The Irish population is booming. Who knew? I just thought we were all taking up more room. This story has been in a lot of papers and today it's in the Financial Times. What amazes me is that everybody seems to be aware that the population of Dublin is exploding, yet you still hear all these environmentalists talking about how well transport systems work "on the continent" or wherever. I can't say with certainty, but I would be surprised if any city in W. Europe has experienced anything like the growth that Dublin has. And, growth is the arch enemy of "planning". It's easy to plan when you have a stable population, but when things are changing as fast as they are here, then more often than not the planners will get it wrong.
The LUAS was a great idea for a city the size that Dublin was when I first saw it in 1985. Unfortunately, that city is gone and has been replaced by a massive metropolis.
Do I have all the answers? No. But, doing nothing while we try to figure out what's going to happen next is as big a gamble as doing the wrong thing. My instincts tell me that the city is not done growing yet and we need a proper undergoround rail system. It'll be an excessively expensive whopper of a government project, but we have to just bite the bullet and get it done. {I assume that private contractors will do most of the work and that there may even be some private funding. The more private involvement, the better.}
