List of poles to be removed by Dublin City Council

10. Corner of Aungier Street and Upr. Digges Street

11. Other corner of Aungier Street and Upr. Digges Street

12. Corner of Cuffe Street and Cuffe Lane

13. Corner of York Street and Mercer Street

14. Mercer Street

15. Corner of Mercer Street and Bow Lane

16. Corner of Dawson Street & South Anne Street

17. Dawson Street

18. Corner of Dawson Street and Dawson Lane

19. Molesworth Street

20. Nassau Street

21. Nassau Street

22. Fenian Street, near Lincoln Place

23. Stephen’s Green South

24. Stephen’s Green East

25. Stephen’s Green East

26. Stephen’s Green North

27. Earlsfort Terrace

28. Charlemont Parade

29. Corner of Charlemont Street and Albert Place

30. Harcourt Street

31. Lower Kevin Street

32. St. Patrick’s Close

33. Patrick Street

34. Patrick Street

35, 36, 37 & 38. Junction of Nicholas Street and Back Lane – four bare poles

39. Corner of Werburgh Street and Castle Street

40. Dublin Castle, Palace Street entrance

41. Thomas Street / Cornmarket

42. Corner of St. Augustine Street and Thomas Street

43. Thomas Street

44. Francis Street

45. Corner of Newmarket and Ward’s Hill

46. Newmarket at junction with Chamber Street / Ardee Street

47. Ardee Street, near Newmarket corner

48. Corn Exchange Place

49 & 50. Burgh Quay

NORTH OF THE LIFFEY:

51. Custom House Quay

52. Marlborough at corner of Eden Quay

53. Lower Abbey Street

54. Talbot Street, under the railway bridge

55. Marlborough, at Dept. of Ed.

56. Marlborough Street, at Dept. of Ed.

57. Cathal Brugha Street

58. Cathal Brugha Street

59. Corner of Parnell Street and Marlborough Street

60. Other corner of Parnell Street and Marlborough Street

61. Corner of Parnell Street and Cumberland Street

62. Other corner of Parnell Street and Cumberland Street

63. Mountjoy Square North

64. Mountjoy Square North

65. Gardiner Place

66. Corner of Nelson Street and Eccles Street

67. Corner of Nelson Street and St. Joseph’s Parade

68. Junction of Nelson Street and Blessington Street

69. Corner of Parnell Squares North and East

70. Parnell Street near Moore Street corner

71. Wolfe Tone Street at corner of Parnell Street

72. Capel Street at corner of Parnell Street

73. Capel Street at corner of Little Britain Street

74. Capel Street at Ryder’s Row

75. Henrietta Street at corner of Bolton Street

76. Upper Dominick Street

77. Uprper Dominick Street

78. Junction of Upr. Dominick Street and Broadstone

79. Constitution Hill

80. Red Cow Lane, at Smithfield

81. North King Street, at St. Paul’s Church

82. Corner of Stoneybatter & Brunswick Street

83. Blackhall Place

84. Blackhall Place

85. Blackhall Place

86.
Blackhall Place

87. Liffey Street West, off Wolfe Tone Quay

88. Arran Quay Terrace

89. Corner of Church Street and Hammond Lane

90. Hammond Lane

91. Corner of Church Street and Mary’s Lane

92. Chancery Street

93 & 94. Front of Fruit market, Mary’s Lane

95. Arran Street East

96. Corner of Inns Quay and Chancery Place

97. Corner of Upper Ormond Quay and Arran Street East

98. Corner of Lower Ormond Quay and Swift’s Row

99. Upper Liffey Street

100. Lower Liffey Street

Well done! Sterling work.

Now, I may be wrong but didn’t a certain Kevin Duff of An Taisce fame raise this issue in the media a couple of years back. If I remember rightly, DCC committed to remove all the empty poles. Still, its a different time now and there is little or no money in the coffers…which makes me wonder who is paying Sierra to continue installing poles. The latest batch have appeared on much benighted Little Strand Street and the Lotts.

Nevertheless I welcome the new wayfinder signage….but what a pity its not been in place for the main tourist season, or even last night’s Culture Night. Why the delay with this one?

