Cities around the world that are reducing car access

That stretch is often (or at least, was) so busy with people at lunchtime that pedestrians trying to overtake/cut through groups of other pedestrians would poleaxe themselves on those bollards.

The corner of Merrion Row and Ely Place must be the worst place in the city to cross the road, from O'Briens over to Reilly's. Ridiculously narrow path, no more than 1m, big dirty traffic light pole plonked in it forcing people to stand in the road at Ely Place and traffic turning right onto Ely Place often cuts that corner very tight despite the enormous 10m road kerb to kerb for one lane of traffic! There is a big volume of pedestrians heading in all directions there most of the day too. The tactile flags put down there is beyond pathetic, just throw there to tick a box, no consideration for pedestrians using it nevermind anyone with physical/visual impairments.

The crossing area there needs to be extended a couple of metres into the road space on Ely Place creating a peninsula type area for waiting pedestrians so that it lines up with the path on Merrion Street. It would also force traffic turning right onto Ely Place to swing wider and take the turn slower. It would also prevent cars from parking there better than the token gesture double yellow lines. Behind that the parking should be replaced by a good sized loading bay and all deliveries to Merrion Row to park there to stop the whinging when the lanes on Merrion Row get narrowed. Anyone stopping there after should immediately have their vehicle crushed into a box, their box clamped and charged util they remove it.

Sorry for the rant, I used to pass here on a daily basis.

A very interesting and ambitious proposal from an English town which I thought was worth sharing here;

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/feb/11/is-this-the-future-for-britain-stockton-on-tees-park-high-street

“Ever since Woolworths closed in 2008, Stockton Council has been rethinking what the town centre should be,” says Cooke. “The future is not more shops. It’s about leisure, culture, events and recreation, and making it a nice place for people to simply be.

...

As part of a strategy to concentrate the shops in one place, Castlegate’s existing tenants are being offered the option to move into empty units in the nearby Wellington Square shopping centre, which the council also acquired in 2019.

Will be interesting to see if it progresses. Is this the future, consolidating retail into fewer shopping centres and demolishing those no longer viable to create public spaces?

I think I've been posting about Merrion Row for a couple of years on here. I've also contacted DCC, just ignored.
It's just a no brainer and wouldn't cost much, why haven't they done anything about such an obvious disaster? That whole crossroads is just a total mess.

Sam Russell wrote: »

How would you see that working in Dublin? We already have Grafton St with lots of high end shops with sky high rents, and Henry St on the North side which is fairly high number of shops - both pedestrianised.

How do you get open spaces for cultural and leisure activities?

Are you talking about areas like Phibsboro or Templogue?

I think you are focusing too much on the specifics of that project, the key thing to take from the article is that which I quoted; “The future is not more shops. It’s about leisure, culture, events and recreation, and making it a nice place for people to simply be". I think that is applicable to every city, town and village.

The retail footprint of all urban areas is almost certain to shrink in the coming years, possibly the same applies to other commercial spaces. We should be now planning for a future where there is less demand for these buildings. That means identifying those buildings which hit the sweet spot between being in poor condition so having no long term future, and being in a location which could provide a public benefit. This need not be on the scale of whole shopping centres, it could be individual buildings or groups of smaller buildings with existing occupiers being accommodated elsewhere - plenty of space available in most towns per Covid, nevermind in another 12 months time!

For example, a river runs through Cavan town but you wouldn't know it as it is mostly lined with crappy old buildings which are either empty or used for something which could go elsewhere, see here. There is plenty of vacant premises around the town, knocking a few buildings and opening up the river as an amenity would be a huge benefit for very little or no downside. All towns are going to have to make themselves attractive places for people to be, not just somewhere you "pop into" when you no choice.

Personally I think we need to move away from commercial rates levied on business operators, which makes it more expensive to run any sort of business from a town centre premises and owners can leave their premises empty at no cost, towards land value tax which incentivises owners to do something with what they own or sell/lease to someone who will.

