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

The NTA or TII?

They were 900 mm, chosen to be interoperable with the nearby Blackrock and Passage Railway at 3 ft 🤷🏻‍♂️ We've made some strange choices over the years.

Yes I'd expect that's the case. They're probably used to dealing with Dublin councilors who might be also hostile but also well used to change amd perhaps a little more pragmatic.

If that’s true, it’s beyond astounding. Cork City Council, both elected and administrative, have managed to block €3 billion worth of national investment into public infrastructure in Cork City? There hasn’t even been any meaningful community or public objections to it yet, if anything the public and local media have broadly supported the project. I understand that could all change when the route is announced but I can’t get over the council scuppering the project at this stage. Ann Doherty was asking for businesses to buy into the project just this month, to be simultaneously filibustering behind the scenes would be the biggest scandal in local politics in a generation. I am still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor, I hope someone like Eoin English or Tripe and Drisheen are reading this.

There are local elections coming up. If you see a politician out campaigning, make your opinions on this project known to them.

Their biggest vested interest is staying in a seat.

That's partly true, some Councilors are very reasonable in explaining what you're saying.

However some Councilors in private are also just downright backwards: they are themselves the ones who live and die by their cars and are very much leading, rather than being led. The council meetings show them intervening in schemes which have little to no public pushback.

As KrisW1001 says, it's very worthwhile to actually discuss with them during canvassing. It doesn't even break down along party lines, which is interesting.

?? Dublin buses run under Luas wires all the time, no problem.

The Cork Tramway system was a 2'11" gauge. The Cork, Blackrock & Passage line, while originally the standard 5'3" gauge was converted to the narrow gauge 3'0" when it was extended to Crosshaven. The Muskery Railway was also a narrow gauge system 3'0". The Tram to Sundays Well traveled successfully on the Muskery line along Western Road as far as Victoria Cross Road, where it left the Muskery line and turned north to Wellington Bridge (now named Thomas Davis Bridge).

While there are metric equivalents to the original gauges, I don't see The Board of Trade of the UK, speaking in metric measurements in The Regulating the Gauge of Railways Act 1846

The 4'8½" is still the UK standard gauge which is equal to the 1435mm, or thereabouts, found throughout Europe. We're an outlier with our 5'3" (1600mm) gauge which is why we need special custom-made bogies on any rolling stock ordered.

Would greatly appreciate if specific instances of councillors stalling and slowing down improvement projects could be posted here, e.g. links to public statements, council debates or tweets (I can think of one particular suspect but there must be more). It's time to put pressure on them while the elections are approaching. The city is grinding to a halt with car traffic, we need better bus routes and cycle lanes in the short term and some kind of mass transit as soon as possible.