Pedestrianising O'Connell St

ninty9er

It is on topic. Have you seen the Parkway roundabout inbound on any given weekday between 4:30 and 6pm??????? Chaos!! We don't need it in the city and certainly not leading to aforementioned roundabout.......

Use William Street. Turn Right move across Catherine St. onto Roches St. and you've just circumvented the pedestrianised area. All that's needed is removal of on street parking entirely and replacement with a park and ride facility at Corbally, Castletroy Dooradoyle and NCR.While space freed up can be used as extra through traffic lanes for each direction and a Bus lane network

hobie

What will they do with all the multi-story car parks when the roads are closed off (per map above) ....

"pick your own" Mushroom growing perhaps ..... :cool:

mysterious

ninty9er wrote:

It is on topic. Have you seen the Parkway roundabout inbound on any given weekday between 4:30 and 6pm??????? Chaos!! We don't need it in the city and certainly not leading to aforementioned roundabout.......

Use William Street. Turn Right move across Catherine St. onto Roches St. and you've just circumvented the pedestrianised area. All that's needed is removal of on street parking entirely and replacement with a park and ride facility at Corbally, Castletroy Dooradoyle and NCR.While space freed up can be used as extra through traffic lanes for each direction and a Bus lane network

I agree on your point, But your seriously missing my point being..

Limerick is and always had through traffic east west going from Corbally/Dublin side to the Shannon roundabout N69(N18) lower Henry street old N20 bounds. This setup was and is henry street NB and O'Connells street SB... It's a fine setup BTW.

In the current plan without proper straightforward access it's going to create caoius!!! even with other enhancements such as the Park and ride. I.e where is all the extra traffic going to go?

It's putting all SB traffic onto the Henry street axis when O'Connell Street is upgraded.

Everything you mentioned above is fine, but that's not going to happen overnight either as Limerick's public transport is also a bit rough and very inefficient, ask anyone..


I'm not in favour of building super roads through cities.... But the diverted traffic cannot be just ignored or put onto other roads.. It's utter bullshhit.. I'd even moot having the quays widened for NB traffic which currently uses Henry Street and the diverted O'Connells SB traffic should use Henry street. Thus it would be deemed obvious to upgrade the quay roads. Either way this is the last resort..

But

The 4 lane carriegway was just my idea to connect the Mallow/Shannon roundabout to Sarsfield juction and Arthurs quay as a relief to BOTH Henry street and O'Connells street. Maybe a little ambitous and daring for the locals..

Cork has a fine piece of 4 lane road coming into the city from Blarney. Dosn't mean it's flying over Patricks street or anything! Jeez..

Anyway I hope u see the point here.

mysterious

Here's a map to illistrate the two options Pink the possible LC plan to reroute O'Connells SB onto Henry street and the old NB movement onto the quays likewise..

The green is the quayside road widened along the banks to cater for two way traffic.. This is just an idea... That I'd think would be perfect. Henry street just will not cope IMHO..

The line as you can see starts at the Mallow street Henry street quadrant and proceeds North easterly to the Abbey river at Dublin road. Just so everyone knows the route that currently exists.

What do you think...lol if unclear about the map ask me.

1huge1

But are you forgetting about the shannon tunnel, you have said yourself on many a occasion how many cars its going to take out of the city, surely that could cater for the pedestrianing of O'Connel St, though as long as it dosn't end up with Childers Rd becoming MORE congested.What I see happening is more than likely Henry Street will become 2 way again

mysterious

1huge1 wrote:

But are you forgetting about the shannon tunnel, you have said yourself on many a occasion how many cars its going to take out of the city, surely that could cater for the pedestrianing of O'Connel St, though as long as it dosn't end up with Childers Rd becoming MORE congested.What I see happening is more than likely Henry Street will become 2 way again

Yes It will.. But the remainder of the traffic. i.e Commuter and city traffic wanting to get from one side of the city to the other.. out of the 40,000 about 15,000 will be removed, just from an educated guess. but with O'Connells street remoddled your putting that onto crippled Henry street. so its no win no gain..

