Decades after the last automatic rising bollards were covered over, motorists are to be blocked from car-free areas with the use of automatic bollards. Dublin City Council is aware that motorists regularly run over bollards on Capel Street, which is illegal as the street is limited to delivery access for drivers.
Automatic bollards were used around Temple Bar in the 2000s but were covered over after they were not maintained.
Internationally, there are many viral videos showing motorists illegally trying to gain access to locations damaging bollards, which is at least one of the parts of the maintenance problems.
One infamous example from 2022 was when a new bollard system in the Hauge was damaged 50 times in one week, with the repairs and clean-up reportedly costing an estimated €7,000 euros each time. That case in the Hague was on what looks to be more like a road, while, in Dublin, the bollards are to be used at more traffic calmed access points to car-free areas.
Modren rising bollards, however, seem to have been used successfully as part of a controlled access system to central street Waterford City since 2018 (location pictured above), with the city installing another automated system in 2023.
Galway also has a system of 16 hydraulically operated automatic bollards across 8 locations around the pedestrianised Shop Street. These were replaced in 2019/2020, but the previous bollards were active for at least a number of years previously.
Now, Dublin City Council is due to follow in Waterford’s and Galway’s footsteps and install bollards in Capel Street to tackle motorists illegally entering the street by running over the plastic bollards, which are put in place outside of delivery times.
Cllr Cat O’Driscoll (SocDems), who is supportive of the car-free Capel Street, said at a recent council meeting that there are a number of issues and questions about the street, including the reinstatement of the surface where utility work has been undertaken, and if automatic bollards would allow for instant access for emergency vehicles.
Claire French, a senior executive engineer with Dublin City Council’s transport section, said utility companies should be replacing surfaces after works are finished. She said that it is an ongoing issue for contractors for utility companies not to use the same surface when filling in holes.
She said the emergency services would have access to the bollard controls.
French said: “They’ll be tied into our traffic control centre… we’ll be able to lower them, the Gardaí and Dublin Fire Brigade will be able to lower them, but the people driving over [the current plastic bollards] daily won’t be able to get in.”
The bollards are planned to be opened at the time allowed for deliveries, from 6am to 11am.
Cllr Feljin Jose (Green Party) asked for further improvements towards the bottom of the street near PantiBar, and he welcomed the automated bollards, saying that the current plastic bollards are just getting run over.
He also questioned why automated bollards were not used on the recently renewal project covering Liffey Street Lower and Liffey Street Upper. The plans showed them on the street with a report calling them “retractable anti-hostile bollards”.
French said: “We have the technology now. I know they were put in in the early 2000s, and I believe they didn’t work, but I believe they’ve come a long way. Hopefully, they’ll be a success and will be rolled out,” she said.
She added that other projects, including the Duke St and Anne St South Public Realm Project, also plan to use automated bollards, and the city council is planning to use Capel Street as a type of “test case” to start using them again.
There are retractable bollards nearby at the Broadstone Plaza
Hi Sam… Somebody else mentioned that on Bluesky… at Broadstone, while it is now controlled by DCC, the lead agency on that project, I understand, was the Grangegorman Development Authority (who installed rising bollards on other parts of the Grangegorman Campus development too) and it’s more limited access than a car park while this article is talking about car-free city centre streets where illegal car access is an issue and where DCC are doing it themself for the first time in decades.
It’s about time that Dublin City Council re-introduced these pop-up bollards. I come across them everywhere in France and those authorised to access the zone are provided with a fob or a keypad code.
And as we all know WorldBollardAssociation on SM keeps us amused by the antics of some cretinous drivers who are loose in our congested urban areas.
@worldbollardassoc.bsky.social
France has pop up bollards and they work. Council and emergency vehicles have access, it’s a simple system