alphasun
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I just want my feckin bus to come on feckin time, preferably at regular, short intervals, with seats, and no-one sneaking a fag down the back with the windows all shut, no ridiculous detours, a driver with a grasp of basic manners, and maybe the ability to operate the side door switch.
The only way public transport in this country can work is by shutting down CIE and starting from scratch. We don’t need sci-fi solutions, we need a new crowd of people to figure out how to make what we have work, and then let’s see what to do next. [/B]Face it, these proposals are just as much science fiction as mine.
Following your last suggestion, I have often wondered if we could not invite the Swiss, Swedes and danes to come in and run us for a few decades….
alphasunInteresting– I stand corrected on the date. Since then the ESB has created the impressive Turlough Hill project, but unfortunately its spectacular aspects are largely invisible.
alphasunOriginally posted by Rory W
I think that before we run we should learn to walk – …..before we get Mag Trains, some ordinary ones would do nicely!!I take your point and we seem to be stuck with that line of action anyway, but is it is sensible as it looks? In some technologies, the old just holds up the new– for example, in one of the African countries they are implementing the latest wireless broadband networks instead of updating old cable networks like the ones we have.
From a transport point of view, I expect LUAS may not be too bad– trams are tried and tested — but my preference would be to get a full system of bus lanes established, then install an automatic vehicle network. To go from say Dublin St Green to Dunlaoghaire, instead of presenting yourself at the DART station you would hop on a taxi-sized automatic buslane vehicle running on a continuous route of about a mile, spaced at say 100m intervals from similar vehicles. Availability for your destination would be indicated on the front. This would take you and anyone else on the loop to the nearest DART terminal, (now just a ramp installation) get on to it and go to a similar loop in Dunlaoighaire. Vehicles would be distributed by a computer program. Road works would be less than for LUAS.
This kind of Disney(real)world project would make Dublin a tourist attraction as well as improving transport. I mention Disneyworld because that’s where multitudes flock from these islands in order to travel on futuristic railways and see such things as Epcot. Contrast this with the poor souls on those open-top buses –at least we have Viking Splash tours.Quote:: For fck’s sake etc [UNQUOTE]
We need something that makes the visitor use a similar phrase!
I had in mind an elevated system– perhaps the terrain is too hilly. To be honest, an intercity route or an indirect wide curve along the coast might be more appropriate, since the speeds involved are around 250 kph. Here’s a link to the proposed project in China:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200101/21/eng20010121_61101.html
With the boom over, such a project would indeed seem to be beyond our reach, although I wonder how a cost benefit analysis of this versus a corresponding moterway would work out.
However, I stick to my main point, that Dublin needs something thrilling, interesting and impressive to attract the world to Ireland and confirm our status as a small but go-ahead, modern country. These extremely fast, silent trains could whisk visitors to our scenic areas in minutes straight from the airport– would that increase tourism and business interest?– I suspect it would.
Perhaps it is time to invite the Germans in again as at Ardnacrusha. I wonder what the cost of that project was to Ireland in those prosperous 1930s?
alphasunOriginally posted by LOB
excuse me for being a pedant
I had my doubts about Brunel’s involvement in the Dublin one so i sourced this from a site on athmospheric railways …
[Brunel] did choose it for the line and actively promoted it (well, “actively”
is redundant with Brunel). It was actually developed by Samuel Clegg
and Joseph and Jacob Samuda.”No problem, you are right, though i didn’t say he invented it–I had also researched this some time ago because the former route (now the southern DART line) runs close to my home. You point out a key factor– Brunel’s dynamism and willingness to promote new technology. Of course, this depended on vast resources, and I would like to echo editor of the S. Bus. Post Damon Kiberd’s recent appeal for more foreign private capital to be invited into Irish public projects (NDP)– perhaps then we may get a more Brunelesque approach.
Have we any Dargans?
By the way, I am emphatically against big, unsound projects for their own sake– I am talking about stuff that will bear comparison with Brunel’s work. The port tunnel seems worthwhile and brings us up to the level of Cork in this area– this is the way to go.
alphasunOriginally posted by kefu
I doubt visitors will ever come specificially to see the Spike but I think it will become one of Dublin’s defining landmarksThis is my point– there is nothing to do with the spike except look at it. An attraction one could admire on the artistic level but also use as a vantage point and site for various facilities would have tremendous economic potential for a city that badly needs tourist attractions, preferably on the wonder of the world level, apart from the aesthetic needs of the population.
True, the needle is elegant in a simplistic ‘pure’ way, and may look well at night when lit up, but it reminds me of the Skylon at the Festival of Britain in the fifties, re-erected recently– it has no function other than to give an impression of modernity. Very exciting visually in those early days of ‘space’. The spike could recall an ICBM– perhaps as a secular echo of a (painful-looking) spire it has a certain appropriateness. But I don’t think it will increase revenue or prestige to the extent that could have been achieved with more imagination.
Another suggestion– have a mag-lev train running in in a straight line from the airport to a city centre terminal that would also serve tourist airships for a slow luxurious scenic trip round the country. Or rebuild Brunel’s pneumatic railway.
alphasunOriginally posted by Rory W
Keep taking the pills…I need them to stand Dublin’s architecture (with some honourable exceptions, mainly recent).
I thought the French example (much derided when it was first put up) might be received favourably, since a French building is featured on this site. Is that because our more venerable buildings have British associations?
What would be a suitable theme for a large-scale monument in your view?
alphasun[quote
I believe Dublin and Ireland need a structure of this stature, to provide us with the same kind of identity. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t as Auckland is also a city of circa 1 million and New Zealand has a population similar to Ireland’s. The only difference is that our economy is in a much stronger position. [/B][/QUOTE]I have long held a similar view. Most of our modern public statuary and architecture is a disgrace (the latter has improved in the boom period), and the lack of a tourist facility of this kind is a major gap in the Eblanascape. Ideally such a structure should greet the arriving visitor or be siuated on the central plain. One problem is to find a noble value such as Liberty to be embodied by the structure– the present Spike is a pathetic abstraction from that point of view.
Idealism aside, a colossal stylised harp-shaped tower that would fulfiull the same tourist function as the Eiffel tower is one possibility. I believe Dublin would benefit from an overhead transport route from North to South of the centre, and this structure could also provide that– rather like a switchback, but not ugly. There would also be a port for future air vehicles.
alphasun
