Yesterday.
College Green, Nassau Street and and Dawson Street, Dublin 2
A selection of the drab Dublin City Council utility cabinet boxes associated with the new Luas cross city line controversially cluttering up our capital’s main pedestrian thoroughfares.
Luas Cross city has stated that due to access and traffic signaling the boxes need to be close to junctions and cannot be moved.
Fight!
Previously: Each Have A Function, There Are No Empty Boxes
Sam Boal/Rollingnews
UPDATE
Spotted at the juncture between O’Connell Bridge and Westmoreland Street.
Thanks Orla
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That statement from Luas cross city is total BS by the way.
They don’t need to be there it’s just easier for them if they are.
+1
Luas is a bad idea, this is just adding to the badness
In what way is Luas a bad idea?
How is the Luas a bad idea?
Something something privately owned
It’s also rather slow. Am not a fan.
Functional cabinets are functional
You know this for a fact? You have evidence to back this up? Cant wait to see it!
And you know this how exactly?
I have built railway lines. This was laziness or incompetence on the part of the client. Luas Cross City are never going to suggest anything that costs them money, especially if there is a chance in the future of billing to move them.
You built a railway line along a major city road network that passes through multiple junctions?
What’s this? A job interview?
Yes.
Shockingly I don’t believe you
need to paint them as robots and name them. Will become mini attraction
Commission a few of the very talented graffiti artists to adorn them as I have seen on some others across the city. A pre-emptive strike before the “alternative” graffiti artists (the ones who can’t draw for sh*te) get cracking…
Exactly just paint them up and itll be grand, a load of hulabaloo about nothing, some people really have too much time on their hands to be getting this worked up about a few cabinets
Put a larger obx around them and paint that. And/or plant flowers on it/around it.
I don’t knows the ins or outs of their purpose but the same sort of boxes are at every traffic light.
they should be dressed up to look like little fairy houses. if it has a cute, children focused decoration then drunken scobes might be less likely to wee wee against them of a friday night.
This is what happens when inconceivable idiots protest immovable objects.
“boxes need to be close to junctions”.
The College green boxes are nowhere near a junction. DCC didn’t bother checking the original plans for the location of these boxes and the Luas contractor will demand a truckload of money to change the location.
There used to be a system for granting permission for any roadworks in a public place, the FF government removed this requirement for Irish Water meter installations so it’s a free for all now.
“that college green boxes are nowhere near a junction”……. Theres a set of traffic lights literally beside them in the pictures
Can we start giving out about or things which are placed around but have specific purposes?
My list includes.
-Lamp Posts
-Rubbish bins
-Bike locking posts
-Post boxes
-Bus (ad) shelters
I don’t have any need or use for this things, so I would like them off my street
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Go find something you think is worth complaining about and complain about that. Because if other people complaining about something you don’t think is worth complaining about is the worst thing you have to complain about then you don’t have much to complain about.
These are required to be above ground and are all over the city already. At any crossroads with traffic lights, have a look around and you will see one or two lurking. They are above ground to allow quick access to them when something goes wrong or they need to be altered. If they were underground, they would have to spend time faffing about trying to get someone with confined space training (not to mention the additional risks of working on electrical equipment underground as well as the water ingress possibility). They look bad at the moment against all the temporary surfacing and fencing, wait a year or two and very few will notice them (compared to those who’s lives are improved due to the Luas extension).
Source: I am an engineer who previously worked on another Luas extension
They are badly placed and mismatched.
Where is the symmetry, dammit?
Jesus you lot live sad lives. This is now moan worthy is it. What harm are they doing. And so what about the look of them.
My friend posted this recently. Surely, from a planning perspective, this is far worse than those boxes?
http://i.imgur.com/sC6BlZE.jpg
The carnage for the next 2 weeks as all traffic from Pearse Street, D’Olier Street and Burgh Quay which wants to head West has to go through one lane at College Green. It’s been opened up to cars while the works at O’Connell bridge are on going. Most of this traffic will then proceed down Dame Street which is single lane in parts.
I’ve been dreading this. Basically my route to work.
It’s nowhere near mine so I dunno what you’re moaning about. It’s all me, me, me with you.
