Monday, September 17, 2007

Town Planning Gone Mad

I'm all for saving the environment, saving the whale, reducing greenhouse gases, recycling, etc, etc, etc, but forgive me I just can't stand these sandal-wearing, bicycle-riding types who inhabit the town planning department in Dublin City Council.
The latest example of their madness is Capel Street in Dublin city centre. Here, they have taken a nice one-way street that takes you on to the Quays and over the Liffey and completely ruined it for traffic. The new granite pavements I can live with, but do they really have to have all those space wasting islands that serve no purpose?
But, who in the name of God decided to reduce the middle part of the street from 2 lanes to one? The result is a complete bottleneck. At the bottom of Capel Street you have 3 lanes but the traffic turning left onto Ormond Quay is backed all the way up Capel Street to the new one lane, thus preventing someone trying to get over the Liffey from progressing. I used to leave North King Street, cut through the Market onto Capel Street, over the Liffey and into Dame Street. It used to take me 10 minutes to complete this journey in my car. Now with this lunatic redesign of Capel Street it takes me 20minutes plus. So I burn more fuel, create more emissions, greenhouse gases and waste more of the world's depleting oil.
So who is this genius, how much of my taxes does it take to pay him?
Secondly - HOW MUCH DID THIS DISASTER COST???
They have stopped cars from crossing the Liffey at O'Connell Street, the Church Street crossing where the lights stay green for a few seconds is another disaster and the new Joyce bridge simply does not work for traffic!
If there is a North/South divide in Dublin then Dublin City Council are certainly doing their best to maintain it.

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