Escalating costs, injury claims, irate traders and farcical planning are turning the Luas dream of efficient urban transport into a nightmare train ride, writes Kathy Sheridan
If the people who run the Luas project sometimes imagine that their purpose in life is to amuse us, it is hardly surprising. Hardly a day goes by without a fresh Luas tale. Reports that the enormously-expensive two lines under construction are different widths, is par for the course. A project that is ultimately all about interchangeability, is not. The two lines can never meet, the carriages cannot be shifted from one line to another as demand might dictate. On Thursday, Irish Times readers had another marmalade-dropping moment.
"Archaeological remains along Luas line may lead to route change," ran the headline. The Luas line referred to is the planned extension from Sandyford, along Ballyogan Road, to Cherrywood. Plans were well advanced. Council levies of about €5,000 were being imposed on each new home within a kilometre of the line. The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) planned to fund half the extension with some €120 million in development levies. At last, one piece of infrastructure seemed to be moving ahead without an outcry.
That was until Thursday, and Irish Times reporter Tim O'Brien's uncovering of a consultants' report (released under the Freedom of Information Act), which showed that the RPA was aware that the planned route traversed several recorded national monuments. It also showed that the consultants had advised it to use the old Harcourt Street railway line to avoid them. Still, the RPA was pressing ahead with the original plan. Seasoned campaigners are gearing up for Carrickmines Castle Marks 2, 3 and 4 - while Carrickmines Castle Mark 1 (the missing link in the M50) continues to burble on.
The Ballyogan debacle, however, is the least of the RPA's troubles. Yesterday, Harcourt Street traders were threatening to take a class action against the agency, relating to Luas works which have been up-ending the street for about nine months.
"We would be seeking compensation for loss of revenue, damage to our businesses - irreparable in some cases. We would also be setting out to prove that the job could have been done in half the time and that it has been badly managed," said Noelle Campbell-Sharp, owner of the Origin art gallery. She estimates her own losses since January 2002 and up to December 2003, at around €200,000, including damage to the interior, carpets and so on.
Despite the RPA's suggestion that she took out the 10-year lease knowing that her location would derive enormous benefit from its Luas-side status, she says that seven years ago she had no idea "that this monster was down the line". Her visitor numbers, she says, have dropped from around 40 a day to one or two.
Down in Middle Abbey St, Michael Gurrie of the Hotel Capri, is also talking about losses of nearly €200,000, up to next December. He has documents to show that a large English tour operator, which has been sending him twice-weekly group tours, is regretfully withdrawing the business on the basis of complaints about the noise and nuisance caused by the Luas construction. Many of the disappointed guests in turn are seeking compensation.
Gurrie's complaint is not with the Luas works. Like almost everyone interviewed on the affected streets, he is a strong supporter. But he believed that he had reached a deal with the RPA to stop activity at 8 p.m. to allow hotel guests - many of them in their 70s - to retire in peace. Instead, he found that JCB's were "roaring up and down until near midnight". When he asked an RPA representative why the agreement had not been adhered to, he was told that the road authority had given a licence of some kind to the contractor.
Gurrie's business is such that he cannot readily sell the rooms on. The brochures are out and tour groups are staying away. Passing business is negligible, given the state of the street.
All along the street, where many businesses claim revenues have dropped by up to 50 per cent, some are running half-price sales to pay wages and some are on the brink of closing down. Traders repeat that it is not the works they find objectionable, but the lack of communication surrounding them. Michael Gurrie is adamant that had the RPA warned him that the noise levels during May would be impossible, he would simply have announced that in the brochure and closed for the month.
Brian Keenan of Keenan Property Management, in Upper Abbey Street, has several concerns, relating to ear-splitting noise, machines mounting the pavement inches from the doorways (with pictures to prove it), and highly uneven surfaces which staff have to negotiate. An underground car-park which was given planning permission only five years ago and used by 80 residents of an apartment block managed by KPM, will have no access from the street once the line opens. "They still haven't even discussed that with us," says Keenan.
The RPA's position appears to be that when people were being warned of what lay ahead, "the penny didn't drop". It also believes that many of the complaints are compensation-driven. Its trump card is that traders on the Luas route will be the major beneficiaries when the trams finally roll.
There is no doubt, however, that some traders may not survive to that time and many feel betrayed. One badly-affected shop manager says he was told that the construction would happen in "stages". He took this to mean that workmen would move en masse into say, a third of a street, and complete it before moving on. Instead, according to James Carroll of Book Bargains, they have found that one stretch of works alone is four kilometres long. Carroll claims that the Middle Abbey Street site was virtually abandoned for 11 weeks and went to the trouble of taking pictures at irregular times to prove it. The stop-start nature of the works has rankled many.
In any event, the RPA is firmly holding the line against compensation claims. As for personal injury claims (and there is anecdotal evidence that these are climbing), information released to Tim O'Brien this month, under a Freedom of Information request, showed that notifications of personal injury claims against the RPA and employee claims against contractors' own insurances totalled 58. The fact that such information has to be accessed through the FoI act surprises few. The RPA is extremely secretive.
