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30 km/h Speed Limit on all Residential Roads!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
30 km/h Speed Limit on all Residential Roads!

You might think it is an April Fool’s Joke, but such nonsense is just day-to-day business in Dublin: From 01 April there is a 30 km/h speed limit on all residential roads between the canals all day, every day. I am totally on favour of 30 km/h speed limits near schools, in areas with a large amount of pedestrians and in other danger spots. But a blanked speed limit of 30 km/h is total nonsense.

Dublin City claims it will save lives, but they don’t seem to substantiate that with clear numbers that tell us how many people actually died in traffic accidents between the canals in the last 12 months or the last few years. And out of these fatal accidents, I would like to know how many involved a speed of the car of more than 30 km/h. I bet Dublin City has NO such numbers or statistics, so they just use the emotional argument that lives will be saved, expecting that everybody will shut up then.

Speed limits should make sense, then the majority of people will stick to them. But where they don’t make sense, the “30” signs are a waste of effort and the speed limit will have absolutely no effect.

At the time of writing this, the new speed limit wasn’t in effect yet, so we will have to see after 01 April if the “residential road” classification was applied to the right streets, let me know if you find streets that are in the speed limit zones that shouldn’t be. Oh and if you think it won’t affect you because you don’t have a car, think again: Every bus and every taxi will also have to adhere to the limit. (Only cyclists don’t have to! They can now easily overtake busses and cars at any speed they like because they can’t be taken to task when exceeding the limit.)

Dublin, Traffic,

Dublin’s Wax Museum is back …or maybe not?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Dublin’s Wax Museum is back …or maybe not?

The Wax Museum Plus is on its way back (or will be back soon), but oddly it won’t be a museum anymore, according to its director. I wasn’t invited to the launch (which happened without a single wax figure!), so I can only go by what others wrote about it, but it seems that the Wax Museum Plus (the plus stands for museum elements that were not wax figures) will re-open its doors again soon at a different location, but still in the City Centre.

The museum originally started in 1983 on Granby Row, near Parnell Square. That building was sold around 2000 and replaced by a hotel. The content of the museum was also sold to a Patrick Dunning and in 2009 the museum re-opened at Foster Place off College Green. In December 2016, it had to move again because the Irish Stock Exchange bought the building and now in Spring 2017 (probably around April) it will re-open in Westmoreland Street in the former Manchester United shop (later the the Lafayette night club).

In his article on The Journal.ie, Daragh Brophy describes an early media tour. He explains that there was no single wax figure in place yet and that the owner and director tried to convince the reporter that this is a museum that is not a museum, but was a museum but is now not a museum any longer. :-O He also mentions that there will be a new features, like an Augmented Reality aspect where your mobile phone will bring some of the figures to live. The article also includes a picture of Bertie Ahern with his wax figure…that doesn’t look like Bertie Ahern at all. :-O

 

Dublin, Events, Tourism, ,

Watch out! Sheerios expected to be on a stampede on Thursday night!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Watch out! Sheerios expected to be on a stampede on Thursday night!

RTE has reported that a number of Irish record shops will be open from Midnight on Thursday 02 March so that people can by the newest record by Ed Sheeran IMMEDIATELY when it is released.

WTF? It is ridiculous enough that Apple Stores open at midnight when a new iPhone is released considering that you could just stay in bed until the next morning and then leisurely stroll into your Apple Store and buy it at a time when normal people buy stuff. But ok, we know that Apple fan boys and girls need to tell their friends that they were there first.

That “virus” has now spread to Ed Sheeran fans? Apparently his fans are called “Sheerios”. (Not sure though if it is a flock of Sheerios or a herd of Sheerios or a gaggle of Sheerios that will be in Tower Records on Thursday night.)

Sure there is nothing wrong with being a big fan and there is also nothing wrong with shopping at midnight (I have been in Tesco myself around that time when many Tesco’s in Ireland were still open 24hrs.) but the mad run or queueing for something that is NOT scarce and will be plentiful in shops on the next day, just seems odd.

Dublin, Events, Society,

Suicidal Cyclists? – Helmet: Check! Lights: Who cares?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Suicidal Cyclists? – Helmet: Check! Lights: Who cares?

Let me start with the promise that this won’t be one of these many blanket rants about cyclists that we find in plenty of media outlets, but it is an odd observation that I made in the last two week.

I don’t know if this is a new trend or a test of courage or stupidity or suicidal tendency among cyclists?! But in the last two weeks I encountered four (!) cyclists that were perfectly equipped with helmets and a pretty bike and even with lycras, but they completely left out the lights when they cycled at around 19:00/20:00 in pitch dark.

How can this happen? If they think they can be seen without lights or if they think nobody has to see them, then they are idiots. If they were just badly equipped or not serious cyclists or caught out by sudden darkness, I could understand it. But this time of the year, it is more dark then bright and these four were serious cyclists (judging by their good and serious bikes) and they were people that seemingly were aware of the general risk, otherwise they wouldn’t wear a helmet. ALL four wore a helmet!!!

How can you leave the house and check if you have your helmet and your bike and your bike lock and if you have put your lycras on, but then leave the lights behind? How can you think that it is in any way safe to cycle anywhere if you don’t have strong front and back lights?

Sure it can happen that you forget something (even lights) or that you run out of batteries/charge, despite otherwise really good planning. But FOUR forgetful cyclists in two weeks? Do they maybe really not realise that they are virtually invisible in the night?

Odd!!

Dublin, Odd, Traffic,

Snobbery in Dublin stops people from getting lower priced groceries!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Snobbery in Dublin stops people from getting lower priced groceries!

Once upon a time I was forced to buy my groceries in Superquinn. That was even before Tesco was in Ireland and before Aldi and Lidl arrived. Then I remember the week the first Aldi in Parnell Street opened. There were queues outside the shop and inside you couldn’t use a trolley because we had to walk through the shops like ducks in a row because there were soooo many people inside.

Nearly every Aldi and Lidl in Dublin (and there are MANY now) is busy and the market share of the two shop chains keeps growing, but there are some people who still think that they are too good to shop in Aldi and Lidl. But this snobbery is crumbling when you experience the high quality goods for SIGNIFICANTLY lower prices than others charge.

Oddly, though, when it comes to setting up new shops, some parts of Dublin are still totally against an Aldi or Lidl in their neighbourhood and I don’t believe for a minute that this is because of the dying village centres (they are already dead since Centra, Spar and Starbucks took over) or because of the REAL traffic increase. Maybe the PERCEIVED increase and this always reminds me of the stupid idea that Fingal County had when they limited the opening hours if Ikea near Ballymun and tried to force the shop to charge for parking during peak hours to avoid that looming traffic chaos that would bring the M50 to a stand still. Nothing like that ever happened and Ikea luckily was able to change the Fingal County rules.

So it is either a total misjudgement regarding traffic OR it is snobbery and I think ultimately it is the snobbery that is the reason for the NOs in Castleknock and Clonsilla that is described in this article www.thejournal.ie/lidl-2-3201010-Jan2017/

By the way, both Aldi and Lidl have managed to create pretty and very well integrated shops in some areas, so the look of the shops is not a good enough reason anymore to reject them.

 

Dublin, Economy, Odd, Society, , , , ,
 
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