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

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.