DART at the heart of Dublin culture

FOR an idea conceived during the wild abandon of the 1977 election campaign, the DART has turned out pretty well. Impoverished at birth, when an opportunist government pocketed the Euro millions earmarked for it the project survived to see the light of day in 1984 and very quickly became an indispensable part of Dublin's transport infrastructure.

In fact, the DART proposal dates back to the mid 70s when the old suburban diesel service was surviving, in the words of one CIE official, "with the help of a screwdriver". A Dublin transport study recommended a DART style replacement and from 1977 the project had government and EC backing at an estimated capital cost of £46.4 million.

The then government, however, treated the EC's £33 million funding as a windfall for the Exchequer and CIE was directed instead to seek funding at punitive commercial rates, a sin for which the Department of Finance later atoned by absorbing the company's interest repayments.

The first DART rolled on Monday, July 23rd, 1984. It took all of four days for a letter to appear in The Irish Times complaining about the lateness of one of the new trains and asking "is this a record?" But by the second week of the service, CIE was claiming records of a different kind as unprecedented numbers of Dubliners took to the rails and the DART became an established part of the city's culture.

Although critics had already condemned it as a public subsidy to the middle classes, its influence was felt well beyond its immediate function. The most dramatic effect was on property prices, which shot up in the areas through which the line ran by around 10 per cent, almost as if a new stretch of coastline had opened up.

There was a social premium too. The inner city used the DART to reclaim Dublin's coastal resorts - encouraged by family rates at the weekend - while suburbia rediscovered the city centre after dark.

The DART even affected Dublin's accents as younger people living near the line developed, among other things, a curious inability to pronounce the vowel "o". What had once been known as Merrion Road, for instance, now became Merrion Row, in one of the still unexplained effects of electrification of a nearby railway line.

ITS reputation as a better class of transport system extended to the publication of poems on its spare advertising spaces, with Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney - whose Sandymount home is within a comfortable 10 per cent distance of the line - among the contributors.

The DART even played a part in the development of the Channel Tunnel by virtue of its signal warning system which applies the brakes automatically if a driver overshoots a red light. State of the art when introduced, it was still the best system for the Euroshuttle and cross Channel train drivers were trained by Iarnrod Eireann.

With up to 60 per cent of people in its catchment area now choosing public over private transport, the DART has also served the deeper purpose of converting car drivers to the city's public transport system.

Greystones almost certainly represents the final frontier for the line, at least to the south of Dublin. The Wicklow town, harshly portrayed as a dormitory for city stockbrokers, fought a vigorous campaign for the extension of the service and hit the jackpot during last year's Wicklow by election.

Now the town is ready to reap the rewards of DARTification in property prices and the rest. In fact, the recent completion of a £20 million sewage treatment facility has already stimulated a property boom in Greystones.

According to estate agent Gordon Lennox, housing projects and prices are taking off. Four bedroom houses near the harbour had been selling for £155,000 even before the DART announcement. The trend of prosperous migrants settling in Greystones (more than 70 per cent of those buying houses for £130,000 plus come from outside the area) can only be strengthened now that the town has an umbilical cord to central Dublin.

In contrast to Greystones, Malahide hardly had to ask for the line, which fell into its lap as the northern quid pro quo of the southern extension. But the locals are just as grateful.

Mr Tony Byrne, president of the Malahide Chamber of Commerce, likes to think of his town as the "east coast's best kept secret" and boasts its "castle, marina, three fine hotels and 37 eating houses" which will be a secret no longer.

With a passing reference to the wild west, he predicts boomtime for Malahide "now that the railroad's come to town".

Mr Brian O'Farrell, of O'Farrell Cleere estate agents, is looking forward to the magic 10 per cent premium in housing prices. Property apart, he believes the chief beneficiary will be tourism but with the DART line taking tourists away rather than to the town.

With the Dublin ring road plugging into Malahide from the west and the new marina ferrying seaborne tourists in from Britain and Northern Ireland, Mr O'Farrell sees the DART as a means by which Malahide can sell easy access to Dublin as an additional attraction.