Richards

The countryside in the Republic has been destroyed.

Reading this means that it will probably happen in the North too!

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0907/northhousing.html

They seem to be every where on the Green, Grafton ST, Westmoreland St & O Connell Axis

It’s GO GO GO.

I would love if the centre of Dublin was clean and that the Grime would be gone. I would also love the constant traffic that is the centre to be gone.

The problem with the tolling on the entire M50 is that central Dublin will never have any congestion charging.

The idea of Congestion Charging and a fully tolled ring road would be politically impossible, My view is that the M50 should be free of charge and some kind of congestion or demand management should be put in place between the canals. The focus of the planners in Dublin should be to promote public transport and push traffic on to the M50.

Can any ulity company dig up Foster Place or does the laid surface have some kind of protection?

I often see road works in Temple Bar but as the coblestones were so badly laid, often the contractor conducting the works does a better job in reinstating them. However the situation in Foster Place is completly different that Temple Bar.

Good article Graham!!
As a resident of Crumlin I would agree totally on your thesis.
The houses when originally built were very basic often with very basic sanitary facilities. the norm was to have a separate toilet in the back garden. The majority of the original houses had a very small kitchen area (back) with a small parlor room at the front. This space is small compared to today’s standard new house design. I would guess that 95% of all housing stock in this area has some kind of back garden extension in order to compensate for the lack of space.(look at the OSI 1:1000 map). In my case, there is an single story flat roofed extension in the back garden which is where the kitchen is located. Kitchen extensions would make up the majority of extensions in the area. Having said that, it is great to live in an area with a very settled population. These is a sense of neighborhood which I feel if often missing in new housing developments.There is a great mix of people from young couples to OAP;s in the area. This kind of mix of people you do not get in any of the new housing developments in the new suburbs. The area is generally very safe where neighbors would generally look out for one another.

One of the biggest problems with new housing schemes on the peripheries of out towns and cities is this ‘Cul-de-sac’ culture. Nearly every new housing scheme has one entrance in and out only. When looking on a map each housing estate is linked by these distributor roads which are dreary featureless places often with a footpath and gray block walls. These do not add to the concept of an urban place. While I understand that most people who buy (or rent) houses with children want cul-de-sac’s because of traffic issues (so that they will let there children play out side etc). But these new cul-de-sac developments are usually not sustainable, lead to this car dependant culture and this monotony of house design which is so prevalent in Irish towns and cities today. I think new developments should have a sense of propose, streets which go places, terraced housing, footpaths and places where you will find pedestrians. One of the interesting things looking at the population density maps (based on DED’s) from the last census is that Crumlin and Drimnagh have some of the highest population densities in the city. Yet all houses in these areas have some kind of small private open space

Its all very well having the NCC at Spencer Dock. The one question I would ask has aducaqate provision been made for the proposed Railway Station. Is the rail station mentioned in any of the proposed plans and more importantly, will there be provision for possible expansion of the new rail station. I was interesting that Barry Kenny of IE (on the RTE news) said that the new rail station would benifit the Maynooth Line. Is the grand plan not to have the interconnector between Spencer Dock to Stephens Green and on the Heuston?

Pre Luas, One could cycle down Harcourt Street, Down Stephens Green West to the top of Grafton street and continue down on Dawson street. Since the introduction of LUAS as a cyclist I can not cycle down SG West and continue on to Grafton Street. This morning I was stopped by cycling very slowly during a pedestrial phase of traffic lights turning on the SG South (from Harcourt Street) to access the new cycle lane and continue the long way around the Green to get to my destination on Dawson street.

While I accept that I was technically in the wrong, I do feel that DCC are out of touch with cycling habbits in the city. There should a two-way cycle track around the whole of STG including that area around the LUAS stop and the top end of Grafton Street. Every morning I would see several cyclists (illegally) making their way from harcourt St thru to STG North via STG West.

Just on another issue, Do we really have the worst street surfaces in a major European city ? I am amazed how pot holes exist for years and are topped up with some tar and chippings when the hole becomes massive, telcos seem to be able to dig up streets and put back a surface which is not as good as the one they dug up. Any street which street surface is relaid is usually dug up some weeks later and the merry life cycle of the street surface starts again. Sorry for the this rant, but cycling in Dublin just seems to become more difficult every day and the authorities dont seem to care.

This is where FF had that famous “THINK IN” back in 2004.