I don't know if there's much of an appetite for such things in Ireland, I'm becoming more and more convinced the vast majority just want to drive everywhere and park everywhere all the time, and are happy to sit in traffic to get places.

On the other hand, traffic is probably one of the best friends of public transport and alternative modes such as cycling and walking. It makes journeys by bike and bus relatively quicker and generates enough headlines that politicians can get enough support for the odd scheme here and there that, if successful, will hopefully bring about widespread change.

The number of cyclists on my commute over the years has continued to increase as the tailbacks have become longer and more frequent.

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Yeah I normally work in central Dublin and I swear the traffic used to be even worse in the late 90s/2000s.
The time I'm most flabbergasted by the sheer amount of traffic absolutely everywhere is usually normal Saturday afternoons pre-Covid. Every single road in housing estates, suburbs, are just rammed with cars. You see traffic backed up for ages trying to get onto the Artane Roundabout for e.g. at like 2pm on a Saturday, you don't see it half as bad at rush hour though.

Traffic 20 years ago was chronic.We somewhat alleviated those issues but the growth in population and incomes has brought us back.

I recall almost everyday taking 45min to navigate from Heuston to Ormond Quay if you're lucky on the 79.

Something like the above gets proposed in Ireland and people start screaming that they're ripping the heart and soul of the town/city in question. It's so depressing.

riddlinrussell wrote: »

Stand in any town centre in Ireland while trucks and cars rip past you on a multi lane highway and ask where the heart and soul of that town is...

How were there no protests when they gutted the centres of towns for cars in the 60s/70s/80s/90s? Was it simply death by a thousand cuts?

Probably because as it was happening more and more were getting cars so were happy to be able to drive and park everywhere.

Motos are far less polluting and far more efficient though, we would be better off in Dublin if more people used them imo.
Mopeds etc should be encouraged by the government, they use feck all fuel.

I don't know why they'd ban them before cars, they're far more efficient. In Malta there are electric mopeds lying around that you can use, like Dublin bikes, a scheme like that would be great here too but I don't think it would fly due to our ridiculous insurance cartel.

Deleted User wrote: »

I used to love the smell of two-stroke oil in the mornings, you can often smell them before yo see them!
These days the electric ones are flying out of the shops, some comentators in China say that in some cities it sounds like a swarm of bees are buzzing around the streets.
They're getting banned in more and more cities.

I was in China a couple of years ago, the electric mopeds are EVERYWHERE. They would be great here but in China they are a silent killer because they drive them on the footpaths.

Among the features destroyed by the road construction was the crossing known locally as the "Four Corners of Hell" (the junction of Patrick St., Dean St., New St. and Kevin St.), because there was a public house on each corner; and the well-known hostelry The Bunch of Grapes (formerly Fitzpatrick's, constructed in 1739).

Oh that's a shame.

what_traffic wrote: »

True - they are everywhere, but the real silent killer was the pollution from the two strokes.
In the big citys like Shanghai about 9/10 yrs this happened overnight I was told on a visit back in 2013, Gov brought in a law that one had to have a drivers licence/permit for the two stroke, vast majority of people just ripped out the engine and put in a battery in its place with a bit of duct tape to hold it all together from the various mopeds I seen.

It was later, 2019, granted in a smaller city, only 2 million people, They were all proper electric mopeds with the circular light on front and the wife and kids on the back, not a scrap of duct tape in site.

https://www.thejournal.ie/phoenix-park-cars-2-5366285-Feb2021/

Phoenix Park asking people to leave the car at home this weekend. The usual rabblers wont like that, I mean the only people who drive are the elderly and disabled anyway.

roadmaster wrote: »

One thing i taught is very good is the bollards segregating cycle lane from traffic on Griffith avenue, I think if they had more of that around the city it would encourage more cycling

Does anyone know why there are parking spaces wedged between the cycle lane and road, here and there? Doors opening into cycle lane must be a hazard for cyclists.