Park Avenue – Frank McNally on the case for a drive-through Dublin Zoo

I was puzzled by the logic of Dr Ray Bassett (Letters, Saturday) who, when calling for a return of car parking on the main road through Phoenix Park, wrote the following:

“It is simply wrong to ask families, especially those with young children and buggies, to arrive at Dublin Zoo either by foot or through the [Park’s] non-existent public transport”.

We'll leave aside the question of public transport within the park for now since, as Dr Basset says, that is (all but) non-existent. It's the bit about it being "simply wrong" to ask people to arrive at the Zoo by foot, and the suggestion this could be obviated by allowing them park on Chesterfield Avenue again, that had me scratching my head.

For what seems to be wrong here, simply or otherwise, is Dr Basset’s perception of space.

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Let us assume that the occupants of a car parked at the nearest point of the avenue to the Zoo entrance are not arriving “by foot”, although there is a short walk even from there.

Fair enough. That may also hold for occupants of the few other vehicles lucky enough to secure this prime location.

But very quickly those spots will be filled, and then we will arrive at one of the fundamental shortcomings of Chesterfield Avenue – or any road– as a carpark: its linearity.

We will also encounter the problem that unlike, say, angels on the head of a pin, cars take up space. In length alone, I estimate, they average five metres each.

Thus, with every additional parked car, the latest arrivals will find themselves five metres farther away from the Zoo. Before long, however optimistically you look on it, the families involved will certainly be arriving by foot.

Bear in mind that, in good weather, it is not just the Zoo-bound who will park on the road. Picnickers, dog-walkers, sports-pitch users, and multiple others will too.

Soon enough, there will be 200 cars on either side of the avenue, leaving newly parked Zoo-goers with a kilometre-long arrival by foot still ahead.

Which, by the way, is longer than the walk to the Zoo from Parkgate Street or Heuston Station, where public transport, whatever its shortcomings, is far from non-existent.

But I can’t help recall that, on summer days before the pandemic, it wasn’t unusual for roadside parking to extend all the way up to the Phoenix Monument and beyond, from which distance you could hardly even describe your position vis-à-vis the Zoo as “arrival”.

Speaking of mythical birds rising from ashes, there seems to be an element of magical realism involved in the idea that the return of on-road parking would eliminate all need to walk.

Magic realism must also explain the more general and well-known phenomenon of drivers being surprised, sometimes even outraged, at the traffic caused by other drivers.

No doubt this is in some degree due to the power of car advertisements, which imply that, apart from your freedom-conferring vehicle, all streets and roads are empty.

Whatever the reason, when driving to the park or beach on a sunny day, it is always somehow a shock to many car users to realise that other people had the same idea.

With respect to Dr Bassett, I suggest the only way you could eliminate the scourge of having to arrive there by foot would be to make the Zoo a drive-through facility.

I’m surprised this idea hasn’t been considered already. It would also eliminate the inconvenience of people having to get out of their cars at all, which would undoubtedly be popular.

There are already such zoos in Texas and such places. And many countries have safari parks, in which full vehicular access is the norm.

Dublin Zoo is perhaps on the small side for safaris. Which said, one of the attractions of making it drive-through is that they could get rid of the existing car park and expand, for example, the lion or elephant enclosure there.

Enclosures themselves would be less necessary. A drive-thru Zoo could shed some interior fencing and let carefully selected animals roam free. For corporate team-building events, with sufficiently tight disclaimers, they could open all interior gates and let visitors take their chances.

I foresee such a transformed Zoo being able to host, for example, SUV-only days, in which Dublin’s ever-increasing population of Range Rovers and the like would be given the run of the place, for a premium.

Finally, those magnificent, all-terrain vehicles would have an environment worthy of their marketing. Existing habitats like Brown Thomas Carpark and Dundrum Shopping Centre are surely beneath their dignity. With a fence-free Zoo, the big beasts of the urban driving world would at last be able to take on something their own size.