Love the city centre campaign

ricman

The city council is gonna have a campaign to advertise the city centre,
see http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/ian-odoherty/ian-odoherty-yup-theres-lots-to-be-proud-of-2289536.html
it seems ridiculous to me.
In the meantime they put up parking charges,reduce the no of parking spaces ,
put in 30mph zones and gosh they are suprised .THE no of visitors to the city centre is falling.
People are going to lidl,or local shopping centres,free parking ,no junkies,or beggars hanging around.No chance of getting clamped.
Heres an idea, have free parking city centre ,sundays 9am to 10pm.
MAYBE they expect everyone to cycle in or use bus,s .
During the daytime til 7pm the traffic is awful ,why would you travel to the city centre to buy your grocerys, or go to a film.
WE are in a massive recession, more taxes,lower wages, people have less money to spend on luxurys .
AND go over the meter, ten mins and you,ll find someone trying to clamp your car.

John_Rambo

Don't bring your car in then. Cycle, bus, dart, luas it. I travel to the city center all the time, love it. Shopping, eating, drinking, parks, Dublin bikes, the galleries etc, public transport is cheap. I love the atmosphere. You don't have to go to expensive places. If you do insist on bringing the car in (like I sometimes do) park in a multi story, or use the free parking within certain hours, otherwise just keep the car topped up.

Maybe you are better off sticking to malls and UCI cinemas dotted around the burbs along with McDonalds. Not my scene, but it might rock your boat.

JuliusCaesar

ricman wrote: »

During the daytime til 7pm the traffic is awful

And you want more people to bring their cars into the city centre???:rolleyes:

Goodshape

ricman wrote:

why would you travel to the city centre to buy your grocerys

Why would anyone travel to the city centre to buy their groceries? That's what the lidl in the suburbs and the local shopping centres are for.

Leave the car at home, take the luas, bus, or dart, and enjoy walking or cycling around. It's actually not a bad city centre. My biggest gripe would be amount of cars about the place but thankfully that seems to be reducing with the bikes, luas, bus corridor, etc.

phasers

Parking in town has always been a nightmare, when I started driving it never even entered my head to drive into the city.

stomprockin

LoL @ at this piece in the article:D

It's a lovely place to visit -- as you long as you enjoy the cosmopolitan sights of Romanian beggars giving the evil eye to anyone who doesn't give them cash mingling with our colourful bunch of home-grown junkies. :pac:

Dyr

Goodshape wrote: »

Why would anyone travel to the city centre to buy their groceries? That's what the lidl in the suburbs and the local shopping centres are for.

Leave the car at home, take the luas, bus, or dart, and enjoy walking or cycling around. It's actually not a bad city centre. My biggest gripe would be amount of cars about the place but thankfully that seems to be reducing with the bikes, luas, bus corridor, etc.

Having been stuck with dead time after work in the the city centre most weeks I would be of the opinion that it's a f**king ****hole to spend time in

No public toilets to be found, the only places open after 7pm most nights are boozers and cinemas. Most of the streets have alco's, nutters or junkies stalking around them. And why the fcuk would you go shopping if you had to rely on public transport? I don't drive but the corpo have nearly criminalised the car in the city centre and then wonder why no-one want's to use our public transport to lug bags of shopping around?

These fcukers depopulated the city centre to make a fortune off commercial rates and rents and now can't figure out why people prefer to stay close to home in the suburbs rather than come into the city centre to be overcharged for everything?

John_Rambo

Bambi wrote: »

Having been stuck with dead time after work in the the city centre most weeks I would be of the opinion that it's a f**king ****hole to spend time in

No public toilets to be found, the only places open after 7pm most nights are boozers and cinemas

Wow, hundreds of very inexpensive cafes and restaurants if you don't want to cook when you get home, the early bird options are the best. They all have to have toilets by law. Also, I have never ever been refused to use the toilets by a bar man in Dublin city (even though I wasn't a customer). Regarding shopping, used to all my shopping in the city, the more I did it, the more familiar I got and the better deals I got! Buy a decent back pack. It's all doable.

Dyr

John_Rambo wrote: »

It's all doable.

So is climbing the sugar loaf. Don't mean that I'm gonna do it.

Morlar

So the moral of the story is cars are bad, mmmmkay.

Goodshape

Fair enough, Bambi.

