Don't eat the yellow snow

littleredspot

Great to see the council finally putting out salt/grit stores at key points around the city, but why oh why do they have to be in bright yellow wheelie bins? They look absolutely terrible, totally ruining the look of anywhere they're left.

LeinsterDub

littleredspot wrote: »

Great to see the council finally putting out salt/grit stores at key points around the city, but why oh why do they have to be in bright yellow wheelie bins? They look absolutely terrible, totally ruining the look of anywhere they're left.

So they are visible to the visually impaired and to everyone else at night and during heavy snow or fog?

littleredspot

LeinsterDub wrote: »

So they are visible to the visually impaired and to everyone else at night and during heavy snow or fog?

Hmm, not sure. I thought at first something about visibility alright, but they are padlocked shut, so I'm guessing only the council have a key, in which case they don't need to be extra visible to passers-by

If visually impaired people were a worry all the bins and postboxes would be hi-viz too.

Anywhere I've seen these stores before they tend to be permanent small concrete structures, often pebble-dashed. Much more unobtrusive.

SubBusted

Why don't they use sand from a beach. Would that contain enough salt?

tfak85

They use similar stores in the UK, it's great that they're around the place, that way you're relying on a whole truck to make it's way out to you to have the road salted. And they're locked because people would nick all the salt if they weren't.

MadsL

They are hi-viz yellow because the city is run by Roads & Engineering, who loooovvveeee yellow, and not by urban designers who actually give a crap about how a city looks.

The concept of "public realm" is totally lost on the engineers, that is why you will see granite paving that has been there 200 years ripped apart and replaced by asphalt, and antique granite kerbs replaced by chinese white limestone as the new stuff has straight edges that aren't as "fiddly". It is why the black and gold millennium bins are replaced with crap steel and bendy 'fancy' stainless bollards, but just a good sprinkling of grey ones, stainless ones in the 'posh' shoppingy bits, and a few we had left over. It is why black cast-iron bollards are disappearing to be replaced with stainless or a fancy stone ball or something else we just thought of. It is why new lampposts are put in with crazy overscaled designs that never ever will match the heritage ones...

But that's just me with my mad ideas that how a city looks is part of how it actually functions.

littleredspot

tfak85 wrote: »

They use similar stores in the UK, it's great that they're around the place, that way you're relying on a whole truck to make it's way out to you to have the road salted. And they're locked because people would nick all the salt if they weren't.

Don't get me wrong, I think they're a great idea.

I live beside a hill on a main road into the city, which was shut a few times last year while they waited for a jcb full of grit to make it through! Those stores in the Uk have been there as long as I can remember, I've always wondered why we don't have them.

Madsl I think you've answered my question (and very well too, might I add )

stevenmu

SubBusted wrote: »

Why don't they use sand from a beach. Would that contain enough salt?

Sand won't wash away or dissolve as easily, leaving seriously filthy roads behind, and it will get into machinery and destroy it.

Also, sand at beaches is usually protected to prevent coastal erosion, it's generally illegal to remove it.

ethernet

Glad to see it in a container this year. There was just a giant (open) bag of it left outside Mountjoy Square last year. Its level depleted very quickly.

Victor

littleredspot wrote: »

Hmm, not sure. I thought at first something about visibility alright, but they are padlocked shut, so I'm guessing only the council have a key, in which case they don't need to be extra visible to passers-by

I'm not sure how that logic works.

If visually impaired people were a worry all the bins and postboxes would be hi-viz too.

Postboxes are positioned ont eh kerb. Bins are meant to be positioned onteh kerb.

SubBusted wrote: »

Why don't they use sand from a beach. Would that contain enough salt?

But what about the beach?

MadsL wrote: »

They are hi-viz yellow because the city is run by Roads & Engineering, who loooovvveeee yellow, and not by urban designers who actually give a crap about how a city looks.

The concept of "public realm" is totally lost on the engineers, that is why you will see granite paving that has been there 200 years ripped apart and replaced by asphalt, and antique granite kerbs replaced by chinese white limestone as the new stuff has straight edges that aren't as "fiddly". It is why the black and gold millennium bins are replaced with crap steel and bendy 'fancy' stainless bollards, but just a good sprinkling of grey ones, stainless ones in the 'posh' shoppingy bits, and a few we had left over. It is why black cast-iron bollards are disappearing to be replaced with stainless or a fancy stone ball or something else we just thought of. It is why new lampposts are put in with crazy overscaled designs that never ever will match the heritage ones...

But that's just me with my mad ideas that how a city looks is part of how it actually functions.

Actually, it's the architects and designer types that go for the new stone and stainless steel stuff.