Maybe it makes sense to locals, but for a tourist, Dublin’s one way system is the most infuriating I’ve ever encountered. And I wasn’t even driving the car myself.
Ginger Yellow,
I recall attempting to find my way to a B&B in Dublin, jet lagged and driving a rented car. I kept arriving at the right road from different angles, but I was never permitted to turn onto it. My wife started crying, because she was so tired and desperate for a toilet. Eventually, I stopped the car, walked to the B&B (a few hundred yards) and then navigated my way back to the car by following the one-way streets backwards. I have never been so confused in any other city.
Pshaw. The bridge is intended to improve north-south traffic, not east-west traffic.
The worst thing about routes in Dublin isn’t the one-way system; it’s the necessity to work out three junctions in advance which lane to get into, based on arrows painted on the tarmac which are invisible when it’s raining or when there’s, y’know, a car over them.
Navigating round Buenos Aires with the Borges Memorial A-Z [1] is not recommended, as the library required to hold it is significantly larger than the city itself.
I tried using the Borges-Eco Buenos Aires City Plan instead, but it’s on a scale of 1:1 which makes it a) logically inevitably incorrect and b) tricky to fold.
Via my cousin Ronan, Dublin City Council on how to get to, or not get to, the new Samuel Beckett Bridge.
{ 19 comments }
Jeffrey Rubard 12.11.09 at 5:03 pm
Is it on fire? Is it on fire? The answer may surprise some, and not others: “No”, or alternatively “probably not”.
Michael Bérubé 12.11.09 at 5:18 pm
I was on that bridge. It was midnight. It was raining.
giotto 12.11.09 at 5:19 pm
One imagines the same traffic engineers working on the access routes to the Franz Kafka International Airport (note: video).
Steve LaBonne 12.11.09 at 5:19 pm
This cannot lead to confusion.
Jeffrey Rubard 12.11.09 at 5:30 pm
Ah, Michael, a Konstatierung.
Ginger Yellow 12.11.09 at 6:04 pm
Maybe it makes sense to locals, but for a tourist, Dublin’s one way system is the most infuriating I’ve ever encountered. And I wasn’t even driving the car myself.
Nick 12.11.09 at 7:13 pm
Ginger Yellow,
I recall attempting to find my way to a B&B in Dublin, jet lagged and driving a rented car. I kept arriving at the right road from different angles, but I was never permitted to turn onto it. My wife started crying, because she was so tired and desperate for a toilet. Eventually, I stopped the car, walked to the B&B (a few hundred yards) and then navigated my way back to the car by following the one-way streets backwards. I have never been so confused in any other city.
roac 12.11.09 at 10:17 pm
This makes slightly more sense if y’all drive on the left in Ireland. Which you do, amirite?
NomadUK 12.11.09 at 10:32 pm
Of course they do. What other side would one drive on?
roac 12.11.09 at 10:35 pm
“Fog Over Channel, Continent Isolated.”
mollymooly 12.11.09 at 11:22 pm
Pshaw. The bridge is intended to improve north-south traffic, not east-west traffic.
The worst thing about routes in Dublin isn’t the one-way system; it’s the necessity to work out three junctions in advance which lane to get into, based on arrows painted on the tarmac which are invisible when it’s raining or when there’s, y’know, a car over them.
skidmarx 12.12.09 at 2:19 pm
Twinned with the bridges of Konigsberg?
Glen Tomkins 12.12.09 at 4:05 pm
Well, it’s less of a problem for traffic than the Sartre Bridge would be. It, of course, would be a No Exit bridge.
Tomboktu 12.13.09 at 12:21 am
http://dublinopinion.com/2009/12/10/sam-beckett-bridge/
Alex B 12.13.09 at 12:51 pm
Reminds me of the security cameras on Plaza de George Orwell in Barcelona.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/karramarro/19138872/
Zarquon 12.14.09 at 9:49 am
If you haven’t had to do a hook turn, you haven’t lived.
ajay 12.14.09 at 10:46 am
The Flann O’Brien bridge, meanwhile, is only open to bicycle traffic.
Is that right?
It is so. Only the bicycles. No room for the lads in cars at all, they said.
Richard J 12.14.09 at 12:15 pm
Navigating round Buenos Aires with the Borges Memorial A-Z [1] is not recommended, as the library required to hold it is significantly larger than the city itself.
[1] Babel edition.
ajay 12.15.09 at 10:54 am
I tried using the Borges-Eco Buenos Aires City Plan instead, but it’s on a scale of 1:1 which makes it a) logically inevitably incorrect and b) tricky to fold.
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