Cork - Light Rail [route options idenfication and initial design underway]

Skedaddle wrote: »

BRT may be more practical on the Northside because of the very steep hills. But bear in mind the southside isn't exactly flat either. Getting to Carrigaline for example would require some degree of hill climbing or rerouting.
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Considering they are going to build a motorway to Carrigaline, I doubt a non-bus solution will be provided there...

BRT works best when it's on a dedicated, purpose designed route, with platforms and imlíne stops.., same as a tram, there is a small bit more flexibility in moving the route to take in new developments... And obviously trams are electric whereas brt buses would more likely be diesel or hybrid...

Markcheese wrote: »

And obviously trams are electric whereas brt buses would more likely be diesel or hybrid...

Seriously... for a next-generation transport project is there no clean air alternative to buying more diesel engines in 2018.

Air quality is poor along many of these corridors as outlined by EPA study last year, and we now have lots of scientific evidence of the serious health damage caused by these pollutants and to the quality of the environment.

Cities like Sydney switched to zero-emissions natural Gas alternatives over 20 years ago!
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Edit: Happy to see they are looking at CNG https://www.busconnects.ie/initiatives/cleaner-technology/

blanch152 wrote: »

Heuston to James on the Red Line in Dublin has quite a steep gradient.

A tram line could avoid gradients in Cork. Start with one line east to west - eg from Bishopstown to Mahon via Patrick Street and Kent station. It could have Mahon and Douglas spurs at the east end and Bishopstown and Ballincollig spurs at the other. The tram could serve CUH, UCC, CIT, Kent Station/bus station and other campuses with a large number of visitors.

Zurich has 16 tram lines despite being a hilly city, There are very few bus routes in the centre - only trams. Buses tend to feed traffic to the nearest tram stop, outside the centre.

It would allow Patrick St to become bus free and car free - a la Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. i.e. a high quality clean air environment with very few vehicular movements. Almost 80% of journeys in Zurich are on public transport thanks to its integrated ticketing system. No dumb, expensive RFID cards as used by Leap. A bog simple card ticket with random inspections, and a fine of EUR 100 for not having a valid ticket on board. Tickets can range in validity from 2h to a day, a week, a month or a year. When the tickets are randomly inspected, they can be sampled by a barcode reading machine - allowing statistical sampling to measure usage levels on each service, and how frequently each ticket holder uses their ticket. There are many public transport companies in Zurich that use the same ticket system, sharing revenue based on their contribution to carrying people over distance. This can include suburban rail and water based transport. All modes must use a common zone system - ideally zones structured like postal districts (only larger). Eg T12 and T23 in Cork could be one public transport zone. The zone system in Dublin is poorly ‘designed’ because buses and trams and trains all have their own ‘zone’ design. An integrated ticketing system requires identical zone layout.

Where there are steep hills, funicular rail brings people down steep slopes to a tram station to continue their journey. This is found in Zurich, Lugano, Genoa, Bergamo and many other hilly cities. In Barcelona they use escalators, and in Genoa there are public elevators, with a tunnel to get to the elevator at the low level.

Bus feeding to trams is popular, as the tram becomes part of the fun of getting to a destination. Buses by themselves are boring and polluting. In Zurich, trams run every five minutes of so - the feeder buses provide a large volume of travellers to the tram system. The entire bus route system would be re-focussed on suburbia and filling the tram system - causing a minimum of chaos in the city.

The traffic signals need to be tram prioritised - so a ‘red light’ is never allowed to stop a tram. In Zurich a tram can come up to a junction with a red light against it at 50 km/h, and by the time it reaches the junction, the light is ‘green’. The tram driver doesn’t have to touch the brake, and it only takes 5 seconds or so for the tram to clear the junction. The light immediately returns to give vehicles a green light, after the tram has cleared the junction. It uses sensors to precisely measure these movements.

Luas has a problem at many junctions in Dublin, The tram is forced to stop at a light, and time-wastingly accelerate away when it turns ‘green’. It takes far longer for a long tram to clear a junction, under such conditions. This in turn creates chaos and makes the road system less efficient.

