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Another Mahon Office Development

duchalla

http://www.eveningecho.ie/news/cork-news/2015/02/04/go-ahead-granted-for-another-mahon-office-development/

What do people make of this? While the new jobs are welcome, the traffic at present in the evening is fairly chocca, this no doubt, will make it much much worse. I think the infrastucture should have been sorted first. Another case of putting the cart before the horse??

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cgcsb

pwurple wrote: »

It wasn't a busy roundabout... was a very quiet one.

quiet from the perspective of a driver or a pedestrian? Different perspectives can vary wildly.

namloc1980

kub wrote: »

Thanks OP, lads and lassies have a look at the attachment above to the picture in the Evening Echo.
I note the developer must also be demolishing a lot of the houses behind the building in Mahon, because they sure as he'll don't look like they are pictured above

No houses need demolishing. It's an existing derelict site. Click

kub

namloc1980 wrote: »

No houses need demolishing. It's an existing derelict site. Click

Oh no it is not I am referring to Balinure Place and those houses do not look like the way they are depicted in that picture in the paper.

pwurple

cgcsb wrote: »

quiet from the perspective of a driver or a pedestrian? Different perspectives can vary wildly.

Uh... both? I've relatives who live in a house by the lights. They/we don't use their garden anymore. Fumes from queues of traffic and noise of cars revving to start from standstill. When it was a roundabout it was free flowing.

I also cycle, avoid that section as I think directing a lane of traffic through/over a cycle lane is potentially lethal.

I also drive. Can't remember a single time I haven't been queued at that junction since the roundabout went. So environmentally unsound, Increased pollution for no good reason bugs me no end.

I know some of the brickfields residents also, and they never wanted the roundabout removed either. They just wanted lights on the skehard road access...

I wish they had spent that money solving the real road problems down by SuperValu or in mahon instead of that white elephant.

namloc1980

kub wrote: »

Oh no it is not I am referring to Balinure Place and those houses do not look like the way they are depicted in that picture in the paper.

There are no houses being demolished. Take a look at the planning drawings on the city council website and you'll see that.

kub

namloc1980 wrote: »

There are no houses being demolished. Take a look at the planning drawings on the city council website and you'll see that.

Oh for God's sake it was an off the cuff remark, my jab was at the typical glossy images in these pictures.
My sincerest apologise for taking me literally..

Douglas Eegit

kub wrote: »

Oh for God's sake it was an off the cuff remark, my jab was at the typical glossy images in these pictures.
My sincerest apologise for taking me literally..

haha... love how you turned this

kub

Douglas Eegit wrote: »

haha... love how you turned this

Whatever

who_me

Douglas Eegit wrote: »

haha... love how you turned this

He/she is right; if you look at the houses in the background of the Evening Echo photo, they don't really match up with what's there in reality (link)

It's a bit of a typical case of 'glamourising' the area in the mockups.

Fabio

D'Agger wrote: »

An oyster card styled system, while expensive to implement, would make public transport faster and easier to use imo

There is one, it's called the Leap card. No idea how good it is but it's a very similar system to the Oyster card.

Fabio

Look there's no point putting on extra buses if they are going to be caught in traffic all of the time. What should have been put on that road was dedicated bus lanes to enable rapid transport to be...well...rapid. I know there are plans for the upper Skehard Rd, past Supervalu fpor a bus lane there to run by the houses but apart from that I don't see how they can extend further along Skehard Road as there is no land for the road to widen east of Supervalu. However there is some land available on either side of the road going from the CSO to MahonPoint along which at least one bus lane could be put.

Oh, and take a look at the first picture in that article and the junction immediately after the current traffic lights by CSO. Imagine trying to get out of that!!! Cars coming around from Skehard Rd, trees in the way and a slight kink so as to ENSURE that no one can see a bloody thing on exit there. Great.

pwurple

The whole point of buses is that it removed cars from the roads. If you put 30 people on a bus, that's 30 less cars. You don't require a bus lane for every route. If the buses run frequently enough at peak times, and service the right areas, they are fantastic.

And yes, the Leap card is available, is cheaper at 1.60... and even cheaper again because some of the time the machine isn't working, so the driver waves you on for free.

SpaceTime

Milly33 wrote: »

Do they actually give locals jobs then. I was nearly choking one night chatting to lads who worked in Big Fish. They were flown over from America, given contracts, and accommodation (they had to pay a small bit but not a lot)... I was like mmm I thought it was suppose to bring jobs to the area..

And traffic nightmare, bunch of eijits...

One way or the other, they pay Irish income tax, PRSI and spend money in Cork. It still is a huge boost for the local economy.

clerk

SpaceTime wrote: »

One way or the other, they pay Irish income tax, PRSI and spend money in Cork. It still is a huge boost for the local economy.

Firstly, you're right of course. Cork cannot afford to say no to these developments.

Having said that there is no point in not having a discussion about what the traffic will be like down there.

l live in Blackrock and have seen the traffic set up at Mahon at first hand for the last 10 Years. With an extra we'll say 750 ( for argument sakes ) cars coming out onto the 'one' lane, after work, to head to the tunnel the traffic up the Skehard Road is going to get seriously gridlocked on a Daily basis.

