Cork Transport
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I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a lot of the new or proposed denser developments iin Cork are along what is perceived as a potential light rail route.Jacob’s Island, Eden, South Docklands, Victoria Cross etc.
I would also be sceptical about the business case for light rail to Carrigaline. If you could throw in Ringaskiddy as well, it might make more sense. Perhaps even a line that went Ringaskiddy, Carrigalin, Airport, Cork. But with the required tunnelling, embankments etc. that would probably be prohibitively expensive.
In some ways it’s a pity that conversion of the Midleton and Cobh lines to light rail wasn’t considered. I guess they were always kept as heavy rail because of the need to get goods trains to North Esk and Marino Point, but both those issue are gone now. Even so, some form of Karlruhe Model could have allowed light and heavy rail to share the lines and then have the light rail vehicles switch on to on-street running in the city. Also with the Karlsruhe model, you’d be OK to have heavy rail trains do Mallow-Cobh journeys etc.
But that’s water under the bridge now.. We should perhaps be glad that the Midleton line is getting built. I was out in the Glounethaune/Carrigtwohill direction over the weekend and work seem to be progressing nicely. That said, they’ve replaced the old skew bridge over the former Cork-Waterford road wit a new one that firstly doesn’t eliminate the skew (i.e. is still dangerous for road traffic) and which to my untrained eye seems incapable of having two lines pass underneath it. I know Midleton is initially being rebuilt as single track (OK because you can still manage a train every 15 minutes if necessary), but I was under the impression that all the bridges were to be built to allow double-tracks to be installed later if the situation arose.
Sorry, Carrigaline is closer to 13,000
http://www.cso.ie/census/census2006results/volume_2/census_2006_vol_2_tables_14_15.pdf
As for Bus Eireann, its the same with all aspects of that group of companies – a strong national transport regulator is required to kick them into shape – they don’t listen to anyone (elected or not) because there is no clearly legal or political defined basis on which their performance can be judged, or on which they can be made answerable for their actions.
The thing is that there may well be a case for Light Rail in Cork – as I’ve said before here, the City Council were arguing strongly for it as far back as the 1980s (before it was suggested as a real option in Dublin, in fact). Given the size and density of the city, and the likely future development, it is and will be of an appropriate scale for a focussed investment of this type. Clearly, heavy rail would be excessive, and bus may not offer the long term solution – so there’s an initial case, clearly. Thing is, an investment in a much larger bus fleet, and in getting the ‘Green Routes’ established properly, might deal with a lot of these problems for the next 10-15 years.
However, and this harks back to a related thread on boards, the parish pump nature of politics here is such that there will be a marked reluctance in a number of quarters to even consider this type of investment on the basis that once Cork ‘gets it’, Limerick and Galway will feel that they ‘deserve it’ also, despite the fact that Cork is significantly larger than both of those put together (see table above). In other words, the net political outcome would be perceived to be negative, on the basis that the negative reaction from the Wes(h)t would be much stronger than the mild positive reaction from Cork.
The honest and fair solution is to do one tender for 3 feasability studies into light rail, have the same company do the analysis, on the same basis, for all three cities, and then treat the results fairly and rationally.
I was under the impression that all the bridges were to be built to allow double-tracks to be installed later if the situation arose.
That was certainly the case – in fact the designs that were around in the 2001 timeframe were that all of the infrastructure was to be constructed to allow for electrification, desipite the fact that there was no likely way that this would ever be required on that line, but I gather from anecdotal evidence, that the final plans may not be quite so well considered.Wth the projected population of Ireland (26 Counties) to reach 6.7 million feasability,planned infrastructure including transport should be considered now rather than houses first – schools,transport etc later ?
Aidan wrote:The honest and fair solution is to do one tender for 3 feasability studies into light rail, have the same company do the analysis, on the same basis, for all three cities, and then treat the results fairly and rationally.
QUOTE]i was under the impression the city council already had a feasibility study into the light rail underway – they have started another plan any, there is supposed to be an overall transport plan being prepared next year
Ryanair to close two Cork routes
Ryanair said today it is to close two of the seven routes it operates from Cork airport from the end of October following a 20 per cent increase in charges imposed on the routes.The daily flight from Cork to East Midlands will end on October 2th while the daily service to Glasgow (Prestwick) will close two days later.