Bike lanes in Cork have been a huge waste of resources. A wet hilly city, in a wet country is hardly ideal for bikes. Aside from ‘sunny day’ use - which is not a sustainable transport solution.

A solution has to be developed which makes the majority of people feel that public transport is so convenient, it is not worth taking the car out of the garage - due to traffic delays, parking costs, etc

Collio729 wrote: »

Made a very unrealistic rail/tram map for cork lol. Alot of the city centre stations are suppose to be underground btw. Couldnt fit alll tram stations in, so i will make another tram one

I can't really see it, the image is too small

Rail into glanmire? It's not that populated... And it's very spread out...

Markcheese wrote: »

Rail into glanmire? It's not that populated... And it's very spread out...

It's about half (ish) the size of Ballincollig or Carrigaline, and has a fairly significant increase in housing approved by ABP. Would expect it to be well over the 10k people mark within 5 years.
While it might not service a huge existing demand, it's a relatively straightforward engineering spend to link it into the existing rail line, and it's close to the Cork-Dublin road, so you could have lots of Red-Cow-like opportunities.

And again we ARE talking pure pie-in-the-sky and unrealistic plans here, I think we all accept that from the outset.

https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2057862889/31

User cgcsb has inside knowledge of the yet to be published study which seems to propose a line between Ballincollig and Mahon via Kent Station. One further line in future for airport access.

riddlinrussell wrote: »

Given the success of the Deise Greenway and the planned one Waterford to New Ross I cant see that Cork-Rosslaire line coming about.... would be a hell of a cycle though!

Impossible given that the Mallow to Dungarvan section was completely sold to farmers with all bridges basically dismantled.

I doubt a Billion would reopen it at this stage.

If they had any sense they'd send it under the city centre, as Dublin should have.

State should be prioritising these kinds of projects over more motorway in the arse bog of nowhere.

It's just a pitty that the official timeline and plan, which is rarely stuck to in this country, will see literally nothing done to improve transport in Cork until 2030 at the earliest. Yet Cork is intended to be the fastest growing city by populatio as per Ireland 2040, go figure that one out.

I wouldn't fret though because the 3 big Dublin projects will now certainly not hit their 2027 deadline given not a solitary sod has been turned yet on either of them. And of course only one of them is likely happen at all.

the dark phantom wrote: »

If the CCC were serious about this project they why are they planning to squander money on an upgrade on the Pairc ui Caoimhe Blackrock Mahon Rochestown walkway ?

Are you saying they shouldn't spend any money on the line between now and some point in the next 20 years? Also the two things aren't necessarily incompatible.

D.L.R. wrote: »

If they had any sense they'd send it under the city centre, as Dublin should have.

Tunneling is very difficult to do in Cork City Centre given soil quality. The cost alone would be prohibitive, but there'd also be huge risk of settlement or subsidence on a significant amount of the existing buildings.

It is, however, completely pointless to have a light rail system in the city without major rerouting and pedestrianisation in the centre. I've found at the moment there's absolutely no incentive to use public transport in the city due to the shockingly low speeds.

Luckily cork isn't huge ,a few more qbc s would make a huge difference . A luas ( or brt ) is a no brainer from balincolig to mahon (and maybe on to carrigaline ringaskiddy eventually ) ,but that could be done piecemeal allowing buses to use the parts that have been done ... (I'd love to see an n 40 brt as well ,either cannibalising a traffic lane or hard shoulder running ..

AngryLips wrote: »

That sounds like something someone who doesn't use public transport would say

This comment makes zero sense.

Wonder how much of the Blackrock line they'll use. Its the obvious choice in terms of implementation but it only has population and businesses on one side for large segments, I'd be afraid if its not close or visible people won't use it.

