luas during test runs. photo by sk
today i travelled on the green line of the luas it was exciting to finally be on it. i’ve been looking at empty trains pass by for a few months now. i forgot my camera, so didn’t capture the purple information people or the happy passengers.
the trams were jam-packed. connex estimated that twenty-five thousand people will have travelled on it in it’s first five hours of operation. it only ran from 1500h to 2000h today. the jam packed trams were full of parents and children and commuters making use of a free journey home. some live along the line. others were merely curious and had made a day out of taking a trip on the new service. i heard reports of the queue stretching from the st. stephen’s green stop all the way around the green to the shelbourne hotel whilst people waited for the first 1500hrs tram.
i marvelled at how genuinely excited everyone was to be on the tram. irish people taking pleasure in something very very simple. a train journey. it was really refreshing. there was a childhood innocence among the passengers. young and old. something long since lost to the celtic tiger generation.
on my journey i travelled over the new bridge in dundrum, where I saw minister for transport seamus brennan being interviewed. a proud day for him. but also a proud day for mother luas, mary o’rourke. i discovered from my luas vantage point that the dundrum bridge has pedestrian access, something I was not previously aware of. on my way into town, i travelled over the canal, down the ramp onto adelaide road, around to the front of the odeon, which was a station in the days of the hartcourt street railway line. 90% of the luas runs along the old hartcourt street railway line.
the luas has had a bad rap. it was slated when it was being constructed. frank mc donald of the irish times gave it a terrible going over in the irish times a few weeks ago. dublin bus blame it for traffic congestion.
judging by the excited faces travelling on the luas today, the resident’s of dublin do not agree. they are glad to have it. the luas is a thing of beauty. it is sleek, the stations are beautiful, it provides a means of transportation other than a car or irregular buses through some of dublin’s most congested areas.
welcome luas. i am impressed. i am dreaming of the day when the metro will open.
