Cork City Busses - A complete joke!

Solair

I've been attempting to use Bus Eireann's Cork City bus system to get to and from UCC over the last few weeks and the experience has been, quite frankly, nightmarish.

Route 8 is just completely unreliable at rush hour. I don't know if they're skipping busses or if they're just being snarled up in traffic, but there are gaps of up to an hour between busses at peak times (inbound).

Then to make matters worse, for no apparent reason I've been on an 8 or 8A which has stopped in Patrick's Street and asked everyone to get out and transfer to another 8 which was totally full to complete the route to the Northside. I was actually unable to fit onto the second bus!

On top of that, many of the busses are filthy on board. Rubbish everywhere, coffee spilt down the aisles etc.

There is also a rather hilarious auto-announcer system on some of them which tells you that you are arriving at Parnell Place Bus Station when you pass the front gates of UCC on Western Road.

All in all, I think Cork's bus network's choking itself by being so bad and unreliable that most people just can't rely on it, so don't use it and either walk or drive everywhere as a result.

The routes through the city centre area also simply do not work.

On several occasions, it has taken the 8 almost an hour to get from UCC to Patrick's Street, which is a 15 minute WALK.
It took me well over an hour to get from UCC to St. Lukes on the Northside. Again, you could walk it in less time.
The only reason I would take a bus is if it's raining.

Something has to be done with either bus lanes or re-routing of busses as the system clearly does not work.

Finally, the lack of electronic tickets of any type also creates huge delays at busy stops as half the population of Cork seems to pay a 1.60 fare with €20 notes!

I've lived in similarly sized cities, and I would have to say that Cork's public transport system is absolutely inadequate and really badly run. It just does not work at all. I mean, it makes Dublin Bus look well organised!

To make matters worse, the outer suburban routes are classified as "country busses" and empty / busses with lots of capacity sail past city stops! Total waste of resources!

bk

Solair wrote: »

Finally, the lack of electronic tickets of any type also creates huge delays at busy stops as half the population of Cork seems to pay a 1.60 fare with €20 notes!

Hopefully they will roll out the Leap card in Cork soon. Cork is ideal for it as Cork is fixed fare for all journeys, so you would only need to tag-on and not even talk to the driver (unlike what is happening in Dublin now). Which could really help with dwell times.

I'm surprised they didn't trial Leap in Cork to see the type of effects it could have on dwell times.

Solair

The 16 Route - South Mall to Mount Oval in Rochestown is actually quasi-staged.

It's €1.60 to Douglas and €1.80 to Mount Oval.

Also, for some reason I've had a bus driver try to charge €1.80 from Douglas to Mount Oval!

In general, I think the Cork system urgently needs to be looked at and re-organised.

The commuter routes to Ballincollig, Carrigaline, Blarney, Glanmire, Midleton, Passage West, Tower, etc etc need to be merged into the City bus network. Peak time services could have something like Dublin Bus' "Expresso" services which. E.g. have Carrigaline Peak service served by a 19X

It's nuts having loads of Ballincollig buses for example passing on the No. 8 City route and not picking up passengers when they've got loads of capacity. E.g. middle of the day lightly loaded double-deck busses just passing stops on the way in and leaving passengers standing in the rain.

The same applies to the 222 route to Carrigaline which travels in along the No 7 and 16 route through Douglas.

And also the Glanmire, Midleton etc busses could easily provide a service along the Lower Glanmire road, but don't and eastern parts of the city centre and augment services to/from Kent Station but don't.

There are also far too many busses coming into the Bus Station at Parnell Place unnecessarily. It should only be for long-distance / medium distance services. Busses from Carrigaline, Blarney and what are essentially outer urban routes are basically clogging it up. They're frequent and they're busy and not really suitable for what is an intercity bus depot.
Why couldn't space be assigned somewhere else with street-side stops for the terminus ?

Also, having busses run up and down Patrick Street simply does not work at rush hour in the current traffic arrangement. They need to either put in a bus-gate and restrict cars' access to Patrick's Street at peak times, or they need to re-route everything.

