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I can’t understand this at all. If that were the case, we should never have built the boardwalk because homeless sleep there, bus shelters should still be made of horrible pastic because people break them and there should be no upstairs backseat on the 13A because of people smoking and drinking there.
The amount of people sitting on the statues shows the demand for seating on O’Connell Street. It might not be the nicest place to sit, in between all those buses and cars, but its still the city centre and it should be provided.
I only noticed this morning on my wander that a small-ish part of the footpath on middle O’Connel st outside Budget Travel was never re-paved and still has a mixture of concrete and glass. The jewellers still have their tiling on the footpath which I assumed would have disappeared as well.
I think it’s been there a while but I only noticed the garish sign last night so I’m guessing it’s new. I’ll send a letter to planning enforcement later and see what they say.
I’m not sure how long it’s been there but the poker place on eden quay is possibly worse than Eurocycles – huge, plastic, backlit sign that is way oversized and hangs too low. I didn’t get a photo last night but anyone who passes it at night will see what I mean 🙁
@StephenC wrote:
I think Graham meant the statues on the top of the GPO rather than the memorials on the street. Its a fair enough point about illuminating them,although I wonder how/if this could be done without being intrusive.
I stole Graham’s point to make my own personal gripe 😉
The Parnell monument is uplight from a pole about 5m south of it. It’s not ideal but it works. Personally I’d opt for spots on the roofs of nearby buildings; the statues in the middle could be lit from 2 or 4 points, the O’Connell monument at the end is a little harder. The Spike looked really well when it was lit with the array of spotlights that were installed a while back – it should definitely be lit every night.
@Graham Hickey wrote:
The statues have yet to be illuminated, and perhaps the rear of the columns could do with some light treatment too.
This, in my opinion, is the biggest disapppoint of O’Connell St. Only one statue (Parnell Monument) on the entire street is lit at night which is a great pity after the fantastic job they did restoing them. I haven’t seen the street at night since the new lights were installed but I hope it doesn’t feel as dark and soulless as it did before – lighting the statues would have gone a long way to fixing that.
@darkman wrote:
Also casual digging by the ESB and others will interfere, as usual with the pavement.:(
Am I being totally naieve by being surprised that they couldn’t lay tunnels of some kind to run the utilities through? Even at a slighly higher cost, it would save the street being ripped up over the years.
@a boyle wrote:
High rise creates just as many problems as it solves. They are not fantastic places to raise children (though they can be). They are also very very long lived, with almost no chance of being removed if they turn out badly. They are a big bet.
Super high-rise should never be needed in Ireland because of our size and population but there’s no way Dublin can continue to grow outwards that way it is at the moment. The cost of not building up, in terms of transport, utilities, ameneties and community spirit, are huge.
Raising a child in a high-rise block might not be ideal but raising one when you’re commuting up to two hours each way is equally bad, if not worse. Living in an area where everyone is isolated because everyone commutes, or where the nearst shop is a drive away because densitiy is so low are bigger problems IMHO than having a shortage of play areas.
Well built high rise apartments with decent floor space could mean better local facilties, better mass transport and less commuting. With enough children living in a block, there is added pressure on the developers or the LA to provide playground facilties nearby.
Maybe I’m being too picky here but I’m very disappointed that the numerous manhole covers on O’Connell street are left exposed and more than a little ugly. In DCU all the manhole covers in bricked areas are disguised using the same bricks inlaied into the manhole cover. It’s not perfect but it looks a lot better. Surely the same could have been done on OCS while they were doing the rest of the street?
The problem is not as simple as east vs. west and imho the fault lies largely with government inaction.
For it’s size and population, Dublin lacks a lot of facilities that other similar-sized cities already have – notably a proper mass transport system. For years the government let Dublin grow without any proper planning and without any thought for the future. ‘The city is growing so obviously we’re doing something right’, seems to be the mentality of the day.
On the other hand, the west was getting poorer and less densly populated and the government did little to try to stop this. A few half-planned measures like an airport for (almost) every western county and some grants did little to alleviate the problem.
Despite this, the solution now is not a big-bang approach, spending millions on projects which are badly thought out and which have no reason d’etre other than balanced development. The solution lies in proper planning over the long term, not warm fuzzy thoughts.
The WRC is a point in principle. Buses around Mayo run half empty and infrequently yet in the name of balanced development, we’re talking about building a multi-million euro train line that runs less often and that IE don’t want to operate. A well built road network and decent local bus service would provide a much better return but, because Dublin gets a train line, the west has to get one too.
I’m not attacking people from the west because some people from Dublin suffer the same limited-view mindset, unable to understand why any money should be spend outside Dublin. It should be up to the government to make strong decisions that are best for the country as a whole.
