The Grand Canal Grand Cycle

Posted on May 7, 2006
Filed Under Rant, architecture, biking, culture |

With apologies to the Fast Show. On Saturday, I was mostly cycling along the Grand Canal.

I started at the Baggot Street end and cycled west? I believe the canal ends in Kildare somewhere but I wasn’t going that far. Not on a first date and certainly not with the rain clouds gathering! Just like a first date, everything was quite pleasant to begin with. The sculptures behaved professionally & stood still, the local wildlife dropped by to say ‘hi’, and no beggars asked me for money. I got there by taking a non-direct path through St Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square but you’ll have to visit my Flickr Dublin 4 photo set for more info on that half-hour of my life.

One thing that struck me about Saturday’s cycle was the ‘public’ streetscape scape on view from Dublin 4 up to Rialto*. (* I’m a Northsider and all the Southside is just the ‘Southside’ to me). Now admittedly, the bridges, pathways etc in Dublin 4 were probably built 100 years ago at great British expense but, come on, the design standards of the newer bridges, public amentity spaces, benches, trees etc noticeably decreased as I cycled west. I’m not a ‘the grass is greener … it wasn’t like that in my day‘ type of person (?). I believe in modern design but Dublin has to try harder - look here for good examples (IMHO).

The further west one went, the worse it got. Outside of D.4, there were no pedestrian crossings at junctions. Cycle lane or no, this made it quite dangerous for someone wearing rain-splattered glasses travelling on a bike with non-functioning brakes. Basically, I had no idea where I were going, I couldn’t see where I was going and I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to!

Roughly 6 roads, a Luas line and the canal meet in Rialto*. Admittedly, there were pedestrian crossings this time but the whole streetscape appeared to be just thrown together. Why the Council didn’t make a big deal about the meeting of feet, bicycles, barges, cars, Luas & buses seems odd to me. Look at Dundrum. Even Nature was getting depressed. Look at the difference between the Portobello Bridge photo (that’s the (ahem) artistic long distance photo taken under the trees) and the Rialto* council flats photo.

As I cycled through Riato*, I got depressed and started to turn back. The rain started it but the flats depressed me. Were the barren trees designed to stop people looking out (you’ll always be locked up: either here or in prison) or were they planted to stop people looking in (sweep the problem under the carpet)? In fairness, it had started to rain so the view to this glasses-wearer wasn’t great anyway. Looking at the skyline, I saw civilistation (the incinerator chimney** in St James!) so headed that way. Looks like the whole area is being done up and hopefully, the council will learn from their previous mistakes (e.g. Rialto*).

I was going to include a photo of the ~~BTSB building~~ at the rear of St James as it’s quite nice. But then I realised it’s very, very similar to the Genetics building in Trinity so why bother? Instead I’ve put in this (ahem) artistic photo of the Luas line at the rear of the hospital. Germ of an idea. Can you take your bike on the Luas?? I’ve fond memories of getting the DART out to Bray & climbing the ‘hill’ when I was younger.