Scrap the Dublin Metro Project!

[...] 3, 2008 | # | Tags: politics I can go to London if I want to travel underground like a mole. Dublin doesn’t need a metro. Can it, Cowen. [...]

just a few comments, i havent looked into them too much in detail :o):
- its a capital project, so expense is expected to be high, with that pay back is also expected?
- its a capital project, its needed, cost is going to be high!
- the original Metro lines they planned are making money much fast than expected, and those lines will have paid for themselves i think it was in 15 years now - i certainly would like to see a reference to those who claim otherwise.
transport is a serious problem in dublin.
- comparing Dublin to Madrid is like apples to oranges, a building a skyscraper in NYC costs billions of dollars, that same building project in Ireland costs hundreds of millions, and in Spain costs 10’s of millions - why? different costs of living, wages etc - i earned 1400 per week working on a building project in NYC, and I know that the average wages in parts of “1st world western Europe” can be as little as 8k per year, and they are not living in poverty (the algarve)

- but i think the bottom line is: it takes spending money to revitalize a faltering economy, not paying back loans or cutting back drastically on expenditure.

@Dave

For sure all capital projects have high expense, less they not be capital projects. However, the question hangs over the need for such a project. Just because it will be used does not mean that it is needed. Dublin has massive problems with sprawl, caused by bad urban planning and woeful centralisation of the country’s employment. The only way this system would logically make sense would be for Dublin to create even more problems and that really doesn’t make sense. Let me explain myself: If this system is used and takes people from Stephen’s Green to the airport and all stops along the way then it is doubling up on a number of existing transport services that do the same thing. If population stays the same and Dublin doesn’t sprawl any more then this metro would eradicate the need for buses and other services, which let’s face it will not be allowed to happen. The only way to sustain the demand would be to continue creating the problem that got Dublin to where it is today.

There are no existing metro lines in Ireland yet so I assume that you mean the Luas? They are making money but things will always make money when nothing is done to counteract the problem of population explosion and employment centralisation. It’s a bit like digging a hole and expecting it to not fill up with air.

Comparing Dublin to Madrid is far from an incomparable statement. The two cities are only separated by a small difference on the cost of living charts published by Mercer this year. They are both dynamic cities where space is at a high premium and Madrid has far more people to cater for and therefore even greater disruption by such a project.

Spending money will indeed get an economy moving again. However, spending public finances in times of massive budget deficits, money that will largely leave the national economy and further drain it, and spending money on a vanity project that will only serve a tiny percentage of the country’s population will not do anything for a recession. As I said in the original post, we could wipe out over half the tax shortfall with this project and not slip backwards in terms of dealing with public needs. Sadly centralisation, vanity spires, and unnecessary transport systems are the way the government of this country thinks.