Cork Congestion Charge Zone

Theasal1234

I am currently undertaking a thesis entitled '' The congestion problem in Cork City and the applicability of a congestion zone charge for the cork city area''. Just wondering what your views would be on such a strategy......

Amtmann

Moved from Roads.

Triangla

How about a congestion charge for the muppets who ok'd the developments that are leading to this congestion.

charlemont

Do you think Cork is London ?:mad: Looking for more ways to get money from drivers.:mad:Personally I think Traffic Lights are a large cause of congestion in Cork.:mad:

Theasal1234

Congestion was always going to be a problem in Cork City with such a poor road network and its desire to become a major economic player in the Global market. Manchester also tried to introduce such a scheme with the view to a 3 billion pound investment in Pubic Transport http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/7778110.stm.
Would the Population of Cork City be willing to ditch the car for a world class public transport network?

Iwannahurl

Congestion charges / cordon tolling an excellent idea if used strategically to eliminate or mitigate traffic problems and unsustainable transport conditions.

If the main purpose is revenue collection or simply deterring motorists then such an approach is unacceptable, IMO.

In Ireland, given the dominance of auction politics and the unpopularity of tax as an instrument of sustainable policy policy, it'll be a hard sell.

In my view, such an economic approach has to be used as part of a suite of measures to make public transport and other sustainable modes of travel the easiest and most pleasant options.

Here's just one of many papers on this interesting topic: http://www.rff.org/documents/RFF-DP-06-42.pdf

Theasal1234

That link is a massive help, thanks a million.....I was expecting nothing but torrents of abuse for undertaking such a project and still do especially in a city where 85%+ of the modal split is the private car

Iwannahurl

If you're a masochist you could try raising the topic in Motors!

BTW, I wasn't aware that the private car was so dominant in Cork.

Teddy455

Does anybody know about that bus-tram thing that would run on rails?
It would help alot if this was implemented.

DWCommuter

To the OP.

As its a thesis and thereby an opinion that doesn't have to be curtailed by reality, my advice is to make sure you base your congestion charge against a background of sensible and sizable public transport investment in Cork City. As I'm sure you will appreciate, to blindly set out to suggest implementing a congestion charge in a city that has a woeful public transport system will do you no favours and make your thesis yet another worthless, uninformed pile of dung.

Paint the public transport picture, implement the congestion charge and it may be a future work in progress. Best of luck.

CoalBucket

Maybe when the north ring connects to the south ring a congestion charge should apply. The current road networks do not allow for avoiding the city centre.

DWCommuter

CoalBucket wrote: »

Maybe when the north ring connects to the south ring a congestion charge should apply. The current road networks do not allow for avoiding the city centre.

Congestion charges should not apply until better public transport alternatives are in place. That applies to any city.

antoinolachtnai

This talk is worth a look:

http://www.feasta.org/events/landconf/wetzel.htm

It's all about the context. you would need to identify a few good, but relatively cheap-to-build public transport projects to complement it.

foggy_lad

How about they ban Bus Eireann city busses from waiting on Patrick St in the heart of the city during rushour and other busy times? the bus timetables are just screwed up meaning drivers must arrive at patrick street and may have to wait ten or even twenty minutes before continuing.

Another suggestion would be to remove the chiccanes from patrick street as they cause havoc with the busses which must pull out of the bus/taxilane at every set of lights and this again screws uo the city traffic!

Theasal1234

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

This talk is worth a look:

http://www.feasta.org/events/landconf/wetzel.htm

It's all about the context. you would need to identify a few good, but relatively cheap-to-build public transport projects to complement it.

Thanks for the link, was an interesting perspective on the operation of congestion charge and in particular I thought it made a very valid statement that ''Congestion charge is not a stand-alone policy, it is part of a total transport package''.

@foggy_lad I also agree with you on the Bus eireann issue to an extent, however public transport is the most sustainable option therefore priority has to be given to Bus Eireann

foggy_lad

Theasal1234 wrote: »

@foggy_lad I also agree with you on the Bus eireann issue to an extent, however public transport is the most sustainable option therefore priority has to be given to Bus Eireann

But priority is not being given to busses in cork. At several places along Patrick st busses must pull out of the bus lane into very heavy traffic which does not give way to the busses. Shoppers come first on Patrick st to the detriment of the citys traffic.

patrickincork

Gave up on public transport in Cork a long time ago!!!

Iwannahurl

How long was Joe Gavin in post as Cork City Manager?

He oversaw the growth of car dependence and traffic congestion in Galway City for about 6 or 7 years before moving to Cork. He personally signed off on plans for large cul-de-sac estates, walled off from natural routes to educational, employment and commercial centres, with no easy pedestrian or cyclist access. That's on the record, and can be verified using Local Authority online facilities.

Did you get more of the same in Cork, or were more enlightened "planning" policies adopted?

corktina

i dont think Cork really has enough of a porblem to warrant a congestion charge...

