Pedestrianise College Green for 2016

donvito99 · 27-03-2010 9:00pm

I think this is a great idea. I hate they way roads in town bring the whole look of town to such a crappy level.

But I was thinking maybe more green space, rather than just a fountain and paving.

And maybe not as 'out there' as grand canal square.

Also, this is a bit OT, but maybe any future Luas developments could incorporate this into its design.

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The grass looks great IMO. Gets rid of the sometimes overused grey paving. Bilbao tram.

Yixian · 27-03-2010 9:07pm

donvito99 wrote: »

I think this is a great idea. I hate they way roads in town bring the whole look of town to such a crappy level.

But I was thinking maybe more green space, rather than just a fountain and paving.

And maybe not as 'out there' as grand canal square.

Also, this is a bit OT, but maybe any future Luas developments could incorporate this into its design.

The grass looks great IMO. Gets rid of the sometimes overused grey paving. Bilbao tram.

Damn.. that looks great.

I'm not opposed to greenery on the plaza but it most definitely should not be a park, or anything like it.

No. 1 foliage priority for Dublin imo is to replace those pathetic weeds on OCS with something more substantial.. or even a fleet of nice, aged Oaks?

*dreams*

great thing about Dublin is that there are so many possibilities, sadly almost any vision is watered down into mediocrity by ABP, the single most mundane organisation in all of town planning, and it'll take a seriously loud public voice to push through anything with any spirit or balls.

donvito99 · 27-03-2010 9:27pm

Yixian wrote: »

should not be a park.

I completely agree. I just think that Dublin really needs green, and not just those pathetic trees on O'Connell street, big ones.

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This being an example. I can remeber a Helicopter following a strike down O'Connell street, and the whold thing, including street, top of buildings etc was horribly grey.

Yixian · 27-03-2010 9:30pm

donvito99 wrote: »

This being an example. I can remeber a Helicopter following a strike down O'Connell street, and the whold thing, including street, top of buildings etc was horribly grey.

Agreed, the trees down OCS should be far bigger and more lush, and extended down the bridge and along the liffy on both sides of the river. The trees that are their at the moment are far too weedy.

Well, with Ciaran Cuffe a Minister now, who knows, maybe it'll improve.

Irish and Proud · 27-03-2010 11:56pm

donvito99 wrote: »

I think this is a great idea. I hate they way roads in town bring the whole look of town to such a crappy level.

But I was thinking maybe more green space, rather than just a fountain and paving.

And maybe not as 'out there' as grand canal square.

Also, this is a bit OT, but maybe any future Luas developments could incorporate this into its design.

The grass looks great IMO. Gets rid of the sometimes overused grey paving. Bilbao tram.

...some parts of the LUAS lines are like that - the Red Line around St James and the Green Line around Miltown Viaduct.

Aard · 28-03-2010 2:42am

I agree about GCD Square being too "out there". Assuming it's going to be modern, I think the look should be elegant at least. Not too many weird angles and greyness. Not that that doesn't work elsewhere, but for the "centre of the city" I think it doesn't fit.

Grass around the Luas tracks is nice, and might help delineate where is "tram-space" and where is "pedestrian-space".

I guess a functional problem will be allowing people to go in and out of Trinity safely. Such a square is likely to bring large crowds to an already densely trafficked part of town.

Victor · 28-03-2010 4:02am

Craig Fay wrote: »

Not an expert, but here's what I would propose.

http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff175/craigfay/1.jpg
http://i237.photobucket.com/albums/ff175/craigfay/2.jpg

Thisa still leaves College Street, Westmoreland and D'Olier Street as major bus routes. However, it would require buses that currently go south through College Green to divert down Townsend Street, towards a reversed Westland Row and on towards Merrion Square. I haven't yet worked out what route they would take going north. Maybe Sandwith Street by the Dart Underground entrance? Any suggestions?

Um, low bridges?

Yixian · 28-03-2010 11:17am

Aard wrote: »

I agree about GCD Square being too "out there". Assuming it's going to be modern, I think the look should be elegant at least. Not too many weird angles and greyness. Not that that doesn't work elsewhere, but for the "centre of the city" I think it doesn't fit.

Grass around the Luas tracks is nice, and might help delineate where is "tram-space" and where is "pedestrian-space".

I guess a functional problem will be allowing people to go in and out of Trinity safely. Such a square is likely to bring large crowds to an already densely trafficked part of town.

