happen within the expanding Dublin commuter rail network.
Dublin’s transport system has seen significant investment in recent years but limitations exist which prevent the system from fully satisfying the growing passenger demand of the Greater Dublin Area. The main constraints are at two of the city’s busiest stations, Connolly where the rail network narrows to a single line in each direction over the Loop Line Bridge across the River Liffey, and Heuston which is a terminal station so all trains end their journeys there.
DART Underground is the key to unblocking the congestion. It will facilitate two high capacity DART lines operating without the conflicts and restrictions that currently limit services. The new line will dramatically increase frequency and capacity for commuters on DART Northern, Maynooth and Kildare lines - the three fastest growing population corridors in the country - and relieve the current congestion at Connolly Station. Iarnród Éireann development plans also include the extension of the DART network to Maynooth, Hazelhatch/Celbridge and further along the Northern line.
DART Underground provides the missing link that that will deliver a fully integrated rail network for the Greater Dublin Area, linking all modes and ensuring that suburb to suburb, as well as suburb to city centre, journey’s can be made by a frequent, high capacity public transport network. DART Underground will open up a web of new rail connections, including-
• Spencer Dock Station with the expanded Luas Red Line
• Pearse Station will become a central transport hub as both DART lines interchange there, opening up a variety of new rail connections and options. Pearse will also link with outer Commuter services.
• St. Stephen’s Green will have convenient access to the Luas Green Line and the proposed Metro North to the Airport and Swords.
• Christchurch with future Luas City Centre-Lucan line.
• Heuston Station links to Intercity services from the South and the West, outer Commuter trains and the Luas Red Line.
• Inchicore with the Kildare DART line and the planned Luas City Centre-Lucan line.
Overall, DART Underground will open up a web of new rail connections, create new journey opportunities and offer an array of destination choices. It will transform the way people travel into, out of and through Dublin.
VALUE
The business case for DART Underground was recently completed by Colin Buchanan & Partners Ltd, a leading international transport planning and economics consultancy, and it concluded that the economic case for DART Underground is very strong and that overall the completion of the system is crucial to the future economic development of Dublin. It forecasts that the DART Underground programme will generate 2.4 times more benefit than it will cost to build and will deliver significant wider economic benefits. This statistic demonstrates that DART Underground will be a major factor in the future economic development of the country. It also predicts that DART Underground will generate ‘wider economic benefits’ in particular agglomeration (encouraging businesses to cluster together and as a result improve their productivity) and enabling more productive jobs to be created in the city’s Central Business District (CBD). The wider economic benefits increase GDP by some €450m per annum in 2020.
Forecasts indicate that the introduction of DART Underground will lead to an additional 2,000 jobs being located around each of the five underground stations (Spencer Dock, Pearse, St. Stephen’s Green, Christchurch and Heuston), giving a conservative estimate of an increase of 10,000 jobs. DART Underground will have a major beneficial impact on traffic congestion and pollution from emissions. It is predicted that by 2030 DART Underground will remove 25 million car kilometres per year as a result of the modal shift by commuters and others from cars to rail, and in the process will free up remaining road traffic. The result will be a reduction in emissions and an improvement in air quality.
It will improve journey times. For example, the journey time underground between Spencer Dock and Heuston will be less than 10 minutes. From Heuston to Pearse will be 7 minutes. DART Underground will also provide an important stimulus for the economy. It will bring people to jobs and jobs to people. It is estimated that the DART Underground project will create up to 7,000 jobs in each year of construction and many other jobs through the supply of materials and from expenditure of wages by workers in the local economies on food, accommodation and other day to day requirements.
It is forecast that thousands of other jobs will be created indirectly as a result of the significantly improved access that the project will deliver to retail, commercial, leisure and tourist destinations in the centre of Dublin.
Crucially, DART Underground is not a stand-alone project but is the crowning centrepiece of a wider package of measures that include:
• Electrification of the lines to extend the DART towards Drogheda, Maynooth and Hazelhatch/Celbridge.
• Four-tracking of the section of rail line between the DART Underground route at Inchicore and the existing four-track section from Cherry Orchard to Hazelhatch. The four-tracking will ensure that DART and Commuter services and Intercity services can operate without conflict, delivering better journey times and more frequent services.
• Signalling and track capacity enhancements and the significant expansion of the fleet and train depot facilities.
All of these works will pave the way for the completed DART Underground to fill in the vital link that will release the full potential of this expanded and improved rail network into and out of Dublin.
Please click here for more information on Dart Underground.