Hasn't the whole water taxi ,harbour ferry thing been proposed before ? , if they just set up more accessible cross river ferries ,Passage and monkstown are quite close to the cobh rail line, parts of ringaskiddy too, whitegate and aghada are near enough to cobh as well .. carrigaline is too far in land .

niloc1951 wrote: »

Instead of spending billions and not getting a service delivered this side of 2040 here's a readymade solution at a fraction of the cost. The Van Hool Trambus.
I've travelled on the network in the French city of Metz SEE HERE and the experience is similar to a light rail tram (LUAS).
Motive power can be hybrid, CNG, fuel cell, overhead cable/ battery.
The vehicles can built to run on battery in the city centre (no overhead wires needed and no installation disruption to business's) and on electricity from overhead wires (which recharge the battery pack) when in the suburbs.

One thing Dublin did was do transport infrastructure on the cheap. Instead of biting the bullet and building a Metro many, many years ago, a light rail system was built instead. It is now at breaking point and does not carry enough people, despite sitting on a Metro/Heavy Rail alignment in part.

Cork would do well to do it properly from the get go with a system that can carry as many people as possible. That is the lesson of public transport in Ireland - anything built is almost immediately at capacity. A bus system is typically a lower capacity, inefficient solution for a city as large as Cork.

donvito99 wrote: »

One thing Dublin did was do transport infrastructure on the cheap. Instead of biting the bullet and building a Metro many, many years ago, a light rail system was built instead. It is now at breaking point and does not carry enough people, despite sitting on a Metro/Heavy Rail alignment in part.

Cork would do well to do it properly from the get go with a system that can carry as many people as possible. That is the lesson of public transport in Ireland - anything built is almost immediately at capacity. A bus system is typically a lower capacity, inefficient solution for a city as large as Cork.

this is absolutely true! BUT , BUT as if the morons here, would EVER have put in a metro first, can you imagine, the unusuable luas now at peak times, with the worlds longest trams, cant even cope and was called a white elephant, by many morons in the media, politicians etc. it causes havoc with other modes of transport. Going from buses, straight to metro here, would never happen, they always have to have the bull**** cheap, short term solution...

Dont think you can get driverless on street trams, but if you can, do that down there! Or the drivers will be shutting down your system every few years!

advantages I see with bus, way cheaper, flexible, can re route, no issues with cyclists etc crashing off bikes. You can get electric buses. the disruption to business here was significant during construction, and the cables have to be run everywhere, unsightly services boxes etc. Also the luas crawls along in the city centre, barely above walking speed, assume it would be the same in cork... The luas only runs until 12:30 am for god sake, for whatever reason. At least buses are far easier to run at any time.

cgcsb wrote: »

The city of Innsbruck is about the size of Limerick. It has a 4 line electric commuter train network. 4 tram routes, an extensive lettered bus network similar to what bus connects proposes with traffic light priority and of course 24 hr buses on main routes. Literally nobody there says maybe we have too much public transport, the anglosphere influences our thinking here quite a bit, there is an underlying subtext that public transport needs to generate profit.

I was in the city of Gap (Eastern France) last summer and all the city bus routes are free
The concept was adopted as far back as 2005 as an incentive to get residents to abandon their cars for commuting to and from the city.
However, unlike here in Ireland there are local taxes which pay for such services (including refuse collection) so the profit peramiter does not exist.

donvito99 wrote: »

One thing Dublin did was do transport infrastructure on the cheap. Instead of biting the bullet and building a Metro many, many years ago, a light rail system was built instead. It is now at breaking point and does not carry enough people, despite sitting on a Metro/Heavy Rail alignment in part.

Cork would do well to do it properly from the get go with a system that can carry as many people as possible. That is the lesson of public transport in Ireland - anything built is almost immediately at capacity. A bus system is typically a lower capacity, inefficient solution for a city as large as Cork.

Trambus is not a 'cheap' solution, because it is not necessary to lay rails plus overhead cables can be avoided on city centre sections it is a far quicker and hugely less disruptive to local commerce instalation process.
The end product offers a travel experience the same as a tram on rails 'though, in particular, the electric version of the Trambus, because it runs on rubber tyres, is far quieter both internally and externally. I've used both.
A choice from the full range of fuels from fossil and renewable sources can selected as appropriate.

I'll probably be shot for saying this ,but if I'd change the midleton line to trams too,keep the rails , and all new stations to be tram stops ...