GrahamH

Yes those Belgian posts are magnificent – striking pieces of street furniture. High quality design, materials and light emitted.

On a related issue, just looking at the images from London over the past few days, it’s finally struck me as to what gives London its established mature appearance. I could never pinpoint it exactly till now, obviously aside from its architecture – it is the street furniture. Every single lamppost, sign pole, traffic signal, railing and bollard is painted black – every last one in the city centre. It is extraordinary, not so much that everything is black as a colour, but the fact that care and attention, not to mention plain hard cash, is put into making the city’s furniture look well.

When one considers the galvanised rubbish that litters our capital, one can only laugh at the idea of authorities here being obliged to do the same. At least things are gradually improving with traffic signal posts in the centre being replaced with the brushed steel finish, even if they are a drop in the ocean.

As for the bollards on Grafton St you mention Brian, if you are ever there in the early morning you will see how they come into effect with pedestrians using the sides of the street, while vehicular traffic takes over the centre – till 10.30 :rolleyes:

The canal idea certainly seemed inspired all right – was reading about it too, and I think it highlights the much broader context in which this Luas link must be held.
Obviously all options are being considered by the RPA, no doubt with DCC and other bodies’ input and it’s up to their expert opions to decide what to do, but to make a rather obvious point, the idea of extending the Green Line solely to terminate at O’Connell Street in light of the greater transport needs of the city seems rather short-sighted, whatever about the visual impact on the city’s core.

Still I do find it quite amusing how pople can be diametrically opposed on aesthetic grounds to exactly the same idea – either being concerned about the wirescape, or wanting sleek trams running through the streets 🙂

Devin if it were proposed to suspend telephone wires in the same fashion through the city centre, there’s be absolute uproar on the impact on the city’s architecture and streetscapes, not least on the part of the heritage/conservation lobby – but because this is being seen as a ‘Barcelonaisation’ project it is welcomed with open arms.

Yes is important not to exaggerate this issue, and to deal with it as objectively as possible, and impact images would help in this regard, but it is not an issue to be taken lightly at all. It should be given as much anaylsis as traffic implications and projected user benefits.

€100 million?! You’re having a laugh kefu! I thought it was around €50m as was suggested on the Luas Central Corridor thread last year!

As mentioned on that thread, if a bus service running the same route was prosposed costing that sum it’d be laughed out of it.
I take into account what you’re saying jimg, and I too in the past often thought of the convenience of getting from O’Connell St to the Green via tram, thinking the distance rather long. And yes there is simply no doubting the appeal of such a concept and there’s no point in my running down the (limited) element of utility it would bring in order to reinforce an aesthetic arguement. I think both have certain merits.

But :). My primary concern is the aesthetic implications – there’s no point in diluting that. For College Green, O’Connell Street, O’Connell Bridge, the House of Lords part of College Street, and lower Grafton Street if Trinity’s wall is removed.

However of equal concern is the fact that a vast, almost incomprehensible amount of money is being proposed to be spent on a service that does nothing other than to make an existing service a teeny bit better, that is all. As kefu says, very few people would have a special need to use this link, and those that do could be accommodated on existing or slightly altered bus services. A good start alone would be just to make free the final stage on Dublin Bus from say Dawson St to Westmoreland St, at a negligible if not zero cost to Dublin Bus.

What I would like to see is the money better invested in a Luas line that earns its way – as suggested linking to the proposed Ballymun line (though there’s also aesthetic implications for the vista of City Hall :)). I don’t know if it is possible to mix both the overhead power system with the (safe asdasd :)) rail powered system as described on the Corridor thread – I’m doubting it somehow…
Or to use an alternative city centre route that links with another area of the Northside, i.e. why does O’Connell Street always have to be turned into the centre of the universe?

But even if there was no overhead wires I’d still question the spending of such a vast vast sum on such a small project that does little to nothing to alleviate the transport problems of the capital.

The clutter is increasing all right, though much of it is unfortunately necessary. At least all other poles going up thus far match with the polished steel finish.