Maybe it’s not the Corpo’s fault, maybe Dublin has a serial sign thief

101. North Circular Road and Royal Canal Bank

102. North Circular Road, Doyle’s Corner

103. Railway St.

104. Lombard St.

105. Lombard St.

@gunter wrote:

Maybe it’s not the Corpo’s fault, maybe Dublin has a serial sign thief

That would assume that the signage actually had a real function in the first instance as if genuinely required said signage would no doubt have been replaced.

You must welcome the new way finding signage it is attractive, fullfills a real need and could facilitate a significant consolidation of aged signage assembled over recent decades.

A thorough review of signage undertaken through a post graduate research grant that looks at all signage in the core City Centre would be a very useful exercise; in the era of SatNav and attempts to reduce traffic levels the finite level of signage that can be placed without visually detracting from the built environment should be rebalanced towards pedestrians i.e. those that are visiting the City to drop cash and support retail/leisure.

Is the steel not worth something; could they not be sold to a company willing to fill the hole afterwards?

Sadly not; by the time pavement licenses, risk and method statements and the like are factored in the costs of removal mount up well beyond the point of the value of a commodity measured in tonnes.

The poles are still serving a function as places to lock up bikes with the lack of adequately located and well-maintained bike racks throughout the city. Not their original use, and still an eyesore though to be honest.

Any sign of a home for the homeless poles?

Looks to me that many of these were “Brennan” poles, for the “R101 E40 P45” signs we were to have to guide us out of Dublin. Always assuming we we knew where the R101 went to.

It is waste Jim – but not as we know it

maybe the politicians could be told that, the next time there’s some sort of spurious election , the bare poles are the only ones that they’re allowed to stick posters of their slimey goodfornothing mug shots on. Unless they personally want to pay for the removal of said poles in order that they can invade my privacy by sticking them on the tree outside my house and then not bothering to take them down until they blow off and scrape the bonnet of my car and end up in my green bin. Or not, as they’re not recyclable of course.

Speaking of poles, does anybody know when those new signposts associated with the JCDecaux deal are going to be finished? They’ve been swaddled with green netting the past few weeks and nothing seems to have happened beyond that. You’d hope that the fingers would be installed soon, otherwise we’d just be getting yet more unwanted poles in our city.

I’d imagine that yes, the poles are mostly left over from the days of those strange yellow directional signs which were an idea of Seamus Brennan. They didn’t make much sense and their successors really don’t either.

Now now, they weren’t Seamus’s idea. They were a DCC idea which Seamus though made no sense and ordered them to be removed. That unfortunate system was replaced by the Orbital Route signage. Doesnt explain all the poles though as they keep on appearing… I think its just a fun thing to do on a Wednesday afternoon.

An extraordinary litany of visually degrading redundancy there, and what is ultimately a considerable waste of tax-payers’ money.

Let’s work this out. A typical 76mm x 3300mm traffic pole with plastic cap of the most basic variety costs approximately €90. Buying in bulk naturally results in savings, but taking account of the many larger and more complex poles on offer above, including the ravishing H number and the ever-popular L shape, we are talking considerably in excess of €10,000 literally littered like confetti all over the city just with the above. In addition, the longer these poles are left functionless, the more open they become to degredation and ultimately a loss in value. In effect, we have an array of depreciating public assets left to rot around the city. Where is the value in this? Never mind the degrading impact on their host environments.

There are naked pointless poles as charted by Devin, but equally there are fully clothed, and thus even more expensive, pointless poles too.

Take May Lane just off Smithfield – this array of obscene wastage never fails to baffle. We have no less than six poles hosting eight parking signs, many saying exactly the same thing, over a stretch of streetscape shorter than the West Front of Trinity College.

Only five are marked above.

Why is our money being wasted like this?

Why on earth is a second pole and two additional signs needed? At most, a single extra sign is all that is in order. Bonkers stuff.

In all honesty, did they just have nothing else to do that day?

This type of practice can be seen all over the city. Visually degrading, obstructing to pedestrians, confusing for the intended audience, and a complete waste of public money. Everybody loses. Except the sign company, of course.

Over on Westmoreland Street, the free-for-all in private signage continues, this time in an ACA. An aul H-shape traffic sign stands stranded for goodness how long at this point, while no less than two parking signs signal the presence of a private car park.

The second one of course newly erected in front of the soon to be installed way finding signage.

