college green/ o’connell street plaza and pedestrians

Idea – Remove all railings outside the Bank of Ireland and made it more part of the city – the same could be done with the Rotunda – a plaza making a splendid reposte in an otherwise barren part of town

What is a ‘continental-style pedestrian crossing’? Is it a pedestrian crossing that covers a larger than normal area of roadspace?

A first positive step that the Council Traffic department might take is prolonging the time that the pedestrian crossings stay in favour of pedestrians on College Green! I find it funny that there is a count-down from 40 seconds. It is as if to say “you now have 40 seconds before you can cross the road. Once the 40 seconds is up you will have to run across the road because we only allow 3 seconds for crossing time” It is not possible to cross during the green man period from one side to the other without sprinting!

Originally posted by J. Seerski
Idea – Remove all railings outside the Bank of Ireland and made it more part of the city – the same could be done with the Rotunda – a plaza making a splendid reposte in an otherwise barren part of town

we’ve had this discussion before – irish people are not adult enough to have the railings removed yet…

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?s=&threadid=629&highlight=bank+railings

Originally posted by notjim
did you read this article:

http://scotland.archiseek.com/news/2004/000220.html

the cool thing is they are intending to make a pedestrian crossing the whole width of the square.

can we have this for college green and for the o’connell st plaza?

I don’t see how this could work.

Lothian Rd is the Edinburgh equivalent of Dame street, it’s the second busiest thoroughfare in the city. Are they planning on placing traffic light at each end of the square or just at one point? Either way, it would make the plaza completely redundant because of the volume of traffic that goes through there, unlike O’C street where they have restricted traffic to busses and taxis, blocking traffic to make use of the proposed plaza would seriously disrupt traffic here, I’ve seen what it’s like during the war protests last year.

As for proposed public spaces in Dublin, we NEED more of them. O’C plaza is all well and good but I can’t see myself going into town and chilling there just yet! Take a look at the amount of public spaces in Glasgow, it’s shocking.

Convert the top of Grafton Street / Stephen’s Green into public space

Pedestrianise Exchequer St, Dury St, William St, Clarendon St & Chatam Row, Stephen St. and remove the three car parks in that area.

Somewhere on Dame St., have a plaza of similar size to O’C plaza to allow the large volume of pedestrians to get from Grafton to Templebar.

It would be great to see the whole College Green area turned into a plaza but I can’t see it happening anytime soon.

Notjim, I did not propose the removal of the railings (I think it was the post above mine by J. Seerski), and I don’t think that I would agree with it. I think it would make the building look strange. I agree with you however that removal of the cars from there would be a good idea.

The Bank of Ireland would never remove the railings and convert the car parking, you know what banks think about all forms of security particularly existing security.

But there is definitely a serious issue in relation to traffic calming on College Green and to a lesser extent on Dame St. Just watching the difference in peoples body langauge between the relaxed Grafton St and the exceptionally stressed out Westmoreland St.

I don’t think I am exagerating when I say that the walk across College Green to O’Connell St is one of the least pleasant experiences in Dublin.

With the buildings down there such as the BOI, Trinity Westin and others such as Bewleys it should be one of the best.

The BOI railings are magnificent and are more than worthy of retention, esp how they match Trinity’s across the way. I see the point of a plaza here being desirable, but were that to be done with the Green at large it wouldn’t be necessary to focus on the BOI.

Those ped lights in the middle are the most frustrating in the city – no wonder pedestrians here are so indisciplined. The O’Cll Bridge median is second worst – it traps you.
College Green could be the most pleasant place in the city centre if properly pedestrianised, it has the finest buildings and is the best location. Most people would percieve it to be the heart of the city, even over O’ Cll St.

Originally posted by Graham Hickey
Most people would percieve it to be the heart of the city, even over O’ Cll St.

I definately do

And agreed, it really does have the finest buildings in the capital there.

On a related issue, I think Foster Place is one of the most attractive streets in Dublin – It’s almost an oasis of calm. I used to like Banking there – such a shame they moved to the Westin. Is the AIB bank shut down permanently or is there a plan for redevelopment internally?

The AIB in Foster Place was acquired by Trinity. If they had any imagination the College Authorities should include one or more cafes spreading out “Terrasse” style into Foster Place in the redevelopment plans.

But to work well that would require booting the loitering taxis out of Foster Place which probably would not go down well….

Vinnyfitz,
I doubt that a decision with regards to Fosters Place would be up to the College Authorities. However, if you look at the Temple Bar Urban Framework Plan 2004 by Howley Harrington you will see that it is proposed to put a link between the bank building and the main spine of Temple Bar and also to put a link between Fosters Place and Angelsea Street.

Trinity seem to be proposing a restuarant for the corner building at Foster Place – outside seating would seem to be an excellent use of this street. However the trees along this street wouldn’t make it very attractive to sitting out in except on really warm days.

The new retail development at the BOI across from Parliament House will surely change the footfall of the area so I think greater pedestrianisation will have to be considered in the future.

The median here is very dark and forbidding at night as it is so poorly lit. However there seems to be some remedial works going on at the moment on the Thomas Davis statue. This might include floodlighting which would change the nighttime appearance dramatically. Also restoring the fountain (AT LAST!).

The ill-fated Metropolitan Street Commission in the 1980s proposed pedestrianisation of the whole of College Green. I even remember visuals of what it would look like including fountains.

Foster Place is just magical – would make a great period location for drama/film.

Originally posted by StephenC
Trinity seem to be proposing a restuarant for the corner building at Foster Place – outside seating would seem to be an excellent use of this street.

I agree it is an excellent idea to extend retail uses to this location and a restaurant is the perfect use as it would probably be much more profitable as a cafe during the day thus giving a continental flavour from the outdoor tables. I think it would be great to get more activity onto Foster Place it really is a hidden gem that should be shown off more and this building probably presents the only possibility to do it given the listed nature of all the other buildings on this stretch. The old Riada building is also fabulous in its own right.

Originally posted by StephenC
The new retail development at the BOI across from Parliament House will surely change the footfall of the area so I think greater pedestrianisation will have to be considered in the future.

I think you have really hit the nail on the head regarding the problems faced by College Green and Dame St. It is entirely a footfall problem which is execerbated by the number of bus stops, it simply isn’t pleasant. In many ways it is directly compariable to O’Connell St before the renovation.

I hope that something gets done with that old BOI building given its scale going back onto Suffolk St. It would be an excellent way to link College Green and Suffolk St mid Terrace without having to knock anything.

Are there definite retail plans for that BOI? That would definitely alter the character of the area – like the idea of a link with Suffolk St.

Good to see that work with Davis, there’s also a couple of weird lamposty poles gone up on the Green recently, don’t know what they’re for – one at the crossing at the BOI, the other outside Trinity.

Originally posted by StephenC
The new retail development at the BOI across from Parliament House will surely change the footfall of the area so I think greater pedestrianisation will have to be considered in the future.

Retailer sought for former bank linking College Green and Suffolk

Bank Redevelopment

An international campaign has begun to get tenants for the largest city centre retail space to have come on the market for years. Jack Fagan reports

An international marketing campaign has been launched to find retail tenants for the former Bank of Ireland building linking College Green with Suffolk Street in Dublin 2.

White Glory, a consortium led by the owners of Powerscourt Townhouse, is expected to fetch at least €2 million in rent from the retail areas which will have a total floor are of 3,000 sq m (32,291 sq ft). There will be three levels of retail use at the Suffolk Street end, basement, ground and first floor, and mainly one level fronting on to College Green.

Though the owners would ideally like a single user, the odds are that it will be broken up among two or three leading retailers.

Fergus Keane of agent Hamilton Osborne King says the retail space is easily the largest to have come on the market in Dublin city centre in recent years. The building is currently being extended and redeveloped and is expected to be ready for fit-out by the end of the year.

Keane says it is likely to be of interest to fashion retailers targeting Grafton Street who either can’t find suitable premises or are reluctant to pay Grafton Street rents.The Suffolk Street frontage lends itself to being divided into two shop units of 668 sq m (7,190 sq ft) on ground level and 1,530 sq m (16,468 sq ft) over two other levels with back-up space in the basement. Under this arrangement, the College Green end could be let separately with 748.9 sq m (8,061 sq ft) of space available.

Keane expects the building to be of interest to retailers such as Zara, Massimo Durtti Bershkja, Boots and FCUK. Between 20 and 30 retailers are currently seeking representation in Dublin’s south city.

In addition to the retail space, the building will also have about 4,000 sq m (43,055 sq ft) of offices on the top floors

The current owners paid around €22 million for the building, which is composed of two distinctly different structures, one a large 19th century double height banking hall fronting on to College Green and, on Suffolk Street, a 1960s building that is being enlarged.

For me the retention of the Scott Tallon Walker bank building facade is one of the most interesting facade retentions in the city at the moment. It seems that most of its interior has been gutted. With all the preservation of 19th and 20th century facades it is unusual to see a 1960s one being retained.

http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/southcity/suffolk_street/bankofireland.html

I thought this facade was really ugly, monotonous and not untypical of any other bland blocks. This area of town really suffers from spectacular banality in parts (Ulster Bank, Kilkenny House, Norwich House, Castle House, Blarney House…..Zzzzzz – such crap

Agreed – I never liked the BOI on Suffolk St and am usually a fan of STW’s buildings from this period. The window clutter and monotony is unfortunate. Norwich House is horrendous, it’s filthy now as well as being ugly – is Blarney House actually called that?! Suits it down to the ground.

Graham I dont know whether its called Blarney house! But its dire nonetheless.

Saw a montage of the proposed replacement – its just as banal as its predecessor.

Have to also remark that, as I have said before, trees should not dominate exceptional works of architecture. All of the trees on College Green should be removed as they obscure some of Ireland’s best works. Can you think of any similar plaza in Europe so dominated by trees? Imagine the Grand Place in Brussels with these London Plane Trees – no doubt they thought that the fine square looks better without. Clerys and the GPO can at last be well appreciated without those obscuring London Planes.

These trees camofage Foster Place and inhibit uninterrupted views of both Trinity and The Old Parliament, not to mention the fine builings on the south of the street – the detailing on the old Ulster Bank and the Closed Bank of Ireland are particular works of High Victorian skill (and sculpture – note the statue at the top of the closed Bank of Ireland with the lettering ‘Erin go Brath!’)

The trees are quite overgrown and dominate Foster Place but I think a bit of imaginatioin here could create a feature of them. Some judicious pruning, extension of the pavement and moving the taxi rank and some interesting lighting (in the trees) could creat a really atmospheric place. Ideal for outside dining and drinking. The volume and noise pollution of traffic remain a problem though. Like most areas of Dublin the levels of traffic really dont allow one to enjoy the city. Someone mentioned in the Capel St thread that pedestrainisation has reached its limit in the city and no further schem,es should be considered! Are you mad. More not less is deinfately the answer. Forget congestion charging in the city just reduce the amount of areas that traffic imapcts. Its a small city centre and it is ridiculous that the amount of traffic using it should continue to grow. Westmoreland St is a case in point…its 6 lanes wide! Meanwhile pedestrians jostle for space on the pavements. The Wide Streets Commissioners are turning in their graves.

Good to see my favorite water sculpture back in action. Hopefully the CC do something with the disaster at the top of South Kings St. Either fix it or remove it!

I heard that DCC had done some kind of feasibility study based on using glass screens or the likes to close off Foster St from College Green…to look at keeping taxis out of the space…this was about 3 months ago…not sure what the latest is

I found DCC Senior Planner Dick Gleeson’s interpretation of the College Green situation highly encouraging.

It sounded like the pedestrainisation of College Green is “agreed”

I hope it comes to pass, Dublin would benefit enormously.

Originally posted by Diaspora
It sounded like the pedestrainisation of College Green is “agreed”

I hope it comes to pass, Dublin would benefit enormously.

How would this work? Would the stretch of road passing the Bank of Ireland have to stay open to cars to allow traffic from Dame street on to Westmoreland Street? What about traffic from D’Olier street that goes across college green towards Westmoreland Street?

I would say Pearse Street would have to become a two way system again and take over from Nassau Street as the area to get buses from. This would actually help to generate more activity on Pearse Street. It would obviously take a huge amount more than just this, but it is one of my first thoughts on it anyway

Nassau street can be discounted as it would become pointless as a route but

Take a look at the volume of traffic that continues from the North Quay to Dame Street via College Green. All of the traffic for Dame Steet, Georges Street and Christchurch would have to be channelled down the quay and up Parliament Street.

Hundreds upon hundreds of people get buses to work which stop at opp. trinity St. via Dame Street. Would all of these be re-routed up Georges Street? Or Suffolk Street?

Take a look at the traffic jams – all day – on Pearse Street with it’s 4 lanes. And only 3 buses serve it. Take 2 lanes away? Insanity

Don’t want to be a wet blanket but the total chaos caused just because we want to walk from Trinity to um, eh, where exactly? To admire the Bank of Ireland’s railings?

It would seem that the only way to acheive the ideal is to build an underpass.

Originally posted by burge_eye
It would seem that the only way to acheive the ideal is to build an underpass.

I disagree,

It is possible to acheive a much better public space at College Green without either fully pedestrianising it or building underpasses. The following arrangement would work:

1. Leave College St as it is but have reduced its traffic load by banning the right turn from Bachelors Walk onto O’Connell Bridge and Banning the left turn from Burgh Quay onto D’olier St.

Allow this reduced traffic flow to continue to the base of Grafton St before turning left onto Nassau St thus eliminating the need to change Peasrse St which incidently hasn’t flowed freely since the Luas interfered with Beresford Place.

2. Reduce College Green and Dame St (to City Hall) to one lane in either direction; exclusively reserved for Buses, Taxis, Motorbikes and Bicycles.

3. All Bus stops would be eliminated from the above section with seperated laned bus stops on Westmoreland St, Sth Gt Georges St and Lord Edward St.

4. (Dame Court and) Dame Lane be reopened to traffic to allow access to the Trinity St Car Park via Exchequer St.

5. The taxi rank on College Green be moved to Cope St where taxis could wind their away around the back and sides of the Central Bank as far Blooms Hotel.

The way that the Central Plaza section of O’Connell St works is a pardigm in itself, well done to all concerned in its design if not its execution.

Where is all this traffic going? I am used to using my car all the time, as an ex-migrant to the US: here i use it once or twice a week, if that: to shop at a suburban “mall” ( too far to walk), and to leave the city. I never go across the Liffey. Every time I see cars stuck in traffic that are not taxis, I think Why? Make it difficult for traffic to come to town, and the occupients will have to take freer flowing buses.

Originally posted by asdasd
Where is all this traffic going?

A lot of it is just northside-southside suburban traffic. Cutting through the centre saves paying the Eastlink toll, and the route may be more well known to people than the alternatives further West. I think some people drive through the centre for the view. You’ve got a car and all roads are free so why not drive along the most central important streets?

I think one of the most unappreciated areas of the city centre is the College St/Westmoreland St junction – it’s one of the best places in the whole city, with the House of Lords and Westin and Trinity’s end pavilion all facing onto it, as well as the stock of College St itself.
There is real potential here to improve and extend the island, including the removal of the toilets there. The Moore trees have been cut over the summer so you can see him now, he looks quite well with the shady canopy floating over his head.
I’ve an interesting pic of an effort to improve here in the past with a line of trees planted along the roadside, probably in the 60s – they’re gone now.

Improving College St shouldn’t be too difficult as the traffic load onto right fork going into Westmoreland St has been dramatically reduced by the enforced right turn from Pearse St onto Tara St.

The objective in my opinion must be to extend the O’Connell St model as far as City Hall. It should be possible to give an East-West quality space on the South of the river to imitate what a fusion of Henry St & Middle Abbey St does North of the river.

Foster Place without the Taxis would be a great start along with doing something with the pedestrian margin in College St.

The crossing between Trinity College and the traffic island facing the Westin has for many years been a pedestrian bottleneck between the Northside and the Southside. It would make a huge difference to change the traffic light sequencing in favour of the pedestrians as Ken did in Trafalgar Square a couple of years back.

Definitely.
I was wondering why the flow on Pearse St had altered so much – never thought of the Luas. Have to say I welcome it though cause it’s much easier to cross now!

Agreed about the linking of ‘The Grand Thoroughfare’ as it’s so often described, from City Hall to O’ Cll St. What a difference it would make to the image of the city centre if nothing else, let alone the lives of those who use it. Traffic should continue to play a part on some city streets, but should not dominate as it currently does.

Absolutely correct,

There are a number of steps to be taken before it happens, I am confident that many of the building blocks are already under way.

Completion of the O’Connell St to City Hall Plaza has the potential to be the most significant development in urbanism since the wide streets commission. As it will provide the first significant East West Axis that isn’t either fully pedestrianised or completely open to traffic.

We have to be careful here, too many pedestrianised streets can have an adverse effect on a city, streets were made for traffic, obviously we want heavy goods vehicles out of the city but that’s another story.

Shaun,

It has been stated by many observers that the O’Connell St plaza has been a total success in increasing commercial activity. It has also led to a situation where the footfall on The O’Connell St end of Henry St actually exceeds that of Grafton St.

All that is proposed is to extend the same principle to College Green and Dame St, therebye increasing the footfall there and to Streets such as Trinity St and Georges St.

As it stands people are choosing to shop in places such Blanchardstown and Quarry Vale where people can sit for hours on the wide open to all congested road that is the M50.

It is a City Centre we’re talking about

Originally posted by shaun
We have to be careful here, too many pedestrianised streets can have an adverse effect on a city, streets were made for traffic, obviously we want heavy goods vehicles out of the city but that’s another story.

surely streets evolved as a way of moving pedestrian traffic originally not fellow travellers of the AA Roadwatch 😉

Less and restricted traffic is one thing, is this what is being proposed for the plaza because that sounds great, we just don’t want to turn our city centre’s into no-go zones for cars.

The streets of Dublin were made for traffic, as any in other town, but just let’s not do what they have done in Holland where most town centers are pedestrianised, and it just doesn’t work or feel right, it’s like walking around a theme park.

If only we could reduce the traffic on the quays, what a mess…..

I remember someone mentioning river taxis once and I thought it was a brilliant idea. Is there any reason why we can’t do it?

The streets of Dublin were made for traffic, as any in other town, but just let’s not do what they have done in Holland where most town centers are pedestrianised, and it just doesn’t work or feel right, it’s like walking around a theme park.

Yeah – wouldn’t it be awful not having to wait 180 seconds for the 15 second break you get to cross at College Green. Imagine how false it would be without having a HGV belching fumes into your face and wouldn’t it be simply awful having reduced pollution and dodging in and out of cars who stray onto pedestrian crossings when the lights are against them. And as for not getting nearly mowed down by cars that break red lights. Jesus what a hell on earth Dublin would become.

it’s probably come up here before but I’m new to this board .I reckon a major part of the unattractiveness of College green/st. & westmoreland st. is the ugly trees that obscure the neo- classical elevations, considering the hullabaloo over the O’Connel st. trees (glad to see them go)wil they ever be got rid of and return the area to its original hard landscaped styling?.whoever got the impression that Dick Gleeson forsees the area pedestianised from his interview in Ron Black’s I thought he was suggesting it couldn’t be done myself from what he said…

Tommyt, I must say I got the impression that he favoured it in principle, but knew that a huge amount of work needed to be done prior to it being thought about. The overall impression I got was that he reckoned it would eventually be done.

I think Dick Gleeson has to play it a lot cleverer than most, there are always a number of agendas within local authorities that one must approach with care.

I got the impression that he personally favours improving the pedestrian environment in College Green and that if he had the chance he would favour a total pedestrianisation.

There are four impediments to delivering a College Green Plaza.

1). The Trees in front of the BOI, anyone got a loan of a chainsaw? You have to see the bigger picture.

2). The Buses and futue possible Luas, Luas isn’t going to happen for a long while and if it does Fleet St/ Temple Bar would be perfect. The buses and Taxis could use Dame St/ College Green but simply not be permitted to allow passengers alight from there.

3). Disruption to businesses, the operation of both Henry St and Grafton St proves that goods can still be delivered.

4.) Disruption to traffic, thats why an inner orbital exists and when the Macken St Bridge is completed most of the North-South traffic will have an alternative route, and the Cuffe St- Christchurch- Phibsboro route can take pressure off as well.

The end definitely justifies the means on this one, but It will probably be a few years before it happens.

A few good preliminary measures would be to.

1). Move the College Green Taxi rank to the side of the Central Bank.
2). Eliminate as many bus-stops as possible and re-position them on the next Street out, such as Westmoreland St, Georges St, Lord Edward St.
3). Ban the right turn at Nicholas St to Christchurch Place
4). Ban the right turn on Bachelors walk to O’Connell Bridge

I don’t personally see what the problem with the trees is. I am not going to give a whole “they should stay because they have been there for years rant”, because I know they havn’t. I think if the area was to be pedestrianised they would enhance the area. The area would feel very bare if it was just an expanse of hard landscaping for pedestrians.

Diaspora – as a northside to southside driver, I think you are jumping the gun on the Bachelor’s Walk to O’Connell Bridge right turn. Already, the other main option for us across the top of St Stephen’s Green has been removed. What would you suggest for people who have to drive that way? That they go along the NCR or along the Grand Canal – already two of the most congested roads in the city. Remember also that a lot of the right-turning traffic from the quays actually only goes down D’Olier Street and then turns left at the Screen – not going near Trinity or BoI.

kefu, as a driver-thru-the-city what do you think of the banning of the right turn from Patrick St/Nicholas St into Christchurch Place to private cars? We (A Taisce Dublin City) suggested this in our submission to the draft City Dev Plan, as a traffic-calming measure for Dame St/College Gn, on the basis that it would mirror the recent banning of prvate car passage from Pearse St into College St, restricting traffic from entering the College Gn/Dame St area from the opposite direction.

Or are all these ideas here on this thread for calming College Gn premature before the Macken St bridge? (hope not)

Re: The Macken Street bridge – it is essential but I think the only net gain will be slight relief at two chronic pinch points on Pearse Street going North and Matt Talbot Bridge going South. If everybody abandons the East Link to avoid the toll, traffic could even get worse as a result.
I would have very little problem with the Patrick St right turn into Christchurch being banned.
The only issue is that it would be sending even more traffic towards and on to the quays.
Also, the multi-storey car parks wouldn’t be too happy as it’s a point of access for Trinity Street, Brown Thomas etc and some drivers would circumvent the ban by going down to the quays, crossing Capel Street Bridge, going up Parliament Street and turning left on to Dame Street anyway.

Originally posted by Devin
kefu, as a driver-thru-the-city what do you think of the banning of the right turn from Patrick St/Nicholas St into Christchurch Place to private cars? We (A Taisce Dublin City) suggested this in our submission to the draft City Dev Plan, as a traffic-calming measure for Dame St/College Gn, on the basis that it would mirror the recent banning of prvate car passage from Pearse St into College St, restricting traffic from entering the College Gn/Dame St area from the opposite direction.

Or are all these ideas here on this thread for calming College Gn premature before the Macken St bridge? (hope not)

All the Pearse / college st ban did was create an infuriating half mile loop for those people needing to go up Dame street. In the process it made the left turn from Tara street to the quays a nightmare, clogged up D’Olier St or added to the general mayhem on Wellington Quay and Parliament Street.

I agree with Burge_Eye.
The problem with Dublin is that when you close off a turn or a road, there is always a way to circumvent it. That circumvention usually involves a tortuous route and inevitably leads to either more traffic on a road that can ill-afford it or rat run shortcuts.
From a driver’s perspective – Dublin has something akin to two extended pedestrianised squares miles, Henry Street and Grafton Street, with a handful of direct car routes like the North/South Quays, Pearse Street, Patrick Street, Church Street, Dorset Street, Amiens Street and so on running between and around them – all of these routes are completely congested already and any traffic alteration, no matter how minor, will only lead to more congestion.

Kefu,

I don’t know why you turn right from Bachelors Walk to go South, the route of those who wish to avoid traffic has always been to continue along the Quays to Matt Talbot Bridge, turn right, turn left onto City Quay, Turn Right onto Lombard St East, left from Westland Row onto Fenian St before turning Right onto Merrion St with all Southside routes open from there minus the traffic.

Beyond my traffic advice there is a more important issue, i.e. what way is the transportation hierarchy tilted. In Dublin before now it has been tilted against those that spend money the pedestrian. The idea of improving pedestrian facilities within the very core of Dublin must come before facilitating commuters.

It is not going to seriously inconvenience anyone who seeks out new routes to work by combining what would seem like unorthidox routes. From my experience the major hold ups thus far are around Church St, the Northern Quays, Gardiner St, Pearse St North Strand and the Southern Canals and Morehampton Rd.

The new Macken St bridge will relieve Pearse St, Gardiner St and the North Strand.

Using Bridgefoot St & Francais St to the West eliminates the need to use Church St, the Northern Quays and Christchuch.

The delivery of a Quality Plaza will deliver more revenue to the CC than it will eliminate, it won’t suit everyone buts thats life.

I have no sympathy for anyone who turns right onto Tara St or breaks the rule going West from Pearse St, you obviously haven’t a clue how to get around this City.

Originally posted by Diaspora
Kefu,

I don’t know why you turn right from Bachelors Walk to go South, the route of those who wish to avoid traffic has always been to continue along the Quays to Matt Talbot Bridge, turn right, turn left onto City Quay, Turn Right onto Lombard St East, left from Westland Row onto Fenian St before turning Right onto Merrion St with all Southside routes open from there minus the traffic.

I have no sympathy for anyone who turns right onto Tara St or breaks the rule going West from Pearse St, you obviously haven’t a clue how to get around this City.

Diaspora, you are obviously either a taxi driver, a cyclist or have a job that allows you to commute at 10am or 3pm. What is clear, from your recent diatribe on the “look at the state of cork” thread, is that you resort to cheap abuse whenever people don’t see things your way. I have a bicycle and I dice with death whenever possible but I live in Crumlin, work on Pearse St and have to go to site most days. I, therefore, spend a great deal of time driving around this city and I tell you what pal – I know the quickest way to get to work / get home.

I think this thread has turned into a Dublin A-Z simply because the whole idea of widening the footpath has been exhausted. Getting a better view of Trinity is obviously your cause celebre. Good luck.

Burg- eye

This thread turned into a Dublin A-Z because the usual Dublin Transport will grind to a halt argument was brought out again.

If I had a tenner for everytime I had heard people say this about a particular road change I would be richer than Bill Gates.

I can understand your train of thought on the change at Pearse St seeing as you work there, but Pearse St as an East-West route is under normal circumstances an absolute no brainer.

I salute your courage cycling in Dublin, I like the protection of an engine in front of me either rail or car.

The reality is that College Green is the Natural Centre of Dublin, it is a pedestrian environment that compares amongst the worst in Europe on a comparative basis. If Dublin is serious about having an extended retail core changing College Green is an absolute must to put the shoppers first.

Diaspora, anybody going Northside to Southside will rarely if ever drive as far as Matt Talbot Bridge because the traffic light there allows about four cars through on each turn.
That means if there are even twenty cars there, which there normally are – you will have a six or seven minute wait.

To return to the subject, I think College Green should be effectively pedestrianised and all but taxis, buses and car park traffic banned a-la St Stephen’s Green East. Traffic will be slowed but it is hard to imagine it going any slower.
Banning traffic from turning right onto O’Connell Bridge and then funnelling down Townsend Street does not, however, contribute to reducing traffic flow on College Green.
From a personal point of view, it would make my particular drive in the morning from Stoneybatter to Ballsbridge, which I used to go via Stephen’s Green for, an even bigger nightmare.
And please don’t offer me any more route advice, I know practically every single road and shortcut in the north and south city.

Originally posted by burge_eye

All the Pearse / college st ban did was create an infuriating half mile loop for those people needing to go up Dame street. In the process it made the left turn from Tara street to the quays a nightmare, clogged up D’Olier St or added to the general mayhem on Wellington Quay and Parliament Street.

Well it’s a pity poor burgeye can’t drive from Pearse Street straight into College Green anymore!

It goes without saying that when you close one route it increases congestion somewhere else. The idea of the above banning is that the overall volume of traffic going from Pearse Street to Dame Street is reduced, cos its more hassle to do it than it used to be.

The whole aim of these bannings is to make people ask if their car route needs to be going through the centre city or, preferably, if they could be using public transport or cycling instead. 30% of urban car journeys are under 3 kilometers. There’s a lot of laziness in Dublin, a lot of people driving into town from Sandymount, Harolds X and Drumcondra, just because they have a work car space or can park in a multi-storey car park. These are the people the restrictions and bannings are aimed at.

It is imperative that college green is pedestrianised. People have to make choices every day whether to use the car to make a particular journey. I think that if traffic was restricted into the heart of the city, people will be resourceful and use other forms of transport or not make any unnecessary journeys. I recently cycled through D’olier st and College Green ( I am a car owner) and it proved to be a very scary experience being sandwiched between speeding cars and stretched buses. I also had the same scary experience crossing college green as a pedestrian. The centre of the Dublin should be designed to allow generous unimpeded pedestrian access from Stephens Green all the way to Parnell St. This can only be accomplished through a massive reduction in motor traffic going though college green and a large reduction in lane provision on D’olier/ Westmoreland St. It is a simple and straightforward idea and it requires bravery and innovative thinking by the city authorities. How they go about this ..that is another question but they cannot be heavily influenced by lobby groups with short term aspirations…..

Unfortunately, cod, heavy influence by lobby groups already resulted in the hideous failure of nerve by the Government in bringing the Luas Green line down Dawson Street and through College Green.

