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If cycle lane bollards don't belong in Architectural Conservation Areas, why do cars?

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  • 11-07-2023 11:23pm
    #1
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    There was an interesting discussion on this in the 30km/h thread...

    I don't like the look of plastic bollards along loads of streets. And, in most cases where there's space, I think councils should only be using them in the short-term only (ie 12 months max) before they are replaced by something like bolt-down kerbs or planters etc.

    But why is there such a blindspot for some people to cars in Architectural Conservation Areas but plastic bollards aimed at making streets safer are a no-no?



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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 8,789 ✭✭✭SeanW


    The cars have an obvious utility - there's a good chance they belong to the people who live there. I don't see why the cars would be any more objectionable than the plastic bollards.



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    The bollards also have an obvious utility. I'm not sure what you think the question was but you haven't replied to it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,789 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Fair enough, I can't speak to issues with the plastic bollards because I don't have any such issues (it was another poster in that thread who mentioned them). However, I did see a number of posters posting about getting rid of the "cars" which is something I suspect that the people who live in the area might have real problems with.



  • Posts: 1,539 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Cars are not permanent fixtures. They come and go. Parking spaces are a facility for motorists who may need to drive. That particular street is a business area. Parking fees also create revenue.

    The plastic bollards are static, while they may be a facility for cyclists, they don't create any revenue, and are just fugly.



  • Registered Users Posts: 24,489 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    The parking spaces are permantent though. Get rid of them and you'll get rid of static cars uglying the place up a lot.

    Could put something nice in instead, grass, art, cafe seating, planter boxes etc and make it a street where you would actually like to be instead of the current picture where you'd simply want to be out of there as fast as possible.



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  • Posts: 1,539 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Or you could walk a couple of metres across the road to St Stephens Green, and have all the grass you want to sit on, or around the corner to where there are pubs, cafes, restaurants aplenty. Not too far to walk to the National Concert Hall, or the museums either, and there is an art gallery just around the corner as well.

    I presume in order to put in these things you'd also be agreeable to the removal of the cycle parking, and the disability parking bays? (not show in the original picture).

    Or can we just cut through the crap now, and admit that this thread is really just another "remove cars" thread?



  • Registered Users Posts: 25,844 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    If cars don't belong there because they aren'thistoric, then neither do other modern forms of transport like bicycles, scooters, buses, trams.

    Bring back the horse and cart!



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,897 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    Without realising it you've just agreed with the premise that cars don't belong.



  • Registered Users Posts: 11,897 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    The bollards are there as training aid for drivers and safety. Because we are bad at following the law. But where an area becomes pedestrianised safety isn't the only objective. There's a raft of other benefits.

    That said these streets were designed they weren't pedestrian only. They have features for conveniences of the day. Boot scrapers, and coal chutes.



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument



    I have to ask: Do you care about cars or bollards in Architectural Conservation Areas?



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  • Registered Users Posts: 625 ✭✭✭noelfirl


    I think it's a distraction to be honest. I doubt many of the people pontificating about the 'visual awfulness' of bollards etc. really give that much of a toss, or for consistency, they would be demanding that visually fugly vehicles be limited or more controlled as well as well, but that never happens.

    As I suggested in another thread where a similar point was raised, I think the real baseline objection is all to do with the fact that the bollards force drivers to slow down, mind their lanes and enforce sharing of the roadspace in a way that paint is insufficient to do. It's not easy to just out and out oppose that, so instead we get whinging about the impact on 'near-UNESCO graded historic Joycean architectural ensembles' etc.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,651 ✭✭✭Tenzor07


    Plastic wands/bollards aren't a permanent solution in any area, you'll see enough Vans/Coach busses parked on them in parts of Georgian Dublin and in front of the Customs house, it's lazy, cheap and a compromise to the more far-right inclined persons...



  • Registered Users Posts: 9,277 ✭✭✭markpb


    I don’t think it’s that that black & white Noel. You wouldn’t see a mass of flappy hiviz plastic bollards in front of any of the fantastic vistas in London or Rome or Bordeaux and we shouldn’t accept it here either. There are far prettier and far more effective ways of segregating cycle lanes that also force drivers to slow down. This is sloppy work from a council who have a small number of people trying to do their best but with no budget and no support so we end up with temporary solutions that never go away.


    blob:https://www.boards.ie/9fd7b0de-d607-4ae7-8270-6aecd5a811c1 There was an error displaying this embed.


    Post edited by markpb on


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,897 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    The resistance is mostly about cars losing priority. Its got nothing to do with Architectural Conservation.



  • Posts: 1,539 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]



    I could ask you the same thing.

    I think the city has to function for the times we live in now, not the past.

    I worked literally around the corner in from Hume Street for 20 years and walked up and down that street at least 3 or 4 times a week.

    The photos make it look like a very long street when in fact it's quite short. Mostly businesses occupying the buildings, solicitors, medical practices etc.

    The street was perfectly fine, and no one was tearing down or destroying any of its architecture to make room for more cars, indeed, the only fugly eyesore additions in recent years are the plastic bollards littering this, and other city streets.

    Let's be 100% honest here - "architectural conservation" is just another completely transparent excuse being rolled out to try and justify removing car parking from the city.

    That's my opinion.



  • Registered Users Posts: 26,331 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    If the concern is visual impact on an area of architectural conservation, obviously both the cars and the bollards have an impact. But, equally obviously, the cars have a much bigger impact.