Over on O’Connell Bridge, the operators of the new Leprechaun Museum who are calling for new standards of presentaton in the city, swashbuckle about sticking up there tack wherever they can squeeze it in. In this case slap bang in front of one of the most important vistas in the city. You can’t have it every way lads. Stop being so Irish, please – it’s embarrassing.

Need their partners in hamfistedness even be noted. Both stitched onto a raw galvanised pole.

Things get even worse over on Merrion Square. Just as Dublin’s UNESCO submission was being lodged earlier in the year, the Corpo Roads Division were out lodging this farce all over the south side of the square.

In all honesty, the only reason they did this appears to be that they had nothing else to be doing, or were trying to use up a budget.

It seems the considerably more expensive pole and the additional sign are both required simply to mark a minute differentiation in zoning.

It’s incredible how these guys get off wasting our money and destroying the most sensitive areas of the city in the process.

Instead of the typical practice of this.

No pole, no extra sign, no clutter. Personally however, I don’t favour this solution on the squares, where the streetlamps are an important part of the urban landscape, and where a less intrusive option is available – in this case, black painted poles and small parking signs. They’d visually melt into the backdrop of dark foliage.

Unlike the likes of this.

Perhaps some of the more imaginative creations above could form part of our submission for World Design Capital:rolleyes:

Dublin’s Bid to Become a World Design Capital

I have a fabulous idea. What if we got rid of all parking signs and simply used a double yellow line as indicating no parking here ever.
And then, rather than have five million poles in the city, simply have the parking details: zone, time restrictions, day restrictions etc, marked on all of the nearby cash parking machines.
Would that work?

Great idea

I would however refine it slightly; if the double yellow lines were all identical it would create chaos; I would therefore suggest double lines but in 4 colours

1. Yellow for single line and double to indicate fine pending
2. Double red for clearway – i.e. you will be towed
3. Green – for open pay and display i.e. anyone can park there but must pay at stated time – parking charges could be done by postcode
4. Blue – residents parking only – fine pending

This would in combination with the wayfinding signage facilitate a consolodation of signage on a scale that would deliver real improvements in the public realm at a very modest cost; you could sting utility providers to repaint entire streets as a future condition of works licenses.

I think you are on to something PVC.

Of course as I have said before the big elephant in the Signage Room is the Dept of Transport’s Roads Manual which is often cited as the reason for the degree of signage on our streets. Using a colour system like about would mean changing the Manual.

I also like PVC’s multicoloured lines idea.

Regarding the parking signs I wrote to the council years ago about replacing them with coloured road markings, even if necessary stencilling hours of operation onto the street. The eventual reponse was as you say that it didn’t meet DoE guidelines. One suspects that very few things DCC do meet any guidelines anyway but its a good excuse. Basically, if the Corpo doesn’t come up with the idea itself, its not going to happen. It is interesting however to compare the visual clutter shown above to the parking arrangement on Shrewsbury Road, whose residents once had some influence. There, there are two poles at each end of the road and none(or few) in between. Also the council are completely disingenuous when they say they cannot show parking signs on lamposts and therefore have to plant signpoles within a few inches of them They can and do frequently place the signs on lampposts, so the poles must only be for using up budgets.

when DCC set up pay and display parking on our road – at the request of the residents – I actually went and met the roads dept and discussed the position of the machine and the notices. I’ll admit that I wanted to ensure neither were outside my own window but there were 2 locations that would land the machines and notices away from anyone’s immediate doorstep. We also managed to use existing poles. Unless it is stipulated the lads in the van will feck them where they want

Just for the record I also stood outside my house and refused to allow NTL past the gate until they agreed to re-route their new wires along the eaves under the gutter rather than under my upper floor window cills and then take their old ones away.

Avid polehunters and others may be interested to know that Google Street View is going live for Ireland. That may kill off architectural tourism, if such exists!

DC you are a touch harsh; whilst the public realm has been neglected through the absence of a wider vision; many attractive period buildings are clustered in specific spaces to make Dublin a decent destination.

Stephen – please give credit for the idea where it is due – Kefu

On the Dept of Transport Road Manual it should be updated and remitted in pdf format to each motorist each year, assuming their road tax is paid online.

My own feeling on why the place is littered with poles is that local authorities derive significant revenues from parking charges; to ensure that utility companies don’t spoil the party poles versus lines are used. Solution for 2010 – any utility company that wants to dig up any street must undertake to add lines behind them; any works that involve removal of the lines must be rentalised to reflect the value of the spaces for the period until they can produce income for the council again.,

I wonder are DCC capable of making money?