According to that EPA Environment Report released during the summer, dangerous emmissions from vehicle exhausts are now the biggest threat to air quality in the city, and restrictions on cars in the city centre on certain days will be required if we are to meet stringent new EU pollution limits.

Serious traffic-calming (if not complete removal) on College Green could be on the way at last!

Originally posted by Devin

Well it’s a pity poor burgeye can’t drive from Pearse Street straight into College Green anymore!

It goes without saying that when you close one route it increases congestion somewhere else. The idea of the above banning is that the overall volume of traffic going from Pearse Street to Dame Street is reduced, cos its more hassle to do it than it used to be.

It’s not really a pity because I chose architecture as a career and as a result I’m never away til after 7, so I just drive up it anyway.

Much as I’d like to think it was an idealistic move, I think, however, the real reason for that change in traffic flow was to make it easier for the fire engines to get up Dame street. And to help the Garda get home quicker.

Originally posted by kefu
.
From a personal point of view, it would make my particular drive in the morning from Stoneybatter to Ballsbridge, which I used to go via Stephen’s Green for, an even bigger nightmare.
And please don’t offer me any more route advice, I know practically every single road and shortcut in the north and south city. [/B]

wow I can’t believe anyone would even consider using a car for that journey!,On yer bike mate and get about 10 hours a week of your life back from commuterland!that’s my idea of the ultimate car journey from hell!!!

Originally posted by kefu
From a personal point of view, it would make my particular drive in the morning from Stoneybatter to Ballsbridge, which I used to go via Stephen’s Green for, an even bigger nightmare.

Have you tried Luas smithfield-connolly then DART connolly-ballsbridge?

Not when you have to go out during the day on jobs, usually down the country. Only takes twenty minutes because I work slightly off-peak hours.

Originally posted by kefu
Not when you have to go out during the day on jobs, usually down the country. Only takes twenty minutes because I work slightly off-peak hours.

ah fair enough,I’d say you’re praying a congestion charge isn’t introduced any time soon though!

I’ve always suspected that any congestion charge introduced in Dublin could not apply to people who are resident inside the border of the Grand Canal and the North/South Circular Roads.
Otherwise, you would have to pay a fee just to visit your own home.

Originally posted by kefu
I’ve always suspected that any congestion charge introduced in Dublin could not apply to people who are resident inside the border of the Grand Canal and the North/South Circular Roads.
Otherwise, you would have to pay a fee just to visit your own home.

In London, inner city residents still have to pay the congestion charge but get a 90% discount.
http://www.cclondon.com/downloads/ResidentsLiving.pdf

I would certainly feel like a visitor to my own home (and a poverty-stricken one at that) if I had to pay €4 or €5 to get back there every time I drove across the North Circular Road.

They would have to do something for people like Kefu who live in the town or there would be uproar. The result I think is that many people who need motorised transport would buy houses inside the line to get around any charge that came in. Where years ago people got insurnace back home now, country people would use a buddy’s address to get a free congestion pass if a charge was put in.

Originally posted by PVC King
They would have to do something for people like Kefu who live in the town or there would be uproar. The result I think is that many people who need motorised transport would buy houses inside the line to get around any charge that came in. Where years ago people got insurnace back home now, country people would use a buddy’s address to get a free congestion pass if a charge was put in.

Similarly, when I worked in singapore they had a rule that only cars with red number plates could enter the city on mon, wed and fri. White number plates enter tues thurs and sat, with either being allowed in on Sunday. It was an easy way for the traffic wardens to police it without the need for charges. Unfortunately the people just bought another car leading to more congestion. It’s a vicious circle.

Lads do you not think that it is a little premature to be discussing road pricing before the need arises. Have you never considered that this change might actually work in the absence of a charge.
The stick works the only problem is that the carrot is called CIE

Starbucks are finally to arrive in Dublin City Centre according to todays Irish Times they have according to Jack Fagan agreed a deal for the ground floor of number 1 College Green. I noted with interest that the adjoining occupiers are Little Ceasars and Centra and that TCD now appear to have swallowed up most of the College Green / Foster Place / Anglesea St block. Good article a few other interesting stories in it.

Yes – they’re paying €220,000 a year for the premises; the comparitively modest rent presumably reflecting its secondary location.
Does it say anything about us that what could be percived in name terms anyway as the central trading pitch in all of Ireland – No 1 College Green – being occupied by Starbucks?

The argument that one must drive into work because one needs a car for site visits is weak. As things currently stand, maybe not, but it shows a slight lack of imagination. Could companies not keep a car or two (or three…) expressly for this purpose, thus freeing us up to walk or cycle or Luas or bus for the home-to-work journey? Or what about renting a car when needed? Or public transport?
I don’t want to over-simplify the argument, but it is imperative that we attempt to apply some imagination to these problems, rather than just seeing the cards that we already hold in our hands.
I’m currently formulating a thesis topic on this very subject- I hope to post here soon re same, and all opinions would be welcome, especially those of motorists (I can’t drive, and I cycle everywhere, so I have an inherent bias that must be countered 🙂 ). I’ll be in touch.

@Thomond Park wrote:

Starbucks are finally to arrive in Dublin City Centre according to todays Irish Times they have according to Jack Fagan agreed a deal for the ground floor of number 1 College Green. I noted with interest that the adjoining occupiers are Little Ceasars and Centra and that TCD now appear to have swallowed up most of the College Green / Foster Place / Anglesea St block. Good article a few other interesting stories in it.

The ground floor space that Starbucks are moving into is owned by Treasury. According to the piece I saw in the Times, some deal was done between Starbucks and Treasury Holdings with regards those buildings. I dont really know the details though.

I don’t know the details on that one Phil, I doubt Jack Fagan does either that would be a very quiet deal analysing the players involved. The only issue of note here is signage and as this is an ACA the following is relevant:

About this time 12 years ago TP was on a weeks break to Berlin and on the Saturday I headed down to Dresden for the day, what I saw in Dresden’s main St I couldn’t believe; it was a McDonalds in a building with its original shopfront (name other than McDonalds) and McDonalds signage limited to small signs hung from the interior ceiling of no more than 1200 X 400. The signage was painted on a mahogany background. College Green is an equally sensitive location.

One recent sign put into this general area is the taning shop at 6a D’Olier St opposite the GAS building, it is totally inappropriate and wasn’t there last November. Has anyone else noticed it?

Interesting point Thomond P. Have you ever been to McDonalds in Bray? Same deal. It was the old Town Hall as far as I know. Very prominnant building at the top of the main street, which is also the point where the road divides ino two. I cannot recall exactly what signage is allowed, but it is far less than the normal McDs.

That was a good precedent to set for the town, the Town Hall is such an important building in the architectural hierarchy of Bray and to allow anything other than best practice would have been a disaster at that location. No.1 College Green is no less important given its proximity to the Bank of Ireland complex and Foster Place the importance of both cannot be underestimated in the heritage of the City.

Another proposal under application is within No.2 College Green, it is proposed within the main facade to insert a modern disabled access ramp at the eastern side (the one that leads to FX). While being totally in favour of full implementation of Part M of the building regulations; I am totally opposed to this given the International Importance of this building.

The obvious solutions to me were either

1> Ramp the step at the College St entrance

or

2> Open up an opening into fake door on the Foster Place elevation.

I noted that the application was compiled by a Northern firm, I wonder could this be an indication that one or more southern practices considered it to be a serious mistake?

Does anybody know what happened to the sculpture that was affixed to the wall of No.1 College Green? It sat in one of the ground floor bays that has now been turned into a window. It was an abstract composition, green (possible marble?) and every time I pass the building I miss it.

There’s recent precedent in the UK stating that artwork designed for a building should remain with that building, rather than remain the property of the owners, even where the owners commissioned it for a specific building. I’m concerned about this item- perhaps they intend to re-hang it inside? I feel that exterior art belongs not just to the building but to the public realm also, and Dame St/College Green is the poorer for its absence.

Any info?

Ctesiphon. As far as I know the person who deals with art works in Trinity is Dr. Edward McParland. His details are on the link below. He might know what happened to it. However, as discussed earlier, this part of the building seems to be belong to Treasury Holdings. They are quite into their public art, so I would be suprised if they had got rid of it (Figure climbing side of Treasury Building and Horses Head as examples). Do you have an image of it?

http://www.tcd.ie/History_of_Art/html/staff_pages/edward.html

http://www.treasuryholdings.ie/corporate/art.asp

Cheers for that Phil. I do have a picture of it at home, but it’s a print only and scanner access is a problem. I’ll see what I can do.
It was in situ until the recent works were begun. I’m crossing my fingers that it’ll be replaced, though it can’t go back in its old location as that’s now a window.

Phil-

Here (hopefully- it’s my first time attaching images!) are those images of the sculpture, and the building, showing it in context.
Apologies for the quality, but they’re digital photos of existing print photos. Still, it should give you what you want.

Thanks Ctesiphon. Those images came out ok, all things considering. I remember that well now. I wonder where it went?

I noticed today that the island on College Green has been borded up. Any idea why?

The OPW are repairing the fountain and renovating the area around the Thomas David memorial. Its been like this for a while. Should be near completion soon.

any chance they’ll cut down those trees that obstruct the view of Trinity?

Thanks Stephen, never noticed it before. Are they going to have the water pumping too?

@anto wrote:

any chance they’ll cut down those trees that obstruct the view of Trinity?

I doubt it. I’d say the trees won’t get any attention until Westmorland St is redeveloped.

They have to stay for the moment cos the traffic is so bad. But if Luas goes through College Gn…………………..now that’s a different matter…

I seem to remember (through a haze of hallucenogens) hearing that Tomas Dabhis was to be re-erected at a different location……not sure if this is fiction,faction or malicious rumour !

I never heard Thomas Davis was to move.
There was, however, some talk about doing something with the Wolfe Tone statue up at St Stephen’s Green as part of the general rejigging of traffic and so on up there – can’t even remember what was proposed.
Both are by Edward Delaney, so perhaps that’s where the confusion arises.

Wolfe Tone is still in place although the large expanse in ront of him looks a little bleak. I hope that the fountain at the Davis memorial will finally be truned on…its quite an attractive feature although unfortunately very few people get to appreciate the statue stuck as it is on a traffic island. I think some lighting of the monument would be welcome as well. I presume the fact that the monument is boarded up means that major works as going on. They were originally scheduled for completion in Spring 2005 but I think the fountain’s plumbing proved more problematic than expected.

I have to say I like both these monuments….they were both put in place in 1966 to mark the anniversary of the Easter Rising. Its interesting how much ‘monument building’ went on that year….G of Rememberence, all those plaques, various statues.

At last your statue is getting some TLC Stephen – I take it from your many previous posts that you kinda like it 🙂

It’s a fine piece alright, a great shame about the fountain not being operational for so long – I don’t even remember it ever working!
It could be spectacularly lit from below too – lots of opportunity there in the base.

From todays Info…..

STARBUCKS’ plans to increase its planned coffee shop outlets in Ireland have run into difficulties, amid claims the company’s presence would “dumb down” an historic part of Dublin.

The US chain will open its first coffee shop in the country in the Dundrum Town Centre today, but planning objections have delayed its flagship outlet, on Dublin’s College Green.

One objector to An Bord Pleanala has protested that granting planning permission would “dumb down” an historic part of the city; that allowing a coffee shop to open would run contrary to plans for a site that had been earmarked for a high quality restaurant, supposed to bring some class back to the area.

Paul Duffy, from Donnycarney, said he has no axe to grind with Starbucks, but added: “May they continue to grow and thrive and dominate the world as they are doing, but let them do so on the side streets away from our most important and historic buildings.”

He suggested Starbucks could relocate to Temple Bar “where the coffee might have a sobering effect on the drunks”.

Starbucks has more than 9,500 coffee shops worldwide, serving some 33m customers a week. The Seattle-based chain already has a small outlet in Dublin City University, but the Dundrum shop will be its first in the Republic to open to the general public.

Dublin City Council granted planning permission earlier this year to Treasury CMBS, owner of the College Green premises, to change the use of its Riada Building from a restaurant to a coffee shop, but that has now been appealed to An Bord Pleanala, with a decision due in October.

Another objector, Magdalena Gendek, from Drumcondra, protested that a Starbucks coffee shop would further erode the civic fabric of the urban centre, increase litter and it goes against the council’s policy of trying to control the spread of heavy corporate branding.

She said: “A restaurant of high quality such as Shanahans would be appropriate for the area, however a Starbucks multinational coffee shop chain store is an entirely different use.”

Aideen Sheehan

I thoroughly agree! This is a prime spot….or would be in any other city. However if Starbucks get in you will be able to get your latte to go just befre you hassle a taxi driver to whisk you away from the sight of all those ugly Georgian piles….

Hmmm… I was all in favour of this objection too until I remembered there’s a bloody Centra two doors up anyway. Starbucks at least could claim to be classier than that!

This is an absolute bulls**t objection and will quite rightly fail.
This is quite clearly predicated on some nonsensical notions about globalisation as Mr Duffy’s attempt at wit fairly clearly shows: ‘May they continue to grow and thrive and dominate the world as they are doing.’
A new Insomnia went in up the road without a whimper. The nearby Spar and Centras have all been granted licences to sell booze to drunks, which is a far more questionable practice.
Do these people honestly believe we should exclude new businesses from Ireland on the basis of their nationality?
What’s more insulting is the clear anti-Americanism implicit in this. It’s unacceptable for this non-historic building to be occupied by a major US chain – yet it would have been fine had it been an English or French coffee chain.
It was also perfectly acceptable for two of the city’s finest banking buildings (both just across the road) to be occupied by a pub and a furniture shop respectively.
There isn’t even an argument that this will somehow erode existing historical coffee retailers as Bewley’s are already gone and all the others are of very recent vintage.
And what does Mr Duffy even mean about the site being earmarked for a quality restaurant? Since when have restrictions like that applied anywhere.

I agree that that type of objection has no standing and is based on emotive versus logical arguments; my one concern with any application for this site would be how the proposed changes would effect the setting of Fosters Place and College Green. This building is at a pivotal point and it is essential that the highest standards are applied to the shop front, any external furniture and the lighting used must be sensitive to the very high grade setting of Fosters Place.

Fosters Place is one of the few locations in Dublin that has retained a very strong sense of its period and to that end I think that the designation as a restaurant is probably the best possible use, I do feel that it could be possible to accomodate Starbucks at this location but that a number of very clear conditions would need to be attached to the way it is permitted to interact with the street.

Particular areas of concern would be:

1> Shopfront design
2> Signage design
3> Signage lighting
4> Access
5> Potential external furniture
6> Internal illuminated window signage
7> Restrictions on what is placed on the windows or in the windows (promo materials)
8> Materials for all of the above

The taxi situation on Foster Place must also be examined independent of this application. I have said this before but in my opinion a win win situation exists; namely establish a rank at the Foggy Dew to the side of the central bank with the build up of cabs going around the rear of the bank and in extreme circumstances back as far the front entrance of blooms hotel.

Kefu and Dallas, just because there’s a Centra convenience store two doors up from the proposed Starbucks site doesn’t mean that the coffee chain should automatically get the go ahead to locate on Fosters Place. If anything, that’s a reason to stop it! This is a prime city-centre location and one which could be used for much more useful and fashionable purposes!
A bland, multinational coffee shop which has thousands and thousands of outlets all over the world is hardly going to add to the supposed high-quality retail mix which the Council is trying to achieve in the city centre! Trust me, in a few years’ time, Starbucks will probably have a store on every street in the country, just like Spar and Centra have now! That may be fine, but they shouldn’t be allowed do it in such important locations, right beside protected Georgian buildings.

Starbucks signage is quite unobtrusive in comparison to a Centra – they manage to blend in quite well in Edinburgh for example.

So what should go there Daragh?

I agree with the point that De Dallas is making we do bland like no other in this City, places like Cork and Belfast have retained far more than we have but ultimately this is a planning matter and until College Green is designated an Architectural Conservation Area, it will not have the same safe guards as O’Connell St and Cathal Brugha St in the form of a well written Integrated Area Plan.

The fact that Starbucks had no other outlets in Ireland at the time of the application means they cannot be considered a multiple.

College Green is however a conservation area so all proposals must be sympathetic to the numerous PROTECTED STRUCTURES that surround it.

It is zoned Z5 ‘To consolidate and facilitate the development of the central area, and to to identify, reinforce and protect its civic design character and dignity

I totally agree with DD, how did centra get permission for that specific signage.

It is time that retail zoning becomes less broad and more specific with specific zonings for:

1> Take Away / fast food
2> Betting Shop
3> Cafe
4> Convenience Store
5> Call shop/Internet Cafe
6> Discount goods/household

That seems a great idea, especially with the bus stop on the doorstep there, and easy access from both the northside and south of Dame St.

Regarding Starbucks, agreed about the appeal – it’ll fall falt on its face. It seems to be grounded entirely on personal emotive issues.
Saying that, when College Green eventually becomes a special area of planning control, all fast food and convenience outlets ought to banned outright here.

Having never encountered a full-size Starbucks (I’ve led a sheltered life :)), I cannot comment on their modus operandi but as TP says, the greater concerns are shopfront design, signage and associated issues. These are the matters of importance in this crucial city space, not the politics.
‘Eroding the civic life of the city’ is a tad much, but saying that, any further inroads by similar outlets to College Green ought not to be permitted as a matter or preserving the uniqueness and character of the College Green environment.
This is where the problem arises with such outlets as we have seen elsewhere in the capital – too many and it’s too late.

I suppose a good comparison would be Edinburgh, however, the city would have a much stricter policy on shop signage than Dublin.

The Starbucks in Edinburgh’s historical heart is reasonably unobtrusive on this prominent corner.

There’s another one on Bread Street which isn’t too bad either.

Unfortunately, I think the Starbucks in Dublin will get away with pretty much anything.. as seen with Centra. 😡

The former bank works very well,

I really believe that the Taxi situation needs to be resolved the use of the some of the best space in City for car parking is a great waste of the public realm and the way the overflow works into Foster Place is quite simply ridiculous.

Given that most taxi activity is generated from the Temple of Bars surely the most accessible space in Temple Bar should be used so that prime public realm can be returned to the public.

Bread Street – what a delicious name 🙂

What really annoys me about the taxis in Foster Place, aside from their consumption of the area, is the way you can never cross that broad expanse of cobbles in comfort whilst enjoying the space around you without a grumpy old git in a taxi making faces trying to pull out with pedestrians ‘in his way’.
And because of the huge expanse of cobbles there that is supposedly ‘roadway’, pedestrians feel obliged to continue walking quickly until safely back on the BoI or Dame St pavements on either side, as if they’re blocking an access point or another street.

This whole enclave ought to be a pedestrian space, for the enjoyment of citizens and tourists, not Mr Taxi having a rest with his cheese sangwidges listening to Liveline.

Which type of Bread?

I’m not so sure it would be possible to fully pedestrianise Foster Place given service uses but certainly removing the taxi’s should be an immediate priority given the disruptive practices you have outlined above. This in no small way has made this crossing point and by extension North South route very unwelcoming and only serves to funnel yet more people up the Westmoreland St to Grafton St access which with Luas coming will experience no relief whilst pedestrian counts will continue to grow. It is vital that every little measure possible be taken to take the City’s relience off the Central Axis.

A further welcome move would be a resequencing of the lights at Church Lane and Foster Place with a pedestrian sequence added on the western side in favour of the pedestrian.

Interesting to see views on this. Surely it is a valid point that appealling this particular application is asking the CC to draw a line under the downgrading of uses that is quickly taking hold along this stretch. Soon coffee shops will be talked about in the same way we are talking about convenience stores now…and when Starbucks really gets going you’ll all be moaning at how you cant move without seeing one…thanks certainly what its like in London – 2 sometimes 3 to a street! Also while the Centra is terrible its possition is less prominent than the proposed Starbucks which faces argruably one of the most important buildings in the country. I think what this application highlights more than anything is how little thought it being put into the new uses that are taking over College Green. but as usual the CC have no desire to intervene and prescribe some more fitting uses.

Dublin would be a lot better with a Starbucks on every corner than it is with the existing Centra/Londis/Spar/off-licence on every corner.
Despite all the bad publicity, they’re actually very civilised places. They always have free newspapers, Internet access, and plenty of seating including couches, as well as later opening hours.
I’m not saying the likes of Insomnia don’t have these things but the notion that Starbucks is as bad as another Centra or another O2 shop is just plain wrong-headed.
I’ve been all over the east coast of America: in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. And in all three when there’s a Starbucks in an historic building, they use it as an asset.
And what do we mean by downgrading – it’s not like this area has lost restaurants or retailers. Correct me if I’m wrong but was this old Starbucks building not some kind of Eircom store.

I mean the move from institutions in landmark buildings ie the banks, university, tourist office etc to low end retail units such a convenience stores and takeaway coffee shops. At least Habitat is nivce and healthily in the middle with a well designed store and a high grade cafe. Winding Stair…nice book store with even more potential. Even the Italian restuarant (Caesars?) could create a bit of atmosphere if it were complimented with other such places.

BTW I have no problem with Starbucks….. I quite like it apart from its tendancy to dominate those places it sets up in. I just dont thinks its the right place for it here.

In the case of Starbucks dominating a place – take a trip down to Baggott St where there are two Insomnias practically opposite each other. This isn’t Chicago or San Fran! I would be challenged to find a part of the city centre not graced with an OBriens. It’s totally hypocritical (and very Irish!) to get all upset over the arrival of Starbucks when infact we’ve done quite a good job creating our very own version. I’m not even going near Spar-bucks.
I have no doubt that when they open their outlet on 1 College Green it will be tastefully done from the outside and not as abrasive as it’s convenience oriented neighbour.

What irritates me is the how clichéd it is: of all the places Starbucks could locate in Dublin…

What do you mean cliched?

Dallas, as Stephen quite rightly pointed out, this isn’t necessarily anything to do with Starbucks itself, or ideed anything ‘anti-American’. There’s a wider issue here which concerns the use of prime city-centre locations for tacky shops, such as convenience stores, or mega chain stores. And while Starbucks itself may not have any other outlets in the city centre for the moment, there are already dozens upon dozens of coffee shops in the city centre. Again, as I keep on saying, having a Starbucks on Fosters Place doesn’t really help with the Council’s plan of diversifying the retail mix which the city centre offers. A good selection of high quality shops/restaurants is what is needed to keep the city centre thriving and ward off the competition posed by out-of-town shopping centres (which by the way offer an amazing selection of restaurants and clothing stores).
Dallas, you also say that – ‘I would be challenged to find a part of the city centre not graced with an O’Brien’s. It’s totally hypocritical (and very Irish!) to get all upset over the arrival of Starbucks when infact we’ve done quite a good job creating our very own version.’

Is this not therefore a perfect reason to make sure that we don’t worsen the situation by allowing Starbucks/coffee chains to do the same all over again?

As for what should go there, I think a high-quality, up-market clothing store would be perfect. Practically every major fashion label in Europe is trying to get a presence in the Irish market, so I’m sure any number of takers could be found.

If any number of takers could be found, they would have rented the property.
Fortunately, we live in an economy where any business – whatever their nationality – can still set up shop wherever they feel they’re most likely to turn a profit.
I find it quite ironic that Irish arrogance is now such that we want to control exactly what goes where on our city streets. Imagine us telling a major international company twenty years ago: ‘Yeah, we want you but you’ll have to go down the alley because you aren’t classy enough for our main streets.’
It doesn’t happen elsewhere, and that includes cities like Bath and Edinburgh with a far more extensive repertoire of fine buildings and a better preserved core than we have.
And while certain guidelines might be acceptable as a once-off for the regeneration of O’Connell Street or similar efforts in the future, this practice can not apply citywide.
I also really don’t understand how a 10-6pm fashion retailer is somehow better than a 7am-9pm (or later) coffee house where people can sit down and meet.
By the way this argument is going, people are trying to make out coffee shops are akin to McDonalds or sweet shops. They aren’t. Surely, we should welcome anything that is not a pub/newsagents/kebab shop in the greater Temple Bar area.

Clichéd as in Starbucks shopping list for Europe: Ok we need a space directly under the Eifel Tower, Colosseum, etc do those MP guys in Westminster drink venti half-caf soy skinny caramel machiato frappuchinos?

em, Kefu…that exact opinion is what allowed O’Connell Street to turn into the big, dirty, smelly dump full of tacky convenience stores and fast-food outlets that it is today!!! O.K. O.K., so they’ve tried to spruce to street up a bit, but until there’s actually a reason to go TO O’Connell Street rather than simply pass THROUGH the street to get to Henry Street, then it’ll never be the grand, majestic, fashionable boulevard which the Council, and almost eveyone else I’d presume, want it to be.
You should also note Kefu that major cities all over the world have extremely strict guidelines concerning what goes where in their prime city-centre locations. London is a good example, where Oxford Street has strict limits relating to the location of fast-food stores on the street, as the London authorities recognise that the street needs to remain a retail-based shopping destination. If fast-food outlets want to set up shop in the capital then they simply go to Leister Square or wherever.
I don’t know why so many people have difficulty understanding the benefits of some light regualtion regarding the opening of shops in the cty centre. Everything else in our lives is regulated by the government in some shape or form, so why not this?

Daragh, it all seems pretty simple to me because a fast food outlet is not the same as a coffee shop.
If all the McDonalds/Burger Kings/Supermacs on O’C St were replaced by cafes, do you think it would be a “big, dirty, smelly dump”.

It may not be as bad if all the fast-food outlets were replaced by coffee shops, but it wouldn’t be much better either as there’d still be a major lack of choice regarding the use of the outlets on the street..

Interestin to note that after at least one post on this board and some 6 weeks after the new top layer was rolled out,the Pedestrian Crossing at Bank of Ireland/College Green remains naked in terms of Road Markings.
This ensures a VERY interesting time for thousands of pedestrians every hour as they stare down the approaching drivers.
I am therefore assuming that The CITY MANAGER and the DIRECTOR OF TRAFFIC are both on holiday or otherwise indisposed as I feel certain they would not want to expose citizens and visitors alike to the HIGHLY increased risk of injury and/or death which the present bleak and black scenario presents.
Wonder what the safety statement for this location reads like..?……”Run a little faster “……?

Have to agree with you 100% Alex – this is absolutely scandalous. I too used the crossing recently with no markings and motorists were just bewildered as to where to stop once the lights began to change – likewise pedestrians crossed just anywhere they could.

It really beggars belief that the City Coucil Roads Division or whoever is responsible for this are even daring to leave College Green of all places like this – it encapsulates their attitude to public safety 100%. The fact that they know they can get away with College Green being left in such a state is nothing short of frightening, both in terms of the possible implications in this instance, and their wider operations in the city.

How dare they endanger public safety because they can’t be bothered to get up of their backsides and finish the job.
I use this crossing daily, often twice, and am only too well aware of the dangers of this crossing. Both the speed and size of the vehicles using this stretch of road, and the volumes of pedestrians availing of the crossing ought to make this of all jobs in the city – if not just from a shallow PR perspective – of greatest priority in the protection of public safety.

SHORT-SIGHTED APPROACH TO LUAS DOES NOT WORK IN THE LONG RUN
Garret FitzGerald

@Devin wrote:

I wouldn’t mind but the old fart mightn’t even be around to see any of the current transport plans brought to completion.

How eloquent

I honestly can’t think of a better description for him.

I think that is extremely unfair given his track record

Ah Lads,Lads…will yiz give the man a break….
There`s nuttin in his piece that doesnt make sense,especially the bits about STATISTICS.
Lets face it G Fitz is probably the ONLY Politican (Except perhaps CS Andrews) who has an interest in both Statistics AND Public Transport.

I would far prefer to have an exchange with G Fitz on the LUAS topic than with the present Ministerial Incumbent.

Lets face it the entire €34 Billion T21 plan is now looking VERY dodgy in several Key aspects (except Motorway construction).
The manner in which the various strands of Public Transport modes appear to be still considered as independent entities each with their own totally seperate management and administration structures is bordering on Insanity.

One has only to look at the ongoing RPA “SmartCard” fiasco to see how a Minister or succession of Ministers of varying levels of incompetency can successfully bring an entire Public Transport System back to Year Zero.

Having had Pol Brennan and Pol Cullen each do their best to salvage disaster from the jaws of success I remain a confirmed G Fitz fan when it comes to Public Transport Methodology !! 😮

Its hard to know what thread to put this on…see OConnell St also

Dublin Bus wants roads deal with Luas
Tim O’Brien

Transport committee: Dublin Bus has said the viability of a €200 million plan to beat congestion may be in doubt if it can not come to an accommodation with Luas over crucial road space in Dublin city centre.

Both transport companies are vying for on-street priority in the crucial centre area of Nassau Street, College Green and Westmoreland Street.

Yesterday, managing director of Dublin Bus Joe Meagher said it could now take up to 25 minutes for a bus to travel between St Stephen’s Green and Parnell Square, a situation which made bus use in the city “almost unviable”.

Mr Meagher told the Oireachtas Committee on Transport that the bus company needed additional priority on city streets, and said the prospect of Luas utilising a route option along Nassau Street and College Green via Westmoreland Street to O’Connell Street was “a major, major issue for Dublin Bus”.

The route is one of a number being considered to link up the existing Luas Red and Green lines. It emerged as favourite at a public consultation process in February, largely because it is the shortest and most direct.

The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA), builder of Luas, has said the success of tram systems around the world was dependent on trams having their own space where they travel on public roads and not queuing at traffic lights.

However, Mr Meagher said Dublin Bus provided 58 million passenger journeys which began or ended in the vicinity of the front of Trinity College.