The thing is the new development will probably have a slip lane as the previous development got, so the traffic back along is going to get more and more backed up. I really don't have a clue how they are going to resolve it because the road infrastuture does not support this level of development.

If it goes ahead that link road is going to become a no go zone between 5 and 6.30 every work Day.

Douglas Eegit

For non customer facing roles i don't understand why flexi time is not an option, maybe it is. I would much rather, given the option go to work for 7 and leave at 4. It's a win win.. no traffic and guaranteed parking. I'm currently working in a customer facing IT role, therefore need to be in until 6pm. But as i HATE traffic, I'm usually in for 8 am and leave at 6.30. Win win for the company but flexitime is not encouraged.

Obviously if your're doing a lot of your business with USA then it would favour you to work in the evening, flip that around and if you're dealing with Asia a lot then morning shift is more favourable.

Not sure if this is common in the offices around Cork or if the option of flexitime is available but surely, there must be a demand in order to 'skip' the traffic

KCAccidental

Flexitime got such a bad rep as a 'perk' in the public service that had to be abolished during the recession, that most companies here won't even consider it.

TheChizler

They'd have to change the light sequence and put in a smarter management system, half the time there's nothing moving through the big junction. That junction's so large as well that they have to have long breaks between red and green, maybe they might be able to squash it together to minimise the transit time through it. Same with the knock on junctions on the flyover.

They could extend the third lane dedicated to going north to the big junction and this might encourage drivers to use the two lanes on the right to full capacity, normally now the outside lane is backed up a lot more than the left.

BUNK1982

Late on to this thread - but I think this is a terrible proposal.

I work in the area and it takes 20 minutes just to get out of the car park!

The area is not able to manage what is there already so how does building more help anything?

D'Agger

Douglas Eegit wrote: »

For non customer facing roles i don't understand why flexi time is not an option, maybe it is. I would much rather, given the option go to work for 7 and leave at 4. It's a win win.. no traffic and guaranteed parking. I'm currently working in a customer facing IT role, therefore need to be in until 6pm. But as i HATE traffic, I'm usually in for 8 am and leave at 6.30. Win win for the company but flexitime is not encouraged.

Obviously if your're doing a lot of your business with USA then it would favour you to work in the evening, flip that around and if you're dealing with Asia a lot then morning shift is more favourable.

Not sure if this is common in the offices around Cork or if the option of flexitime is available but surely, there must be a demand in order to 'skip' the traffic

One word - Support

Many companies today, and a large amount of the ones you'll find in the CitiGate developments aren't customer facing but they provide support & services to their customers in a 'follow the sun' style. The fact that they're not customer facing makes no difference.

EMEA will come in and work the 9-5, around 3pm GMT The US will start waking up and their staff will provide relief, EMEA staff will continue to provide support whilst spending the evening following up on their mornings work - the same is done in the US until the Chinese offices wake up etc.

Look at the companies around that area - VCE, Solarwinds, McAfee, Voxpro. These are companies that provide global support - flexitime for their staff isn't an option as it essentially creates holes in their support nets. Say the US team is up the walls - they might need some EMEA staff to take some calls, take over tickets etc. - half the office being gone from half 3 because they worked up their hours in the mornings that week doesn't cut it. It's not up to you to come in when it's quieter and leave a region up the creek when you're needed.

Now that's one example but you get my point - customer facing or not, business demands mean that flexi time isn't an option for many companies in todays market.

cgcsb

Fabio wrote: »

There is one, it's called the Leap card. No idea how good it is but it's a very similar system to the Oyster card.

if you use it to change buses, you still get charged twice and you can't use it on Cork Commuter rail, so it's almost useless.

D'Agger

cgcsb wrote: »

if you use it to change buses, you still get charged twice and you can't use it on Cork Commuter rail, so it's almost useless.

Would the leap card be the same as an oyster card with regard to day usage?

So far as I'm aware on the oyster you get charged per fare but once you hit the cost of a day ticket that's all that's charged? That's my understanding anyway, could be wrong on that.

namloc1980

cgcsb wrote: »

if you use it to change buses, you still get charged twice and you can't use it on Cork Commuter rail, so it's almost useless.

It'll be available on commuter rail in Cork in the next couple of months. Daily capping is already on Leap Card in Dublin. Will be in Cork during this year.

CHealy

I work in Eastgate which has only two exits, and traffic can be nuts at half 5 trying to get out. I can only imagine what its like in Mahon which has the same number of exits, but is 10 times the size.

Douglas Eegit

D'Agger wrote: »

One word - Support

Many companies today, and a large amount of the ones you'll find in the CitiGate developments aren't customer facing but they provide support & services to their customers in a 'follow the sun' style. The fact that they're not customer facing makes no difference.

EMEA will come in and work the 9-5, around 3pm GMT The US will start waking up and their staff will provide relief, EMEA staff will continue to provide support whilst spending the evening following up on their mornings work - the same is done in the US until the Chinese offices wake up etc.

