Dawson Street is ever so dark

imme

Dawson is fully open to all sorts of traffic and the Luas over 1 year.

The works for the Luas have obviously changed the feel of the street from a graceful boulevard with proper proportions to a higeldy pigeldy street with high (for the Luas platforms) kerbs and then low kerbs.

Apart from the disturbance at street level the streetlights seem to be gone replaced by high up lamps attached to buildings.

It has left the street desperately dark and feeling even more disjointed as a result.

L1011

Light issues nonwithstanding I find the street looks vastly better now than it did before the Luas works. Some of that is down to building changes and will improve further when the Nassua street end is done

antodeco

L1011 wrote: »

Light issues nonwithstanding I find the street looks vastly better now than it did before the Luas works. Some of that is down to building changes and will improve further when the Nassua street end is done

I'd agree on this also. Dawson Street always looked very downbeat. The "posh Capel Street". It's transformed with the way it is now, and the ivy really brings up the building appearances from the older "80s" style buildings (i know some still remain).

The street lights are weird though. I've noticed them and thought they looked odd. I wonder would a 10 degree tilt upwards light the road up alot more.

wakka12

Funnily enough I think the opposite. I think its easily one of the nicest streets in the entire city since the luas went through it, it really tranformed it for the better imo. And apparently foot traffic has increased massively along dawson street since, which is good, grafton street is just asbolutely jammers a lot of the time, it needed somewhere to take a bit of the weight off it

Amirani

It's the nicest street in the city since the updates in my view.

cgcsb

Are you sure you're not mixing up the names of streets? It's much nicer now, not clogged with cars and better landscaping. I also find it quite bright at night time. If you want to see poor street lighting, walk around the corner onto Nassau st, pure darkness from Lincoln place down to Dawson St junction, not to mention a completely cat pedestrian environment. I understand that bus connects will alleviate this, and there'll be some footpath widening. Hopefully the lighting situation will be improved also.

LionelNashe

I think the architecture up around the Molesworth Street junction (& on Molesworth Street itself) is very good. I hadn't noticed the lighting, but if it means fewer poles, then I'm all for it. Dublin is a fairly low-light city, anyway.

cgcsb

I find it well lit, much more so than it used to be and certainly much better than other parts of the City Centre. Try walking along Harcourt Rd between the luas stop and Camden st at night. You'd need a highvis and a helmet torch like a country lane.

imme

cgcsb wrote: »

Are you sure you're not mixing up the names of streets? It's much nicer now, not clogged with cars and better landscaping. I also find it quite bright at night time. If you want to see poor street lighting, walk around the corner onto Nassau st, pure darkness from Lincoln place down to Dawson St junction, not to mention a completely cat pedestrian environment. I understand that bus connects will alleviate this, and there'll be some footpath widening. Hopefully the lighting situation will be improved also.

Oh yeah I meant Rawson street,
No I'm talking about Dawson Street.

I do find the 'new' Dawson Street very dark.
It is massively changed from what it was.

It has a more straight edge and mechanical feel to it now.

imme

LionelNashe wrote: »

I think the architecture up around the Molesworth Street junction (& on Molesworth Street itself) is very good. I hadn't noticed the lighting, but if it means fewer poles, then I'm all for it. Dublin is a fairly low-light city, anyway.

A lot of work done on molesworth street junction area, agreed . Very welcome improvement on what was there before.

I hate the new Dawson Street too. Seems like much fewer people standing about and the new paving/steps make it feel unfriendly and cold. Crossing the road is a pain with the level changes. To me it's lost it's "Dublin-ness" and style. Such a pity because I mostly love the Luas - it works fine on Harcourt St.

imme

Cali_girl wrote: »

I hate the new Dawson Street too. Seems like much fewer people standing about and the new paving/steps make it feel unfriendly and cold. Crossing the road is a pain with the level changes. To me it's lost it's "Dublin-ness" and style. Such a pity because I mostly love the Luas - it works fine on Harcourt St.

It had an olde worlde charm before, it knew it wasn't Grafton Street.
It had a mix of uses, office, shops, galleries, a church, the mansion House, restaurants, public buildings.

The Luas cuts the street like a scythe.

The Luas only goes down Dawson Street because it can't go down Grafton Street.

Like Marlborough Street property prices will change the uses of the buildings on Dawson Street, cue more restaurants, less variety overall.

And still fierce dark overall.

Some trees, some old Dublin style black or dark green painted proper wrought iron railings/lights and some people would all help. The weird level changes will always been issue...

Any DCC attempt at "street furniture" ie modern polished steel seats and integrating the Luas stop style will be a disaster. Same for any of the crappy cheap planters they're prone to dropping random places. Its home of the Mansion House - the country's original Dail Eireann and needs to be treated with more respect.

It's like the life of the street was sanitised away and it needs to be left alone to recover and redevelop organically... then it might become a street, place and destination in its own right again, not just an efficient thoroughfare to and from other transit stops. imme - you're right about the mix of uses too.

cgcsb

It's much more pleasant now, way less cars, it used to be choked with cars and no space for people. Regarding darkness. It's one of the best lit streets, go around the corner to Nassau st if you want dark.

VonLuck

imme wrote: »

It had an olde worlde charm before, it knew it wasn't Grafton Street.
It had a mix of uses, office, shops, galleries, a church, the mansion House, restaurants, public buildings.

It still has all of those.

imme wrote: »

The Luas cuts the street like a scythe.

I don't understand this statement. There was always a road with moving traffic and there are the same number of pedestrian crossings in roughly the same location.

imme wrote: »

The Luas only goes down Dawson Street because it can't go down Grafton Street.

Like it did during it it's "olde worlde" period!

imme wrote: »

Like Marlborough Street property prices will change the uses of the buildings on Dawson Street, cue more restaurants, less variety overall.

I think there's plenty of variety as it is. What would you expect from a street in such close proximity to Grafton Street?

imme wrote: »

And still fierce dark overall.

I think this is primarily at the Luas stop where they've removed the lamps. Possibly a particular requirement for Luas stops, I'm not sure.

I think the street looks great. A vast improvement on even a few years ago. Particularly the two new/refurbished buildings on the corner of Marlborough Street.

Caranica

VonLuck wrote: »

I think the street looks great. A vast improvement on even a few years ago. Particularly the two new/refurbished buildings on the corner of Marlborough Street.

Molesworth Street?

I like Dawson Street, just wish they'd put an atm in somewhere (other than in a pub) around there or on Nassau Street. There's none from Grafton Street to the Shelbourne on one side of the green and none on Nassau Street/Clare Street