The route cancellations are expected to result in a loss of 100,000 passengers at Cork this winter, equivalent to a 6 per cent drop in traffic using Cork Airport.
Ryanair said the decline in passenger traffic will result in up to 200 local jobs being lost.
“We regret that we have to close these two daily routes to/from Cork. However, a 20 per cent increase in airport charges on these routes reduces our ability to offer really low fares at a time of higher oil prices and these higher costs will make these two new routes loss making this winter,” said Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary.
“The loss of these flights, 200,000 passengers, €20,000,000 in tourism revenue and 200 jobs could have been avoided if Cork Airport had agreed to continue the current low cost agreement on these routes. However, Ryanair can not and will not absorb a 20 per cent increase in costs just to keep loss making routes open at a high cost airport like Cork,” he added.
© 2008 irishtimes.com
Slight problems being
1) Cork Airport’s run by the Dublin Airport Authority
2) Cork Airport’s been landed with an enormous debt which it wasn’t supposed to have.
3) How is FF getting away with this?:confused:http://www.uk-airport-news.info/east-midlands-airport-news-300808.htm
Copied from the PPRuNe Forums
There is a local area plan under preparation for the airport. Submissions can be made until the 21st of January. As we all seem fairly concerned and informed about the future of the airport, I think it would be desirable if as many people from here as possible made submissions
wholeheartedly agree – maybe this time someone will actually monitor costs from spiralling into 100 odd million of over runs that no one was held responsible for.
I see Bus Eireann are running nitelinks on weekends over xmas. If its that easy, why hasnt it been done for the last 10 years?
Just reading your talk on the Eglinton Street Tower tread about transport around cork and have to agree big time on the fact that public transport in poor at best and it looks like it’s going to be getting much worse when C.I.E. is going to be making big cuts coming up.:mad:
Makes you laugh when you hear politician’s going on about world class transport system. Found this article on rte website. interesting enough idea. Swedes seem to like it anyway there plowing ahead with it.
It seems to be a great idea but for some reason i can’t see it happening in cork , but thats maybe i see the state of public transport in Ireland and know that the people that be in power can’t be that radical……. sick isn’t it.:(
Introducing the Podcar
Wednesday, 15 October 2008By William Kates
The thought of a driverless, computer-guided car transporting people where they want to go on demand is a futuristic notion to some.
To Jacob Roberts, podcars – or PRTs, for personal rapid transit -represent an important component in the here-and-now of transportation.
Advertisement‘It’s time we design cities for the human, not for the automobile,’ said Mr Roberts, president of Connect Ithaca, a group of planning and building professionals, activists and students committed to making this upstate New York college town the first podcar community in the United States.
‘In the podcar … it creates the perfect blend between the privacy and autonomy of the automobile with the public transportation aspect and, of course, it uses clean energy,’ Mr Roberts said.
With the oil crisis reaching a zenith and federal lawmakers ready to begin fashioning a new US transportation bill for 2010, Mr Roberts and his colleagues think the future is now for podcars – electric, automated, lightweight vehicles that ride on their own network separate from other traffic.
Unlike mass transit, podcars carry two to ten passengers, giving travelers the freedom and privacy of their own car while reducing the use of fossil fuels, reducing traffic congestion and freeing up space now monopolised by parking.
At stations located every block or every half-mile, depending on the need, a rider enters a destination on a computerised pad, and a car would take the person nonstop to the location. Stations would have slanted pull-in bays so that some cars could stop for passengers, while others could continue unimpeded on the main course.
‘It works almost like an elevator, but horizontally,’ said Roberts, adding podcar travel would be safer than automobile travel.
The podcar is not entirely new. A limited version with larger cars carrying up to 15 passengers was built in 1975 in Morgantown, West Virginia, and still transports West Virginia University students.
