Pedestrianisation is good for people and good for business
Throngs of people stroll, linger, mingle, shop, eat and drink. There are street musicians and entertainers. People enjoy themselves and businesses thrive. Ireland’s squalid urban environment, in comparison, is dominated by the noise and fumes of traffic, with narrow irregular pavements, littered with parked cars and nowhere for pubs and cafes to place tables and chairs.
In the past, lack of imagination and the failure of councils to consult the public has resulted in schemes like Bantry Square, in Bantry, Co Cork, which have achieved the worst of all possible worlds. A million pounds were spent transforming the square, which served as a carpark and market place, into a giant roundabout with a soulless plaza in the middle, while the town’s broken-down pavements remained so narrow there is hardly space for two people to pass.
Following a legal challenge, the market was reinstated. The best solution would have been to widen pavements, pedestrianise the main street and retain most of the parking in the square with a simple two-lane road.
The other mistake, repeated in towns all over Ireland, is to provide roadside parking in main streets rather than off-street. This ensures towns become gridlocked as motorists manoeuvre in and out of parking spaces. Pavements could be widened to facilitate a pleasant urban landscape.
The suggestion that park-and-ride is the solution to traffic problems lessens the supposed convenience of the car. The only sensible solution is decent public transport and incentives to use it.
Michael Job
Rossnagrena
Glengarriff
Co Cork
