Pedestrian managment

gjim

Forgot it. Barriers and the like were part of the "auto city" dream of the modernist architects and planners. This idea died 20 or 30 years ago and good riddance. We can see it's results in Dublin places like Christchurch, Cork St. and a few small sections of the quays. Luckily we were too poor at the time to implement modernism on a large scale unlike what happened in the UK, for example, where countless cities were destroyed by the planning equivalent of Marxism. Go to nearly any UK provincial city and you can see the results of this disastrous planning movement: nasty segregated urban environments with metal barriers everywhere, pedestrian subways, dual-carriageways criss-crossing the centres of towns, dead high-streets and an environment actively hostile to pedestrians, cyclists and social interaction.

The future for city centres is the very opposite of this with the streets being given back to pedestrians and cyclists and cars having to work their way around pedestrians instead of the other way around.

Saruman

Simply because we are driving lethal weapons.
A pedestrian who walks out in front of a car without looking, or oblivious to the fact there is a car turning can be injured or killed.
Since so many people in Diblin blindly just walk out in front of cars then its for their own safety that they be guided to safe areas to cross.

One simple reason is a bunch of drunks stumbling around the city falling all over the place and even on to the roads. Its for their safety. Comparing it to Apartheid is just ridiculous.

By the way i agree that much of the city centre should be pedestrianised. O' Connell street, College Green etc. However if this is not going to be done then safety for pedestrians should be paramount.

Does not matter if the speed limit is only 30kph. If some drunk falls onto the road just as a car is passing then he will be badly injured or even killed. He might then wish there had been something there to stop im falling onto the road.

Del2005

They should enforce the laws we already have , ie jaywalking, breaking red lights by cars and bikes, instead of making up new laws to be ignored. If there was proper enforcement of the current rules with consistant punsihment then things would improve. But there is little chance of that happening.

corktina

i always thought it would be a good idea to build a dam up by Guinnesses and drain the Liffey through the city centre and use that for traffic and car parking, freeing up the quays for pedestrians....loads of room just being wasted there at the momnet...






talking about being wasted..... :-)

BostonB

Del2005 wrote:

They should enforce the laws we already have , ie jaywalking, breaking red lights by cars and bikes, instead of making up new laws to be ignored. If there was proper enforcement of the current rules with consistant punsihment then things would improve. But there is little chance of that happening.

What we're saying is we can't police the roads. So lets slow everything down so that when there are accidents people are injured, but not killed. The problem with that logic is if people don't obey the current rules and common sense, why will they obey the new rules? Will enforcement change? There will be lip service for a couple of months I expect.

lostexpectation

Saruman wrote:

By the way i agree that much of the city centre should be pedestrianised. O' Connell street, College Green etc. However if this is not going to be done then safety for pedestrians should be paramount.

Does not matter if the speed limit is only 30kph. If some drunk falls onto the road just as a car is passing then he will be badly injured or even killed. He might then wish there had been something there to stop im falling onto the road.

or is dundrum town centre, private town centres/shopping centres,

surely it isn't about crashes but the business of town, perhaps we should pedestrian congestion charges...?

cyclopath2001

BostonB wrote:

What we're saying is we can't police the roads. So lets slow everything down so that when there are accidents people are injured,

Making drivers slow down brings more benefits than just a reduction in the severity of injury.

Del2005

BostonB wrote:

What we're saying is we can't police the roads. So lets slow everything down so that when there are accidents people are injured, but not killed. The problem with that logic is if people don't obey the current rules and common sense, why will they obey the new rules? Will enforcement change? There will be lip service for a couple of months I expect.

If they can't police the roads now what makes you think throwing more laws at it is going to do anything. If the speed limit is 30kph and no-one enforces it there may as well be no speed limit. I'm all for slowing traffic down and making things safer for peds but there is absolutely no point in making up new laws that aren't enforced. There are plenty of laws that would save peoples lives if properly enforced, but because everyone knows that the chances of getting caught are slim no one pays any head. Any country that has reduced road deaths has only done it with a big stick as the carrot never works.

