Worst designed town in Ireland?

Terry

Cianos wrote: »

The town hall in Bray is the most charming building in the town, situated at the peak of the Main Street. What do they do? Give it to McDonalds :rolleyes:

bonerm wrote: »

Haha, I'm guessing that has to be the fanciest looking McDonalds branch in Ireland (if not the world?). Pity about the crap on offer inside.

Both of you leave McDonald's alone.

Misanthrope wrote: »

I know geological issues had a great effect, but Cork city looks like it was laid out by a bunch of tweakers.

Leixlip has the same problem (built in a valley, but on a smaller scale), but it could have been solved during the good times were it not for bored, old people putting preservation orders on buildings because someone connected to the 1798 rebellion took a dump nearby.

That's one of the main problems in Ireland.
You can brown envelope your way to throwing up housing estates in unsuitable areas, but if you want to renovate an old town you are blocked by people living in the past.

A simple example would be the Courtyard hotel in Leixlip.*
Building was held up for over a year because a small wall which was build a few hundred years ago was demolished.
The wall had no purpose. The entire back of the main street along the Liffey was derelict, but special interest groups (with the backing of those with a vested interest in not seeing another pub in the town) blocked them at every turn.

Two of the bars still haven't been opened because of the above special interest groups and their backers, who in turn support local politicians.

The main problem, as has been mention by a few others, is that the streets are not wide enough for cars (and SUVs driven by fat, lazy women who can't be arsed walking the 500 yards to school with their kids).

The main street in Leixlip used to be wide enough for cars to park along, but in their infinite wisdom, Kildare County council decided to widen the footpaths. Fantastic planning altogether.

I guarantee that every town in Ireland has the exact same problems.
People calling for progress, but only if they can't see it from their bedroom window. Nothing like 200 year old plaster falling off the front of old houses.

Anita Blow wrote: »

Surprised someone hasn't said Dublin in an attempt to be cool and edgy

Post 15.



Edit: I could have sworn that I quote the post mentioning Celbridge.
Anoter town suffering from the usual bull**** which sees traffic at a standstill even when it's not rush hour.

klose

Clonmel, land of no parking and one way streets.
Tipp town, one street or so it seems. ****hole also.

cock robin

bonerm wrote: »

Haha, I'm guessing that has to be the fanciest looking McDonalds branch in Ireland (if not the world?). Pity about the crap on offer inside.

Maybe Ireland certainly not the world. The one in Key West over looking the gulf of Mexico has that covered.

thee glitz

Terry wrote: »

The main street in Leixlip used to be wide enough for cars to park along, but in their infinite wisdom, Kildare County council decided to widen the footpaths. Fantastic planning altogether.

Edit: I could have sworn that I quote the post mentioning Celbridge.
Anoter town suffering from the usual bull**** which sees traffic at a standstill even when it's not rush hour.

You could add Kilcock and Maynooth to the list too.

Traffic in Maynooth is a disaster from 8:30am to 7pm, all day, every day
because there's no ring road. They've actually made it worse by changing
the driving lanes and traffic light sequence. There's a lane behind Main St.
with a No Entry sign at both ends! There's also a bus shelter directly across
the road from where one would actually be used!

HavingCrack

The only modern 'planned' towns in Ireland are Shannon, Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Clondalkin/Lucan and Adamstown and with the exception of the last all turned out terribly. Adamstown actually has quite good plans, it was just constructed at the wrong time. Then there are the Plantation towns like Bandon which aren't the worst to be honest. All the cities were designed during the medieval period so don't really have a ncie grid layout a la American cities (apart from Boston, most confusing place ever).

The worst planned is actually Bray in my opinion. The whole 'new part' leading up to the motorway is so far disconnected from the town it's just a disaster.

ScumLord wrote: »

You look at any modern city and by modern I mean built in the last century, and that doesn't hold up. Cities around Europe have been planning what they've been doing for well over 100 years.

Even old cities like Paris do have planning, look at Amsterdam on a map and you'll see it straight away. The smaller towns can be a different storey but they have to be medieval before they become really unmanageable.