@wearnicehats wrote:

when DCC set up pay and display parking on our road – at the request of the residents – I actually went and met the roads dept and discussed the position of the machine and the notices. I’ll admit that I wanted to ensure neither were outside my own window but there were 2 locations that would land the machines and notices away from anyone’s immediate doorstep. We also managed to use existing poles. Unless it is stipulated the lads in the van will feck them where they want

Westminster City Council are removing their machines and have moved to a text based system which allows them to manage their enforcement team more effectively by knowing where to avoid areas of full occupancy. In Dublin we could go one better, have the text number painted on the street; as smarter software emerges you could at some future point in time check online where spaces are available.

@PVC King wrote:

Westminster City Council are removing their machines and have moved to a text based system which allows them to manage their enforcement team more effectively by knowing where to avoid areas of full occupancy. In Dublin we could go one better, have the text number painted on the street; as smarter software emerges you could at some future point in time check online where spaces are available.

Dublin already has a system where you can pay by phone or by text but it operates alongside the existing cash system. I’d imagine it will take some time before the cash meters can be removed completely.

Collecting cash makes no sense whatsoever; a mix of retail coupons and text are the only way to go. Clearly moving away from mollycoddling motorists with signage which is now well understood to a painted system with minimum installation and maintenance costs is clearly a beneficial idea.

Just had to post on this thread as it covers one of my bugbears: the seeming inability of authorities in the Republic to erect and maintain purposeful and aesthetically pleasing traffic signage.

I’m in Northern Ireland and the situation here is markedly better. However, I don’t think this is due to some mythical Presbyterian fastidiousness. It simply seems to be some sort of problem of bureaucratic incompetence/poor organisation to my layman’s mind. In this area you seem to have loads of it while for once we’ve managed to get by with less lunacy.

As has already been mentioned there’s the glaring lack of a set of guidelines down there; apparently an update for the Traffic Signs Manual still hasn’t been issued since the last one was deemed obsolete in the LATE 90s!!! (I think). How unearth are standards to be reinforced and maintained if no one has a clue what they are?

And now I will indulge in a bit of anti-Paddywackery! So much of the new motorway signage down there had to be replaced due to initial amateurish attempts that shrieked made-up-as-we-went-along-on-the-back-of-an-envelope-late-on-a-Friday-afternoon. Even the ‘improved’ replacements seem to have been developed in a similar short-notice fashion; and all of this done with no published official guidelines. Do you think the Dutch/Germans/French/British attempted to sign their new motorway networks in such an ad hoc, unplanned manner?

And similarly, in this area of signage as well, the lack of foresight and a proper signage manual reinforces the image of the stereotypical Irish mindset. A chaotic lack of focus and a sort of make it up as you go along/sure it’ll be grand with a shrug of the shoulders outlook. This always seems to translate into three predictable steps: no planning, poor implementation, and little maintenance.

I think that up here due to benevolent English colonial guidance;) the Highways Agency’s TRSDG is adhered to by the Roads Service. And that’s another difference. I believe all signage installation/maintenance is carried out up here by this quango. Now, far be it for me to champion the quango-ocracy but in an Irish context of woeful county councillors/managers, and the small and inherently incompetent nature of Irish local authorities, maybe a similar centralised state agency might be the least worst option down there as well.

Believe it or not the folks responsible for the UK’s world renowned traffic signage and its bible, the TRSDG, put a bid in with the Republic’s DoT for the revamp of the TSM. But as might well now seem predictable with all that we’ve learnt in hindsight about the land of strokes and mutual back scratching a local firm got the job ahead of this highly esteemed agency. Of course, like a bad Anglo Irish loan, the return of a new manual seems to have never materialised. I wonder was it a FAS contract?

So there you have it: Ireland, probably the only country in the EU with no official traffic signage guidelines. Unbelievable! Another reminder that An Irish RM was a documentary, not fiction.:eek:

@kefu wrote:

I have a fabulous idea. What if we got rid of all parking signs and simply used a double yellow line as indicating no parking here ever.
And then, rather than have five million poles in the city, simply have the parking details: zone, time restrictions, day restrictions etc, marked on all of the nearby cash parking machines.
Would that work?

