St Stephen's Green might claim to be the heart of modern Ireland in the way that Tara was its heart in an earlier time. A beautiful green oasis that delights every time one walks through it. Rest and shade for the elderly and somewhere to clinch for the young. We burnt witches in it, fought in it and have commemorated great people in it.

Now we are going to dig it up and turn it into a transport interchange for people to get to the airport via Metro North.

Link to Archiseek Thread

Frank McDonald points out that Fusiliers arch and more than a quarter of the Green would be swept away during works including part of the lake and many mature trees. Due to the presence of underground concourses, overground structures and standing for works much of the Green could never be restored to its present state.

Is this another example of the doctrinaire Greens' adoption of any old rubbishy policy (biofuels, Tara ) if it comes with some kind of eco-sticker or is politically expedient.

How can this madness be stopped?

Sorry cactus but Dublin's fairly knackered anyway - it needed a proper project ten years ago - a city-wide underground metro plus high-rises dotted around park areas and newly-constructed public spaces thus reducing congestion and consolidating the city in a smaller area, preferably between the canals. This hasn't happened because of opposition from Georgian society tools and irish nimbyism inflamed by politically organised events near the proposals.

Dublin is fucked lads - St. Stephen's green is a tiny bit of collateral damage in city civically hostile to the pedestrian, the tourist and the resident alike. Maybe you should have another look at that leaflet from Cloughjordan again.

I live out by Fairview park, where the Tunnel essentially obliterated the heart of the park for years. That said I was extremely impressed by how rapidly the parkland was reinstated once construction was finished... so, it's not really the fixing of it that's the problem, but the length of time to do the building... Oddly enough while I like SSGreen plenty from the outside I've never much liked it on the inside. Can't quite tell why... maybe too many people packed in at lunchtime all looking at each other as they munch away on sandwiches and sip diet Cokes...

Quote :

Is this another example of the doctrinaire Greens' adoption of any old
rubbishy policy (biofuels, Tara ) if it comes with some kind of
eco-sticker or is politically expedient.

No, I'd say it's more a conflict between what is actually environmentally useful (the Metro, probably, if it takes cars off the road), and what is environmentally appealing.

ibis wrote:

Quote :

Is this another example of the doctrinaire Greens' adoption of any old
rubbishy policy (biofuels, Tara ) if it comes with some kind of
eco-sticker or is politically expedient.

No, I'd say it's more a conflict between what is actually environmentally useful (the Metro, probably, if it takes cars off the road), and what is environmentally appealing.

There are two assumptions there Ibis that warrant a little back up if they are to justify our destruction of our best urban space.
One is that the Metro is environmentally a good measure, and one that couldn't be bettered by an alternative use of the funds, and the other is that if it is indeed a good option, that it couldn't be better planned and designed.

Most of the route goes through some of the lowest density urban fabric in Europe, including Bertie's patch. Why multitudes of people would want to begin a journey to the airport from Stephen's Green has also not been explained. The project does not seem to have been planned in any meaningful sense of the word, but only engineered.

The solutions proposed by Frank McDonald was what I was particularly interested in. I like solutions. I hate whiney "Oh, isn't it awful?" anti-development articles. Frank McDonald didn't write one of those, nor would I expect a journalist of his calibre to do so.

I much prefer his proposal of the station being moved to Tara St. This would echo the King's Cross/St Pancras Interchange in London and replicate its success.

If the station could only go under St. Stephen's. I'd support the building of it there. It doesn't have to. Tara St is a much better, cheaper and more effective choice of location.

Equally, McDonald's contention that if we spent the €353 million per kilometre on the Luas, rather than the Metro, we could build a light-rail netowrk to connect the vast majority of the city since even the most expensive Luas line(Tallaght to the IFSC I believe) costs only €60 million per kilometre.

No to St. Stephen's Interchange!

That's a good solution, that last one - sorry for being so negative at the start but Dublin is f***ed unless ye have a pedestrian revolution. It would be mighty if vast parts around the Green down to Trinity were pedestrianised totally and trams put in over ground like in Amsterdam.

Ye really need to take to the streets lads.

