Re: Re: college green/ o’connell street plaza and pedestrians
It is quite a modest proposal.
I’m disappointed that they didn’t use the opportunity to create a contra-lane on Grafton St. to save buses having to go around-the-block through Suffolk St.. The latter (and most of Andrew Street) could have been pedestrianized extending the Grafton St. pedestrianised area. At least a contra-lane would be better use of precious road-space at this bottleneck than a taxi rank. The bus stops on the other side of this end of Grafton St. should be moved away from here also as they contribute considerably to the stopping and starting and piling up of buses here.
The presence of a considerable number of buses does not contribute positively to the urban environment obviously. Unfortunately, for the moment it is a vital public transport mode particularly given Dublin’s obvious shortcomings in terms of rail. One of the worst aspects is the air pollution and this is exacerbated significantly by the stop/start nature of the current flow of buses through this area of town. If the passage of buses can at least me made smother and more efficient, then the environmental damage they cause will be lessened considerably.
Sadly, being pragmatic, Dublin’s topography means that there are certain streets which will continue to serve the role as arterial routes for motorised traffic for the foreseeable future and unfortunately, I think it’s unavoidable that College Green will have a role in this regard. The aim should be to reduce the amount of motorised traffic on these routes as much as possible (and any sort of restriction helps in this regard) while building largely pedestrianised zones in the urban islands created between them. This would be cheap and easy to achieve and would be a step in the right direction until it is no longer necessary to carry passengers by bus around the city centre and the entire centre can be reclaimed for pedestrians, cyclists and clean/quiet on-street trams. Is it my imagination or did the expansion of pedestrianisation in Dublin slow or stop 5 or 10 years ago?
