Pedestrianization of South Williams Street

geo88

I remember reading an article in May about the pedestrianization of South Williams Street on a trial basis for one Sunday every month from June, however I have not seen anything else on the topic, does anyone know what happened to those plans?

PS: I have e-mailed a couple of weeks both the Dublin City Council and Lord Mayor of Dublin's office and did not get any reply.

Aard

I'd be keen on knowing whether the Council will follow through on this one. The businesses on South William St are all for pedestrianisation.

ollaetta

From today's Indo: €3m plan paves way for family-friendly streets

Right area but doesn't mention South William Street though. I see the plan will be on display in the Civic Offices until September.

miamee

ollaetta wrote: »

From today's Indo: €3m plan paves way for family-friendly streets

Right area but doesn't mention South William Street though. I see the plan will be on display in the Civic Offices until September.

That's not the same thing, I remember what the OP is talking about and a friend had sent me a link to a story about it. I must see if I can find it now.

Re-paving the streets mentioned in the article would be great, some of them are in a very bad state.

miamee

Ok this was the article but it was only about to go before Dublin City Councillors when the article was published - no idea if it was approved or not. I certainly haven't seen or heard anything about it since, has anyone else?

Aard

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/sunday-festivals-to-be-held-in-dublin-city-centre-this-summer-1.1791572

This article states that the scheme that the OP mentions should have begun last month. Did anybody hear of any pedestrianisation or street markets happening last month?

wowy

AFAIK the proposal was pulled; I can't recall who objected to it.

Edit.

I tweeted DCC events there who told me that local businesses asked them "to explore another direction" and that they hope to launch something in Autumn. I'm surprised that local businesses wouldn't have been im favour. They might have felt that pedestrianisation was good, but a market might take custom.

Aard

I wonder if "local businesses" is code for Brown Thomas. They oppose anything that might impact their car park.

geo88

For people that have more experience dealing with elected officials / city councils etc: what's the best way of actually putting some pressure towards moving things along and seeing the trial go ahead? Is there any group currently active in this area?

I would be surprised as well if most of the businesses in the area would oppose the change as it would suit most interests and holding this back due to the private interests of one company in the detriment of everyone else (citizens and most retail shops/restaurants/retail places) doesn't really sit well with me (if that is indeed the case).

Suggestions welcome!

Aard

You're not going to get a group of South William Street businesses to come out as a unit in favour of pedestrianisation. The businesses there have a kind of symbiotic relationship with Brown Thomas where there are good and bad aspects of being neighbours with BT. So they're unlikely to publicly say something that they know would piss Brown Thomas off.

On the other hand, groups such as the Business Improvement District tend to favour placemaking measures such as pedestrianisation. And of course the BID's members include the smaller South William Street businesses. Perhaps give them a call for some advice?

Another issue is that Councillors for the area are voted by residents, not businesses. As such, residents' needs come first, and of course there are few people living in the retail centre. So Councillors looking for reelection are not overly concerned with pedestrianisation or placemaking. This is the gap that the BID try to fill.

Another port of call might be Dublin City Beta. The 'Beta' area doesn't cover the retail core, but they might be helpful nonetheless.

monument

Aard wrote: »

You're not going to get a group of South William Street businesses to come out as a unit in favour of pedestrianisation. The businesses there have a kind of symbiotic relationship with Brown Thomas where there are good and bad aspects of being neighbours with BT. So they're unlikely to publicly say something that they know would piss Brown Thomas off.

On the other hand, groups such as the Business Improvement District tend to favour placemaking measures such as pedestrianisation. And of course the BID's members include the smaller South William Street businesses. Perhaps give them a call for some advice?

Another issue is that Councillors for the area are voted by residents, not businesses. As such, residents' needs come first, and of course there are few people living in the retail centre. So Councillors looking for reelection are not overly concerned with pedestrianisation or placemaking. This is the gap that the BID try to fill.

Another port of call might be Dublin City Beta. The 'Beta' area doesn't cover the retail core, but they might be helpful nonetheless.

Sorry to prove you wrong but it was claimed in 2012 that 80-90% of businesses in the area supported a major trial of pedestrianisation on and around South William Street. Most seem to willingly allow their names to be used in the Facebook campaign for a trial and many gave support publicly at a meeting for businesses in the area.

http://dublinobserver.com/2012/04/businesses-push-for-pedestrian-street-expansion-in-dublin/

I was at the meeting of businesses about this in the Mansion House and from the crowd, what BIDs said and what the promoter of the scheme said, it seemed like it could have easily been as high as 80% or more support.

