college green/ o’connell street plaza and pedestrians
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well maybe there are people from the civic offices on the website and they will see this. I would simply never have the time to go to the offices to look up things.
Hello once again,
Now, the pedestrian access from Grafton street up to Henry street badly needs vast improvement, I think we all agree. How about completely pedestrianising the northern section of Grafton street. For the buses, this would effectivly turn Trinity into one big roundabout, forcing them to travel in one direction around Suffolk street, Dame street, Pearse street, Westland Row, and Nassau street. Certainly some contra-flow bus lanes would be required. In turn then, College Green could be partially pedestrianised, as could the western parts of Westmoreland street and O’Connell bridge, leading nicely into the O’Connell street imporvements. This would create a nice series of public spaces from the green all the way up through O’Connell street. While two road crossings would still be required, there would be a comfortable levels of space for movement between the two areas.
While the Luas makes things even trickier, routing buses around Trinity in one direction could assist the Luas alignment also.
rag.
“That would be a pretty ballsy thing for the council to do. But what interesting is that in the next ten years it is the buses and only the buses that will be able to improve traffic in the city , nothwithstanding my perpetually row with thomond over rail infrastructure. Freeing up college green would wipe precious minutes of all the bus route in the city.[/QUOTE]”
A very good and fundementally sensible set of proposals from a boyle.
If these were to be coupled with the introduction of a TOTALLY transaction free boarding regeime and ENFORCED bus access arrangements then I reckon you have a winner.However those Civic Office lurkers really have to come off the fence on this one and begin by removing virtually ALL of the on street Pay and Display parking in the Dawson/Nassau/Sth Frederick st area.
With sufficent PAVEMENT space thus released it would be possible to install some “Island” stops which would address the self defeating and dangerous practice of Buses having to load/unload from mid traffic lane due to Bus Congestion.This congestion is particularly visible along TCD wall from College Green to Kildare St and is TOTALLY avoidable given some committment from and cooperation between Dublin Bus and the Council.
IMO the first step has to come from Dublin Bus as it should have the confidence to forcibly state it`s case and if necessary make the running on it`s own improvements.
There are however other non Dublin Bus issues such as the Dualway City Tour operation and the insane allocation of stops to Aircoach and assorted Private COACH operators along by the Provost`s House.
This situation has its origins in a very simple yet fundamental inability to distinguish between a long-dwell COACH service such as AirCOACH or certain other Private COACH operators and (What should be) a short-dwell city BUS service.
There can be NO acceptance of a situation whereby a Coach Driver is required to leave the Cab in order to assist with Luggage removal/porterage whilst the vehicle remains parked at a drunken angle to the kerb.
Similarly the current accepted logic of Open Top tour buses having carte blanche to adopt the same position whilst bartering with Australian Visitors re a seniors/student discount is contributing to a daily thrombosis of the entire south central area traffic flow (Believe me I know my onions,cos I WAS that soldier….!!)The sheer simplicity and good sense of the Boyle Plan is commendable to all (Except perhaps a large rump of DCC “Professional” planners) and really deserves to be put on the Joe Duffy/Marian Finucane stage in order to rattle a few bars in the Civic Office Zoo.
By far the biggest aid to success would be the reduction of Bus Dwell Time per stop and Dublin Bus HAS to recognize this before any progress is possible….
“Build it and they will come…….Poke them with a pointy stick and they will Go ” 😮
@a boyle wrote:
There is one improvement i think we could all agree on. Close Suffolk street, make grafton street two way.
You have me sold on it anyway. Remove the outgoing bus stop outside the Provosts House and replace the taxi/loading rank with inbound stops – these would make up for the loss of stops on Suffolk St.
Next off – remove at least one traffic lane on both Westmoreland and D’Olier Sts, and put in place purpose built bus bays. Imo the bus areas should be on the left side of each of the streets, with a median seperating them from the rest of the traffic; what say?
That would impinge on the grand avenue-style streetscape that could be created here – though yes, they do have to be accommodated somehow…
Stupid buses – always have to spoil everything!Well as Greg F mentioned on the O’Connell Street thread, the Thomas Davis Memorial on College Green has been unveiled this week after months of blue hoarding surrounding it, and after years of the water element not working. It looks great.