Medieval Paris was effectively razed to the ground and rebuilt by Haussman in the 19th century so it's not a far comparison. Amsterdam did something similar. There was actually an awful lot of urban planning going on in Dublin by a group called the Wide Street Commissioners in the 1700's who were responsible for joining O'Connell Street to the Liffey and widening Dame Street for example. However after 1798 all their plannign powers were taken away and given to London and Dublin planning never really recovered to be honest.

Seaneh

Athlone has a bottle neck in the exact center of the town which also happens to be the bussiest road in the town and at times can take over half an hour to get from the connaught side of the bridge to Dunnes stores in Irish town, this is about a 3 minute walk!

ScumLord

HavingCrack wrote: »

Medieval Paris was effectively razed to the ground and rebuilt by Haussman in the 19th century so it's not a far comparison. Amsterdam did something similar. There was actually an awful lot of urban planning going on in Dublin by a group called the Wide Street Commissioners in the 1700's who were responsible for joining O'Connell Street to the Liffey and widening Dame Street for example. However after 1798 all their plannign powers were taken away and given to London and Dublin planning never really recovered to be honest.

We're still talking about a long time ago, we had all that information going into the boom and actively ignored it all. Claregalway is a perfect example, they put an entrance to a large estate just down from a major junction, it was obviously going to cause traffic problems.

Any European city I've been to has had thought put into it's layout. Can't say the same for any place in Ireland.

Rabble Rabble

The_Goose135 wrote: »

Athy town has to be the worst place for me. Everytime you try to get in either side the traffic is backed up.
Worse again they built a brand new connection to the M7 to it and put it bringing the traffic through the town rather than a by pass to the far side.

People from my area actually go to Carlow instead even though its an extra 10 mins in the car.

The only reason this post is not winning all the thanks in this thread is because most of Ireland has not - luckily enough - had to go though Athy at rush hour.

Rabble Rabble

Wilson Odd Dove wrote: »

True you cn see Paris planning easily on a map, but I think it's the fact that these cities were parts of kingdoms and empires
Most Irish towns grew up around markets, bridges and fords and grew naturally without any real planning
The likes of Westport was planned by the 'big house', the river re-routed don the mall and the octagon show this but this place is also a nightmare for traffic because such traffic wasn't conceived

Of course that's not to say that planning all over Ireland hasn't been atrocious in recent years

A hell of lot of Irish towns were designed actually, albeit by Normans. Fact.

Truley

Yep have to say I think Sligo is a terribly designed town. An absolute joke of a one way traffic system and no real central hub to speak of. De-Pedestrianising the centre was the biggest mistake ever made, and it was met with a huge amount of opposition from the local people.

veryangryman

Seaneh wrote: »

Athlone has a bottle neck in the exact center of the town which also happens to be the bussiest road in the town and at times can take over half an hour to get from the connaught side of the bridge to Dunnes stores in Irish town, this is about a 3 minute walk!

Large town right next to a rare bridging point on the main river. Cant really do too much save for building a 3rd road bridge. Why more people dont use the Ballymahon/Coosan Roads instead of the obvious bottleneck around the town bridge is beyond me. Rare i get caught in the traffic so long as i stay on the Leinster side.

Better question: Best designed town in Ireland? For its size, especially with the new roads id say Mullingar

highlydebased

Tralee. or Ennis.

Mars Bar

Neon-Circles wrote: »

Tralee. or Ennis.

Ennis is a good call. All over the shop so it is!

Senna

I'll second Letterkenny, its just one big bottleneck. Only one bridge to access the town from anywhere except NW donegal.

RosyLily

Definitely agree with Athy suggestion. I purposely get the late bus home to avoid the traffic there! Why they built the motorway on the other side of the town I'll never know...disaster of a town! :mad:
Was driving with a friend in Sligo a while ago. In the pissing rain...NEVER again!!! No logic to its lay-out!
Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny is fairly bad. All tiny streets and one-way systems. Very cramped town.