Look at the companies around that area - VCE, Solarwinds, McAfee, Voxpro. These are companies that provide global support - flexitime for their staff isn't an option as it essentially creates holes in their support nets. Say the US team is up the walls - they might need some EMEA staff to take some calls, take over tickets etc. - half the office being gone from half 3 because they worked up their hours in the mornings that week doesn't cut it. It's not up to you to come in when it's quieter and leave a region up the creek when you're needed.

Now that's one example but you get my point - customer facing or not, business demands mean that flexi time isn't an option for many companies in todays market.

Customer Support/Internal Support is customer facing imo. I don't mean actual meetings but what i was getting at is development or project based roles that don't necessarily need to be constrained to the traditional 9-5 office environment.

H3llR4iser

Douglas Eegit wrote: »

Customer Support/Internal Support is customer facing imo. I don't mean actual meetings but what i was getting at is development or project based roles that don't necessarily need to be constrained to the traditional 9-5 office environment.

Exactly. A lot if not most of the companies mentioned in Mahon have roughly a 50/50 split - only half of their personnel is customer facing (int or ext makes no difference), the rest could easily work flexi hours and indeed some of them do have the policy.

Yet, what I will reiterate, is that people that have flexitime do not take advantage of it. I worked for three different companies with the arrangement in place - one in Italy and two here - and most of the workers still stubbornly do 9am-6pm (5.30 when 7.5 hours days are observed)...then complain about traffic

Ludo

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Exactly. A lot if not most of the companies mentioned in Mahon have roughly a 50/50 split - only half of their personnel is customer facing (int or ext makes no difference), the rest could easily work flexi hours and indeed some of them do have the policy.

Yet, what I will reiterate, is that people that have flexitime do not take advantage of it. I worked for three different companies with the arrangement in place - one in Italy and two here - and most of the workers still stubbornly do 9am-6pm (5.30 when 7.5 hours days are observed)...then complain about traffic

Haven't seen this myself I must say. Then again where I am now is the only place I have worked which allowed flexi-time. It is a fairly good spread of people arriving constantly from 7am right up until 10am which is the cut-off. No particular influx around standard start time (then again I don't even know what the standard start time is now that I think of it). Then from 3.30 onwards people start heading off again in a very staggered fashion. It works really well and a lot of people use it.

pwurple

H3llR4iser wrote: »

I worked for three different companies with the arrangement in place - one in Italy and two here - and most of the workers still stubbornly do 9am-6pm (5.30 when 7.5 hours days are observed)...then complain about traffic

I don't think it's unreasonable to think that a lot of people work those hours because it suits their life. People don't like to work so late they miss out on their evening meal/activities with friends or family... or having to go to bed exceptionally early in order to get up early the next day.

H3llR4iser

pwurple wrote: »

I don't think it's unreasonable to think that a lot of people work those hours because it suits their life. People don't like to work so late they miss out on their evening meal/activities with friends or family... or having to go to bed exceptionally early in order to get up early the next day.

Oh yes, although I would say some of the reasons are actually debatable (again, it seems to be a Cork thing but a lot of people can't conceive having dinner any later than 6.30pm, which in the day of Facebook/Netflix/Internet is a bad thing as you'll snack before bed...but I'm digressing!).

If that's the case, however, they shouldn't complain about "rush hour traffic"...they are rush hour traffic

pwurple

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Oh yes, although I would say some of the reasons are actually debatable (again, it seems to be a Cork thing but a lot of people can't conceive having dinner any later than 6.30pm, which in the day of Facebook/Netflix/Internet is a bad thing as you'll snack before bed...but I'm digressing!).

Depends on your family I guess. I think my children would start to self-digest if I didn't feed them by 6:30! But even pre-kids... I'd like to cook something, or pop to the shop on the way home to get some food to cook. Even if I'm eating by 8, I want to be out of work 6-6:30 at the latest to do that.

If that's the case, however, they shouldn't complain about "rush hour traffic"...they are rush hour traffic

Well yes, but roads/buses/services that can accommodate rush hour traffic is a need that a working economy needs. It's great that we are even getting back to the situation where it is even an issue... but you could just as easily say they are rush hour traffic because unemployment is dropping. The solution is not to reduce jobs, it's to improve infrastructure to support it.

cgcsb

D'Agger wrote: »

Would the leap card be the same as an oyster card with regard to day usage?

So far as I'm aware on the oyster you get charged per fare but once you hit the cost of a day ticket that's all that's charged? That's my understanding anyway, could be wrong on that.

In Dublin yes, in Cork no.

Even when capping comes to Cork, you'll still have to pay twice when you change buses. Travel 90 in Dublin has reduced the cost of changing on Dublin bus somewhat, but you pay full whack if you change from bus to tram or train. Still there should be no penalty for changing bus.

The main problem in Dublin is you have Bus Éireann, Dublin Bus, Luas, DART and several private operators using completely separate fare structures, which makes changing prohibitively expensive. Most cities in the developed world have a simple zonal system that covers all operators and offers unlimited changes. We can but dream.