Cities around the world that are reducing car access

Sam Russell

gjim wrote: »

25% is going to be social and affordable which isn't much less than a third you suggest would be better.

DCC don't have infinite resources - the site itself would have cost them 250m and development at least a billion. To put that into context, DCCs entire budget is about 1B a year - even if financed largely by borrowing that's massive exposure for DCC for a single site given they're responsible for providing local services to more than half a million people.

But the biggest questions would be around DCC's record and competence to actually manage a project of this size. They've been "working" on St Teresa's Gardens redevelopment for over 15 years with only a tiny fraction of the site developed. This one was to be half the size of the Irish Bottle site in terms of number of units and in the end they delivered almost nothing before the project was effectively taken away from them and handed to the LDA to complete.

And even if the project was delivered, I've seen nothing to inspire confidence that DCC would be good at operating and managing huge public housing projects.

The 25% social housing is a lot less than my total of 33% social and 33% affordable.

DCC have lost the ability to manage this type of project, but it did build Ballymun Ballyfermot and Finglas. Surely they could do it again. (Maybe not, but a Gov agency should be able).

magicbastarder

Sam Russell wrote: »

DCC have lost the ability to manage this type of project, but it did build Ballymun Ballyfermot and Finglas. Surely they could do it again.

not without the political willpower to back them, and that's what's lacking.

Sam Russell

magicbastarder wrote: »

not without the political willpower to back them, and that's what's lacking.

That is quite correct. It may have other elements in play as well.

gjim

magicbastarder wrote: »

not without the political willpower to back them, and that's what's lacking.

I don't agree - there's no lack of political representatives who sell themselves on their "willingness" to deliver big social housing projects.

What's lacking in the council chamber is pragmatism, experience and an appreciation of the cost and complexity involved in delivering large projects like this. "Political willpower" without these attributes just amounts to a lot of hot air and broken promises.

Few if any local councillors have demonstrated the required of competence or expertise regardless of their willpower to be effective in planning and executing large complex housing projects like this. It's actually "political willpower" (or unrealistic demands on the part of political representatives) and bluster that mired the St Teresa's Gardens development for 15 years.

gjim

Sam Russell wrote: »

The 25% social housing is a lot less than my total of 33% social and 33% affordable.

Apologies for misreading you - but the sentence read like one third for sale, one third for rent and one third for affordable/social.

DCC have lost the ability to manage this type of project, but it did build Ballymun Ballyfermot and Finglas. Surely they could do it again. (Maybe not, but a Gov agency should be able).

I guess that's what the LDA is supposed to be for but they haven't delivered a whole lot yet.

This is getting way off topic but I'd prefer the council wasn't involved in building and managing large contiguous areas of social housing. Historically that model has mostly just delivered ghettos and stigmatism attached to coming from particular areas (Ballymun, Ballyfermot and Finglas). I feel people requiring housing support (and social housing units) should be mingled in with those not requiring such support.

MJohnston

gjim wrote: »

I don't agree - there's no lack of political representatives who sell themselves on their "willingness" to deliver big social housing projects.

What's lacking in the council chamber is pragmatism, experience and an appreciation of the cost and complexity involved in delivering large projects like this. "Political willpower" without these attributes just amounts to a lot of hot air and broken promises.

Few if any local councillors have demonstrated the required of competence or expertise regardless of their willpower to be effective in planning and executing large complex housing projects like this. It's actually "political willpower" (or unrealistic demands on the part of political representatives) and bluster that mired the St Teresa's Gardens development for 15 years.

I think what magic was referring to is that it doesn’t matter what the council chamber or the council executive want to build in terms of housing, because it’s an inescapable fact that the national government controls the pursestrings for housing. The council have no money to build housing, they need FFG TDs to feel benevolent for a moment.

Sam Russell

gjim wrote: »

Apologies for misreading you - but the sentence read like one third for sale, one third for rent and one third for affordable/social.

I guess that's what the LDA is supposed to be for but they haven't delivered a whole lot yet.

This is getting way off topic but I'd prefer the council wasn't involved in building and managing large contiguous areas of social housing. Historically that model has mostly just delivered ghettos and stigmatism attached to coming from particular areas (Ballymun, Ballyfermot and Finglas). I feel people requiring housing support (and social housing units) should be mingled in with those not requiring such support.