It won't be densely trafficked once pedestrianised.. the plaza would draw crowds, sure, but it would probably make getting into Trinity a lot easer when visitors and tourists aren't all squashed onto the pavements and up by the door.

dRNk SAnTA · 28-03-2010 1:40pm

Craig Fay wrote:

Thisa still leaves College Street, Westmoreland and D'Olier Street as major bus routes. However, it would require buses that currently go south through College Green to divert down Townsend Street, towards a reversed Westland Row and on towards Merrion Square. I haven't yet worked out what route they would take going north. Maybe Sandwith Street by the Dart Underground entrance? Any suggestions?

Could a redeveloped Hawkins House area replace Nassau Street as the current bus hub? Hawkins House will be close to the O'Connell St metro north station, the proposed connection of the 2 luas lines, and Tara St Dart station. Just a thought.

murphaph · 28-03-2010 3:02pm

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

Could a redeveloped Hawkins House area replace Nassau Street as the current bus hub? Hawkins House will be close to the O'Connell St metro north station, the proposed connection of the 2 luas lines, and Tara St Dart station. Just a thought.

By that stage we really should have moved away from the "an lar" mentality of terminating most buses in the city centre like Dublin was an overgrown village.

Buses should fundamentally change their roles for much of the city once DART underground and metro north are open for business. The bus should feed passengers into the expanded rail system wherever possible (eg, the 68, 69, 39, 7 Buses etc. should become irrelevant in their current forms). Only areas that are genuinely too far from either DART 1/2 or MetroNorth or Luas (green line) for buses to feed into, should receive a high capacity bus to the city centre, but passing through the centre rather than terminating there.

dRNk SAnTA · 28-03-2010 6:40pm

murphaph wrote: »

By that stage we really should have moved away from the "an lar" mentality of terminating most buses in the city centre like Dublin was an overgrown village.

Sorry if I caused confusion!

I didn't mean redevelop Hawkins House as a bus station for routes to terminate at, instead I meant moving all the bus stops that are currently on Nassau Street to outside Hawkins House which would allow the buses to take a new route out of the city centre (via Townsend Street), as suggested by Craig. This way, we wouldn't have thousands of Buses needing to use the "pedestrianised" College Green.

It would also give all these bus routes a stop near the planned O'Connell Street metro north station, Tara Street DART station, and the proposed Luas link up line (BX?).

BluntGuy · 28-03-2010 7:41pm

murphaph wrote: »

By that stage we really should have moved away from the "an lar" mentality of terminating most buses in the city centre like Dublin was an overgrown village.

Buses should fundamentally change their roles for much of the city once DART underground and metro north are open for business. The bus should feed passengers into the expanded rail system wherever possible (eg, the 68, 69, 39, 7 Buses etc. should become irrelevant in their current forms). Only areas that are genuinely too far from either DART 1/2 or MetroNorth or Luas (green line) for buses to feed into, should receive a high capacity bus to the city centre, but passing through the centre rather than terminating there.

Absolutely 100% agreed.

Of course for this to work, we need integrated ticketing and integrated timetabling. There's no point having buses arrive and then the next DART is in 15-20 minutes (or vice verca). The aim should be for quick transfers at all of the important stops/stations - no more than 3-5 minutes at peak times, and certainly no more than 10 (max 15) off-peak.

FreudianSlippers · 28-03-2010 10:34pm

BluntGuy wrote: »

Absolutely 100% agreed.

Of course for this to work, we need integrated ticketing and integrated timetabling. There's no point having buses arrive and then the next DART is in 15-20 minutes (or vice verca). The aim should be for quick transfers at all of the important stops/stations - no more than 3-5 minutes at peak times, and certainly no more than 10 (max 15) off-peak.

Totally agree!

Yixian · 31-03-2010 8:18pm

It makes you wonder what in the name of god the Green were thinking even considering to scrap the metro in favour of buses. Both DARTu and MN will be electrified and with projects like Spirit of Ireland there is a possibility supplying that electricity can be done in a carbon neutral way - and here was a Green party suggesting it'd be better to chuck a load of petrol guzzling double deckers onto the already over-crowded roads!

I think we can all agree that College Green Plaza could not exist without the metro, and with the metro, the absence of a College Green Plaza becomes quite simply a farce.

Empire o de Sun · 02-04-2010 5:59pm

dRNk SAnTA wrote: »

Could a redeveloped Hawkins House area replace Nassau Street as the current bus hub? Hawkins House will be close to the O'Connell St metro north station, the proposed connection of the 2 luas lines, and Tara St Dart station. Just a thought.

Surely the lucan luas will be joined to the BX line and they can do a loop around O'Connell street and back out to lucan,

or are we going to fix one gap between the green and red and have another one between the lucan and the other two.