The Luas ticket dispensers, platform lighting and signals are actually clockwork. This reduces the carbon footprint of the Luas. The cabinets hold the springs. The have to be wound every day. Hence they need to be above ground, and close to the appliances they power (because increasing length of the drive shaft reduces power output proportionally). The cabinets create employment as, in addition to daily spring-winding, they will require to be polished and dusted once a week, and the pendulum has to be rebalanced occasionally.
I so want this to be true. I’m going to tell children this about everything.
It’s like something out of His Dark Materials.
+ daemons and airships.
you’re just winding us up!
These things are important; it does not make other issues less important but we can try to change them and do it now, not just accept what we are handed. I have been travelling on the bus (Phibsboro to Rathmines) along the Luas works for years now and I assumed as most people possibly did, that these particular boxes were temporary until the properly designed and aesthetically fit-for-location boxes arrived.
Have a look at this “City Centre Public Realm Masterplan”, June 2016, Prepared by Dublin City Council Public Realm Team. This was written only one year ago.
http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/content/Planning/PublicRealm/Documents/Public%20Realm%20Masterplan.pdf
The whole thing is worth looking at but page 26 discusses street furniture and the need for a “consistent approach to the physical component parts that make up the public realm” . The next page discusses servicing and utilities.
We are ignoring best practices, best design and our own Councils recommendations.
I also found this from March 2013 and our current Taoiseach’s words on the matter.
http://www.housing.gov.ie/sites/default/files/migrated-files/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/Planning/FileDownLoad%2C32669%2Cen.pdf
“This Manual offers a holistic approach to the design of urban streets in cities, towns, suburbs and villages in Ireland for the first time and promotes a collaborative and consultative design process. It requires professionals of different disciplines to work together to achieve better street design. We welcome this Manual and look forward to the added value and improvements in quality of life that will be achieved through implementation of this integrated and progressive approach”
– Introduction by Leo Varadkar, TD, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, March 2013
+ a million
A relatively small amount of effort put into the design and placing of these boxes would’ve made a huge improvement to the look of them but no one thought about that, or possibly deliberately ignored it, so now we’re left with these horrible mismatched boxes all over the shop and it’s probably going to be prohibitively expensive to fix now. It’s feckin headwrecking, the consistent lack of foresight in this country.
Why is there only an outcry about these boxes now? The Luas has been on the southside for years with these ugly boxes at *every* junction.
But now that the Luas is being extended northside it is suddenly an issue?
Bloody northsiders and their posh city streets.
I reckon the difference is that way more people are passing way closer to these boxes in town compared to the ones out in the suburbs. Also, all of the photos above are on the Southside.
All these cabinets are serviced by underground cable ducts which run along side the track and outside the ballast area. That’s why the cabinets are close to the track. To move them further away into nice discreet locations would have added greatly to the enabling works (moving esb, drains, gas, water, telecoms, etc, out of the way). It would also have caused disruption to even bigger areas all round the city for much greater periods, with many more pavements closed off etc.
As the disruption caused by the enabling works and construction phases of the Luas cross city contract seemed to annoy so many people, maybe it should be accepted that you can’t have it every way.
I remember, in my early, more idealistic 20s, an English guy remarking to me about how the Irish don’t take as much pride in their appearances as English people. Looking back, he may have been on to something.
Yeah, but the British are the same lads who gave us the never-ending gift of Brexit.
So, there’s that.
And that was my reaction at the time. But regardless of who said it, the opinion is not without merit. ‘Fupp it, be grand’ is quite a prevalent attitude here. I *think* this conversation started with a Gavan Reilly thread on Twitter earlier in the week comparing the appearance of Dublin to other European cities. You can even see the attitude in something as small as street signs. Other cities, for example, have the individual letters on tiles up on the wall. Pride and craftsmanship went into it. Here, it’s this blue and white generic road sign. ‘Sure it says the name of the street doesn’t it? What else do you want?’
Our street names are deadly but. The sign is not as important as the signifier. For example tonlegee road in irish is thoin le gaoith, arse to the wind. Who cares about what it’s written on?
I kind of like them.
Stick a few of these on them
https://www.tumblr.com/search/winged%20victory%20statue#
Is it a coincidence that following the colourful adorning of same such boxes around the city with crochet knits and illustrations that these blank ones go up in multitude? Looks like an open call for artists.
Just f’n bury them!! God, it’s not hard.
Some family hubs these are. Coveney
You lied!