I’m pretty sure that parking fines can’t be enforced if the signs aren’t present – lines can wear away or be dug up by contractors.

Of course, the answer is to change the parking byelaws, introduce proper bonding and serious penalties for degenerate contractors, and make sure lines are inspected regularly, but we can’t expect something like that, can we? This is Ireland, after all, where “fuck it, it’ll do” is the national slogan.

From today’s Irish Times

An Taisce says unused signage poles ‘cluttering’ city
OLIVIA KELLY

MORE THAN 100 bare and redundant poles are littering the streets of Dublin city centre, according to a new audit carried out by national heritage organisation An Taisce.

An Taisce has asked Dublin City Council to remove those poles that no longer carry signage and are leading to a “degradation of the visual character and attractiveness of the city”.

The organisation originally wrote to the council last June in relation to a handful of poles in the prime tourist areas of the city, which it recommended be removed before the start of the holiday peak in July and August.

However, when these poles had not been removed by the beginning of last month, An Taisce’s planning spokesman Kevin Duff decided to make a more comprehensive inventory of unnecessary poles in the city.

Mr Duff has photographed more than 100 bare poles in the city, several of which are outside historic buildings and Georgian streetscapes including Dublin Castle, the Four Courts, the Custom House, and St Stephen’s Green. Many of the poles have been void of any signage for several years, Mr Duff said.

“There is no excuse for allowing this mess to build up over the years. When poles are no longer needed they should be removed, instead new poles seem to be constantly added.”

The council has recently erected a number of tall poles around the city to accommodate its new “wayfinding” tourist signpost system. While the signs which have thus far been added were attractive, Mr Duff said, they should not have been erected until the old poles were removed.

“Superimposing these signposts on the old redundant poles is just adding to the mess and excess of signs and clutter in the streets.”

In addition to the unsightliness of poles, they created an “obstacle course” for the visually and physically impaired.

The proliferation of redundant poles was likely to have been a factor in the city missing out on Unesco World Heritage Site designation for Georgian Dublin, Mr Duff said. It was also likely to scupper Dublin’s bid to be designated as World Capital of Design for 2014, he said.

“Talk about putting the cart before the horse. If we can’t get something as basic as signage right how do we think we’ll get design capital designation.”

A spokeswoman for the council said it was dealing with the original poles it received notification of last June, and would investigate the others brought to its intention earlier this week.

My emphasis at the end because the suggestion from the Council is that it is unaware of all these empty poles!

I would suggest that the 100 odd poles identified above is just a portion of the overall number. I think a few additional letters and photographs to Dublin City Council would help give further impetus to their removal. All hands on deck!

could they not build some sort of pole that lifts out of frame, under a pre cut slab

I think there is scope for an interesting book here: ‘Poles of Dublin’. There are so many hanging around now you might say they have become part of the dublin vernacular.

On a related topic, I noticed on a recent visit to Cambridge that the double yellow lines seen to be about half the width of our ones, making them much less obtrusive, as well as using less paint. Double and single red lines are used to denote clearways which must save a fortune on poles.

The Sunday Times had the poles story also yesterday, below.

goneill, that in Cambridge is the kind of reductive thing that’s needed here – reducing the number and size of signs on a piece of street, and therefore the impact. Same with road painting. Basically treating a lot of the place for what it is – a historic town.

Council vows to remove ‘eyesore’ poles

Niall Toner

DUBLIN city council has pledged to remove more than 100 signage poles in an attempt to clear the capital of the “eyesores”.

The council said this weekend it would take away the mostly galvanised poles within three months, prompted in part by Kevin Duff, an environmental activist, who posted photographs of each of them on Archiseek, a planning, architecture and environment forum.

Duff, an officer with An Taisce, the national heritage trust, also lodged an official complaint with Frank Crowley, the council’s traffic inspector.

In a letter to the council, Duff criticised the 2011-17 City Development Plan and its objectives of “seeking to uphold the quality of the city core as the premier cultural, social and business district” and the “provision of a first-rate public realm”.

He said the plan was “almost laughably removed from the reality on the ground” and that “a massive cull of poles and other fixtures from the streets” is required.

Duff’s photos show quirky and embarrassing urban eyesores. At the junction St Nicholas Street and Back Lane in Dublin’s Christchurch, for example, there are four empty galvanised steel poles within a stretch of only a few metres.

