Metro Go Slow
Dec | April 8, 2009Buried in the coverage of yesterdays emergency Budget was a interesting little statement from Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey. Capital expenditure on public transport is being cut and this will cause delays in some planned projects. When talking about the Metro the Minister said “he is no longer in a position to guarantee a time-scale on these developments”.
Personally I’ve never been a fan of the Metro, thinking the money could be better spent building Luas lines to other parts of Dublin, building up an interconnected tram system that serves more parts of the community and reusing the proven technology we already have.
Honestly, did anyone really believe that the Metro would ever see the light of day? They should be realistic and scrap it completely – this would be better for us all than having the project drain money from the public finances. Delayed projects end up costing a fortune because it costs money to keep them alive while not delivering any value. Either build it or cancel it – that’s my opinion.
Actually, further investent in the Luas would be a total disaster. Surface streets can barely cope with the traffic in the city as it is, not to mention having to share the streets with the Luas and about 10 million buses!! If there is any money to be invested in public transport, it needs to be off street transport. Luas should never have been built in the first place, instead the money should have been invsted in an underground metro system.