I can't see why we couldn't have a situation where by the traffic was planned in such a way that at peak times Patrick Street simply closed to cars. Busses and taxis could access it with a clicker. I've seen this done in lots of other European cities and it works well. Rising barriers prevent other traffic from accessing the area.

Even if it was just done from say 8-10am and 5-7pm it would be enough to make the public transport system work.

On another point, I saw the first "Transport for Ireland" branded bus-stop information display mounted on the top of a pole on Washington Street. So, there's at least some progress on that route.

The Leap Card system should be rolled out in Cork it would be very straight forward and could also include Midleton, Cobh and Mallow Cork Commuter Rail.

The other issue I think is a major problem in Cork is the lack of a local identity for the Cork City bus network. It should really be split off like Dublin Bus.

Running a national long distance bus network and dense urban bus networks really have very little in common. There isn't even a fleet of busses in common.

I'd rather see something like a Cork Transit Authority which coordinated and ran the urban area bus routes + the commuter rail system as a single integrated network with proper integrated ticketing and local management.

I've never seen any other country where a national bus network operator runs urban bus systems in cities.

In France for example, even quite small cities (Limerick/Waterford or smaller sized) would have their own bus system and brand identity.

highlydebased

Exact same with the 308 in Limerick (goes to UL)

They seem to do the same thing with skipping many buses- you could be guaranteed there would be no 1415, 1430 or 1445 bus from either Limerick or UL. The route needs deckers badly because there's serious overcrowding

kieran4003

Hi, Solair. I am a daily user of these services and I experience the same problems that you do.

I've been attempting to use Bus Eireann's Cork City bus system to get to and from UCC over the last few weeks and the experience has been, quite frankly, nightmarish.

Route 8 is just completely unreliable at rush hour. I don't know if they're skipping busses or if they're just being snarled up in traffic, but there are gaps of up to an hour between busses at peak times (inbound).

What happens is the buses do get out alright but because the 8 is a cross city route, it has to go through patrick street and that is where the problems mostly occur. The main problem is heading northbound on Patrick street, the traffic is often backed up all the way to the junction with washington street. A No.8 would be running on time all day until it would first encounter this heading to Lotabeg and this has a knock on effect on the links for that bus for the rest of the day, time will not be made up really, in fact it would only get worse. They are obviously very late then going and coming to Bishopstown and buching of buses occurs and it is quite common to see no 8 for a while and then maaybe 2 or even 3 come together.


Then to make matters worse, for no apparent reason I've been on an 8 or 8A which has stopped in Patrick's Street and asked everyone to get out and transfer to another 8 which was totally full to complete the route to the Northside. I was actually unable to fit onto the second bus!

If the buses are running made late going northbound then there will be a big problem as no bus will go southbound for a good while. Instead if there is 2/3 buses together heading northbound on the 8 at patrick street, the drivers will try to put everyone in ne bus and turn around the other and go southbound. This happens with the 5 also. It is only fair really.

On top of that, many of the busses are filthy on board. Rubbish everywhere, coffee spilt down the aisles etc.

There does be litter alright but the buses are cleaned every night. It does look a sight alright especially when the used ticket bin spills the tickets all over the place.

There is also a rather hilarious auto-announcer system on some of them which tells you that you are arriving at Parnell Place Bus Station when you pass the front gates of UCC on Western Road.

I am not sure why this happens.

All in all, I think Cork's bus network's choking itself by being so bad and unreliable that most people just can't rely on it, so don't use it and either walk or drive everywhere as a result.

The routes through the city centre area also simply do not work.

On several occasions, it has taken the 8 almost an hour to get from UCC to Patrick's Street, which is a 15 minute WALK.
It took me well over an hour to get from UCC to St. Lukes on the Northside. Again, you could walk it in less time.
The only reason I would take a bus is if it's raining.

Something has to be done with either bus lanes or re-routing of busses as the system clearly does not work.

