JoePublic
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@cubix wrote:
off topic i know but yet another skyscraper approved for London, getting out of control now..
While I’d like to see more high quality high rises in the docklands, this London bullding shows the danger. I think I’d rather our 6 floor stumpy IFSC buildings than that yoke, they’re monotonous but inoffensive/inconspicuous compared with that.
@ake wrote:
But there should be a great view of the point tower up that street there, whatever it’s called.
Yep, will be worth the 12 Euro tunnel toll when flying home to skip depressing Dorset street and see this instead :p
@igy wrote:
Looks like they’re being inconsistent with the powering on of the various lights.
Last time I was there the poles weren’t illuminated, but the red strips mentioned by Morlan above were.The lights have been off for the last week or so. The street lights are off in the adjoining street down to the liffey and along the liffey too, and I noticed that the green lights on the same side of the square were off but the other side were on. So hopefully this is a temporary electricity grid problem rather than ‘policy’.
On a related note it’s a shame they don’t light up the McCann Fitzgerald building anymore :(. It looked fantastic at night when lit up last winter.
So looks like the facade work has started on the hotel in grand canal square. I was under the impression it was supposed to be stone, but what is visible so far is some kind of white plastic. Could this be some sort of underlayer? Or have they just gone for the cheap option…
@Rory W wrote:
It’ certainly couldn’t be done, unless the dart was turned into a roller-coaster.:)
I’m sure you’re right and that you know what you’re talking about, but I don’t see why it is totally obvious that is impossible to build a tunnel next to an existing rail line while keeping the existing line open. I’m sure such a thing has never been accomplished anywhere in the world before. I look forward to seeing the roller coaster loop-the-loop at heuston station as the interconnector emerges next to/under/around the existing lines. 😀
Anywho, I concede that it will never happen and there are many more important transport projects required for Dublin, but the original point I was making was that if they did do it it would release acres of city centre development land to part finance it.
@alonso wrote:
there’s already plans to develop the land over and around Tara and Pearse. Airspace is something IE have tragically failed to exploit up to now.
The DART will connect with Metro North at stephens green anyway, What you’re proposing would effectively shut the DART for the best part of a decade. That’d be one hell of an EIS to write!
There’s a lot of land between Pearse street and grand canal dock where trains are parked etc where perhaps a tunnel could be sunk without affecting the current line. I’m not familiar with the dart line north of Connolly. Obviously the current line would have to remain open until a tunnel was built. I’m not an engineer perhaps it can’t be done. Anywho, there’s no harm in tossing out ideas, just in case the money is still rolling post transport 21!
@weehamster wrote:
Im afraid the loopline is going nowhere. 🙁
The problem is that you cant move the line underground as Connolly station been deemed unsuitable for underground tunneling (which is why the Metro ‘Tram’ North and the Interconnector don’t go near Connolly). And even if you could, the tunnel would have to start all the way back near the Killester stop as the track is elevated above ground level shortly after Killester all the way into Connolly. The track doesn’t go to ground level until before Lansdowne Rd. So moving it underground would require a long tunnel which or course be VERY expensive. It is a pity as it would be ideal.
For me, painting the bridge light grey would be a very good idea as it will look good and bright but it would help (in a small way) to not be as much as a eyesore to Customs Hse.
There is another option (a very long longshot) which is replace it with a new, more slender bridge, possibly a suspension bridge with a single tower at Tara St station. :confused:
Why is moving from an elevated track down into a tunnel, say after Grand Canal Dock and before Pearse, a problem? Not enough room?
If they did put the line underground it would release a large amount of prime city centre land that could be used to part finance it. For example if the Pearse stop was underground Pearse station could be sold on and redeveloped. As could Tara and all the track in between.
They could also get rid of Tara street stop altogether in favour of looping a bit further up to a cross liffey station next to the metro north cross liffey station: so O’Connell bridge stop would be the transfer point for metro north, DART, luas red and green. The Lucan luas stop might be quite close as well.
I wonder why they don’t turn on the red lights in the ground that you can see in the hoarding photos Morlan posted. I saw them turned on once a few months back and they looked really great at night
@Daragh wrote:
Was just curious whether O’Connell Street had been repaved and fixed etc. after the destruction caused by the cleaning of the ‘self-cleaning’ Spire lol. I believe there was damage done to trees and pavement etc.
Yep the pavement was repaired and the lighting is back. The trees are gone permanently, but imo the effect isn’t disastrous as the the lights and bins fill the gap.
Also the big brown streak on the shiny section was cleaned off. So looks like that streak was caused by dirty water run off by the cleaning, hopefully next time (18 months they say?) they’ll give it a better cleaning.
@CM00 wrote:
If you look at the second from last picture, you can see that there are a number of holes in the marble. I believe these are to become fountain nozzles. It isn’t operational yet, however.
I have seen this water feature turned on on a few occasions.
Stop complaining people, the square looks well! (Maybe not as well as in the renders, but things rarely do)
@publicrealm wrote:
Jaysus lads, – yer all very critical!
Give the poor buggers a week or two – they have bigger fish to fry. I know that I have complained about paving etc in the past but I continue to have faith in DCC (apart from the enforcement section – and even that is down to resource issues I suspect).
I’m sure some of them read this forum and they must find it pretty demotivating.
What I find disappointing about the Spire is the streak of discolouration – that won’t be solved by planting a few trees? Is it due to unequal exposure to sun?
I guess I’m just a bit demotivated myself public realm from walking down Dame street or any other street in the city and looking at tarmac blobs that have been there for months/years. If it’s good enough for college green to leave the footpaths in these terrible states why not O’Connell street? I suspect we’ll be looking at this for a quite a while to come, but I do hope I’m wrong and you’re right 🙂
As for the brown streak on the spire, the first thing that came into my mind when I saw it was just that it was a result of the dirty run off water from the cleaning of the spire. ie. they didn’t rinse it properly. The spire may be cleaner than it was but to my eyes it is still quite dirty and I find it quite galling looking at it knowing the price paid for the cleaning (more the price of the felled trees etc than the Euro spent). It might have been worth it if the spire had actually been cleaned to the state it was in 2003.
If I had my way I’d like to see that crane back in there next weekend finishing off the cleaning, followed by the tree planters etc in there on Monday morning :rolleyes:
Management skills at DCC seem to be … lacking. The crane was removed last Monday, why wasn’t the lighting department in on Tuesday restoring the lamposts? Was a plan put in place to deal with what would replace the trees, or is the plan just to do nothing and leave six holes of earth in the ground? If there is a plan, what are they waiting for?
Is there someone at DCC it would be worth complaining to?
Six felled trees, loose tiles where a massive crane moved them out of place, several typical Dublin blobs of tarmac replacing various bits and bobs and a street that looks ridiculous with such a huge gap. And a spike that seems more noticeably filthy than ever. Not bad for two hundred grand.
I guess it was only a matter of time before O’Connell street would return to the same shite state as the rest of Dublin’s streets, but would never have guessed DCC would pay two hundred grand for it.
Unbelievable 😮
