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Child Item

Greens propose Luas for Cork

probe

http://www.greenparty.ie/en/news/latest_news/green_party_proposes_tram_service_for_cork

Green Party proposes tram service for Cork

Issued: 11 December 2006

The Green Party today unveiled plans to bring a light rail system to the city of Cork. Green Party Leader Trevor Sargent TD, who was in Cork to launch proposals to upgrade Cork’s entire public transport service, said the current Government’s transport proposals for the city are practically non-existent.

Deputy Sargent said: “Transport 21 has left Cork pretty well out of the picture with regards to future high budget transport development programmes. Much of what is proposed for Cork under Transport 21 was either already underway or has been postponed indefinitely. Other projects such as the North Ring Route around the city and the badly needed bypass for Macroom have been delayed indefinitely as they are not Transport 21 priorities. Cork does not deserve this.”

Green Party Cork South-Central TD Dan Boyle said: “The Green Party proposes the development of a light rail system that would see a line connecting Ballincollig to Mahon via Cork City Centre. A spur line from Bishopstown incorporating the CIT and CorkUniversityHospital would join with this line. A second phase could see a light rail system being extended to Passage West and development of light rail for the Northside of Cork City. We have already seen the huge success of the Luas in Dublin and we believe Cork should see the next roll-out of this excellent public transport system.

Green Party Cork North-Central candidate Cllr Chris O’Leary proposed a CorkHarbour water bus service, similar to those in other European cities such as Amsterdam and Paris. The City Council are already investigating the feasibility of such a service. Cllr O’Leary said: “Cork’s version of the waterbus could see it running from the lower harbour to the City's main street and back again, servicing Ringaskiddy, Rochestown, Cobh and Mahon to name but a few. The environmentally friendly public transport system will also act to facilitate tourism in the area as well as providing a sustainable, workable and dedicated service in Cork.

Green Party candidate for Cork East Sarah Iremonger said that the re-opening of the Cork/Midleton railway should only be the beginning of additional services in East Cork and beyond. “Local train links should not only go to Midleton but to Youghal and eventually onto Waterford. The existing rail link to Cobh should be upgraded with more trains running, more stops added, and train stations developed on the line with proper car parking facilities.”

Closing the Press Conference Dan Boyle TD stressed the Green Party’s commitment to doubling bus services in the Greater Cork area. “The Government’s recent provision of funding for 30 new buses for city bus services included 19 buses provided solely for replacement purposes. We need the same number of new buses again to improve the capacity of the service,” he concluded.

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Mr. Presentable

How many people live in Cork City? Would it be justifiable to put in a commuter light rail? Or is it just the Greens drumming up support?

CtrlSource

It's about time the Green Party drummed-up support. It doesn't bother me if it's just electioneering - sure all parties do it!

They should be more influential in mainstream politics here than they are. If it can be done in Europe, it can be done here!

Blitzkrieger

Hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha, hahaha.......

.....Oh, wait - they're serious?

rymus

I can think of at least 10 ways that money could be better spent... and included in that list somewhere would be "build a spire on Patrick's street". Higher up in that list would be "fill in some damn potholes". Higher again would be "Widen carrs hill". Oh I just cant wait until they come electioneering.

probe

nipplenuts wrote:

How many people live in Cork City? Would it be justifiable to put in a commuter light rail? Or is it just the Greens drumming up support?

If it is to go out as far as Ballincollig (which it should given the population growth there) it is not a "Cork City" affair. So you are talking about a metropolitan area with nearly 300,000 - which is about as big as Geneva. Geneva has several tram lines, lots of electric buses too. The Luas lines don’t serve the entire Dublin commuter belt – they serve a narrow corridor along their pathway. The same would apply in Cork.

Geneva network map:
http://www.tpg.ch/Cartographie/plans...006/reseau.pdf

More details here:
http://www.tpg.ch/index.php/tpg/content/view/full/407

Compare and contrast with:
www.corkbus.ie !

Public transport in Cork city consists of a handful of unreliable, ugly looking red and white, badly maintained and designed, scruffy looking "buses" that are mainly used by people who don't have cars. Even if one wanted to use the "system" there is almost no information on the network at bus stops. No integrated ticketing. No planned interchanges. Very often they don’t even bother to put the destination or route number up other than “Cork”.

Not that I'm blaming Bus Eireann or gov.ie for this sad state of affairs - they are getting away with it, and collecting their salaries, and more power to them!

The blame lies with the morons who live in the area, put up with it and vote as they do! It is only a matter of time before the gridlock in Cork equals that of Dublin because the majority of people will have no alternative and deserve to be stuck in their cars!