Sulmac · 02-04-2010 10:32pm

Empire o de Sun wrote: »

Surely the lucan luas will be joined to the BX line and they can do a loop around O'Connell street and back out to lucan,

or are we going to fix one gap between the green and red and have another one between the lucan and the other two.

You'd think so, but according to the RPA:

Luas Liberties commence on the St. James’s Road, where the new line will diverge from the Red Line to run along St. James’s Street, Thomas Street, High Street, Dame Street to a terminus located in College Green.

Very shortsighted if true, since providing a connection to the Green line would enable all sorts of routes, such as Lucan to Bray (eventually) or Broadstone to Citywest, as well as many more.

Aard · 02-04-2010 10:48pm

In fairness, if they build a Delta-junction in front of Trinity, there won't be much space left for a public square. It looks like one or the other $:\$

murphaph · 03-04-2010 5:12pm

If this silly Lucan Luas must go ahead, and along this alignment, I'd like to see it and the BX line buried under College Green in a cut and cover tunnel tbh. Then you could build a full delta junction allowing lots more route options in the future as the network expands, whilst maintaining the possibility of a world class public open space on College Green.

Other cities would have likely pedestrianised this whole thing already with such beautiful buildings surrounding the space. Even the "normal" buildings along the southern side of the green/dame st are really nice. Dublin needs to be an attractive place to live and work.

Victor · 04-04-2010 12:26am

murphaph wrote: »

If this silly Lucan Luas must go ahead, and along this alignment, I'd like to see it and the BX line buried under College Green in a cut and cover tunnel tbh. Then you could build a full delta junction allowing lots more route options in the future as the network expands, whilst maintaining the possibility of a world class public open space on College Green.

Sure, this is an idea, but there are water table and archaeological issues with that.

Of course, the line may go to SSG and not College Green.

leshamry · 04-04-2010 9:05am

there are a few options...

- terminus outside Starbucks
- single track to connect on the side/s for graveyard shifts
- underground to hawkins house
- underground into metro north going underground east of george st (hehehe)
- if there building it with no cables why not do it with metro north?
- join into the interconnector!

the good thing about buses is they loop easily...
schottentor is vienna is not to crash hotisish stephansplatz...

There is also another issue going to lucan it might be faster to jump onto metro north then the inconnector and ride a bike

Yixian · 04-04-2010 5:58pm

Aard wrote: »

In fairness, if they build a Delta-junction in front of Trinity, there won't be much space left for a public square. It looks like one or the other $:\$

At some point you have to put your foot down and say look, the rest of Dublin is completely given up to heavy traffic, almost more than any other European capital, here we are having a public square damn it! At College Green, pedestrians can come first for once!

Yixian · 04-04-2010 8:25pm

We're now accepting mockup submissions on our facebook group, and we're providing a sample image to work from.

Here's my first attempt:

Roryhy · 04-04-2010 8:36pm

The cobbles look killer but otherwise it looks pretty good, the buildings on college green are pretty special, this could turn into a master stroke for the capital and become a serious attraction!

Plowman · 04-04-2010 8:40pm

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Yixian · 04-04-2010 10:23pm

Plowman wrote: »

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Behind the camera.

Actually I forgot to add two stone arches rather like the Fusilier's arch (or possibly ornate cast iron) on the entrances to the square on Westmoreland and Grafton St.. in fact I will add those in later.

I definitely think statues should be incorporated into the fountain but I can't quite think of who...

I was also thinking there could perhaps be cast iron statues of some of the rebels in various, photographic or at least "historically accurate" poses dotted around the square. Would be quite a draw.

I think I'll move the bench too, more to where the pavement meets the street now.

Plowman · 04-04-2010 10:30pm

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Yixian · 04-04-2010 10:34pm

Plowman wrote: »

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For the fountain itself I was thinking maybe increasing the height of the one there by 50% and surrounding the big spurt in the middle by the 3 goddesses: Ériu, Banba and Fódla.

Plowman · 04-04-2010 10:40pm

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Yixian · 04-04-2010 10:44pm

I know most modern architecture aficionados cannot stand people building neo-classicism today, but I actually think that the goddesses would look nice rather in the style of the Trevi Fountain:

FCO%20Rome%20-%20Trevi%20Fountain%20detail%2003%203008x2000.jpg

FCO%20Rome%20-%20Trevi%20Fountain%20detail%2003%203008x2000.jpg

Either in stone or iron.

here's a nice statues of Ériu:

There are few of Banbha and Fódla, but Banbha is associated with war and fertility and Fódla is accompanied by lots of little floating faerie companions.

These guys could do with a bit of a revival.

Plowman · 04-04-2010 11:06pm

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Pedestrianise College Green for 2016

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