The biggest problem are the lights at the junction of Patrick Street and Merchants Quay. Heading Northbound the lights go green for a very small amount of time and it causes the traffic to back all the way up Patrick Street. This needs to be changed but in the long term Patrick Street needs to be made a bus only route, divert all routes to Patrick Street, End the cross city routes & restore the 2 way system to a lot of the streets.

Finally, the lack of electronic tickets of any type also creates huge delays at busy stops as half the population of Cork seems to pay a 1.60 fare with €20 notes!

I've lived in similarly sized cities, and I would have to say that Cork's public transport system is absolutely inadequate and really badly run. It just does not work at all. I mean, it makes Dublin Bus look well organised!

To make matters worse, the outer suburban routes are classified as "country busses" and empty / busses with lots of capacity sail past city stops! Total waste of resources!

Well if these were to be stopping in the city centre, then these buses would also have problems which would be more serious given they run less often.

Solair

My concern is that these problems are going on for decades and nobody has done anything to resolve them which leaves me with the conclusion that the whole transportation system management structures must be incompetent. This level of chaos does not happen in most continental systems. There is no reason why it should be happening here

corktina

a joke? I don't see anyone laughing!

OurLadyofKnock

Solair wrote: »

I've been attempting to use Bus Eireann's Cork City bus system to get to and from UCC over the last few weeks and the experience has been, quite frankly, nightmarish.

Route 8 is just completely unreliable at rush hour. I don't know if they're skipping busses or if they're just being snarled up in traffic, but there are gaps of up to an hour between busses at peak times (inbound).

Then to make matters worse, for no apparent reason I've been on an 8 or 8A which has stopped in Patrick's Street and asked everyone to get out and transfer to another 8 which was totally full to complete the route to the Northside. I was actually unable to fit onto the second bus!

On top of that, many of the busses are filthy on board. Rubbish everywhere, coffee spilt down the aisles etc.

There is also a rather hilarious auto-announcer system on some of them which tells you that you are arriving at Parnell Place Bus Station when you pass the front gates of UCC on Western Road.

All in all, I think Cork's bus network's choking itself by being so bad and unreliable that most people just can't rely on it, so don't use it and either walk or drive everywhere as a result.

The routes through the city centre area also simply do not work.

On several occasions, it has taken the 8 almost an hour to get from UCC to Patrick's Street, which is a 15 minute WALK.
It took me well over an hour to get from UCC to St. Lukes on the Northside. Again, you could walk it in less time.
The only reason I would take a bus is if it's raining.

Something has to be done with either bus lanes or re-routing of busses as the system clearly does not work.

Finally, the lack of electronic tickets of any type also creates huge delays at busy stops as half the population of Cork seems to pay a 1.60 fare with €20 notes!

I've lived in similarly sized cities, and I would have to say that Cork's public transport system is absolutely inadequate and really badly run. It just does not work at all. I mean, it makes Dublin Bus look well organised!

To make matters worse, the outer suburban routes are classified as "country busses" and empty / busses with lots of capacity sail past city stops! Total waste of resources!

This should be on the homepage of the CIE group as their Mission Statement as you post about the Cork Bus System is all that CIE is, has and ever will be about and why the sourge of CIE must be destroyed.

Are there people on this board honestly going to tell me that private operators such as Stagecoach or Arriva would do a worse job with the bus network in Cork? I spent some time in Birmingham recently and the bus network run by private operators is frankly INCREDIBLE compared to anything CIE will or can provide.

Com'on. I am actually waiting for you to state this. Do not forget the cliches you garnished over the years from the CIE unions such "cherry picking" in order to add weight to your "argument" that private bus operators would do a worse job than the nightmare outlined in this post.

AngryLips

Is it appropriate to task a national bus company with providing urban/commuter services? I always thought they would not be best suited to the task.

Baron de Robeck

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

I spent some time in Birmingham recently and the bus network run by private operators is frankly INCREDIBLE compared to anything CIE will or can provide.