Another image shows a set of parallel poles blocking the footpath in Marlborough Street near the Department of Education. Others are to be found close to City Hall.

Duff says the city would need just a third of the number of poles on the streets if it streamlined and combined signs while removing unnecessary and redundant items.

He referred to a new signage system being put in place to direct pedestrians to historical and cultural sites at a cost of €4.1m, which will involve more poles.

“They are putting in a new wayfinder system against a background of years of appalling clutter,” Duff said.

Dublin city council defended the new infrastructure: “It is the intention of the city council to rationalise the level of clutter in the public domain. This will be achieved by the removal of existing signs and poles that are in the vicinity of the new systems’ infrastructure.”

Zombie poles are not just an issue in the city centre. Barry Ward, a Fine Gael councillor, is a veteran campaigner for their removal in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and moved a motion aimed at cleaning up the borough’s poles over a year ago. The motion was passed unanimously,” he says. “But I think it was misinterpreted. The motion and the response was to set up an email address for the reporting of ”unauthorised poles’, which is a different thing.”

Ward reckons the council has the potential to save thousands of euros by doing an audit of all signage poles.

Tom McHugh, director of transportation in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown, said the council would remove any unnecessary poles. “It is our policy and practice to remove signage and poles that are unused.”

Duff says he could have found more than 100 poles for his survey in the city centre. “You could have easily kept going and there could be twice or three times that amount.”

© The Sunday Times (3 Oct. 2010)

On another related topic, the council insists (obliged, it says by the NDP) on retaining in situ a large ugly sign on Waterloo Road, on two poles, proclaiming that the ineffective, ugly multipole eyesore that is is the Waterloo Bus corridor was funded by the NDP some four years after its completion. Its so old, the speed bumps, which are made in brick, have already mostly disintegrated in the frost. They have little purpose anyway being almost exactly the same width as that between car wheels. The “cast iron” cannon style bollards have been knocked over, the bumps on Pembroke Lane were dug up and never repaired by the drainage department, and the whole thing is blocked at 4.30 every afternoon by the clampers who usually get 4 – 8 cars and keep them there until 7.30 when the bus lane function ends. And they know all about this.

the council insists (obliged, it says by the NDP) on retaining in situ a large ugly sign on Waterloo Road

I thought election posters had to be down after 7 days :confused:

Nice to see the board doing some good. Well done to the OP.

Good work

What a snoozefest it is waiting for the new wayfinder signage to appear! Perhaps it’s lost it’s way. This initiative was announced at the start of the summer remember. Obviously busy busy times in DCC (not).

Any not a dickiebird more about all those empty poles. Again, many of the offending poles were reported in June.

Now I know DCC will say they havent a bean due to the cuts etc but the fact is that they are still employing and paying the same number of staff as before. I havent heard of any major layoffs at the Council. So what are these staff doing for their pennies. If there are no major infrastructure projects taking place then surely its a great time to do a bit of tidying up.

@StephenC wrote:

What a snoozefest it is waiting for the new wayfinder signage to appear! Perhaps it’s lost it’s way. This initiative was announced at the start of the summer remember. Obviously busy busy times in DCC (not).

I wonder if the signs had to be re-done after someone pointed out that they will (in the future) be in breech of legislation because the Irish was not first and was not given equal prominence to English. It’s just a guess though. Someone on boards.ie has a photo of one of the signs and pointed out the problems with it. He said he was planning on complaining about every authority that disregards this (fairly pointless) piece of legislation.

Jesus! this country

Jesus as in:

1. we have legislation governing which comes first, cause it clearly matters!!!; or
2. we have a council that can’t read?

I wonder if the signs had to be re-done after someone pointed out that they will (in the future) be in breech of legislation because the Irish was not first and was not given equal prominence to English. It’s just a guess though. Someone on boards.ie has a photo of one of the signs and pointed out the problems with it. He said he was planning on complaining about every authority that disregards this (fairly pointless) piece of legislation.

Markbp

If I didn’t know your background I’d think you were nuts believing something like that; but knowing your expertese in this specific area it really does show how stupid most legislation is. In terms of DCC it wouldn’t surprise me if they observed this act and ignored the hundreds or illegally errected billboards all over the city.

