It's been a long time in coming, but Red Luas was opened by the Taoiseach on Tuesday ... and I've had a chance to sample it Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Perhaps I should translate. Bertie Ahern, Ireland's Prime Minister, opened the new red line of the Dublin tram / light rail system last Tuesday. I was working for the week in Dublin, staying at a hotel near the Red Cow roundabout (the busiest in Ireland), and travelled on it in and out of the city centre several times.
First impressions? It's going to be a huge HUGE help to Dublin's traffic problems, especially from Tallaght, Ireland's largest "town", into the city ... but there are already teething problems showing up in the first few days, and how they're sorted out over the coming weeks will be critical to its success. Fascinating to see how the "metrics" of its usage changed in just a few days.
I didn't travel on the Tuesday - in fact, I only heard that the tram was opening that day, with free travel for 6 days, by con-incidence. In any case, I was working out of town. I did spy a tram from the hotel, though, running through what has appeared to be a construction site for years. I understand that the trams were all crowded, and I saw all the crowd control barriers downtown in the following days, so I don't think this was unexpected. I do understand there was a collision between a car and a tram on Tuesday - apparently, the drivers haven't got use to the trams yet, and apparently there's been a noticable increase in broken legs at Dublin's emergency room due to cyclists getting their wheels caught in the tracks. No doubt they'll learn or sue ...
Wednesday, early evening, and I walked across to "The Red Cow" stop and boarded the tram that pulled in within a couple of minutes. They're three articulated sections long and declare they have seating for 56 and standing capacity for a further 198 (and space for 2 wheelchirs). Modern, sleek, well lit.
We pulled out.
And we stopped one tram length later at a light controlling traffic coming off the M50 motorway; move on after what seemed like an age to a bridge over the motorway where ... guess what ... we stopped at the lights controlling traffic going ON to the motorway. Moved on a few seconds later to a third set of lights where the tram tracks cross the main N7 coming into the roundabout and after this third pause, we moved on (with a squealing of wheel flanges) to run down a reserve in the middle of the dual carriageway N7. Standing behind the driver, looking ahead out through the cab and reading his instruments I saw that we were rapidly up to 70 Km per hour - not a bad speed - as we covered the mile or two down to Kylemore, pausing only at one or two other sets of lights along the way. Then on to Bluebell and Blackhorse, where the tram joins the Dublin South canal.
This is a rougher area of town; anonymous housing in blocks of perhaps 30 to 50 years vintage, with very little for the children and teenagers to do. Ah - except this week. Free tram trips! And in they all pile! In at Blackhorse and out one stop later at Drimnagh. Or in at Goldenbridge and out again at Suir Road, in at Rialto and out at Fatima. Or if they're not pushing in and out of the tram, they're playing "chicken" and staying on the track until nearly hit, or putting pennies on the track to see if the tram will squash them. There's a youth with blood pouring down his face who just wanders clear of the tram as we get to Suir Road. Is his wobble the effect of his injury, or has he been drinking and fallen over? Everyone looks as we pass him, but the tram carries on.
After Fatima, the tram goes onto its own track into "James" (like all stations on the line also named in Gaelic - Ospidel san Seamus) and then runs down to Heuston Irish Rail station; I'm glad to see that connected, as it's always struck me as being rather out of town. After further traffic light delays (but shorter ones than at the Red Cow - it turns out that the trams can request light changes in some places), we cross the river Liffey and (more wheel squeals) turn right to follow the river, one street in. We've lost all the children now, but the tram is still full of people going down town, and as we approach Abbey Street (where I got off), you realise just how central you are and how much night life the city has. Truely, it has a good prospect of bringing in not only commuters but "ordinary folk" who live out in Tallaght for an evening in the town; no bad thing, me thinks - Tallaght is said to be housing and little else.
I wasn't just joyriding that evening - I was in the city to locate my venue for the next day, in the area between the docks and the city; I knew it to be a maze of one way streets and likely to be hard to find by car. Glad I made the trip; it looked like a shopfront in a steel-shutter secured semi-derelict back street (one way, of course!) ... which I could have driven past half a dozen times.
[To be continued]
