I was glad to hear of the question you put to Minister Dempsey about the prospect of a rail link between Shannon Airport and Limerick city. I read about it in both The Irish Times and the Limerick Post.
The Irish Times report said the following:
"The feasibility study by MVA Consultants has put a cost of €700 million on constructing the rail link. However, this has been disputed by the locally-based Shannon Rail Partnership which claims that the rail link will cost €240 million."
In your follow-up questions on the matter, would it be possible for you to get MVA to explain why the discrepancy between the two estimates?
My second point is with regard to what Mr Jim Gallivan, Business development manager with Iarnród Éireann, said: "Milan has three airports and no rail link with a population of eight to 10 million and the greater Limerick-Shannon area has a population of 150,000 and the current population densities do not justify the project at the moment.
"The figures don't stack up and maybe in 15 to 20 years' time, the population density might be there," he added.
I would like to alert Mr Gallivan to the existence of the Malpensa Express, which I used this summer.
Unfortunately I only used the train on the return leg of my journey my way back out to the airport - when I went into the city on arrival I took the bus, which took about 2 and half hours due to a traffic accident and terminally clogged dual carriageway, compared with the 35 or so minutes the train took.
That said, I don't think there is any point in comparing the needs of the Limerick-Shannon area with those of a metropolis like Milan. In any event, the Italian Institute of Statistics put the population of the Milan metropolitan area at 7.4 million, which is a bit less than the 8 to 10 figure given by Mr Gallivan. Anyway, just because Milan didn't invest in proper rail links to its airports does not mean that Limerick should copy its mistakes. There are plenty of examples around Europe of towns and cities of similar size to either Limerick or its catchment area which manage to install rail links between the airport and city, a quick glance at the Ryanair website and other websites of other airlines brings up the following:
- Friedrichshafen, Germany. Population: 58,068
- Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. Population: 259,536
- Blackpool, UK. Population: 142,700
- Trondheim, Norway. Population: 161,730
- Pisa, Italy. Population: 90,482
- Douglas, Isle of Man, UK. Population: 26,218
- Southampton, UK. Population: 228,600
What all these cities have in common, apart from similarly sized populations to the Limerick-Shannon area (in the case of Southampton and Newcastle-upon-Tyne it is not inconceivable that the population of the Midwest would reach that figure within the next 15 years) but also the fact that they all boast airport-city centre rail links.
Mr Gallivan even admitted that in 10 to 15 years time the population of the region might be large enough to warrant a rail link.I believe a line must be reserved for a future rail link to prevent houses being built there in the future, and to avoid the development of this rail link becoming as wasteful as other Fianna Fáil infrastructure projects.
With regard to the Shannon-Limerick rail link, has the idea of developers contributing towards the capital cost of the project being looked into, like what happened with the Sandyford Luas line?
Please continue your hard work campaigning on this issue, as it is an important one in terms of the sustainable development of the region.Best regards,
James Gaffney,
Limerick.
Photo: kikiprinci
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