Businesses in the area west of Dublin’s Grafton Street are calling for extra pedestrian streets to give visitors the “Covent Garden experience.”

Dublin City councillors are set to be asked to approve a four to six month trial to remove traffic from South William Street (pictured above), Drury Street, Dame Court and Dame Lane (see map below).

If the proposal is given the green light by the council, motorised traffic and on-street parking will be removed from the streets. Access routes, however, would be maintained to all of the car parks in the area between Grafton Street and Great George’s Street.

The proposed pedestrian streets are also planned to be accessible to cyclists at all times but priority is held by pedestrians.

Lord mayor of Dublin City, councillor Andrew Montague (Labour), said “It’s got great potential, and it is well worth trying it out.”

Montague said: “We need to get the message across that we are not closing the area off to traffic… people can come, drive in, and park. There’s six large car parks in the area and they will be kept accessible.”

Philip O’Donoghue, who is leading the campaign for the extra pedestrian streets, said it would give visitors to the area the “Covent Garden experience”.

Dame Lane, the smaller of the four streets proposed to be pedestrianised

He claims that between 80% and 90% of businesses in the area support the trial.

“About 90% of businesses I’ve spoken to, and BIDs [Dublin City Business Improvement District] have said around 80% they have spoken to are in favour of the proposals,” said O’Donoghue.

O’Donoghue said it was about “improving the experience” of an already vibrant area, which includes a mix of restaurants, cafes, bars, and generally smaller retailers than on the nearby Grafton Street.

The area was recently branded as “Dublin’s Creative Quarter” and described as “a hub of innovation which hosts an exceptional array of designer boutiques, creative businesses and plenty more.”

Those backing the trial are hopeful it could get going as soon as July and last at least until October before it is re-evaluated. The trial is not planned to include any new paving or resurfacing.

“It looks like it is likely we will get a trial. The advantage is there is very little cost to put it in place or to reverse it if needed,” said O’Donoghue.

Montague agreed that the “overwhelming majority” of businesses support the plan, but added that details raised by businesses, such as having clear signage, need to be done correctly.

“The trial needs to be at the right time of the year so it takes in a quieter time and a busier time in the autumn. Christmas is so important for retail, we only want it in places for Christmas if it is working,” said Montague.

“You need to be flexible if there are issues, you can’t be overly dogmatic,” he said.

The current proposals are scaled back from the original plan which had included making more streets in the area pedestrian-only. O’Donoghue says the modifications are based on feedback from businesses, councillors and traffic engineers.

The high level of support from most businesses in the area can be seen as unusual compared to such proposals making headlines for opposition from traders. Grafton Street’s pedestrianisation was delayed by over 16 years after traffic-centred complaints from retailers and others.

In recent years pedestrian schemes in Dun Laoghaire and Sligo town were reversed, although Sligo council are due to re-pedestrianise the town’s O’Connell Street.

Pedestrianisation has proven to be highly popular in Dublin City Centre in the areas around both Grafton Street and Henry Street, as well as in Temple Bar and in the Docklands. Pedestrian streets in Galway City and Wexford are also seen as highly successful.

STREET VIEW: South William Street; Drury Street; Dame Court; Dame Lane

MORE: Dublin2Walk campaign on Facebook
MORE: Expanded D2 pedestrian zone gains support

View South William Street area in a larger map

IMAGES:  Main image of South William Street  Some rights reserved by infomatique. Other images and graphics by Dublin Observer.

The lack of compatibly between Leap cards and train station ticket machines has been one of the main complaints about the electronic ticket which can be used across most public transport in Dublin.

At the moment, while you can use Leap to take a train in the Dublin area, you cannot use ticket machines at Irish Rail stations to top up or check the balance of your card.

In response to a question as to why the card does not work at their stations, Irish Rail said on Twitter last week: “[The function] will be available in April. Upgrading our machines at present to facilitate top-up.”

