O MY ANOTHER MFOT!

 

 Earlier on this blog there was a post called a short essay on overspin. in this post I tried to show how  a good news story could be made from the most mundane event, ( a habit of the government of that  time) In the post I argued that ( amongst other things), the appearance of a potted palm on the Western Way in 2012 was a sign of economic recovery. I was shocked over the last year or so to see more and more of these plants around the town the next in worse state then the last. It now appears the pots have been gathered up and deposited in one site and this as a direct result of a global pandemic.

 

 The scientific community  look to the trafficking of the pangolin as the host of a bat virus that jumped to a human strain now known as covid 19 or corona virus.
It was  internationally spread from Wuhan in China by  human travel.
Its route to Ireland was manifold  and it may have traveled from China, Italy,  and Singapore initially as well as some other well documented routes. From my reading of the situation International travel will  be the cause of this viral infections longevity.
The effects of this virus have been far reaching and wide, not least it has so far taken the lives of 1,777 people who got in its way in the Rep. of Ireland and 848,000 people word wide.
Needless to say it has to be halted and to date the majority of the population have followed the  recommendations of the Irish Government in this regard, who follow the advice of local health experts and the World Health Organisation. My post here has no wish to deflect from the gravity of this situation. But I could not help but notice the shabby and crass nature of one  manifestation of my local councils response to covid 19. In fact I feel that it could be argued that the particular visuals facilitated by these council actions shows a lack of respect to those who have suffered the effects of this virus.

                                                                                                                                                           

So, here I am speaking of the Dublin City Council Covid Mobility Team who have engineered  mobility solutions which aid peoples travels around its  physical area of responsibility. A noble aspiration which they describe the following way, (their objectives I have described above)

The measures developed in response to these objectives are being introduced to respond to a new and unprecedented emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.  They are being implemented on a temporary basis to respond to the urgent and immediate needs of the city.  They will be reviewed periodically to assess their effectiveness and, because of their nature and type of implementation, can be modified as needed to respond to changing needs and requirements.

In Grangegorman  Dublin 7 they have erected a road block described as Filtered permeability, in their words, 

Filtered permeability is effectively a ‘cycle gate’-cyclists are able to travel through the ‘cycle gate’but other  vehicles cannot. Implementation  of  filtered  permeability  will  not result  in  any changes to existing footpath facilities.  The  filtered  permeability  trial  on Grangegorman  Lower is  due  to  commence  on 6  July  2020. The  measure  will  use  bollards  to  prevent  motorised  through  traffic  in  order  to  create  a pedestrian  and  cycle  friendly  zone  and  a  safer  space  for  local  residents  and  for  thousands  of pedestrians and cyclists arriving at TUD from September 2020.

In their description in documentation there is no reference to the means of negating the existing parking bays on the very wide concourse outside the HSE Building which was at one time the centre piece of the Grangegorman  complex. (It is only these particular measures I am referring to here). 

It is achieved by the combination of a new set of 24hour clearway signs, and a bunch of dishevelled  potted palms that have seen better days( since their first sightings in 2012), The already generous footpaths have been extended onto the road and marked out with a row of new luminous stick bollards. 

                                                                               

This now large open space can only be described as the  proverbial ‘Dogs Dinner’ and the lack of though by those who designed this feature leaves the council open to accusations of shoddy practices. When the dust settles and the area is a bustling concourse full of local and student life I sincerely hope that some better street furniture is chosen. Something  that may synergise with the fine design and restoration already evident on the Grangegorman site.