Tramore Valley Park

opus

For a moment there I thought the council might come to their senses but sadly no.

https://twitter.com/carfreecork/status/1259896401896620032

Seems you can de-pedestrianise a street at the drop of a hat but no way you can let those pesky pedestrians enter a park via the entrance you've had in your plans since day one.

Black_Knight

opus wrote: »

For a moment there I thought the council might come to their senses but sadly no.

https://twitter.com/carfreecork/status/1259896401896620032

Seems you can de-pedestrianise a street at the drop of a hat but no way you can let those pesky pedestrians enter a park via the entrance you've had in your plans since day one.

Seen two lads walking down the middle of the South link with a ball in hand heading towards the Kinsale road entrance. Horribly stupid of them, but equally the council isn't helping if they close off pedestrian access.

Treviso

Black_Knight wrote: »

Seen two lads walking down the middle of the South link with a ball in hand heading towards the Kinsale road entrance. Horribly stupid of them, but equally the council isn't helping if they close off pedestrian access.

Have seen an awful lot of runners at the traffic lights near the Black Ash PnR waiting for the green light before crossing across the link to the park. As a runner myself I can understand it to a degree, but it's still quite dangerous.

MrDerp

opus wrote: »

For a moment there I thought the council might come to their senses but sadly no.

https://twitter.com/carfreecork/status/1259896401896620032

Seems you can de-pedestrianise a street at the drop of a hat but no way you can let those pesky pedestrians enter a park via the entrance you've had in your plans since day one.

Aren’t cars the problem here though?

Open that entrance and folks drive 1-2km to it from Douglas/ballinlough instead of taking the long way around?

It makes sense to look at the vehicular impact before opening the pedestrian entrance.

I’m also assuming there’s lobbying about vehicular impact coming from local residents. Anyone remember Rossbrook residents successfully blocking access to Leisureworld Bishopstown despite the planning always having been in place to access via their estate?

hans aus dtschl

MrDerp wrote: »

Aren’t cars the problem here though?

Open that entrance and folks drive 1-2km to it from Douglas/ballinlough instead of taking the long way around?

It makes sense to look at the vehicular impact before opening the pedestrian entrance.

I’m also assuming there’s lobbying about vehicular impact coming from local residents. Anyone remember Rossbrook residents successfully blocking access to Leisureworld Bishopstown despite the planning always having been in place to access via their estate?

But people apparently currently dump their cars there as an unofficial parking place at school start/finish times?

So:
No pedestrians because cars currently use it and simultaneously no pedestrians in case cars use it. It'd surely be much easier just to stop people from parking illegally?

Curb Your Enthusiasm

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

But people apparently currently dump their cars there as an unofficial parking place at school start/finish times?

So:
No pedestrians because cars currently use it and simultaneously no pedestrians in case cars use it. It'd surely be much easier just to stop people from parking illegally?

Exactly. But alas, enforcement isn't one of their strong points.

TheChizler

Curb Your Enthusiasm wrote: »

Exactly. But alas, enforcement isn't one of their strong points.

The council's attitude for most things seems to be (eventually) implement and then forget about for the rest of time.

opus

I heard that one particular councillor was a strong objector to opening the pedestrian entrance, guess it's the guy mentioned in the Echo article.

https://twitter.com/jmaher0/status/1260629481871618050

Hope people remember all this when the next council elections come around.

TheChizler

"That is a nightmare to exit onto South Douglas Road. There’s no line of sight whatsoever,” he said."

No prizes for guessing the only form of transport he seems capable of comprehending.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

TheChizler wrote: »

No prizes for guessing the only form of transport he seems capable of comprehending.

Terry Shannon was the only cllr to reject opening the park, and he drives everywhere. Pathetic really.

namloc1980

Terry Shannon is some piece of work. What a disgusting excuse for a public representative he is.

TheChizler

I wonder has the possibility of making parts of the Douglas roads one-way ever been floated. I moved into the area recently and running and cycling on them you quickly notice how narrow footpaths and cycle lanes are, and how often they just disappear in favour of maintaining a full two road lanes. You could put in full footpaths and cycle lanes on both sides of the road, solving the park safety issue. I live on one of the roads between the two and can't turn right on the Douglas road so I already kind of use them one way when I drive and it's fine.

