As is well known, the devil is in the detail. Therefore last month at @What_if_Dublin we asked about the micro scale, small changes that could improve Dublin city.
Unless you are an expert in traffic or urban design, street furniture usually goes unnoticed. Apparently functional it is accepted as an integral part of our street scape and remains unquestioned. But when you run into a pole on an overcrowded, narrow footpath for the first time you start noticing: A maze of bollards, sign posts, traffic lights and barriers clutter the streets of Dublin. Is all that street furniture really necessary? What if we combined signs, had them use the same post? What if we reduced them altogether? Would we have a more beautiful city? A city even, that is safer, more pedestrian friendly?
The UK, the country we have copied the street clutter from in the first place, has already started reverting this practice years ago – for good reasons: experts say, some signage and pedestrian management systems might actually undermine their purpose. Motorists rely too much on the apparent safety they promise and pedestrians tend to ignore them because they’re not user friendly. That is to say, giving responsibility back to each road user could be safer after all.
But there are more aspects in favour of a good clean up. Unobstructed views at Dublin’s architecture, tidy streets and – think of all that money that would be made available by saving €500 a pole… As we learned on twitter though it’s not the Council’s call to make but there’s sure room for interpretation of national law and guidelines. Lets hope the pedestrian friendliness of the planned Dublin city centre redesign will also reflect in the details.
This month’s topic on the @What_if_Dublin twitter account is “community“. Send us your vision – it could be featured here next month!
