2 year action plan to revive the city centre

Ludo

hoodwinked wrote: »

the easiest way to get people back into the city is being overlooked here, get rid of the junkies and those assaulting people!

the reason most of us won't go into town anymore is

a: the needles lying around everywhere, literally everywhere.

b: the threat of violence, attacks in the city are now happening during the day, the street cleaner who was attacked on a weekday morning a few weeks ago, the brawl on winthrop street on that saturday afternoon,


if people are being assaulted on patrick street the main bright and packed street why would they go near the smaller emptier side streets? or when they are stepping over blood stained footpaths or stepping over used needles, of course they are going to go to the suburbs where they have clean safe shopping, even in mahon point you'd often see security walking around moving on loitering groups gathering or messing about...etc it gives you a sense of being safe.

Bull****.

Straight Talker

hoodwinked wrote: »

the easiest way to get people back into the city is being overlooked here, get rid of the junkies and those assaulting people!

the reason most of us won't go into town anymore is

a: the needles lying around everywhere, literally everywhere.

b: the threat of violence, attacks in the city are now happening during the day, the street cleaner who was attacked on a weekday morning a few weeks ago, the brawl on winthrop street on that saturday afternoon,


if people are being assaulted on patrick street the main bright and packed street why would they go near the smaller emptier side streets? or when they are stepping over blood stained footpaths or stepping over used needles, of course they are going to go to the suburbs where they have clean safe shopping, even in mahon point you'd often see security walking around moving on loitering groups gathering or messing about...etc it gives you a sense of being safe.

I think Cork city centre is very safe.I was in Limerick recently and a gang of youths had a massive brawl outside the Arthurs Quay shopping centre at 3pm on a Friday afternoon.There was a glass bottle fired as well that missed my head by inches.I've never seen the likes of that happen in broad daylight in Cork or any other part of Ireland for that matter.In fact Cork is in much better nick when compared to everywhere else in Ireland outside Dublin.

Bacchus

whisky_galore wrote: »

The only reason teens hang around is there is very little for them to do, they won't be left into many pubs and there's only so much shopping they can do. So 'hanging around' is the default mode, unless you send them to a work camp or something.

SpaceTime wrote: »

Teens are also ridiculously feared. Most of them are just basically "playing" and actually using the city centre which is a very important thing!

I hate this attitude that spaces aren't to be used by teenagers.

We were all teenagers once!

What do people want exactly ?

A city centre that's a cold museum where only the over 65s wearing suits are allowed in and everything's behind velvet ropes?

Personally I don't fear them but they shout after people, follow closely behind them, throw random crap (yes, I was narrowly missed by a half full McDonalds drink once) at people. To them, it's just messing about, but to others it is intimidating, especially when they are in such large groups. While most of them mind their own business, there is quite a few that enjoy hassling passersby. I'm pretty sure there was a thread on this before in this forum after a group of teenagers were particularly nasty to some man.

Look, they're not a massive concern of mine, I was just highlighting them as the ONLY source of an intimidation in the city.

cgcsb

SpaceTime wrote: »

Again talk to our masters in Dublin who regularly throw Cork, Limerick and Galway into the same category as Tralee or Dingle when planning.

Cork City council has the power to implement bus priority schemes if it wishes to do so. Indeed the NTA is pushing them to do so. Cork City Council has even published a suitably vague paper about developing 'green routes'. Without any details or follow through. You can't really blame Cork City Council's incompetence on your 'masters in Dublin'

Your very own council voted down the proposed bus only measures on Patrick Street, you need to unseat these councillors who block Cork's progress.

SpaceTime

cgcsb wrote: »

Cork City council has the power to implement bus priority schemes if it wishes to do so. Indeed the NTA is pushing them to do so. Cork City Council has even published a suitably vague paper about developing 'green routes'. Without any details or follow through. You can't really blame Cork City Council's incompetence on your 'masters in Dublin'

Your very own council voted down the proposed bus only measures on Patrick Street, you need to unseat these councillors who block Cork's progress.