On the Irish Rail network, the Leap card can be only used within the area shown on the map below:

Here’s the population sizes of the counties of Ireland mapped:

DATA SOURCE: Census 2011 on cso.ie

Estimating  the size of the crowd at protests can be a pain the head. However, things get vastly easier if the protest stops somewhere and you have fairly clear photographs of the protesters and the area they are occupying, ideally taken from a vantage point.

The household charge protest yesterday meets those requirements when it was outside the Dublin convention centre in the Docklands.

From within the convention centre, David Cochrane of politics.ie had such an advantage point to take photos. He stitched the images together and posted the combined image to the politics.ie Facebook page. He says the protest was static at the time. The crowd all in one pic is also shown on irishtimes.com – while this image shows the mass of the crowd all in one, it does not show us the ends (but Cochrane’s image already shows us this).

Now you need to get the area. Roughly Cochrane’s image shows that the protest fills Guild Street from the quay side to nearly as far as the Luas tracks, as well as a small bit onto the Samuel Beckett bridge and a a few meters west on North Wall Quay. Along Guild Street, in satellite view, Google Maps still shows the current park and footpath (where the protest barrier is located) as part of the buildings site, but with local knowledge, we know that the location is just meters past the old wall shown on Google Maps.

Roughly, but at the same time conservatively, the protest filled at least this area:

(If the map image does not show, click here to see it on Twitpic)

That’s just under 4,000 meters squared (3974.41 m²). Because this is an estimate, we’ll just say 4,000 m².

But how many people are there per square meter? Yesterday, on the way to what turned out to be a tram which was not running, I walked past the south-west end of the protest and it looked fairly compact (it was hard to get past with a pram!), but it’s best to rely on an overall view. Images from news site including this gallery on thejournal.ie also show an overall fairly compact crowd, with some spread out bits — there’s some places where there’s gaps but in the middle and near to the top of the barriers people are very close together.

Writing about protest crowd counting, the BBC says: “…three people per square metre is comfortable and four is like a rock concert”.

Going by the photographs and the rest of the above, one person per square meter would be far more spread out than what is shown. Given the protest area was conservatively 4,000  m², that discounts the lower estimates for yesterday of 4,000 people.

While there might be parts of the protests near the barriers which look a bit like a rock concert closeness, it does not meet that level overall. If as the BBC says “three people per square metre is comfortable” and that could be applied to the protest, then there would have been about 12,000 people. That would put the upper estimate above the 10,000 protesters claimed by some of the organisers.

But going by the photographs — which have to be relied on because this writer did not walk around the protest — there were some significant gaps which make three people per square meter unrealistic. The 10,000 figure could be more realistic as an upper estimate.

What about the lower range? If three people per square metre is comfortable, two per square meter must be very comfortable. Two people per square meter in this case is 8,000 people — well above most reported estimates.

Even if you departed from all of the above evidence and came up with a very conservative estimate of 1.5 people per square meter, that gives 6,000 people which is again above most reported estimates.

But going by the evidence, between 8,000 to 10,000 people is our estimate.

For the record: We also estimated the numbers at a past protest, which was other issues.  The figure we arrived at was 10,000 people less than the most reported figure, and an eye-watering 60,000 less that the crazy higher estimate reported by The Guardian for the protest. So, it’s not a case of the media always doing one thing or another, in that case the media had a high figure and in this case a fairly low one.

MAIN IMAGE: William Murphy / infomatique on Flickr, CC some rights reserved.

Children and toddlers played on the street outside their houses:

It’s a reminder that streets don’t all have to be car parks and rat runs. Why isn’t the above planned?

While it might be unreasonable for streets everywhere to be closed, Grangegorman Upper is an example where this might work on a more permanent bases — on-street parking is far from being in short supply and there is a parallel alternative access route to Grangegorman Lower.

A “Mad Hatter’s” street party is to mark the start of weekend closures of a small part of the main avenue in the Phoenix Park, which handles 10 million car journeys per year.

The Office of Public Works has given notice that it is to close of around 1.2km of Chesterfield Avenue, the main road in the park, from 10pm on Friday evenings to 10pm on Sundays.

The closures will start in two week’s time, on Friday April 8.

