Trinity College Dublin wants the route of the Dublin MetroLink realigned to help address its concerns over the project.
In a submission to An Bord Pleanála on the draft Railway Order for Metrolink, consultants for TCD state the planned route wholly inadequate mitigation measures proposed “have significant potential to constrain or sterilise Trinity’s existing and future core academic and research activities on the eastern part of the campus”.
Declan Brassil & Company state that if Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) fails to demonstrate that effective and proven mitigation measures can be implemented, TCD “is left in the position where it requests that the board refuses consent, or terminate MetroLink at a point north of Trinity’s campus” due to “the likely significant, adverse, permanent and unacceptable impacts on University’s sensitive equipment, its established and future research facilities, its students, researchers, staff — and its global status and funding”.
The TCD submission says 312m of the MetroLink route will pass under the eastern side of the TCD campus, according to planning documents. It is requesting “a localised realignment” that would move that part of the route that runs under the campus 61.5m west of its current position in a bid to meet its concerns.
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TCD also wants An Bord Pleanála to seek further information from TII on additional mitigation measures proposed by the university’s experts and for TII to demonstrate to the satisfaction of An Bord Pleanála and TCD the efficacy and practicality of those measures based on robust data.
The Brassil submission states that TCD is supportive of the MetroLink project and has been engaging with TII since 2018 on the project. However, Trinity noted that the Environmental Impact Assessment Report lodged by TII clearly identifies “significant” and “negative” impacts on TCD’s educational and research facilities.
Mitigation measures
It says the report acknowledges that the mitigation measures proposed in the design will not adequately protect the identified “sensitive receptors” — listed as the Lloyd Institute, the Fitzgerald Building, the Panoz Institute, the HQ for TCD’s Chemistry School and TCD’s largest research institute, the Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (Crann).
The environmental impact report says the impact on Trinity College can be fully mitigated by track design and local mitigation but experts employed by the university, Arup, conclude that there are uncertainties about the viability of the proposal.
An Bord Pleanála is due to make a decision in May on the draft order