You can actually.

In most of the world the City Council would manage the routing and franchising of the system. In some places the council actually operates the busses and trams as a part of their remit as a local authority.

Ireland is very quick to blame lack of action on local government and on people's lack of interest in local elections but won't give them any accountable executive power.

If all the power is in central government, quangos like CIE, the NTA and now even Irish water etc and the local executive power is in the hands of a city manager, not the council what exactly do people expect to happen?

Poor planning, no direct accountability to the electorate and nobody engages properly in elections because, well they don't matter.

People in Ireland lobby government ministers and TDs about what are city and county issues!

You can be sure those green routes were contingent on the Dept of Transport, the whim of a minister and cooperation from the NTA, CIE and probably the NRA if they used national routes at all.

The whole system is whacko and all power here is centralised.

That's why we've bad planning. It's why we've had planning corruption too in the past in some places. Low engagement = power and accountability vacuum.

Carlos Orange

namloc1980 wrote: »

I would love to see stats on that! Only City in Europe with declining population....really?

Every city in Ireland seems to be declining based on this interactive guide to population growth in the EU (2001-2011).

http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/europakarte/#11/52.6416/-8.3915/en

cgcsb

To the posters talking about 'needles everywhere' I think you're having a laugh. I've literally never seen one. In fact in Dublin, where I live right down the street from a meth clinic, i've only seen one, once. I don't think needles are discarded as carelessly as you imagine.

Also if you think Cork City Centre is 'dangerous'. I'd suggest you just lock yourselves in and never come out. There were 25 incidents of pick pocketing in Cork City in Quarter 1 this year. That's one in 8,000 persons living in the City.

Subpopulus

cgcsb wrote: »

Your very own council voted down the proposed bus only measures on Patrick Street, you need to unseat these councillors who block Cork's progress.

I wish people would stop going on about this as if the city councillors shot this down because they're a bunch of regressive car-centric loons. The St Patricks street bus gate was rejected because the traffic consultants proposed to redirect all the traffic into a largely residential area without putting in place anything much to mitigate against the effect increased amounts of traffic on pedestrians, cyclists and the residents. The proposals would also have extinguished a large amount of two-way routes that cyclists currently use, and replaced them with one-way lanes with no contra-flows. The Middle Parish would essentially have been encircled in a large one-way traffic gyratory - a very old-school bit of traffic engineering.

The traffic management scheme for the Middle Parish will have to go back to the drawing board, and hopefully the revised scheme won't be so injurious to the Middle Parish.

SpaceTime

Also bear in mind that many pick pocketing incidents are actually loss, reported by tourists for claims on travel insurance.

For example An American aquaintence of mine claimed she was pick pocketed on the train to Killarney.

She reported it to the Gardai and got an insurance payout. Someone found her wallet and passport under a seat in the train and sent both to the Gardai who reunited her with them.

I'm not saying for a moment she was a liar. She genuinely believed that she had been pickpocket.

It was largely because she'd read that pickpockets are active all over Europe and you have to be super careful.

All I'm saying is stats can be misleading. You're mostly at risk of pick pocketing in public transport where you're standing up / in crush capacity and where there are frequent stops where people can disappear - metros, trams etc..

whisky_galore

I haven't seen any needles, seen plenty pools of gawk on weekend nights or the morning after the night before though.

lisasimpson

Living in cork 11 years and only felt uncomfortable twice in the city. Once was a Thursday evening last year after work when meeting a friend for a bite to eat walking along oliver plunkett st there were a number of drunks older men, id say homeless been rowdy and then teenager drinking up by the liberary. maybe it was a dull dark evening that added to the feeling. then another time was a Saturday was in dunne stores and a big fight started outside with a number of teenagers but the gardai broke it up quick enough

The city would probably do with more of garda presence but that's not really up to the council, its to do the department of justice and the limits on the number of graduates coming from Templemore

