Re: Re: college green/ o’connell street plaza and pedestrians

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.