Agreed with much you say jimg, not least how Luas is essentially a suburban commuter service, not one that links the city centre together. But to build the Luas link now to O’Connell St serves little purpose considering how small the city centre is.
Certainly there is a basic appeal in extending the Green Line to O’Connell St in terms of getting commuters that bit closer to the northside of the city and the Red Line. But this is the sole benefit, to bring southsiders a liitle further on, a 15 minute walk at most (or 8 if in a rush :o).

To build an extension at the cost of millions for this sole purpose (because it’s not going to be used just to get from O’Cll St to the Green) is wasteful and unnecessary, not to mention visually damaging. If nothing else surely it benefits the city to have people walking through it rather than using the Luas. It has been mentioned that Grafton St has benefited enormously from the Luas – well think of the amount of people avoiding the Green stop to get off closer to their destination on the Northside. If you use Grafton St regularly you will note the huge volume of ‘power walkers’ walking to their destinations down the street, College Green, Westmoreland St, Dame St, O’Connell Bridge etc.

I fail to see how people, having arrived in the city centre via either Red or Green cannot walk through the very small city centre, generating trade and benefiting the city centre overall, not to mention their own health! We go on about car dependancy, well this smacks of public transport dependancy!
I can see Lower O’Connell St being transformed into a horrible St Stephen’s Green-like senario, with the Luas dominant in all its various elements. Likewise the collection of poles and brackets as per the Green will have to be used on College Green because of the nature of the streetscape – it’s much more than just wires: there’ll be poles, brackets and perhaps even cable junctions to deal with the angles – all in front of Trinity’s West Front and the BoI.

Kefu’s final comment I think sums it up very well:

@kefu wrote:

None of this, however, will dent support for this project because it’s one of those things politically, which sounds like it makes perfect sense when it makes no sense at all.

Ah the link raises its contentious head again 🙂
That’s the biggest problem for me too crestfield about the wires and poles on College Green, not to mention the completely open span of O’Connell Bridge. Of course if the original trams had never been removed in 1949 we’d think nothing of the wires now – although I suspect by this stage, if not some time ago, there would’ve been a big push to electrify the rails and rid the city centre of wires, notably architecturally rich areas like College Green.

I think it would be a severely retrograde step to put these wires on College Green and across the Bridge; they’d be a lot more conspicous then the likes of Harcourt St, with poles being necessary and the wires spanning across white facades.

And what of the mess of Lower O’Connell Street? In the IAP plans from 1998, from day one I could never get over the impact this link would have on the street – essentially it is turned into a Luas tram station, with all the pavement widths altered, the regular tree planting out the window, the median transformed into a platform with kiosks and vending machines, and the wires overhead, no doubt merging in a complicated mess with the Abbey St ones.

Essentially O’Connell Street in landscaping terms would only begin with the post-Abbey St stretch. And the IAP even acknowledges this; the area is mostly left blank – ‘ah we’ll deal with that when we come to it’.
Coupled with the short nature of the post-Abbey stretch before meeting the plaza and the irregular trees on the median here, the concept of O’Connell St as a grand thoroughfare simply dissolves away.
The view from the bridge of the street (whatever about the bridge itself adorned with wires and industrial silver poles) would be a muddle rather than the grand view it should be.
On Lower O’Cll St alone there’s be three different schemes, with the Luas stop on the southern third, a straggling bit of boulvard as the middle third, and the plaza as the final leg of the stretch – supposedly the focal point of the street by being different from the rest…

Personally I feel this link route is an almost redundant idea at this stage – a pet project to be completed at the cost of tens of millions for very little gain. Both the north and south city centres are now served by Luas, and unless the fundamental drive behind this is proposal is to physically link the two lines so that trams can be used more efficiently over the routes, then I find this route it utterly pointless.
Perhaps if asked six of seven years ago I’d be a little less hostile towards the idea, but walking this exact route every day I think it ridiculous, extravagant and architecturally damaging if the aim is simply to bring the lines closer together.

Just to clarify on a comment I made earlier – it could be construed that the conservation officer mentioned before was in some way unhelpful by my saying they never telephoned back after leaving a message with someone else. Though I did not recieve a call, it was clearly an office error, as subsequent dealings with the said person have proved them to be most helpful, accommodating and courteous.

Rather it was aimed at the civil service stereotype – ‘compu’er says nooo’ as it were 😀
Think it appropriate to clear up.