Auditor #9 wrote:

That's a good solution, that last one - sorry for being so negative at the start but Dublin is f***ed unless ye have a pedestrian revolution. It would be mighty if vast parts around the Green down to Trinity were pedestrianised totally and trams put in over ground like in Amsterdam.

Ye really need to take to the streets lads.

Yep, though I'm like that myself. I'm completely independent of private transport if I want to get into Town. My two feet and two euro to pay the fare on a Dublin Bus and I'm on my way to Ormond Quay from where I can go as I please in the beautiful thoroughfares of the Mother City of the Gaels.

Of course in Dublin due to its low density, is best suited to state of the art bus services, as in Curitiba, Brazil.
Battery driven buses arrive every few minutes running on busways - they have both speed routes and runabouts with stops every hundred yards. No one has to wait more than five minutes, there are platforms like the Luas for disabled access and real time display of next bus arrival.

On Sundays, the buses are free, and take people to the seaside and country. And you can pay with eggs if you don't have money.

cactus flower wrote:

ibis wrote:

Quote :

Is this another example of the doctrinaire Greens' adoption of any old
rubbishy policy (biofuels, Tara ) if it comes with some kind of
eco-sticker or is politically expedient.

No, I'd say it's more a conflict between what is actually environmentally useful (the Metro, probably, if it takes cars off the road), and what is environmentally appealing.

There are two assumptions there Ibis that warrant a little back up if they are to justify our destruction of our best urban space.
One is that the Metro is environmentally a good measure, and one that couldn't be bettered by an alternative use of the funds, and the other is that if it is indeed a good option, that it couldn't be better planned and designed.

Both of those are fair points. However, assuming that it is a good idea, or at least is thought to be a good idea, it shouldn't not happen simply because it involves disruption of Stephen's Green.

cactus flower wrote:

Most of the route goes through some of the lowest density urban fabric in Europe, including Bertie's patch. Why multitudes of people would want to begin a journey to the airport from Stephen's Green has also not been explained. The project does not seem to have been planned in any meaningful sense of the word, but only engineered.

Virtually wherever you put it in Dublin it's going through some of the lowest density urban fabric in Europe.

Don't get me wrong - I don't like this. I live next to Stephen's Green, so this involves a far more significant degradation of my local environment than most people's, and I don't go out to the airport but once or twice a year.

I was amazed that this issue was not picked up years ago. But then I have little respect for the Irish media and their ability to spot stories staring them in the face. When the St Stephen's Green plan was first mentioned it was an open secret that it would in fact involve the bulldozing of between half and two-thirds of the Green, with 90% of the oldest trees in the park removed. Somehow at the time amid all the hoopla over Cullen's media spin, no-one spotted the elephant in the room - it would effectively involve the destruction of Stephens Green and turning it into a building site for 5 years or more, and would take a century for the Green to recover in terms of range and age of plants.

This is one idea that ain't gonna fly. Apart from anything else the only reason the Green was suggested was because FF incompetence had prevented the Luas lines from being linked, and ended one of them there. Frank McDonald, true to form, has spotted that elephant in the room and proposed an interesting and viable alternative. Cullen's nutty Stephens Green idea reminds me of the past nutty idea of draining the Liffey and turning it into a car park (that was seriously proposed), bulldozing all the quays and building motorways there (in that plan, the Four Courts was to be at the centre of a spagetti junction with a flying curving around the building at 1st floor level. The wacky schemes engineers used to dream up in the 1970s!). Cullen's Stephen's Green idea was similar. It was fitting that the worst Environment Minister in Irish history should have been responsible for it.

Indeed, it should never happen. And the Dail car park?

cactus flower wrote:

Indeed, it should never happen. And the Dail car park?

This proposal becomes more and more objectionable the more I think about it. We should have the interconnector at Tara St., if at all.

cactus flower wrote:

Indeed, it should never happen. And the Dail car park?

Another abomination, admittedly. Did they even get planning permission?

Tara Street would certainly make more sense - or Pearse Station.

Audi's mention of pedestrians should not be overlooked. The sight of rivers of pedestrians hooked up to phones and ipods surging in from the south and north every morning is inspiring. Footpaths should be widened, street pedestrianised, traffic lights retimed and streets lined with trees to shade their route.

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