With travel speeds in the city centre averaging between 5km/h and 8km/h depending on the time of the day, the company had developed an investment plan based on 425 new buses and new quality bus corridors (QBCs).

This plan was dependent on “free movement” of buses along QBCs and in the city centre.

He said the plan also included the development of more cross-city bus routes, six new orbital and five new radial QBCs and priority movement in the city centre.

Priority movement could mean continuous bus lanes, bus-only access roads, bus-only turns, and bus priority at lights and junctions.

He warned that congestion was currently costing the company €60 million a year, while the average speed of buses across the network had fallen to just 12km/h.

Mr Meagher said Dublin Bus had raised the issue with Luas, and had extensive discussions with the Dublin Transportation Office, which, he said, had been understanding of the bus company’s position.

Dublin Bus also made a submission at the public consultation stage meetings held by the RPA.

The company recommended that Luas utilise “option B”, a route around Trinity College to the west along Nassau Street and Westland Row.

Dublin Bus said it was also seriously concerned about the disruption to routes and services during the Luas construction phase, which could see Dawson Street, Nassau Street, Lower Grafton Street, College Green, Westmoreland Street and part of O’Connell Street dug up.

Mr Meagher said Dublin Bus did accept the importance of the Luas and metro projects in transport infrastructure but there was “a need for close co-ordination between Luas, metro and Dublin Bus to minimise disruption”.

g fitz is so old and farty . what does he know about transport ???? i am sick of listening to his rambles. why do people listen to him ?

Ye are being very unfair on Garret.

It is completely off base to blame him for the “missing link” in the Luas. That was partly due to vigorous lobbying by city centre retailing interests (ironically who are now championing the link). But most of the blame for it lies firmly with O’Rourke who instead of deciding on either metro or tram dreamt up her own cockamaymie idea of a tram with a horrendously expensive and impractical short underground section. A solution involving most of the expense of a metro but with the capacity and speed of a tram. Of course the ludecrous underground section was never built leaving us with a disconnected tram system.

What Garret argued is simply that the Luas as proposed at the time would not provide the capacity required a) to eventually serve the Airport and b) to reduce traffic congestion in the city. For the former he simply looked at the numbers going through the airport and the capacity of the Luas line (about 3000 people an hour) and pointed out that the Luas would only provide a fraction of the capacity required. For the latter he produced DTO figures which said at the time that there were about 250000 people milling around Dublin during rush hour (probably more at this stage). It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a line with capacity of 3000 people an hour is not going to make much of a difference to the amount of traffic. Not that that’s a reason for not building it but at the time the Luas was being championed as a silver bullet that would solve congestion in the city centre. Garret simply pointed out that it wouldn’t.

His predictions and analysis have been verified if anything. Belately everyone has realised that a tram to the Airport will not suffice. If they’d listened to Garret, we would now have a metro from the Airport/Swords to Shanganagh. Instead we will effectively have line which is composed of a metro line (from the airport to Stephens Green) which terminates in the city (requiring a change for passengers) and continues as a separate tram line (from the Green to Sandyford) – undeniably a bit of a dogs dinner in transport terms.

@a boyle wrote:

what does he know about transport ????

Quite a bit he did afterall introduce DART as well as having the Dublin to Cork line relaid for the first time in 60 years; he also introduced the mark 3 coach fleet whilst in power which thanks to this weeks messing are still the premier standard on the Irish network 23 years after induction.

He is also a trained economist who has written a lot on the Dublin transport scene over a 50 year period; he may be entering his twilight years but make no mistake he is a lot sharper now than most of us will be at any stage in life.

the end justfies the means . his means resulted in delaying completion of the project, not a better project. this is why he is an old fart. he did not articulate a viable alternative, unlike frank mcdonald. why is he given so much attention?

@a boyle wrote:

the end justfies the means . his means resulted in delaying completion of the project, not a better project. this is why he is an old fart. he did not articulate a viable alternative, unlike frank mcdonald. why is he given so much attention?

Maybe try reading jimg and Thomond’s posts above? :rolleyes:
They express the facts of the matter pretty clearly. Can’t you read that he advocated a full metro line including underground sections which I clearly recall reading about at the time? Personally I think he was and is dead right as any luas between Stephen’s Green and the North Side is going to be ridiculously slow (Connolly to Heuston anyone? On streets far more choked with pedestrian activity?) and potentially quite visually disturbing to College Green.I also find the “old fart” remarks pretty childish and beneath the usual high standard of discussion on these boards…

here it is plain and simple.

There is no route in the city that justifies a metro. Even the dart doesnt justify and full metro services, and it is a metro. full stop. we need to do what strasbourg did. effectively close down the entire inner city, and then build 5 trams lines. these can then run faster and up to every 2 minutes because they don’t compete with cars. The green line which is close to capacity only serves 3/4 thousands an hour. in twenty years it will still only serve 15 thousands an hour.

This traffic thing is the ultimate chicken and egg situation. But any rpa metro will be a financial noose. only the dart can come up with the patronage numbers required because it can tap into the national network.

Sick and tired of this metro hogwash. It won’t do the trick. We need to kick people out of their cars and onto buses , bycles, and feet. We need to open schools at 7 in the morning. end of story. the city is thinly spread. If i hear another metro bleater i will shoot him! these tram metros were conceived by politicians. The average speed of the metro in porto is 20km and hour, you cycle faster than that.

On the basis of current densities there is little justification for the metro,

however the two local authorities for this route are Dublin City Council and Fingal who are both local authorities that have track records of delivering both development and reasonable protection for heritage.

Bearing in mind that metro north will not arrive until 2012 at the earliest this gives time for local action area plans to be drafted and commented upon by the stakeholders, for the appropriate sites to be assembled and for the developments to be completed about the time of or slightly prior to completion of the Metro.

TP doesn’t give free investment advice often but in this case I will there are a large number of industrial units on both sides of the Swords bypass this area will be the new Sandyford in 6 to 7 years time.

I have also received soundings as to how the metro will be specified and have full confidence that the RPA will deliver a system that addresses all my previous concerns between Stephens Greeen and Swords.

i remain unconvinced. if a metro is built we will end up with high rise ghettos at the edge of the city. The city has ballooned. the irish times reported that a third of house in the country are less than ten years old . This cannot continue. The city is envitably going to slow down in the next 3 years.

Because of this i say the metro (its not a metro by the by) is too much, too late.

I hate the expression but it is anavoidable. The facts on the ground are that forward tranport planning is not what is needed. dealling with the population in situ is what is needed. And the population in situ needs an orbital tram. The population in situ needs the real metro to be built, the interconnector. Be under no illusions that is is an either or with metro north and the interconnector.

The choices are stark. 3 high capacity lines (2 metros , and this underground tram) and nothing else. because these will cost around 10 billion.

Or the (2 metros + 6/7 tram lines) . This is a much better option. the suburbs are built. lets deal with the people who in misery today on the m50 not the people who might live in swords in the future.

The metro does not solve any transport problems in itself. it only allows for future development to be done in a better way. Building a network of 6/7 tram lines would have an impact on traffic , and would provide for higher density housing , since 6/7 tram lines cover such a large area.

Building the metro north line will mean at least at least a twenty year period to put in place the network.
Building the tram network will take ten years realistically. Plus it doesn’t mean that a metro (real one) can’t be built. The ministry of finance itself reported some years ago that the metro would only carry sufficient numbers of people when the rest of the tram network was built.

This blind support for an underground tram through the least populated part of the city, on the basis that future development will be of a higher quality infuriates me. The large scale housing development is coming to an end , within the next few years. And the fact remains that the airport has a huge exclusion zone around it, wasting the metro line. It is also a fact that people like to drive to airports because lugging your bagges is no fun. It is also a fact that the port tunnel provides an enormous amount of space for a bus service to fly people in and out of the city,swords, and the airport. Finnally buses using the port tunnel will get to the city faster than the tram. This was not, i repeat not examined by the consultants when examining the case for the metro north .

It is quite clearly a gift from de taoiseach to de north side.

It is so wastefull and will have such little impact for the first 15 years of operation that if we continue this discussion much further i might just explode!!!

A Boyle,me life on ye..!!
U appear to be the only livin Citizen to have spotted the VERY positive Port Tunnel BusWay option which as U point out will allow Buses to whup Metro North`s ass in the all-important journey to An Lar.
This simple little fact was of course ignored by the Consultants most likely because they were not asked to look in that direction cos as everybody knows Buses aint SEXY.
The entire Metro North/Luas scenario is much valued by the professional engineering fraternity as each new extension or modification becomes a new engineering money pit,where son,daughters and assorted multi-disciplinary graduates can cut their teeth on state of the art technology whilst their poorer Technical School companions merely get to flute around with Bus Lanes and Traffic Signal phasing.
However if somebody can turn on the cold shower for long enough we might just get some of this commonsense aired but I aint optomistic….Back to U in the Studio e Boyle !!

Originally posted by a boyle
It is also a fact that the port tunnel provides an enormous amount of space for a bus service to fly people in and out of the city,swords, and the airport. Finnally buses using the port tunnel will get to the city faster than the tram. This was not, i repeat not examined by the consultants when examining the case for the metro north .

It is quite clearly a gift from de taoiseach to de north side.

It is so wastefull and will have such little impact for the first 15 years of operation that if we continue this discussion much further i might just explode!!!

Well the southside has de LUAS, the Westside has de LUAS, the East coast has de DART.
I for one CANNOT WAIT for de Metro, as I live in Swords. I currently drive to Donabate to catch de train..Donabate with a tiny population compared to Swords, a growing, crowded town (the capital of Fingal) served by Airport feeding bus routes in most cases, taking up to 1.5 hours to get into the City Centre.
As for de Port Tunnel..that will be a jam packed route off the M1, during peak hours would take 40 minutes to get that far from an Airport serving bus from Swords and then what? Chaos. the stink that will be kicked up by truckers..the congestion..WELCOME TO DUBLIN tourists, here is the famous PORT TUNNEL from hell.

So “a boyle”, let me light de fuse!

I think it is important that people in Swords realise just how much Metro will change Swords in terms of higher densities and general congestion. Personally I am favour of Metro for Swords and a metro terminating in Dublin Airport would not have been acceptable but it needs to be stated that metro will change Swords into something between Tallaght and Sandyford.

Swords is getting that way anyway. I don’t think you’d find a single person in Swords who would be against the Metro, Because everyone knows how bad the buses are.
If I got a bus into my job the whole journey would be closer to 2 hours than the hour it currently is by driving to Donabate and getting a train. I once listened to a girl on the train moan about people driving from Swords to get the train in her beloved Donabate, as that has loads of new apartments going up too.
However if you’re moving to Swords you have to take everything into consideration, and look at all modes of transport..and I’m afraid if you work on the DART line on the Southside of the Liffey the buses just don’t cut it.
Still you could watch a 90 minute movie on the bus.

Denouncer I don’t think you are still apreciating the scale of what is proposed.

I do feel your pain with respect to traffic. I live at the southern edge of the city. going into the city used to take (walking included) between 1-2 hours. With the tram (walking included) 25 mins every time, not a minute more.

this is the scale of the thing : a good bus service (46A) can do 1500 people per hour in one direction. the luas as is 4000. (although both could be upped to around 6000). This underground tram will have a top capacity of 28000.

Dundrum has 15 new appartment block ranging in height from 4 – 11 storeys. sandyford (industrial estate) has had application for enormous 23 storey appartement blocks.

Whether a tram is built or an underground system is built will have no impact on how fast you get to work.

But if this underground tram is built . It is unavoidable that the bulk of growth for dublin will be concentrated north of the airport. It won’t be pretty.

I would ask you to at the very least hold your counsel till the port tunnel is opened. because that is going to be fantastic for you. There are already motions in progress for buses to use it.

What i am proposing is a tram that follows the current route plus a spur from the airport to the dart line. This is much cheaper, can carry more people to more places in the long run . And wont have a 50 storey tower block in swords . If you would like to see how 30 storey tower blocks work out in practice at the edge of a city , check out La defense in paris.

Denouncer if you don’t start campaigning for a sensible solution you will be shafted in the long run (just like the happy people in meath who won’t know what hit them when the M3 is finished).

@KerryBog2 wrote:

So, how do you see them working?

Do you mean tower blocks ? or transport?

The tower blocks, the transport works!
KB

@KerryBog2 wrote:

The tower blocks, the transport works!
KB

you won’t get middle income people to raise families in tower blocks unless you ‘spoil’ them ! you need parks (proper one) schools , a new hospital. nice old buildings restored, sports facilities ,gyms … the list is endless. And if you don’t get middle income families to raise their children in these tower blocks (that WILL come), it won’t work well. You could either have these block filled with immigrants which means riots of some description in the future. Or a dead town with people completely retiring into their world at night. This happens in la defense and as a consequence is expremely dangerous at night. Or the IFSC on a small city scale. Which is what swords WILL turn into.

Tower blocks can be great but like everything else they need to be done properly . However a tower block is a bigger bet.

It not unrealistic to expect housing for 150 thousand people to be added , over a thirty year period. Thats cork. And because of the airports exclusion zone most of this will need to be squeezed in around swords.

denouncer do you still want your metro ?

Yep a nice Metro. If I want to go to Dundrum I’ll jump on the Metro, which will stop at the airport. Tourists will get on impressed at the beautiful light rail transportation. 20 minutes later I will be at St. Stephens Green. Then, should it please me, I will head on to Dundrum knowing that on the way back I don’t have to drag bags of shopping or whatever on the bus for a 1.5 hour trip to Swords.

okaaaay you seem to be ignoring or not listening . whether its a metro or a tram makes no difference to the speed. ( the bus will be faster into the city by the way) but is it’s a metro you will be overshadowed by a fourty tower block .

I do understand wanting improvements to transport, i think you are being very naive about the consequences of a metro. If the metro can take 30000 per hour per direction. It will need to take at least 20/25 thousand to pay for itself. do you want that level of development? Are there enough greens spaces as it is ? are there enough corners newsagents as it is. Are there enough schools? i doubt it.

You are welcoming the most intensive development in the country with open arms , which baffles me. You are also ignoring that for the price of this metro you could build a tram following the same route (with same speed , at 4/minute frequencies) , a main heavy rail link to the airport. and 2or possibly three more trams lines on the north side alone. This would spread the devopment pressure across the whole of the northside. Maybe you like high rise living. Maybe you have faith in the planning system. Maybe lessons have been learnt from the high rise ballymun , the scattered tallaght, and the joke liffey valley. I think you are nuts!!

That is absolute rubbish; the DART has thrived on low to mid rise densities; the arrival of Metro will not lead to ‘high rise’ but will facilitate higher densities in the 5 to 8 storey range at a number of locations.

As has been stated many times by users of the line the Luas cannot handle current volumes from Miltown inbound at peak times; roll on Cherrywood and it will be impossible to get Luas from Dundrum at peak times.

In contrast the segregated DART system has ramped upto to ten car sets or will do when the old sets return from Prague; this is exclusively served by 2 to 7 storey developments which with the exception of Blackrock village and Dun Laoghaire serves almost exclusively 2 to 3 storey areas. Yet it is packed to the rafters at peak times.

In your analysis you completely overlook existing high density areas such as Phibsboro, Ballymun, Santry Cross and Swords Village not to mention the approximately 5 to 7million passengers that will use the airport each year.

Also before the Dublin and Kingstown railway there were a couple of villages and the Pembroke estate en route.

A. Boyle, I think that you are getting too wound up on the wrong issues here. High rise living is perfectly acceptable by and for middle income families. Look at Manhattan, where incomes – and rents – are even higher. The main reason growing families move out to the NY or CT suburbs is due to the schooling/taxation/rent mix, nothing else. Just walk in Central Park any weekend, look at the age profile of the people there – singles, young marrieds with toddlers and OAPs.

Also, it is not accurate to compare a possible development in Swords with La Defense. Firstly, La Defense was constructed primarily as an office park, not a residential zone. Secondly, the transport issues are different because in most French cities the richer people live in the city centre and the poorer population lives in the outer suburbs. That is not the case in Ireland. Thirdly, the French legal framework supports the political process, rapidly enforces compulsory purchase and drives policy in a way that is almost impossible to imagine in Ireland. Think of the farce of Tara, Carrickmines, Glen of the Downs, etc.

When I worked in La Defense I initially lived in the city centre and it was a 30 minute or so metro-ride. Never waited more than 3 minutes for a metro. Later, living to the west of Paris I could take the RER to La Def. (every 15 mins) journey time also 30 mins. If I wanted to drive to work there were zillions of underground car spaces to use. If I wanted to go anywhere there was a bus, or a train, RER or Metro emanating from underground linked termini below the Grande Arche. Back then the La Defense transport system handled about 400,000 journeys every day and it worked (well, when they were not on strike!) Everyone used the RATP or RER and a figure I remember was almost 90% of our employees (services co.) used public transport to come to work. We had a transport company representative come to our building once a month and set up shop in an office where you could buy your “carte orange” or seasonal pass, at a discount that would make Bus Eireann/Luas/Dart wince! Many Dart stations do not even allow turnstiles, where they have one they are located in front of the ticket office, not where they should be. Could we build something comparable to la Defense in Ireland? I very much doubt it, every gobshite would have a petition started, every shoneen would be in on the act to buy a bit of land to make a killing, every politico would be driven to bertiespeak bumbling to placate the electorate and hold on to office and every union official would be throwing shapes to get more money for the dossers.
Those are the lessons we need to learn from, not Ballymun or Tallaght.
KB2

AHhh The slow and suspenseful dropping of the Penny…..
The single most important item missing from the Irish Political stage is the ability to take a decision.
The present Taoiseach is probably the World Champion at “Consensus” politics.
Concensus being a relatively new term for “Failure to make a Decision”.
The RATP “Carte Orange” setup you mention is testimony to the role which the RATP plays in PROVIDING Public Transport in Metropolitan Paris.

It`s not seen in France as anything peculiar for the agency to get it`s hands dirty selling it`s ticketing options.
Here in Baile Atha Cliath our Bus Services CASH fares remain within the jealously guarded gift of the Dept of Transport whilst the Off Bus Ticket Sales are NON-Controlled.

Over the years this form of “Gaelic” price fixing has eroded the universal benefit of OFF Bus Prepaid ticketing,namely DISCOUNT,since the cash strapped operator has over the years attempted to rack up income in the only manner it could by INCREASING Off Bus Ticket prices or by eliminating the discounts which once applied. to Pre-Paid tickets.

It`s not all bad news though,as the CIE company`s have put quite a bit of welly into the Taxsaver Ticket range which DOES provide a very flexible AND integrated range of tickets benefiting from a Revenue Taxback feature.

However the present Smartcard fiasco continues to wobble along with €16 Million already spent and NOTHING to show for it which surely proves the lack of a decision maker anywhere in the Capitals infrastructure !!

you are absolutely right about the ratp. but you did forget to mention ,that they go on strike . You when it’s little isabelle communion. or they had a late night . Or they just neeeeeeeeeed a break.

competing agencies ought to be a really good thing, if their was a transport minister who could take decisions. And there is the nub , all the transport decisions affect bertie’s constituency directly or indirectly.

So while brennan seemed to be competent ( he reorganised the road contracts so that the price thats named is the final price) his hands were tied behind is back . no interconnector / because that means no metro for the next 7 years. Do NOTHING with aer lingus and of course do NOTHING with aer rianta (it still exists! ).

Then he was switched for actually thinking he could decide what happened to aer lingus , and was replaced with cartoon character of a minister.

You have definitely hit the nail on the head. I would hope the next administration would bring in a toiseach not dependant on that constituency.

@KerryBog2 wrote:

………. the La Defense transport system handled about 400,000 journeys every day and it worked (well, when they were not on strike!)

A Boyle,
I did remember to say it, anyone who has worked in France could not forget les greves!
😉
KB2

It amazes me that whenever high rise (anything over 4 storeys) is mentioned it’s always the same old Ballymun rubbish is trotted out. No-one mentions Ardoyne House in Donnybrook (11 storeys I think and the only social problem seems to be running low on tonic for G&Ts) or the Millenium Tower at the Grand Canal Harbour where people seem to be able to live perfectly fine as well.

The example of Sandyford is given as to “Oh my God It’s 23 stories tall” – it’s hardly a ghetto at Beacon South Quarter, people want to live there because it’s in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area and has the Luas link to the city centre. Is’nt it better that this area is developed for accomodation and consign the offices elsewhere/further out rather than people having to car commute. A similar thing can happen in Swords with the metro once the planning is clearly thought out.

I’d sooner live in Swords in a good family sized apartment and get the metro than have to commute in from somewhere like Kells, and no I wouldn’t do it on a bus – the traffic is just too bad out there.

As a northern line commuter the spur to the airport off the Dart line is a non runner – the line is at capacity already at peak time and this would only make things worse (particularly when the interconnector is finished). The only way that a decent link to the airport is created (a la Heathrow) is to build the metro – don’t forget it is possible to run express metros to the airport as well.

Express isn’t required the ‘all stops’ journey time is quoted at 22 minutes

@Rory W wrote:

…
The example of Sandyford is given as to “Oh my God It’s 23 stories tall” – it’s hardly a ghetto at Beacon South Quarter, people want to live there because it’s in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area and has the Luas link to the city centre. …

As a northern line commuter the spur to the airport off the Dart line is a non runner – the line is at capacity already at peak time and this would only make things worse (particularly when the interconnector is finished). The only way that a decent link to the airport is created (a la Heathrow) is to build the metro – don’t forget it is possible to run express metros to the airport as well.

Firstly the reason i object to the sandyford towers is because 2000 appartments have been granted, (roughly 1500 more were sought), and only 200 hundred of these are appropriate for one child families. Lots of shops are being built. But no school and no park . No tennis court , No running track. Only a PRIVATE gym. This is not building a community.

If a substantial park was built and 10 million invested into expanding the three primary/secondary schools , i would welcome a hundred storey tower or four, with space for a few thousand single people and a few thousand families. This location would be ideal.

Regards the northern line. This factually incorrect. The interconnector adds 75 million extra spaces to the network. The northern line is held back by congestion which the docklands station halves, and the interconnector removes completely. If these were built in tandem with an airport spur, there would be space to add the same capacity to the airport as the underground tram (25 million) AND add 50 million to the rest of the network. And while the tram will not be able to be further updgraded, the rail network will still have the potential to double capacity again in 5 decades. This means an eight carriage dart for 2500 people every 2 minutes against two trams stuck together for 600 every 2 minutes.

Thomond the airport to busaras time on the bus will be 14 minutes. This was ignored by the consultants who examined the case for the underground tram.

We need the real metro (interconnector) which allows for high frequency on all four routes into the city (instead of metro north one route). We need this because each service on the interconnector can allow for 2500 people instead of 600. We need the interconnector because from the start it allows for four minutes frequencies, and can be double again in fifty years. We need a network of 6/7 tram lines connecting to this very high capacity backbone network. We need 2 tram lines running north south from swords to tallagh(via terenure) and bray (via dundrum). We need an orbital tram outside the m50. and we need two east west trams, one on the north side one on the south side.

The interconnector is so much better by leaps and bounds (ie four routes to the city centre with four minutes frequency services and 2500 people a go) backed up by a network of trams at five minute frequencies and 300-600 people a go. and in turn backed up by buses at variable frequency at 50 -100 people a go.

You see this makes sense . Building an underground tram in the least populated part of the city , where a third of the route can’t be built on , is retarded. Furthermore it’s slower than the bus (we just built a bus metro system with the port tunnel) . Furthermore the patronage expected to the airport which will form the financial bedrock for the first decade won’t materialise because people don’t like lugging their luggage around and the bus is ten minutes quicker.

QUICK QUESTION am i the only engineer ? Because if this is the case i can smugly confirm you don’t know what you are talking about. GOOD day.

Commuter safety at risk as fainting spate hits crowded, creaking trains

ON THE POINT OF COLLAPSE: Left, Leanne Kerr, who takes a fold-up chair on the northbound train to Drogheda to prevent herself from suffering another fainting episode. Right, Jessica Reilly, a passenger on the same train, finds nowhere to sit but the floor. Below, the notorious Dublin-Dundalk line is particularly vulnerable to overcrowding. Photos: Tony Gavin and Richard Stokes

LARISSA NOLAN
OVERCROWDING on commuter trains has led to a spate of passengers fainting from lack of oxygen, and a GP working near one Dublin train corridor has slammed our “creaking” train system.

Dr James Reilly says he is seeing an increasing number of patients who attend his clinic in Lusk, Co Dublin, after passing out on board packed commuter lines. Dr Reilly, the former head of the Irish Medical Organisation, said the phenomenon was a direct result of the “creaking” publictransport system, which is so inadequate that most trains are packed after just a few stops.

Dr Reilly told the Sunday Independent: “Pregnant women, elderly people and children make up the bulk of those who have fainted, but it could happen to any one of those crammed onto an overcrowded train.

“People are fainting because they can’t breathe or because of a sudden drop in blood pressure because they are standing so long.
“A number of people have attended my surgery after they lost consciousness on a packed train.”

He said many of them were on the same train – the Dublin to Dundalk line – which has become notorious amongst commuters.
Dr Reilly, the former IMO president, is standing for Fine Gael in Dublin North in the next general election.

The two most affected trains on this line are the 07.50 weekday morning service citybound from Dundalk, and the 17.50 service outbound in the evenings.

Those who take the line every day say it is constantly overcrowded, with large volumes of people pushing onto already full trains and often hurling abuse at others in their determination toget on.

Last Thursday, the peak-time evening train to Dundalk was no exception. After leaving from Pearse Station, it was full by the time it reached Connolly, when hundreds more travellers piled on.

All passengers stood shoulder to shoulder and many had problems making their way down the packed carriage to get off at their stop.
A sign warning people not to sit on the floors and not to bring their own portable seating was being widely ignored by exhausted commuters.

Leanne Kerr was one of those who had taken her own fold-up chair. Having fainted on the train herself on a previous occasion, she felt she had to do so for her own safety.

Leanne, from Laytown, Co Meath, said: “It was a winter’s night, so I got on the train with my coat on. With so many people on board it was really hot, but I didn’t have space to remove my coat.

“I started to feel faint and I passed out and smacked my head off a metal bar. Then I came to and passed out again. It was very frightening and it would not have happened if there had not been such a high volume of people on the train.”

The 26-year-old credit controller takes the train every day and says she finds the journey unbearable. “I try to find some place to stand inthe corridor, where it isless crowded, but that can be difficult.”

Jessica Reilly also depends on the service to get to and from work and says she can never get a seat.

“Everyone is pushing and shoving to get on and shouting at people to move up the train. You can feel other passengers’ breath on your face. It’s disgusting, and I can see how a person could faint in such conditions.”

Fine Gael Transport spokesperson Olivia Mitchell said she too had heard cases of passengers fainting on trains.
“I believe that this particular train is especially unbearable, you can’t move on it,” she said.

“The fact that fainting onboard has become a medical phenomenon just goes to show how critical the issue of overcrowding is.”
A comprehensive, high-capacity train system for the city is the only solution to the transport problem, according to Deputy Mitchell.

“Dublin is far behind when it comes to a decent public transport system. It is time for an underground system like the New York subway or the Paris metro.

“With such a hugely growing commuter population, demand outstrips supply year on year. A fully linked-up rail service is the only way to solve the problem.”

Iarnrod Eireann spokesperson Cliodhna Ni Fhatharta said overcrowding is an unfortunate reality of peak-time rail travel.
“Passengers have to stand on crowded trains all over the world and that is because trains are a safe, fast and reliable way to travel.

“We have lengthened train carriages, extended platforms and put on more trains, but it is still not enough.”
Ms Ni Fhatharta claimed there was no danger involved in travelling while standing on a packed train.
“There is no evidence to prove that you are more at risk from injury when standing than when seated,” she said.

Iarnrod Eireann hopes their new Interconnector service will go some way to easing the congestion.
The Interconnector is an 5.2km underground Dart line which will go from the Docklands to Heuston Station.
Two other Dart lines have been proposed for Balbriggan to Hazelhatch and Maynooth to Bray

@Thomond Park wrote:

Luas is sufficient? The above relates to 9 coach trains and your answer is 30m trams

No my answer was build the interconnector and the tram (7 ) which you would have noticed if you stopped focussing on trying to be clever.

The northern line currently can’t take any more train because of congestion .As allready posted the docklands station or broadstone can divert all sligo line trains away from connoly freeing up time for more northern darts The interconnector frees up more space by allowing dart to pass straight through the city and so get out of the way of intercity . routes .

What is so good about the interconnector is that initially it will cope with 16 trains an hour thats 2500 * 16 = 40 thousand people per direction per hour. when this number is reached it can be increased again in decades to come. The construction of a grade seperated slipway from the interconnector to the northern line will allow frequencies of up to 90 seconds. thats 60/1.5*2.5= 100 thousand per hour per direction. So it will be able to cope today and for the next 100 years. That is called good planning.

but i am sure that a 90 metre tram is more important than 300 metre train .yes well done.

this is the way forward. there is no better networks that balances cost with capacity. none

@a boyle wrote:

No my answer was build the interconnector and the tram (7 ) which you would have noticed if you stopped focussing on trying to be clever.

As both Luas lines display neither has sufficient capacity and the interconnector will represent as a parralell version of the metro whilst serious congestion can be expected on the Sandyford line.

@a boyle wrote:

The northern line currently can’t take any more train because of congestion .As allready posted the docklands station or broadstone

I don’t think that existing users of the Maynooth commuter service would accept this as most of them continue their journey beyond Connolly and this would make DART connection impossible in a single change.

