MetroLink costs would be exorbitant and emissions too high to justify, Duncan Stewart claims

The television presenter told the planning hearing into the underground rail plan for Dublin city that he believed its cost would be exorbitant, its impact limited and its emissions too high to be justified.

He spoke in favour of an alternative, the ‘Newton Transport Plan’ drawn up by Tom Newton who described himself as an amateur planner with a lifelong interest in transport.

Mr Newton’s plan has three components that he argues would more effectively improve public transport than the 19km of largely underground rail line proposed by MetroLink.

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He proposes reorganising Dublin city centre buses on a contraflow route around the quays to speed up journeys.

“Buses would hug the Liffey,” Mr Stewart said, with all stops on the river side where there were no buildings to obstruct flow.

The second component is an extension of the Luas in a ring around the south of the city linking the current stops at the Docklands, St Stephens Green and Fatima.

The third is a ‘Metro Dart’, an extension of the Dart line starting at Donabate, further north than the MetroLink proposal, but following roughly the same route as far as Glasnevin.

It would be overground and would use standard rail tracks for connectivity with all other Dart and mainline rail services.

Mr Newton calculates his plan could be delivered faster and for €2 billion compared to the estimated €7.2bn-€12.3bn for MetroLink.

Mr Stewart said this would create a transport system that would benefit the whole country.

“It uses the best of what there is in the existing rail lines,” he said.

MetroLink by comparison was “a single, stand-alone project, inflexible, incompatible and incapable of addressing the issues”.

Mr Stewart said MetroLink would primarily benefit Dublin Airport.

“Why are the taxpayers paying for this when the beneficiaries are the airlines and the Dublin Airport Authority?” he said.

Mr Stewart said there was also an unacceptable environmental cost attached to MetroLink.

Huge quantities of carbon-intensive cement and steel would be needed for construction and huge amounts of energy would be needed to dig the tunnels and transport the soil and rock removed.

Underground trains also experienced a drag effect in tunnels and would use more electricity overcoming it.

Mr Stewart cited research from overseas that concluded underground rail emitted 27 times more carbon than overground alternatives.

“If we lock ourselves into this project, where would that leave our carbon budgets?”

“I personally think the project is seriously flawed,” he said.

“My view is that this project should be withdrawn at this stage and redesigned.”

Project developers, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, rejected the claim that MetroLink would be stand-alone, stressing it would connect at interchange stations with the planned Dart+ West and Dart South West projects.

They also said that some tunnelling would still be needed under Mr Newton’s plan but the size of the tunnels would have to be much larger if they were to accommodate standard rail lines.