Stephen I had to pinch myself not to use similarly choice wording upon reading the quote above.

Should wayfinder signage, presumably developed in deference to visitors from abroad, really have to carry Irish more prominently than a language tourists might actually have half a chance of understanding.

does that mean that all the blue and white street name signs are not in compliance? The irish might be on top but it’s smaller and narrowerer that the english equivalent

maybe Prime Time could do something on things like this and the pole (signpost) epidemic rather than depressing the shite out of us all with the same financial woe muck every bloody episode

Awww, I love all that financial woe and misery stuff LOL Subordinated bond….bring it on!

I agree, the whole Irish Language Act seems to me to have been a seemingly inoccuous and worthy idea about which no one considered the practical consequences.

Having said that Markbp is just speculating that this is the reason for the delay of Wayfinder….it may be something else.

@Service charge wrote:

Jesus as in:

1. we have legislation governing which comes first, cause it clearly matters!!!; or
2. we have a council that can’t read?

StephenC is right – it’s the Irish Language Act and IIRC it says that Irish must come first and must be given equal prominence to English on all signs. There’s a certain amount of leeway until (I think) 2013 and by then all signs erected by government, public and local authorities must be compliant.

@PVC King wrote:

Markbp. If I didn’t know your background

I think you have me mixed up with someone else 🙂

Looking at the unit at City Hall (Barnardos Square or whatever its called), it would appear that both languages get equal billing so maybe the problem isnt that.

There’s been an update to the thread on boards.ie.

an investigation by An Coimisinéir Teanga found that those involved with the wayfinding scheme in the Planning & Economic Development Department in the Dublin City Council were breaching the regulations by using colour to give English more prominence over Irish.

As all 683 signs have already been delivered, none will be replaced, but the DCC were strongly warned not to contravene the regulations again by using materials or colours to give English more prominence over Irish for future signage.

Thats shocking! What a load of cobblers. While I fully respect and value the Irish language, these signs are mainly intended for tourist and non-Irish speakers. I am always proud of the fact that Irish is included on all our signage but a degree of common sense is required here. The signage clearly displays both languages….its a typical quango gone mad when the colour of the text starts being scrutinized.

Another example of the PC-community gone mad are the new Dublin Bus panels at stops. The few I have looked at list the individual stops in Irish only. Now, I can try my best but I dont really know all the names of Dublin’s streets as gaeilge. The destination is listed in English and Irish – fair enough – but its impossible to tell what route the bus takes.

Again I would refer back to the fantastic Dublin Transportation Map which was prepared by the Masters student at NCAD and discussed on this forum. A key tenet of his research was the fact that most visitors to the city find it very difficult to navigate our public transport system. These new panels hardly make that easier. I wonder would the Commissioner have a view on the downgrading of English on these panels.

I hope the poles erected to hold the new real-time passenger information displays will be fitted soon. They shouldn’t go the way of that abortive sign-posting project which still litters our streets. Honestly, do the DCC have no sense of civic pride and sensitivity for the fabric of the urban space? They tarmac over beatiful paving, put unnecessary poles everywhere, fail dismally to enforce proper signage regulations and leave places looking generally shabby.

I’ve noticed just how out of place these poles are over the past few weeks as my bus stop has been moved as part of the Network Direct scheme. It’s now in Georgian Dublin and the parking-times poles really jar with the Georgian townhouses and buildings. They really should be either eliminated or re-designed with aesthetic quality and awareness of context in mind.

Dublin is a great city, but it is woefully served by the authority which is meant to serve it.

I understand that works are currently underway to remove signs & posts to Dame Street/College Green this weekend prior to Obama’s visit. I wonder how much damage will be done to the historic paving in the process?

Also, does anyone know DCC’s plan regarding their replacement? I’d imagine the consensus in this forum is that Sierra should be contracted to put as little as possible back after Obama has gone?

No word back yet from:
roadmaintenance@dublincity.ie

@Doug C wrote:

Also, does anyone know DCC’s plan regarding their replacement? I’d imagine the consensus in this forum is that Sierra should be contracted to put as little as possible back after Obama has gone?

Yes, it would be a great opportunity to finally sort out the poles and signage clutter on College Green. I was walking past it today and they are doing extensive work on creating a platform at the Old Parliament Building. DCC should definitely capitalise on this and make College Green a better place.