New signs gone already!

kamobe

lol, they were a bloody disaster....

€200,000 fiasco as Brennan scuppers road signs



DUBLIN'S controversial new traffic signs were scrapped last night leaving taxpayers to foot a bill of at least €200,000 and motorists facing further bewilderment.


And Transport Minister Seamus Brennan, who found the signs confusing, revealed that the fiasco could have been avoided if the City Council had consulted with him and department officials.


The move is a hugely embarrassing blow to the council and its traffic officials, who are now forced to go back to the drawing board after the signs were launched last week in a fanfare of publicity.


While only 10pc of the 500 signs have so far been put up, no more will be erected. The others will be taken down and there will be a complete re-design to make them less confusing.


But it has also emerged that up to 500,000 glossy brochures have been sent to homes in the greater Dublin area illustrating the new traffic management plan. This brochure also shows four of the new signs, explains how they will work and displays a huge map of the new inner and outer orbital routes with 70 junction numbers.


However, the traffic changes already introduced will remain in place, including major new restrictions on cars in the city centre and O'Connell Street.


The minister said that it was his "clear understanding that the signs will be re-designed". This followed a meeting between senior Department of Transport and council officials yesterday evening.


"As of now, there will be no further signs put up," Mr Brennan added. He revealed that his officials suggested during the meeting that the signs should be made clearer and more accessible and that he had found them "too confusing and complex". It was agreed that council officials would look at the signs and agree on a new, clearer design possibly listing locations instead of just numbers.


The minister said he hoped that new easier-to-follow signs would be erected in a matter of weeks. Mr Brennan also said the situation could have been avoided had the council officials consulted with the department. The U-turn by the council on the signs a key element of one of the more radical traffic management initiatives for the capital will send shock waves through City Hall.


In a statement, the council said it would report back to the Department of Transport within one week on the new signs "with a view to resolving concerns arising".


In the meantime, the council said that no further signs would be erected pending the outcome of these discussions.


"Both parties are anxious to resolve differences as quickly as possible with a view to full support being given to the traffic management plan," the statement added.


It was also agreed that strengthened consultation would be undertaken with the department in future regarding major traffic initiatives and any necessary action would be taken to ensure this happened.


Mr Brennan accepted that the plan may be delayed as a result of the signage change. But he hoped that new signs would be produced in a few weeks and the new routes would then be put in place.


Critics of the signs said they would find them too confusing and difficult to take in at a glance as they contained up to a dozen pieces of information based on different colours and numbers instead of named locations.


Dublin's Director of Traffic, Owen Keegan, insisted that the motorists surveyed as part of their market research had found them easy to follow.


The AA, too, supported the new signs.



Treacy Hogan Environment Correspondent

Kenshin

All I can say is - our Government rocks!

DadaKopf

It's a serious blow to the Dublin City Council, especially since they launched their 10 year strategy. Now, I'm not one of those Irish people who finds anything the council or government does is wrong because it's different but I find it hard to come down in support of the new signs. I know Dubliners would have got used to them but the real test for road signs is whether a non-Dublin driver, culchie or tourist would be able to make sense of them. I'm afraid they're simply too technical. Not just that but they were in Irish. The council should have consulted with the Department of Transport.

All that said, the move itself to redirect traffic aray from the entre is fundamentally good and urgently needed.

seamus

Originally posted by DadaKopf
I know Dubliners would have got used to them but the real test for road signs is whether a non-Dublin driver, ....

It would have taken quite while to get use to them though, even for Dubliners. TBH, a person would need fairly detailed knowledge of Dublin's roads to properly decipher them. In the leaflet (I saw as a pdf) they try to make it simple " This sign means you are travelling orbital route A, westbound, towards the city centre". OK, the 'Orbital route A' bit is easy, cos that's the colour of the sign, but westbound? There's no indication of direction at all.......Plus plenty of the routes are two-way, so you would have to know if you were travelling west or east in order to know where the sign is leading you!!! Plus the small print on the signs, would probably create even more confusion.....

I like Seamus Brennan. He seems to be eager to get some work done as regards transport. He did plenty of good work while he was Minister for Education, so hopefully he'll actually get the local councils and Government co-operating, finally.

IMO, the idea of the two orbital routes is perfectly sound, but those signs were a nightmare. I wonder if they eve tested them out on normal people (even their families) before approving them?

DadaKopf

" This sign means you are travelling orbital route A, westbound, towards the city centre". OK, the 'Orbital route A' bit is easy, cos that's the colour of the sign, but westbound?

I take it, then, that you've never travelled the London Underground? "Hmm, I'll take that black line to some station called Leicester Square on the, uh, northbound train and change to get that yellow thing to blah blah blah". The same with the New York Subway. The more I've been thinking about the signs, the more OK I think they are. It's always a gut reaction of Irish people to reject and begrudge anything new we might have to slightly get used to.

My only criticisms about the signs are: 1] they don't actually say "Outer Orbital, westbound" and 2] they're not bilingual and, worse than that, they're only in Irish.

kamobe

Brilliant....

Little will change with the new signs, they will be in Irish as well as English. The same number system will be kept!! They've decided to change the colour too (I'd like to know why that is, maybe because orange just isnt republican enough...).

DadaKopf

There was some confusion over the fact that yellow backing is generally reserved for danger signs.

kamobe

There was some confusion over the fact that yellow backing is generally reserved for danger signs.

A little more sensible...

NeRb666

I think it may have been successful if these so-called orbital routes actually existed.

Winters

The real reason they were taken down is that Dublin city council or what ever da **** there called never talked to the Dept. Of Transport about the project... the dept. just wanted to show there power.

sceptre

There was a great takeoff of Bertie going to work this morning on Today FM.

"... oh, jaysus, we're back in fecking Drumcondra. Get brennan back on the phone for me, I'll shove that fecking seal up his...."