Doesn’t look over-restored – just right.
Don’t think these glass screens were here before were they? They’re topped in what seems to be brushed brass.
Just like O’Connell Monument, Davis looks crisp and clean, with the bronze matt finish very striking:
Sorry I’ve no pic of the fountains – cameras don’t like getting wet.
Also the poor resolution.Undoubtedly what has made the restoration is the installation of a fantastic LED lighting scheme. Both parts of the memorial are going to look spectacular at night:
No less than about 30 of these dinky little fittings have been installed, as well as others underneath the water.
Similarly around the base of the statue:
What’s very impressive, and I’m glad to see the CC have finally taken the concept on board, is the idea of sinking powerful lamps into the pavement underneath a sheet of glass. Just look at these fancy LED floods!
Very swanky! And yes, the question everyone’s about to say in chorus is……..why wasn’t this done on O’Connell Street?!
Larkin obviously stands out for treatment similar to the LEDs surrounding the base at the very least. Perhaps an indication then that the CC definitely intend to light the monuments from the buildings?The removal of the hoardings was very timely for the fine weather – this being the only street water feature in all of Dublin city centre, a state of affairs that has to change. There’s nothing like sitting near water on a hot dusty day in the city – everyone’s just drawn like magnets to the fountains in the Green when really it’s on a city street that you want it: at the south end of Grafton Street, or the centre of College Green. Cleanliness shouldn’t be an issue anymore – nearly every capital in the world probably has such a feature, but Dublin has nothing.
Not that it isn’t pleasant to sit on the grass – Stephen’s Green was packed as usual today:
Lovely Continental air about the place too : )
(yawn)Isn’t he just – never been a fan either.
As an ensemble the two parts work well, and fountain element and figures a delight – but the statue is so very clunky and lacking in stature.
And his head looks like it’s been transplanted.There has been a lot of complaints about buses on this page – don’t forget about all the cars that they replace.
@Graham Hickey wrote:
Isn’t he just – never been a fan either.
As an ensemble the two parts work well, and fountain element and figures a delight – but the statue is so very clunky and lacking in stature.
And his head looks like it’s been transplanted.He looks one of those diplo men, ya knows th ones, its awful? who made it
compared to this one, http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Image_Statue_of_Thomas_Davis_in_Dublin_City_Hall_by_John_Hogan
much dramaDublin statues and their nicknames
Thomas Davis – College Green ** Frankenstein or Urination once againIm delighted to see Mr Davis back on view. 🙂 I agree its not the most attractive of statues, all its proportions are wrong and the face is odd to say the least. However its the whole ensemble I liked and I always felt so sorry for it, forgotten and forlorn on its traffic island. The floodlighting should improve its profile enormously. Incidentally, the works on this statue were completed by OPW as the statue is a national monument under their care (just like its sister monument of Wolfe Tone on the Green). I agree with your comments Graham about floodlighting the OConnell St collection….I’m amazed this wasn’t considered. Then again we have previously commented on the lack of hardwiring for tree lights around the plaza at Christmas and the inability to properly floodlight the lower sections of the GPO. Perhaps this project will open some eyes at the DCC.
I love summer in Dublin…all these lovely images of our city at its best. Dont know about that window though. I think swing-out, white PVC would have looked much better. And so much easier to maintain.:rolleyes:
hutton wrote:You have me sold on it anyway. Remove the outgoing bus stop outside the Provosts House and replace the taxi/loading rank with inbound stops – these would make up for the loss of stops on Suffolk St.Next off – remove at least one traffic lane on both Westmoreland and D’Olier Sts, and put in place purpose built bus bays. Imo the bus areas should be on the left side of each of the streets, with a median seperating them from the rest of the traffic]
You need a top down approach to the city center. let me explain.
Start by cutting the inner city into squares that have only one access in and out (cul de sacs if you will).
These are pretty obvious : the entire space between grafton street and merrion square would only be accessed through a two way nassau street. The space between grafton street and georges street accessed by dame street and exchequer street only (in other words set up a big roundabout: enter exchequer street and exit on dame street.) The north side is pretty much fine although car should be moved east from gardiner street, and north from parnell square.
