Cork Transport

I hope the Amgen people are leaving enough room to grade separate the nearby junction for when the road is done 😀

Would be hilarious if some of their shiny new factory got CPOed 😀

@samuel j wrote:

Where I fear the biggest cost would be the initial cost of putting safe and usable landing points, marine structure/piers do not come cheap…. and would ahve to have correct parking facilities for punters
to leave their cars etc.

That is the big difficulty, as is the capital cost of the craft as pointed out elsewhere. In Manhattan late ’90s there was a highspeed ferry that ran during the summer months from the Seaport up the East River. It had only 2 stops, somewhere in Midtown (near QB Bridge) and at a pier at about 96th Street. Great way to go home, but anyone who could afford the fare did not live remotely near 96th/FDR.
KB2

A road east from Grange Cross would destroy what is left of Douglas Woods and would serve little practical purpose anyway, It might keep a bit of Grange-Rochestown traffic out of the village. Besides, the proposal for a junction onto the South Link would render this pointless. A better option might be to upgrade the existing road that runs from the N28 to Donnybrook (currently a boreen) and to extend it towards Pinecroft.

A proper interchange on the South Ring west of the current ones would be desirable, but it should be tied to the closure of the existing interchanges. Then an ordinary road could be run from the existing roundabout on the South Douglas Road to this interchange and on to Grange. The roundabout might need to be replaced with traffic lights because of the volumes at it.

I can’t see the benefit of making Douglas West one-way. Also, I can’t see how you would get a bus to the Daily’s shop area without using it. Considering the 6 and 7 pass down this way, it must be taken into account.

I remember saying this a number of years back, but before engaging in mass road building, there are a few remedial measures that could make a big difference on the current roads. Ban street parking in Douglas (and enforce this ban) and replace the roundabout at Tesco with traffic lights. You’d be surprised how much difference it could make.

Has anyone seen the plans for the Amgen factory? I’d love to know if it includes the small railway station (on the Midleton line) that they previously said they had planned for workers. Also, what about that council-planned station at Kilnap, have Irish Rail decided to incorporate it into their plans for the Mallow line?

@Micko wrote:

Adding a slip road from the Douglas Road onto the South Ring Road going west would do an awful lot for improving the traffic situation in Douglas.

There’s a lot of traffic being forced to go up the Rochestown road for no reason trying to get onto the South Ring Road.

Hear Hear. It’s ludicrous as is. You can only get off coming from the west, or on going to the west. Eastbound you have no choice but to use the nigthmarish Rochestown Road all the way out to Bloomfield.

There are obviously serious spatial constraints, and adding an eastbound merge would probably require CPOing those two houses nearest the N25.
Adding a westbound diverge into Douglas would be relatively easy, and could tie in nicely with the proposed Clyaton Love roads plan…

Here are some of the long promised shots of the departures lounge at the new terminal at Cork Ariport:

@goldiefish wrote:

Those chairs look particularly uncomfortable…

They’re grand really. Fairly standard issue airport chairs. The only real problem is that if your flight is badly delayed, you can’t lie across them and use them as a bed.

The problem at Cork, however, is that they occupy approximately two thirds of the width of the departure lounge creating the same kind of circulation problems that you have at terminal 2 at Charles de Gaule in Paris. Good circulation provisions would require a reduction in the amount of space alotted to the shops and duty free. By so doing, it would mean that when passengers line up to board they will not obstruct other passengers arriving into the departures lounge – and there appears to be only one entrance and that through an enormous Duty Free Shop.

Swansea-Cork ferry service closes – from RTE.ie

January 08, 2007 18:39
Thirty staff are being made redundant in the Swansea-Cork Ferry company, after the company was unable to find a replacement for the ferry it sold last October.

Tourist and shipping interests have called for Government intervention to prevent the closure of the Swansea Cork Ferry Service which was estimated to be worth €35m to the tourist economy in the South.

The ferry company failed to obtain a more modern vessel to operate the service this year, after it sold the 35-year-old ship it had been operating last October.

A €30m deal for a ship fell through before Christmas and the company says it has been unable to buy or charter a ferry so there will be no service from Cork to Swansea this year.

Its annual operations were from March to January.

The International Transport Federation called on the Ministers for Marine and Transport to intervene to prevent the loss of the service, which has carried three million passengers over recent years.

Interesting….. Not news as this was a strong rumour around the harbour last Oct , that a replacement was not being sought and that it was to close….