@a boyle wrote:

The construction of a grade seperated slipway from the interconnector to the northern line will allow frequencies of up to 90 seconds. thats 60/1.5*2.5= 100 thousand per hour per direction. So it will be able to cope today and for the next 100 years. That is called good planning. .

This exists already what do you think Spencer Dock was prior to development?

@a boyle wrote:

but i am sure that a 90 metre tram is more important than 300 metre train .yes well done.

Where are the 90m trams? If 90m island platforms were introduced entire alignments would have to be taken out of service and reinstatement would result in long closure periods as statutory safety periods were observed; this is unfortunately a non-runner on safety grounds

@Thomond Park wrote:

As both Luas lines display neither has sufficient capacity and the interconnector will represent as a parralell version of the metro whilst serious congestion can be expected on the Sandyford line.

the current luas lines can have it’s capacity doubled if city centres car restrictions are put in place that will be enough@Thomond Park wrote:

I don’t think that existing users of the Maynooth commuter service would accept this as most of them continue their journey beyond Connolly and this would make DART connection impossible in a single change.

Because forcing a single change for the commuters from maynooth allow the current capacity to quadruple (in conjunction with the interconnector) it is fair and reasonable.@Thomond Park wrote:

This exists already what do you think Spencer Dock was prior to development?

spencer dock is only half grade seperated. If it is made fully grade seperated there is potential for 100 thousand per hour per direction which is impressive compared with the underground tram that tops out at 25 thousand.

@a boyle wrote:

the current luas lines can have it’s capacity doubled if city centres car restrictions are put in place that will be enough Because forcing a single change for the commuters from maynooth allow the current capacity to quadruple (in conjunction with the interconnector) it is fair and reasonable.

It is not fair and reasonable to dump existing users to distant locations] spencer dock is only half grade seperated. If it is made fully grade seperated there is potential for 100 thousand per hour per direction which is impressive compared with the underground tram that tops out at 25 thousand. [/QUOTE]

It does not require full grade seperation because both the Midland and Drumcoundra line branch off before the Newcommen Curve to Spencer Dock from the Northern Line; a line I am beginning to wonder if you have ever been on.

What are you talking about ? the ninety metre trams is what the rpa want to build to the airport : two trams stuck back to back. A phenomenal waste of a tunnel.

Associates advise that the rolling stock will be closer to the tube than Luas which makes the Cherrywood extension all the more ludicrous as the metro rolling stock will not be compatable with the Vodafone U-bend

the grade seperation is not currently needed as you point out . the current plans allow for 16 trains per hour. However full grade seperation will allow for 40 trains per hour over the next century.

In short the interconnector allows for an increase of capacity of 75 million initially with the possiblity of increasing it passed 150 million

The under ground tram expect to carry 30 million in twenty years. You tell me which is a better idea the metro north (25) OR the interconnector + tram + bus (75 mill + 10000 per hour)

The metro north carries fewer people to fewer places more slowly for the same amount of money. Are you a painter/artist/musician because only such a person could forgiven for not understanding numbers.

The trams are may be a bit wider but there is only two of them as against 8 dart carriages. so to repeat it 600 against 2500 per service.

Despite what the inquiry says there is no need to provide improve the luas extension for the next decade. Because the current tram set can run at five minute intervals from carrickmines to the city , suplemented by other tram starting at sandyford to give a 2.5 minute frequency between sandyford and town and five minute frequency between carrickmines and town.

You have consistently ignored that having provided a network of 7 trams you can then reasonably bring their frequencies up to 1.5 /2 minutes. Thereby getting a large increase in capacity without blowing money on a white elephant ,which is what the metro north is.

I quite like when threads evolve and go off topic slightly, so don’t get me wrong in what I am about to post. I just think that this has been taken a little bit too far off topic. I know there is a relationship between the current traffic issues in Dublin City Centre and possible further pedestrianisation of College Green or other areas, but it would seem that this discussion is now probably more suited to having its own thread.

indeed but i will bring it full circle if you like. This network of trams based around the two dart lines , will enable the college green westmoreland street and o’conell street to be pedestrianised , almost completely. And i look forward to the day when a large ‘impressive’ fountain sit in fron of trinity and buses are nowhere to be seen .

You will be waiting a very long time; getting car movement eliminated from this area would be a very impressive start

Or widening the footpaths slightly at the Dame Street end of College Green would be an even better start. It is too much a bottle neck and also happens to be where the bus stops are. Of course, this should be continued along Dame Street, as in general, the footpaths there are way too narrow (apart from the area on front of the Central Bank).

Also, does anyone know if the work on the Thomas Davis statue and fountain has finished yet?

Thanks,

Phil

I quite like when threads evolve and go off topic slightly, so don’t get me wrong in what I am about to post. I just think that this has been taken a little bit too far off topic. I know there is a relationship between the current traffic issues in Dublin City Centre and possible further pedestrianisation of College Green or other areas, but it would seem that this discussion is now probably more suited to having its own thread.

Here here…. I think most people have switched off from this.. Its just too technical. Also pie in the sky as half of that T21 shit will never be built anyhow. 🙁

Besides a new look College Green is my next big thing! 🙂

To get back on topic: even if private cars were banned from Westmoreland St, the road would still be handling a huge volume of buses and would be in no sense ‘pedestrianised’. If some means were found to remove buses and taxis, the street would still be too wide for a successful pedestrian environment. Compare its 30m width to Grafton or Henry Street with 12-14m widths. Ignoring the WSC heritage, the street would work better for pedestrians with a narrow row of 4-storey buildings down the centre. Pedestrian streets work better when they have a certain cosiness about them, when the buildings on either side are not much further apart than the walls of a large room.

On-street trams might look nice and give you a feeling of living in a modern city but trains don’t mix well with pedestrians. You have the same stress of crossing at junctions and you can’t let your young children walk beside you as you can in a fully pedestrian environment like Henry street. If you have lived in Amsterdam or Zurich where trams work well from a transport point of view, you will know the downside of losing the freedom to wander without fear of being splatted by ‘light’ rail.

So full pedstrianisation is a long way off, but a possible compromise is removal of cars, widening of footpaths, a bus lane and a light rail track.

There just seems to me to be such a such waste in sending traffic through college green. There is one improvement i think we could all agree on. Close Suffulk street, make grafton street two way. You would need to move the loading bay facilities in front of spar round the corner onto suffolk street, but that is not too hard.

If the port tunnel gives the respite that is is capable of there are many things like this that could be done . Maybe stop cars driving onto college green. If you think about it anytime you use college green you could use the quays instead.

The big transport ideas are not that technical , but it takes a while to get your head around them. I would say to stephenc that some will be built. — the extension to the lulu will be built.
despite the train strike recently , all the trains tracks in country have been renewed in recent years. And an entire new set of trains for all the different services are either on order or have arrived. Thats a big job!

There is one improvement i think we could all agree on. Close Suffulk street, make grafton street two way. You would need to move the loading bay facilities in front of spar round the corner onto suffolk street, but that is not too hard.

Would this solve anything. It would be great to have a traffic free Suffolk St (and this would conform with Frank’s ideas about successful predestrian spaces – which I would agree with) however most people use the crossing to Grafton Street because it is the natural north7south desire line for pedestrains. Reducing space for predestrains further in Grafton Street and sending them roundabouts to St Andrew’s/Suffolk St would not solve the problem. It would however open some samshing possibilities for the area around St Andrew’s Church.

The elephant in the room here is Dublin Bus. The whole development of traffic patterns in the city centre is governed by the fact that Dublin Bus have to use this north/south route. The WSC just weren’t wide enough…. Removing car traffic and slowing buses while creating a semi-pedestrian enviroment might be the best solution. It works in many places on the continent, although the buses are smaller and less threatening.

@StephenC wrote:

It would be great to have a traffic free Suffolk St (and this would con…..Reducing space for predestrains further in Grafton Street and sending them roundabouts to St Andrew’s/Suffolk St would not solve the problem. ….

Well the reason i thought it was a no brainer is that grafton street is two lane south bound at the minute . One of these lanes disapears of course at the turn on to nassau street . You would need to move that one bus stop in front of the provost house.

Come to think of it allowing the buses to use grafton street in both directions ought to mean that the foot path could be widened, because the loading bays and bicycle racks would move to suffolk street.

You need to make sure that grafton street had no bus stop at all.

What do you think ?

just in case any body is unsure i am only talking about the section of grafton street that is not currently pedesrianised.

Yes the bus stops here are definately badly placed as anyone trying to get by the queues on this narrow stretch of pavement would be aware.

It might work, its true that there are two lanes here. It would mean Molly has to move…and the man with the little leprauchans that dance to diddly eye music. 😀

However I dont see how it would improve the situation on College Green…or are you advocating closing off the right turn down Dame Street at Trinity? Even then what about eastbound traffic? Still left with a traffic island.

@StephenC wrote:

Yes the bus stops here are definately badly placed as anyone trying to get by the queues on this narrow stretch of pavement would be aware.

It might work, its true that there are two lanes here. It would mean Molly has to move…and the man with the little leprauchans that dance to diddly eye music. 😀

However I dont see how it would improve the situation on College Green…or are you advocating closing off the right turn down Dame Street at Trinity? Even then what about eastbound traffic? Still left with a traffic island.

No this was not trying to improve traffic. The traffic situation would be exactly the same but suffolk street is freed up for pedestrians , and the roads space is used more efficiently- — > one road doing the same as two roads did before.

Were i proposing to improve traffic: i would seriously consider banning all traffic save buses from college green. I have noticed my self where ever you are going , you don’t need to use college green, if you change your route when you are in the vicinity of the canals.

That would be a pretty ballsy thing for the council to do. But what interesting is that in the next ten years it is the buses and only the buses that will be able to improve traffic in the city , nothwithstanding my perpetually row with thomond over rail infrastructure. Freeing up college green would wipe precious minutes of all the bus route in the city.

Yes I fully agree with you here- bus as the primary measure for getting people around the city is the way forward.

Good point about more efficient use of road space. You have me sold on Suffolk Street. Incidentially (as I mentioned already somewhere) the Traffic Dept of DCC had plans for a revamp of the street earlier this year although I never got to see them. You had to actually go up to the Traffic Dept offices and ask for them…. they were not on display in the Atrium nor were they on the website. A real waste of a good resource.

well maybe there are people from the civic offices on the website and they will see this. I would simply never have the time to go to the offices to look up things.

Hello once again,

Now, the pedestrian access from Grafton street up to Henry street badly needs vast improvement, I think we all agree. How about completely pedestrianising the northern section of Grafton street. For the buses, this would effectivly turn Trinity into one big roundabout, forcing them to travel in one direction around Suffolk street, Dame street, Pearse street, Westland Row, and Nassau street. Certainly some contra-flow bus lanes would be required. In turn then, College Green could be partially pedestrianised, as could the western parts of Westmoreland street and O’Connell bridge, leading nicely into the O’Connell street imporvements. This would create a nice series of public spaces from the green all the way up through O’Connell street. While two road crossings would still be required, there would be a comfortable levels of space for movement between the two areas.

While the Luas makes things even trickier, routing buses around Trinity in one direction could assist the Luas alignment also.

rag.

“That would be a pretty ballsy thing for the council to do. But what interesting is that in the next ten years it is the buses and only the buses that will be able to improve traffic in the city , nothwithstanding my perpetually row with thomond over rail infrastructure. Freeing up college green would wipe precious minutes of all the bus route in the city.[/QUOTE]”

A very good and fundementally sensible set of proposals from a boyle.
If these were to be coupled with the introduction of a TOTALLY transaction free boarding regeime and ENFORCED bus access arrangements then I reckon you have a winner.

However those Civic Office lurkers really have to come off the fence on this one and begin by removing virtually ALL of the on street Pay and Display parking in the Dawson/Nassau/Sth Frederick st area.
With sufficent PAVEMENT space thus released it would be possible to install some “Island” stops which would address the self defeating and dangerous practice of Buses having to load/unload from mid traffic lane due to Bus Congestion.

This congestion is particularly visible along TCD wall from College Green to Kildare St and is TOTALLY avoidable given some committment from and cooperation between Dublin Bus and the Council.

IMO the first step has to come from Dublin Bus as it should have the confidence to forcibly state it`s case and if necessary make the running on it`s own improvements.

There are however other non Dublin Bus issues such as the Dualway City Tour operation and the insane allocation of stops to Aircoach and assorted Private COACH operators along by the Provost`s House.

This situation has its origins in a very simple yet fundamental inability to distinguish between a long-dwell COACH service such as AirCOACH or certain other Private COACH operators and (What should be) a short-dwell city BUS service.

There can be NO acceptance of a situation whereby a Coach Driver is required to leave the Cab in order to assist with Luggage removal/porterage whilst the vehicle remains parked at a drunken angle to the kerb.
Similarly the current accepted logic of Open Top tour buses having carte blanche to adopt the same position whilst bartering with Australian Visitors re a seniors/student discount is contributing to a daily thrombosis of the entire south central area traffic flow (Believe me I know my onions,cos I WAS that soldier….!!)

The sheer simplicity and good sense of the Boyle Plan is commendable to all (Except perhaps a large rump of DCC “Professional” planners) and really deserves to be put on the Joe Duffy/Marian Finucane stage in order to rattle a few bars in the Civic Office Zoo.

By far the biggest aid to success would be the reduction of Bus Dwell Time per stop and Dublin Bus HAS to recognize this before any progress is possible….

“Build it and they will come…….Poke them with a pointy stick and they will Go ” 😮

@a boyle wrote:

There is one improvement i think we could all agree on. Close Suffolk street, make grafton street two way.

You have me sold on it anyway. Remove the outgoing bus stop outside the Provosts House and replace the taxi/loading rank with inbound stops – these would make up for the loss of stops on Suffolk St.

Next off – remove at least one traffic lane on both Westmoreland and D’Olier Sts, and put in place purpose built bus bays. Imo the bus areas should be on the left side of each of the streets, with a median seperating them from the rest of the traffic; what say?

That would impinge on the grand avenue-style streetscape that could be created here – though yes, they do have to be accommodated somehow…
Stupid buses – always have to spoil everything!

Well as Greg F mentioned on the O’Connell Street thread, the Thomas Davis Memorial on College Green has been unveiled this week after months of blue hoarding surrounding it, and after years of the water element not working. It looks great.

Doesn’t look over-restored – just right.

Don’t think these glass screens were here before were they? They’re topped in what seems to be brushed brass.

Just like O’Connell Monument, Davis looks crisp and clean, with the bronze matt finish very striking:

Sorry I’ve no pic of the fountains – cameras don’t like getting wet.
Also the poor resolution.

Undoubtedly what has made the restoration is the installation of a fantastic LED lighting scheme. Both parts of the memorial are going to look spectacular at night:

No less than about 30 of these dinky little fittings have been installed, as well as others underneath the water.

Similarly around the base of the statue:

What’s very impressive, and I’m glad to see the CC have finally taken the concept on board, is the idea of sinking powerful lamps into the pavement underneath a sheet of glass. Just look at these fancy LED floods!

Very swanky! And yes, the question everyone’s about to say in chorus is……..why wasn’t this done on O’Connell Street?!
Larkin obviously stands out for treatment similar to the LEDs surrounding the base at the very least. Perhaps an indication then that the CC definitely intend to light the monuments from the buildings?

The removal of the hoardings was very timely for the fine weather – this being the only street water feature in all of Dublin city centre, a state of affairs that has to change. There’s nothing like sitting near water on a hot dusty day in the city – everyone’s just drawn like magnets to the fountains in the Green when really it’s on a city street that you want it: at the south end of Grafton Street, or the centre of College Green. Cleanliness shouldn’t be an issue anymore – nearly every capital in the world probably has such a feature, but Dublin has nothing.

Not that it isn’t pleasant to sit on the grass – Stephen’s Green was packed as usual today:

Lovely Continental air about the place too : )

(yawn)

Thomas Davis looks very non-descript.

Isn’t he just – never been a fan either.

As an ensemble the two parts work well, and fountain element and figures a delight – but the statue is so very clunky and lacking in stature.
And his head looks like it’s been transplanted.

There has been a lot of complaints about buses on this page – don’t forget about all the cars that they replace.

@Graham Hickey wrote:

Isn’t he just – never been a fan either.

As an ensemble the two parts work well, and fountain element and figures a delight – but the statue is so very clunky and lacking in stature.
And his head looks like it’s been transplanted.

He looks one of those diplo men, ya knows th ones, its awful? who made it

compared to this one, http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Image_Statue_of_Thomas_Davis_in_Dublin_City_Hall_by_John_Hogan
much drama

Dublin statues and their nicknames
Thomas Davis – College Green ** Frankenstein or Urination once again

I think his arms are disproprtionate. Way too long.

Im delighted to see Mr Davis back on view. 🙂 I agree its not the most attractive of statues, all its proportions are wrong and the face is odd to say the least. However its the whole ensemble I liked and I always felt so sorry for it, forgotten and forlorn on its traffic island. The floodlighting should improve its profile enormously. Incidentally, the works on this statue were completed by OPW as the statue is a national monument under their care (just like its sister monument of Wolfe Tone on the Green). I agree with your comments Graham about floodlighting the OConnell St collection….I’m amazed this wasn’t considered. Then again we have previously commented on the lack of hardwiring for tree lights around the plaza at Christmas and the inability to properly floodlight the lower sections of the GPO. Perhaps this project will open some eyes at the DCC.

I love summer in Dublin…all these lovely images of our city at its best. Dont know about that window though. I think swing-out, white PVC would have looked much better. And so much easier to maintain.:rolleyes:

I’m off to get my packet of Daz now!!!

There’s some archive footage of President de Valera unveiling the Davis statue on the RTE site (http://www.rte.ie/laweb/ll/ll_t06_schedule_g.html – third item down) The piece ends with a group of children singing “A Nation Once Again”.

In the next item, a sound recording of Dev’s speech at the unveiling, Dev says that the Davis statue should, in part, serve as a reminder to Trinity students, scions of the nobility, that they too are a part of the Irish nation.

Some news on this project:
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1771015&issue_id=15223

@Irish Indo 6 Feb wrote:

Council set to vote on city centre car ban

A RADICAL proposal to totally eliminate cars from the heart of Dublin city centre is to be shortly put before the city council.

If councillors approve the plan, College Green, Westmoreland Street and possibly O’Connell Street bridge will be closed to private motorists.

It would also mean that all vehicles except public transport would be prevented from driving down Dame Street from Christchurch to Trinity College and around the front of the college from D’Olier Street.

College Green would become a “public transport gateway” with only local access provided, and commuting motorists would be forced to use alternative routes in order to travel from one side of the city to the other.

The plan, which was drawn up by the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO) and Dublin City Council with an input from other agencies such as the Railway Procurement Agency, has already been approved by Dublin Bus.

Computer models have been used by the DTO to determine what effect the proposal would have on traffic flow in the capital.

The plan arose during talks on the future of the College Green area, which is a favoured route for the eventual link-up of the two Luas lines.

Congested

The area is already heavily congested as it is one of the main pick-up and set-down strips of Dublin Bus and transport officials believe it makes sense to remove cars from entirely.

Senior official and project manager of the Quality Bus Network, Ciaran de Burca said: “It makes sense. Measures have already been taken to reduce traffic flow in this area. This is just the next logical step.”

Treacy Hogan

@Frank Taylor wrote:

Some news on this project

Dare one believe?

PLease please God, let some vision shine upon Wood Quay that day. I think I posted elsewhere that planning in Dublin will always be regarded as a failure until the day we get College Green back for the people. This plan has been talked about for years. Hopefully action will begin to follow these words

Hard to knock it

When things fall off the agenda then you can give up

College Green would become a “public transport gateway” with only local access provided, and commuting motorists would be forced to use alternative routes in order to travel from one side of the city to the other.

I hope they go ahead with the vehicle ban ( i doubt they will just yet though ) but whats this about College Green being a major public transport gateway ?

Removing vehicles would finally allow CG to realise its potential and become the primary public / pedestrian space in this city. Dublin has nothing in this vein, even if they removed traffic from the O’Connell Street plaza its not a patch on what College Green could be. Smithfield is too far out & not worthy in any case.

In my view any IAP for College Green would be substantially undermined if it is forced to accommodate on street busses & luas. 40m trams & double deckers would not make for a relaxed, comfortable pedestrian environment. All that would be acceptable to my mind is a possible underground station.

Surely Westmoreland Street would be better suited as a ‘public transport gateway’.

I hope the CC don’t fuck up this opportunity to create a stunning space surrounded by some of the finest buildings we have.

I agree we should be getting rid of all traffic from this area … banning private motorists would be a good step forward though … this has to go ahead!

Fully agreed on all your points Peter. It’s so very easy to fall into the Public Transport = Good, Private Car = Bad mentality, especially when dealing with hugely significant, multifaceted places like College Green. In fact it doesn’t matter a damn who’s occupying what, and if anything, when it comes to assessing important central urban areas it is quite the reverse – the reality in Dublin is that buses are the real curse of the city centre, not private cars.

When viewing College Green as the pedestrianised, sensitively managed historic space that it ought to be, low lying private cars are comparitively unobtrusive relative the the ranks of buses that come frighteningly roaring around from Dame Street, sweeping the curve of the Bank of Ireland, or quickly stopping at the pedestrian crossing, creating a cliff-face inches from pedestrians who are reluctant to walk anywhere near it. Or on the other side as they sweep around from Trinity over towards Habitat, or on to Grafton Street. While we all have to put up with an element of this everywhere, the notion that the elimination of private cars in favour of more buses plus Luas through this area will somehow make it into a relaxed utopia of strolling pedestrians and reticent public transport modes silently floating through the place is simply poppycock. If this plan goes ahead, and while I welcome the elimination of as much traffic as possible in the city centre, all it will serve to do is replace low-lying cars, who’s drivers generally drive cautiously in this area, with even more roaring buses confidently driven by familar drivers.

Of course this is the real world, and in the real world the realities of routing public transport must be faced, but unquestionaly all the stops must be pulled out to ensure that College Green is pedestrianised and cleared of all forms of traffic as far as is practicable.

I wouldn’t go too mental on the LUAS and Bus situation. On main street Dun Laoghaire, we have just buses. But due to the material used and the shared space feel to the town, the buses have little impact. Granted there’s only 1 over 3 or 4 minutes at it’s busiest. So it might not be that bad. There are various ways to appropach this. It is a very large space after all. I’d give the scheme a cautious welcome for now and have a closer look as details emerge…

Today’s Irish Times says that that the plan is to continue allowing cars access to city center car parks such as Fleet Street. Also, I imagine that taxis are included in the phrase ‘public transport’. Buses are visually intrusive and noisy and dirty but they do use road space more efficiently than cars.

If you spend some time in a city with a lot of light rail, it is dangerous and frightening for pedestrians. Crossing the street in Amsterdam or Zurich, the trams are almost silent, and it’s easy for one tram to obscure another travelling the opposite direction. Trains and pedestrians (particularly kids) are hardly a happy mix.

The ideal would be to have enough elevated or underground rail lines crossing the city so that everywhere was within easy walking distance of a station. At that point, you really could ban all road transport from the city centre. We will have three such lines (2 DARTs and a metro) The red line luas could be sunk for it’s cross city portion. If we had one more that would proably be enough.

In relation to the Fleet St carpark there is no reason why access could not be provided from Prices Place (Behind Bewleys) inbound and Fleet St and the turn just before the Elephant & Castle outbound.

The critical cut off point for me is Trinity St if you cut off the flows from Trinity St into College Green in both directions the amount of traffic that would use Dame St would reduce to a very managable trickle.

In relation to three underground/elevated routes these are all planned with the existing DART line, providing a North South Route, the planned Interconnector offering an east west route and the Metro providing an additional North South Route.

Dublin is a relatively small City by International standards and I am not so sure that any further heavy rail lines in the City Centre are required.

What would be better is to simply expand the Luas network and the real crunch point is not College Green but Nassau Street, instead of linking the Luas lines in a direct route an alternative route should be found either East to the docklands from Adelaide Road or West to Christchurch or Georges St from either Harcourt St or Camden Street.

Given the slippage in delivery of the Luas link up it will only be a year or two ahead of metro if the 2012 timescale is to be believed. The next move must be for the metro delivery date to be clarified.

@rte.ie wrote:

Dublin centre roads could be closed to cars
Monday, 5 May 2008 11:43
A plan that would close off large sections of Dublin city centre to all private traffic is being considered.

Recommendations include the creation of a ‘bus gate’ area around College Green that would close off O’Connell Street, Westmoreland Street and Dame Street to all traffic except buses and taxis.

Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport Frank Fahey told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland about a confidential draft report outlining the plan.

tMr Fahey said closing city centre roads to private traffic would make way for a reliable, high-frequency bus service. He said this is the best way to ease city centre traffic congestion in the short term.

The plan envisages 350 extra buses, with services running at 10 minute intervals off-peak and three minute intervals at peak times.

The closure could be implemented in April 2009.

The proposal includes a plan for private traffic flow around the city, involving the construction of two new bridges across the Liffey.

There would be a temporary bridge at Macken Street, and another at either Hawkins Street or Marlborough Street, to keep traffic from the car-free zone.

Dublin Chamber of Commerce says it is in favour of the plan, but with the construction of Dublin’s metro imminent, planning for the construction and implemention phase will be key.

Transport Minister Noel Dempsey will get the draft report in the next ten days. After that, the Transport Committee will look at improving congenstion in Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford by making their city centres car-free.

Between the existing streets of Grafton & Henry St, shopping centres at Stephens Green, Ilac, Jervis and planned Dublin Central this could with traffic removed create one of the most user friendly retail districts anywhere in Europe as modern malls fuse with indigenous bespoke cafes such as Keoghs and the legendary Guinness trail bars and modern additions such as Market Bar etc.

I am delighted to see the Chamber of Commefce back this as it represents a most welcome sea change to see the premier commercial body in the state agree with what the Dublin City Centre Business Association has been saying for many years!

More hotels required if this all comes to fruition

All sounds good PVC but I believe it`s success hinges upon the closure and conversion of many of the centre city Multi-Stories with perhaps incentives being offered to their owners to relocate these facilities further out as Park n Ride centres.

As long as we continue to operate the Ilac,Irish Life,Clarendon St,St Stephens Green,Temple Bar and Mansion House Car Parks then most of this notion is unworkable.

Mind you I`m all in favour of it but perhaps it`s a wee bit TOO simple for our administrators !! 😮

I’m very much a critic… and a cinic!!

Does westmoreland st need any more buses???

To have any faith in this idea we would need the following:

– a competition open to any one with 5 million euros in prizes if you when they also have to bid for the idea
– No temporary bridge for anything except people
– 3000 bicycle spaces
– 500 car spaces with no charge when capacity is below 20%
– oconnell st bridge reduced to 4 lanes in total
– no parking buses on the quays
– west more land reduced to 2/3 lanes
– college green to 2 lanes in total…

But all this means nothing unless it is intergrated with the metro design which appears to late….

should this plan be hinged on temporary bridges?

Can’t see this doing much for the public realm in college green, i’d sooner walk along side private cars than a queue of double decker busses. Anyone here kenny this morning ? he suggested that it would, in the context of this plan, now make ‘perfect sense’ to run luas straight down grafton street, the most direct route … ah yes & destroy the public realm there too, its awkward enough dodging securicor & the green machines without adding a 40m semi silent juggernaut to the list.

@Peter FitzPatrick wrote:

Can’t see this doing much for the public realm in college green, i’d sooner walk along side private cars than a queue of double decker busses. Anyone here kenny this morning ? he suggested that it would, in the context of this plan, now make ‘perfect sense’ to run luas straight down grafton street, the most direct route … ah yes & destroy the public realm there too, its awkward enough dodging securicor & the green machines without adding a 40m semi silent juggernaut to the list.

There goes Kenny trying to grab land again…

😉

😀

Ah he’s been on a tangent about Grafton Street since day one.

I find it all quite disturbing that a bunch of suburbanite TDs who come into the city for Dáil sittings and a frolic of a Sunday afternoon before Christmas who listen to the grand projets of a handful of quango invitees to their sittings, are making decisions that affect the very grain of a city of which they know absolutely nothing about. These decisions to slap a bridge here, a temporary crossing there, and a stack of extra buses pouring into the city have serious consequences both for the appearance and livability of the city core.

Given the emphasis on improvements to College Green in news reporting, what would make a world of difference in the morning if the will was there would be to pave/colour tarmac all or the majority of the roads to the centre of College Green, moving all lights back out of the central zone of current crossings, thus effectively freezing the entire central area when lights turn green for the pedestrian, instead of this ridiculous them-against-us ranking up against the numerous stopping lines. At the very least current crossings need to be made substantially more commodious.

The chaos of the current College Green is absolutely farcical – why even the most basic of measures to improve the lot of the pedestrian are not implemented here is utterly beyond me. Yet another example of waiting upon a bells and whistles scheme before anything even approaching common sense gets implemented.

And incidentally, the primary driver for short pedestrian lights sequences is not the private car in the city core – it’s increasingly the demands of buses and their timetabling. How this is set to improve with even more of them in the centre I’d like to see.

To the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge, the primary driver of red/green phasing is the SCATS system in Dublin City Council. Buses are part of it, yes, but not the sole concern, although the end result is similar, yes- the pedestrian suffers.

I can’t say I’d favour your proposal to re-surface the roads. Banning turns and through routes is the most time- and money-efficient approach, regardless of how slow it seems. But I agree in principle- as I’ve said many times before, the pedestrian should be at the very top of the food chain in the city core.

@GrahamH wrote:

I find it all quite disturbing that a bunch of suburbanite TDs who come into the city for Dáil sittings and a frolic of a Sunday afternoon before Christmas who listen to the grand projets of a handful of quango invitees to their sittings, are making decisions that affect the very grain of a city of which they know absolutely nothing about.

