mickeydocs
Forum Replies Created
- Posts
@a boyle wrote:
yes i do drive , a lot, and have driven all over europe and america.
If you want to see how to do things right skip back on this thread and look at a map of germany and compare it to the map of france. then go and drive in both countries , and then come back and tell me which has worse traffic.
The last time I checked the routd au soleil didn’t pass through Germany.
The French make very significant investments in public transport, Paris has a greater population of 12 million people and most of her traffic problems occur during Summer months when very large portions of Northern Europe and the British Isles decide to drive through France en route to holiday destinations.As a student I spent a year and a half in Paris and was very impressed by how cheap, comprehensive and efficient the public transport network is. My only issue with the public transport was the fact that workers had a tendency to go on lightening strikes. I once spent half an hour stuck in a metro in the bowels of Paris on a very hot Summer’s day.
Landsdowne has public transport access, great pubs, good atmosphere.
50K seater stadium makes sense as Dublin already has an 80K plus stadium.Bertie Bowl was doomed tbg.
check out the new cork airport website: http://www.corkairport.com/index.asp
Peoploe in Dublin describe development in Cork as low class, plastic and tacky. We can hardly disagree with them.
Funnily enough this is how most people would describe developments in Dublin as well. This is a national problem and I agree with Spinal Tap that we have escaped the worst of it.
Kyrl’s quay is my pet hate of the celtic tiger era developments in Cork. That Multistorey carpark should count as a crime against the people of Cork.
The University are far from free of blame, the science building is an absolute monstrosity, and houses the most uncomfortable lecture halls in the known world. (The geography building is class 🙂 )
@A-ha wrote:
Cork City Council is in talks with Irish Rail about opening a railway station in Kilnap, near Farranree on the Cork-Mallow line. It is hoped the station will be open in 2008 to coincide with the opening of three other stations on the Mallow line and the re-opening of the Midleton line as part of the Cork Suburban Rail.
I’ve expected that station to open as one of the features that the new Goverment Offices were looking for was access to a rail connection (according to Lexington many many moons ago).
This is a very positive move for the area.
@Radioactiveman wrote:
There has been a serious breach of planning regulations at a development on College Road.
“Cliffords” shop (well known to generations of students) as well as no.’s 1 and 2 Westbourne, College Road have (over the weekend, surprise, surprise) been reduced to rubble to make way for a new development on the site. Planning permission for such demolition has not been granted.
PP was recently conditionally granted (04/28769) for the demolition of a portion of the existing shop and the dwellings and to construct 4 no. terraced townhouses along Highfield Avenue. With regard to the properties 1 and 2 Westbourne it was intended to convert these into 4 no. apartments.
Permission had previously been refused by CCC and ABP for the development of 8 no. student apartments on 4 floors at 1-3 Westbourne, College Road.
The applications were made by a Ms. Ann Clifford.The Planning Department at CCC can be contacted as follows, if you feel this merits a complaint:
Telephone: + 353 21 4924321 / 4924324 / 4924325 / 4924720 / 4924722 / 4924723Fax: + 353 21 4924706
e-mail: planning@corkcity.ie
My brother lives in the area and he was complaining about this at the weekend. He’s already contacted the council, as have I.
What ‘s your point?
A Boyle is full of it, and right now he’s just stirring trouble.
Cork contributes one third of the states gdp and represents one eight of the population.
The Greater Cork region is the fastest growing region in Munster (almost 12%).
There has been a significant investment in Cork because it is by far and away the state’s second most populous area. The greater Cork area is now an area of 300,000 people and growing. This is far in excess of the combined greater areas of Galway, Limerick, Ennis, and Shannon combined.One airport serving the Western sea board is not going to happen. Open skies will reverse the disproportionate state aid that has been propping Shannon up for the past fifty years. Cork will have transatlatic routes in the next 24 months, and another significant slice of the population that keeps Shannon going will have been removed.
I believe that Cork is now deserving of a tax free area similar to the tax free zone that has served Shannon. Time for a bit of a level playing field for all regions equal to its contribution to the state.
A Boyle, do you ever look at facts before starting your rant.