It went as far as a council meeting (I think a local area meeting or possibly the traffic SPC, I can't recall fully). The traffic department of the council were very dismissive of the idea.

I contacted the council for comment on why they were so dismissive and they brushed me off saying they had to wait until the Grafton Street area plan was in place.

The Grafton Street plan when published outlines how there's going to be no restrictions on traffic at all.

tricky D

The BT car park issue mightn't be much of a problem. It could be alleviated by reversing the street travel direction, making the car park traffic exit turning right down to Wicklow St and route up Clarendon St and out down Chatham Row. Not a perfect solution but not too bad. There would still be 20/25 metres not fully pedestrianised. The out of hours traffic like deliveries and access does pose some problems like access from the Merciers Hospital end so something like the corner of Stephens St and South William St would have to be chopped to allow a left turn.

Edit: There is a however a problem between Chatham Row and Stephens St where 2 directions are needed but not enough room. Perhaps some traffic light type contraflow system and/or access restrictions are needed.

monument

tricky D wrote: »

The BT car park issue mightn't be much of a problem. It could be alleviated by reversing the street travel direction, making the car park traffic exit turning right down to Wicklow St and route up Clarendon St and out down Chatham Row. Not a perfect solution but not too bad. There would still be 20/25 metres not fully pedestrianised.

I don't really see it as much of an issue at all -- once the access is maintained.

tricky D wrote: »

The out of hours traffic like deliveries and access does pose some problems...

On streets which are planned to be pedestrianised or turned into bus only streets etc, deliveries are usually billed as a problem but the reality is that they are usually very manageable.

tricky D wrote: »

like access from the Merciers Hospital end so something like the corner of Stephens St and South William St would have to be chopped to allow a left turn.

Edit: There is a however a problem between Chatham Row and Stephens St where 2 directions are needed but not enough room. Perhaps some traffic light type contraflow system and/or access restrictions are needed.

On South William Street between Chatham Row and Stephens St?

Why would two directions be needed there?

Aard

monument wrote: »

Sorry to prove you wrong...

Happy to be wrong in this case, and glad that there is open support for this.

wowy

There's not really going to be much chance of it happening under the Grafton Street Quarter plan.

It was published last year and aubmissions were invited. The proposal is to keep traffic on SWS but to remove the on-street parking and widen the paths. (That's fine at the south end, but there's not much scope for widening paths at the north end between castle market and wicklow street.)

I made a proposal querying this and suggesting pedestrianisation (the BT exit would turn right to wicklow street and around clarendon street). Thee Council dismissed my submission.

Can't link to the plan here but google Grafton Street Quarter and you'll find it, along with the report on submissions. My recollection is that not many submissions/proposals were considered for inclusion in the forthcoming final plan.

geo88

Thank you all for the detailed answers!

Can't say I'm completely clear as to why this idea was rejected then, given the above arguments and the support from the local businesses. Any major show stoppers that people can think of?

Muahahaha

The cynic in me thinks it might be the larger Grafton Street businesses who don't want South William St pedestrianised. Apart from the Brown Thomas car park issue all the other tenants along Grafton St are paying the highest rents in the country. Part of that high rent valuation is the sheer footfall that Grafton Street brings - AFAIK it is somewhere in the order of 50,000 people walking by their shop front per day, every day. Throughout the year that works out at around 17-18 million people walking by your shop window.

Now if the pedestrianisation of South William St was to occur then Grafton Street might conceivably lose up to 20% of it's footfall. I reckon it'd be 10% at a minimum but if people begin to prefer walking down South William Street as a pedestrian route to go elsewhere or are branching off into areas to the west of Sth William St like Exchequer or South George's St then I think it would only be a matter of time before Grafton Street loses some of their coveted footfall. After all there is only about 50m in distance between the two streets and they run parallel to each other.

IMO whatever way you look at it the pedestriasation of Sth William St is going to mean that Grafton St takes a hit as Sth William Street becomes more attractive than before and more people use it.

vidor

I'd imagine that's close to the truth. A bit off topic here but do businesses on Grafton St ever complain about the various bands/performance art going on there? Seems to have been a massive increase in the number of buskers etc on that street this year.

Cienciano

Aard wrote: »

I wonder if "local businesses" is code for Brown Thomas. They oppose anything that might impact their car park.

I don't think they own the car park, as far as I know that's owned by someone else who owns a few other car parks around the city.