    Also worth pointing out that, when the street was designed and laid out, providing storage space for temporarily unused vehicles was not anybody's priority. Hume Street is as wide as it is precisely in order to create a sense of spaciousness and openness. This is lost if much of the street is repurposed as a day-storage yard for bulky goods.

    Clearly, there is a social utility to private motoring, which is why we have made the compromises we have with the architectural heritage of Hume Street. Equally clearly, there is a social utility to facilitating and promoting alternative modes of transport that are greener, healthier and don't present the same storage problem and this, too, will explain the compromises made.

    So, yeah, count me among those who feel that objecting to cycle lane bollards on the grounds of architectural heritage is probably not, in most cases, motivated by a genuine concern for architectural heritage.



  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    Are you ok?

    It's about if bollards aren't allowed in the areas (as some say they shouldn't be), then why should cars be?

    If you don't have any view about bollards in conservation area, what are you doing here? Getting a bit overly protective about cars?



  • Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 39,366 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle


    Personally I'd rather not have bollards of any type along the likes of Fitz Sq. or Hume St, etc. (I'd also prefer if we didn't have widespread on-street parking there either!) However, the ugly bollards are needed for a reason.

    I worked on Ely Pl for a few years which joins Hume St. It was a mess with cars parked on both sides of the road. It is still a mess now with cars parked on one or both sides (depending on where you are on the street). Now, however, there is a bit of road space made available to help keep some road users safe. Do you not think it is a pity that this is required? What realistic and practical solution would you rather have that helps keep people cycling safe on the streets?



  • Registered Users Posts: 25,844 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    No, that's not how "if / then" statements work in either English grammar or mathematical logic.



  • Posts: 1,539 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Yes, I'm perfectly fine, you can spare me the condescention.

    I'm cutting through the BS that is what I'm doing here. I am already aware you dislike my presence, but I am entitled to air my opinions as much as the next person.

    My view is that plastic bollards in all areas, are fugly and an eyesore.

    There are better ways of doing it, as markpb posted above. I regularly park on Fitzwilliam Place, there are cycle lanes there, in a Georgian area, with minimal bollards.

    Unlike you, I do not consider parked cars as an eyesore. They are a necessary mode of transport.

    As an aside, do you also believe all wheelchair and accessible parking should be removed from "architectural conservation areas" too?

    If not, what is the difference between a car parked by a disabled driver "uglying up the street" than a car parked by an able-bodied one?



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  • Posts: 1,539 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Thanks for confirming what I already knew - that the real motivation here isn't protecting the "architectural conservation" of the area.

    But about making removing cars and making extra accommodations for cyclists.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,730 ✭✭✭irelandrover


    But the poster didn't say what you claim. They said removing widespread parking, so still some available and cars still allowed.

    They also didn't mention any extra accommodations for bikes.

    The bollards shouldn't be used in this area. It looks terrible. Other methods of traffic calming should be used. Could even use the car parking as traffic calming which would be win win.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,349 ✭✭✭McGrath5


    At least the bollards serve a public function, the cars in the OPs picture are private property that only benefit the owner/user.



  • Registered Users Posts: 625 ✭✭✭noelfirl


    Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see reasonable solutions like that (although can I put it out there - I think based on what I see every day a lot of drivers will willingly drive up, onto and over kerb type solutions if they think they can get away with it without damaging the undercarriage of their vehicle; I suspect this will eventually be a crippling failure of a lot of Busconnects infrastructure based on the plans submitted to date).

    But as an interim solution until the necessary permissions can be gotten for such permanent structures (including dealng with the various objectors who then crawl out of the woodwork), I think the benefits of the bollards massively outweigh any visual impact they have. And I'd still contend that a huge amount of motivation against the bollards is nowt much to do with the overall visual impacts.

    Post edited by noelfirl on


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,651 ✭✭✭Tenzor07


    Many parts of Dublin city centre were demolished and widened to make direct motor-routes into the core city area, e.g. Clanbrassil street which leads into a dual carriageway past St. Patrick's cathedral, and a motorway that was planned along the Grand Canal which would have had an off-ramp at Mount Street, didn't get the go ahead, though I am sure some of the more right-wing contributors here would be using the same points, cars are needed for the city, what about <Insert> group who need a car to get to the city centre..The R803 dual carriageway through Summerhill is an example of the large road projects that actually got the go ahead whereas many didn't...

    So the destruction of Dublin's architectural history had it's worst times in the 1960's and 70's, many Georgian buildings allowed to become derelict or destroyed to make roads wider, e.g. Cork street Dublin.. Which makes some of the gripes about plastic bollards seem a bit hysterical to say the least..


    Here's a current example of a Georgian house clipped to make wider roads:





  • Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 39,366 Mod ✭✭✭✭Seth Brundle




  • Posts: 1,539 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Yes, obviously I can read.

    Do you need to be so rude?

    One of the fundamental rules of Boards is not to be disrespectful of other posters because they don't agree with your opinion.

    "Attack the post, not the poster".



  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 26,131 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    Bollards are ugly and hopefully in time most of them get replaced by more permanent solutions. However, they are a necessary evil and they are most definitely not what is single-handedly destroying the Georgian character of that street.

    If you accept that cars are a necessary utility on the street you'll have to accept the bollards (or improve driver behaviour across the board so they are not needed).



  • Posts: 1,539 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    So, as I already asked, what is the difference between the "visual impact" of a car parked by a disabled driver, and one parked by an able-bodied one?

    The honest answer would be the difference is none. A car is a car.

    As this thread has already shown, "visual impact" is just another ploy to remove more cars from the city. And a very transparent one at that.



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  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,076 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    You know it's people against bollards that first mentioned the conservation areas?



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