As part the two year plan, I would love to see some sort of a scheme to try and track down the owners of rundown sites and buildings. Past through Barrack St over the weekend, the amount of abandoned, rundown buildings along the road. Should be no excuse for the number of them considering the closeness to town, colleges
Also some scheme to encourage landlords to convert the upper floors of buildings in the centre to apartments instead of the lying un-used
O an extention of the park and ride scheme to other parts of the city to bring people in

SpaceTime

Honestly I think Ireland needs to actually enforce dereliction orders against people who sit on properties like that (including NAMA).

lisasimpson

SpaceTime wrote: »

Honestly I think Ireland needs to actually enforce dereliction orders against people who sit on properties like that (including NAMA).

Too true for example its ridiculous the fine family size homes left sitting there along Boreenamma Road not far from town, on the route to a major employment centre in mahon.

Loire

This suggestion won't be popular I know, but to level the playing field regarding the city centre vs the retails parks, perhaps it's time to start charging for parking in the retail parks? (The other option is to reduce parking charges in the city centre, but pigs might fly).

namloc1980

Loire wrote: »

This suggestion won't be popular I know, but to level the playing field regarding the city centre vs the retails parks, perhaps it's time to start charging for parking in the retail parks? (The other option is to reduce parking charges in the city centre, but pigs might fly).

Eh how can you force private car park owners to charge?

Subpopulus

lisasimpson wrote: »

As part the two year plan, I would love to see some sort of a scheme to try and track down the owners of rundown sites and buildings. Past through Barrack St over the weekend, the amount of abandoned, rundown buildings along the road. Should be no excuse for the number of them considering the closeness to town, colleges

The city council actually seem to be fairly pro-active on this - they spent something like 1.25 million re-paving Barrack street and they also put together a grant scheme with a few 10s of thousands euro to spruce up the facades of several of the buildings. They've also just finished taking applications for a similar grant scheme on North Main Street.

But there's a limit as to how much they can do - they don't have the resources to take over the property and do it up themselves. Also, I'm not sure how high the demand is on Barrack Street for retail units. The footfall isn't massive... It will pick up gradually though - the council are also planning big stuff for Elizabeth Fort, which will draw more people to the area.

lisasimpson

yes the paving looks good ill hand them that but an area like that also needs residence to bring it too life to the area during the day and evenings, the same can be said travelling along Shandon st heading to blackpool shopping centre.. We are all aware of the accommodation suitation it doesn't just effect Dublin...Barrack st is a central area with good renting potential and would also help business along there (don't need many retail units just a few cafes, maybe barber shop etc) and in the centre.

Another thing id love to see in the plan is to do something about some of the awful shop signage around. It is possible just look at the various cities around Europe esp in their old towns

flo8s967qjh0nd

Some nonsense being spouted on here regarding gangs of marauding junkies stealing babies or some such. I've lived in Cork most of my life and have never experienced the levels of anti-social behaviour some commentators would have us believe is happening. Bad things happen everywhere. Cork City Centre is certainly a very, very safe place to be based on any reasonable measure.

As others have noted, a fair bit of padding in this plan but some decent stuff too. The timescales seem awfully slow - 2016 to start planning for Bus Rapid Transport. 2016 to start plans for new City Library. Why not start now?

One bug bear of mine is that Cork City Council really isn't maintaining the investments they are putting into the city. For example:

• At least twice in recent years CCC have invested in new signage for motorists and tourists in the City Centre. Why are we doing it all over again in this plan?
• How much was spent on the wonderful St Patrick Street paving? I see chunks of it now missing, loose, tarred over. IS this ever going to be replaced?
• After massive investment in public realm improvements of the Coal Quay it is now a wonderful, beautiful, expensive carpark due to lack of enforcement.

I'm all for investing in the City Centre but lets maintain what we have too.
Finally, the plan mentions something about a "shopping centre -type manager for the city centre". One of the biggest mistakes a City Council could ever make is imagining that Cork City Centre is merely a centre for shopping and retail.