Depends on the quality of the advice, really.

But how else should it happen? If we were to wait for full public support I’d have long since packed my bags for fairer shores. (The only thing that gets full public support is ‘I want to drive my car where I want’ which is all well and good until we realise that they’re not talking about one car, they’re talking about one car each.) Sometimes – especially when extended periods of pain are involved – it can be convenient to play the ‘my hands are tied by the “experts”‘ card.

Also, you make it sound as if the ‘grand projets’ are discrete proposals from various bodies. Not so. There was a time when they were planned as an integrated system. Yes, the implementation is the responsibility of different bodies, but not the decision to provide them at a strategic level. And while the datails might leave a bit to be desired, the implementation should be separated from the policy when criticism is being levelled.

Agreed on the latter point – no point in indulging in hyperbole (although you’ll appreciate it being derived from frustration). My concern with this process is not so much the political desire – and driven appropriately by general public desire – to have certain transport systems implemented in the city centre, but rather with the advising bodies that one would expect by definition, most notably the RPA, Dublin Bus and to a lesser degree DCC, to have the expertise to implement these schemes in all their many facets, including consideration for the public realms and spaces through which they pass. Alas this is not the case in respect of the latter, in fact the one area that is given the very least consideration when planning these schemes – treated as an incidental to be dealt with with a couple of trees and a crate of slabs of Chinese granite. The Liffey bridges are however, unplasterable over, and will stay with us forever. Similarly the idea of more buses – and presumably therefore more stops and termini – in the city centre is equally unpalatable a notion, if at least a shorter-term issue. The Luas link if/when it comes along will scar the city centre for decades if its wiring system is implemented across the board. These are all factors which concern the implementation of these schemes – which as mentioned ought to be distinguished from broader policy objectives.

If they’re issues considered trifling relative to the transport problems of the city, insignificant in the context of growing environmental concerns regarding public transport, or lofty and ridiculously idealistic in the context of general public opinion, then I think we simply haven’t matured enough to be able to implement large-scale infrastructural projects in a considered fashion that respects existing urban grain (and indeed reinvents it such as in the case of well designed stations and stops). At times I think what we’re still doing is comparable to the boom in house construction of the past 15 years – we need units now – build now and plan later. In fact if the Loop Line Bridge hadn’t been built back in the 1890s, I’d have little doubt that we’d be proposing it today as an economical solution to our transport woes.

As for College Green, the proposal to colour the roadways wasn’t so much a tangible solution as demonstrative of freezing the central core as a pedestrian zone during the light changes. The expanse of roadway from the lights outside the BoI reaching eastwards towards Trinity is a typical example as such – roadway that is used regardless as a safe crossing point, yet by laws of discipline most people feel obliged to use the ridiculous little strip marked out near Grattan. The same to be said of the southern side, or over at the Moore island. Indeed many crossings in the city for that matter.

Thanks for the clarification. I’m broadly in agreement with what you say, and the analogy with the house-building boom is spot on, sadly. All the more depressing, in fact, when you think of just how long these projects have been proposed. Why wait until the 11th hour to get the detailing right? Baffling.

Also, I thought of you – and this thread – at lunchtime, as I walked along the full length of the solid white line that separates north- and south-bound traffic between TCD and BoI (i.e. connecting the Dame Street traffic island to the College Green one). Not for the faint-hearted!

PS If I were a betting man, my money would be on BX not happening. Sadly, I don’t think this would prevent the Hawkins bridge being built, nor would it ensure its removal after the ‘temporary’ phase that seems inevitable- doubtless, DCC will find a use for it (the memory of the forlorn poles from the Brennan-DCC spat being used [eventually!] for the ‘5-axle ban’ signs in the city centre springs readily to mind :().

I don’t know why the department of environment DCC ask these guys to organize a world wide competition…

http://www.irishlandscapeinstitute.com/

with what about 220,000 euro in prizes…

I used to cross this bridge every day and i’m in shock as to how bad the public realm is…
I have ideas but these won’t be until later!!!

On College Green, I know it’s out of the question to get rid of the Trinity railings, although the 1750s Tudor image (which I can’t now find) showing the great space cobbled from one side to the other, still appeals to me, but what is the justification for the grass? The need to have grass in the middle of every urban space is a characteristically British thing! Every major public building building in Britain is located within spitting distance of a random piece of suburban lawn, you don’t see this anywhere else.

At the very least Trinity should stick in a couple of nice, student friendly, coffee shops on the ground floor, with a couple of the window opes converted into discreet door opes, openings out onto paved terraces here and get some use (and revenue) out of these spaces, or would digging up the British grass upset north/south relations and jeopardize the peace process?

Ah, yes, but gunter’s point is the Brit obsession with mown grass (it’s because we can’t get rid of the toff cringe, don’t ye know). Mown grass and municipal planting are the sine qua non of public open space in GB.
Get rid of the grass and get in some decent paving/gravel; forget the American examples – WASPs are even more Brit than the Brits themselves. Look at the continent – gravel’s the boy.

@notjim wrote:

Ah you are trying the west-brit trick but the bit of grass, apart from setting off the grey stone, is part of the traditional look and feel of the great university we could be: some American examples

I felt sure you would take umbrage at that attack on your hallowed ground.

Do you know how careful I was not to use the term West-Brit! However, your American examples just prove my point, although I should have used the term Anglo-Saxon to cover that lot, instead of ‘British’.

I stand by my statement, no self-respecting German square would tolerate a single blade of grass! Go on find some and prove me wrong. I won’t accept any ‘Englischer Gartens’ either.

Thank you johnglas, I knew the Scot in you would recognise the truth.

@notjim wrote:

Well gosh that was easy, first German university I thought of (Göttingen) and what, oh! mown grass in front of the main university hall, with twee topiary no less.

You’re not calling that a urban Square?

Behold Gottingen Market Square: I rest my case!

Glasgow University is located in a Regency / Victorian suburb. Which is again the point I was making. I’ll stop this now. We can always revisit it on a slow day.

Yes it’s a trophy isn’t it – I couldn’t put my finger on the term. It’s a breathtaking display of decadence and ostentation consuming prime urban land at the ceremonial heart of the capital/country with a manicured lawn. Of course the ingenuity of the whole concept is that it is just that – a manicured lawn; so completely unassuming and reticent that it couldn’t possibly be working towards such nefarious or underhand ends :p
And I absolutely love it – feck off gunter with your manky students! Off to the Bashery with you.

Completely agree about the planters outside the Berkeley notjim – I like to think of them as a subtle piss-take, just to avoid the mortification that they’re actually serious.

Again, not to flog the topic to death, but GU (founded 1451) was located in the 17th, 18th and most of the 19th C in the High Street right in the heart of the old town. However, Victorian snobbery and prudery wanted to remove the students away from the vice and smells of the city and fly to a more salubrious west-end suburb (as it was then). The railway company also made them an offer they couldn’t refuse (another Victorian trait). The new site was on top of a drumlin (good Irish word), much of which was too steep to build on (even in Glasgow), hence the grassy areas; it’s also contiguous to a major public park (Kelvingrove, hence Lord Kelvin),which reinforces the green aspect.
If you really want to see how not to do a municipal square, look at George Square here; an elegant if dull late-Georgian square trashed with cheap red tarmac in the interests of commercialism.

@johnglas wrote:

If you really want to see how not to do a municipal square, look at George Square here; an elegant if dull late-Georgian square trashed with cheap red tarmac in the interests of commercialism.

That’s the one where the statues are all painted black and they wear traffic cones on their heads, or is that just after matches?

And gunter will not be ‘fecking off” thank you.

Yes gunter’s here for the long haul 😉

crit required
this is a draft and there will be errors

I’m not really widening any roads that I can think of except for the new one for custom house

I’m not demolishing any buildings except for the department of health!!! and some others on this axis

The car tunnel is just an idea I would prefer not to have it same as the car parking just to discuss

to create a visual link with custom house and the liffey assuming we pulled down the loop line.. and to provide a wide link road for a luas or bus route that would avoid lots of lights right hand turns ect
hawkins st is so narrow and I don’t want a temporary bridge and custom house has 2 good exit roads….

The main idea of this is to show what public space is being created like college green I mean can you imagine more buses noise pollution its just mad… The transport links at college green can be broken it will be a better space with no major criss crossing same for o’conell st bridge

does that make more sense???

emm…wow, I don’t know where to start.
Well I can start by asking you to please be a bit more realistic.

Metro
– Please stick with the actual T21 plan for the metro north tram with the stop under O’Conell bridge.
– Kill the other unrealistic metro lines. What is that east curve? I hope its not going near Connolly Station which is unsuitable for underground tunnelling, hence the metro north tram line not going near it.
– And what is that line going straight under TCD. Do you not remember that the metro north tram line was moved to avoid going under TCD because of architecturally sensitive buildings .

Luas
– Please separate Luas lines from Bus. Very confusing.
– You forgot the line from the Green to head up O’Connell Street in which the Lucan line WILL be joining.
– Kill the CURITIBA idea. Dublin streets are too narrow for that .

Roads
– This Road tunnel, is it suppose to go deep under the metro north tram line
– The new road through Hawkins Hse (which none of us will miss) seem to join Tara St which currently is one-way heading north. What are your plans for traffic around customs house/IFSC/Georges Quay area?

Underground Car Parks
– Considering that this area is reclaimed land with a high water table, what geological studies have you carried out.
– What are the effects of the construction of these car parks will have on architecturally sensitive buildings like TCD and the Bank of Ireland etc…
– How deep are these car parks. Will they go under both the metro north tram line and your proposed road tunnel.

:rolleyes:

@weehamster wrote:

emm…wow, I don’t know where to start.
Well I can start by asking you to please be a bit more realistic.
:rolleyes:

agreed lots of things unrealistic!!!! but its nice to get the crayons out!!!!

but we are both for knocking Hawkins house in half!!!!
and what 2000 bicycle spaces?

@GrahamH wrote:

. . the entire Westmoreland Street/D’Olier Street/College Green/Dame Street axis is continuously deteriorating; the very places that should be the beating heart of the city.

I’m inclined to believe that, in Dublin, streets have to hit rock bottom before they start to come back up. I think Parliament Street would be an example of this and arguably Parnell Street could be another example. The problem with Westmoreland Street /D’Olier Street/College Green/Dame Street is that they have been on the slide for two hundred years, so we can’t tell whether we’re three months, or eighty years, away from rock bottom.

On a slightly related topic, there’s a couple of interesting passages, as always, in the president’s column of the current (July/August) edition of the RIAI journal.

They’re hard to find because It does ramble all over the place stumbling from one name drop reference to the next, but the theme seems to be a discourse on whether we are essentially Euoropean in mind-set, or whether Ireland is a ‘state of mind between Nashville and Old Trafford’ [Tony Parsons, English critic and pundit], which, in fairness, is a great quote.

I don’t want to antagonize people, but those lawns behind the railings at the front of Trinity are a potent symbol that we’re not really ready to embrace European urbanism fully again. I say again, because we were full members of the European urban club once, but somewhere in the 18th century we lost it, we imported the anglo-saxon obsession with controlled nature.

English landscape gardening in the 18th century is rightly regarded as revolutionary, but it had a dark side. The campaign to perfect nature proved too successful to be left out in the sticks. The guys with the Palladian country houses, set in Capability Brown designed rolling estates couldn’t resist the temptation to deck out their town houses with tiny patches of controlled nature as well and so the Georgian square, as miniature country estate, was born.

This notion still pervades our thinking. It may be a stretch to say that the current state of Westmoreland Street, for example, has anything to do with the importation of the ideas behind English landscape gardening, but I think that our absorption of those ideas blunted our urban sensibilities to the extent that we don’t really notice when our urban realm has been damaged, in the same way that it would be noticed in a comparable mainland European city.

Do we really notice that there’s a grassy hill beside Christchurch Cathedral? This is at the very heart of our medieval core, between the cathedral and the first port, where the urban grain should be at it’s tightest, we have a grassy hill!

It’s bad enough that the Christchurch Place side of the cathedral was turned into a English style, lawned-up, ‘cathedral close’ in the 19th cuntury, where once there was a warren of lanes and taverns side by side with the old law courts, but to compound this by sticking in a north facing grassy hill (as the good part of the Civic Offices development) would have been laughed out of the planning office in any other (mainland) European city.

notjim will now find some obscure Romanian city with an identical feature.

BTW, the other interesting passage in the president’s column: ‘. . if . . WW2 was not the spark under the cauldron of Modernism, it was the catalyst for it’s diffusion – for good, bad and ugly’.

Assuming that he’s talking about architecture, which may be a rash assumption, it could be an interesting exercise to imagine what the course of ‘modernism’ might have been had it been allowed to develop in a even curve from WW1 to WWW without the intervention of WW2.

Would modernism have become discredited, if it hadn’t been forced into an obligation to provide quick and cheap post war housing, and had it not been pushed into an uncomfortable comparison with the urban qualities of the bombed out cities it had suddenly to replace?

We’re going to need johnglas for this one.

Missarchi gets the idea right about pedestrianisation of College Green plus car tunnel. Bus routes could be a problem. What about the archaeology? What happened the thingmote? Was this removed at the same time as the WSC changes?

In general Westmoreland Street is cheap and nasty. This is because it lies in no mans land between the north side and the south side. Frankly the city hasn’t given tripe about this area for decades. The Liffey is attended to in Docklands but generally never gets its walls washed or pointed. Why is this? For all the blankness of the Westin it is a classy hotel but faces onto sheer tat. The tat is compounded by the whole place being a filthy bus garage instead of a set down and pick up point for passengers. You wonder why it attracts Rail Station type functions? The streets all around are used for bus parking.

In my humble opinion there are a few options that should be considered. Buses should run down the quays eastward, past O’Connell Bridge towards the docks, loop over one of the new bridges and straight out of the city again. In the same vein buses should loop around D’Olier Street, into Westmorland Street and away again north out of the city. Buses along Pearse Street should also turn around and loop directly at College Green instead of standing their. Like wise what is the deal on Fleet Street, Townsend Street etc, etc? The whole area is unpleasant for people to linger in.

I remember a smart alecs comments on why the buses we had were Bombardier Buses because they were named aptly after the beetles:
Bombardier beetles store two separate chemicals (hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide). When they are threatened, the two chemicals are squirted through two tubes, where they are mixed along with small amounts of catalytic enzymes and undergo a violent exothermic chemical reaction. The boiling, foul-smelling liquid partially becomes a gas (flash evaporation) and is expelled with a loud popping sound..

In any event this area is crying out for soap and water in the first case and some coherent plan in the second case.

A final point: The best thing about Westmorland Street is Pat Ingoldsby!

@notjim wrote:

gunter . . you have, again, misunderstood my stand on the grass in front of Trinity,

my point regarding Trinity is that main university buildings almost always have grass in front of them

No notjim, I have not misunderstood your point.

You have an emotional attachment to the lawns and that’s fine, there’s no shame in that.

The urban condition can be gritty and hard and little bits of lawn are a comfort blanket 😉

The point I’m trying to illustrate is that, in urban realm terms, we’ve gone backwards. The College Green of the Joseph Tudor print and Rocque’s map (both 1750s), was clearly a more urbane space, and one more in line with comparable central urban spaces in comparable (mainland) European cities, than the College Green of today.

Rocque shows the new (not yet completed) front of Trinity with the same ring of stone obelisks linked by simple chains that Tudor depicts. While we may not be able to compare the traffic loading of a couple of sedan chairs to a constant string of double decker buses, there’s no question that College Green originally read as an civic space and now it reads as a traffic junction. The transition of the Trinity forecourt, from a being a simply demarcated arc across a single paved space, to the defensive zone with ‘Don’t walk on the grass’ lawns we have today, has played a part in this transition.

As magnificent as those Victorian railings are, and as manicured the lawns, the fact remains that these later 18th & 19th century additions negate some of the original urban qualities of the space.

How do you not see this?

On your belief that ‘main university buildings almost always have grass in front of them’, no they don’t. You’re thinking of English influenced, or the slightly out of town universities, I’m thinking of inner city, old school, universities (Edinburg, Bonn, Freiburg, Heidelburg, anything in Italy etc. etc.) and, in any case, it’s the urban space I’m talking about, whether or not there’s a college on one side.

notjim, the smiley face was intended to signal humour. You’re goin’ to make a grumpy provost.

We won’t speak of these matters again

ah sure stick the Frank McDonald LUAS down the thing and sort the whole shaggin place out once and for all. Can I suggest a crazy compromise – Remove the railings and keep the lawn? It worked at the Bank in Deansgrange which was once a popular hang out for foreign students on summer evenings (we were on Killiney beach drinkin Bulmers), now succumbed to LIDL.

Jeez does that pic down College Green/Dame St not just make you wanna build walls on all the traffic approaches and screw every vehicle out of the place. Look at it!

I was going to say that to achieve this you’d have to stop missarchi posting his/her designs full of manic desire lines in the best road-traffic engineer tradition, but (a) that would be unfair and (b) the concept of College Green as a ‘shared space’ with pedestrian priority is a sound one. What about the buses? What about them? A nice puzzle for the traffic planners: you can have them anywhere but here.
Incidentally, why does Dublin have no large paved open spaces? The same reason why Paris has wide boulevards: the citizenry is revolting and they pose a ‘security’ risk by either congregating in numbers or building barricades. No change there then.

security issues…

we could have have built in prevention measures thats kinda no fun….

wet n wild

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixsm18xxWZc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BbBuHTN7lo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agdhSFJOuIY

or flame grilled

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWVV-GDiFzY

any way if DCC are serious they would get jan gehl have a competition and bob is your uncle…
would override the traffic/security engineers in all of 2 seconds the engineers could even enter with a better idea…

lyon may be a good example… Place des Terreaux

copyright tixu oty

and more

@GP wrote:

What happened the thingmote? Was this removed at the same time as the WSC changes?

The top was lopped off like one of Gulliver’s eggs and, I believe, used to raise Nassau st above the floodplain of the Liffey. The old St Andrews and now Dublin Tourism building stands atop the hill now.

if people could gather within the grass area there’d be alot more pedestrian freeflow on the green (thus car flow)

@lostexpectation wrote:

if people could gather within the grass area there’d be alot more pedestrian freeflow on the green (thus car flow)

The cars are supposed to be gone from next April.

After that it’s just buses, bikes and taxis, and (hopefully) the luas.

Speaking of taxis, is that the College Green taxi rank (1750s style)?

notjim: Smithfield was a market space and well out of the city centre.
gunter (or should it be Sherlock?): your Holmesian capacity is boundless – of course it’s an 18th C taxi-rank.

this still a pedestrian blockage at the front of trinity

I thought it would be best to continue the College Green discussion here rather than the Westmoreland/D’Olier Street thread.

@gunter wrote:

No notjim, I have not misunderstood your point.

You have an emotional attachment to the lawns and that’s fine, there’s no shame in that.

The urban condition can be gritty and hard and little bits of lawn are a comfort blanket ; )

The point I’m trying to illustrate is that, in urban realm terms, we’ve gone backwards. The College Green of the Joseph Tudor print and Rocque’s map (both 1750s), was clearly a more urbane space, and one more in line with comparable central urban spaces in comparable (mainland) European cities, than the College Green of today.

Rocque shows the new (not yet completed) front of Trinity with the same ring of stone obelisks linked by simple chains that Tudor depicts. While we may not be able to compare the traffic loading of a couple of sedan chairs to a constant string of double decker buses, there’s no question that College Green originally read as an civic space and now it reads as a traffic junction. The transition of the Trinity forecourt, from a being a simply demarcated arc across a single paved space, to the defensive zone with ‘Don’t walk on the grass’ lawns we have today, has played a part in this transition.

As magnificent as those Victorian railings are, and as manicured the lawns, the fact remains that these later 18th & 19th century additions negate some of the original urban qualities of the space.

How do you not see this?

On your belief that ‘main university buildings almost always have grass in front of them’, no they don’t. You’re thinking of English influenced, or the slightly out of town universities, I’m thinking of inner city, old school, universities (Edinburg, Bonn, Freiburg, Heidelburg, anything in Italy etc. etc.) and, in any case, it’s the urban space I’m talking about, whether or not there’s a college on one side.

gunter, as much as I understand your reasoning regarding Trinity’s lawns, I think it is misdirected. The problem of College Green – as we have talked about for years on this site (and acknowledging it takes a while to read through 20,000+ posts) – is how this once grand civic space, as you highlight, has essentially been appropriated to vehicular traffic and effectively vanished from the popular mindset.

What is probably the grandest expression of urban space in Ireland, by virtue of the importance – past and present – of the institutions that flank it, the international quality of its architecture, its grandly-scaled spatial qualities, and the convergence of the main arteries of the city, is completely lost through:

1) The devotion of so much physical space to traffic.
2) The complete dominance of traffic in the spatial and atmospheric character of the ‘room’, to the detriment of the appreciation of all other elements.
3) The obscuring of both buildings and their interrelationships by inconsiderately planted trees and random street furniture.
4) General mindless and uncoordinated clutter, particularly abounding on the central ‘island’.
5) The fact that there even is an ‘island’ – when roadways should be islands amongst pavements.
6) A shoddy and ever-degenerating public domain.

Thus the vitriol towards Trinity’s lawns I think would be more usefully directed to the area outside its railings, rather than within. It can of course be appreciated that the West Front could introduce a new quality to College Green if it directly addressed a new plaza unhindered, but I don’t think this facade is particularly approachable in that respect. It was clearly never designed to be a civic building in the true sense of the word – rather, in the manner of a modern-day shopping centre or department store, it presents a largely blank frontage that is decorated as a token civic gesture, whilst really only aiming to do one thing – cloak a megastructure and draw the patron inside. The West Front has nothing of the arcaded or multi-entranced ground floor typical of most European plaza-licking piles – indeed even compared to its colleague across the road – similarly there is no grandiose portico or full-scale verticality which acknowledges a hypothetical flanking space. Jacobson clearly designed this facade with some form of frontal enclosure (and admittedly budget) in mind. The entire facade effectively floats above a heavy base of rustication which is pleasant when on show, but is equally dispensable behind a shroud of railings.

(Incidentally note how grubby the facade has become in 13-15 years)

Pretty much since the foundation of Trinity College the complex has been bounded to the west by some form of wall or railing – this tradition continued with the West Front, albeit broken by the obelisk episode which appears to be more influenced by the contemporaneous Gardiner’s Mall than any real consideration of the site. It’s possible they even pre-date the West Front given so many of Tudor’s prints date to the early 1750s. Certainly by 1761 the front had been railed in with full-scale Georgian railings.

So if the railings were taken away today, you’d pretty much be walking by people’s bedroom windows, or at best catch glimpses of a storeroom piled high with lavatory rolls or an administrator’s dingy office layer with suspended ceilings. As is, the decorous but spare Victorian railings do much to add dignity and graciousness to the West Front with their curved sweeps, and if ever fully exposed through the removal of clutter would actually help delineate and orientate the facade which in reality is off-centre and concealed at both ends in most views.

What could however be achieved (ever the compromiser) is the widening of the hard surfaced space within the railings which is unduly narrow and fails to acknowledge the breadth of the central breakfront of the building. Thus what is currently this:

…could be something more like this:

Also bearing in mind that it would be beautifully paved in Irish granite, detailed with Portland stone, and lined with seating and feature a distinguished lamp or two. A world away from the current dingy asphalt and poorly articulated entranceway.

However to prove I do have time for plazafying notions, I would concede that should College Green eventually be subject to a radical masterplan, and I mean an all-encompassing plan that addresses the space as an ideal world scenario, there would be some validity in the removal of the Bank of Ireland railings should the building as a result directly address a wider plaza space unhindered by traffic.

This would return the BoI complex to that originally envisaged by Pearce with a radical European colonnaded piazza opening out onto a wider civic arena. At present the columns and wider dignity of the structure are curtailed by the horizontal band of railings crossing the site, essentially concealing the weight and grandeur of the building as it hits the ground, as much as it also rises from it. The exposure of the original views of the building from Grafton Street, Dame Street and College Green itself would benefit greatly from this, but moreover the approachability and public interaction with the building – essentially becoming the essence of College Green rather than the stage set function it is currently reduced to. (Aerial pictures cannot of course explain such a concept).

What this area is also crying out for, and this was originally meant to be the point of this post, is a re-evaluation of one of the city’s signature buildings, a structure which has effectively been lost more so than the College Green fronts of Trinity and the Bank combined. It is part of the bank, yet to all other purposes it is a separate – if begrudgingly associated – building, as was its intention – the House of Lords portico.

Utterly lost in a bewildering sea of modern urban distractions, this once-dominant feature of the city can only be appreciated as a series of disparate elements: a rank of disengaged column bases you pass by at street level, a fleeting raking view you might encounter standing at the pedestrian lights opposite, the flash of a statue over the trees from the top of a double-decker. The wider appreciation of this compact Gandon building, encompassing portico, substantial projecting wings and flanking later monumental doorcase is lost in a sea of passing buses, trees, mindless clutter, more trees, and of course disused public toilets and their associated paraphernalia. It is nothing short of extraordinary how one of the landmark buildings of the city, with a once-striking vista down College Street, has all but disappeared, both from public consciousness as well as actual street view.

As part of the College Green ‘reordering’, when and if it ever gets underway, central to this ought to be nothing short of the creation of a piazza space that addresses this building. Many of the same spatial problems affect this structure as once did the GPO – primarily the harsh curtailment of its columns by the roadway immediately adjacent. Similarly views of that building were once compromised by trees, as here, while the wider space fronting it did not acknowledge the building in a manner commensurate with its status, as also at the Lords.

In any other city a project of this type would be given top priority (or moreover would never have got into this state in the first place), yet what do we do here? – only commission a set of all-singing public toilets with entrance pavilions to be plonked above ground right on an island in the midst of a sea of traffic right in front of one of the major classical buildings in the city. It simply beggars belief. As things stand, if things were done properly here, there would very simply, be nothing left standing except Moore on his pedestal and a properly landscaped civic space covering the majority of this important triangle.

I won’t even attempt to suggest traffic plans for this area, but as far as I’m concerned, traffic, including the majority of buses, need to get out out out of the College Green-College Street zone, and both transformed into attractive civic spaces as well as suitable launch pads for their attendant major streets. The College Street area in particular has been unresolved for the past 200 years and someone really needs to take the bull by the horns here and make some decision about what really matters in this city – traffic islands and public conveniences or a stately sense of presence, civic pride, and urban design status befitting of a capital city. The ceremonial heart of urban centres may very well be token public relations gestures, but they more than anything represent the standards and ethos of a city in its entirety, as well as shape the lingering impression of a city in the mind of the visitor. If we can get these spaces right – properly and ambitiously – we could make major headway in the transformation of the image of Dublin from a provincial city to that of European capital.

the railings around the old underground toilet at that junction are really lovely. I think that’d be a wonderful location for an enterence to the O’Connell Bridge metro station. It reminds me of the Parisian metro stations. I’m all for pedestrianisation but I still think there should be a bus lane or two and a reserved space for the luas

GrahamH: magisterial post brought down to earth by cqcsb’s bus lanes and toilet railings. O tempora, O mores!

Fair comment; I’m not saying there aren’t any, but it is striking how there is no one civic space that could be called the ‘centre’ of Dublin. If you want a big political demonstration, where would you go?

I didn’t mean any offence, I just ment to express my opinion that public transport is important to the area and it sould be maintained and it would incentivise people to use public transport if it could go to places that the private car can’t

@cgcsb wrote:

the railings around the old underground toilet at that junction are really lovely. I think that’d be a wonderful location for an enterence to the O’Connell Bridge metro station. It reminds me of the Parisian metro stations. I’m all for pedestrianisation but I still think there should be a bus lane or two and a reserved space for the luas

graham thanks for that barrage now can you just put it on the city architects to do list… and Mozart will be happy to sleep at night

we can have space for luas / road space but it would be highly controlled to put it lightly… bollards flexible nice and easy 123…

we just need the right brief now… as for those toliets down with them in the station with those blue lights so people cannot see their veins…

and dublins newest modified light railing… for the entrance…

your question about views into peoples offices may be able to be fixed with a reflection pond or a moat if trinity have security issues could also have a thin strip of grass but the railings should come down I would think…

gotta picture of the place but no time…

Graham: I’ll try and come back to this in more datail later, but I just want to clarify the point that I’ve been trying to make about the Trinity railings and front lawns.

The current railings are magnificent, there’s no question about that and together with the lawns they create an oasis of calm which is much loved my lots of people, including legions of Dubliners who’ve waited here to meet their dates, in the era before mobile phones. Although, why we can’t just have our transition to an oasis of calm, 10m further on, when we go through the archway is beyond me.

If you say that the previous railings (the ones we see in the Malton print) were erected by 1761, I’ll accept that too.

I also accept that the an enclosure at the front of Trinity existed before then. The half hexagonal enclosure we see on Brooking’s map of 1728 proves that the old front of Trinity was also, for a time, protected from the rough and tumble of the city by a railing enclosure. Brooking’s accompanying print shows this half wall / half railings in all it’s artless horrow.

Sorry for the image quality, my copy of Brooking’s map is tiny. The copy that used to hang on the half landing in the Civic Museum in South William Street, has obviously gone into storage somewhere.

Sorry, another bad quality image of the old front of Trinity, shown here above an elevation of the Library, again from Brooking’s map of 1728.