The only downside I can see is increasing traffic in the parks, and it might not be feasible because of busses.

snotboogie

TheChizler wrote: »

I wonder has the possibility of making parts of the Douglas roads one-way ever been floated. I moved into the area recently and running and cycling on them you quickly notice how narrow footpaths and cycle lanes are, and how often they just disappear in favour of maintaining a full two road lanes. You could put in full footpaths and cycle lanes on both sides of the road, solving the park safety issue. I live on one of the roads between the two and can't turn right on the Douglas road so I already kind of use them one way when I drive and it's fine.

The only downside I can see is increasing traffic in the parks, and it might not be feasible because of busses.

Yep, both the Douglas road and South Douglas road will have to go to one way for private vehicles based on CMATS/Busconnects. Both are key spines for the bus plans and won't be able to support two way traffic. The likes of Terry Shannon will likely rally half the city against it, just like he did with the direct mayor proposal.

Treehelpplease

He says all this while having no issue with a secondary school being down there, opening out onto that same junction with hundreds of people at the same time twice a day, five days a week. If my experience with other schools in the city is anything to go by, I imagine most parents drop their cars anywhere and everywhere, too, regardless of safety

User142

Saw someone on Twitter share this article on the bike share scheme and bike lanes in the city from 2015:

“It’s been a disaster,” says Cllr Terry Shannon of Fianna Fáil. “With our narrow streets and topography, we’re trying to turn Cork into a European city, like Amsterdam or Paris. They have wide boulevards. We’re taking out massive parking space, putting in lanes and hoping the cyclists will follow.

And in 2020 he's in favour of preventing people from walking to a park because of how unsafe the street junction is for motorists...

Terry seems to just really hate the idea of people not driving to within feet of their destination and this pandemic requiring social distancing,reduced bus capacity and car journeys plummeting hasn't changed that.

snotboogie

User142 wrote: »

Saw someone on Twitter share this article on the bike share scheme and bike lanes in the city from 2015:



And in 2020 he's in favour of preventing people from walking to a park because of how unsafe the street junction is for motorists...

Terry seems to just really hate the idea of people not driving to within feet of their destination and this pandemic requiring social distancing,reduced bus capacity and car journeys plummeting hasn't changed that.

Its the county town mentality. In 1960 the county had a population of just over 300k, right now we are at about 550k. Most of that growth has been around the city. The ridiculous city boundaries and the celtic tiger doughnut growth meant that nobody really knew what the actual city population was.The CSO stats would show that the city population was shrinking because they'd only record the decades outdated city boundaries but in reality the urban area was exploding. This has let people like Terry Shannon try to convince the public that we are still in the 60's.

Imagine seriously using Paris or Amsterdam as examples of what we don't want to become. He's almost a caricature of a backwards county councilor.

User142

snotboogie wrote: »

Its the county town mentality. In 1960 the county had a population of just over 300k, right now we are at about 550k. Most of that growth has been around the city. The ridiculous city boundaries and the celtic tiger doughnut growth meant that nobody really knew what the actual city population was.The CSO stats would show that the city population was shrinking because they'd only record the decades outdated city boundaries but in reality the urban area was exploding. This has let people like Terry Shannon try to convince the public that we are still in the 60's.

Imagine seriously using Paris or Amsterdam as examples of what we don't want to become. He's almost a caricature of a backwards county councilor.

We can't open this lane way because its too dangerous for cars and people will die according to Terry but we also can't lower city speedlimits from 50km/h to 30km/h for safety reasons because Terry can apparently nearly walk that fast.

Its nice to see him get a good roasting on social media but its disappointing how little local media seems to care about how crappy the council are acting.

Treehelpplease

That's a really good analysis of the situation. Cork City has 210,000 citizens, which excludes areas right outside the city like Carrigaline (+16,000) and Passage West (+6,000), not to mention the close towns on the rail line - such as Cobh (+13,000) and Midleton (+12,500). Using just the 210K figure, Cork would be around the 105th biggest city in the United States, bigger than cities like Salt Lake City (200K), Tallahassee (193K) and Providence (179K). If we include the towns mentioned above, that's nearly 260,000 - excluding the thousands of people who live in between those towns and the city, pushing it up to the 70s on that US list. The US has around 320 cities (only including cities of +100,000). This mentality that Cork is just a big town is rubbish. It especially isn't helped by the fact that most people seem to assume the city is JUST the red area marked below, when in fact it is the blue (and including those towns mentioned above, the orange, or the continuous urban area, in green). The city centre =/= the whole city

