An application for Dublin’s next Luas line, which will extend the existing Green line further north to Finglas, is to be submitted to An Bord Pleanála by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) on Monday.
The State transport body’s application for the tram line extension, expected to cost up to €600 million, comes less than a month after the project was approved by the Cabinet.
The 4km route could be built within four years of approval by the planning board, TII said, with trams running to Finglas, serving an additional 60,000 people, by the start of the next decade.
The Green line began operations from Sandyford in South Dublin to St Stephen’s Green 20 years ago. An additional southside stop was opened in 2010, bringing the line to Brides Green in Cherrywood. The line was extended northwards across the city to Broombridge in Cabra in 2017.
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The cross-city extension was designed for a future link to Finglas, but while a preferred route for the 4km line was selected, its development stalled. In the Transport Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area, the Finglas Luas line had been scheduled for completion by 2036. However, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan earlier this year indicated his support for the project being accelerated.
The route will have four stops, running north from Broombridge, to St Helena’s in south Finglas, an area dominated by two-storey social housing developments largely built in the 1970s; then on to Finglas Village; to St Margaret’s Road, which will serve the new Jamestown housing development and existing estates, before terminating close to the M50 at Charlestown, an area dominated by a shopping centre and high-density apartment schemes built over the past 20 years. The journey time from Charlestown to College Green will be approximately 30 minutes.
Paolo Carbone, head of public transport and capital projects at TII, said the line would be the fastest transport choice for Finglas residents seeking to get to the city.
“Luas Finglas brings light rail to an area where car ownership is very low, and doesn’t have good connections to the city centre, or the rail network at the moment,” Mr Carbone said.
At Broombridge, Luas passengers will have the option of transferring to the Irish Rail network with trains running from Maynooth to Connolly and the Docklands. Permission was granted earlier this year to upgrade this line to Dart strand.
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“Broombridge is one of the most seamless rail interchanges we have. By connecting Finglas to the railway you are creating the possibility of trips in all directions, and imagine the transformative effect this will have with Dart+ coming into play,” Mr Carbone said.
The Luas extension will correspondingly increase passenger numbers on the rail line, he said: “Ridership on Iarnród Éireann from 2016, before the cross-city line, to 2019 grew 187 per cent at Broombridge so we can expect that will increase also.”
The Luas extension also benefits the Green line as a whole, he said, by delivering more “balance” to a service which is still more heavily used by southside passengers, typically alighting in the city, leaving emptier trams on the northside leg.
“It optimises the use of the capacity on the Green line by delivering more balanced passenger flow both north and south of the city centre. It will in fact increase southbound demand in the am peak by almost 50 per cent.”
Following the receipt of planning permission, the line is expected to be built within four years.
“In Ireland, it takes a long time to secure the planning permission, but after, we tend to build on time and on budget,” Mr Carbone said.
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