They all said childers road would become quiet when the SRR opened it didn't. The city took control of the road that's what happened.

Henry street is choked as it is. Wait for the Bedford and the other developments to come on stream.

Amazotheamazing

Mysterious, there are other streets that can take heavier traffic than they currently do, for example, you could divert cars up Broad st/John St across Musgrave street and down Parnell street.

I disagree with your contention that the current system works well, it works well for traffic, but destroys the city centre, and contributes hugely to making Limerick's city centre the dirty and unpleasant place it currently is.

What I don't understand is why 40,000 cars need to pass through the city in the first place? Surely they aren't all going to Galway? The city is already bypassed on the East, there's plans for a tunnel on the South, and further plans for a bypass on the North (out beyond Castelconnell?).

JohnnyBalls

A storm in a teacup really. Once the Shannon Tunnel comes on stream huge volumes of traffic will be able to bypass the city effectively giving Limerick City Council a green light to pedestrainise O' Connell St. and not before time.

What people are forgetting is that construction isn't even due to start. Its going into consultation as far as I am aware, two very different things. By the time they do start this I wouldn't be suprised if the tunnell was finished. But I really do believe something has to be done with Limerick City Centre and the spot they've choosen would work in encouraging a pedestrian friendly city. The removal of cars from O Connell St. can only be a good thing for the beauty, civic quality and people of Limerick and I welcome it with open arms. The thought of nice street furniture, a monument, lighting and trees dotting a newly paved O Connell St. exites me as a resident in Limerick and is a much needed long overdue rejuvenation of what is a diabolical street as it stands.

Karmafaerie

Exactly JB.
As I pointed out at the very start of the page (which Mysterious seemed to ignore while modifying the map;) ), this will not be happening for 5 or 6 years at earliest!
Before any work on the pedestrianisation of O'Connell St. starts, Limerick will be completely bi-passed, North, South, East and West.

There will no longer be a need for a national road to clog up our city center.
If this is done right, then it can be nothing but good for Limerick.
Will it be done right is the real question though!

dv

Although the original idea was to have O'Connel Street pedestrianised after the Shunnel is built, the article at the top of this thread states:

we are hopeful that work on the pedestrianisation of O'Connell Street will start in the autumn," revealed Mr Dromey.

Obviously the chances of this starting on time are practically non-existent but at the moment at least they don't seem to intend to wait for the Shunnel to open.

I definately do want this to go ahead. Pedestrianising this part of O'Connell St., crossed by Bedford Row/Thomas St., would give Limerick a fantastic shopping area right in the centre, with Cruises St. right next door aswell.

But there'll have to be a seriously good traffic plan put in place. There are plenty of examples (Childers Road, anyone?) that show that the city council just doesn't quite 'get' traffic, to put it mildly, so apprehension is understandable.

1huge1

Well if it starts in Autumn you guys were well off when you said 5 or 6 years, although if it does start in autumn (unlilely but some time this year maybe) we could see it finishing around the same time as the tunnel but well before the city is totally bypassed

either way I'd like to see it open after the tunnel but not too long after

Karmafaerie

I seriously, seriously, doubt that anything will be done to O'Connell St. for years.
All of Thomas St.,Part of Catherine St., Little Cathrine St., Little William Street., and Foxes Bowe all have to be pedestrianised first, not to mention the whole area off Bedford Row around the new Hotel.

For them to start on O'Connell St. before these areas are ready, and a proper traffic circumvention has been put in place would be unthinkable, even for LCC!

No, any talk of work starting in Autumn is just political blustering.

dv

Going by the length of time it took to complete Bedford Row/lower Thomas St., phase 2 will be finished well before the Shunnel (Catherine St. and the rest of Thomas St. aren't being pedestrianised, just repaved with wider paths and no parking). But that does still leave William St. (supposed to be done before O'Connell St. according to the original plan.) as well as the lower and upper ends of O'Connell Street that could still be started first.