To compare those numbers to here in Ireland, attached is the population of each of the five wards in the city. Every single ward has more people than the entire counties of Longford* and Leitrim. The entire southside has 128,498 people (again, excluding places like Carrigaline and Passage West). If it was a county**, it would be the 14th biggest. The northside has a population of 82,355 which would make it the 19th largest county. If the whole city (210K) was a county, it would be the 5th biggest, only behind Dublin, Cork County, Galway and Kildare


*South Central and North West are a tiny bit smaller than Longford, but these population figures are from 2016
**Only including Republic of Ireland

zilog_jones

I'll be honest, I didn't know who Terry Shannon was before reading this thread - I don't pay nearly enough attention to local politics than I should. But I hate him already.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

zilog_jones wrote: »

I'll be honest, I didn't know who Terry Shannon was before reading this thread - I don't pay nearly enough attention to local politics than I should. But I hate him already.

Just another disappointment for the South East constituency. There's two other cllrs from the FGFF grouping in that same ward that you'd never hear a peep from.

We need a clearout.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

http://chng.it/QV2q8X9yr6

A petition has been started to get cllrs and City Hall to reevaluate the Half Moon Lane entrance, in the hope of getting them to open it this Summer..

namloc1980

Curb Your Enthusiasm wrote: »

http://chng.it/QV2q8X9yr6

A petition has been started to get cllrs and City Hall to reevaluate the Half Moon Lane entrance, in the hope of getting them to open it this Summer..

Nothing but a bunch of whingers according to Terry Shannon.

opus

namloc1980 wrote: »

Nothing but a bunch of whingers according to Terry Shannon.

I hadn't a clue who Terry Shannon was but now find myself telling friends who live in his council area to be sure & not vote for the guy! Figure if I tell a few people & they do the same it will hopefully have some impact.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

opus wrote: »

I hadn't a clue who Terry Shannon was but now find myself telling friends who live in his council area to be sure & not vote for the guy! Figure if I tell a few people & they do the same it will hopefully have some impact.

He relies on a very niche set of people to vote for him.. Mainly elderly people who he gets their gardens mowed for etc.

I doubt many others would give him a vote.

Certainly wouldn't touch him with a bargepole after his multiple anti pedestrian and anti cyclist comments. He's against speed reductions, 30km areas too.

namloc1980

.

Car traffic chaos at Tramore Valley Park today. Kind of sad really.

Black_Knight

namloc1980 wrote: »

.

Car traffic chaos at Tramore Valley Park today. Kind of sad really.

Lots is attributed to the dump/recycling. They're the only one open in Cork from what they told me. Rafeen is closed. Everyone spring cleaning since there's not much to do, and they have to limit the number of cars/people at a time too.

That all blocks up the road for cars going to the park area. It is busy though, while still allowing for social distancing. (This has been my experience so far)

User142

https://twitter.com/corkcityparks/status/1261673936695234562

Apparently this tweet is so wrong that someone in the council decided to work on a Saturday! Its wrong to say the park is inaccessible in this photo because its actually a jam caused by the recycling centre. The fact that park is still inaccessible doesn't bother the council or Terry (who retweeted).....

Terry must still high from the praise he's getting from locals for temporarily not acting as an obstacle to the Marina from being pedestrianised.

https://twitter.com/TerryTshannon/status/1261346603341930498

s1ippy

User142 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/corkcityparks/status/1261673936695234562

Apparently this tweet is so wrong that someone in the council decided to work on a Saturday! Its wrong to say the park is inaccessible in this photo because its actually a jam caused by the recycling centre. The fact that park is still inaccessible doesn't bother the council or Terry (who retweeted).....

Terry must still high from the praise he's getting from locals for temporarily not acting as an obstacle to the Marina from being pedestrianised.

https://twitter.com/TerryTshannon/status/1261346603341930498

Lorna Bogue was apparently in the thick of it as well but you won't see them giving her any credit

namloc1980

Shannon is some bluffer. He repeatedly fought to block this and here he is taking the credit. Do people actually believe his nonsense?

.

namloc1980

User142 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/corkcityparks/status/1261673936695234562

Apparently this tweet is so wrong that someone in the council decided to work on a Saturday! Its wrong to say the park is inaccessible in this photo because its actually a jam caused by the recycling centre. The fact that park is still inaccessible doesn't bother the council or Terry (who retweeted).....

Terry must still high from the praise he's getting from locals for temporarily not acting as an obstacle to the Marina from being pedestrianised.

https://twitter.com/TerryTshannon/status/1261346603341930498

The pr machine is hard at work in city hall.