I find the network in Birmingham to be excellent as well. However the down side is that the drivers working conditions and wages do leave a lot to be desired. After seeing an advert looking for new drivers I was genuinely stunned to see how little they were being paid, the equivalent to just under 10euro per hour.

kieran4003

In all fairness, the quality of the services in Cork are very good. There are severe problems with congestion alright but that is not the fault of Bus Eireann. It is fullly up to the City council to sort the problems out. Then Bus Eireann can make improvements to the services.
What needs to happen is:
1 - Patrick Street is the biggest problem for the buses. Cars need to be banned from Patrick Street and it be made a bus only route. The two way system needs to be returned to many streets, Principally along the South Mall & Parnell Place to create an alternative route around Patrick Street. In addition the traffic lights need to stay green for longer.
2 - Once this would be done Bus Eireann could play its part. First the practice of cross city routes should end - the 2,3,7,8 this applies to really. They should do a loop around the city centre and only serve 1 side of the city like the 14 does. The frequency of the buses could then be adjusted appropiately.
Our Lady of Knock, I notice from reading these forums a long time that you seem to highly dislike CIE. I cant understand why anyone would have such a problem with a company. Do you mind me asking, Do you use CIE services every day? There is a very anti CIE attitude on this board & It baffles me why there is such a problem with the company. My own father is a Senior Train Driver with Iarnrod Eireann & if he knew people had such a problem with the company and go on about staff on this board he would be very annoyed and dissapointed too. I know myself he is extremely professional & an expert in his work and I am sure the other vast majority are the same. Iarnrod Eireann itself is in good hands, A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to interview the Chief Executive Dick Fearn for a project and I was hugely impressed. He has achieved so much already and has great plans for the future. A fantastic CEO for any company to have.
I use the services of Bus Eireann every day & sometimes Iarnrod Eireann. I think the services are excellent. I know alright it does not work out well sometimes with regards dealys & so on but I have being doing this for over a year now and I am well used to it. Yes It is annoying when it does not work out well but that is life. The staff of these companies are out there very day working hard to deliver a service to us commuters. I see it myself here, being a bus driver is not an easy job. It can be very frustrating being in traffic & trying to get buses through narrow areas and so on. The staff are doing their best & I commend them for that. Always out of courtesy I thank the driver when leaving the bus & in fairness most people do. Of course there will always be a few staff that may not be the most professional but that happens in every job. We are very lucky too to have an excellent modern fleet of buses. They help improve the quality of the services greatly.
I expect that the anti CIE people will try to ridicule my thoughts on these matters, but I am sure there are other people who feel the same as me too.

invinciblePRSTV

Use the search function OP, all your criticism's and solutions of Corks bus services have been discussed here a millon times over the years yet nothing ever changes bar the return of some double deckers and the filling of gaps in timetables of some suburban routes.

Like other Irish cities car is king in Cork, integrated ticketing may spur some people to use PT but most city and suburban routes require long waits outside of peak times so I can't see it having the same kind of positive impact which it'll have in the GDA.

BenShermin

kieran4003 wrote: »

Iarnrod Eireann itself is in good hands, A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to interview the Chief Executive Dick Fearn for a project and I was hugely impressed. He has achieved so much already and has great plans for the future. A fantastic CEO for any company to have

Oh dear Lord! This is a man who stands over a company responsible for destroying any bit of good the Irish railway ever had.

He will be known as the CEO who was in charge when the Malahide viaduct collapsed and subsequently made the bus a more attractive option for Northern Line commuters even after it was repaired.

A company that closed Fastrack, the Rosslare to Waterford line and the century old railsail link between Rosslare and Fishguard.

A company that has destroyed the track so much between Dublin and Cork that in 2011 it takes on average 2 hours 50 mins to travel between the cities. (In the late 90s the fastest train was 2 hours 25mins!!) This has effectively handed most of the business over to the new M7/M8!

A company that left (bread and butter) South Dublin commuters fend for themselves during the Dart disruption earlier this month instead of laying on rail replacement services like every other railway company in Europe does!!

A company (in the year 2011) still can't sell me an internet ticket from Arklow to Dublin!!

But what really pisses me off, it's a company that sends Barry Kenny onto the airwaves to defend all these failures:mad:.