Stonewolf

Something probably not relevant unless you're considering the marketing and wider social aspects but you should consider the difference between an actual congestion charge which is rated on vehicle footprint versus some other random tax masquerading as one which is rated on say, emissions.

parsi

foggy_lad wrote: »

How about they ban Bus Eireann city busses from waiting on Patrick St in the heart of the city during rushour and other busy times? the bus timetables are just screwed up meaning drivers must arrive at patrick street and may have to wait ten or even twenty minutes before continuing.

Sounds good - people can then get the bus from somewhere other than the city centre. Maybe the Northside bound could go to Popes Quay or some other narrow place.

foggy_lad wrote:

Another suggestion would be to remove the chiccanes from patrick street as they cause havoc with the busses which must pull out of the bus/taxilane at every set of lights and this again screws uo the city traffic!

They're not chicanes - they're bus stops. Pana is one lane each way.

Victor

CoalBucket wrote: »

Maybe when the north ring connects to the south ring a congestion charge should apply. The current road networks do not allow for avoiding the city centre.

That is not accurate. There is no need to travel through the city centre for the vast majority of journeys.

foggy_lad wrote: »

But priority is not being given to busses in cork. At several places along Patrick st busses must pull out of the bus lane into very heavy traffic which does not give way to the busses. Shoppers come first on Patrick st to the detriment of the citys traffic.

Surely this makes sense seeing as Patrick's Street is a shopping street?

foggy_lad

parsi wrote: »

Sounds good - people can then get the bus from somewhere other than the city centre. Maybe the Northside bound could go to Popes Quay or some other narrow place.



They're not chicanes - they're bus stops. Pana is one lane each way.

there is a bus lane the length of Patrick st and at several times during the day some busses will park up for several minutes at their stop due to the way the routes are timetabled,(number five is one example with a set of times for the section from Cork IT to Patrick st and another timetable from Patrick St to Kent station but all on the one route, http://www.buseireann.ie/pdf/1260982850-Cork5.pdf routes 2,3,8 and 10 are similar)

the chicanes i mean are the pedestrian crossings which encroach into the bus lanes meaning serious delays for public transport which must pull out into the main lane of traffic to get around these obsticles

parsi

foggy_lad wrote: »

there is a bus lane the length of Patrick st

There isn't.

dynamick

Theasal1234 wrote: »

I am currently undertaking a thesis entitled '' The congestion problem in Cork City and the applicability of a congestion zone charge for the cork city area''. Just wondering what your views would be on such a strategy......

When the congestion zone was introduced in London only 13% of commuters into the area were using cars. This low figure allowed the scheme to be accepted.

You would need to consider a natural boundary that is understandable to the public and feasible to put cameras at all exits. For example the zone could cover just the city centre island. There are several congestion zones around the world now so presumably you could just buy an off-the-shelf solution and reduce the risk of failure.

You would want to be sure that a congestion zone would not lead to a hollowing out of the core of the city. London was always going to be busy without cars but charging to enter Cork might lead people to do their shopping at out of town retail parks.

You probably need more public transport in Cork. The bus services is 3rd rate. There are no trams.Bike lanes and useful pedestrian infrastructure are not taken seriously by the city council the mindset is still all about massive roundabouts and driving everywhere.

Like Galway and Limerick, last time I checked, Cork city was failing. Its city population has been reducing. The city is not managing to attract employers, or to improve the quality of life in the city area. People are moving to the suburbs and working in industrial estates outside the city centre. At a regional level, there has been no control on Cork County council sucking development out of the city area into its car dependent utopian vision. At a national level, policy has been to spread development in Munster between unsustainably small towns. (See the NDP/NSS and decentralisation)

Congestion charging is for when you have too many people in your city - not too few.

Victor

Realistically, I think further pedestrianisation and banning non-bus traffic from Patrick Street would be the way to go, as well as suitable bus priority into the city. The county council also needs a green bet imposed on it.

One curve ball would be if you put a toll on the Jack Lynch Tunnel, you would also need to put some restriction at the Collins/ DeVelera Bridges as people would simply more from this route http://maps.google.ie/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Kinsale+Road+Roundabout,+Cork&daddr=N25&hl=en&geocode=FTmHFwMdTr9-_ynDwv0s749ESDHsvWYXs0okgg%3BFSoBGAMd6v9__w&mra=mrv&mrcr=0&sll=51.896198,-8.425827&sspn=0.061016,0.143852&ie=UTF8&z=12 to this one http://maps.google.ie/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Kinsale+Road+Roundabout,+Cork&daddr=51.9025699,-8.4376188+to:N25&hl=en&geocode=FTmHFwMdTr9-_ynDwv0s749ESDHsvWYXs0okgg%3BFWn4FwMdjkB__yn5CRU8u5pESDFYWbeJSRv0Dw%3BFSoBGAMd6v9__w&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=12&via=1&sll=51.895986,-8.394585&sspn=0.061016,0.143852&ie=UTF8&ll=51.896198,-8.425827&spn=0.061016,0.143852&z=12

Iwannahurl

dynamick wrote: »

You probably need more public transport in Cork. The bus services is 3rd rate. There are no trams.Bike lanes and useful pedestrian infrastructure are not taken seriously by the city council the mindset is still all about massive roundabouts and driving everywhere.