Off topic, but remember when a couple of years ago when they brought in the new laws to stop people being drunk in pubs to replace the law against being drunk in a pub. Did anyone else notice that there is now no more drunks in pubs. No cause the law was never enforced and on the night it came into affect I was listening to the radio and the head of the Garda the covers Temple Bar said that they wouldn't arrest anyone.

cast_iron

BostonB wrote:

What we're saying is we can't police the roads. So lets slow everything down so that when there are accidents people are injured, but not killed. The problem with that logic is if people don't obey the current rules and common sense, why will they obey the new rules? Will enforcement change? There will be lip service for a couple of months I expect.

Well said.

The only thing this will serve is to make it even easier to get 2 penalty points around town. During busy times, you'll be doing well to see 18mph. But at 3am, tootling along at 18mph without a pedestrian in sight, except the Gardai ready to slap you a fine.

It's the usual excuse - we can't enforce the current laws, so lets make more draconian ones to make it look like we are doing something. Pedestrian safety my arse. How many pedestrians are actually killed in the proposed area each year? Show me some qualitative analysis on those accidents showing 20km/h reduction would have saved them and I may reconsider my opinion on this.

BostonB

Del2005 wrote:

If they can't police the roads now what makes you think throwing more laws at it is going to do anything. If the speed limit is 30kph and no-one enforces it there may as well be no speed limit. I'm all for slowing traffic down and making things safer for peds but there is absolutely no point in making up new laws that aren't enforced. There are plenty of laws that would save peoples lives if properly enforced, but because everyone knows that the chances of getting caught are slim no one pays any head. Any country that has reduced road deaths has only done it with a big stick as the carrot never works. ...

That was my point?

Bit like mobiles. You can stand on any street on Dublin and see every 10th car or so, someone has a mobile clamped to their head. Usually your attention is brought to it by their erratic driving. Ditto unrestrained kids in the car.

Zoney

The State is not currently properly policed at all, nevermind road traffic offences. That does not mean one should give up on the idea of policing the State.

Neither should we give up policing the roads.

We need thousands more Gardaí, we do not have a remotely normal police : population ratio.

Tea drinker

Some road users are pretty dumb, but definately the dumbest are cyclists.
My mother was ran down by a cyclist in a pedstrian area. They don't give a damn about their own safety or anyone elses. Once they start pedallin the adrenalin is pumping and brains replaced with testicles.
They should have insurance, and should pay for any damage they do to motorists or pedestrians.
People seem to forget the consequences of their actions, if someone on a bike or walking wanders in front of a car, the drivers concentration is on them, and have poorer reactions for another obstacle, like a child running out. Accidents are usually caused by a number of circumstances coming together to funk you up.
I am in favour of more pedestrian friendly junctions, underground tunnels, and very high visibility traffic (and pedestrian) lights.
To make the city centre car free is a joke, they might as well move the zoo there.

monument

Tea drinker wrote:

To make the city centre car free is a joke, they might as well move the zoo there.

Do please tell why it would be a joke?

HonalD

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tea drinker
To make the city centre car free is a joke, they might as well move the zoo there.


Do please tell why it would be a joke?

I'm not one to jump on the bandwagon...but what is the joke? It better be funny? Can't see how it can be sane though! Give the City Centre back to the people - A connection from St. Stephen's Green to O'Connell Street, via College Green and Westmoreland Street - One pedestrian linkage nirvana......it WILL happen....someday......

jman0

I agree that the title of this thread is a little flakey.
We are all pedestrians and we don't need to be corralled like cattle into specified areas of public space. We should be free to choose the most efficient route.
Having said that, it is a matter of design to insure those efficient routes really are efficient.

People vote with their feet; how many times have we seen footpaths carved into the ground by people treading there, even tho there actually are concrete footpaths in the vicinity... only they are laid in such a manner (following a road or whatever) that it's more efficient to cut across the field.

In Galway at the Bodkin Roundabout (the confusing one outside Terryland - Galway Shopping Centre) is an example of particularly poor planning in respect to the accomodation of the numbers of people traversing it by foot, nevermind cycling.

I haven't read this book yet, but it looks good:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Car-Sick-Solutions-Car-addicted-Culture/dp/190399876X

I'd like to see progressive planning like these living streets i read about
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street

OTK

One of the reasons not to build safety barriers in cities is that drivers naturally travel at the fastest speed they judge safe. Traffic speeds rise following the introduction of pedestrian barriers to a level where the accident rate remains the same as before.

I have to smile at the guy suggesting that pedestrian tunnels are a good idea.