What exactly are his plans for the future? I'd hazzard a guess that closing Limerick Junction to Waterford and Ballybrophy to Limerick are up there. Maybe slowing down Dublin to Cork to three hours is another one.

On another note though, fair play to your father, unlike many others on this board I find the majority of frontline staff across the CIE group of companies to be courteous and professional. When we get the snow and ice again this year the real stars of CIE will once again shine through, and they ain't the management nor the Dept.of Transport!

OurLadyofKnock

Baron de Robeck wrote: »

I find the network in Birmingham to be excellent as well. However the down side is that the drivers working conditions and wages do leave a lot to be desired. After seeing an advert looking for new drivers I was genuinely stunned to see how little they were being paid, the equivalent to just under 10euro per hour.

I don't care. The purpose of public transport is to provide public transport - not to raise Jim Larkin from the dead.

parsi

Without a doubt the lark of Cork city buses going through the city centre really makes things worse.

A week ago I was waiting for the 2 at Parnell Place, it comes down Merchants Quay and turns right onto Parnell Place. It was stuck waiting to turn right for 10 mins because traffic going up Merchants Quay was very heavy and folk preferred to stop rather than let the bus out.

That sort of behaviour takes place all over the city making everything grind down.

Whilst the 2 from Mahon could easily become a single leg and turn at the bus station there would need to be a major rejig to allow other buses to terminate in town due to the almost incomprehensible one-way system eg an 8 comes in along Washington St but where can it swing around to head out again ? It's almost forced to go down Pana or the Mall and that's where the traffic is. And the traffic is there because that's where cross-town traffic is funnelled.

Yes the buses get filthy as the day wears on (and the further back you go) - in part due to the great Irish tradition of littering because an empty coke can is toooooo heavy to carry as far as a bin especially if you're a skanger travelling for free.

I haven't travelled on the 10A (private service) but it's generous timetable seems to ensure that it's punctual despite it's slowness.

OurLadyofKnock

My own father is a Senior Train Driver with Iarnrod Eireann...

I stopped reading there.

charlemont

Solair wrote: »

My concern is that these problems are going on for decades and nobody has done anything to resolve them which leaves me with the conclusion that the whole transportation system management must be incompetent. This level of chaos does not happen in most continental systems. There is no reason why it should be happening here

Useless C I E and Cork City Council's twisted sick perverted love of traffic lights makes for a pathetic bus service.

charlemont

kieran4003 wrote: »

In all fairness, the quality of the services in Cork are very good. There are severe problems with congestion alright but that is not the fault of Bus Eireann. It is fullly up to the City council to sort the problems out. Then Bus Eireann can make improvements to the services.
What needs to happen is:
1 - Patrick Street is the biggest problem for the buses. Cars need to be banned from Patrick Street and it be made a bus only route. The two way system needs to be returned to many streets, Principally along the South Mall & Parnell Place to create an alternative route around Patrick Street. In addition the traffic lights need to stay green for longer.
2 - Once this would be done Bus Eireann could play its part. First the practice of cross city routes should end - the 2,3,7,8 this applies to really. They should do a loop around the city centre and only serve 1 side of the city like the 14 does. The frequency of the buses could then be adjusted appropiately.
Our Lady of Knock, I notice from reading these forums a long time that you seem to highly dislike CIE. I cant understand why anyone would have such a problem with a company. Do you mind me asking, Do you use CIE services every day? There is a very anti CIE attitude on this board & It baffles me why there is such a problem with the company. My own father is a Senior Train Driver with Iarnrod Eireann & if he knew people had such a problem with the company and go on about staff on this board he would be very annoyed and dissapointed too. I know myself he is extremely professional & an expert in his work and I am sure the other vast majority are the same. Iarnrod Eireann itself is in good hands, A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to interview the Chief Executive Dick Fearn for a project and I was hugely impressed. He has achieved so much already and has great plans for the future. A fantastic CEO for any company to have.
I use the services of Bus Eireann every day & sometimes Iarnrod Eireann. I think the services are excellent. I know alright it does not work out well sometimes with regards dealys & so on but I have being doing this for over a year now and I am well used to it. Yes It is annoying when it does not work out well but that is life. The staff of these companies are out there very day working hard to deliver a service to us commuters. I see it myself here, being a bus driver is not an easy job. It can be very frustrating being in traffic & trying to get buses through narrow areas and so on. The staff are doing their best & I commend them for that. Always out of courtesy I thank the driver when leaving the bus & in fairness most people do. Of course there will always be a few staff that may not be the most professional but that happens in every job. We are very lucky too to have an excellent modern fleet of buses. They help improve the quality of the services greatly.
I expect that the anti CIE people will try to ridicule my thoughts on these matters, but I am sure there are other people who feel the same as me too.