Congestion charging is for when you have too many people in your city - not too few.

Very interesting post.

I agree with you about the car-dependent mindset. Hard to shift that, especially when Local Authority "planners" and other decision-makers are accountable to nobody.

However, I disagree with you on your last point in particular. Congestion charging, and other related transport policies, are not -- or ought not to be -- about "too many people". The fundamental problem is too many cars.

You can accommodate 19 times as many pedestrians per metre of road width as you can with cars. Research into the London experience showed that shoppers on foot lingered longer and spent more than car-based punters.

A potentially greater concentration of higher-spending shoppers: what's not to like?

Owen

What a depressing thread title. Cork's businesses are suffering enough as it is, shops are closing every week, a congestion charge would kill it off for good I think.

schemingbohemia

PaintDoctor wrote: »

What a depressing thread title. Cork's businesses are suffering enough as it is, shops are closing every week, a congestion charge would kill it off for good I think.

Maybe if you read the OP you'll see it's theoretical rather than factual.

Maybe if you read the post above you, you'll see that pedestrians spend more than drivers.

Maybe you should read posts rather than titles.

Owen

Maybe if you weren't trying so hard to make a great post, you'd see I thought the thread title was depressing. I didn't make any comment in regard to the content of the thread.

parsi

City traffic now is much better than the days before the tunnel. From this side I'd be in town sooner than Mahon Point at most times of the day.

schemingbohemia

PaintDoctor wrote: »

Maybe if you weren't trying so hard to make a great post, you'd see I thought the thread title was depressing. I didn't make any comment in regard to the content of the thread.

Well why bother posting? Do you go around just commenting on thread titles that depress you?

Theasal1234

corktina wrote: »

i dont think Cork really has enough of a porblem to warrant a congestion charge...

The car is an overly relied on source of transport to and around Cork City. From the last Land Use and Transport Strategy (LUTS) count, it is known that 138,760 passed over the inner city boundaries over a 12 hour period in October 2007. I know that those figures were recorded before the recession kicked in but car trips to and around the city must still be around the 100,000 mark.

As regards to the potential issue of further suburban sprawl as a result of the congestion charge i.e Mahon Point,if a congestion charge scheme were to be implemented it would have to be supplemented with an integrated public transport network, perhaps a luas from mahon point running through patrick street and terminating out at CUH, a few orbital bus routes and park n rides

Skud

Didn't bus eireann do a report saying that a Luas style mode of transport is unfeasible in Cork due to cost vs income and opted to recommend a bus corridor to be implemented east to west through the city instead?

Having used the public transport system for years and now to have a car, I do not use the public transport system at all now because it is so poor. I would not be able to get to work in the mornings as I have to go South -> North through the city. A colleague of mine who does not drive but with a similar commute uses a taxi every morning due to a number of reasons (this is not the only job where I have seen this happen), but mainly due to an atrocious public transport system that would not come near to fulfilling his needs.

With rising fuel prices it would make more sense to opt for a Luas or non petrol / diesel based public transport system in the near future (obviously the current economic situation will impact that greatly)

dowlingm

Skud wrote: »

Didn't bus eireann do a report saying that a Luas style mode of transport is unfeasible in Cork due to cost vs income and opted to recommend a bus corridor

I would hope not. If they did, that's why the National Transport Authority should commission ALL such studies rather than individual entities doing solo runs.

dynamick

report was commissioned by cork city council
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055942627

7% of cork commuters use public transport daily. jaysus

Theasal1234

Just to keep ye all updated, I have decided to title my thesis ''The implementation of a congestion charge zone as a traffic demand measure in order to support the Cork Area Transit System(CATS).Is it viable?''

On a thorough examination of the CATS I realise it is important that it is implemented.The main aim of the CATS is to provide an integrated transport network which will provide ease of access to and around Cork City. The updated CASP projections illustrate a 24% increase in the Cork Metropolitian area most of which will be in the suburbs. In my view a congestion charge zone would be a great instrument in implementing the CATS and might actually prevent a ''hollowing'' out of the city centre.

Theasal1234

Hi all, id appreciate it greatly if you could take 2 minutes to complete a survey in regard to congestion problems in Cork. https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dE9Gc21vSHBsUjhwVEVaLTF6MEMzTmc6MQ

CaptainSkidmark

Ridiculous idea.