It was the reason why I suggested dividing large developments into thirds - rent, low cost, market cost - mingled. The market housing would tend to be larger, better equipped houses, possibly with larger plots sizes, but not segregated. The other two would be identical - and it would be possible for them to move from one group to the other as the occupiers became better off or fell on hard times.

The aim would to be that a community would be built with its own proud identity, just as a rural town has its identity, provided that it is not big enough to have developed ghettos. A bit like the 'Garden Cities' in England of the 1920s (Welwyn Garden City) and 1960s (Milton Keynes), and perhaps Marino in Dublin.

Maybe too much to expect.

magicbastarder

MJohnston wrote: »

I think what magic was referring to is that it doesn’t matter what the council chamber or the council executive want to build in terms of housing, because it’s an inescapable fact that the national government controls the pursestrings for housing. The council have no money to build housing, they need FFG TDs to feel benevolent for a moment.

yep, this was what i meant. the council have a budget of X to achieve a list of goals, if they wanted to get into building social housing on anything like the scale i suspect most of us think is desirable, this is something which would need to be decided at a national fiscal level. the council simply doesn't have the spare cash to do a solo run on it.

gjim

magicbastarder wrote: »

yep, this was what i meant. the council have a budget of X to achieve a list of goals, if they wanted to get into building social housing on anything like the scale i suspect most of us think is desirable, this is something which would need to be decided at a national fiscal level. the council simply doesn't have the spare cash to do a solo run on it.

I actually don't think massive local authority social housing development is desirable. With a few notable exceptions, historically most such efforts have not been a success particularly for the unfortunate inhabitants of such schemes.

Nor are local authorities particularly good at maintaining and managing their stock of housing.

Of course, nobody should be priced out of the market for a place to live and support for renting (or even buying) by those on low or no income should be generous.

But this is getting way off topic and I don't want to continue to drag the thread in this direction - could some mod move the housing related posts to a new thread? I think housing is an important component of national infrastructure and it deserves a dedicated thread.

Pete_Cavan

The thing is, there is an obvious way of achieving both goals of DCC funding large scale social/affordable housing development and creating a mixture of public and private ownership. By selling or offering development rights* to private developers on DCC lands, it would ensure mixed development while providing DCC with the funding to build their own stock. Unfortunately Councillors have rejected this on large sites like Lawrence Lands (where Oscar Traynor Road meets M1) for ideological reasons, in favour of sitting around hoping national government pony up the money for them to develop something. Expect nothing to happen and people to continue to suffer while Councillors promote themselves on the back of this ideological crusade.

*Like CIE are doing with their lands around train stations, selling leasehold rights for a set period while retaining freehold ownership themselves.

Thelonious Monk

What annoys me about new developments in Dublin is people moaning about the traffic they'll generate when they're built, like all these developments happening in Cherrywood and Dundrum. Pushing housing further out of the city will just generate more traffic anyway elsewhere that will probably come into the city a lot.
Do people not realise not everyone drives all the time?

MJohnston

People moan about all the traffic they'll generate, and then the same people moan that there are a couple of cycle lanes being installed. They should be ignored. The problem is that most Irish politicians are demagogues rather than leaders.

Seth Brundle

Meanwhile in Oxford...

https://twitter.com/OxfdPedestrians/status/1386613422947803139

https://twitter.com/OxfdPedestrians/status/1386612901889331200

Seth Brundle

https://twitter.com/irishexaminer/status/1387047632300773381

Zebra3

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

What annoys me about new developments in Dublin is people moaning about the traffic they'll generate when they're built, like all these developments happening in Cherrywood and Dundrum. Pushing housing further out of the city will just generate more traffic anyway elsewhere that will probably come into the city a lot.
Do people not realise not everyone drives all the time?

Standard stuff. Just moaning about other people driving cos it’ll delay them when they are driving.

And politicians pay attention to idiots like that.

Ben D Bus

It will be interesting to see how much the subject of traffic and cycling infrastructure comes up in the forthcoming Dublin Bay South by-election.

I presume Mannix Flynn will put his name forward again

bb1234567

Seth Brundle wrote: »

https://twitter.com/irishexaminer/status/1387047632300773381

Very good headline. An economic angle , the only way we will ever get the big dogs on board and be able to confidently shout down the last few still voicing opposition to cycling infrastructure and pedestrianisations.

