Pedestrianising O'Connell St

Mr E

I wonder what this will do to traffic in the city center? What route would you have to take to get from The Locke to The Crescent? (Original Story)

Limerick City Council is planning to pedestrianise part of O'Connell Street in the heart of Limerick city centre.

Director of transport with the local authority Pat Dromey confirmed that plans are underway for the pedestrianisation of O'Connell Street from the junction at William Street as far as Roches Street.

This new plans follow the recent pedestrianisation in the city centre of Bedford Row and part of Thomas Street, which was completed last month.

The remainder of Thomas Street, along with Little Catherine Street, is due to be completed by mid-June.

Plans for the pedestrianisation of a section of O'Connell Street will be put on public display in the coming weeks, according to the council.

"There will be extensive consultation with all the stakeholders before we advance the planning process and we are hopeful that work on the pedestrianisation of O'Connell Street will start in the autumn," revealed Mr Dromey.

"But an integral part of pedestrianising O'Connell Street is the proposed inner orbital route of the city that will take the diverted traffic, and this will also be put on public display in the new year," he added.

Thomas Street businesswoman Siobhan Clifford, who owns the Exit shop, said that traders are delighted with the first phase of pedestrianisation of the street, which finished on December 8, 2006.

"It looks fabulous and there has definitely been a pick-up in trade since the works finished. We are getting more passing trade as people come back into the street," said Ms Clifford.

"The disruption throughout the year was difficult on traders but the end result is definitely worth it. No pain, no gain! I am delighted to hear that parts of O'Connell Street are going to be pedestrianised because it will complement the work done in Thomas Street and Bedford Row."

The Limerick Co-ordination Office (LCO) acted as an intermediary for the past year among Thomas Street and Bedford Row businesses, consultants and the city council.

LCO city-centre co-ordinator Andrew Mawhinney said: "Limerick City Council is to be complimented on its pedestrianisation programme.

"Already, we have seen private investment stimulated by this work and the public space can be used for a variety of purposes," he said.

Mr Mawhinney also complimented businesses in Bedford Row and Thomas Street for their patience and understanding during the construction work.

1huge1

wow thats great news
the city centre is really fighting back at the surburban shopping centre's recently

as for traffic
well i hope they figure out a good system in the planning

Limerick Dude

Class, about time there actually doing something about it, looking forward to seeing what it will look like!

dv

Wow, Autumn, that's a hell of alot earlier than I expected. I thought they'd be waiting at least until the tunnel was finished.

Anyway, the part-pedestrianisation of O'Connel St. would really help give the city centre a much more shopper-friendly atmosphere and at the moment O'Connell St. is pretty manky.

But where the hell are all the cars gonna go? I can't really see a two-way Henry Street taking up all the slack. How much pressure could the Quays take? Will buses/taxis still be allowed on O'Connell street, as was the original plan? Also, the article says it will be pedestrianised from William St. to Roches St. - so will it still be open to traffic from Arthurs Quay to William Street?

Anyway, any increased pedestrianisation is great for the city and I'd certainly love to see it, but I just hope it doesn't mean you've to be stuck in traffic for an hour to get there...

dv

A bit more information here, on page 15:
http://www.limerick.ie/general/finance/documents/Managers_Report_for_2007.pdf

Karmafaerie

I remember when they first announced this about 6-7 years ago.
They had artists renderings on the RTÉ news at the time. I wonder if they'd still be knocking about somewhere?!

1huge1

^^ what?? first i heard of it
I was looking on google earth (handy thing) for a way to divert traffic and theres a few options so im sure they can come up with something

hopefully they can do a bit of a clean up to william street too
this is really becoming a shopper friendly city
a good rival for patrick street in cork (which is one of the best ive ever seen in my life)

Karmafaerie

1huge1 wrote:

^^ what?? first i heard of it
I was looking on google earth (handy thing) for a way to divert traffic and theres a few options so im sure they can come up with something

hopefully they can do a bit of a clean up to william street too
this is really becoming a shopper friendly city
a good rival for patrick street in cork (which is one of the best ive ever seen in my life)

Yeah, I remember when it was first mentioned.
It was on the 6 o'clock news one night, and everyone was talking about it for a couple of days and then it just disapeared untill 2003.

Amazotheamazing

This has been planned for some time, though I don't think it was originally going to be a full pedestrianisation. It's long overdue, and will hopefully inspire some shop owners to renovate the front of their buildings too.

Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes made by both Galway and Cork and deliever an even better project than Shop and Patrick streets (both of which are excellant).

it's just another step in the right direction for the city centre.

iguana

Karmafaerie wrote:

I remember when they first announced this about 6-7 years ago.
They had artists renderings on the RTÉ news at the time. I wonder if they'd still be knocking about somewhere?!

It was first reported in the Limerick Leader about 10 years ago. I first saw it on the front page of the papers I sold in the Centra where I worked in the winter of '96-97.

Karmafaerie

iguana wrote:

It was first reported in the Limerick Leader about 10 years ago. I first saw it on the front page of the papers I sold in the Centra where I worked in the winter of '96-97.

Stop making me feel old!;)

iguana

Karmafaerie wrote:

Stop making me feel old!;)

I was the one who was working 10 years ago, you hadn't even done your Junior Cert.

Karmafaerie

iguana wrote:

I was the one who was working 10 years ago, you hadn't even done your Junior Cert.

True, but I was trying to be polite!:p

jonski

You have to wonder about the effects on traffic though . Traffic management in Limerick isn't great as it is . If it gives the trip to town more hassle then it will have the opposite effect on the shops as people will be more inclined to go to the shopping centers .

DarkJager

I don't see any point to this at all. I'm all for pedestrianised areas to a certain extent, where it does not conflict with a traffic heavy route. Bedford Row was a great idea, because it wasn't really jammed with cars at any time of the day. Pedestrianising O'Connell street is a seriously bad idea, the traffic in the evening is nightmarish enough without having one of Limericks main routes unusable. Limerick City Council need to scrap this idea A.S.A.P and concentrate on smaller streets like Thomas Street or even Cecil Street.

Amazotheamazing

Disagree DarkJager, the centre of a city should never have a main traffic road going right through it in the first place. The above plan will of course, only work if the various orbital routes and bypasses come online in time.

1huge1

Ya but don't be getting ahead of yourself, you have no way of knowing it could really mess up the traffic situation
agreed it can be very bad at times even now but who's to say they haven't worked out a plan to divert traffic which could actually shorten things (yeah right...)

though you do have a point in that they could concentrate on smaller streets but id be more in favour of more of a patrick street in cork thing only problem there is that O Connel Street is not nearly wide enough

DarkJager

I understand your point, but look at it like this. If I want to get from the Locke Bar to the dock road, I'll need to go twice the distance I normally would, to get there. We don't have enough bypasses or orbital routes in place or in planning to succesfully pull this off. Just look at what happens every year when the city goes car free...absolute chaos and motorists ripping their hair out, so people can walk up and down a roadway???

Amazotheamazing

That's only true if you accept that no other routes in town will change, I would expect that if this does happen, you'll see both Henry street and Liddy street return to 2 way traffic, with traffic coming on to them from before or after Arthur's Quay. The current oneway traffic from Henry street would be diverted on to the quays, I suppose.

Liam Byrne

I've never understood why Patrick St, the lower part of O'Connell St and Arthur's Quay were configured the way that they are....once you hit Charlotte's Quay, there is no way to get over the bridges without going right through the city centre, through 3/4 blocks of traffic, turn at Roches St and go back through 2 blocks of traffic before turning left.

If the pedestrianisation makes them rethink this setup, then it's welcome and long overdue.

1huge1

^^ yes thats what I was thinking
the system they have in place at the moment dosnt make sense in a lot of ways and doing this could not only be very good for the city centre but it will make them review what is already there hopefully ending in a much better traffic situation

Karmafaerie

I love this.
We're told that the city council is going to put forward a new traffic layout, that will take all the trucks, and heavy commuter traffic away from the city center.
Before the plans are even out there, we have people assuming that it's going to be bad.
Typical!:rolleyes:
Lets at least wait the few days till the plans are released before we make our minds up!

And just so ye know, nothing will be happening to O'Connell Street for years!
Here's a map of the planned changes to Limerick.



As you can see, the pedestrianisation of O'Connell Street is phase 5.
We're not even a third of the way through phase 2 yet!
It will be years before anything happens to O'Connell St.

The Shunnell will be finished by then and everything.

1huge1

^^ ahem cough cough

I'm being as optimistic as can be actually
I think its a great idea
whats next trams in the city

Amazotheamazing

Also, in today's Chronicle the Nenagh rail line going through Castleconnell will be opened as a commuter line in 2008, further reducing the number of cars that will need to enter the city centre.

jonski

I think the reason that people are worried is that the traffic management in this city has a tendency to make baby Jesus cry .