I haven't claimed to know what's going to happen and as I've already said I want the pedestrianisation to go ahead. But when it comes to planning and traffic, a huge cock-up is always on the cards.

ninty9er

Karmafaerie wrote:

All of Thomas St.,Part of Catherine St., Little Cathrine St.:eek: , Little William Street., and Foxes Bowe all have to be pedestrianised first, not to mention the whole area off Bedford Row around the new Hotel.

:eek: They can't do that. It removes the quickest route from William Street to Roches Street forcing way too many cars to unnecessarily use Gerald Griffin/ Parnell Street to get around the pedestrianised area...I'd be one unhappy motorist:mad:

adaminho

dv wrote:

I haven't claimed to know what's going to happen and as I've already said I want the pedestrianisation to go ahead. But when it comes to planning and traffic, a huge cock-up is always on the cards.

From the original drawings circulated at the time by Limerick city council O'Connell street is not going to be COMPLETELY pedestrianised. The proposed works provide for the pavement in front of Penneys to be extended to where the flowerpots currently are. Removal of on street parking up as far as the junction with Lower Cecil street Afaik and widening of the footpaths to accomodate this. On street parking on William street is to be removed save for a set down area for busses in front of the Centra and one loading bay on each side staggered so one is outside Newsoms and the other by the Roma casino. O'Connell street would still have two lanes of traffic all the way up but with all on street parking removed and just one or two loading bays and the bus stop at Brown Thomas.

dv

I had thought the original plan was to close off O'Connel St., or at least a section of it, but allow buses and taxis. What I've read over the last few days seems to suggest complete pedestrianisation of O'Connell St between William St and Roches St, which would be fantastic as long as it doesn't cause traffic mayhem.

Obviously nothing's set in stone and with the way these things go it could be ages before we even see the plans that are supposed to be released in the next few weeks.

1huge1

Wait now so which is it then
everyone so far has said a section of o connel st will be a complete pedestrianisation and now were saying some traffic will still be let through

id be more in favour of the road in from of brown thomas becoming completly pedestrianised as long as the traffic is sorted out

Karmafaerie

The plans are for the widening of the footpaths that adhamino suggested Along all of William St., and O'Connell St. from the junction of Roches St. to the junction at Mallow St..
There will be no parking and one lane of traffic going each way on O'Connell St.
From the junction at Roaches St. to William St. Junction, O'Connell St. will be fully pedestrianised.

Poxyshamrock

I think we should just do what Dublin and Cork did with there main streets and widen the footpaths as much as we can but still keep traffic going through. Just think about it, if we pedrestianised O'Connell Street, just imagaine the street at 8 o' clock on a tuesday night in the middle of february...it would be EMPTY and it would just have a deadening effect on the city centre.

dv

Below is an image of the original plan (yanked from a post by dave123 on archiseek), showing what traffic goes where and in what direction. Of course we still have to see the new plan.

I had thought of that problem aswell Poxyshamrock, and O'Connell St. would definately be pretty deserted at certain times if it was completely pedestrianised. Maybe another solution would be something along the lines of the original plan - allow buses and taxis through, leave the bus stop there and possibly set up a taxi rank aswell. This would ensure some level of activity at night but it still wouldn't be too busy during the day. The taxi rank on William St. definately needs to go, but I'd say the drivers would be happy enough if they got one on O'Connell St. instead.

1huge1

Karmafaerie:From the junction at Roaches St. to William St. Junction, O'Connell St. will be fully pedestrianised.

well according to the pic dv posted it will only be partial
id be more in favour of that small bit being done fully

Karmafaerie

1huge1 wrote:

Karmafaerie:From the junction at Roaches St. to William St. Junction, O'Connell St. will be fully pedestrianised.

well according to the pic dv posted it will only be partial
id be more in favour of that small bit being done fully

That was the original plan from 2-3 years ago.
While the official new plan won't be released for about a week, they've implied and hinted that that section of O'Connell St. will be fully pedestrianised.
Then again, this is politician speak, so that could mean a bus-lane, or a taxi rank. We'll have to wait and see.