Editorials

The Irish Times view on pedestrianisation: make it permanent

People are unlikely to tolerate a return to pre-pandemic car dominance

Dining out on Capel Street, Dublin, where parts of the street were pedestrianised during the pandemic. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill

Fri Oct 1 2021 - 19:10

Tomorrow the trial pedestrianisation of Capel Street and Parliament Street in Dublin city centre will finally come to an end, according to Dublin City Council. It has twice extended the trial introduced in June, but said any future car bans or restrictions implemented on these streets will be permanent.

The council has in recent weeks held a consultation process on what form any restrictions should take, with options including retaining the current weekend evening pedestrianisation; extending this weeklong; full pedestrianisation on a 24/7 basis; or scrapping car restrictions. It is likely there will be overwhelming support for, at the very least, keeping the weekend evening car bans.

However, and this is largely the reason for the failure to go straight from the original trial to a permanent solution, pedestrianisation is not universally popular. Invariably the first argument against it, in regional cities as much as in Dublin, is that public transport is too poor to stop people using their cars to access the city.

This is a red herring. None of the schemes in Dublin, Cork, Galway or Limerick ban people from using their cars to get to town. They restrict cars from using certain streets but, to take Capel Street as an example, using it as an access route to or though the city would be utter madness given it is almost permanently at a standstill, mostly with motorists looking for on-street parking.

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Other arguments are more legitimate. Businesses will be inconvenienced and will have to schedule deliveries to come before 11am, as with nearby Henry Street, pedestrianised decades ago. Residents also have access concerns, as well as fears of a Temple Bar mark 2 with marauding drunken gangs. However, these are not flaws with pedestrianisation per se, rather they are issues relating to the management of pedestrian spaces. The use of retractable bollards allowing access for residents and businesses could be considered, and an effective night-time management plan put in place. Such solutions must be explored as it is unlikely citizens will tolerate a return to pre-pandemic car dominance.

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