More planning madness

markpb

So the new Comfort Inn has opened on the site of the old Wax Museum (Granby Row & Dorset St) and some genius has given it permission to be built without anywhere for buses or taxis to pull in and load/unload. No bay, no parking, nothing.

It was a taxi driver (straight from the mouth of babes) who pointed it out to me first ("won't be long till you get all sorts of ignorant taxi drivers pulling up there with their hazard lights on"). Then on Saturday afternoon, a private coach pulled up in the turning-right lane on Granby Row and blocked all the outbound Swords Road buses. Poor 11 driver was going nuts wondering why the bus in front wasn't moving (he correctly had his right indicators on) and we sat for three full cycles before he copped on, reversed and pulled out around him.

Good work DCC, great bit of planning there.

tampopo

Sounds as bad as the Hilton Hotel in Kilmainham. 4 lanes of traffic on the SCR to one side, incl a cycle lane. One way street to the front at Inchicore Rd. Double cycle lane outside.

Buses pulling in to the front of the hotel disgorge the passengers into traffic. Buses pulling into the left side of the road forces 45 passengers and baggage to cross road.
There's a parking bay on the SCR side, just bigger than one bus. Recently, two buses were parked there, one okay, the second with the rear left wheel up on the footpath.

The most ridiculous planning I have ever seen. Actually, the buses are lucky to park in the bay as there was an ESB/DCC public lighting pole erected in the bay....till they moved it several weeks later. Dumb is not the word for it.

AlekSmart

This is an incredible thread .....For it reminded me of how dumbfounded I was when the Trinity Capital Hotel opened its doors on Pearse St.

Slack Jawed I was when I saw full size touring coaches disgorging their elderly and less than stable passengers directly onto the outside lane of fast flowing Pearse St peak traffic flow.

This is as far as I am concerned yet another example of Professional Negligence on the Part of City Management and I feel quite strongly that there should be a case taken against the City Manager and his Chief Planning Officers on these grounds.

I would go further and suggest that the Gardai should be doing THEIR job and seeking to institute CRIMINAL proceedings by submitting a file to the DPP on these particular cases in order, at the very least,to have a case stated and some proper legal ground rules laid down.

There is more than enough circumstantial evidence now in the Public domain to suggest that the relationship between major property developers and Senior Civic Administrators is acting against the public interest and now public safety as well.

In the case of the Comfort Inn there was ample opportunity to have its entrance sited ON Dorset St with a recessed loading bay to ensure safety.
Thi,of course,would have entailed some space sacrifice for the developer BUT would have ensured a somewhat safer arrangement than what is now on display.

Was there an independent safety audit commissioned....Is the Council so besotted with these Captains of Industry that it abandons all duty of care to its citizens and simply nods through travesties such as the one`s described in this thread.

The single greatest difficulty affecting us all is the complete lack of accountability or responsibility which Senior Civic Planners enjoy.

I can guarantee you all that should any ordinary individual seek to open an entrance or gateway to their own private residence in the manner of these Hotels the Senior Council Officials would be banging on your door with dire threats of legal action or worse.

The entire situation stinks to high Heaven,but I suppose when one takes account of the numbers of Senior Planners taking early retirement deals from the Public Sector only to pop up in equally senior "Advisory" roles on the boards of Private Development Companies then it really is just Par for the Course.

markpb

After much trawling of the planning permission for this building (Comfort Inn), it turns out the developer originally had plans for a ramp to an underground car park but the p/p required them to drop it and follow any other recommendations that the DCC Road Traffic division made.

Surely it would have occured to the RTD that hotels might need loading bays? At a push, the taxis and buses could have used the underground car park to load and unload. Surely someone had their brain switched on long enough to figure out they might need to make some privisions for this?

*sigh*

tampopo

Well, to be fair to DCC councillors, they formulate strategy and policy etc, it's the planners in Wood Quay that should be lined up agin a wall and verbally abused for allowing this sort of thing, if not An Bord Pleanala.