I came across some road infrastructure plans for Dublin which never happened, THANKFULLY. I thought it would be interesting to post here and see what other projects people can think of.
The article is packed full of howlers.
"The infrastructure is good with two national roads (N5 and N17)"
Both of those are amongst the worst national roads in the country, especially in 2000 when the article was written.
...and one minute they're saying the middle of Connemara, the next it's beside Knock Airport?!?!
Looked up William A. Thomas. He's into the Virgin Mary now.
That video is 56 mins long.
What makes you think he wasn't big into that all along? 😉
I only watched the first minute!
not sure how this will load when the vanilla software shrinks the images. will try one anyway - an 'in dublin' article from november 1987, an interview with frank mcdonald who was credited as being a major factor in abandonment of plans for a dual carriageway through the liberties.
parts 2 and 3.
What is most interesting about that article is that McDonald opposed the move of UCD to Belfield, something that has been a huge success, and UCD would never have become the institution that it is without that move. He opposed a lot of bad things, but also a lot of good things.
As he has got older and crustier, his opposition to progress and modernisation has become clearer and clearer.
Yeah that opposition to the UCD move was just mad. Clearly he and others envisioned university education remaining the sole preseve of a tiny elite.
Also a dual carriageway was built down Clanbrassil Street, maybe not on the scale originally planned but it was built. It's hard to imagine how anyone can think it's possible to run a functional bus service through a medieval street structure.
But didn't he oppose Luas too? 🤡 he's currently spouting all sorts of nonsense about how Metrolink will somehow 'destroy' O'Connell Street, I didn't realise the empty shell of the Carlton cinema and the large site next to it empty for 50 years are such assets to the city.
I'm going to quote myself from a different thread regarding Frank...
Also a dual carriageway was built down Clanbrassil Street, maybe not on the scale originally planned but it was built.
interestingly, this was done much later than i would have guessed; i thought it was done some time in the 70s, but apparently it happened in 1989.
anyway, i've met a few campaigners in various fields in my time (just a few, probably not a lot more than most). quite a lot of them are ornery, and it's quite possible that that orneriness was required for them to get (positive things) done; where a more 'sensible' person wouldn't have had the patience.
His rants get more and more crazy with time.
"This group is in favour of an 88 foot, four-lane road with a centre aisle. In addition, they want the west side of the street developed to attract tourists."
that didn't quite work out that way!
"Councilors heard submissions from two groups, with both groups claiming to represent over 90% of the people."
Hah!!!!
Infrastructure that never happened - M20 Cork to Limerick - 2 largest cities outside of the east coast - takes 2 hours in the morning to travel 100 k
A straight road, a dual carriageway even would do at this stage.
We will probably see a return of Shergar and a United Ireland before an M20 happens.
No disrespect but if we're talking about Irish planning in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s then in my opinion Frank got far more things right than the Irish planners of the time. This was the era of the dereliction and destruction in the centre of Dublin and the creation of vast urban sprawl of semi-detached housing around Irish cities.
And responding to someone else, Frank was never against the Luas - it's the opposite. If anything one of his faults is that he's been too pro-tram/Luas and only begrudgingly supportive of metro and DU. There's plenty of stuff he gets wrong too - he scores about a 50/50 miss rate for me - so plenty of areas to attack him fairly.
Unlike other stuff on this thread the M20 actually will be built, on track to start construction in 2027.
It's mad that the M20 wasn't included in the 2000s motorway programme.
It was. But it was towards the end of the list. A road design was ready to go for the planning process, but when the crash happened it was stopped, as there was no chance it could be paid for in the lifetime of that planning permission.
During the height of the Celtic tiger there were plans from a number of consortiums for Indoor Snow domes. 3 sites were talked about, Dundalk, Newtownmountkennedy and Tyrellstown as far as I remember. Long before Eamon Ryan and carbon footprints were the talk of the town.
Didnt they build it at one point ?
Well a station box for a metro at any rate, in and around terminal 1 , apparently its long gone ..
Michael o leary's argument is that the airport should make its money off shopping and car parking and not charge airlines - if you build a decent public transport link to the airport it kind of ruins that model ..
I think his view is that air travel,air-ports ect. should be for the benefit of ryan-airs shareholders, not the people of the state ..
the 1968 cork city centre ariel motorway ring
It's still there. We checked in last year there down in the bowels of T1.
To be fair MOL only cares about the business he runs being successful.
There is a large basement, some of which is used as a check-in area. There is not a kitted out train station like is often stated.
It will not be used for Metrolink.
I have my doubts that that basement was ever supposed to be a train station.
I think its an urban legend. The basement is there, but think the rumour about it being a future station grew legs.
Which begs the question of what it was supposed to be?
