In case anyone doubted that the State is about to embark on the most expensive infrastructure project in its history, the point was driven home this week with news that Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) had bought 2½ acres on O’Connell Street, encompassing the old Carlton cinema, to build one of the stations on the 19km MetroLink line between Swords and Charlemont. The price is reportedly in the region of ¤80 million.
It was only the latest in a series of high-profile deals designed to clear the path ahead. Last December TII paid more than ¤30 million for a row of houses at Dartmouth Square in Ranelagh, ending a High Court challenge that threatened years of delay. Last week it emerged that the owners of 40 apartments at College Gate on Townsend Street had agreed to sell for an average of ¤550,000 apiece to make way for another station. The message is unmistakable. Nothing will be permitted to stand in MetroLink’s way, with construction due to begin by next summer and almost ¤725 million already committed before a single shovel enters the ground.
The project’s critics will read all this as further proof of profligacy. They will point to estimated costs that have swollen to a figure now expected to land between ¤15 billion and ¤18 billion, and to unfavourable comparisons with mass transit lines built elsewhere in Europe for a fraction of the price.
Those concerns are not without justification. But the sceptics’ case is undermined by glib suggestions that the money would be better spent on faster buses to Dublin Airport or an expanded Luas network. For a quarter of a century Dublin has procrastinated over delivering the kind of high-capacity rail that European cities of comparable or smaller size, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, take for granted. It is long past time to act.
READ MORE
None of which means the road ahead will be smooth. Through its recent acquisitions TII has become one of the capital’s largest landholders. What it does with the ground it now controls on O’Connell Street and Townsend Street, and how it handles works at St Stephen’s Green, will shape the heart of the city for generations. Whether it is equipped to make those choices well remains an open question.
The airport connection is only part of the rationale for MetroLink. Fast, high-volume transit makes a city more liveable and more prosperous, easing congestion, unlocking housing and drawing investment. Given its recent record on the relatively much smaller National Children’s Hospital, there is real and understandable concern about the State’s capacity to deliver such an enormous project on time and on budget. But the moment for counsels of despair has passed. The train has already left the station.