Pity there is no dislike option for this CIE propaganda post.

parsi

charlemont wrote: »

Pity there is no dislike option for this CIE propaganda post.

In fairness it was hardly a cleverly disguised shill post - no real need to come down on the young fella.

The traffic management of Cork city centre is brutal. Too many lights - there is a set outside Waterstones and another set 40 yds up from it.

If private ops come in it would have to be on the basis that they could change the routes and avoid crosstown services otherwise they'd be getting snarled up in the same old mess.

Of course this would also mean that the stoning of a Northside bus wouldn't impact on a Southside service.

corktina

kieran4003 wrote: »

In all fairness, the quality of the services in Cork are very good.

sorry but VERY GOOD? even with the litter on the floors and coffee swilling up and down the aisles? (as reported on here)

dowlingm

Cork City Council should be devolved responsibility for bus transport in the city. They can contract BE to run the service, collect fares etc but CCC should decide routes and levels of service. If that doesn't work because of street issues then CCC has an imperative to get their Roads Department to sort it.

Solair

If you think the quality of Cork City's bus service is very good, you've obviously never travelled outside of Cork (or other Irish cities).

The busses are all new and relatively shiny, but the *SERVICE* is dire and utterly inadequate for the scale of the city and just not properly organised or designed. It's not just CIE, it's the City Council too. Both need to get their acts together!

It's also in a vicious circle where by the busses are unreliable, slow and infrequent which drives passengers away and and then results in fewer passengers using it, which results in CIE making the service even worse by concluding that there's weak demand.

AFAIK, Cork rates as one of the most car-dependent cities in the EU.

OurLadyofKnock

Solair wrote: »

AFAIK, Cork rates as one of the most car-dependent cities in the EU.

and it should not be. As Irish cities go - the population density isn't too bad with lots of fairly well populated surrounding towns. Super road system in and around the suburbs. Perfect bus-based public transport scenario.

The answer to your comment is the OPs post.

Solair

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

and it should not be. As Irish cities go - the population density isn't too bad with lots of fairly well populated surrounding towns. Super road system in and around the suburbs. Perfect bus-based public transport scenario.

The answer to your comment is the OPs post.

I am the OP

namloc1980

This debate has been going on for years but nothing has ever been done about it. The City Council commissioned MVA Consultancy to produce a report into public transport in Cork a few years ago and it was published in April 2009 called the Cork Area Transit Study.

The study identified all the issues highlighted in this thread as problems with the service: unreliable timetables, Patrick Street choke point, long dwell times in the city centre, no integrated/multi-modal ticketing, no real-time info, no Cork transport branding, poor bus stop environment, ridiculous separation of "city" and "country" buses, lack of bus lanes, too many traffic lights, too much one-way systems, existing routes do not match up with actual trip patterns etc. The report also criticises the crap planning decisions of the County Council over the past decade which means many people are car dependent.

It made numerous recommendations including reorganising city bus routes and integrating the suburban network into the city network, establishing a Cork Transit Authority run by a Council body who would contract private companies (including BÉ) to operate the routes, multi-modal ticketing and giving the network a unique and distinct branding. Two and a half years later and nothing has happened. Real time info is on the way but that is more of an off-shoot of the Dublin scheme than anything coming from the Council.

