[Article] St Pat's parade organisers in Luas cable row

Victor

Oh dear, .... national duty ... mutter ... mutter .... only given a years notice ... mutter ... mutter ...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0313/stpatrick.html

St Pat's parade organisers in LUAS cable row

13 March 2005 13:49
Organisers of the St Patrick's Day parade in Dublin are furious with the Department of Transport over its refusal to take down overhead LUAS cables that cross O'Connell Street.

They say it is the department's national duty to remove the lines for the celebration.

Last year parade floats reached heights of almost 12 metres but this year they need to be half that in order to safely pass under the LUAS cables running along Abbey Street.

Pageant companies have been forced to make adjustments to their floats following the refusal by LUAS to take down the cables. They say this impacts on the scale and spectacle of the parade.

The festival's Chief Executive, Donal Shiels, says all Dublin transport agencies have facilitated the parade over the past 75 years, and he understands that it would take no more than five hours to take down the LUAS cables.

A spokesperson for the Department of Transport says power will be turned off in the overhead cables for the duration of the parade.

The department says organisers were told in 2003 that the cables could not be removed as it would cause major disruption and have safety implications for the service.

BrianD

they knew this year so they should have advised the participants.

It's a huge job to remove the cables AND it means that ther would be no red line available to take people home for at least 5 hours after the parade.

murphaph

This is a nonsense. The cables can't be taken down for such things. Imagine the Luas link-up goes via College Green and Westmoreland St! Should we take these down too?

weehamster

The organisers knew this well in advance and now they give out?

Why don’t they have the parade next year in Phoenix Park. A long straight road that can easy handle the parade and the people along the road and it is away from busy routes, so no route need to be close (of course the park needs to be closed) but the whole festival can be held there including the amusement rides, fireworks etc...

Considering that in the future there will be more Luas lines including one going over O'Connell bridge I think this would be a good option.

What do you think?

thejollyrodger

i think the whole float thing looks tacky, pick another route

Victor

weehamster wrote:

Why don’t they have the parade next year in Phoenix Park.

It would frighten the deer.

Bee

Oh Dear,

It highlights the abosolute waste of tax payer's money the Luas is. :cool: Dublin could have had an underground with no loss of road space and those nice Leprechaun people could have floated along nicely!

Bee

weehamster

Bee wrote:

Oh Dear,

It highlights the abosolute waste of tax payer's money the Luas is. :cool: Dublin could have had an underground with no loss of road space and those nice Leprechaun people could have floated along nicely!

Bee

Please tell me your kidding.

Winters

The festival's Chief Executive, Donal Shiels, says all Dublin transport agencies have facilitated the parade over the past 75 years, and he understands that it would take no more than five hours to take down the LUAS cables.

By 'facilitated' they mean stopping all their servies running through the route yeah? That can be done a lot easier then spending over 5 hours and thousands of euro putting up and down cables. Im sure under normal circumstances it would only take around 5 hours or so, but with the mass of people on O'Connell street and such Festivals do you really think it would only take 5 hours to take them down and put them up?

They have known about this for the past two years or so when the Luas started to be built, yet they made no changes to the designs of such flaots. It must be impossible to limit something to just the size of the double decker bus.

D!ve^Bomb!

it was on the radio, the luas people say it would take 3 or 4 days to take the lines down and put them back up again..

personally, they should just bin the parade!! it's a fúckin joke

Tarabuses

I presume this also means that there will be no service from Abbey Street to Connolly Station while the parade is on?

maxheadroom

Tarabuses wrote:

I presume this also means that there will be no service from Abbey Street to Connolly Station while the parade is on?

Probably no service between heuston and connoly, unless there is a turnback somewhere along that section of the line.

EDIT: http://www.luas.ie/ftp/head9_US/flat.luc.pdf says service between Tallaght and Jervis between 10:00 and 15:00 on thurs.

Victor

I wonder if when they had the old trams the used to take down the cables every year? For the entire length of the parade (virtually every main street had trams)?

Removing the cables would probably mean

(a) turning off the circuits affected and

(b) operating limited services Heuston-Jervis because only one tram could use either track. AFAIK there are no points between Heuston-Connolly.

Traffic

Victor there is a set of points between Smithfield and the Four Courts

John R

Victor wrote:

I wonder if when they had the old trams the used to take down the cables every year? For the entire length of the parade (virtually every main street had trams)?

I wouldn't have thought there would have been huge oversized floats in the forties.