college green/ o'connell street plaza and pedestrians

[StephenC]

I see lots of signage poles being erected today adding the visual clutter. Well done to all who contacted various persons in DCC. Not that it helped in the least.

On the plus side however movement around College Green seems a whole lot easier and I imagine this is especially do for wheelchair users with broad dishing and flush paving.

[missarchi]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0725/1224251305738.html

[missarchi]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0727/1224251384735.html

[Devin]

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0727/1224251384735.html

Good to see the Civic Trust making their voice heard on this.

[Devin]

To mark the opening of Bus Gate today, let us remind ourselves of the spectacular botchwork at Dublin's foremost architectural ensemble again.

It's been in the paper twice. The elected councillors have been filled in. An Taisce and the Irish Georgian Society have both lodged complaints to DCC about it, copying to various sections (conservation, heritage, architects and engineers), and now the Dublin Civic Trust have put their oar in. But still no backdown from DCC, from their spokesman on the Last Word today when it was put to him. He glossed over with some 'requirement of integration' guff.





During work. That Sierra crowd who did the work are brutes .... jack of all trades and master of none ...
(But of course the blame for the whole horror lies firmly with DCC.)





During work.





The finished job; white granite added in to the historic yellow pavement and a big awkward red-tile platform.





New white granite casually thrown in in front of one of the most important 18th century classical buildings in Europe. I didn't think it was possible to be shocked anymore ...





And cement strap-pointed.








While the red studded-tile platforms at the road crossings at Trinity and the BOI were there in some form previously - I think they've just been enlarged (and renewed) - the ones here at the entrance & exit to the BOI forecourt are 'virgin', and the justification for them is frankly ludicrous: the BOI forecourt has parking space for a handful of vehicles and is only open during banking hours Mon-Fri; the small number of vehicle movements thus generated puts the onus for caution moving in and out of the forecourt firmly on the vehicle. But instead irreplaceable old granite has been cut out and unecessary studded tiles put in at an angle. Words fail me ..

Also, note that insertion of crossing-point tiles in this location was NOT indicated on the proposed Bus Gate map plan, as originally linked by missarchi:
http://www.dublincity.ie/RoadsandTraffic/QBNProjectOffice/QBN/Documents/T-QBN-127-DSL-001.pdf






The National Council for the Blind insist on these platforms at every crossing. The solution, from a conservation perspective, is use of steel studs (like has been used in some locations in the context of the modern paving scheme on O'Connelll Street), though this is apparently not acceptable to them. They want red tiles or nothing.

[Morlan]

Oh my god, this is horrendous work.

Thanks for the pics, Devin.

[missarchi]

The red is bad and the yellow and the L shape?...
why don't we build a monorail for them?
How is the world heritage list going or removal of national primary?

- If they where so worried about this place the speed limit would 5km/hr
- There would be invisible speed cameras and a 100 euro fine if your doing 10km/hr
- There would only be one lane with sensitive bollards that if you hit them you get a fine

Anyway all will be revealed in the line BXD application...
There will be a plan a I hope...

This is what represents bad planning in Ireland...
If this was fixed 30 years ago maybe there would have never been sprawl...
It's snakes and ladders all the progress means nothing if you cannot fix the centro heart.

Full of quick fix's let's hope the master plan is all that it is cracked up to be or history will repeat itself.

[missarchi]

be careful of the blind people...

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0728/1224251492249.html

[StephenC]

Not to mention the proliferation of signage! There are poles and signs everywhere.
Also:
The vista towards the HoL entrance and Moore statue from College Street is blocked by an LED display.
The view of Gratton and his lamps - shared with an LED display and signage
Inappropriate industrial park type lighting on the existing light poles (already ugly enough).
The sop of a heritage lamp in the centre median is an insult frankly.

[Peter Fitz]

Anybody interested in some guerrilla gardening in College Green?

Yes. You bring the chain saw, i'll bring the angle grinder

trees & poles taken care of.

[GrahamH]

One instance where the application of an angle grinder is more than merited on College Green!

Spot on Devin and Stephen with your assessments. It's been a total mess. One of the newest delights is just around the corner on College Street, where crisp new slabs of quite attractive modern granite have been laid (though in place of historic granite from what I recall). The surface-applied strap pointing on what are machine-precisioned slabs just has to be seen to be believed. It actually looks like a send-up of contractors' worst practices. Shocking workmanship, at public expense.

But clutter is the real big issue. It's a scandal.

As an aside, watching the bus gate in operation yesterday, at least 80 per cent of drivers entering and then being directed out of College Green were women, quelle surprise

[missarchi]

Maybe college green is a reflection of the room/manners/state of affairs of the nation that loves humps and bumps just not on the roads...

what do people think of motto bikes?

does the area feel even more strange during peak hour?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2009/0730/1224251669193.html
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0729/breaking93.htm

[Cathal Dunne]

The butchery of College Green proves beyond any doubt that Dublin City Council have as much vision as a myopic bat in a fog.

[fergalr]

The butchery of College Green proves beyond any doubt that Dublin City Council have as much vision as a myopic bat in a fog.