The implications of the agency's costings revision for the metro link to Dublin Airport, are still sinking in. The sudden, colossal reduction, from €4.8 billion to €3.4 billion, was equal to a quarter of the annual cost of our entire education system.
That was stunning enough until Prof Manuel Melis, the president of the Madrid metro system (which built theirs for a billion), announced that the job could be done for €1.5 billion. That's less than a third of the RPA's original estimate.
The professor told the Oireachtas Committee on Transport that increased costs were being caused by over-staffing and time-wasting. "Useless staff that are costing too much money should be dismissed. Here you have five times the amount of staff we had to build a metro service in Madrid."
The RPA's problem now is credibility. As one source put it, the Luas is the RPA's Leaving Cert; if they pass that, they get to do the metro. But if the agency's metro costings could be so staggeringly elastic, what are tax-payers to make of the Luas budgeting strategy? In six years, estimated costs have rocketed from €288 million to nearly €800 million (€691 million plus a "risk provision" of €90 million).
With the Luas nearly a decade in the gestation and running a year behind schedule, a head of steam is building from several directions.
In recent days, Eoin Ryan, chairman of the Dáil Committee, has written to the head of the project, Frank Allen, with 27 different requests for information, ranging from the precise qualifications of RPA staff to all details of Luas costs, along with payments the RPA has made to consultants.
Despitethe enormous costings, the agency will not give detailed figures, attributing its reticence to "commercial sensitivity". Asked about the cost of the much-criticised ramp acquisition and demolition at Connolly Station, a spokesman would only say that €40 million was "off the wall" and that €30 million was nowhere near it either.
Meanwhile, the loudly-trumpeted benefits of the enormously expensive lines become diminished by the day as confusion surrounds the proposed operation of the service. A piffling shortfall (in the scheme of things) of €10 million to complete a fly-over at the Red Cow roundabout means that trams will be faced with three sets of traffic lights at the country's busiest interchange. Dáil Committee members such as Eamon Ryan are predicting that the bus will yet turn out to be the quickest way into town.
Dublin City Council's traffic signalling division has ruled that the Luas should not have peak-time priority at four key traffic junctions, because it would cause traffic tailbacks. Arguments rage about whether buses should be able to share track with trams. Taxpayers anticipating clean, fast, transport to whisk them home to the suburbs after a late night's clubbing, may be disappointed. "There are no immediate plans to have trams running at 2 to 3 a.m.", says Ger Hannon, the RPA's director of Corporate Services.
Inside the RPA, a former CEO, Donal Mangan, turns in for work every day, where he still has the use of a company car and a secretary, but passes the time reading books and newspapers. A court hearing date has not yet been fixed for his claim that the RPA failed to recognise his employment rights by replacing him without notice. In view of the hell-fire raining down on his successor's head, Mangan may consider himself fortunate. Morale within the RPA is believed to be very low.
For all its faults, it may be that the RPA has become a lightning rod for much that has frustrated the building of a decent infrastructure in this country. The planning of the Dublin Port Tunnel that sees certain large lorries excluded from it; the national road plan, scheduled for completion in 2006, that is estimated to take another 10 years (if the money is there); the country's first toll road, allowed to open without an electronic tolling system; the escalating madness (long before the Luas gets near it) of the Red Cow roundabout.
The visit of Prof Melis may yet prove to be a pivotal moment. His philosophy certainly left the Taoiseach fired up and ready for battle with the "eight hoops" - "environment, planning and blah blah blah" - through which projects such as Luas must go in Ireland. Interesting times lie ahead - and not only for the RPA.
LUAS - the Hot Spots
The Red Cow interchange
Dubbed "Mad Cow", where it is proposed to have Luas traverse the State's busiest junction, across three traffic light-controlled level crossings, without the aid of a priority system. The Red Cow interchange connects the M50, with its 80,000 vehicles a day, and the N7, with more than 60,000 vehicles. They are the State's first and second busiest roads respectively. Luas will have 70 seconds to complete the crossing of the interchange.
The Connolly Station Ramp
This was acquired by the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) and is to be demolished to make way for a Luas terminus at Connolly. Critics have pointed out that Luas will not terminate at Connolly and trams will have to drive into the "terminus" before retracing their steps out again, and changing direction again for the docklands. The ramp and its demolition is expected to cost the RPA at least 30 million.
The Cherrywood extension
The RPA's own archaeological consultants advised against the Ballyogan Road alignment as it "dissects" a number of known archaeological sites, including a possible settlement site, a watermill and earthworks. Conservationists currently opposing the nearby Carrickmines motorway interchange said they will oppose any negative impact on the archaeological sites.
Harcourt Street
Work on moving the underground water, gas, electricity and telecom pipelines from the entire Luas route was "virtually complete" and expected to be "signed-off" by the end of 2002, according to the RPA. Now traders in the Harcourt Street area claim they may go out of business because of on-going roadworks.
Abbey Street/Mary's Abbey
Despite the claim that all underground services were virtually complete in October 2002, major disruption continues in the inner-city with traders claiming compensation. Luas is also subject to 58 claims for compensation from people claiming injuries due to works.