Subpopulus

Kara Silly Wimp wrote: »

The timescales seem awfully slow - 2016 to start planning for Bus Rapid Transport. 2016 to start plans for new City Library. Why not start now?

Because funding has to be gotten; because the planning contracts have to be tendered; because the planners have to work through the various stages to reach the design level. It's not as if you can just start designing these things when the mood strikes you.

In any case they already have started. The city and county councils have spent time this year putting together an application for NTA funding to undertake the feasibility plan, and the design for the new City Library is already being worked on AFAIK.

cgcsb

will be interesting to see how they route the BRT and what provision will be me made for replacing it with luas in the future.

namloc1980

cgcsb wrote: »

will be interesting to see how they route the BRT and what provision will be me made for replacing it with luas in the future.

Preliminary study a few years ago already set out the route options. There won't be much provision for future conversion to tram other than the BRT will be segregated from other traffic as much as possible so that a future tram would also. In reality though BRT is as much as we can expect to get.

cgcsb

namloc1980 wrote: »

Preliminary study a few years ago already set out the route options. There won't be much provision for future conversion to tram other than the BRT will be segregated from other traffic as much as possible so that a future tram would also. In reality though BRT is as much as we can expect to get.

Well utility diversions would be a must for a luas line, that could be done while building the BRT, to save yourself disruption in the future.

flo8s967qjh0nd

Subpopulus wrote: »

Because funding has to be gotten; because the planning contracts have to be tendered; because the planners have to work through the various stages to reach the design level. It's not as if you can just start designing these things when the mood strikes you.

In any case they already have started. The city and county councils have spent time this year putting together an application for NTA funding to undertake the feasibility plan, and the design for the new City Library is already being worked on AFAIK.

Agreed, but a BRT has been in the pipeline for a couple of decades at least. Am I alone in being disappointing that things go so slowly?

CHealy

Kara Silly Wimp wrote: »

Agreed, but a BRT has been in the pipeline for a couple of decades at least. Am I alone in being disappointing that things go so slowly?

Welcome to Cork.

namloc1980

CHealy wrote: »

Welcome to Cork.

Welcome to Ireland. Many projects got shelved over the last number of years due to the economic crisis. Not just a Cork thing.

D'Agger

SpaceTime wrote: »

I'd add : I lost my wallet in the city centre a few weeks ago with about €200 cash, all my cards etc inside...

My phone rang. A totally normal, friendly guy found it and contacted a number for my gym membership card.

Their receptionist rang me, he arranged to meet me with my totally unstolen wallet.

I insisted on giving him a voucher for lunch somewhere decent (happened to have an Orso voucher in the wallet). He refused several times saying anyone would do the same.

Cork's such an uncivilised place!

Glad that worked out for you, my brand new wallet with €80 in it fell out of my pocket coming out of a busy cinema in mahon point & some díckhead didn't hand that in or look to contact me given there were a few cards that'd allow for it

I'm fine though....I'm fine....totally over it :pac:

Ludo

namloc1980 wrote: »

Welcome to Ireland. Many projects got shelved over the last number of years due to the economic crisis. Not just a Cork thing.

Welcome to reality. Infrastructure plans like this come and goo all over the world and only a small percentage of them make it to construction phase. As usual..not just an Irish thing.

SpaceTime

lisasimpson wrote: »

yes the paving looks good ill hand them that but an area like that also needs residence to bring it too life to the area during the day and evenings, the same can be said travelling along Shandon st heading to blackpool shopping centre.. We are all aware of the accommodation suitation it doesn't just effect Dublin...Barrack st is a central area with good renting potential and would also help business along there (don't need many retail units just a few cafes, maybe barber shop etc) and in the centre.

Another thing id love to see in the plan is to do something about some of the awful shop signage around. It is possible just look at the various cities around Europe esp in their old towns

Quite a lot of nice and quirky signage in Cork too.
The issue is actually more with international chains than local ones. Many of them could make a bit more of an effort.