PseudoFamous

BenShermin wrote: »

A company (in the year 2011) still can't sell me an internet ticket from Arklow to Dublin!!

The fact that the bus is cheaper and 30 minutes faster to Amiens St. (75km journey should be done in 50 minutes on a train ffs!) is a bigger issue than not being able to buy tickets online. This is a problem across the board with irishrail

That line is falling into the sea too, they need to realign Greystones - Bray before there's a major accident.

CIE

BenShermin wrote: »

Oh dear Lord! This is a man who stands over a company responsible for destroying any bit of good the Irish railway ever had.

He will be known as the CEO who was in charge when the Malahide viaduct collapsed and subsequently made the bus a more attractive option for Northern Line commuters even after it was repaired.

A company that closed Fastrack, the Rosslare to Waterford line and the century old railsail link between Rosslare and Fishguard.

A company that has destroyed the track so much between Dublin and Cork that in 2011 it takes on average 2 hours 50 mins to travel between the cities. (In the late 90s the fastest train was 2 hours 25mins!!) This has effectively handed most of the business over to the new M7/M8!

A company that left (bread and butter) South Dublin commuters fend for themselves during the Dart disruption earlier this month instead of laying on rail replacement services like every other railway company in Europe does!!

A company (in the year 2011) still can't sell me an internet ticket from Arklow to Dublin!!

But what really pisses me off, it's a company that sends Barry Kenny onto the airwaves to defend all these failures:mad:.

What exactly are his plans for the future? I'd hazard a guess that closing Limerick Junction to Waterford and Ballybrophy to Limerick are up there. Maybe slowing down Dublin to Cork to three hours is another one.

On another note though, fair play to your father, unlike many others on this board I find the majority of frontline staff across the CIE group of companies to be courteous and professional. When we get the snow and ice again this year the real stars of CIE will once again shine through, and they ain't the management nor the Dept.of Transport!

Thanks for clarifying that the average speed of Cork trains fell from a peak of 67.4 mph in the late 1990s (and a top speed of 90 mph) down to 57.5 mph today (with the marginal increase in top speed to 100 mph); that's a fall of just about a full 10 mph in average speed.

BTW, since we now have the Bundestag reviewing the Irish budget before the Dail gets to even see it, perhaps all of the above is orders from the top to get the Irish people to call for Deutsche Bahn to take over IE...? Good luck with that.

dermo88

I hope so.

perhaps all of the above is orders from the top to get the Irish people to call for Deutsche Bahn to take over IE...? Good luck with that.

But first.....it is the opportunity to provoke a strike and lockout. Then close Limerick to Ballybrophy via Nenagh as a 'shot across the bows'. This will be the (much needed) impetus to reduce operational costs and introduce additional efficiences. It would be an example to the entire semi-state sector....'play ball, or else'. I do know that decent people in C.I.E. may suffer under such measures, but sadly they needed to be taken years ago when Ogle messed around, and those hooligans at Cork station pulled their "wildcat strikes", and when the DART drivers wanted an extra 8,000 Pounds to go around the cliffs at Bray Head. But.....unfortunately....so as they sow, so shall they reap, and a genetic memory needs to be incinerated permanently on the semi-state sector

Its not so much Iarnrod Eireann thats the problem. Its the relatively monolithic structure of C.I.E itself. The Department of Transport dares not break it up as the holding company. Putting out city routes to competitive tender is the ideal.

As for holding up Birmingham as an example, agree......
Mentioning wages and conditions.....nice to have sympathy and say pious platitudes about 'anti-social' behaviour, but should'nt those engaged in it be sterilised and prevented from breeding in a civilised society? Why were'nt they 'dealt with' when we had the cash?

Because we are too tolerant. And because we ARE too tolerant, we are too expensive.

And Mr Brendan Ogle.....I have a very special place in the corner of my heart for him.....and Tony Tobin. The special corner of contempt reserved for the one eyed Scottish idiot, the most cunning the most devious of them all, and that agent spawn of Satan himself, Charles Haughey.