Facts, Cork City and Limerick City both declined in population during the period 2002 to 2006. Dublin City grew by just 2%. Galway grew by 9%.
Does this mean that Galway’s growth is outpacing the rest of the country?
Look again at the facts. Areas around Cork, Dublin and Limerick are growing by ridiculous amounts, in someplaces by up to 30%. The population of Co. Cork grew to just under half a million in this census with a growth rate of over 11%. The Dublin region grew by just 5.6%.Surely a growth rate such as this undermines a need for a metro in Dublin???
Now let’s take your point that Cork and Limerick are in perpetual decline similar to Detroit. Once again I presume you didn’t take a close look at the figures, just the summary headlines.
If you look at page 11 on the CSO Report you will see a paragraph that states that decline in population in areas such as Cork, Waterford and Dublin is attributed to “a combination of factors including adult children leaving the family home, urban renewal schemes and regeneration projecs involving the demolition of older housing. In addition many of the infill developments in city areas consisted of apartment blocks in which individual units catered for only one or two persons”.
Other factors cited are “relatively low level of new housing and an ageing population”.
So what we are seeing in the traditional city areas are changing demographics. Traditional working class areas are experiencing steady population decline due to an ageing population, children leaving the family home, and smaller family units.
Ballinlough has seen a population decline of 51%. Hmmm, why is that. Obviously terminal decline of a city… no, in fact this represents students leaving a traditional student area to live in accomodation provided by colleges.
Blackpool – 27%… maybe the fact that the whole of Blackpool is a construction site has something to do with this.
Togher – 17%… ageing working class area, children moving on.
However, if we look at the towns surrounding Cork, for example Midleton, Carrigaline, Douglas, Ballincollig, etc,
we see growth rates of approximately 15%, in towns that are alreay quite populous. So are the inhabitants of this town partaking of too much viagra leading to huge baby booms, well I’m sure that quite a few of these new inhabitants are from Ballinlough, Togher, and Blackpool.Probably best to just look at the summary headline and reach conclusions though.
Please move on to a new topic A Boyle, you are a very tiresome contributor.
@a boyle wrote:
mickey docs is spot on. one single airport in the center of the country would be a great idea.
There are two things that might make the idea falter (possibly!).
One you are creating a monopoly. so we could all end up gouged. however if four terminal were built and indepentantly owned and operated then you could be onto .
The second reason why it is a good idea but a diificult one to implement is that it would require a huge amount a air traffic to pass over populated areas. in shannon and dublin are close to the sea.
Of course if a high speed rail connection existed between cork and shannon , then the logical next step would be to create a high speed dublin / shannon / limerick rail link . Then decommision the dublin to cork line.
CDG is further from the sea than Athlone (the furthest inland area in the country) and caters for approximately 35 million passengers per year. Orly in the same city caters for 20 million passengers.
Zaventem is also further from the sea than Athlone.
Brussels and Paris have greater populations in excess of the entire populations of Éire.
This centralised approach completely ignores the idea that our aiports cater for three types of movement, cargo, business travellers and leisure travellers. Our airports tend to cater for the first two types, more so than the latter. Cork, Shannon and Dublin are all expected to act as economic generation aids, and are all successful at doing that.
However, due to limitations of all three major airports, leisure travellers, especially those looking to fly to longhaul destinations will always favour using Heathrow, CDG, or other similar airports. As such, all of our main airports service much larger hubs. The economic reality will show that we will all choose to fly from these hubs because flights will always be cheaper as these areas cater for very large populations, and benefit from competition and economies of scale.
Last Saturday I arrived in Cork airport and went to collect my bag. Six airplanes had all arrived within the preceding 15 minutes. So I queued and waited, and waited, and waited. The facilities would make you ashamed. The general ambience would make you ashamed. This airport was built to cater for half a million passengers, and this year will carry approximately three million passengers. Luckily we have a new terminal to look forward to. Most importantly we will have an airport that will reflect the success of our economic region (second only to Dublin by some distance!!!!), but also the success of our country.
Begrudge us our airport all you want. It is built. Aer Lingus see the value of investing in over €150 million in services and destinations from our airport. The goverment sees the value in a similar investment.