MJohnston

Blackrockb72 wrote: »

<snip>

Oddly, I don't.

magicbastarder

kinda funny to read the responses to mcauliffe's two tweets here. tough crowd...

https://twitter.com/PaulMcauliffe/status/1387157918991241221

riddlinrussell

magicbastarder wrote: »

kinda funny to read the responses to mcauliffe's two tweets here. tough crowd...

https://twitter.com/PaulMcauliffe/status/1387157918991241221

If that second tweet results in a campaign that removes taxis from bus lanes it would be a delicious irony

Seth Brundle

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Meanwhile in Oxford...

https://twitter.com/OxfdPedestrians/status/1386613422947803139

https://twitter.com/OxfdPedestrians/status/1386612901889331200

...and so it continued...

https://twitter.com/OxfdPedestrians/status/1387137088626348039

Thelonious Monk

If anyone frequents Bull Island this kind of thing will be familiar, this is from Saturday, there was parking on the causeway but they needed to be as close to the beach as possible so they park on the roundabout.
The wooden bridge side is usually a total disaster on sunny days too, they really need to start restricting car access.

CatInABox

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

If anyone frequents Bull Island this kind of thing will be familiar, this is from Saturday, there was parking on the causeway but they needed to be as close to the beach as possible so they park on the roundabout.
The wooden bridge side is usually a total disaster on sunny days too, they really need to start restricting car access.

It's such a frustrating problem. Irish people have been conditioned to expect convenient parking at all times, and when they arrive at a place that doesn't have convenient parking, they assume that they can park anyway.

That leaves the council with only one option, bollards. Bollards absolutely feckin everywhere, but almost always up on the pedestrian path. Solving the problem of cars taking away pedestrian space by taking away pedestrian space.... :mad::mad::mad:

Zebra3

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

If anyone frequents Bull Island this kind of thing will be familiar, this is from Saturday, there was parking on the causeway but they needed to be as close to the beach as possible so they park on the roundabout.
The wooden bridge side is usually a total disaster on sunny days too, they really need to start restricting car access.

It’s how they park in their own housing estates so you can hardly expect them to give a damn about somewhere they’re only visiting for a short period of time.

Seth Brundle

This reminds me of Operation Freeflow where for a short period of time, the traffic laws were enforced...

https://twitter.com/dlrcc/status/1387738558379790345

cgcsb

The Gardaí and Council owned vehicles park on footpaths so expecting the average citizen to behave better is a difficult ask really.
Regarding Bull Island, I still don't get why they let cars over the wooden bridge it should be foot and bike only with exceptions for deliveries. There's just no space for cars at woodenbridge.

Thelonious Monk

cgcsb wrote: »

The Gardaí and Council owned vehicles park on footpaths so expecting the average citizen to behave better is a difficult ask really.
Regarding Bull Island, I still don't get why they let cars over the wooden bridge it should be foot and bike only with exceptions for deliveries. There's just no space for cars at woodenbridge.

You'd have counsellors going nuts as usual. The bitching and moaning out of people when this is mentioned on social media, banging on about old people and disabled people when really they just don't want to have to walk a few 100 meters.

cgcsb

It's actually old and disabled ppl who suffer most due to pro car policies. There are streets in Dublin that a wheelchair bound person cannot access because the footpath is too small.

downtheroad

cgcsb wrote: »

The Gardaí and Council owned vehicles park on footpaths so expecting the average citizen to behave better is a difficult ask really.
Regarding Bull Island, I still don't get why they let cars over the wooden bridge it should be foot and bike only with exceptions for deliveries. There's just no space for cars at woodenbridge.

I remember going for a swim one sunny evening last year and as I was walking to the bathing shelters I passed a group of lads heading back to their car. Anyway I had my swim, hung around for a good half hour after with a flask of coffee, then walked back across the bridge (I parked on Seafield Road because I'd never think of driving over the wooden bridge on a sunny day - or any day actually) and there were the 4 lads sitting in their car stuck in a ridiculous queue of traffic. It must have taken them more than an hour to get off the island. Why anyone drives over there is beyond me.

Traffic is banned from crossing the bridge twice a year when the Clontarf half marathon is on, and it is glorious down there seeing what it should be like car free.

Thelonious Monk

Yes I can't get my head around people who think hey lets drive across the wooden bridge at 4pm on the sunniest day of the year, yet hoards of them seem to think it's a good idea.