I've lived in the city centre for more than four years now and, while it's certainly not perfect, I find there's plenty to like about it.

John_Rambo

Bambi wrote: »

Don't mean that I'm gonna do it.

Fair enough Bambi. Spend time stuck with dead time after work in the the city centre most weeks, retain the opinion that it's a f**king ****hole to spend time in, don't make use of anything, don't use any of the toilets available, don't do any shopping, don't make any use of the facilities, don't take any advice from anyone trying to be helpful. Keep the chin up.

Dyr

So there's public toilets now? Or are you still on about the ones in the pubs that have the signs up that say reserved for customers use only? The lack of public facilities tell's you how seriously DCC "love" the city centre

There's shops open at 7pm on a tuesday night?

What other facilities are we talking about?
The delis and cafes that will be closed all day sunday?

the luas and dart that provide convenient access to one side of the city only?

the boardwalks that we spent a fortune on so just we can chat idly with junkies?

Dublin is super if you want to gad about of a sunny saturday (like I do) but dublin corporation coming out with a love dublin campaign when they've been busy "loving" dublin like a priest loves an alter boy is pretty disgusting.

cosmic

Bambi wrote: »

The lack of public facilities tell's you how seriously DCC "love" the city centre

Dublin City Council Libraries are open til 8pm.

The Markievicz Leisure Centre is open til 9.45pm.

Two examples of DCC services available to you after work.

Goodshape

Are there shops open anywhere in this country at 7pm on a tuesday night?

If there was no boardwalk you'd complain they're not doing enough to take advantage of the river.

If there were an abundance of public toilets you'd complain they're overrun with junkies.

The Luas and the bikes are great, imo. Both could do with being expanded though (and there are plans to do so with the Luas).

Can't say I've ever had a problem finding something to eat at 7 or 8 o'clock any day of the week.

There's a nice tea room on the quays that's open until 11 every night. Science gallery usually has something going on after 7pm. IFI, Screen Cinema, Lighthouse or just one of the multiplexes if you fancy a movie. You complain about too many boozers but there's lots of variety within them - bound to be something there for your taste. Always a comedy night on somewhere.

Lots of junkies is true, unfortunately, but I can honestly say that in my 4+ years living city centre I've never once been hassled by them. Not to say it doesn't ever happen but in general, they seem to keep to themselves.

John_Rambo

There should be plenty on internet cafes open, you could pop in and complain about the city you don't really know about from behind a keyboard to kill some time after thanking everyone on this thread for their kind suggestions and help.

Dyr

Not that many internet cafes around dublin now me oul flower, mainly because we have the 3g phone

Anyway Rambo, speaking of doing things behind keyboards, I'll be in fixx on dawson street this evening killing time (opens late, excellent coffee) just in case you'd rather try making personal remarks in person rather than from behind a keyboard. :pac:

John_Rambo

Bambi wrote: »

Not that many internet cafes around dublin now me oul flower, mainly because we have the 3g phone

Anyway Rambo, speaking of doing things behind keyboards, I'll be in fixx on dawson street this evening killing time (opens late, excellent coffee) just in case you'd rather try making personal remarks in person rather than from behind a keyboard.

Come on Bambi, I didn't make any personal comments about you. All I did was point out where you could use toilets and offer some help in your hour of boredom in Dublin. Fair enough, you don't appreciate my help, or the suggestions by Goodshape and you completely ignored Cosmics handy info on killing time... It's now obvious you are just here to put the city down, you don't want to know what's open and whats good to do in the city.

Anyway, can't meet up, I will be in the middle of Dublin bay.

Morlar

Just as an aside I'd be in agreement with Bambi that the tone of your replies have been more condescending than helpful throughout the entire thread. In fact I wrote a post to that effect then wondered 'why bother' & deleted it as life is too short. Just my 2c.

John_Rambo

I know, you are probably right, but when someone comes on spouting about your city simple untruths it's hard not to be defensive. He has completely ignored any help or suggestions and in some cases derided the help offered.

Miguel_Sanchez

I took a long walk around the North inner city with my girlfriend last night. It was a lovely evening.

No hassle from anyone, didn't see one fight, stabbing or murder.

One homeless lad asked us fairly politely for change.

That was it.


I believe the city centre is far from the cesspit that many people make it out to be.

Also there's still a good load of internet cafes in Dublin 1 that open late.