The pedant in me wants to point out that bats are almost blind :P But I agree with what you're saying. I think the problem is that very few councillors represent the city centre as a ward. Try to build someting in Dublin SE? Good luck. That place is almost UNESCO. But tamper with one of the single most important architectural set pieces in the country? Go right ahead. Sure they're only pavements. And trees are good for the environment. Call it Laceyism, for want of a better term.

[Rusty Cogs]

The pedant in me wants to point out that bats are almost blind :P But I agree with what you're saying. I think the problem is that very few councillors represent the city centre as a ward. Try to build someting in Dublin SE? Good luck. That place is almost UNESCO. But tamper with one of the single most important architectural set pieces in the country? Go right ahead. Sure they're only pavements. And trees are good for the environment. Call it Laceyism, for want of a better term.

The pedant in me shall point out that bats have good eyesight, on a par with humans and actually better in low levels of light. However, if the bat in question was shortsighted the fact that he would get about in fog (or any other climatic conditions) using sonar rather than sight would render their myopia as inconsequential to navigating.

(Friday fact for ya

[Frank Taylor]

from today's irish times letters.

Friday, July 31, 2009
Paving in city centre
Madam, – Graham Hickey of Dublin Civic Trust is frustrated that Dublin’s College Green has been “butchered” (Home News, July 27th). One of Mr Hickey’s main grievances is that tactile paving has been installed in this area, which he believes is “mobility correctness gone crazy”.

Imagine for a moment walking around Dublin city centre with no, or very little, sight, relying instead on sound and touch to guide you. Many people with vision impairments use a long cane as a mobility aid. The cane acts as an obstacle detector; with the user sweeping it from side-to-side, two strides in front of them, to get clues about their environment so they can act quickly. The use of different surfaces underfoot conveys important information to people who are blind or vision impaired, who navigate the city in a very different way to sighted people. The feel and sound of a cane swept across the pavement is very different to the feel and sound of a cane touching tactile paving and immediately alerts the person that they are approaching a crossing.

So while tactile paving may be nothing more than a quirk to sighted people, it is a vital safety mechanism for people with sight loss and is just one of many changes to our environment that can mean the difference between travelling safely and independently and having to rely on others for assistance at every turn. – Yours, etc,

ELAINE HOWLEY,
Director of Services,
National Council for the Blind of Ireland,
Whitworth Road,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.

[missarchi]

bats are freaky they like dry cat food too and they drag themselves along the ground if they are on smooth tiles. Black European pigs have to be the best looking in the world...

i'm still waiting for humps and bollocks (bollards) gehl had a page in the north wall site that had limits...

[Frank Taylor]

here's a document that discusses balancing the paving needs of the blind while conserving the visual environment

tactile heritage paving

[GrahamH]

Precisely Frank. One of a number of papers on the matter. Frankly, this is a non-issue. It's been resolved elsewhere; there's no reason to reinvent the wheel or start getting hackles up at this stage in the game. The solutions are old news and should be standard procedure across the board.

In any event, the area outside the Bank of Ireland is not even a crossing point - it's a pavement intersected by two minor driveways where the pedestrian has right of way. Equally, one cannot imagine a greater change in texture and contrast that a sharp transition from smooth granite to staggered, broadly spaced setts.

[missarchi]

last time I checked it was speed that kills... zero to five kilometres hour or people only

sign on the dotted line and all will be fine


..................

[ihateawake]

DCC are fcking assholes tbh.

One of you guys should run for election. Sort em out

[rumpelstiltskin]

Re the letter of the woman from the National Council for the Blind: the rights of the entire people of Ireland to have the limited remaining historical heritage of their capital city preserved outweights the needs of a smaller number of blind people to have studs on the pavement at every last crossing. There's no doubt in my mind what is for the greater good. Maybe if blind people had to actually look at this shit every day, they'd change their tune. While we're at it, we should dig up the steps leading up to every Georgian building in Dublin so that wheelchair users don't have problems. And maybe we should pump billions into levelling out sloped streets so that those in wheelchairs don't have problems. IT'S THE FUCKING REAL WORLD AND YOU'RE DISABLED: GET USED TO IT.

[Rory W]

That's a more than a little harsh - tactile paving could be implemented but the job could be done more sympathetically is the basic point here.

I hope you never suffer from a disability when there are people as sypathetic as you around

[hutton]

That's a more than a little harsh - tactile paving could be implemented but the job could be done more sympathetically is the basic point here.

I hope you never suffer from a disability when there are people as sypathetic as you around

+ 1

As Graham said, it's been resolved elsewhere; there's no reason to reinvent the wheel or start getting hackles up at this stage in the game. The solutions are old news and should be standard procedure across the board.

(Which is of course exactly what I've done with is quote )

[alonso]

I thought Graham;s main grievance, or the straw that broke the camel's back, was the use of tactile paving at the entrance to a BoI car park that has only a handful of users every day. I'm not sure if his letter stated that particular occurence or just comprised a general complaint but there is a middle ground where heritage and mobility needs can both be met. As with most things, i'm sure there are blind people in Copenhagen and Vienna etc etc where they don't destroy the urban fabric for them...

Maybe if blind people had to actually look at this shit every day, they'd change their tune

Jaysus...