Of course, don't expect politicians to solve it. They'll be whisked by Garda escort, who will tell the 'peasants' to move aside. The solution is to block them at every single step in their chauffeur driven luxury. Very quickly, they will find how much contempt they are held in.....and will learn. Just aim for the former Fianna Fail administration first. And the top target traitor is Noel Dempsey.

corktina

thats about as far off topic as its possible to get...:rolleyes:

namloc1980

Solair

I know CIE (cycling is easier) gets everyone's blood boiling, but can we stay on topic?

Ireland's second city's public transport system, or lack there of, should be a sufficiently important topic to warrant proper debate

OurLadyofKnock

corktina wrote: »

thats about as far off topic as its possible to get...:rolleyes:

No it is not. It gets right to the heart of the matter. CIE, all of CIE is the same entity which has the same malignant thread running thourgh it which dermo88 pointed out correctly. Matters not if it is the DART, Rosslare Port or Corck City Buses. The dysfuctionality is CIE itself and not any one element of that monstrosity taken alone. The entire thing is rotten to the core and under the stewardship of mad unions and pathetic managers.

That post could not be more on-topic actually.

markpb

Solair wrote: »

Ireland's second city's public transport system, or lack there of, should be a sufficiently important topic to warrant proper debate

Perhaps the debate should be between voters and politicians instead of between OurLadyofKnock and dermo88

Until people start demanding that their local and national politicians take public transport seriously, it never will. Right now, sorting out Corks buses won't win anyone any votes so why bother?

Solair

Again, it comes down to a serious need for radical reform of local democracy i.e. if Cork City Council actually had real issues to debate, real accountability and control over transport planning / running it would actually be accountable to the people of Cork.

As it stands, it's a joke where a semi-state company's responsible to some QANGO responsible to a Minister who is vaguely responsible to the Dail.

The issue is that nobody's really managing Cork or Dublin's transport. Maybe Dublin gets a bit more focus as it does turn into a local issue in national elections as the city's bigger, and has the majority of the media living there and using its transit networks on a daily basis. It would explain why the DART, Luas Green Line and 46A are so good ... They all go through the RTE employee catchment area / places where Journos and Sir Humphrey types are likely to live. Transport on Dublin's Northside and in our other major urban centres like Cork is no where near as good.

Really though, TDs shouldn't have anything to do with urban transport planning. We have national debates about the Luas for example, which is a local transit system in Dublin. Should that not be something Dublin City Council / Co. Councils are capable of dealing with. The Government's only role should be the overall budgetary issues.

I also think there's way too much of a Dublin and "Down the Country" attitude in organisation of CIE services.

We have several reasonable sized urban centres other than Dublin. Cork City transport has absolutely nothing in common with services to rural areas or long distance bus services, yet in CIE mentality it's non-Dublin there for it's "Down the Country" i.e. lumped in with the services to small villages etc.

I find that mentality perversive in a lot of debate about Irish infrastructural issues. We need to actually recognise that there are some other major cities and that they cannot be treated en par with small towns. The infrastructural needs are totally different.

This kind of mentality is also evident in decentralisation, creation of ITs, healthcare planning etc.

We've never managed to develop hubs, instead we've developed umpteen unsustainable small towns, undermined the cities of Cork, Galway and Limerick (Waterford, Kilkenny, Sligo, Athlone etc are really regional towns some of which have city status, and I don't say that to undermine them, rather just that we seem incapable of comparing like-with-like) while concentrating Dublin so much that it barely functions.

corktina

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

No it is not. It gets right to the heart of the matter. CIE, all of CIE is the same entity which has the same malignant thread running thourgh it which dermo88 pointed out correctly. Matters not if it is the DART, Rosslare Port or Corck City Buses. The dysfuctionality is CIE itself and not any one element of that monstrosity taken alone. The entire thing is rotten to the core and under the stewardship of mad unions and pathetic managers.

That post could not be more on-topic actually.

On the contrary, that post derails (pun intended) the discusion of Corks Bus service by turning it into yet another rant about breaking up CIE.