Limerick City Footbridge

mart 23 wrote: »

A tender has been issued by the council for the Limerick City Footbridge. It can be viewed at etenders.gov.ie. Sorry I cannot provide a link .

98475 ED-FB-1 Limerick City Footbridge - Consultants - (Lot 1 - Project Manager/Employers Representative and Quantity Surveyor & Lot 2 - Single Point Design Team) 31/07/2015 08/09/2015 12:00 Restricted Procedure (OJEU) Limerick City and County Council Ireland


Cant login to it myself after this stage

sioda wrote: »

Joke and massive waste of money that could be better spent.

I have reservations about it myself. I think it will destroy the view from Clancy Strand.

The money probably should have been invested in Nicholas St and add a boardwalk from Thomond Bridge along the castle to the City Hall gardens. Build a walk fom Arthur's Quay around Sarsfield House to rear of the Hunt Museum and open up Sylvester O'Halloran bridge.

tommy249 wrote: »

I actually think, if done correctly, it could be good. I love the living bridge out in UL. Especially at night when lit up in all different colours

Two completely different views though. The bridge will block out the view of that side of the city from Clancy Strand.

If it's lights we want for that area, light up the castle and the courthouse with better lighting.

I think the bridge is extravagant and may not achieve as much as is hoped. In fact it could lead tourists to turning their back on the Walls of Limerick, the gaol wall outside city hall and the Exchange Wall.

Edit to add image of proposed bridge, via Limerick Leader

Ridiculous waste of money

I was actually going to finish my comment with that line but then thought seeing as the last time someone said that here I said it was funny 5 years ago.........

tommy249 wrote: »

I actually think, if done correctly, it could be good. I love the living bridge out in UL. Especially at night when lit up in all different colours

The Living Bridge is a beautiful construction, but the setting is not a medieval urban riverscape, so using it to justify the proposed bridge is really a nonsense. It's not really the bridge that's the problem, it's where it's located, plus the cost, plus the fact that it will serves almost no function whatsoever. It really is a disgrace that the Council are pushing forward with this.

Vanquished wrote: »

This appears to be the most recent design proposal. The mind boggles as to how this could be deemed appropriate or necessary!

Shockingly misguided!

Wow! Shocking is the word - that's on the 'Couldn't get it any more wrong if we tried' kinda level.

Special Circumstances wrote: »

They might be onto something. .. If you could hang or drape some material from it to obscure sarsfields house and the city council building it would be an improvement of sorts?

Ah well they're meant to be demolishing Sarsfield house and extending Arthur's Quay park into that area. Revenue would move out of Sarsfield House into a purpose built place at the Opera centre site (and there's the catch). I don't know why they aren't moving forward with implementing the 2030 master plan for the city instead of throwing money at this distraction.

I really hope they move away from this 'white concrete/cable stayed/suspension bridge' design that has been repeated so many times - the latest concept looks like a version of the Peace bridge in Derry. If you're going for a folly, might as well do something more exciting/noteworthy.

Just to add insult to injury here: will they name it the 'John F Kennedy Bridge'? Or will we name it after the advertising sponsor we'll need to claw back some of the money? Sorry, that's not helpful but this footbridge really grinds my gears!

Those impressions with the piers on and around the weir there, would make that section of river even more dangerous for anyone caught in the water flow there and upstream. The effect on the hydraulic / stopper wave could mean that the weir literally becomes a death trap to people entering the water upstream. Any winter water levels already make that bit of the river highly dangerous, and it would be poor thinking to make it even more so.

I would hope that the designs are properly lit as well, it's annoys me to see huge increases in light pollution from projects like this, when the lighting could be done in a much more environmentally friendly way with only correctly designed and implemented downlighting used. It's not hard to do that right, and still have something looking beautiful at night, while maintaining adequate public safety lighting. Bright searchlight types of illumination is certainly not the answer and makes it more unsafe - harder to see where you're going when you've got a bright light glaring directly into your vision, as anyone living near the Gaelic Grounds can attest to.

It'll be an interesting consultation process - I would hope that I and my fellow water users would be included in the process, to ensure that things that would otherwise get overlooked would be fixed, the same as was done for the Limerick Main Drainage scheme.

Red King wrote: »

Anyone else concerned that a Bord Failte study of Limerick concluded that this bridge was the answer to tourism needs in the city?

A bridge that nobody wants or needs. Meanwhile Nicholas Street, which connects King Johns Castle to the city, continues its sad decline - a street that could badly do with an 18milluon investment and much more. It could be Limericks answer to shop street in Galway, instead it is a lifeless, drab, run down sorry excuse of a street leading to our main tourist attraction.

Well done Bord Failte, well done

Thats something I have always thought re Nicolas Street and Galway, this bridge plan just seems to be an attempt to sever the whole area from 'tourist limerick'.

stefanovich wrote: »

The location of this bridge is such that there will be little actual traffic. As bad as it sounds I reckon if it goes ahead it'll be the bridge of choice for people committing suicide.

I concur, hopefully they give a bit of funding towards Corbett if they do ahead with building a new bridge to help them up scale and take on more volunteers. But this money would be better served being spent on mental health facilities within the city, Limerick must have one of the highest rate of suicide in Ireland and building a new shiny bridge isn't gonna be a help to tackling this problem.

zulutango wrote: »

Possibly the most ungoogleable name for a blog, but some good points made nonetheless ...

http://hlymrekr.com/2016/03/28/re-imagining-limerick-city/

There is an image of Nicolas Street in tthe evening and its deserted, doesn't the castle close at 16:30 or do the hours change in the summer?