It is much too late to stop the building of this new terminal (which has cost €80 million) and all of the ancillary buildings and services which will take the overall investment to approximately €180 million. In August these will be open and available to the public.
The people of Munster require this investment, not just the people of Cork. Time to accept, in whatever form you choose to.
@witconor wrote:
Sounds like Zaventem (Brussels National) Airport in Belgium!
Sounds like Belgium full stop 😉
@a boyle wrote:
scrapping cork is the correct thing to do. instead of investing in cork airport , investing in a new direct rail link from cork to limerick and on to shannon is the best thing you could have done with the 180 million euro invested in cork airport.
That way you would have a rail link between cork and ennis (with a real chance of it continuing to galway) AND an airport with an catchment population comparable to dublin.
Intead you have a provincial airport which will never bring the same choice of destinations as shannon could.
However if shannon and cork can both survive then all the better , but if there is a choice it is quite clear that shannon is preferable.
preferrable to whom?
How about another option. Let’s scrap Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Galway, Farranfore, Knock. Let’s knock them down.
Let’s build an airport in the heart of the country that’s accessible to all areas of the country, let’s say we build this in Tipperary or Kilkenny, equidistant to Cork and Dublin, and quite close to Galway, Waterford and Limerick.
Let’s then build a railway network built around this airport. We could then have a rail network that makes all areas of the country accessible, and an airport that is within one hour of all main population hubs. The airport is now used by all four million citizens, and is thus able to provide a much better range of services than either Cork, Dublin or Shannon do right now (let’s face it, if we want to fly longhaul we always go via London, Paris, or Amsterdam).
This solution means that the majority of our citizens are no longe obliged to have to travel to go to Dublin so as to fly to the United States. The country gets an equitable transport infrastructure, and for much less than the proposed one billion that is to be spent on Dublin airport.@dave123 wrote:
LOL. Yeh it was Cork that was getting more money in the end, and CAUSED more debt for DAA not Shannon, ues shannon had debt but there were also a lot of money taken out of shannon at the same time, which causeed the monopoly at Dublin, which is why before EVER got into the equation Shannon wanted to run as a separate body, your right Cork airport is a joke….. US troop landings is getting a bit old. now since it’s leveling off, and threathned to be move elsewehere. Shannon had more problems going against it than Cork EVER had. Yet Shannon pulled through even with plummeting Transathlantic figues… In the end Shannon has it’s debts cleared.
Well Dave, I am glad that the powers that be (government, aer lingus, and others) didn’t bow to your unquestionable logic and have chosen instead to finally invest in Cork. Of course according to you it would make more sense to invest in an airport that covers Galway and Limerick, rather than to invest in an airport that serves a population hub that is well in excess of the combined populations of both those towns.
Open skies will finally reverse the years of excessive politiking that has forced everyone in the land to have to put up with the redundant Shannon stop over. Once again it takes a ruling made by someone rather than the Irish government to arrive at a decision that makes sense.
Thankfully Cork airport is here to stay, and will continue to help the states second population hub to thrive for the short, medium, and longterm future.
BTW, I flew into Cork at the weekend and was very impressed with the new terminal (from the outside of course). Was also very impressed by how large the Airport Business Park has grown. The second ariport hotel looks very impressive.
Just wondering how Irish Rails proposed once an hour scheduled rail service to Dublin will fare now that Ryanair are offering flights to Cork that amount to half the cost and one third of the travel time?
Thomond Park wrote:I don’t think that the people in Cork would agree that their terminal was a sqaundering of money]Use of Cork airport is not just limited to people from Cork, lots of people from Munster much prefer using Cork rather than go to Dublin.
It would be interesting to compare passenger figures for Cork and Shannon if transatlantic flights were also allowed for Cork (as they will be in the not too distant future).
Cork had more passengers than Shannon in 2004, however this trend was reversed in 2005 because of the huge increase in passenger numbers at Shannon due to US Military using the base as a stopover on their way to Iraq.
@a boyle wrote:
i am sorry thomond , but i cant agree. cork airport is has barely a few million , simply not enough to justify such an investment.
