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Probably the biggest thing that breaks my heart about Cardiff is how we have one of the best civic centres in the UK and how it's completely cut off from the city centre by a dual carriageway. I really hate Boulevard de Nantes. It's embarrassing and needs to go. But how do we go about this?

The natural east-west connection in Cardiff is from Newport Road to Cowbridge Road East via Queen Street. Seeing as Queen street is dying a death, surely we could just rip up the naff trees, street furniture and phoneboxes and put trams back in?

It took me an hour to get from Cowbridge Road to Newport Road on the bus this morning which is unforgivable. I could have walked it in half the time.

Any thoughts? Ideas?

(a) Queen St isn't really dying a death. The central section between the Friary and Park Place remains fully prime.
(b) Where would the tram go to and from? It can't just be across the centre, because not many people will use it, and theres no room for park&ride style facilities. It would have to extent up to Rumney on one end and Ely on the other. And that would be expensive (look at Edinburgh) and more disruptive.

The simpler solution is to get more people to use buses. Increase bus subsidies, funded by increased parking charges and a congestion charge for entering the central zone. People wanting to travel from West to East will also be helped by the Eastern Bay Link when that comes in - even the first stage will help a bit.

Demolishing all NCPs in the city centre will also help.

What about getting rid of Boulevard de Nantes?

I don't think getting rid of the infrastructure will help. The only true way of getting people to the civic centre is to give them a reason to go there. A proper square in front of City Hall instead of those embarrassing excuses for fountains would be a step in the right direction. Then maybe a well-designed bridge as an alternative to the current subway would also attract people to the area.

They also need to move the glittering shitbox that is Winter Wonderland down to Roald Dahl's Plass.

Realistically nothing will happen with Boulevard de Nantes. Queen street will not be pedestrianised and as such it represents the only east west link in the city centre.

I think it is a shame that the civic centre is a bit divorced from the rest of the city centre - although in British terms having a planned civic centre is novel. I agree that the area in front of the city hall/law courts/museum could be improved dramatically. I also think the surrounding streets - Park Place, Museum Place etc don't have enough going on to entice anyone other than students.

It's a shame that Cathays is such a shithole and offers so very little for a casual visitor . If this was more of a secondary area for the city centre - perhaps a bit bohemian/edgy - it would attract a lot more visitors to that part of the city centre. As it is it's a student ghetto and really quite rundown.

I can't see Boulevard de Nantes going. Would a bridge help?

My own personal bugbear is the police station. Can we get rid of it or is it too convenient being by the courts?

Karl wrote:It's a shame that Cathays is such a shithole and offers so very little for a casual visitor . If this was more of a secondary area for the city centre - perhaps a bit bohemian/edgy - it would attract a lot more visitors to that part of the city centre. As it is it's a student ghetto and really quite rundown.

I think the council is very aware of this, which would explain the recent surge in city centre-based student accommodation schemes. Hopefully the landlords will have to pull their fingers out to attract students back to Cathays (or better still, the students leave altogether).

It's not so much the students that make the place a ghetto; it's the landlords that think they can get away with not spending a penny on maintenance (and they're right in thinking so). The council should act upon this and start introducing methods to counter the poor upkeep of Cathays. They made a massive step in the right direction by banning the "To Let" boards, now let's see some regenerative measures put in place.

I would have thought that the obvious solution would be a tunnel from say Park Place to North Road. Contruct it using the cut-and-cover technique. It's only a few hundred metres, it shouldn't be more than a few million. Cause a bit of traffic problems whilst they're building it though.

I find the civic centre a relaxing place to visit, especially in the Summer, but visitors don't really have much of a reason to go there, except to see the museum. I've always thought that the civic centre would be a good museum quarter, if City Hall was turned into a science museum, for example. I doubt anything like that is likely though, so I guess it's a case of leaving most of it to the students and Welsh Office workers.