1huge1

Amazotheamazing wrote:

Also, in today's Chronicle the Nenagh rail line going through Castleconnell will be opened as a commuter line in 2008, further reducing the number of cars that will need to enter the city centre.

Is there really that many people from Nenagh commuting to Limerick?

Karmafaerie

1huge1 wrote:

^^ ahem cough cough

I'm being as optimistic as can be actually
I think its a great idea
whats next trams in the city

Sorry man, I wasn't complaining about everybody, just the few who were crying over spilt milk that's still in the cow!;)

1huge1 wrote:

Is there really that many people from Nenagh commuting to Limerick?

There is actually.
I went to school in the city with a fair few people from Nenagh, and I know two or three others that commute in for work now.
Plus, a lot of people would come in to the city and it's environs for shopping.

Amazotheamazing

Well, Nenagh town has really grown hugely in the last few years, it's reasonable to think there's a demand from both there and it's environs, there's definately a demand in Castleconnell, especially people from towns around it.

mysterious

Lads, this has sparked me off from another's Poster reply to this plan... " the current plan doesn't cater for through traffic that currently uses these roads" And he/she is spot on.

I love the whole city pedstriansation plan for Limerick as it's long overdue.. Especially since Limerick is way behind Galway, Cork and even Waterford, in keeping their city pedestrian friendly.

But paving away all the streets is going to put all the through traffic onto the already Congested Childers, North Circular, Condell and Henry street artrial roads... It's just NOT going to work. We need a plan that will benefiet both cars and the people. Limerick doesn't even have a reliable public transport to start with either, to copensate the absense of motor traffic in the new plan!!!

May I point out, Limerick has always being a drive through city as you all know... And geographically speaking it has expanded in that fashion i.e east west and north south of the Shannon. If you block it's main artery, the city will grind to a halt.

"Worst case scenario" It could even create a "ghostown" as their is no decent road in and out of the CBD but a serious of zig zagged intersections and inefficient detours that won't work when O'Connells street is paved away. It seems to me Limerick will just be a pain in the arse for your average joe coming from say Newport or Nenagh to do their shopping. It would be more logicall to head for the Crescent..

Which LC are really putting their efforts for not this scenario to happen..

The orbital inner ring will fail... all hands down. as the city is laid out in a grid etc.. Even with the current layout works very well with the one way system Limerick already has. Reading up old figures of the amount of traffic that just passes through every day is nearly 40,000 cars a day. Which is huge for a city of it's size. A good chunk of it will be transferred when the new Shannon tunnell opens thankfully.

Anyway what are your thoughts.

Also there was a slight mention by LC, of maybe the quayside roads to be widened to take the slack off Henry street when O'Connell street is blocked off for on street traffic as part of this new city centre plan...

My plan:) Would build ongrade DC (a la parkway type DC) on the bank of the shannon connecting Arthurs quay Sarsfields street bridge inclusive to the Shannon roundabout to revirt to two way with Henry street onto the old N20 it would be short and relatively simple, just means widening the current roadside.
Therefore both parties win ie. pedstrians get back the city and commuters get A to b quickly and effieciently.. IMHO the current plan just won't work. Henry street is already choking on one-way as it is. It's just pie in the sky to put the entire city traffic onto it too

We do need to look at this whole plan again, It's a very ambitous project, so we don't want to make ****ee of it.

ninty9er

mysterious wrote:

My plan:) Would build ongrade DC (a la parkway type DC) on the bank of the shannon connecting Arthurs quay Sarsfields street bridge inclusive to the Shannon roundabout to revirt to two way with Henry street onto the old N20 it would be short and relatively simple, just means widening the current roadside.

Red Flashing Lights!!!! Horns Sounding.....There is no Dual-Carriageway in Castletroy......It is a two lane road to facilitate people travelling in different directions....though you wouldn't think so the way some people use it..... Another road like that is the last thing Limerick needs

mysterious

ninty9er wrote:

Red Flashing Lights!!!! Horns Sounding.....There is no Dual-Carriageway in Castletroy......It is a two lane road to facilitate people travelling in different directions....though you wouldn't think so the way some people use it..... Another road like that is the last thing Limerick needs

What road do you use from the Groody roundabout to Parkway roundabout.. Btw way I was only using the road type as an example. Typical tree huggers:D Why in Ireland do we fear 4 lane city roads...

Lets get back on topic.