has cork city been ruined by bike lanes?

whisky_galore

SpaceTime wrote: »

Something is seriously up then as the prices are FAR too high for a city this size.

Extortionate, never again will I use one.

Ludo

SpaceTime wrote: »

There's a northern ring?!?
It looks more like a local road through some housing estates and suburbs to me...

The tunnel really serves the Eastern side of the City from Montenotte, Mayfield, Silversprings, Glanmire. Other areas of the Northside are actually totally reliant on cutting through town really and are quite badly served with roads compared to the south, west and east.

I didn't say it was necessarily faster...just pointing out that you don't HAVE to go through town. It is an option. Douglas to Blackpool can be faster to go through tunnel and North ring than thru town. All depends. Check traffic before you leave and decide.

lisasimpson

I do like the bike scheme and the idea of cycle lanes, however some of them weren't planned great and some of the bike stations could have in better places instead of taking up parking spaces. The council and others need a reality check in relation to traffic management in cork...no point in suggesting a ban on cars when there is no plan b - proper public transport in place. The area over by the albert quay site for example has the potential to become a bottle neck with the building is finished and occupied... now Im not against the building I welcome it, will do wonders for the city. Phase three over in Mahon has started...over there is already madness at times. its great having all these developments. On top of that add in the housing/rental situation in cork where people are living further away from the city they have no option to drive to work. So traffic management/planning really needs to get sorted. Probably peoples attitudes to driving to work need to change a bit too, I know of a number of examples where people live within a 10/15 min walk of work and insist on driving everyday

SpaceTime

Ireland's weather doesn't help much either. Most of the year, walking to / from work isn't a viable option as it's highly unpredictable and you get soaked.

The other massive problem here is that the schools aren't actually a planned, public system and they're complete chaos. Historical hang ups about religion and single sex schools means parents drive unusually long distances and make multiple drops for different children. In a lot of other places I've lived they've just got excellent local schools and that's where the vast majority of kids go. Here it's all about minor barrier fees, snobbery, religion, gender etc

I know families that drive their kids 20km each way to go to a particular school of choice.

The moment school holidays kick in, there's no traffic!! So, the school "system" and lack of an ability to organise or use school transport has an absolutely massive impact on morning traffic.

I like some aspects of Ireland but on certain issues we're completely weird.

enas

SpaceTime wrote: »

I like some aspects of Ireland but on certain issues we're completely weird.

As a matter of fact, I have lived in many countries too, and, as a non-Irish national with children of school-going age, I really value the Irish school system that lets you freely choose a school for your children.

However, even with that system, in the vast majority of cases, distance to school are short, with a ridiculous percentage (around 50% if I remember correctly in Dublin and Cork) of school runs under 1km!

I share your opinion that school runs are responsible for a vast amount of traffic, but that problem is not due to either the school system nor the lack of school transport, but bad urban planning and poor road designs that renders walking and cycling an unattractive choice for kids to travel to school.