New Advertising in Dublin
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Saw an interesting new development yesterday, at a prominent city location. This was a parked bike with both wheels advertising a nearby cafe. Perhaps this is the “green” alternative to the parked advertising trucks close to the motorways!:D
@GrahamH wrote:
I’ve noticed that there are a lot of poles around Town covered in green netting very similar to the ones Graham has so assiduously photographed here. They must be the latest batch of the 140 signs due to be fitted around Dublin. I spotted poles near the Four Courts, at the top of Pearse St/bottom of D’Olier St. and at the top of Grafton St. Hopefully they’re finished soon as, going by the City Hall example, they’re wonderful directional tools and they’ll improve the ability of tourists(and some locals) to get around the city.
@dc3 wrote:
Saw an interesting new development yesterday, at a prominent city location. This was a parked bike with both wheels advertising a nearby cafe. Perhaps this is the “green” alternative to the parked advertising trucks close to the motorways!:D
Why not?
A number of the sandwich shops in London do deliveries with small narrow bicycle trailers which are almost more mobile billboards than delivery vehicle. Doubtless there is enough visual clutter already but if the CC are careful where they put cycle stands then you really do have to applaud people who see the opportunity to get some free advertising in prominent places and take it gratefully.
Its worth reposting the DCC press release on the wayfinder signage because there are some very obvious locations where one would expect to find signage, notably College Green, O’Connell Bridge and Smithfield.
Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Emer Costello, will announce details of Dublin’s first integrated pedestrian ‘wayfinding’ system on Tuesday 25th May at 9am at Barnardo’s Square, Dame Street, Dublin 2.
The pedestrian ‘wayfinding’ system will comprise of twenty map panels and eighty fingerpost signs and will help locals and visitors to get around the city with ease. The maps and extracts from the map will also be available for widespread distribution as handheld maps which will be ideal for visitors to the city and will also be free to download from http://www.dublincity.ie.
The new ‘wayfinding’ system is provided through the civic amenity contract between Dublin City Council and JCDecaux. This contract includes the hugely successful dublinbikes scheme and a network of civic information displays. This system will replace the existing brown fingerpost signs and will be culturally focussed. It will be in place by late summer 2010.
“The new pedestrian ‘wayfinding’ system will create a great network of information and knowledge for visitors to Dublin and Dubliners alike. Anything that makes our city a more accessible and user friendly place to walk around is something to be welcomed and commended. These fingerposts and maps will enhance everyone’s ability to move around the city and to easily locate destinations across the city centre. Like dublinbikes it will be a wonderful addition to our civic amenities†said the Lord Mayor.
The scheme includes 20 panels which haven’t yet been erected it seems. Its likely these will feature at the above locations. Has the installation stalled due to builders holidays I wonder?
Bare pole matching this description at the five lamps at the minute. That ped island could do with a lot of TLC commensurate with its landmark significance.
Sure its Nort Strand….who gives a shit. Like poor aul Aldborough House. Or fast fading Preston Street. North Strand-Amiens Street has to be the least attractive approach road into the city centre in spite of itself. As you say Tom a little TLC would go along way.
@dc3 wrote:
Saw an interesting new development yesterday, at a prominent city location. This was a parked bike with both wheels advertising a nearby cafe. Perhaps this is the “green” alternative to the parked advertising trucks close to the motorways!:D
a throwback to the old butcher’s delivery bikes? they usually always had some nice handpainted name on a panel within the diamond frame
An interesting move by the new UK Govt reported in the Guardian
Now if only Mr Cuffe could put some pressure to bear on Irish city and town councils.
@StephenC wrote:
An interesting move by the new UK Govt reported in the Guardian
Now if only Mr Cuffe could put some pressure to bear on Irish city and town councils.
StephenC, you beat me to it 🙂 … And DCC take note!
The crappy public domain standards inflicted on civic society by engineers, and led by the UK in particular, are now being rolled back.
We as a little post colonial nation have emulated the brits worst standards in this regard. The JC Decaux fiasco is simply an extension of an impoverished mindset that places little value on our public domain, and short sells consequently.
The obstructive visually insulting junk thrown up at College Green as signage in the name of ‘busgate’ is another very recent example of the same.
