Phibsborough LEIP Implementation – Progress Report

The Shop Front Scheme
The initiative Scheme will be rolled out early in the New Year. Advertisement leaflet to be circulated to the Implementation Group. Phibsborough Tidy Towns to be requested to assist with the advertisement of the scheme – “door knocking”. Important to not however, that any proposed improvements must be Planning compliant.

Expand and enhance Mount Bernard Park
The Parks Department met with Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) and the outcome was that they would do some due diligence work in relation to any potential land transfer. The issues are:
• Clarification that TII don’t have any strategic need to retain the lands into the future
• That there are no potential hazards to the public in DCC taking in charge of the lands and developing it for public use/access
• That there are no significant costs or liabilities to be incurred by DCC in taking in charge these lands
The Park Service met with the environmental consultancy that carried out the original investigation, report and risk assessments into the contamination and potential future usage of these lands. The recommendations of this report and risk assessment, whereby the entire site be sealed with a geotextile membrane and covered with 600mm of uncontaminated soil, would be prohibitively expensive. The Parks Service has requested that Golder provide an updated risk assessment and remediation plan in the context of the ‘nature park’ proposal previously discussed rather than developing the site to traditional parkland. A first draft of the report is expected in the new year.
It must be noted that there is no guarantee that the updated risk assessment will roll back on the previous recommendations.

Royal Canal Greenway
Phase 2: Sheriff Street to Newcomen Bridge:
Jons Civil Engineering Ltd. has been awarded the contract for the works and is currently carrying out pre-commencement tasks (e.g. preparation of method statements and traffic management plans) that will be reviewed by DCC and Irish Rail in order to allow works to commence. First activities on site will include site set-up, hoarding, security fencing, rodent control and invasive species (Japanese Knotweed) management. Works are ongoing with the pre-commencement tasks. The Rodent Riddance programme for the site commenced 10th December 2018 and will be complete by 21st December 2018. The Contractor (Jons Civil Engineering Ltd) is scheduled to commence construction works during the second week of January 2019.

Phase 3: Newcomen Bridge to Cross Guns Bridge:
The consultant is currently finalising the tender documents and it is intended to issue for tender before the end of 2018. Separately we are working to secure agreements with Waterways Ireland and Irish Rail to allow the works to commence.

Phase 4: Cross Guns Bridge to Ashtown:
ROD-AECOM Consulting Engineers are progressing the design of Phase 4. Detailed design of the linkage to the Broombridge Luas terminus is being prepared for review. Design options for the underpass below the Maynooth railway line are also being prepared for review. Design for the future linkage at Ashtown (to Cardiffsbridge Park and Ashtown Gate, Phoenix Park) is on hold pending discussions with Iarnród Éireann. Additional traffic and topographical surveys are to be procured in the coming weeks.

Open up Berkley Road Park
Communications between the City Council and the Mater Hospital have concluded with a decision not to open up Berkley Road Park at this time.

Undertake an audit of existing youth/ community centres with a view to optimising use of existing facilities.
Work continues on the Dublin City Cultural Map project which is developing a comprehensive database (which will link with the GIS system internally) and a user-friendly website of the city’s culture; spanning arts, heritage, sport, recreation, food, science, the environment and more. The technical requirements are still being coordinated between all the partners, ongoing, however, is the work to collect data from Dublin City Council sections and wider through online surveys and connections with many bodies throughout Dublin. We are working to generate varied and high-quality outputs for the cultural map that will complement the data. We are working towards launching a ‘live’ version of the map in Spring 2019.

Develop a local historical/ cultural / tourist trail for the area, which promotes places of interest, both in map form and as an app for smartphones. This process shall document all existing plaques within the area and examine wayfinding systems. It should link Phibsborough with neighbouring key cultural areas.
SBIR Wayfinding Update December 2018
In relation to the wayfinding project. Only one project progressed to the phase 2 – this was the route4u. They are making good progress – see links below

Route4U footpath accessibility campaign across Ireland

New initiative uses smartphones to improve navigation for wheelchair users

We found that the other proposals/projects were lacking in terms of their approaches / ideas for the level of innovation required as part of the SBIR criteria. Fingal were leading on this project so we will need to ask them for an overview report when the project closes.
In my experience on this I found it hard to differentiate digitally from the google maps offering and we didn’t want to fund projects that were recreating this. The use of AR was interesting but again how practical would this be in an open city environment.
Some of the signage companies were proposing to integrate Bluetooth / beacons into the signage to make it smart but we were unsure how much people would use these and installing physical signage can be an issue. See example from London https://www.maynard-design.com/insight/smart-london-digital-wayfinding/
Also the integration of indoor / outdoor navigation wayfinding continues to be a challenge.
The latest thinking on future wayfinding is that we will start to see mass deployments of beacon networks in cities (there needs to be an underlying digital infrastructure for it to work at scale) If this happens we could create an open platform that will push information to mobile devices and apps such as google maps and other. A smart move would be to concentrate on localisation of relevant data that can feed into these wayfinding platforms – so a question might be: do we have the right data required to add value to a wayfinding platform? – and how do we make it easy to make this data flow to a wayfinding solution / app?

SBIR on Antisocial Behaviour in Parks and Open Spaces
Parks and Public Realm are supporting this challenge which is led by Belfast. There is a shortlist of 4 who have been asked to refine and develop their proposal to next stage. Most are centred on data gathering and Artificial Intelligence to inform deployment of Garda, Parks Staff or Fire Brigade. It’s anticipated that the data collected could give greater insight into use of parks and age profile to inform the services and facilities which might benefit the spaces.

Develop a ‘cultural network’ of cultural organisations such as those emerging at Foley Street and Parnell Square and begin the development of this network through the Culture Night process.
4 Actions have been identified as part of the new Cultural Strategy for Phibsborough:
1. Identify a permanent Arts Space in the long term perhaps in the new Dalymount Development
2. In the meantime a temporary spaces are being explored and viewings arranged
3. A possible event space outside the Bang Bang Café to be explored
4. Admin and development support for Phizzfest and their network to be developed

Explore options for the provision of “homezones” / traffic calming measures in residential areas.
Overall the first two phases have been seen as a success and Dublin City Council will be continuing the roll out during 2018. The next phase of the 30km/h speed limit introduction has commenced. This extension to the scheme relates to the Southside of the city.

Provide more secure cycle parking in the area.
• 4no. stands adjacent to the Shopping Centre
• 4no. stands just off Phibsborough Road at the Library, North Circular Road
• 5no. stands at the Mater Hospital on North Circular Road
13 cycle stands now in place and other possible locations are being examined for their suitability.