JayEnnis

dlofnep wrote: »

New Ross.

Agreed, also Enniscorthy.

orourkeda

borris in ossory


county laysh

John_Rambo

ScumLord wrote: »

Any European city I've been to has had thought put into it's layout. Can't say the same for any place in Ireland.

Were these cities flattened in WWI and WW2? They had chance to rebuild. Irish towns and cities evolved, native settlements, vikings, Norsemen, English...

I think this thread has turned in to a "which is the worst town to drive through" thread.

ScumLord

John_Rambo wrote: »

Were these cities flattened in WWI and WW2? They had chance to rebuild. Irish towns and cities evolved, native settlements, vikings, Norsemen, English...

I think this thread has turned in to a "which is the worst town to drive through" thread.

I'm sure not all of them, but fair enough they had a clean start but it's not like any town or city in Ireland was a metropolis before the boom.

We practically had a blank slate from the start. All they had to say was don't build your estate at the end of a tiny road or in the middle of town. Don't put it next to a junction, don't build a supermarket where it can't be accessed. It would have been so simple if we'd just put the slightest thought into it. But all they considered during planning was how much money they'd make by putting the building projects on certain peoples land.

antomorro-sei

Tipp Town is awful, as is Athy. Hate them places.

So, whats the best designed town in Ireland then?

FoxT

Wexford has got to be up there. I Hadn't been there in about 25 years & went there this year for a short break. I was well impressed.

Passed through Waterford & New Ross on the way - very disappointing. The boom seems to have just left them behind.

phasers

Dundrum.

Seriously, the fcuk is up with that place?

LoanShark

Letterkenny is a sh!thole and a badly messed up town in its design too!!

galwayrush

Looks like feck all towns were designed in any structural way, says a lot about our town / city planners.:rolleyes:

Superbus

Dun Laoghaire : "Oh yeah, sure, pedestrianise the main street and cobble it. Cool."

5 years later: "Rip up the cobbles and let cars on."

Epitome of back-tracking. What were they thinking in the first place?

rossie1977

Anita Blow wrote: »

Surprised someone hasn't said Dublin in an attempt to be cool and edgy

well designed

Dublin

pipelaser

I must say, despite being a town full of mad MAD bastards, Duleek must get a mention for being one of the Best designed towns in Ireland because was built off the main road giving it an original/pre-built Bypass.:D

Capt'n Midnight

Has to be Dublin , it is designed, there are planning departments.
It's held up all over Europe as an example of how not to design cities


From the disaster of Ballymun which held so much promise at the start to trams that don't meet and a population convinced they can't rely on public transport. Wood Quay. Ripping up the tramlines / getting rid of the right of ways.

Also the effects of corruption on zoning, you can be bloody sure we've only seen the tip of the ice berg. The path of the southern cross part of the M50 as it twists and turns around the land that was originally zoned for it. And the penny pinching on the Mad Cow roundabout that cost us how much in the end ?

The M50 toll bridge must be one of the most expensive in Europe, that one in France cost a little more, maybe the one between Denmark and Sweden too

At one stage the port tunnel was the biggest construction project in Europe. It would have been cheaper to move the port, or they could have put the trucks on trains and used the existing Phoenix Park tunnel. And it's nearly as long as the tunnels on the alternative route between Cagliari and Olbia and that road also has many bridges that dwarf the M50 bridge.


TBH we need anti corruption laws that match the law on receiving stolen goods, if it's found that planing permission was given because of brown envelopes then everything is null and void and the company then has to pay compensation to the local authority of an amount at least equal to any commercial benefit receivied or has already exended on works because people should not benefit from crime.

arybvtcw0eolkf

biko wrote: »

Bless your heart Galway, but congestion is your middle name.

"Bless your heart" is right.. I LOVE Galway, one of my fav places in the world but whenever I think of it I think 'traffic nightmare'.

Diabhal Beag

Galway is a nightmare for traffic. Two roads going towards Connemara from Barna and one of them is a ****e bog-road.