O’ Connell Street, Dublin
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How horrible. I’d say there were quite a few similar incidents with that paving scheme.
And how sad about the O’Connell St woman dying – it is always so sickeningly sad to hear of pedestrians being killed, regardless of who was at fault. The notion that you’re innocently going about your business one moment and are seriously injured or even stone dead the next is too depessing for words.
How her companion on the day, her family and the bus driver must feel doesn’t bear thinking about.
I see P45 notes she and the lady with her walked out onto the road as part of a large group of people – typical not just of this crossing, but indeed all crossings in Dublin city centre.
The Gardaà had a small pedestrian safety campaign on O’Connell Bridge about two years ago, handing out leaflets.
An attempt at least, but a much broader addressing of pedestrian culture in Ireland is needed. One need only go 40 miles across the Irish Sea to note the stark difference in attitudes to road safety.I saw an excellent campaign earlier this year where mime artists used paddles to act in tandem with the traffic lights; it was pure street theatre and taken as educational humour.
On the subject of street theatre I note that the number of events held on the plaza appears to be dramatically lower than last year which can only be described as dissapointing.
I take it you don’t include the Shinners’ commandeering of the space yesterday as an event? 🙂
Heheh – the GPO didn’t quite provide the political backdrop desired:
Poor old Fidelity is looking lost up there:
…whilst Mercury is poncing about as usual 🙂
So clearly the statues are due a bit of treatment too given the height of the scaffolding.
It seems the south wing of the building won’t be tackled for a while yet.As Jemmy Brown once sung……”Papa`s got a brand new Bag”……………….
Good man Graham,you quite obviously waited to catch the essential nous of the entire GPO plazafication scheme…Full marks for gettin the 3 Motorcycles in ALONG with the relevant regulatory signage….Top-ho old boy as they were chanting on Saturday last 🙂Walking by the GPO over the weekend i was struck by how horrible it looks while under refurbishment. I guess the messageboard can pat itself on the back for banishing that PHILISTINE (I can’t remember his name) who suggested using high quality visually pleasing shrouding around buildings under refurbishment using the advertising revenue to pay for the conservation work. I mean, nasty plywood and flapping cheap plastic is obviously far better than anything allowing anything COMMERCIAL to taint our fair city, even if it did look good. Those idiot Europeans who went for the guys business model must be such gready capitalist tasteless pigs. 😉
Quote ” Those idiot Europeans who went for the guys business model must be such gready capitalist tasteless pigs. “unquote
Many years ago when I was an aspiring member of the young capitalist class I tried to rent the gasometer from the Alliance and Consumers Dublin Gas Co , use it as a hoarding and paint it to represent a pint of Guinness. The idea – particularly the changing height of the head – appealed to Guinness (who were prepared to pay good money) but I got totally bogged down in the bureaucracy of D Gas and left for sunnier economic climes.
Trying anything new in this city can be frustrating at times; I do however feel that Mr Banner should have used the development plan submission as his avenue as opposed to lobbying.
The choice isn’t between corporate-sponsored banners and tatty clingfilm-and-sellotape. It is possible to erect shrouding that doesn’t look tatty but that equally doesn’t scream ‘you need this cologne’. Didn’t anybody see the pope’s funeral on tv? One of the buildings facing onto St Peter’s Piazza was fully shrouded with a simple but decent replica of the building it was shrouding. Probably somethng to do with a city council that values the environment of which it is the guardian and, more importantly, one that is resourced sufficiently to carry out its tasks.
And anyway, I kinda like the current shrouding- sort of a Christo feel to it.
And there’s no shame in doing work to a building and thus using standard shrouding.I think it’s unfair to say we ran our shrouding friend out of town- he seemed to leave of his own accord. Also, I got the distinct impression he was touting for business on these threads- his lack of input into non-shrouding related threads gave me this notion. You might say no harm in that, but it does tend to colour one’s impressions of a person’s opinions. And I’d debate the fact that his shrouds were:
@jimg wrote:visually pleasing
Eyecatching certainly, but Calvin Klein ads make me feel a bit queasy. All that wholesomeness…
I agree with the broad thrust of what you are saying; it would be possible to get a structure and set of rules for shrouding that is mildly positive at best and negative at worst.
However what I found distasteful was the piecemeal unsolicited lobbying behind the manouver; if it went in at development plan time it would have received the attention of all the policy makers in the field who would have had the opportunity to seek modifications to make it operate in a way that was positive for the City.
I am deeply suspicous of lobbyists as they will put a spin on what they have heard from others which serves only to blur the entire process; in contrast the development plan route offers a very transparent and democratic route for all.
Here’s an example of shrouding on a historical building under refurbishment. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a shot of the whole building, but it is shrouded from tip to toe with a picture of the facade.
(Cathederal Barcelona)
I agree about the current shrouding of the GPO – it has a fantastic stark quality that just commands attention.
And for those of us who know it, we wonder what the finished product is going to look like, while those who don’t – tourists and the like – just wonder what it is that’s underneath 🙂
It’s a great talking point at the minute.Just a quick shot of the Upper St, quite a bit to go yet:
Had to laugh at this – guess the statue 🙂
Graham,
Great photo of the upper section. Have the stone facades of the bulidings on the left of your photo been cleaned recently as they look quite brilliant.Ctesiphon wrote “St Peter’s Piazza was fully shrouded with a simple but decent replica of the building it was shrouding.”
Not a very modern idea, this had to be done to the Arc de Triomph in Paris for Napoleon’s big entry; in his case the builders were far behind schedule (just shows things have not changed much in 200 years). To improve the perspective from the Champs Elysees / Concorde they also lowered the height of the mound on which the Arc was built; the spoil was dumped further down and the hillock later built upon – rue Balzac.