My point is that at some point between 1728 and 1756, an extraordinary thing happened, something which would never happen today. The college authorities, possibly in tandem with city officials, threw down their defensive railings and briefly embraced the notion that Trinity constituted one edge of an emerging urban space, and one of some magnificence. My guess is that this happened about 1735 or so, when the new parliament house had been completed and College Green had assumed the role of the central civic space of the expanding city and, arguably, the nation (in whatever form that was perceived to be).

Whether, and for how long, the ground floor windows of the new west front were exposed to the grand civic space of College Green (as depicted on Rocque’s map) without the protection of a forward railing enclosure is a matter for speculation. I would point out, at this juncture, that the standard (Europe wide) solution to exposed ground floor windows, since Renaissance times if not earlier, has been simply to design in hefty iron grills.

An example from Rome, can’t remember which palazzo.

I fully accept that there are plenty of other things wrong with College Green, as you have clearly identified, but I don’t think that it would do us any harm to include an appraisal of the existing railings and lawns in any future urban review of College Green, (not that there’s ever likeky to be an urban review of College Green, or anywhere else in Dublin).

Btw and at the risk of stirring the hornet’s nest again, your triangular urban space / traffic island opposite the Lord’s portico, would make a great square urban space, if we just got rid of the . . . .

cqcsb:absolutely no offence taken; sometimes the big idea just needs to swamp the practicalities!

🙂

Well first I agree, cgcsb, that the toilet railings are attractive, and could do with some pragmatic recycling elsewhere. Also to clarify about the toilets I mentioned earlier with their pavilions and whatnot, this referred to new toilets that are proposed for this site above ground level. Whether they’re part of the JCDecaux deal I’m not sure, and by all accounts they form a welcome and well-designed and engineered redevelopment, but in entirely in the wrong location. It’s like saying back in the 1950s that there has been a car park on O’Connell Bridge for the past 20 years, so let’s keep it that way, but tart it up with architect-designed distractions and futuristic pay and display machines. Such a short-sighted decision, let’s hope it doesn’t go ahead. Also please missarchi say those railings made up of lamp heads didn’t/don’t actually exist…

gunter, yes okay there has to be some acceptance that removing Trinity’s railings might actually ‘work’. More than any other classical in Dublin, the West Front has a certain St. Petersburgian quality to it – grand, expansive, showy, egalitarian and welcoming with its comforting arms and pavilions, as well as exhibiting a two-dimensional theatre set quality that shouts “I’m forming a set-piece here – give me something to work with”. But the fact that the complex is orientated so awkwardly relative to surrounding streets and buildings, and the fact that there is no ‘official’ view of the building – largely because one was never designated on the basis that one could not be achieved from Dame Street – means that a European piazza, certainly along the typical militaristic model, is not attainable here.

Hence the reluctance to remove the railings on my part. But most of this is arbitrary without hard visual references, and as such photomontages and mock-ups down on the ground could yet influence matters dramatically.

And yep I accept there was a brief spell of enlightenment or call it what you will in the second quarter of the 18th century – one that was quickly quashed not only at Trinity but also at the Parliament House, where full-scale railings are also evident by the 1750s.

Not only is a civic space required in front of the Lords, but College Street in its entirely needs attention. It has a D’Olier Street quality – featuring a ridiculously expansive roadway, plays host to surely some of the most hostile traffic in the entire city (clearly the nerve ends are exposed and blowing in the wind by the time motorists have experienced the joys of the bridge and quays), and fundamentally and quite remarkably just serves no purpose whatsoever. It leads nowhere, has nothing on it, and links one traffic island to another. And yet it is located in one of the most enviable and central parts of the capital with some of its best buildings. Such a wasting asset.

Also it could not be any more hostile to the pedestrian if it tried, as anyone who has had the joy of trying to cross the road at its middle or the Pearse Street end will tell you. You have to go right down and around the corner onto D’Olier Street, wait at the pedestrian lights at Fleet Street, then wait at the pedestrian lights on D’Olier Street, then cross over and wait at the lights at Townsend Street, and the cross the island and wait at the lights at Pearse Street! Trying to jump the racing blind traffic here at any point is taking your life in your hands.

Hence the entire street needs to be addressed, given some purpose and dignity (and its concrete lampposts restored ).

Opening up the grounds of the Chief Steward’s house is an interesting concept notjim, though I don’t think I’d go as far as incorporating its space into a public square, not least as the elevation of the Trinity accommodation block is unresolved and faced in rubble stone (ironically its lesser colleague on the Provost’s House side is faced in ashlar, in deference to the Provost’s delicate sensibilities looking out the bedroom window first thing in the morning). It was mentioned before on the Westmoreland thread what a shame it is this College Street elevation was never given proper treatment to complement the Lords – if ever there was a monument to the Act of Union, this is one of them. Surely this would have been properly resolved if the WSC and Parliament combined has desired it on foot of the neighbouring street improvement schemes.

A low-walled or railed (;)) public park flanking the square would be more desirable I think. Agreed about the delightful mystery factor nonetheless.

@johnglas wrote:

I’m not saying there aren’t any, but it is striking how there is no one civic space that could be called the ‘centre’ of Dublin. If you want a big political demonstration, where would you go?

The fact that College Green is the only space in this city that can adequately fill that role, makes its current state all the more depressing. This confluence of streets is the obvious heart of Dublin.

Given its relatively tight proportions compared to a typical european piazza, I absolutely disagree with the notion that any future piazza style space could be successfully coupled with some sort of public transport hub, with two luas lines & a fleet of buses hurtling through. It does however seem like an obvious location for a metro station.

Luas, great and all as it is, can impact negatively on our finer civic spaces, becoming the focus of a street, while obviously having potential to greatly enhance a substandard urban environment & kick start regeneration.

If ever CG is to be adequately transformed, full pedestrianisation is essential. In the context of the overall space available, the impact of removing the trinity railings would be relativey minor set against the positive impact removal of the boi railings would afford the green. For what its worth, I wouldn’t be too precious about the railings, as fine as they are, & would consider removal as part of a reworking of the entire space.

It seems like the state of College Green has been an active topic on archiseek since its inception, what a shame that a landscape masterplan doesn’t even seem to be on the distant horizon.

@Peter Fitz wrote:

I absolutely disagree with the notion that any future piazza style space could be successfully coupled with some sort of public transport hub,

Luas, great and all as it is, can impact negatively on our finer civic spaces, becoming the focus of a street,

If ever CG is to be adequately transformed, full pedestrianisation is essential.

what a shame that a landscape masterplan doesn’t even seem to be on the distant horizon.

Sorry for butchering your post, but I think these quotes could stand alone.

In a simplistic way, I had always thought of Luas as a force for good, but you’re right, if you take it to the next level, having silent trams whizzing through the space make it effectively unusable as a pedestrian piazza, althogh it would still improve it as a civic space.

Even back in the days of it’s cobblestoned splendour, College Green was still more transportation hub, than pedestrian piazza.

All the more reason perhaps to explore the Lord’s portico end of College Street as a civic square with greater pedestrian floor area, as a complementary space to the main civic space at College Green. A series of inter-linked squares is quite a common civic pattern at the core of other European cities (Bremen comes to mind) and can be more engaging that just the great militaristic central square, to use Graham’s illuminating imagery.

It would be nice to believe that somebody’s working on this, that there’s a little team in the City Council beavering away on the various challenges, knocking the heads together on the city’s behalf, imagining the future, all of that stuff.

No!

What does the ‘Economic Development Unit’ do? surely restoring a civic centre to the city comes under the heading of ‘economic development’? Rose is always going on about how Dublin needs to ‘compete’ with other cities, needs to be creative, imaginative, open minderd, be of a positive mind-set! Why don’t they start cranking out the ideas on College Green and College Street and they could do Parnell Square and Christchurch Place while they’re at it. ( I know there’s a whole thread on Parnell Square, but it’s been dormant for a while)

@gunter wrote:

All the more reason perhaps to explore the Lord’s portico end of College Street as a civic square with greater pedestrian floor area, as a complementary space to the main civic space at College Green. A series of inter-linked squares is quite a common civic pattern at the core of other European cities (Bremen comes to mind) and can be more engaging that just the great militaristic central square, to use Graham’s illuminating imagery.

Agreed, the space in front of the east portico is quite substantial, and could make for a fine ‘waiting room’, it deserves a little more than trees & toilets :rolleyes:

@gunter wrote:

Sorry for butchering your post

not a drip of blood in sight 😀

@GrahamH wrote:

🙂
Opening up the grounds of the Chief Steward’s house is an interesting concept notjim, though I don’t think I’d go as far as incorporating its space into a public square, not least as the elevation of the Trinity accommodation block is unresolved and faced in rubble stone

Not sure I’d go along with that assessment of the stonework Graham. Agreed, it’s not the granite ashlar of the corresponding elevation facing the Provost’s side, but it’s hardly ‘random rubble’ and a little bit of TLC and lime pointing would bring it up a treat. Have you seen the way the dog rough stonework on the base of the Minot tower is coming up biblical quality once they knocked out the cement pointing.

I didn’t pick a great day to go out and photograph this.

Your Google Sky shot shows that there’s definitely the makings of a great urban square here if the Trinity triangle could be added in to the College Street traffic island triangle. There’s even a nice contemporary architectural opportunity to firm up the Dining Hall extension corner behind the chapel. The Chief Steward’s house would be a great little random object in the square, as information point/cafe etc.

Obviously stuff like this, or even the front railings, would require a big leap of faith for an old school establishment like Trinity, but there would be huge commercial possibilities too that are currently passing them by. Prime city centre revenue generating opportunities are not that easy to come by and, as much as I love the creaky floored little student shop, with new pedestrian square frontage, Trinity could be creaming it with public cafes and merchandising units, for the loss of just a few ground floor stundent rooms and offices.

@Peter Fitz wrote:

Agreed, the space in front of the east portico is quite substantial, and could make for a fine ‘waiting room’, it deserves a little more than trees & toilets.

That’s the point, we’re not talking about an alternative to restoring a sense civic grandeur to College Green, but a second contiguous space that would be complementary to it, given that College Green will necessarily be criss-crossed by Luas lines etc. that must limit it’s capacity for pedestrianisation.

OK, that’s a bit deeper than I was going.

I was absolutely not talking about ccmmercial in the sense of nailing up shop fronts, I was thinking more about a bigger version of the existing student shop, a couple of tasteful college cafes etc. but no more changes to the facade than perhaps turning a couple of window opes into door opes.

Even a bit of railing separation (normal Georgian width) would be fine.

It could be worth looking at.

@gunter wrote:

given that College Green will necessarily be criss-crossed by Luas lines etc. that must limit it’s capacity for pedestrianisation.

I’d dispute that there is any necessity to run luas lines through college green with multiple alternative routes available, but concede this is the lazy, shortsighted option we are likely to get.

Someone once said that the reason Dublin City Council don’t give Dublin Bus any more bus stop space, is that when they do, Dublin Bus park more buses in it!

The present bus network is to a large extent, the same network that was present when horse trams ran to the Pillar in the late 1800s. The trams over the years were electrified, numbered, and eventually replaced by buses. Those buses were replaced by more buses, and more over time, but the routes, while extended interminably at their outer ends, have maintained their Pillar centred network for 126 years now, since the replacement of Carlisle Bridge.

The bus network needs to change from a CITY based network, to a regional based network. With new depots like Harristown, and Grange Castle on the way, buses need to be based OUT of the city, at these new depots, and work into and out of the city, instead of out of and then back in, as is presently the case. The typical Dublin Bus driver’s roster today involves a number ‘laps’ on a route, leaving the city, coming back in, and parking up, either for a break, or for a change of crew. The city centre streets are the ‘depot’ for these breaks, with parked buses everywhere. These buses cause congestion, in no greater case than to the company’s own buses!

If those buses were based outside of the city, working rosters would start and finish at the outer ends, with buses entering the city, turning round and heading straight back out. No parking, and no city centre breaks or crew changes. This can still work with the present city depots. Routes like the busy 46A should not be operated from Donnybrook, but rather, to the depot nearest the end of the route, Phibsboro. Routes like that would terminate in and operate from the home depot, rather than the city streets. This is happening now with the Tallaght routes, which have been removed from Eden Quay, and now operate to Ringsend Garage.

The next thing is to create a ring around the city, within which cars and buses and general traffic do not encroach, except for loading purposes within strictly enforced early morning hours. I see a couple of bus ‘corridors’ away from O’Connell Street. These would include the north and south Quays, Capel Street / Jervis Street, Marlborough Street / Gardiner Street, and Seville Place to Macken Street over the proposed new bridge.

You cannot simply ‘lift’ all the buses from O’Connell Street and share them out among the other streets. It takes a huge survey to decide which routes to turn short, and which to maintain as cross city routes. One enormously important issue is the dwell time of buses at bus stops. It is unfathomable how, in this modern day and age, Dublin Bus can hold dear to antiquated fare stages and revenue collection ideas, holding buses at busy city centre bus stops for five minutes or more while the pennies are counted out. It is grotesque, unbelieveable, bizarre, unprecedented, and Dublin Bus cannot complain to anyone about congestion causing delays to buses while they persevere with this nonsense.

I would see streets such as Marlborough Street, Jervis Street, etc. as set down areas only, with specified boarding points at selected streets such as Parnell Square, St. Stephen’s Green, streets where there is space to do so safely. The thing is to have a minimum of bus stops, rather than bus stops in every street, whether there is room or not. If streets such as Parnell Square East and West were bus only, I see no reason why terminating buses would not nose to kerb, at 45 degree angles, and reverse out under the eye of a stance inspector. Bus stop capacity would be tripled or quadrupled.

I do see merit in having ONE bus route in O’Connell Street, running up and down the centre meridian, rather in the manner that the old trams did. I would see this route not as a cross city route, but as a free or sponsored service within the canals, connecting the city centre with other bus routes whose boarding points are necessarily removed from the immediate city area. I would see such a service run by electrically powered single deck buses, charged from charging points at designated waiting points along the route, perhaps limited to 30kph. The Montmartre buses in Paris are an example of this.

I think it is a pity that the LUAS is going to be shoehorned into College Green and O’Connell Street, alongside the buses and all the other traffic, as if some of the buses will somehow disappear with the arrival of the LUAS. There are hundreds of very learned posts here on the topic of creating civic minded plazas in the College Green area. The fact is, all this discourse is for nothing if the LUAS goes through as planned. I am all for digging up College Green and O’Connell Street and running a Metro below ground, but I think the LUAS is going to have too much dominance in an area where pedestrians should have priority, and the very fact of LUAS running through such a congested area, will negate any efficiencies in terms of speed and reliability that might otherwise accrue to a light rail system. The Red Line is a perfect example of this. We are pursuing a single minded path regardless of any lessons that might be learned from past mistakes.

Finally, from the Ken Finlay collection, a view of O’Connell Street in wartime Dublin, with streets deserted except for public transport. What O’Connell Street MIGHT look like, and consequently, College Green…

And all that seen from… the top of the Pillar! What a waste of space the Spire really is.

Really good post Busman. Great ideas for improving the service. Hopefully someone in Dublin Bus is watching!!

@gunter wrote:

Even back in the days of it’s cobblestoned splendour, College Green was still more transportation hub, than pedestrian piazza.

no metro then!! maybe the the RIAI would organize something…
mr president you have nothing to lose;)
we just need a serious prize pool and a nice website…
all these people are lining up to see mamma mia
I hope dublin bus get first dibs as metro drivers…

@Busman wrote:

I think it is a pity that the LUAS is going to be shoehorned into College Green and O’Connell Street, alongside the buses and all the other traffic, as if some of the buses will somehow disappear with the arrival of the LUAS.

The fact is, all this discourse is for nothing if the LUAS goes through as planned.

I am all for digging up College Green and O’Connell Street and running a Metro below ground, but I think the LUAS is going to have too much dominance in an area where pedestrians should have priority, and the very fact of LUAS running through such a congested area, will negate any efficiencies in terms of speed and reliability that might otherwise accrue to a light rail system. The Red Line is a perfect example of this. We are pursuing a single minded path regardless of any lessons that might be learned from past mistakes.

Everything you’ve said about the buses seems to be incontestable, and far more researched and rational than anything I’ve heard before on the subject. I guess your not called Busman for nothing 🙂 (second smiley face in 6 months)

On the Luas, while I accept that it compromises the level of full pedestrianisation that can be achieved on a given street or square, to begin to reject the Luas on these kinds of grounds, for not doing enough to civilize the city, is just a step too far for me.

I agree that we would add to the chaos, if we just added Luas into the mix at a place like College Green, but if there was a real dedication to getting rid of everything else, I think that could still work.

I thought that this was pretty much the vision of them in charge; trucks gone, cars banned from next spring, buses and taxis to follow ? when Luas BX and Luas F arrive, some time after we’re all dead.

@Peter Fitz wrote:

I’d dispute that there is any necessity to run luas lines through college green with multiple alternative routes available, but concede this is the lazy, shortsighted option we are likely to get.

I don’t know which routes you’re suggesting, I can’t find good alternative routes, that’s the problem. Bearing in mind that if you pick a route that has a high loading of traffic, including bus traffic, already on it, like the Quays for example, the bulk of this displaced traffic will have to be accommodated on an alternative route and one travelling in much the same direction.

I’m already not comfortable with the existing Luas trams avoiding thoroughfares in favour of going down narrow side streets like Benburb street, it just doesn’t feel right.

@gunter wrote:

On the Luas, while I accept that it compromises the level of full pedestrianisation that can be achieved on a given street or square, to begin to reject the Luas on these kinds of grounds, for not doing enough to civilize the city, is just a step too far for me.

I don’t know which routes you’re suggesting, I can’t find good alternative routes, that’s the problem. Bearing in mind that if you pick a route that has a high loading of traffic, including bus traffic, already on it, like the Quays for example, the bulk of this displaced traffic will have to be accommodated on an alternative route and one travelling in much the same direction.

how about a compromise we lay the tracks and incorporate them into the hard landscaping design but don’t use them or don’t use them on weekends???

There are loads of routes!!! it comes down on how wet you wanna get and the metro route south of the green and other future rail options…

crayon time…
cscsb can you comment on the blue line impossible?
red line would be free city circle I know some of the turns are messy mini luas/bus ;)…
It’s so easy for CIE to connect into metro north… and we can get rid of that bridge

https://archiseek.com/content/attachment.php?attachmentid=7928&stc=1&d=1218740513

@missarchi wrote:

. . it comes down on how wet you wanna get and the metro route south of the green and other future rail options…

There’s a very big troll and he lives behind a very big door and he gets very annoyed if he hears nonsense.

I just think you should know this.

@gunter wrote:

I don’t know which routes you’re suggesting, I can’t find good alternative routes, that’s the problem. Bearing in mind that if you pick a route that has a high loading of traffic, including bus traffic, already on it, like the Quays for example, the bulk of this displaced traffic will have to be accommodated on an alternative route and one travelling in much the same direction.

Perhaps ‘multiple alternatives’ was overstating it, but there are alternatives.

The nonsense that is BX should run around the back of Trinity, as discussed at length before. If DCC insist on giving us this Hawkins Street bridge within pissing distance of O’Connell bridge, at the very least it should be used to accommodate bx, which should then run up marlborough & spare OCS itself.

As for line F, I can see no logic whatsoever in running it down Dame St, once it serves Lucan Village, Liffey Valley, Ballyfermot, Inchicore & Kilmainham, surely it should utilise the red line from Heuston, providing a direct link from West Dublin to OCS, IFSC, NCC & Point.

Instead the RPA propose another batch of An Larism by terminating it at Trinity – how exactly are they proposing to facilitate a turn back ?

@gunter wrote:

I’m already not comfortable with the existing Luas trams avoiding thoroughfares in favour of going down narrow side streets like Benburb street, it just doesn’t feel right.

Thats where we differ, I feel luas should utilise side streets, for its own benefit. Luas functions much better where it is properly segregated with dediated road space, it is forced to travel at painfully slow speeds in the few instances where it has to share road space under the current set up.

Clearly the RPA are intent on making their mark on every major artery in this city, their proposed route options map for line F is hilarious.

point taken…

line F should stop before starbucks coming from the west
line BX should go round rotunda hospital back down the con
past the private response trophy bargaining board and gas do a triangle past the westin facing south & back up

well I always thought the luas should be seperated entirely from road traffic and should have right of way at road junctions. having line F terminate on Dame Street is a mistake it would be better if it continued down College street and connected with both Dart lines at Pearse and possibly continue into the south docks.
Missaarchi, what do you have against crayons?

where would you draw the line??

just one idea of many we reuse the railings but trim down the height or the trim the stone upstand…

You’ve kept the grass, but you’ve put in a moat and a drawbridge?

This is because I told you about the Troll, right?

You see, this is what is so frustrating about this city – the RPA are given free rein to carve up the city centre according to their lines on a map and notional nodal hubs and what have you, with external regard limited solely to the competing aims of Dublin Bus and other traffic. What about the requirements of the built environment and the special character of the city’s main thoroughfares? Is this not a further major element worthy of consideration? Is this not as important, if not indeed more important, as a long term and unchangeable constant, than the flexible operational needs of competing transport modes? I find a parallel with the billboards debacle – the city authorities, the guardians of the city, are willing to allow the very essence of what is recognisably Dublin, what forms the image and character of the city in the mind of its people and visitors – i.e. its main streets and spaces – to effectively be handed over to another authority with no urban design planning background, to play with at will in a manner not unlike passing them a giant box of Duplo bricks and a few base boards and telling them: “here you go, make us proud”. Only in this case the miniature town has already been built, and they’re being allowed at it with a giant bale of Chinese granite, a mountain of silver poles and 20 kilometres of suspended cabling.

This has been the nub of the issue for me from day one as regards passing Luas through College Green, Westmoreland Street, O’Connell Bridge and along O’Connell Street, and apologies for reiterating it at length, but sometimes you do wonder if you’re going ever so slightly cracked rather than the authorities being the ones beating the wrong drum – the scoffing attitude of some of the staff of the RPA towards such prissy issues as dignified public space, uninterrupted views and vistas, and coherent and sensitively designed thoroughfares merely contributing to this snowballing popular opinion that Luas = wholesome goodness. Rather than DCC leading the way on this with a set and determined vision for the historic core of the city, they’ll shortly be running around cleaning up the mess and dusting around the edges of the trail of Urbanism by Engineer the RPA has left in its wake.

Very simply, any ambitious plans for the College Green, College Street and indeed O’Connell Bridge centres will be turned to watered-down dishwater should these spaces be subject to the extent of cabling, poles, platforms and all other attendant paraphernalia that the Luas travels with. It is utterly inexcusable on College Green, offensive crossing the Liffey and O’Connell Street, and at best highly undesirable along the other major thoroughfares. One need only look at the disaster of Middle Abbey Street to observe what is in store for the coherence of Westmoreland Street. And what’s more, I suspect this entire issue will only rear its head in typical Irish planning Taraesque style, once the project has begun (if ever). Now is the time to make these critical decisions.

@gunter wrote:

You’ve kept the grass, but you’ve put in a moat and a drawbridge?

Am I the only one who can picture the Provost looking at that image and thinking to himself that they may finally have a solution to the pesky Fenian public?

what I find sicking graham is they put up 100,000 euro for a FKN bridge why can’t they put up 500,000 in prizes for college green so many competitions in Ireland are for insignificant spaces… and a million for the green its peanuts in the scheme of things that interchange is worth around .5 billion

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/first-look-at-the-model-metro-1372877.html

I had a chat with the chief architect from the RPA he seems like a nice guy but I’m guessing he has been in a pressure cooker being pulled in every which way.

And he said the 15km Al Safooh light rail system will be the first in the world to have no overhead wires. Instead a “third rail” — or power supply built into the track bed — will be used to minimise the visual effect.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/first-look-at-the-model-metro-1372877.html

I predict a riot!

@GrahamH wrote:

You see, this is what is so frustrating about this city – the RPA are given free rein to carve up the city centre according to their lines on a map and notional nodal hubs and what have you, with external regard limited solely to the competing aims of Dublin Bus and other traffic. What about the requirements of the built environment and the special character of the city’s main thoroughfares? Is this not a further major element worthy of consideration? Is this not as important,.

Irrelevant factors this is the annointed RPA zone where heritage is 1990’s fad and Dublin Bus the competition.

@GrahamH wrote:

Very simply, any ambitious plans for the College Green, College Street and indeed O’Connell Bridge centres will be turned to watered-down dishwater should these spaces be subject to the extent of cabling, poles, platforms and all other attendant paraphernalia that the Luas travels with. It is utterly inexcusable on College Green, offensive crossing the Liffey and O’Connell Street, and at best highly undesirable along the other major thoroughfares. One need only look at the disaster of Middle Abbey Street to observe what is in store for the coherence of Westmoreland Street. And what’s more, I suspect this entire issue will only rear its head in typical Irish planning Taraesque style, once the project has begun (if ever). Now is the time to make these critical decisions.

@missarchi wrote:

And he (the chief architect from the RPA) said the 15km Al Safooh light rail system will be the first in the world to have no overhead wires. Instead a “third rail” — or power supply built into the track bed — will be used to minimise the visual effect.

I got a sneak look at a document entitled ‘Draft Dublin City Council’s Submission to the RPA, on Luas Line F’ and in it, there are some grounds for hope.

Of Dame St. / College Green it says:

OK, one paragraph in a draft submission may not herald the new dawn, but the encouraging thing is that at least DCC are conscious of the ‘Civic Space’ issues and they seem to be pro-actively engaged with the RPA this time, whereas they seemed to stand aloof from the whole Luas planning thing, the last time round.

On missarchi’s point, we have been hearing about this ‘third rail’ solution for some time now and it does appear to be the answer to the over-head clutter concern.

Like cgcsb, It seems improbable to me that Line F won’t end up being extended eastward to the south docks, or Poolbeg ultimately, and it would seem insane, but hardly unprecedented, to be planning College Green as a tram cul-de-sac.

@GrahamH wrote:

You see, this is what is so frustrating about this city &#8211]

Could not agree with you more Graham.

@gunter wrote:

Like cgcsb, It seems improbable to me that Line F won’t end up being extended eastward to the south docks, or Poolbeg ultimately, and it would seem insane, but hardly unprecedented, to be planning College Green as a tram cul-de-sac.

Even contemplating a second east west alignment to the docks, less than 5 minutes walk from that currently under construction is a nonsense.

@gunter wrote:

Within Dame Street / College Green the Heritage Officer of DCC must be consulted on the status and remaking of College Green as a ‘Civic Space’ and a Civic Space Framework Plan should be prepared by the RPA in conjunction with DCC. As Trinity Street will in future be the last point of access to this area for general traffic, other than public transport, it is recommended that the last stop for Line F be located just west of the Foster Place South/Church Lane junction (with an emergency turn back point for cars). Beyond that point an engineering link only to the Luas line BX track would be feasible.’

Good to hear that they are on some level conscious of the obvious sensitivities at CG.

Missarchi did you photoshop that tricolor in there ?

It’s a start but its sad a civic framework plan would be prepared by the RPA…
It does no justice to the site st stephens green and all the other metro stations only go to prove this…
There is no detail and no passion no culture…
They have no grasp of the context however if the stop is made where suggested and does not continue it will be a very small start… I know the RPA are trying to keep things generic but with a PPP I would wonder what the results might be…

I would ask that the plans go on public display for 6 weeks by that time I will have another proposal…

the tricolor is no photoshop…

I personally don’t think there’s much of a visual clutter problem from the overhead wires, I don’t really notice them on Abbey St or Harcourt St, for example. They were in College Green before the old trams were taken out. I don’t think all the overhead wires in Vienna do much harm either.

I think Luas can be used to improve the public realm and calm streets generally, it shouldn’t go down back streets as there’s not much of a speed advantage (e.g. red line) and it then loses its civilising force and presence, on-street trams will always be slowish and that’s just a reality.

I suspect that the public realm situation for College Green is going to be addressed once cars are banned from the area although maybe the RPA will have too much of a say, we’ll see, as a start they could widen the footpaths including along lower Grafton Street.

@SunnyDub wrote:

I think Luas can be used to improve the public realm and calm streets generally, it shouldn’t go down back streets

Fully agree with that.

I imagine that full pedestrianisation of College Green is not achievable. There’s also an argument that it’s not actually desirable. It’s a fluid space, like a miniature Trafalgar Square, rather than a cosy enclosed space like Marienplatz in Munich.

If they put in Luas Line F to a cul-de-sac stop at the west end of College Green, within weeks there’ll be a clamour to ‘join it up’ with BX, or extend it to the east. Would it not be better to accept the reality of this and design in expansion from the start?

In no way should this be left to the RPA, a tram network is a civic enterprise not just a transportation system.

A future College Green that is 80% pedestrian and 20% tram line, would be a hell of an improvement on the existing status (30% pedestrian? 70% road surface?)

Interestingly Bordeaux with its third rail system offers an example not just of building a light rail system in a historic core with out the visual clutter of wires, but also of the civilising effect of trams on major civic areas. A visit to the city should be top of the list of priorities for any planners of Lines BX and F.

Isn’t Bordeaux where the RIAI annual conference is to be held this year. There should be a flood of good photographs coming back in the next month or so.

@gunter wrote:

Quote:
Originally Posted by SunnyDub

I think Luas can be used to improve the public realm and calm streets generally, it shouldn’t go down back streets

Fully agree with that.

Given that Luas can rarely cross O’Connell Street without using its siren like horn, i do not get how it can be described as a calming influence.

Pedestrian traffic through College Green is at least as substantial as the Abbey / OCS junction, if not more so.

@Peter Fitz wrote:

Given that Luas can rarely cross O’Connell Street without using its siren like horn, i do not get how it can be described as a calming influence.