Next year, London’s Heathrow Airport will unveil a pilot podcar system (left) to ferry air travelers on the ground. Companies in Sweden, Poland and Korea are already operating full-scale test tracks to demonstrate the feasibility. Designers are planning a podcar network for Masdar City, outside Abu Dhabi, which is being built as the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste city.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen cities in Sweden are planning podcar systems as part of the country’s commitment to be fossil-fuel-free by 2020, said Hans Lindqvist, a councilman from Varmdo, Sweden, and chairman of Kompass, an association of groups and municipalities behind the Swedish initiative.
‘Today’s transportation system is reaching a dead end,’ said Mr Lindqvist, a former member of the European parliament.
Cars have dominated the cityscape for nearly a century, taking up valuable space while polluting the air, said Magnus Hunhammar, chief executive officer of the Stockholm-based Institute for Sustainable Transportation, the world’s leading center on podcar technology.
‘Something has to change,’ he said. ‘We aren’t talking about replacing the automobile entirely. We are adding something else into the transportation strategy.’
Skeptics, however, question whether podcars can ever be more than a novelty mode of transportation, suitable only for limited-area operations, such as airports, colleges and corporate campuses. Detractors, mainly light-rail advocates, say a podcar system would be too complex and expensive.
‘It is operationally and economically unfeasible,’ said Vukan Vuchic, a professor of transportation and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania who has written several books on urban transportation.
‘In the city, if you have that much demand, you could build these guideways and afford the millions it would take, but you wouldn’t have capacity. In the suburbs, you would have capacity, but the demand would be so thin you couldn’t possibly pay for those guideways, elevated stations, control systems and everything else,’ Mr Vuchic said.
Podcars typically run on an elevated guideway or rails, but they also can run at street level. As a starting point, pilot podcar networks can be built along existing infrastructure, supporters say.
Ithaca Mayor Carol Peterson said a podcar network could be part of her upstate city’s long-range transportation plans and its mission of developing urban neighborhoods that are environmentally sustainable and pedestrian-friendly. Ithaca has a long history of progressive achievements – this summer, it began the first community-wide car sharing program in upstate New York.
In Ithaca, a network could connect the downtown business district and main business boulevard with the campuses of Cornell University and Ithaca College, which sit on hillsides flanking the city. When the two colleges are in session, Ithaca’s population balloons from about 30,000 to about 80,000, causing big-city congestion on the city’s roads.
Santa Cruz, California, recently hired a contractor to design a small solar-powered podcar system that would loop through the city’s downtown and along its beach front.
The Institute for Sustainable Transportation predicts a podcar system will be installed in an American city within the next five years, although it is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars. Because of the huge initial investment, funding would have to come from both public and private sectors, IST officials said.
The capital cost is about $25-40m (€18.5-30m) per mile, which includes guideways, vehicles and stations, compared with $100-300m (€74-222m) a mile for light-rail or subway systems, according to the IST.Although the plan for Ithaca is only in the conceptual stages, Roberts sees the city as a logical place for the country’s first community-wide podcar network, noting that construction of the Erie Canal across upstate New York in the early 1800s revolutionised commercial transportation in a young America.
‘Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany are connected along a single line, the Erie Canal. Now, they are connected by the (New York State) Thruway. It would be easy to adapt. You could have a high-speed rail line, or even buses, deliver travelers to the podcar stations, and the podcars take them wherever they want to go in the city,’ he said.
But podcar developers say they have overcome most technological obstacles and now must overcome the political and cultural barriers that lie ahead, equating it to the mind-set revolution that occurred when Americans hitched up their horses for good to become a nation of motorists.
‘We are introducing an alternative to the automobile for the first time in 100 years,’ said Christopher Perkins, chief executive officer of Unimodal Transport Solutions, a California company that builds podcars that operate on magnetic levitation instead of wheels.
‘But if you look back 100 years, you saw that we made the transition from the horse to the car. I think we are ready to make another transition,’ he said.cant see it happening, they cant get buses to run properly let alone this thing.
To be fair, Cork City COuncil have a crowd called MV Consultancy doing a transport study for Cork but the cynic in me asks is it just another plan along with CASP, South West Regional Development Plan, NDP, Transport 21, Docklands plans.