The park’s conservation management plan (PDF) recommends the “closure of most roads to vehicular traffic at evenings and weekends” – although the current plan comes nowhere close to this. No weekday evening closures are currently planned.

The avenue stretches from Parkgate Street near the quays to Castleknock and serves as a commuting route from the Dublin 15 area to the city centre, but there are no plans to restrict motorised traffic at weekday rush hours.

Chesterfield Avenue is to be closed between the Phoenix roundabout near the middle of the park and the Mountjoy roundabout at the Casleknock end. Access to the park’s car parks will be maintained.

The OPW said the aim was to increase “use of the park as recreational resource for the public to enjoy” and restrict “unnecessary and or through [motorised] traffic at weekends”, which was recommended in the recently published Phoenix Park Conservation Management Plan 2011.

“The closures will be monitored closely for the Spring-Summer period as an initial pilot project,” Margaret Gormley, park superintendent, said in a statement.

The closed road will be used on Saturday April 9 to host a Mad Hatter-themed family street party, part of the Phoenix Park 350th Anniversary celebrations. The street party will run from 12 noon to 4pm.

The OPW said that “pedestrians, cyclists, runners, and toddlers” will be allowed on the avenue and the event will include a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, Easter egg hunt, children’s games, a farmer’s market, and music.

Other measures in the conservation plan include discouraging commuting motorists from using parking spaces provided to park users and visitors to the Zoo.

Chesterfield Avenue was recently closed for a number of months for road repair and resurfacing working.

On the discussion website boards.ie, one commuter wrote: “Prepare for 3 months of gridlock!”. While the works were ongoing, there were mixed views; One person on the site said: “I reckon it’s added on about 12 minutes to the journey time in the morning”, while another replied: “If anything its improved my commuting journey time… by about 10~15 mins.”

View Phoenix Park in a larger map

CORRECTION: This article originally stated a much larger section of the main avenue was to close. This was an error on our part, we apologise for the error and any confusion which it may have caused.

“A 16-year-old youth sustained serious injuries and was removed to the Mater Hospital. The scene is currently preserved,” said Sergeant Margaret Flanagan.

Anyone who may have witnessed this assault or who may have information is asked to contact Fitzgibbon Street Garda Station 01- 666 8400, the Garda Confidential Line 1-800-666-111 or any Garda Station.

Gardai have appealed for help finding 15-year-old Paddy Cash who has been missing from Drumcondra since April 13.

“He is described as being approximately 5’6” in height, of medium build, with brown hair and brown eyes. When last seen he was wearing a grey hoodie, black tracksuit bottoms and white runners,” said Sergeant Brian Whelan.

Anyone with information is asked to contact the Gardaí at Mountjoy Garda Station on 01-666 8600, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.

The shooting happened at Myra Close, Inchicore.

Earlier, Sergeant Damian Hogan said: “He was taken to St James Hospital and subsequently transferred to Beaumont Hospital where his condition is described as critical. The scene is currently sealed off pending a Garda technical examination.”

“Gardai are appealing to anyone who was in the Myra Close/ Emmet Road of Inchicore this afternoon to contact the incident room at Kilmainham Garda Station on 01-666 9700, the Garda Confidential Line 1-800-666-111 or any Garda Station.”

The National Transport Authority (NTA) said on bank holiday Monday that it is approving adult fare increases up to 5.1% which will come into affect this Sunday, May 1.

“Passenger numbers on Dublin Bus have fallen in the first quarter of 2011, by approximately 5%. The company therefore was obliged to revisit its prepaid fares rather than risk reducing services to customers, as the state subvention monies are reduced this year and fuel costs continue to rise,” the NTA said on its website.

Pre-paid ticket prices were already increased last September, at the time the NTA said its permission was not required to increase such discounted pre-paid fares, but it added that Dublin Bus notified them in advance and “we had no objection.”

The price hikes next week range from €0.20 for a 1-Day Adult Ramble ticket to €50 for a combined annual bus and Luas ticket. Cash fares also went up in February.

The authority said child and schoolchild tickets will not be affected.