Re: Re: The Irish Town – Dying At The Crossroads?

@garethace wrote:

There is so much asphalt shown in this photograph I think, that there is never any hope that the pedestrian might triumph over the car.

That public realm debate requires a level of consciousness that we just don’t seem to have in Ireland.

This is a small town called Breuberg in the Odenwald region of Germany where I had the pleasure of living for a few months as a student in the early ’80s.

This is a recent photograph, . . . back when I lived in Breuberg, this tiny main street was lethal with through-traffic in both directions. Then around 1982 they completed a local parallel by-pass through the valley about 100m away. While it is true that most of the shopping facilities did migrate to the by-pass (where there’s now a new Aldi and a Lidl), the improvement in the public realm along the old Main Street is dramatic and the guest houses and restaurants are regaining their former prominance.

The shared surface with unobtrusive bollards providing pedestrian protection, where needed, works fine.

OK, maybe the cute church and half timbered houses help, but there’s still lessons any Irish town could learn from places like this.