There is huge dishonesty on the part of all politicians as to what is needed and appropriate for ireland. I would argue forcefully that cork limercik and galway would be much better served by an eastern railway shuttle service and one single airport at shannon. cork has already burned sackfulls of money on a beautifull white elephant of an airport terminal , please don’t compound the problem!!
Closing cork airport and introducing a fast shuttle service to shannon would be overall a sustainable answer. Such a trainline could be built with a short travel time. cork to shannon is only 128 km.
Instead of squandering 180 million on this terminal , that would have gone some way to building a 200 km/h trainline from cork to shannon. Then the travel time would only be some 35 minutes or so .
Just a quick question Boyle… why shut Cork and keep Shannon. Surely the logical idea would be to serve the area with the greater critical mass, which by far and away is Cork. Cork metropolitan area is 300k, the county is 440k. Proximity of Waterford, Limerick, Tipperary and Kerry quickly bring that closer to one million.
Why does Cork have to lose out?
At present there is no transatlantic service out of the city, this needs to be rectified.@Keen wrote:
Hi,
I thought of starting a construction thread for ES as i believe it holds a title of being Ireland’s first new tallest in the last 40 odd years. This is also the only of the proposed new ‘tall’ towers in the country that is actually U/c. I hope that you guys in Cork could update the rest of us (the odd photo would be nice) as I live in Dublin and would not be able to check the progress there. Also when U2 tower and Hueston gate tower begin construction I will be sure to post some snaps whenever I get the chance. Cheers
good man Keen… as an exiled Corkman I’d also like to see some snaps… has this now entered the construction phase?
@Aidan wrote:
You mean, would I spend money on public transport where the vast majority of the public actually live?
Funnily enough, yes I would.
In any case, the NRR would benefit the southside a lot more than the northside, given that its main function would be to take non local traffic off the South Link and route it around the north of the city, freeing up the commuter hell that is the South Link. The biggest benficiary on the north side would be, as jungle pointed out, in reducing the traffic that clogs up the Ballyvolane area. The CASP makes very clear the intention to develop new population centres along the railway line to the north of the city, in time, those (in the Monard/Rathpeacon/Blarney area) will necessitate new road infrastructure on the scale of the NRR, but in the interim, I’d prefer to see those new developments grow around the railway first, while at the same time addressing the public transport problems in the city centre..
what’s the population divide between north and south of the lee?
@Aidan wrote:
Have to agree with Lex, – it will be required in the medium term – 2015 on, but if the Dunkettle interchange could be dealt with properly (and KRR, BandonRd and Sarsfield RD), its not an immediate priority. In any case, the NRR would only work as advertised if the zoning and planning situation would be rigorously adhered to, and development at junctions along its length prevented. Much better off giving the Mallow-Midleton commuter rail time to bed in and have some effect before building completely new roads.
Two light rail loops, between the railway station and Bishopstown, and te South Mall out to Douglas, would a much better way of spending the money.
Aidan,
So you would take infrastructural funds aimed at easing the current imbalance between the north and south side and spend it entirely on light rail for the southside?Agreed about light rail, but not about further exacerbating the unequal investments north and south of the Lee.
@POM wrote:
Hope you’d a nice holiday Lex.
Just on the plans for the Muskerry Service Station at the Western Road. I had a little visit to view the plans for myself over the week. I saw today only 3 objections lodged on the project. Honestly I have to say of all the projects in planning at the moment this is perhaps the one that is ripe for controversy. It happens to be a rather awful dire contraption. The architects were marked as DTA Associates which I understand is Derek Tynan work again, the same team that gave us the awful Victoria Mills, the even worse extension to Victoria Mills and the equally terrible office building planned for Crosses Green. Again DTA seems on an ambitious mission to even top its other mistakes with what is essentially a half glass, half stone wall pair of blocks. From the photomontages it seems the buildings will jut close to the roadside blocking views down the Western Road of the infinitely more attractive new Jurys and create an eyesore viewing up the Western Road from the city along the river. It essentially rises up facing the road as a bare stone wall with only a few slits for windows. Awful awful stuff.
Can someone please post some pics of the jurys site if they get a chance? It would be very much appreciated by an exiled corkonian.