.probe

StandnDeliver

i think its about time cork gets a look in,the public transport in this county is rubbish,a tram in cork is a great idea,economical and also fume free!
As for a waterbus also a good idea,it is such a pain in the ass to get to passage,monkstown,and with practically no bus service there would be no harm in it.
Its better than the rest of the other parties ideas or lack of.
Not one of the other parties has ever ever come to my door besides the greens and mick barry.

Blitzkrieger

I'm all for a green public transport system but anytime someone uses the word 'Luas' that's not part of a punch line, they're an immediate candidate for the loony bin. Where on Cork's crowded streets are you going to put a tram? We need a proper system, not a giant farcical waste of public money.

Rollo Tamasi

How long did the Luas take to develop? Three, maybe 4 years? A tram system servicing Ballincollig, Bishopstown, Douglas, Rochestown will certainly be needed by 2010. I'm not too familar with the streets of the lay of the land up the northside but i'm sure they are in need of a transport solution too.

What will be the populatation of Ballincollig/Bishopstown by 2010?

Judes

And I'm one begging for a commuter ferry service to city - it would be absolutely fantastic - if they ran maybe 2 an hour - no traffic jams as such, I can't believe we've got one of the most fantastic harbours and don't take advantage of that fact. More houses/apartments are going up in the harbour areas of Cobh, Ringaskiddy, Passage West, Rochestown and Mahon - and yet everyone has to drive!!! It's ridiculous.

Our buses are horrendous, the service not so great - so most people have to drive. I lived in London for 11 years and couldn't/didn't drive - it wasn't necessary with the transportation system there. I got back to Cork and I was totally stuck and had to learn to drive. If we had a better tranportation system there would be less cars on the road. But I think it suits the Government to keep cars on roads for the tax they get, so what if we spend half our lives in traffic jams nowdays - they're still raking in the money!!! J

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

StandnDeliver

ah but there were trams in cork city before,it is very possibe to do it,just change the road system.

In December 1898, an electric tram system began operating on routes: Blackpool-Douglas, Summerhill-Sunday's Well and Tivoli-Blackrock. The gauge of the tramway was two feet, eleven and a half inches (90.2cm), and designed to be the same as the Muskerry Railway (although the two never shared traffic).

Increased usage of cars and buses in the 1920s led to a reduction in the numbers using the trams. The final day of operation of the trams was supposed to be March 31, 1931. However, after a few weeks of closure, it was realised that the Irish Omnibus Company did not have enough capacity to cope with demand, and the trams started running again in April. This was only temporary however, and the final tram in Cork ran on September 30, 1931.

comet

Cork Luas is light years away.
Theres a serious problem with lack of buses and lack of reliabilty in the buses that are there, fix that first, you just can't depend on them and everyone I know has been forced to buy a car.

probe

Blitzkrieger wrote:

I'm all for a green public transport system but anytime someone uses the word 'Luas' that's not part of a punch line, they're an immediate candidate for the loony bin. Where on Cork's crowded streets are you going to put a tram? We need a proper system, not a giant farcical waste of public money.

The streets are “crowded” with cars because there is no acceptable alternative. Give people a better alternative to the car and they will use it. Montpellier (similar size to Cork) had “crowded streets” until they installed a single tram line. They have been able to close off the entire city centre to cars since the tram arrived, with no objections. The place is now an urban paradise to walk around. New tramlines are being added. You can still use your car, and there is no shortage of parking space (about 10,000 spaces!) but most people opt for public transport when travelling to the centre. And the air is noticeably cleaner than in car bound cities.

The tram is the ideal flagship for an urban public transport system. Upmarket, as attractive as using a car, non-polluting, no parking issues or costs when you arrive in the city centre, integrated with other public transport. Not to mention cost savings – the average car costs about 50c per km to run, if you include depreciation, servicing, fuel, insurance, etc. Run a flagship tramline or two in a city, and people will use the rest of the public transport network to connect with it, providing you have integrated ticketing and the schedules synchronise.

Luas manages to suck in 20 odd million people a year in Dublin (most out of cars) – despite the appalling lack of integration and third world unreliability of interconnecting systems.

Modern trams do not require street dig-ups, the installation of tracks, and can even do without overhead power lines in critical areas where overhead cabling is an issue.

Rubber tyres provide a better solution than the conventional tram on tracks. Better braking capacity, silence, adhesion, etc. The Paris metro changed to using rubber tyres 30 years ago and it provides a far smoother, quieter ride and greater safety than conventional rolling stock in other cities (eg the ramshackle hot and humid, “tube” in London).