Not just that, has anyone actually taken the Red Line recently? The entire city centre corridor until Heuston seems more blighted than reinvigorated.

Without an actual plan designed to capitalise on the potential opportunities brought about by the introduction of a Luas corridor to a city centre route, the latent regeneration benefits will not materialise and will accrue elsewhere. The market seems to be saying as much, at any rate. No?

@ctesiphon wrote:

The entire city centre corridor until Heuston seems more blighted than reinvigorated.

Yes surprisingly litle has happened with this stretch since the introduction of luas & not much in the pipeline either it seems.

@ctesiphon wrote:

Not just that, has anyone actually taken the Red Line recently? The entire city centre corridor until Heuston seems more blighted than reinvigorated.

Without an actual plan designed to capitalise on the potential opportunities brought about by the introduction of a Luas corridor to a city centre route, the latent regeneration benefits will not materialise and will accrue elsewhere. The market seems to be saying as much, at any rate. No?

@Peter Fitz wrote:

Yes surprisingly litle has happened with this stretch since the introduction of luas & not much in the pipeline either it seems.

I think the reason for this is that the route chozen is a series of back streets which had bugger all commercial development on them before Luas, and now, because of the narrowness of the carriageways, they have more the characteristics of a railway cutting than primary arterial public transportation corridors, or whatever the phrase is.

Every other city: The trams go down the main busy commercial arterial routes, I’m not wrong about this. Trams everywhere have horns that blast you out of it when you’re trying to get a good photograph of something else, it goes with the territory, wasn’t Gaudi killed by a tram?

@gunter wrote:

Trams everywhere have horns that blast you out of it when you’re trying to get a good photograph of something else, it goes with the territory …

Sure, i just don’t see it as a desireable component of any future public space at college green, which i would hope would be a pleasant space for pedestrians to potter around, without the likelihood of being clocked by a tram or being blasted out of it.

(I take it you’re conceding then that luas does not have a calming effect on streets generally & particularly pedestrian crossings ! :D)

@gunter wrote:

I think the reason for this is that the route chozen is a series of back streets which had bugger all commercial development on them before Luas, and now, because of the narrowness of the carriageways, they have more the characteristics of a railway cutting than primary arterial public transportation corridors, or whatever the phrase is.

Perpahs we’re both overstating the potential for luas to galvanise the regeneration of an area – as feck all has happened on the wider stretches of the city centre corridor either. Abbey St. is a good example, aside from what Arnotts have planned for Middle Abbey (which would have happened whether luas was there or not) little or nothing has happened on Lower Abbey.

what about Stephansplatz in Vienna and Graben

the full pedestrianization of College green does have potential with the option of controlled access!!!
And it is desirable… I would prefer cars have access at odd hours rather than luas ect
also makes me think of christshurch its a big shame about the interconnector…
no time for some archeology…
The Luas will wreck havok if you go straight down the middle to
spilt the square if you go on the sides the turning circles and paving is messy
The problem with the luas is its too big just like the buses…
It’s what a 100/200 metre walk to the metro station… small fry

http://www.flickr.com/photos/houben/206325350/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tm_boris/1192233462/sizes/l/

sunny dub you need to analysis the potential of the spaces before you go plocking luas everywhere

back streets are no place for a luas… you need a population/width/ and mini luas which we don’t have

yes gaudi was struck Oculus

@Peter Fitz wrote:

. . feck all has happened on Lower Abbey Street.

You’re forgetting about the VHI ‘iconic’ building.

@missarchi wrote:

back streets are no place for a luas… you need a population/width/ and mini luas which we don’t have

missarchi, you’re starting to make sense! What’s happened to you?

I see Munich’s Marienplatz mentioned on this thread in relation to the pluses and minuses of the use of College Green for public transport.

It’s important to remember that the location is fully pedestrianised, with not a bus or tram in sight – hardly any buses enter Munich’s city centre, while most of the city’s trams are only a few hundred metres distant (e.g. at Karlsplatz), but not in the Marienplatz itself.

However, the square retains a very, very serious public transport function through the important interchange which lies beneath it. These include S-Bahn services (7 lines) to around 140 destinations and U-Bahn services (2 lines) to approximately another 40.

If the plans for underground lines in Dublin are to go ahead – and it may still be an “if”, though I hope not – I think this is the kind of thing which should be envisaged for Dublin: reclamation of a great urban space while facilitating public transport rather than hindering it.

The is one (but just one) of the reasons why I favour a close look at College Green/Dame Street as the location of Martin Cullen’s “Grand Central”. The current alternative – i.e. a St. Stephen’s Green which will take many years to recover and a College Green which is still snarled with buses and will not even have a metro station, just doesn’t seem to have the same number of positives.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

I see Munich’s Marienplatz mentioned on this thread in relation to the pluses and minuses of the use of College Green for public transport.

It’s important to remember that the location is fully pedestrianised, with not a bus or tram in sight – hardly any buses enter Munich’s city centre, while most of the city’s trams are only a few hundred metres distant (e.g. at Karlsplatz), but not in the Marienplatz itself.

I mentioned it as an example of an enclosed square, which, as you say, is fully pedesrtianized. The point is that, as much as I would love College Green to be a Dublin Marienplatz, College Green has different characterists and there’s no point kidding ourselves about that. There isn’t the same sense of enclosure, or of market space carved out of a medieval street pattern.

Having said that, if there was the slightest chance that College Green could be fully pedestrianized and the city centre served by a new network of S-Bahn and U-Bahn lines, even in the next twenty years, I’d drop any attachment I have to Luas, but somehow, I don’t see that happening, and planning is about being realistic as well as visionary.

gunter…

even if we don’t have grand central here its a 150m transfer big deal…
We also have the bus on the quays going east west we also have the red line and we will also have the interconnecter plus we can have a bus route past the tourist office towards merrion is that not enough???

anyway this is what im thinking right now when things are really dead cars cannot go on dark grey
there could be a single luas track east west for the grave yard shifts

the luas drives in the car tunnel provided by the NRA… “the engineering option”

Was parking in Trinity Street yesterday and rather curiously there was a member of staff doing a survey of all customers asking them from what direction they were coming.
It would suggest to me that the multi-storey car parks are trying to determine where there business is coming from in the event of pedestrianisation.
There are quite a few such facilities, which would be affected although I can’t see any of them going out of business: Fleet Street, Trinity Street, Brown Thomas, Drury Street etc.

@Seamus O’G wrote:

I see Munich’s Marienplatz mentioned on this thread in relation to the pluses and minuses of the use of College Green for public transport.

It’s important to remember that the location is fully pedestrianised, with not a bus or tram in sight – hardly any buses enter Munich’s city centre, while most of the city’s trams are only a few hundred metres distant (e.g. at Karlsplatz), but not in the Marienplatz itself.

As far as I recall, there is a carriageway (i.e. lower than the paved surface, with a kerb) at the east end of Marienplatz on which buses run. Admittedly, it’s at a snail’s pace, but they’re there.

i found these if you haven’t not seen them

All trams don’t blast people out of it, most just ring their bell and go quietly by…

I fear your College Green Platz idea is hopefully unrealistic, at least in the short-term, I think it’s more Picadilly Circus than a quiet pedestrian zone.

The core issue to be decided first is bus or luas or both, and banning cars, it looks like they’re going for bus & luas and banning cars, I personally don’t see how you can run Luas through there and not significantly disrupt the buses, maybe tunnels are the right option, that’s long-term though and means shelving line BX, no harm really. or maybe bus tunnels and leave luas on the ground as it’s much less intrusive.

The plaza idea is pie in the sky at this stage!

Just to return to the buses briefly, there are too many buses in College Green as it stands, regardless if the LUAS is on it’s way there too.

It would be an interesting project to ascertain the frequency and loadings of the existing cross city buses, in particular relating to the boarding / alighting at each city centre bus stop for each route. I am absolutely convinced of the sheer inefficiency of the existing city network, regardless of any plans to eliminate some buses. Buses dwell far too long at bus stops, take far too long to traverse the city centre, and cause congestion no moreso than to themselves, with buses queuing for access to hopelessly inadequate stops, disgorging passengers onto the roadway, and blocking two lanes of some streets. There must be a huge loss of business to buses simply through the sheer amount of time lost and disruption to potential customers, not to mention the excess of vehicles needed to cover the fact that too many buses sit stationary for too long in the resultant traffic jams.

Buses arriving into the city to terminate a journey, should turn around, load up quickly at an adequately designed and efficient loading place, and get the hell out of the city as quick as possible. Buses crossing the city should have a minimum of bus stops, and spend no longer than absolutely necessary to load and unload, using two or three exit doors, with no delay allowed at all for fare collection. Bus operators, of any company, should be penalised for holding up traffic for revenue collection purposes.

The older Dublin Bus fleet of step entrance buses, which are now obsolete, and being replaced over a period of a few years, were ideal for cross city work, with two access doors, and a shorter length and wheelbase for greater manoeuvreability. Admittedly they have no wheelchair access, but replacement vehicles should be of short length, with wheelchair access and two doors, similar to the London model.

The later style of bus, from 2000 onwards, has wheelchair access, but only one entrance / exit door. These buses, with their higher seating capacity but slower access, are more suited to the main express corridors out of the city, and not on cross city routes with a high passenger turnover on the city centre streets.

Three axle double deckers as found on the 46A route, are again suitable for express routes out of the city, but not for cross city work. There is no place for articulated buses, as London has found to it’s cost.

With those basic facts taken on board, five types of bus route can be visualised, with different vehicle types sourced for each particular type of work.

1) Cross city routes, like route 10, which require a bus with multiple access doors, short length, on a minimum of chosen routes. There are too many cross city routes at present. There needs to be less routes, and diverted to use streets such as Capel Street, Jervis Street, Gardiner Street, away from the College Green bottleneck. There are a number of options to do this.

2) High capacity express routes out of the city, like 46A, which should have one specified main loading point, and perhaps just one or two other points within the canal cordon, and which should load instantly and leave the city promptly, with no laying over in the city centre.

3) Local services outside the city, and outside the scope of this thread.

4) Dublin City guided tours, which I feel do need limited access to the O’Connell Street / College Green area. These buses should be permitted to traverse the city centre slowly, on tour, but should be precluded from parking on the streetside, or basing themselves there to sell tickets. Limited stopping would be provided, for loading / alighting only, perhaps on Nassau Street, or D’Olier Street, which would see all the other bus services removed.

5) I would like to see a kind of sponsored mobility service retained in O’Connell Street, perhaps operated by electric single deck standee buses, with minimal seating, which would not be so intrusive to the city infrastructure, and could provide in their own right a talking point for the city, green electric buses, putting Dublin to the forefront in investigating progressive ways of moving people. These buses would work entirely within the canal cordon, and would provide a link to the other bus routes removed from O’Connell Street / College Green, and indeed the railway stations. It would be nice if these buses were free of charge to use, or else worked on some kind of ‘Oyster’ card system. I know we don’t like doing ‘freebies’ in Dublin, but there are other ways of doing business and getting the city moving besides always grasping for the greasy coins!

I see areas like Parnell Square, one side of St. Stephen’s Green, Lower Merrion Street, and parts of the Quays as being suitable hubs for the buses. Streets like Lower Merrion Street and Parnell Square given over exclusively to buses, with the buses nose to kerb at a 45 degree angle, allowing for a three or fourfold increase in bus stop capacity. Buses would reverse out under the eye of a stance inspector. These bus stop hubs would be managed day and night by independent bus inspectors employed by the DTA, and would serve as interchanges between routes, as well as keeping buses away from having to stop on other more congested streets. Buses serving these stops would have limited stops elsewhere, and would wait only for a specified departure time, or the word of a stance inspector. There would be no parking of buses, and no delays due to archaic revenue collection methods.

Perhaps it is time for Dublin City Council to consider charging bus operators for access to the city, based on time spent inside the canal cordon, and use of stopping facilities. In return, the council would be obliged to provide much more efficient priority for buses, and adequate consideration and assistance with proper loading and alighting facilities. I would see somewhere like Summerhill Garage or Donnybrook Garage given over in part towards an open bus facility for service buses and for private and touring coaches, with maintenance, washing, canteen, sleeping for drivers, etc. All charged on a reasonable basis, providing much needed facilities for coach drivers in particular, and getting buses and coaches off the side of the street.

I see buses moving swiftly around the city, making less stops, stopping to load and unload, preferably using more doors, and not waiting for inefficient fare collection methods. Given that huge move towards greater efficiency, I see bus operators being rewarded with far more priority at junctions, enabling those buses to get out of the city quicker, which is the whole point of the exercise. Quicker buses equals less buses. Operators too, would save by requiring far less vehicles to cover schedules than they presently do, with greater availability of vehicles for greater capacity.

It’s a win win situation all round, and frees up the city centre environment for more pedestrianisation and more efficient throughput of people.

And I bet the recent Oireachtas All Party Transport Committee report didnt pay a blind bit of attention to your ideas either! :(:(

Very well thought out Busman and eminetly sensible and most important of all….implementable!

@SunnyDub wrote:

I fear your College Green Platz idea is hopefully unrealistic, at least in the short-term, I think it’s more Picadilly Circus than a quiet pedestrian zone.

I’m well aware that full pedestrianisation of College Green is not on the horizon, and have posted in that vein since the start, the point is there is no urban design framework for the space & there bloody well should be. Its current state is not acceptable. Agencies like the RPA scribble lines through CG without any regard for its potential, while DCC sit on their hands. Running two luas lines through CG will impact heavily on the space & cannot be undone whenever the CC do finally get up off their arse & decide CG is worth doing something about.

@SunnyDub wrote:

All trams don’t blast people out of it, most just ring their bell and go quietly by…

I fear your College Green Platz idea is hopefully unrealistic, at least in the short-term, I think it’s more Picadilly Circus than a quiet pedestrian zone.

The core issue to be decided first is bus or luas or both, and banning cars, it looks like they’re going for bus & luas and banning cars, I personally don’t see how you can run Luas through there and not significantly disrupt the buses, maybe tunnels are the right option, that’s long-term though and means shelving line BX, no harm really. or maybe bus tunnels and leave luas on the ground as it’s much less intrusive.

The plaza idea is pie in the sky at this stage!

Well the department of transport have had the plan since march.
The core issue is a transport/urban study to examine the options of having no luas bus…
and then decide… We don’t even know how many people are going to move from buses to metro norh inter connector yet..

The plaza is not pie in the sky just hire Jan… or make it a protected structure or make an amendment to the development plan

@ctesiphon wrote:

As far as I recall, there is a carriageway (i.e. lower than the paved surface, with a kerb) at the east end of Marienplatz on which buses run. Admittedly, it’s at a snail’s pace, but they’re there.

There is indeed, right down at the east end, as you say. You can see it here – on the left of the photo. I’d forgotten about that:o

Apparently, two bus routes do still run along this carriageway. I’m guessing here, but with so many pedestrianised streets in the vicinity, it’s possible that it is needed in any case, for ambulance/fire brigade access.

Luas line F terminating at college green and possibly being extended to the South Docks is only one of two options. The other option is having it terminate at Stephen’s green.Busses parking in the City Center is awful. Parnell Square is used as a bus station as it is, when they should be expected to to park at Sumerhill depot. Also having all those bus stop and masses of people waiting at them on a narrow foot path onfront of historic Georgian houses across from the Rotunda looks diabollical. I find the more I look at it, the more embaressed I am in fear that there is a tourist seeing the same thing.

I find it funny this desire to remove private cars from College Green and using it as maybe just for public transport. I get the (evil 39) bus all the time to my college Trinity and waiting there you see that the vast majority of traffic on College Green is by Dublin bus.

Just thinking about that I am always struck by how wide Westmoreland Street and D’Olier Street are even in comparison to College Green and I think that that should be taken fully into account in any major plans for College Green and maybe try and utilize these streets more in some form of traffic management.

Oh I dont know….

I’m sure it’ll be as effective as the banning of cars along the stretch of Pearse Street between Tara st Junction and college street – was walking there last week and counted 6 private cars along this strech (not taxi’s or hackneys either) in the short time that it talkes to walk it – no enforcement as per usual

If only there were a Garda Station in the vicinity…

(Or, at least, one from which the view wasn’t blocked by a double line of parked cars.)

More fresh thinking from Busman. The one dispute would be the chosen locations for all the bus termini – St. Stephen’s Green, Parnell Square and Merrion Street – the very places you least need ranks of buses compromising spaces. Nonetheless the latter two both feature secondary areas which would be more accommodating.

@SunnyDub wrote:

I fear your College Green Platz idea is hopefully unrealistic, at least in the short-term, I think it’s more Picadilly Circus than a quiet pedestrian zone.

College Green can be whatever we want it to be. There are no rules, only guiding principles from elsewhere which can be pick n mixed at will. Equally apathetic resignation, or appeasing of transport authorities will also not result in the best outcome for this place. An urban framework plan with a clear vision as Peter has mentioned takes priority, by all accounts acknowledging different transport scenarios. But a defined strategy that protects the integrity of this critical civic space first and foremost is required before any decisions are made about transport. It would be entirely unacceptable, and so typical of Irish planning, if College Green was merely landscaped as a left over token incidental space after the transport engineers have had their way.

I had gathered together a series of photographs on College Green and College Street, but accidentally deleted the lot, but frankly it was just a rant anyway so no loss. Also it was simply so depressing taking them that I couldn’t actually put myself through it all again. Coupled with a wander around the area last evening, as well as typical passing through on a near daily basis, it really is crushing to see how much the main throughfares of Dublin city centre have degenerated over the past few years. All of that boom and nothing to show for it on any of the main streets except O’Connell Street. In fact it’s so depressing I’m beginning to avoid the Westmoreland/D’Olier/College Green axis for the more heartening aspect of the quays. Frankly it’s a dump to walk through, and horrifically congested with pedestrians at peak times. It’s worse than sittng on the M50 with the amount of waiting bus patrons and tourists wandering aimlessly around without a sole attraction in the entire area save Carrolls tack merchants. It’s sickening to see the current white elephant of the Docklands and campshires (all perfectly valid in the longer term) receiving such investment with barely a soul gracing their acres of new landscaping, while the city core quite literally rots, Save an emptying of bins and the odd pavement sweeper, the public domain is completely untended. This cringe-inducingly embarrassing scene has been like this for months on end, in high summer. It is an absolute scandal.

What on earth does this say to visitors about how we hold ourselves in regard, never mind the city itself. The ground around here is also constantly littered with bank receipts, vomit (as people congregate here after dark), litter left by the homeless, and other general filth. One cannot be anything but mortified at the standards that are tolerated in the presentation of this city. There’s no point dredging through all the issues – we all know what they are, from public domain, buildings to retail uses, and all as important as each other. But the more these standards are tolerated, and these largely in prestigious and watertight legally binding Architectural Conservation and Special Planning Control Areas, the more it breeds and contaminates adjacent streets. We can see Dame Street beginning to lose its grip on quality uses already, and even the sniff of the potential of Lidl on College Green merely confirms this trend. The latest addition as mentioned before is this delightful number right opposite City Hall and Dublin Castle, the very origin of the city.

There have been so many objections to this place in all its previous guises, unmaterialed and otherwise, over the past few years it’s really quite remarkable. And yet in spite of all their planning issues, and multiple and highly prescriptive conditions, the likes of this still goes on in the most historic part of the city.

Cheap off the shelf aluminium frames, multiple useless doors, postering everywhere, fit-out exposed to the street. sandwich boards all over the pavement, ‘temporary’ signage, cheap lighting and exposed electrical conduiting, and already rusting upper balcony…

And the wider building, while crisp and a decent contemporary interpretation of adjacent structures (as stipulated by planners, can you imagine what it was like before) was still allowed away with terrible factory fenestration and crude devices designed for maximum interior rentability. I mean this is basic basic stuff.

And then the banner crops up advertising cash conversions…

An excellent submission was made by a Cherie Flynn on a very recent application for an off licence in this unit. It’s worth reading as she sums up a number of issues facing the area at large. Apparently Supermacs have been sniffing around the Burton building, which says it all really.

http://www.dublincity.ie/AnitePublicDocs/00237689.pdf

I don’t wish to hog a learned architectural forum with matters of buses, but the matter of putting the buses somewhere is vital to the whole picture. At present we are discussing running trams through the most congested bottleneck in the city, and to ask where the buses might go, will be answered with the retort that the buses are ‘outside the remit’ of the RPA. Dublin Bus, for their part, will enter any discussions on the basis of maintaining their self appointed ‘squatters rights’ on the city streets for the past eighty years. Look at all the shiny new bus stops going up, while the buses sit in the same old traffic jams, with the same old tram stages to denote the fares. Dublin Bus are not planning on vacating any time soon!

Independent Bus Terminals
I apologise for suggesting Parnell Square as a city terminus. On ‘mature reflection,’ of course, it is totally unnecessary. We have Summerhill Garage, which I visualise as being vacated by Dublin Bus, and taken over either by the city council, an independent transport regulator, or an independent private agency, to be operated as a combined bus terminal and passenger interchange, with cleaning, fueling and dormitory facilities for both the city bus operators, private or state, and also for visiting coach drivers, on long distance or private charter work. Those facilities outside of the basic bus terminal would be charged to bus operators on a reasonable basis, with discounted fuel, canteen, etc. All on street parking by buses would then be subject to heavy parking fines, rigorously enforced. That will get your parked buses removed from Mountjoy Square.

I see part of Donnybrook Garage providing a similar facility on the southside, and Conyngham Road Garage providing that facility for the west side. I wonder if Conyngham Road were a bus terminal, could some bridging facility be provided across to Heuston Station, either for the buses, or for intending passengers? Or perhaps CIE land at the back of Heuston would serve that role. Another interchange is planned for Strand Street, although I question the access to that for buses, and for Connolly.

Bus Garaging Outside the City
More bus garaging needs to be provided on the perimeter of the city, with buses operating from these perimeter depots, INTO and then OUT of the city. City terminals would then be just that, for disgorging, loading, and departing. Operators should be penalised for holding up terminal space. I am sure you don’t just park aeroplanes haphazardly round the apron at Dublin Airport!

I have looked at the frequencies of all the Dublin Bus routes, and the frequencies on the key corridors across the city. Having appropriated terminal facilities as suggested, on an INDEPENDENTLY operated basis, not beholden to any one bus company, the other priorities would be to organise new corridors across the city, allowing for the ingress of new tram lines.

Street Closures
O’Connell Street, College Green and Westmoreland Street would be lost to the buses. Those buses cannot simply be supplanted to Gardiner Street or Capel Street. It takes more thought than that. Dame Street too, if there are to be trams, will lose at least half it’s capacity, suggesting that what is left would be a one way street.

I see O’Connell Street, Westmoreland Street and College Green open for loading purposes only perhaps overnight. I would see tour buses and perhaps one centrally serving route (the single deck electric buses of my previous post) that links the main interchanges, but does not cross the canal.

New One Way Streets
I see Nassau Street, Suffolk Street, Church Lane, Dame Street and Lord Edward Street reduced to a ONE WAY corridor WEST bound, preferably with bus only daytime access between Dawson Street and Trinity Street. I see South Great Georges Street and Aungier Street become a ONE WAY street, SOUTH bound as far as Redmond’s Hill. This creates a much more freely operating bus circuit from Earlsfort Terrace to Kildare Street (rerouted NORTH bound) through Nassau Street, Dame Street and Georges Street, back towards the main southside arteries. I would see set down only stops at St. Stephens Green, Kildare Street, Nassau Street and Dame Street, with pick up ONLY in Dame Street. Remember, these bus routes would be intended to enter the city, run the circuit, and exit again as quickly as possible. There is nowhere available on this circuit for the laying over of buses, without resulting in congestion and inefficient operation.

Cross City Services
There is scope for cross city buses to use Winetavern Street to the Quays northbound, returning via Parliament Street, and for Westland Row both ways to be used as well. I would prefer to see less cross city services, but more user friendly availability of interchange between buses. For example, why not terminate the very busy 46A bus corridor at Leeson Street Upper, with an interchange stop there for cross city routes heading towards each of the northside N1, N2, N3 and N4 corridors? Peak hour buses could be allowed to run on into the Nassau Street / Dame Street circuit already described, for SET DOWN only. The Burlington would serve as an ideal interchange for buses coming FROM the city to interchange with buses bound for the N11. It can be done efficiently, and if less buses were to cross the city half empty, stuck in traffic, then the interchange would be enabled quicker than one bus can presently do the entire route, stuck in the endless traffic jams.

Dublin City Council
Unfortunately, the only way you are going to sell this to the city council, is by demonstrating that there will be no loss of revenue earning disc parking space, but rather, a freeing up of the streets, and the reallocation of disc parking with the possibility of MORE such space being available. This negates the purpose, but parking can be made available as long as access to the same area is prioritised to buses rather than cars. Keep the buses flowing, and the cars will wind their way into the parking when they really need to.

I have drawn up maps of the proposals, with estimated frequencies of buses on each of the corridors, to show how possibly it can be done, though this architecture forum is probably not the place for such a level of detail.

@Busman wrote:

IDublin City Council
Unfortunately, the only way you are going to sell this to the city council, is by demonstrating that there will be no loss of revenue earning disc parking space, but rather, a freeing up of the streets, and the reallocation of disc parking with the possibility of MORE such space being available. This negates the purpose, but parking can be made available as long as access to the same area is prioritised to buses rather than cars. Keep the buses flowing, and the cars will wind their way into the parking when they really need to.

I have drawn up maps of the proposals, with estimated frequencies of buses on each of the corridors, to show how possibly it can be done, though this architecture forum is probably not the place for such a level of detail.

draw up a map but look at looping the buses before they hit the plazas or an underground option kinda like this luas/bus tunnel…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/capnsurly/1503505182/sizes/o/

DCC can have at least 2 fold/ten fold/twenty fold many cars spaces as they are prepared to build underground…

need framework plan asap :p

I am thinking in terms of a more immediate solution to the problem of bus congestion and the exclusion of traffic from College Green, etc. Apart from all the furore about closing off streets, which would die away in time, and the physical hardship of closing streets and repainting lines, and altering the street furniture, Such a scheme could be brought in in under a year if the WILL was there. In the current climate of post boom and cutbacks in public finances, the gains from reorganising the one way streets and the buses would cost far less, and provide some level of interim solution, rather than expensive long term plans which may or may not ever happen, because we might need the money for something else.

Bus tunnels would take years to plan and execute, and in any case, if we could build tunnels for buses, we might as well put faster and more capacious Metro trains in.

well the NRA haven’t listed there 2011-2015 projects yet?

Thats great stuff Busman, lot of work gone into that. This is probably as good a place as any to post maps. This issue really seriously affects the urban design and future planning of the city centre.

Plus you never know who might be reading…..!

On GrahamH’s post re the shop on Dame St opposite city hall, the amount of pavement space taken up by sandwich boards and the like is really shocking. Its just visual clutter and adds to the sense of disorientation and mess on the city’s streets. Surely it must be an easy thing to implement the removal of these.

@Busman wrote:

Bus tunnels would take years to plan and execute, and in any case, if we could build tunnels for buses, we might as well put faster and more capacious Metro trains in.

well I was passing past the red cow and that is some upgrade!!!
college green needs a fraction of that commitment and funding considering its massive potential
its only shallow cut and cover!!!

just leave the queen of tarts alone…

‘Top Gear’ is coming to Dublin. Permission to drive a British army tank across O’Connell Bridge and towards the GPO, however, has not been sought. Nor is it likely to be.

“It’s been a dreadful August, and I think it has to do with the amount of people driving electric cars,” Clarkson informed us yesterday, warming to this particular subject. “If the balance of nature is really as delicate as they claim, then all those people with [new] bicycles are probably causing summers to be cold and wet.”

http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/i-give-you-my-tanks-1467331.html

Top Gear is the nadir of a moribund medium.

On the up side, though: 30,000 revheads in the RDS? Can you spell ‘legitimate target’, Mr Clarkson?

PS A piece of friendly advice- keep away from Ranelagh.

terminate on ground or terminate underground should we put a lid on line f ?
it could easily have a rain protected concrete lid and metro north underground pedestrian connection tunnel

Ah, Vienna…. From those two pics above of Stephansplatz, I can tell you that emerging from the U Bahn up those escalators, when you get your first glimpse of the massive West Front of the Stephansdom and its reflection in the Haas House opposite – there’s simply no better way to be introduced to that wonderful city.

Babbling over!

That was my wish for the Carlton site and Metro.

What better way to say ‘Welcome to Dublin’ than arriving up the escalator to see the GPO, Spire, O’Connell Street, etc.?

Of course, the same could be said for a Metro stop in the new College Green Plaza- imagine coming up where the underground jacks is into a traffic-minimised square… *sob*

we should ask the EPA to put a air monitoring station in college green for reasons of health…

Part 8 Air-ClimaticBase-Impact 4 of 4 Bantry Road to St Stephen’s Green.pdf

insert stone taoiseach’s in these false windows…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffreyhuang/2497632893/

insert stone taoiseach’s in these false windows…

What about biffo cowan. His statue wont fit. :rolleyes:

look what I found 🙂

Interesting picture.

Found a spot for Cowan Statue. He can have a large statue under the Right Arch as he is always right and stick Berties Statue on the Left as he’s a socialist and he’s has just left…. :rolleyes:

Any in the middle you can have a mega statue dedicated to Mary Harney. The Statue should have Mary eating Butlers Chocolates and at her feet, patients clinging at her trousers begging for help. 😉

I think, before we start banning cars from the city centre, we need to sort out the Public transport system in Dublin. Compared to London, and other cities, it’s atrocious.
Where I’m from, in Clonskeagh, near UCD, there’s only one bus into town, and you’re likely to be waiting over half an hour to get it. I wouldn’t rely on that, if I had to be in work on time. And if you wanna get home after 11, you’re pretty much stuck with getting a taxi, which you also have to wait hours for, or walking.