It is very important to have plans but ACTION is more important.
@Pug wrote:
cant see it happening, they cant get buses to run properly let alone this thing.
To be fair, Cork City COuncil have a crowd called MV Consultancy doing a transport study for Cork but the cynic in me asks is it just another plan along with CASP, South West Regional Development Plan, NDP, Transport 21, Docklands plans.
It is very important to have plans but ACTION is more important.
All these plans,local area plans,studies,reports,documents keep planners busy and storage companies in money to store these pipe dreams.
Action ?
Are you mad ?
Current stage of construction pics…
County council performing a transport study for Douglas, this is your chance if you or friends live there, to write in to the council and let them know whats wrong. Whether they change it or not is another thing and more importantly, where they are going to get the funding to change it is another thing but at least its a chance to let them know whats wrong and how to fix it.
http://www.corkcoco.ie/co/web/Global%20Nav/Document%20View?did=354042833&pageUrl=/Global+Nav/Home
through some work stuff, i came across the draft city development plan for the future and interestingly, CIE in a submission, re-iterated their plans to change Kent Station to face the quays (its very fancily called a Multi Modal Transport Interchange) but said that Transport 21 never included any funding for it! what an absolute farce!
So the railway line to Midleton is finally open.
Anyone planning to use it soon? Anyone planning to be a regular commuter?
What are the government going to announce now that the railway line is open?
That used to be their banker…every few weeks announce the cork-midleton line. Perhaps they can just put out a press release every few months just to tell us its still going. We’ll miss it otherwise!Plenty more to come.
This should keep them busy til 2020.
“The minister has announced plans to make funding available for Kilbarry station”
“The minister has asked the cabinet to make funding available for Kilbarry station”
“The minister has made funding available for Kilbarry station”
“Work has commenced on Kilbarry station”
“The minister has visited the soon-to-be-completed Kilbarry station”
“The minister has opened Kilbarry station”
“The minister has announced plans to make funding available for Blarney station”
“The minister has asked the cabinet to make funding available for Blarney station”
“The minister has made funding available for Blarney station”
“Work has commenced on Blarney station”
“The minister has visited the soon-to-be-completed Blarney station”
“The minister has opened Blarney station”
“The minister has announced plans to make funding available for Dunkettle station”
“The minister has asked the cabinet to make funding available for Dunkettle station”
“The minister has made funding available for Dunkettle station”
“Work has commenced on Dunkettle station”
“The minister has visited the soon-to-be-completed Dunkettle station”
“The minister has opened Dunkettle station”Seem that the Sarsfield Road to Bandon Road improvement is going ahead now. Still wasn’t sure it was even with the press releases by some of our finest politicians 😉 But its gone out to tender and only about 10 years too late. But hey we will take it still. Plenty more projects that i could think of but don’t think any of them will be happening any time soon
http://www.etenders.gov.ie/search/sh…x?ID=APR147155
N25 South Ring Road – Sarsfield Road to Bandon Road – Road Improvement Scheme
Published by: Cork City Council
Publication Date: 12/04/2010
Application Deadline: 17/05/2010
Notice Deadline Date: 24/05/2010
Notice Deadline Time: 12:00
Notice Type: Contract Notice
Has Documents: No
Abstract: The works consist of the upgrading of 3km of the N25 South Ring Road including the grade separation of both the Bandon Road and Sarsfield Road Roundabouts, the demolition of footbridges at both roundabouts, the construction of parallel link roads between the roundabouts, the construction of slip roads to and from the N25 South Ring Road to meet these roundabouts or the parallel roads, upgrading the approach roads to both roundabouts, the construction of new cyleways/footpaths and all ancillary works therewith.
The main construction activities will be demolition, piling operations, ground improvement earthworks, drainage, earthworks, reinforced earth construction, concrete construction, bridge erection, road construction, road surfacing, service diversions, installation of road signs including gantry signs, installation of noise barriers, installation of traffic signals, provision of road markings, public lighting, landscaping, fencing and accomodation works.
CPV: 45233100.
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