With that done have a single lane outbound for car from college green upto christchurch, and a single lane inbound on aungier/wexford and georges street.
Next you need three sets of parrallel bus bays , with little traffic islands . These could be nicely covered with canvas type shelters (a bit like the connolly luas stop). So there would be a set on westmoreland street , a set on nassau and a set on the dame street .
Then as suggested earlier pedestrianise suffolk street. Create a two way route in front of trinity , and a two way route in front of the bank of ireland. The other rather large section in front of ulsterbank / habitat would then be pedestrianised (obviously cutting down the retarded trees that get in the way).
The next essential move is to take away all , ALL bus stop within a fifteen minute walk in any direction. So there ought to be no stops on o’connell, (not till you get to parnell square or parnell street).
Of course this means routing the luas around the back of trinners and joining it to the dart. This is a good idea as it would link rail to light rail. Then the luas would head straight for d’olier street , keeping to the left hand side . This would complement the irish times moving and trinity’s effort to redevelop pearse street. It would also reconnect pearse street back into the wide street commision original idea of three boulevards joining in the centre of the city.
There is more … but chew on that for now.
There’s some archive footage of President de Valera unveiling the Davis statue on the RTE site (http://www.rte.ie/laweb/ll/ll_t06_schedule_g.html – third item down) The piece ends with a group of children singing “A Nation Once Again”.
In the next item, a sound recording of Dev’s speech at the unveiling, Dev says that the Davis statue should, in part, serve as a reminder to Trinity students, scions of the nobility, that they too are a part of the Irish nation.
Some news on this project:
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1771015&issue_id=15223@Irish Indo 6 Feb wrote:
Council set to vote on city centre car ban
A RADICAL proposal to totally eliminate cars from the heart of Dublin city centre is to be shortly put before the city council.
If councillors approve the plan, College Green, Westmoreland Street and possibly O’Connell Street bridge will be closed to private motorists.
It would also mean that all vehicles except public transport would be prevented from driving down Dame Street from Christchurch to Trinity College and around the front of the college from D’Olier Street.
College Green would become a “public transport gateway” with only local access provided, and commuting motorists would be forced to use alternative routes in order to travel from one side of the city to the other.
The plan, which was drawn up by the Dublin Transportation Office (DTO) and Dublin City Council with an input from other agencies such as the Railway Procurement Agency, has already been approved by Dublin Bus.
Computer models have been used by the DTO to determine what effect the proposal would have on traffic flow in the capital.
The plan arose during talks on the future of the College Green area, which is a favoured route for the eventual link-up of the two Luas lines.
Congested
The area is already heavily congested as it is one of the main pick-up and set-down strips of Dublin Bus and transport officials believe it makes sense to remove cars from entirely.
Senior official and project manager of the Quality Bus Network, Ciaran de Burca said: “It makes sense. Measures have already been taken to reduce traffic flow in this area. This is just the next logical step.”
Treacy Hogan
PLease please God, let some vision shine upon Wood Quay that day. I think I posted elsewhere that planning in Dublin will always be regarded as a failure until the day we get College Green back for the people. This plan has been talked about for years. Hopefully action will begin to follow these words
Hard to knock it
When things fall off the agenda then you can give up
College Green would become a “public transport gateway” with only local access provided, and commuting motorists would be forced to use alternative routes in order to travel from one side of the city to the other.
I hope they go ahead with the vehicle ban ( i doubt they will just yet though ) but whats this about College Green being a major public transport gateway ?
Removing vehicles would finally allow CG to realise its potential and become the primary public / pedestrian space in this city. Dublin has nothing in this vein, even if they removed traffic from the O’Connell Street plaza its not a patch on what College Green could be. Smithfield is too far out & not worthy in any case.
In my view any IAP for College Green would be substantially undermined if it is forced to accommodate on street busses & luas. 40m trams & double deckers would not make for a relaxed, comfortable pedestrian environment. All that would be acceptable to my mind is a possible underground station.
Surely Westmoreland Street would be better suited as a ‘public transport gateway’.
I hope the CC don’t fuck up this opportunity to create a stunning space surrounded by some of the finest buildings we have.
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