Im tired of the Dublin region seeming to be getting the lions share(a Cork mans rant)

P11 Comms

jank wrote:

?? Dublin will always be the capital and up to know really had things its own but I think a mess has been made of it and the last 10 years will be looked back upon as a wasted oppertunity to turn Dublin into a Capital it really deserves to be.

Dublin has improved massively in the last 10 years. In terms of public transport it is light years ahead of what was being offered in 1994. Luas, QBC etc. Right now, we are at a situation were the LUAS is being expanded and we are deciding of if to build a Metro or Interconnector. Progress is being made.

As for public transport is Cork being woeful, I agree there. The bus service is a disaster and should be completely overhauled and a dedicaited Cork Bus Company on the lines of Dublin Bus should be set up, as a city of 200,000 people having a bus service which is little more a Bus Eireann nixer is a joke in this day and age.

I also think the a light rail system would be viable for Cork. Perhaps one line connecting the Western suburbs via the city centre to Kent station.

As for Midleton reopening, the reason why the line is not going to Youghal is because Cork City and County Councils decided upon this. They put the buffer stops at Midleton. Also, to date not one of the closed railways lines around Dublin has been reopened as a railway line proper. Cork is way ahead of Dublin there. Harcourt Street line only opened half its lenght as a tram, while Clonsilla-Navan remains a trail weeds.

But overall I do agree that Cork public transport needs to be set in place for serious development at this point in the city's development. But that's up to Cork polticians being more proactive and not following the West of Ireland and pointing the finger endlessly at Dublin while screming "guilty!" and doing nothing themselves to make public transport more viable.

jank wrote:

Unfortunately I think you will agree, other cities in the country will learn from that mistake and (hopefully) not commit them again.

Sligo is driving a major highway right though its heart, while also building a skyscraper in a field two miles from the centre. Some learning process...

Kaner

As for like schpelling and punctuation boy

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at
Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a
wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be
in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed
it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey
lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I
awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

MG

Virtually all of the investment in infrastructure in Cork has been in road structure and in this regard Cork is coming close to having a reasonable road network, notwithstanding the penny pinching disasters that are the Kinsale Road Roundabout and the tunnel roundabout. (There are two short sighted plans which will cost a lot to fix – is it okay to have this sentence in brackets? Actually nevermind, I don’t care). Unfortunately, there has no parallel similar investment in public transport. This could be a case study in the need to balance public transport investment with road investment. The fine road infrastructure in all in vain as it is overloaded with cars. The Jack Lynch Tunnel for instance is dealing, I believe, with about twice the number of cars it was designed to deal with. The consequences are the mile long queues to get into the tunnel. (tolling it would be a disaster BTW).

The investment needed in Cork is in Public Transport. The Bus network does need to be separated into its own company and a proper integrated network established. (I never thought I’d agree with P11). However, a bus system will NEVER work on its own. As a general rule, Bus passengers aspire to own cars and no car owner takes the bus. The only way to get people out of their cars and onto public transport is with rail. This is why investment in city rail is never wasted and why arguments such as “we could get 50 new buses with toilets and TV for the price of a rail system” should be rejected. A light rail system running from Kent to Ballincollig via the city centre and UCC would alleviate many of the city’s traffic problems. (I never thought P11 would agree with me). This has many advantages – transport for Ballincollig, integration with the isolated Kent station for the lines which run in there and a “moving footpath” for the city centre etc. Grenoble & Montpellier are two examples of successful fairly recent light rail projects in cities of comparable size to Cork. Whatever about Cork getting more or less, at least make sure its well spent.

ishmael whale

invincibleirish wrote:

may i refer ye to this thread here(not aware of accuracy,im trying to hunt down the stats)not so surprising stat ,again i dunno if its correct but i wouldnt be surprised if it is.

http://www.cso.ie/publications/finance/regincome.pdf

Fine, now for the reality. The above CSO publication details county incomes and regional GDP. If you know of a more up to date publication, as distinct from some unsupported figure on peoplesrepublicofcork.com, then post it up.

Cutting to the chase, Table 11 on page 23 reveals the following:

Total household income for State = 76,365 m
Total household income for Dublin = 26,578 m (35% of total)
Total household income for Mid East = 8,026 m (11% of total)
(Mid East = Kildare,Meath,Wicklow)
Total household income for Dublin/Mid East = 34,604 m (46% of total)
Total household income for Cork = 8,390 m (11% of total)
Total household income for rest = 33,371 m (43% of total)

So, clearly, Cork is important – it contributes about the same as the mid East region to national wealth, but as might be expected only about one third of what Dublin produces.

Now lets look at the net tax take – that is, the tax paid by residents of a particular county, less any social transfers paid to them, such as children’s allowance, state pensions etc.

Net tax paid by households in State = 14,834m tax – 11,113m transfers = 3,721 m
Net tax paid by Dublin = 5,576m – 3,355m = 2,221m (60% of total)
Net tax paid by mid East = 1,674m – 925m = 749m (20% of total)
Net tax paid by Dublin/mid East = 2,221m + 749m = 2,970m (80% of total)
Net tax paid by Cork = 1,633m – 1,286m = 347m (9% of total)
Net tax paid by rest = 5951m – 5547m = 404m (11% of total)

So, as you can see, Dublin on its own accounts for more than half of the tax take from Irish households, including mid East increases this to 80%. Cork makes a significant contribution, and nearly as much as the rest of the non Dublin/mid East counties combined. But you will also note that despite having slightly more income than the mid East region (ie Kildare,Meath,Wicklow) Cork only contributes half of what those counties give in terms of net tax take.

