Metro plan signals end of the line for LUAS

MINISTER for Transport Seamus Brennan is to seek Cabinet approval for his ambitious underground Dublin metro system this month, a move that will signal the death knell for the LUAS transit system even before it begins operations.

Under the proposals, the controversial LUAS system could be reduced to a single line within the next seven years and may cease to exist within 20 years.

If, as expected, the multi-billion metro project is approved by Cabinet, LUAS will be absorbed into the metro system as quickly as possible.

The tram project, which has cost€800 million and aroused huge controversy, will be a stop-gap measure with no role to play in the long term. One of its two lines Sandyford to Stephen's Green could be subsumed into the metro by 2010, with the Tallaght route being turned into a metro line at a later stage.

Mr Brennan stopped short of saying that LUAS was a mistake but added that once the metro system is fully up and running, LUAS will be "gone".

The first phase of the multi-billion metro project will be a link between Dublin Airport and the city centre. The minister is confident it will be running by 2007.

But, crucially, the minister said the second phase of the project will be the upgrade of the Sandyford-Stephen's Green LUAS line to metro. Given the schedules the minister is pledging, that could be complete as early as 2009 or 2010.

The upgrade of the second LUAS line from Tallaght to the city centre will be a longer-term project, but Mr Brennan said a decision had not yet been reached. The problem with upgrading that route to metro, he said, was that it crossed roads at too many points and these sections would need to go underground.

Asked whether, in retrospect, he considered LUAS to be a mistake, Mr Brennan said: "The decision to built LUAS was taken pre-Celtic Tiger. If you were starting fresh, you would plan for a metro. [We] want to end up with an integrated system and not a patchwork-quilt of rail systems. LUAS will not be there at the end of the day. LUAS is gone," he said.

The Rail Procurement Agency originally estimated the cost of the airport metro link at €4.8bn but that figure has been revised downwards, with some estimates now below €2bn. "The only way you can get an accurate price is to ask the marketplace," Mr Brennan said. "I will be taking the proposal to do that to Cabinet."