Apart from the aesthetic argument, from the article below, it would seem that the Hans Monderman school of thought has been proven correct – “When busy Kensington High Street in central London was stripped of excess road furniture, for example, it helped reduce accidents by 47 percent.”
Dublin during the bubble was at the forefront of erecting street junk – DCC were not alone; RPA with Red Line Luas and other agencies were also at it… So now London authorities are correctly removing the same such junk – leaving Dublin as possibly a ‘World Class Centre of Excellence’ for uncoordinated and dangerous street junk.
Happily, perhaps now that the brits are removing such crap, we might follow?
In the meantime, I look forward to DCC enforcing the independent level 3 safety reports on the JC Decaux units already erected – as was conditional with each planning consent granted back in 2007 / 08. Otherwise in the event of a road accident, wouldn’t it be an awful bloody shame if officials hadn’t enforced such an essential condition – potentially leaving them personally liable for any court actions that may arise? 😉
Britain being “overrun” by street signs
LONDON | Thu Aug 26, 2010 4:29pm EDT
(Reuters) – The British government has declared war on the profusion of unnecessary road traffic signs, railings and advertising boards, saying they blight towns’ English character.Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has written to local council leaders in England, calling on them to cut the number of unsightly signs and other “street clutter.”
Even traffic lights are in the firing line.
Ministers want the public to inform local authorities of particularly bad examples of excess signage, to clean up the national landscape.
“Our streets are losing their English character,” Pickles said. “We are being overrun by scruffy signs, bossy bollards, patchwork paving and railed-off roads — wasting taxpayers’ money that could be better spent on fixing potholes or keeping council (local) tax down.”
The government says that in some cases traffic signs are installed by councils in the mistaken belief they are legally required, when they are not.
Hammond said the abundance of so-called street furniture often makes towns resemble “scrapyards,” confusing motorists and obstructing pedestrians.
For signs to be most effective, ministers say, they should be kept to a minimum.
When busy Kensington High Street in central London was stripped of excess road furniture, for example, it helped reduce accidents by 47 percent.
The Department for Transport is reviewing traffic signs policy and new advice on how to reduce clutter will be published later this year.
(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; Editing by Steve Addison)
@hutton wrote:
– “When busy Kensington High Street in central London was stripped of excess road furniture, for example, it helped reduce accidents by 47 percent.”
Cllr Moylan is so vociforous in his defence of the de-cluttered environment on KHS that when local council officials wished to install a shop directory for the High Street that they needed to go to an individual landlord to get space inside the Arcade connecting the tube and the High Street.
The landlord donated the space even though the two panels donated were worth at least £5,000 each per year. He obviously realised that the pristine environment had its value at rent review time.
How many years before DCC can extract the City from an exceptionally punk deal?
The inexorable rise of the bollard continues….
The latest mess has been created on South William Street on the attractive little street layout in front of the Powerscourt Centre. Most of the former stone bollards have now been removed (whether by accident or design) and replaced with that old favourite of urban designers everywhere, the concrete and steel lump in tasteful battleship grey.
Elsewhere the new bus stops being installed by Dublin Bus are great. Well designed and much smarter and robust that the aul pole they replace. But is it really necessary to have a stop sign and a shelter at the same location? And of course the roll out of the long long awaiting “real time passenger info” is necessitating yet another addition to the streetscape. Even when a bus shelter is in place. You may have spotted the stainless steel poles at various locations.
Yep those South William Street bollards have been whacked out and replaced a long while now. It beggars belief that not even purpose-designed, flagship curtilages of prominent buildings are safe from such treatment.
And they don’t even bother painting the new mega-bollards! Just left rusting with a white band around them as if sitting on the quayside in Clogherhead! Where would ya find it…
Hmmm…perhaps we need a dedicated street furniture thread. Or rename this one.
Anyhow and interesting article in today’s Irish Times on the subject of how we use our streets and touching on issues such as traffic controls, signage, barriers and segregation of spaces.
Is there a better way to share our streets?
I believe Ben Hamilton Baille was speaking at a conference today on the subject. He was on Pat Kenny yesterday. The article ties in with the UK piece previously posted.