No doubt you will now want to rush off to peoplesrepublicofcork.com to point out to the langers how wrong they are.

Bottom line is of course Cork should be earmarked as a centre for development. Your argument is not with Dublin. Its with every mickey mouse town in Mayo that also wants to be a centre for development. They’re the ones spending the money that you should be getting.

Can't it just boil down to the fact that Dublin Rocks, while Cork shuts the door on places like Sir Henry's? The Taoiseach is from here, the Dail is here, the decisions are made here.
Dublin deserves more with the stresses of living in Dublin. AND we have to put up with our culchie cousins comin' up every weekend and roaring their heads off at the GAA while we're trying to nurse sensible hangovers on a Sunday morning!

And, yes I have lived down the country before. In cork city if you must know.

*I think I might have gone off topic a bit there

Crossley

Re the Cork bus service, I'm convinced the reason it's in the state it's in is managerial rather than financial. Cork has nearly twice the population of Limerick yet has less bus trips per person. Bus Eireann in Cork is the personification of all that is bad in CIE management. There has been no real attempt to service the existing customer demand not to mention generate new business. I think I'm right in saying that the City Services have less routes now than they had in the forties and fifties. Areas such as Ballincollig, Carrigaline and Glanmire, which now have large, dense populations, still have to depend on infrequent rural services. As has been pointed out the Cork fleet is younger than its Dublin counterpart but the casual observer would be very surprised to hear it. Brand new buses appear a week or two after their introduction looking like someone spent an afternoon repeatedly driving them into a wall ! The main bus station up to it's recent closure for refurbishment was a filthy disgrace.

parsi

Metrobest wrote:

But when you're on a public forum could you make some effort to write coherently? I'm sure I'm not alone in finding the text with which you began this thread utterly annoying.

Are you allowed start a sentence with "but" ? Indeed am I allowed start a sentence with "are" ?

BrianD

Cork City has a pretty good road system I thought. They also lead the way with the park and ride initiatives There certainly seems to be scope for rail development in and around the city.

At least they are upgrading the N8 ... you'll be able to get up to Dublin quicker and see where the lions share is being spent!!!

P11 Comms

Crossley wrote:

Re the Cork bus service, I'm convinced the reason it's in the state it's in is managerial rather than financial. Cork has nearly twice the population of Limerick yet has less bus trips per person. Bus Eireann in Cork is the personification of all that is bad in CIE management. There has been no real attempt to service the existing customer demand not to mention generate new business. I think I'm right in saying that the City Services have less routes now than they had in the forties and fifties. Areas such as Ballincollig, Carrigaline and Glanmire, which now have large, dense populations, still have to depend on infrequent rural services. As has been pointed out the Cork fleet is younger than its Dublin counterpart but the casual observer would be very surprised to hear it. Brand new buses appear a week or two after their introduction looking like someone spent an afternoon repeatedly driving them into a wall ! The main bus station up to it's recent closure for refurbishment was a filthy disgrace.

Have you ever looked at a map of Cork and then look at the bus routes. It is like BE Cork City services are still serviing the 1940's city. It would be like as if Dublin Bus terminated all their services inside a circle from Terenure to Whitehall in 2004 ignoring the rest of the city. It is really quite amazing and I find it surprising that people in Cork put up with this nonsense.

As for the light rail system, I don't think it should be because Kent Station is isolated from the city centre (it's not really) - I think that Cork as a city would be prime for a light rail system along its small streets rather than constantly tagging-on more and more extra buses which will increase the congestion. A system similar to the new Nottingham Tram (which I was on a few weeks back and is a very clever track system) would be ideal for Cork. The line could divide in two as it passes through the city centre so you have the double track line split into single track routes to provide internal services in the city centre. They merge again as the approach the train station on the eastern leg and Balincollig on the western side. How could that not be viable? It would not be too expensive to build either.

Anyway, I have been doing some research on light rail systems and come to the conclusion that Luas is one of the best light rail system in the world yet constructed (despite the gap and the lenght). Compared to all the others I have been visiting it works like a dream. For the longest while I thought the USA-style "interurban" approach for Dublin would backfire, but it works really well. All we need now are 40M trams on the Tallaght line with 30M trams being sent down to Cork.

BrianD

All we need now are 40M trams on the Tallaght line with 30M trams being sent down to Cork.

Oh dear, typical Dublin thinking ... sending your cast offs down to Cork!! You walked into that one P11. The Cork mafia will be looking for you!

MG

P11 Comms wrote:

I don't think it should be because Kent Station is isolated from the city centre (it's not really)

As the sole station in Cork, it is quite isolated from the city centre - at least a 10 minute walk from the start of Patrick Street or South Mall, 15-20 from Grand Parade and perhaps 25-30 mins from UCC, probably the biggest commuter end destination in Cork city. Moreover, it does not actually enter the city but stops at the edge and never really enters the consiousness of the citizens. It is also isolated as regards connecting bus services, although I believe there are plans to introduce shuttle. I know for a fact that many people are put off using the current commuter services because there is usually a 20 minute walk at the end of their train journey. In most other cities with light rail, the rail is at most a ten minute walk from any important commuter destination i.e. a commercial or academic centre.