The powers that be have done virtually everything wrong with Luas – stupid non-integrated ticketing system, installation delays, lack of interconnectivity, no air con except in the drivers cab, awful signage, and much of the track will have to be modified because they used inappropriate components, bla, bla, bla. But they did buy nice trams and that is what attracts passengers.

Traffic levels in Cork city centre are growing geometrically every time I visit. Not to mention the big picture issues of future oil supplies and increased incidence of cancer, asthma and other health problems caused by traffic pollution.

There is no alternative to good public transport…! Half measures don’t work because the car gets in the way.

.probe

http://www.lohr.fr/download/Translohr_GB.zip

dahamsta

They'll construct a special roundabout for it on Pana - signalised, obviously - with the special Cork tarmac that's designed to sink and crumble within six months at twice the price of other leading brands. There'll be six sets of tracks, merging and separating randomly like the Kinsale road roundabout, mainly to keep the drivers from falling asleep in the traffic. And then someone will read the plans upside-down, and they'll bury sections of it.

"So it in't an underground at all so? Sure I was wonderin why de tracks were on de roof like! Jayney mack, that'll cost a few quid to fix!"

adam

Blitzkrieger

probe wrote:

The powers that be have done virtually everything wrong with Luas – stupid non-integrated ticketing system, installation delays, lack of interconnectivity, no air con except in the drivers cab, awful signage, and much of the track will have to be modified because they used inappropriate components, bla, bla, bla. But they did buy nice trams and that is what attracts passengers.

Who was that Spanish engineer who came out and said he could have built an underground system for the whole city at half the cost of the Luas? I could imagine squeezing a tram onto the roads all the way from the Pana to Balincollig, but I can't imagine it being done in Ireland without major ****-ups and at hugh expense to the public.

smackbunnybaby

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

too true.

IF ,and this is a big IF ,the luas was to be put in it should be built as far as carrigaline.the population is spiralling there and if they dont make it part of the original line they will only end up adding it later anyway.
lads save yourselves the bother. as far as i know as well ,all the original train lines to carrigaline are still around......wouldnt be that difficult

Owen

Great, just what we need. After 10 years of Roadworks in the city, more roadworks.

Rozie

Cork's transport system seriously needs sorting out, but won't this just make it worse for the next 5 years?

They should just have more buses and sort out the insane traffic.

It takes 20-25 minutes to get from the railway station to UCC by bus! Madness. It's only a 40 minute walk but when it's pissing rain or you have problems with certain areas sweating and rashing after more than 30 minutes of walking that's not so useful.

probe

Please re-read my posting and the attached document!

Trams running on rubber tyres don’t need tracks. They don’t de-rail. They are fast, silent and smog free because they run on electricity. You don’t have to dig-up the streets to remove services from under their pathway. BECAUSE THEY RUN ON RUBBER TYRES LIKE EVERY OTHER VEHICLE ON THE ROAD.

http://www.lohr.fr/download/Translohr_GB.zip

One can’t help feeling but that Cork deserves to be in the mess it is in, because the residents (including those who administer the place) are so negative and backward looking. Aside from the Green Party member who made a refreshing, forward looking suggestion this week about public transport in Cork. Which is so unusual in Irish politics!

.probe

dahamsta

probe wrote:

Cork deserves to be in the mess it is in, because the residents (including those who administer the place) are so negative and backward looking.

Why don't you f*ck off then?

~Rebel~

probe wrote:

the residents (including those who administer the place) are so negative and backward looking.

Hehe backward looking; http://www.rareads.com/scans1/31179.jpg

on topic though, those trams you posted the link to look the business! Wonder what the implementation costs would be.

dahamsta

~Rebel~ wrote:

HWonder what the implementation costs would be.

In Cork, twice what they'd be anywhere else in the world.

lostexpectation

probe wrote:

Please re-read my posting and the attached document!

Trams running on rubber tyres don’t need tracks. They don’t de-rail. They are fast, silent and smog free because they run on electricity. You don’t have to dig-up the streets to remove services from under their pathway. BECAUSE THEY RUN ON RUBBER TYRES LIKE EVERY OTHER VEHICLE ON THE ROAD.

http://www.lohr.fr/download/Translohr_GB.zip

One can’t help feeling but that Cork deserves to be in the mess it is in, because the residents (including those who administer the place) are so negative and backward looking. Aside from the Green Party member who made a refreshing, forward looking suggestion this week about public transport in Cork. Which is so unusual in Irish politics!

.probe

no rails? so the only difference between these and buses is that the pollute elsewhere and go fewer places?

