The Transport Minister will sign the first contracts for work on the new Luas Cross-City line in Dublin today.

For the first time, the Green and Red routes will be joined, with an extension to the Irish Rail station at Broombridge.

It's expected that the new 5.6 kilometre route will take four years to build, at a cost of €370 million - partly funded with a loan from the European Investment Bank.

Speaking yesterday afternoon, Transport Minister Leo Varadkar told Newstalk reporter and presenter Shona Murray it will be a great resource for the city:

The European Investment Bank is reportedly considering giving a cash injection of about €180 million, because the project will support 800 jobs, and because it is an infrastructural project.

The new link up will be ready by 2017. It will increase services, so that trams will run every five minutes, bringing 10 million new users to the LUAS.

View a fuller, but still preliminary, map of the development at www.rpa.ie