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Demise of Hole in the Road...commercial vandalism or what?


FriarTuck

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Does anyone else think that a part of Sheffield City Centre died when Castle Square got filled in to make way for the Supertram.

I appreciate towards the end it looked a little shabby, but surely something as unique as that could have been preserved. Can you imagine it today...in today's modern Sheffield if a few million quid had been spent on it. What a landmark it would have been.

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The hole in the road was a smelly, dark, pretty scary place to be if you had mobility difficulties and found that you could get down by escalator, but then found that (as so often happened) that the escalator to get you back up on the side you needed to be was broken.

 

Getting the traffic rerouted and the need for underpasses removed was a much more sensible plan as far as I'm concerned.

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I would think that no matter what condition it was it, it would have been filled, supertram or not. Purely for safety reasons, protect public from muggings etc. Plus imagine the Friday and Saturday booze bingers, and students, daring each other to jump in the hole!

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I would think that no matter what condition it was it, it would have been filled, supertram or not. Purely for safety reasons, protect public from muggings etc. Plus imagine the Friday and Saturday booze bingers, and students, daring each other to jump in the hole!

 

Because people didn't drink 15 years ago........

 

You're right though, it's like the underpass at the top of the Moor, it provided a safe way of crossing a busy road but was still a mugging just waiting to happen.

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Friartuck,

ask any female who remembers the hole in the road what they thought about it and you will get your answer.

 

the old 1960s vision of the Civic circle and inner city motorways led to enormously strong barriers to keep pedestrians away from traffic. I remember with a little fondness the subway network, but the truth is it was a fraction of the inner city that was planned. If the 1970s hadn't come along and near bankrupted the city we would have had a similar hole in the road beween the ABC cinema and the Coop building. You can still see today where the building line allows for this massive feaure which was never built. Several other dual carriageways, two traffic tunnels and several underpasses were never built. The resulting warran of underground subways would have left the whole city centre a murky hell, while the traffic on the city centre motorways rattled around noisily like a huge scaelextric track.

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I remember the Hole in the Road and I thought it was quite good at the time to be able to come out at different places without crossing the busy road (and traffic ran both ways on High Street then). Used to like to be able to get into the downstairs of Boots through their subway too (wonder what's in the basement now).

 

Of course people drank 15 years ago, and of course people were attacked etc, but somehow now I feel much more wary and wouldn't use an underpass now if I could help it. I think it's just that crime is reported more now (perhaps).

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I remember the hole in te road with fond memorys ... and loved the fish ... are they still there? LOL

 

I do think sheffield town centre shopping died when the super tram came along, the powers that be thought it would be a good idea to make sheffield as accessable as Alcatraz. As a car driver, why the hell would i want to drive part way there, park up, wait for a tram, pay a fortune, ... do my shopping, then struggle with shopping bags all the way back? .... parking is in short supply in the town and when you can park, it costs a bloomin fortune. I go to meadowhall, rotherham or Barnsley for my shopping now!

well done sheffield city counsil ... not

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