Blitzkrieger

And take a week to turn a corner. Where's that PROC skit on the BUS?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Rebeller

probe wrote:

One can’t help feeling but that Cork deserves to be in the mess it is in, because the residents (including those who administer the place) are so negative and backward looking. Aside from the Green Party member who made a refreshing, forward looking suggestion this week about public transport in Cork. Which is so unusual in Irish politics!

I wholeheartedly agree. As a born and bred Corkonian I am often disgusted by the small town parochialism and gombeen attitudes of not only the elected representatives but those who vote for them.

Of course Cork needs a viable, efficient public transport system. The public transport debate in this country is entirely Dublin-centric with no regard being paid to the fact that traffic jams, long commutes and fume-filled city centres are facts of life in all major urban centres in Ireland.

What's intersting about the whole issue of public services in general and transport in particular is that in most developed, rich (and I'm tired of hearing how rich we supposedly are) countries those who are elected and paid to run the country on our behalf get on with the business of doing just that. Their job is to identify future need and provide for them. Their job is to use our money (taxes) to build and operate services so that our lives can be made as comfortable and stress free as possible.

Only in Ireland can we be praising the common sense proposals of political parties. It just goes to show how lacking in any type of common sense and vision all other parties are.

The reason why Cork is so backward and inward looking is the level of corruption and nepotism in the city's business and government.

All aspects of Cork economic life are controlled by a small group of vision-less, small-minded, gombeen cronyist cowboy builders, developers and business men (a prime example being the erector of those wonderful soviet style breeze block apartment complexes throughout the city)

For a prime example of the type of suspect planning and corrupt dealings going on in the city take a look at this article from Village Magazine.

It makes very interesting reading.

probe

dahamsta wrote:

Why don't you f*ck off then?

I’ve actually “****ed off” long ago. I am fortunate to live in one of the best run cities in the world. From where I can get to the nearest international airport in about 6 minutes – despite the fact that I live nowhere near the airport – thanks to excellent public transport.

All the urban buses here run on bio-fuel (made by http://www.vanhool.nl/products_bus.asp?ParentID=9) with upmarket livery, including air con, which makes the travel experience as pleasant as being in a car. A car that runs on bus lanes and you don’t have to park it when you arrive at your destination. The urban express trains are all duplex (double deck), run on carbon free energy, and are state of the art with electric power points at each seat for commuters who want to use their laptop or charge their mobile phone or MP3 player etc on their way home.

Every house here gets some of its heat from the sea which is warmer in winter than land temperatures, and most of the rest of the heat comes from their recycled waste and wood chippings/wood waste – (also used to generate the electricity). The same village heatpump system delivers air conditioning in the summer (again from sea warmth and waste recycling). As a result there are no landfills – everything is recycled into other useful materials or into energy. And electricity is cheap (about 9c/ kW).

It is the sort of place that you don’t need a car, because public transport is so good. If you decide to take the bus to the airport, it does a route around the town every hour so you don’t have to go to a “bus station” with your suitcase to pick the bus up. It comes to or near your door. If you do have a car, you seldom need to take it on the road. When you do it feels great. Familiarity breeds contempt – the car that is driven once or twice a week when you “feel the need” to drive is a pleasure in comparison.

If you call a taxi, chances are it will be a new Merc E class or similar (low CO2 diesel of course), as in many other countries on the continent. Because taxis have to meet minimum standards, unlike in Ireland, where they like to compete with Ryanair for vomit stains on the seats etc. And never a 1996 Japanese tin can, as is typical in Irish cities, including Cork.

They also don’t have to dig up the streets in my city for services, because when the town was planned, they got a guy in a JCB to dig a trench (2m deep) under the footpaths and lined the walls of same. Into this trench (ie a tunnel where workmen can walk around inside any time they need to do repairs) they put all the services – sewers, plumbing, electricity supply, phone cables, cable TV, water, and trash collection (no bin men every day or week) – rubbish is collected through a vacuum tube “plumbing” system (like a big vacuum cleaner) in real-time 24 hours a day – direct form your house to the recycling centre.

Nearly 100,000 new dwellings are built in Ireland every year without any consideration for state of the art planning, energy efficiency, public transport or anything else.

When I do visit Cork I stay where I can walk into town (avoiding traffic chaos and parking problems).

No country in the world has had so much in terms of financial resources per capita, and achieved so little in terms of improving quality of life and environmental sustainability.

.probe

embraer170

Probe:
You've left me curious, what city is that?

~Rebel~

I too am curious, sounds like the happiest place on earth!

Is it Berlin? a few of the things you said ring a few bells from when i was there, but wasnt there long so dont know enough.

ivuernis

probe wrote:

I am fortunate to live in one of the best run cities in the world

Fortunate.... but not necessarily deserving.