A dedicated street furniture thread would by a very good idea
From today’s IT:
Dublin bike scheme set for tenfold expansion
OLIVIA KELLYA TENFOLD expansion of the Dublin bike scheme from 500 to 5,000 bikes, which will be available to use from UCD to DCU, is planned by Dublin City Council.
The five-year expansion plan will see the number of bike stations across the city increased from just over 40 to about 300, bringing the service into the suburbs.
The expansion will take place in 14 phases radiating out from the current 41 locations. The area east of the current stations to the Docklands and west to Heuston Station will be the first areas of expansion, followed by the inner suburbs of Dolphin’s Barn, East Wall, Phibsboro, Cabra and Ranelagh.
By the end of five years, the council plans to have all areas covered out as far as DCU to the north of the city, UCD to the south, Inchicore to the west and Sandymount to the east.
The bike scheme, which has been operating since September 2009, has attracted more than 47,000 subscribers, making it one the most popular bike hire schemes in Europe. The bikes and their pick-up and drop-off stations have thus far been funded by out-door advertising company JC Decaux, which won the contract to provide the bike scheme in return for advertising space in the city.
However, Jim Keogan, executive manager of the council’s planning department, said the extension could not be funded in the same way as it would not be feasible or acceptable to allow the amount of advertising that would be required for the scale of expansion, nor could it be funded through council resources. Instead it would have to be achieved through a combination of public and private money.
The Department of Transport and the National Transport Authority were committed to assisting the completion of the first two phases to the Docklands and Heuston and private companies were “more than willing†to fund bike stations outside their premises, he added.
The expansion plans would, however, be subject to a public procurement process. Mr Keogan said he hoped that could get under way next spring and that work on the first two phases would get under way by the end of next year.
The council last April announced a small-scale expansion of the scheme to provide four new bike stations and 100 more bicycles. That was to have been completed by August, but to date only one of the stations, at Harcourt Terrace, is complete.
A new station at Smithfield will not be built until the work to upgrade the Smithfield Plaza begins; work on a site in Portobello is due to begin shortly; while plans for a new station at Eccles Street have had to be abandoned because of the discovery of a previously unidentified trunk water mains underground.
Mr Keogan said he would be reluctant to fund the expansion through an increase in charges, which would “alienate the populationâ€.
Is it really feasible to expand this to such a wide area and manage 5,000 bikes?
huh so how can you have the dublin core bikes to be continued to funded by advertising by jc decaux and lots more outside that area funded by part public and part private money? the deal is still be trumpeted far and wide as a success, without ever mention advertising or where the new funding will come from, its good to have hte bikes working successfully, but at least mention the facts people. Andrew “billboards” Montague taking credit whenever he can without mention the advertising part.
Its called getting killed in the deal by someone who focussed while you made a complete dogs breakfast of the public interest; Andrew Montague who I hazard a very speculative guess may have been one of the first people to propomote the deal and everyone connected with the original transaction should resign or be removed.London with a population of 8m has 6,000 bikes why does Dublin need 5,000?
I don’t understand the continued negativity directed at this scheme.
The whole thing has been an outstanding success, how often do you get to say that in Dublin?
So what if some advertising company got to make a bundle of money out of it, their operation of the bike part of the deal has been pretty flawless, as far as I can see, and there hasn’t even been any slippage in the standard of finish around the bike stands that have been expanded to cope with the demand. I thought they were going to botch the Portobello one which is cut into the tasty stone paving of the canal harbour plazza, but no! they’ve just finished it and the trimming around the stands is pretty spot on again.
From that interview with Keogan, it sounds like the Corpo have learned from the criticism of the original ‘deal’ and now that the bike scheme is a proven success, which wasn’t in any way certain at the outset, they’re planning the expansion of the scheme under new arrangements, that seems eminently sensible to me, what’s the problem with it?
I agree that we shouldnt be unduly negative. I think asking Andrew Montague to resign is rubbish! He has made a contribution to the city rarely seen among councillors. It is a pity that we didnt get more out of the deal though.
I am simply asking the question whether the scheme can be managed…such as getting bikes around stations, maintaining 5000 bikes, etc over such a wider area. Thats all.
If expanded it would certainly transform movement around the city.
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