The interesting aspect in Graham`s Pic is the angle of the Traffic Signal array at the Cathal Brugha St/O Connell St junction.
Both of the signal poles have now been turned (by the wind ?) so that the Straight-Ahead green arrow beams its come-on over towards The Royal Dub.
This ensures that Drivers going straight ahead simply sit at what they think is a red signal,which is in fact the Red for Traffic Turning Into CB St.
It only a relatively minor delay BUT it contributes to a knock-back which impacts on the Parnell St North-South flow.
Rather more to the point it underlines once again the TOTAL lack of interest in the small items which go to make up any cohesive and efficient Traffic Management plan.
Rather more serious,but on the same topic,is the latest example of Dublin City Councils lack of interest and understanding of what the requirements of SAFE Traffic Management are.
The location is Leeson St between Pembroke St and Stephens Green where for the past week some serious Night-Time Road Planing and resurfacing has been going on.
In spite of the major nature of the work with much heavy machine movement and associated bits of shrapnel flying around there was NO attempt to have any Professional supervision or Traffic Control on site.(At a location such as this I`m afraid the labourers do NOT suffice)
Needless to Say Bus Atha Cliath similarly ignored the reality of its customers having to race across trenches and fissures as well as it`s own drivers being presented with a conspicuously unsafe environment to work in.
However today`s (Thurs) performance really held the City Council and the Gardai up for the disinterested bunch of “Observers” that they actually are.
Having completed the overnight resurfacing work the Contractors headed off to their warm beds leaving behind a series of pristine newly tarmacadam`d stretches of Leeson St.
The chorus of “Lovely Stuff” could be heard rising from this site……However,this being The Free State nobody appeared to notice or to be concerned at the fact that there were now NO road markings at all on the CONTRA-FLOW BUS LANE (Outbound) side of the street.
This lack of ANY statutory markings led to a traffic situation easy the equal of anything that downtown Tirana or Freetown could manage.
Unfamiliar drivers coming from Pembroke St to turn right into Leeson St simply turned sharp into what they presumed to be a one-way system,keeping over to their right to allow for the converging traffic coming from their left.
This seemingly sensible manouvere now left them sitting smack bang in the centre of the outbound CONTRA-FLOW N11 QBC ….
It was danger in extremis and continued all day,with only the occassional message from Dublin Bus controllers sitting isolated in their control room`s to the effect that Caution Was required at this point….As Peter Cook was wont to say…..Stating the Bleedin Obvious !
The Gardai,as ever,were conspicious in their absence with my only sighting being of a Traffic Corps 4WD officer lecturing a young female woman Moped owner on her riding skills before hi-tailing it off towards Wexford….
Is it that Dublin City Council and the Gardai are unaware of the dangers of a major arterial road having NO Roadmarkings ?
Do these bodies reckon that it is a bit of craic for foreign or unfamiliar motorists to be placed in positions of great danger ?
Did any member of the Garda Traffic Corps or DCC`s Burgeoning Roads and Traffic management team bother to come down and observe the crazy situation ?
It would appear that there is no monitoring of any of the work being carried out.
The official line seems to be “Lets wait an see if somethin happens-if it does,we`ll have an enquiry and if it does`nt we`ve saved money to spend on more fantastic projects”
it`s becoming a Mantra of mine but yet again I have to repeat ……
IF The City Councils SENIOR Management refuse to address the blatant lack of safety related approach to major on-street works then they should resign(or be sacked) in favour of somebopdy who will.
The same applies to the Senior Officers of the Dublin Metropolitan Area of the Gardai.
Ah well….Up until 1530 today (Thurs) there are still NO road markings at one of the City`s Busiest Pedestrian crossings on College Green….How Many months now Graham….????
It really is looking as if there will be no change in Official Attitude until The City Manager himself and/or his deputy are held to account following some Road Traffic Accident at one of the ever increasing locations where this Blind-Eye policy is in effect..
Perhaps if a group of concerned citizens were to buy some paint ,a few brushes and a straight edge we could do it ourselves…….Then send them the bill….. 😎Well Hells Bells and fair play to the power of the web……Overnight the Traffic Cone Fairy swooped on Leeson St and left a considerable legacy of her wares.
At least the Street is now in a safer state than it was immediately following the original work……
The BIG question is why if the location merits coning today was it not done as part of the original job………
A fatal accident can occur in a millisecond whereas DCC appear to be prepared to take a Paddy Power attitude to the entire question…. 🙁KerryBog2 wrote:Not a very modern idea, this had to be done to the Arc de Triomph in Paris for Napoleon’s big entry]I’ll see your early 19th century Paris, and raise you an Inigo Jones temporary outdoor stage set in London (1620s)- scaffolding shrouded to look like classical architecture. 😉
What’s the time-lag (cooling and drying) between laying new tarmac and it being ready for painting?
Well Ctesiphon……Funnily enuf Kildare St must have had Extra-Quix Dry Macadam laid as within 48hrs it was well decorated with NEW sparkling double-yellow lines and Stop Markings at the Molesworth St junction,which apparently is one of the busiest and most strategically important intersections in the Country,although for the life o me I can`t think why….. 😮
Now all we have to do is get Dail Eireann to relocate to the OLD Parliament Building on College Green and I have no doubt The City Manager and his Deputy would be down there themselves in white overalls painting the required statutory markings….either that or they`d be sacked…!!! Could`nt have members of the house riskin life and limb trying to cross a busy unmarked junction now ….could we…?? 😉Its funny that you menntion that Alek,
The Buswells traffic lights must be the most responsive traffic crossing in the city in total contrast to College Green which must be one of the most dangerous for pedestrians and insurance policies alike.
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