And I live relatively close to the city centre. God knows what it’s like for residents of other districts further away from the centre. I don’t blame anyone wanting to drive to work.

What we need is a proper network of trains and Luas, which will enable people to confidently rely on public transport. Then we can start thinking about trying to reduce traffic in the city centre.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1024/1224715115568.html

Council says car ban needed to unclog city

OLIVIA KELLY

A PERMANENT ban on cars crossing Dublin city centre may have to be introduced to avoid the city grinding to a halt, a new report from Dublin City Council has warned.

Restrictions on cars, which will be put in place within the next two years, to allow the construction of Transport 21 projects such as Metro North and the Luas interconnector line, are expected to be retained to allow the city to function in the future.

Dublin’s road network is at capacity and “there is no room for additional cars on the city’s roads”, the report from the council’s planning department said.

The car ban must be complemented by better development of the city and suburbs, the report said.

Proximity to public transport can no longer be used by developers to justify large scale residential or mixed-use schemes which would swamp transport services, and even small developments must be subject to traffic management analysis, it said.

There was also a need for better coordination by various transport agencies, which up to now had been “piecemeal”, it said.

The planners’ report will be put to councillors next week and used in their review of the current city development plan.

It makes a number of recommendations in relation to ensuring the city’s increasing traffic problems are brought under control.

The increase in car ownership and the growth in numbers commuting into the city centre each day from the current 200,000 to an expected 375,000 by 2020, has made tackling the traffic problem “even more urgent”, the report said.

“A major issue we have to address is how the city’s limited road space can accommodate the spatial needs of public, transport, pedestrians, cyclists and the private car.

“It is likely, having regard to some of the modelling which had been undertaken by the the city council’s roads and traffic department that all through-traffic will have to be removed for the city centre to function in the future.”

Properly functioning and integrated public transport was the key to providing a true alternative to the private car, the report said.

Co-ordination between the various transport agencies was sometimes disjointed and, while this may be addressed by the eventual establishment of the Dublin Transport Authority, certain problems needed to be dressed in the interim, it said.

Areas which needed to be addressed were the poor-quality passenger interchange facilities, difficulties in accessing public transport by foot or bicycle, congestion and restricted capacity at peak times and poor information systems.

Cycling had the potential to “transform the city’s quality of life”, the council said.

However, despite infrastructural improvements, there was a continuing decline in cycling to work or schools and colleges, the report said.

Safety fears explained the decline, the council said.

The planners recommend the provision of kerb-separated bicycle lanes as well as cycle storage at public transport facilities and better cycle-parking facilities.

Removing cars from the city would would allow the council to devote more space to pedestrians.

The potential for road space to be “dramatically reallocated” to pedestrians should be considered, the report said, particularly in the central areas around Westmoreland Street, college green and dame street.

New residential and commercial developments were the biggest contributors to the traffic problems, it said.

Areas with good-quality public transport links could better accommodate development.

However the report said this was ” sometimes used as a justification for very large-scale development adjacent to any form of public transport irrespective of its capacity”. This was “not sustainable” particularly if the developments were car-dependent, it said.

© 2008 The Irish Times

@Irish Times wrote:

Restrictions on cars, which will be put in place within the next two years, to allow the construction of Transport 21 projects such as Metro North and the Luas interconnector line, are expected to be retained to allow the city to function in the future.

I wonder what Olivia means by the “LUAS Interconnector”? Is this perhaps the LUAS link-up, the DART interconnector, a mixture or combination of these or perhaps something else entirely?:confused:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/…715115568.html

God almighty are we still being fed this drivel 😡

Quote: “Properly functioning and integrated public transport was the key to providing a true alternative to the private car, the report said.”

Anybody find fault with the above sentiment ?

Oh dear…the compilers of the report don`t appear to have checked in with Transport Minister Noel Dempsey.

Our Minister for Transport currently feels that Dublin has more than enough buses,in fact TOO many and is “undecided” about funding any extra resources in that department.
What he has refrained from saying is that his Department is currently examining options from the CIE bus companies for a substantial REDUCTION in the Public Bus fleet.
In Bus Atha Cliath`s case we could be looking at 100 buses taken off the road.

Notwithstanding the current “Downturn”,this volte-face from the Minister merely underlines the lack of any real impetus for the Public Bus service that T21 supposedly was meant to encourage.

Now here`s a Quare one….” Proximity to public transport can no longer be used by developers to justify large scale residential or mixed-use schemes which would swamp transport services, and even small developments must be subject to traffic management analysis, it said.”

So marketing initiatives such as “Only a stones throw from Luas” will need to be revisited then ?
The reasons for Developers latching on to the Public Transport network in the first place was a total lack of any integrated planning BEFORE these developments were commenced.
Only in the VERY recent past has any form of official contact regarding Public Transport become accepted.

And to complete a thoroughly despondent report….”However, despite infrastructural improvements, there was a continuing decline in cycling to work or schools and colleges, the report said.”

This hoary old chesnut arises again,with not a mention of our Weather……Like it or not,while the committed chamois wearing cycliste will not care a whit about the weather,the huge volume of POTENTIAL job related ones most definitely will.
Mass transfer to the bicycle simply ain`t going to happen unless the earth`s axis shifts to satisfy DCC`s planners.

In the meantime the same pro-cycling professionals could do worse than take an in-depth look at what is left of the Cycle Shelters so expensively provided along several of the City`s main arteries…..within a very short time they became derelict,with not even enough cover for a gypsy to live in.
The only items contained within being the abandoned skeletons of vandalized machines whose owners rapidly returned to the Micra,Polo or Fiesta.
…..Get a grip DCC.

everyone is in on it;) I think most issues can be accomodated…

the motor section

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/motors/2008/1029/1225197270035.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1029/1225197273325.html

can someone post the results in nov…

cycle shelters?

Yup….sickle shelters….I suppose it made sense to somebody in authority or perhaps they were on holliers to some part of the civilized world and came upon similar contriviances….

Several dotted along the N11 QBC.. one at the Goat Bar and no doubt a few more too.
Idea was It seems to promote local cycle useage as a means of getting to and from the “Showcase” QBC`s.

However,from their very first appearance the native Irish displayed their mistrust of such foreign influence on their streetscape by systematically destroying them.
Essentially this merely entailed stripping off the sheets of plexiglass and eating them,or in some particularly inventive cases,burning them instead.

The Tubular Steel frames are however still dotted about the place having,thus far,proven impervious to standard hooliganism.

The reaction of the “Erecting Authorities” has in equally true Irish practice been to ignore it.

Thus,we see former US Police Chief John Timoney`s theory about the “Broken Pane of Glass” syndrome proven yet again…..

Leave the broken pane unattended and the entire window will soon follow,then the wall,before eventually the entire building falls to the ground.

One need look no further then last nights Halloween aftermath for examples of where we collectively are headed,as destruction of the most wanton kind is beningly smiled upon by a nation hell bent on enjoyin itself…… 😀

i was amused when I saw this….

@missarchi wrote:

i was amused when I saw this….

you’re easily amused

lock and load?;)

this concept has escaped some EIS’s

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/elderly-need-seats-in-the-street-1520600.html

are there no benches on the middle of o’connell street anymore?

benches for old.

Well if they policed them properly I’d welcome benches all over the city – however when the benches that are provided are taken over by Dutch Gold drinking junkie scum like the eden quay boardwalk has and nothing is done about it then benches will not be provided. Other cities move undesirables along – why doesn’t Dublin – perhaps because we’re afraid to confront them? Is it un PC? Probably

Until proper policing is carried out (i.e. moving them on) then retaillers will be rightly or wrongly opposed to having benches.

(and yes I’m well aware that I’m reopening the ‘don’t call them junkie scum argument’ but as soon as they start behaving themselves and show respect to the city and the citizens I’ll stop calling them that)

On the theme of an earlier posting or two here, good to see Frank McDonald picking up on the same trend in today’s Magazine.

DAME ST IN DISTRESS

VIEWPOINT: Dame Street, once one of the premier streets in the capital, has become noisy and tawdry. The sober financial institutions of the past have been replaced with a lot of badly spelled pubs, clubs and shops, writes Frank McDonald

IT’S DAME STREET on a Friday night/ Saturday morning. Everyone is out on the town and the junction with South Great George’s Street is heaving. A pair of bouncers in bow-ties stand guard at the entrance to Club Lapello, the local lap-dancing bar, scrutinising potential clients – mainly lads who’ve been drinking and want some extra entertainment.

In the eye-blinkingly bright Centra next door, a motley crew of revellers queue to pay for soft drinks and chocolate bars to keep themselves going, while down the street the footpath outside the loud, throbbing bars is choc-a-bloc with remarkably underdressed drinkers, some of them appearing to be “coked off their face”, taking cigarette breaks.

Last May, the Citi Bar – which exists only because it’s part of a licensed hotel – was censured for hosting a “Twisted Tuesday” promotional event for the Trinity College Students’ Union. The licensed trade’s watchdog panel, Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society (MEAS), found that the use of the term “twisted” on flyers was an incitement to excessive drinking.

Directly opposite, there are crowds outside O’Brien’s and the Mercantile Bar smoking on the footpath. A few doors away, a new bar called Le Cirk is pulling them into its fussily-decorated interior behind a mock-Victorian pubfront slapped onto a neo-classical building that dates from 1930; as William Deedes would have said, “Shurely shome mishtake”.

A bulbous stained-glass window projects from the rear on to Dame Lane and, above it, there are two floors with nothing but vents in the wall; why bother putting windows in the toilets when you can get away with this? Jay Bourke’s new bar, Shebeen, on South Great George’s Street is better; furnished with bric-a-brac, it seems tailored for the recession.

And when all the pubs with “special exemptions” and the sweaty basement nightclubs finally close their doors at 2am, there’s an unruly scramble for taxis – not just at the ranks, but everywhere. It’s the kind of mayhem you wouldn’t expect to find in a city that supposedly has more than 20,000 taxis, a throwback to the days when they were few and far between.

During the day, Dame Street is a different place; all you have to do to get a taxi is to put out your hand and signal one to stop. But for pedestrians, the environment is very unfriendly. The generally narrow footpaths are crowded and made even more so by obstructions such as the Citi Bar’s outdoor seating area, which occupies half the width of the footpath in front.

At the main pedestrian crossing close to the corner of Trinity Street, people have to wait for one minute and 40 seconds for the traffic to stop and then get just get 20 seconds to cross the street. It’s even worse at the South Great George’s Street junction, where the window of opportunity is reduced even further by motorists blithely driving through red lights.

Dame Street is one of the noisiest places in Dublin because of the huge volumes of traffic trundling through it. The street has also become tawdry, not just because of the proliferation of pubs but convenience stores and fast-food joints. Yet it is one of the longest stretches of the civic processional route from Christ Church Cathedral to Parnell Square.

The Pars carpet gallery beside Philips, which passers-by would remember for its gilt-framed woven portrait of a fixed-grin Mary Robinson in the window, closed down nearly a year ago and has just reopened as yet another Spar. And there were reports that Lidl, the German discount grocery chain, was lining up to move into the failed Habitat store on College Green.

The pace of change was so fast during the boom years that it’s often difficult to remember what was in any premises previously. But we do remember that Club Lapello, for example, was once La Mezza Luna, an Italian restaurant. And if I’m not mistaken, the basement that houses Condomania in the same short block used to be The Underground, a cutting-edge music venue.

The Olympia Theatre has been more of a venue than a theatre for several years and, despite the welcome restoration of its canopy after being hit by a truck, the interior stinks of stale drink – a real indication that the bars have become more important than the stage. Some refurbishment work has been carried out, including new seats, but more is needed.

Across the street is Dublin’s most peculiar new building, widely reviled by the public. Part of the problem is that it seems cropped while the stone-paved plaza adjoining it is quite bleak. The front façade, topped by an elongated mosaic-clad half-dome, is particularly eccentric and aggravated at night-time by strip-lighting behind a glass screen, in lurid dayglo green.

There are some good things, such as the Mermaid Cafe and its no-frills sister, Gruel. And Nicos, of course. Behind its new opalescent windows, this venerable Dublin institution where nothing seemed to have changed for years was given a makeover during the summer that took habitués by surprise. The menu is the same, however, and there’s still a piano player.

Some of Dame Street’s tawdriness – particularly its Bacchanalian atmosphere at night – is a spillover from Temple Bar (or should that be Temple Barf, as the latest Lonely Planet guide to Dublin suggested?). God knows what the 18th and 19th century denizens of Dame Street would make of it today; when they were around, it was full of financial institutions and coffee houses.

There are still a few banks, notably the huge hulk of Sam Stephenson’s Central Bank, where Goths gather every Saturday and teenage skateboarders persistently ignore the official ban on their form of fun, and the old headquarters of the Munster and Leinster Bank (now AIB), where Charlie Haughey ran up his famous debt of £1 million in the late 1970s.

Guinness and Mahon, the merchant bank that “walking ATM” Des Traynor once ran, is just another branch of Permanent TSB today, while National Irish Bank has the luxury of a barrel-vaulted high Victorian banking hall – a feature the nearby Ulster Bank wilfully destroyed – and the turreted building once occupied by AIB is now Charlie Chawke’s Bank bar.

Jurys Hotel is long since gone, its elaborate mahogany bar installed in a pub in Zurich, and the building that stands on its site at the corner of Anglesea Street is now occupied by the Financial Regulator and his staff.

Just down the street, it was probably inevitable that Starbucks would open its first cafe here on the edge of College Green, Dublin’s great architectural set-piece.

What will transform the area is the proposed Lucan Luas line, which will originate in College Green and travel out west via Dame Street, Lord Edward Street, Christchurch Place and Thomas Street. With wider footpaths all along the route and restrictions on through-traffic, “quality of life” for people frequenting this stretch of Dublin should be immeasurably improved.

But we’ll have to wait for that to happen. According to the Railway Procurement Agency, work on the Lucan line won’t even start until 2011. By then, who knows what state the public finances might be in and whether the Government will welsh on this or other public transport projects. In the meantime, the likelihood is that Dame Street will become even more tawdry.

© 2008 The Irish Times

I hope we get some south American size speed bumps…

We need special public space zoning

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3129211&newstype=A&sectioncode=453

What were your reference points?

We looked at all the classical spaces in Europe, very detailed studies of different squares.

It seemed to us that there was a style emerging in London. A lot of new space in London is on the back of section 106 agreements, where cheap granite from China is used and all the street furniture is stainless steel with a bit of glass in the signage. There’s a sort of ubiquitous, corporate, commercial quality about it.

We didn’t think it appropriate to put that type of environment into Parliament Square. At the same time, it’s very difficult to put grass in areas that are going to get heavily trafficked.

The square’s also got a function for different events: pedestrian movement, with people going to work, but there are other key events such as state ceremonies. We’ve got to think about routes of ceremonial vehicles. Those carriages can’t really go on a lawn, so we need to put hard surfaces there.

We were looking at greening and softening the space by putting in more trees and choosing the position of trees very carefully. We were maintaining the existing plane trees on the west side of the square, and putting in additional plane trees on the north side.

But Foster’s had concluded that the square needed to be hard paving, so did Halcrow Fox in the seventies. In the 1940s, Gordon Cullen did some fantastic drawings, again showing hard surfaces. Almost every 10 years, there’s another attempt at doing it, and everyone comes to the same conclusion.

What were your reference points?

voda phone and mai thai…

on that point I would like a small stream from the green into the liffey

public transport and urban citizenship….
http://www.policyinstitute.tcd.ie/conference_presentations.php
http://gv2.cs.tcd.ie/ any more images of there work?

Did any one go to these presentations?
I have a feeling there is a new proposal on the horizon…

Capri pants are obviously set to return in a big way.

Pedestrian hit by bus in Dublin

The incident happend at about 7pm when a bus on the 123 Marino to Walkinstown route hit the woman at College Green on Dame Street, Dublin 2 .

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0113/breaking70.htm

These things happen however its just another reason to redesign the whole place…

That’s from the Robert L. Chapman collection, yes?

I got the book for christmas (edited [?] by Christiaan Corlett- a busy man recently)- well worth a look for any architecture, Dublin, Wicklow, bike and/or photography enthusiasts. The photo of Leeson Street Bridge in particular is a hoot.

There used to be a round tower on College Green?.. Interesting!

I heard it had sheelagh-na-gigs facing Trinity (lending weight to the speculation that they had an apotropaic function)- you just can’t see them in the photo. 😉

@dermot_trellis wrote:

There used to be a round tower on College Green?.. Interesting!

it was the pivot around which Ireland rotated 😉

wasn’t it used as a sun dial?
every platz needs a circle?
or centre point…

what goes around comes around ready for blast off:)

Makes you wonder why the Pillar or the spire wasn’t put there – seeing as everything else is on the southside anyhow :p

@missarchi wrote:

what goes around comes around ready for blast off:)

Traditional early Irish ICBM, well-camouflaged, circa June 1932. Winning design was by a M na gCopaleen, who subsequently went into the port-tunneling business.

there are still the railings to debate and the little moat but???
to big… or to small.

would it fly the ICBM that is???

@Frank McDonald wrote:

The Pars carpet gallery beside Philips, which passers-by would remember for its gilt-framed woven portrait of a fixed-grin Mary Robinson in the window, closed down nearly a year ago and has just reopened as yet another Spar.

And now I see that Spar didn’t even apply for planning permission for their new shopfront. They’ve a retention application in. Quite extraordinary with such a high profile case, and indication yet again of the appalling lack of regulation of convenience stores. Not only should the shopfront not be there (which while reticent, is clumsily detailed), the shop shouldn’t be either.

nothing beats a butlers hot chocolate… ‘World leaders’ meeting at an economic forum have a lot on their mind – their own interests, writes Vincent Browne.

and

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/motors/2009/0128/1232923368264.html

We use Scats (Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System). It’s from Australia and we’ve been using it for about 18 years.
“We need more people to go on public transport – to use buses, to cycle and to walk,” says Traynor. “There needs to be more integration between public transport and traffic management systems, which we are working on.”

This is good! From today’s times 28/1/09

Habitat store to be replanned as cafe

OLIVIA KELLY

A PROPOSAL to locate a branch of German low-cost supermarket Lidl in the former Habitat furniture store on Dublin’s College Green has been scrapped in favour of redeveloping the building as a “Viennese-style” cafe.

Dublin City Council has granted permission to Pixtell Ltd to change the building from a retail premises to a licensed restaurant.

Pixtell is controlled by Tony Leonard, who, with Paddy McKillen, bought the former Bank of Ireland branch in 2002 for €22 million, before leasing it to Habitat. The furniture store closed last May following what it described as a severe deterioration in sales. Habitat had hoped to sell on its lease, and Lidl was among a small number of parties who expressed an interest in the site.

However, the supermarket chain was reportedly unwilling to pay the €2 million, reduced from an initial €3 million, asked by Habitat.

The lease has since been returned to Pixtell, who remain the owners of the premises, and the company has decided to convert the building into a cafe/restaurant instead of seeking another retail lease with Lidl or any other firm.

The planning permission sought, and granted, is unlikely to be appealed to An Bord Pleanála, as it involves a substantial restoration of the original fabric of the mid-19th century building.

The recently added mezzanine floor is to be removed, and the wall between the protected period property and the modern building that adjoins it on Suffolk Street, which was part of the Habitat store, is to be rebuilt.

The application was referred to An Taisce, which said it welcomed the proposal for a Viennese-style cafe as long as the architectural character of the building was maintained and enhanced.

It also said a condition should be imposed to ensure that any alcohol sales on the premises should be in the context of a restaurant only and not a pub or nightclub.

The city council attached a condition that the building not be used as a public house or nightclub.

The section of the Habitat store fronting on to Suffolk Street will remain separate from the cafe and is likely to be leased as a clothing store.

Yep, an excellent development isn’t it. The application went in a good few weeks ago.

This is the type of outlet in which Dublin is sorely lacking, which in spite of a good effort, the Bank restaurant further down on College Green isn’t particularly successful in achieving. At the end of the day the bar takes precedence and the hall lacks intimacy. missarchi’s ‘Butler’s’ picture hints at what College Green is deserving of and what could be created here.

Removing the front mezzanine will do much to improve the internal character of the place which at present is disorientating in layout and the wider architectural scheme compromised. Unlike the common design device of creating a modest vestibule to emphasise a greater space, at the Habitat building the entrance just feels pokey, temporary and thoroughly unbefitting of exterior expectations. And as much as the off-white tones are crisp and elegant, a bit of ebullient Victoriana wouldn’t go amiss on the paint front.

All in all very exciting. And good move on rebuilding the party wall – that unit would never sell on with that crazed layout.

Which Butler’s is that? Or am I misunderstanding?

@Rory W wrote:

It also said a condition should be imposed to ensure that any alcohol sales on the premises should be in the context of a restaurant only and not a pub or nightclub.

The city council attached a condition that the building not be used as a public house or nightclub.

Michael McDowell is presumably allowing a wry smile to break across his face right about now.

If I have time, I’ll come back to that SCATS article- but where to begin…?

@ctesiphon wrote:

Which Butler’s is that? Or am I misunderstanding?

I think we all are. Not quite the decorated heritage fridge units we’re accustomed to.

@Rory W wrote:

This is good! From today’s times 28/1/09

Habitat store to be replanned as cafe

OLIVIA KELLY

Yeah, it’s amazing the same paper ran essentially the same article a few weeks ago. Gap is taking part of it they said then. olivia doesn’t seem to have checked their own archive.

I must say, getting back to the pedestrianisation, that I do think it would be a great idea… Or even a semi-pedestrianisation (buses and trams only?). It’s a great place with fascinating architecture, and currently, you can’t get more than a fleeting glimpse before having to dodge an oncoming vehicle, or a flood of other people trying to avoid one. Would be lovely to just be able to wander aoround and take it in.

Love the old picture of it too, wonder what that round tower was…

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2009/0131/1232923377631.html

For Harrington, examples of bad public space in the capital include the car-choked quays and College Green, the space beside City Hall on Dame Street, the space on Kildare Street by the Department of Agriculture Building and Wolfe Tone Park.

I dream that college green will be sorted by 2016;) but what goes below it is going to be the hard part.

@jdivision wrote:

Yeah, it’s amazing the same paper ran essentially the same article a few weeks ago. Gap is taking part of it they said then. olivia doesn’t seem to have checked their own archive.

Yeah Gap are taking the Suffolk Street bit, but there wasn’t much mention of the front section in that article

@jdivision wrote:

Yeah, it’s amazing the same paper ran essentially the same article a few weeks ago. Gap is taking part of it they said then. olivia doesn’t seem to have checked their own archive.

Lollers. Wouldn’t be the first time that seems to have happened with Olivia… Herald is becoming more of a paper of record these days on Dublin matters than the IT…

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0206/transport.html

Dublin city centre businesses say plans to introduce a car ban at College Green in five months’ time will create unemployment in the retail sector.

The proposal is also being opposed by some councillors, with the leader of the Fine Gael group describing the plan as madness.

Council officials want to impose the so-called Bus Gate in College Green in July before enabling works begin for Metro North.
Advertisement

The plan would involve a ban on general traffic going to or from Dame Street by the introduction of the public transport-only gate.

It would also involve enhanced pedestrian and cycling facilities.

Tom Coffey of the Dublin City Centre Business Association said 70% of retail business comes from car shoppers, who will now go elsewhere if they cannot travel around the city.

He said his members are not going to accept a situation where the city’s economy is being damaged by civil servants who do not know what they are doing.

He said car shoppers visit the city off-peak and do not contribute to congestion.

Fine Gael councillor Gerry Breen said the scheme is madness because there are doubts over the Metro North project.

He said the scheme is being pushed by Dublin Bus who has ‘failed to step up to the mark’ with the bus corridors they have already been given.

The proposal is due to be considered by the council’s Transport Committee next Thursday.

5 months sounds so near… but

i don’t drive can anyone tell me how pedestrianising college green will prevent people driving to shop in town

@notjim wrote:

I hope they show some steel with this and do it.

What is going to make this space work is only 1 lane eastward around 3.4 metres
and one lane west ward one lane north south. regardless of whether it is for single storey electric buses or some mini luas. Otherwise kick them out too… and consider the college green pyramid. The buses/ luas should loop/teminate close to this space

Cars should be able to use these single lanes after say 10 pm – 6 am and more on weekends for eyes and ears. Bus/Luas stops terminating will provide more security as well.

The space is already an above ground car park so just put it underground and we can add a couple of hundred car spaces and exits with free parking when capacity is below 20%. There has been no car tunnels from the NRA proposed… This will be offset by harmony… a few thousand bicycle spaces and new tourist attraction;)

from another thread U2 😉

@notjim wrote:

I hope they show some steel with this and do it.

At least one (FG) member of the Transport SPC has said he’ll vote against it.

On a somewhat related note, public consulatations for what the future for travel in Dublin should look like have started. Even if nothing comes of it, it’s a good chance to get your voice heard about public transport and planning in the city, so hopefully people will contribute.

The website is
http://www.2030vision.ie/cms/index.php?page=home

They’re on Phase 2 now, I think. I posted a link to Phase 1 a few months ago. Maybe I should bump that post? Hang on…

Edit: Here we go! https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?p=91813#post91813

When legacy is dead on arrival

The lack of civic-mindedness during the decades of “greed is good” has delivered only zombie public spaces, devoid of any life

Jonathan Glancey

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=427&storycode=3133953&c=2&encCode=000000000190152d

horns no;)

http://www.dublincity.ie/RoadsandTraffic/QBNProjectOffice/Documents/20090206T-QBN-127CollegeGreenTransGate-.pdf

http://www.dublincity.ie/RoadsandTraffic/QBNProjectOffice/QBN/Documents/T-QBN-127-DSL-001.pdf
http://www.dublincity.ie/RoadsandTraffic/QBNProjectOffice/Documents/T-QBN-127-DSL-002.pdf

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wienschau/2401507169/

they forgot one thing… signage;)

If every other place in Europe can do this it leaves little to the imagination

Does anyone know the names of the Dublin City Councillors on the DCC Transport SPC? (Aside from Gerry Breen, obviously.)

Thanks in advance for any assistance- having trouble finding the info on the DCC website. (Now there’s a surprise!)

http://www.dublincity.ie/YOURCOUNCIL/ABOUTTHECOUNCIL/STRATEGICPOLICYCOMMITTEEANDCORPORATEPOLICYGROUP/Pages/TransportTraffic.aspx

Whats the deal with the pedestrianisation, is there an official timescale for it?

@archipig wrote:

Whats the deal with the pedestrianisation, is there an official timescale for it?

There are no plans to pedestrianise College Green. :confused: Who told you that?

The main pedestrian crossings will be widened slightly. That’s about it.

http://www.dublincity.ie/RoadsandTraffic/QBNProjectOffice/QBN/Documents/T-QBN-127-DSL-001.pdf

@Morlan wrote:

There are no plans to pedestrianise College Green. :confused: Who told you that?

The main pedestrian crossings will be widened slightly. That’s about it.

http://www.dublincity.ie/RoadsandTraffic/QBNProjectOffice/QBN/Documents/T-QBN-127-DSL-001.pdf

There is a plan which has been submitted for the new development plan.
It just needs to be worked up for 2016.
I wonder if it will get a mention in December 2009?
Some one in cad is going to have to bat for this tooth and nail…
once the luas is in it is a nail in the coffin…

This committee prepares and debates policy alternatives for transport and traffic affairs for Dublin City Council.

Michael Philips, (Director of Traffic / City Engineer) has administrative responsibility for this committee.
Members

* Councillor Sean Kenny (Labour Party), Chairperson
* Councillor Brendan Carr (Labour Party)
* Councillor Larry O’Toole (Sinn Féin)
* Councillor Deirdre Heney (Fianna Fáil)
* Councillor Paddy McCartan (Fine Gael)
* Councillor Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fáil)
* Councillor Naoise O’Muiri (Fine Gael)
* Councillor Ray McHugh (Sinn Féin)
* Councillor Andrew Montague (Labour Party)
* Councillor Michael Conaghan (Labour Party)
* Mr. Derek Peppard, Dublin Cycling Campaign
* Mr Conor Faughnan, AA Ireland
* Mr. Liam Brewer, Irish Road Haulage Association
* Mr. Finbarr Cleary, Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Ireland
* Mr. Johnny Murtagh, People with Disabilities in Ireland

Thanks markpb and missarchi.

RTE news – Monday, 30 March 2009 11:28

The Automobile Association has joined growing opposition to the introduction of a car ban on College Green in Dublin.

The transport committee is due to vote on the plan on 16 April

Yup- that very news report was the reason I asked!

The candidates have started calling around the houses- my standard doorstep question relates specifically to the bus gate. No support, no vote!

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0330/breaking34.html

Dublin bus gate will not relieve congestion, AA warns

The plan to shut off part of Dublin’s city centre to cars will not lead to a “sufficient improvement” in public transport services and may disrupt the commercial life of the area, the Automobile Association has warned.

Dublin City Council’s bus gate plan would see a public-transport-only route from Dame Street across College Green to Westmoreland Street coming into force from July.

A similar restriction would be in place for private traffic coming in the opposite direction, from D’Olier Street around College Green and into Dame Street.

But AA’s director of policy Conor Faughnan said today the plan to ban general traffic around College Green will have a limited affect on motorists as few private cars still use the area because of existing restrictions on O’Connell Street and Georges Street.