Very poor state of Lower Glanmire Road - litter & no landscape maintenance

EdgeCase

I was stuck in traffic on the Lower Glanmire Road for the last few mornings and I am genuinely shocked at the state of it. The landscaping is all overgrown or absolutely cudely hacked and the whole route is heavily littered along the centre margin and side margins

I know there's major roadworks going on at the Tivoli flyover but that whole thing is a disgrace.

It's the main route into the city and its just making it look extremely scruffy.

All of the landscaping needs to be taken in hand and given a good clean up. I don't remember it ever has being this bad before. It used look quite neat tidy.

Sonics2k

Let's be honest here, as much as I love Cork, the general infrastructure of the city and county is absolutely abysmal.

I recently had friends from across Europe (Manchester, France, Germany and Spain) come to visit and they were shocked by the absolute state of the roads and just general appearance.

daithi7

EdgeCase wrote: »

I was stuck in traffic on the Lower Glanmire Road for the last few mornings and I am genuinely shocked at the state of it. The landscaping is all overgrown or absolutely cudely hacked and the whole route is heavily littered along the centre margin and side margins

I know there's major roadworks going on at the Tivoli flyover but that whole thing is a disgrace.

It's the main route into the city and its just making it look extremely scruffy.

All of the landscaping needs to be taken in hand and given a good clean up. I don't remember it ever has being this bad before. It used look quite neat tidy.

Well said. this main route into Cork has looked awful for ages. The city council have let this area go to pot, and it looks really lousy for the marketing of Cork to have an entrance road look so crap imho.

EdgeCase

I wouldn't say all the infrastructure is that bad, but there are some areas that are really awful and it's not just road surfaces, it's just the general maintenance.

For example, the Marina has huge potential. It's a rally pretty, tree-lined promenade and its highly utilised by people who live in the city as a leisure area for walking and jogging but the area around it is utterly unkempt.

The Atlantic Pond looks like some kind of artificial swamp and is in terrible condition, the Centre Park Road and that other road that runs parallel to it look like post-industrial wasteland and have never really been restored or reclaimed and that whole area just has huge potential to be a city recreation space.

We have very little green space. Even compared to Dublin it's disgraceful and Dublin's not exactly a paragon of urban planning.

I find sometimes that constructive criticism here is batted off with sort of diehard Cork nationalism too. If you point out that something's an utter kip and shouldn't be you're told to 'go on away back to Dublin'. I've lived here for most of my life and I STILL get that kind of comment. It's great to be proud of a city, but you need to follow through by maintaining and improving it.

Meanwhile, you've got a flood protection project about to kick off that's completely lacking in any kind of vision, scale or ambition and looks like it could wreck the look of the quaysides, which are pretty much the identity of the city centre while providing zero protection for things like the redevelopment of the Southern Docklands or Tivoli docks, despite a proposal for 10s of thousands of homes there. However, it seems to be a case of carry on regardless and listen to nobody, a bit like Brexit.

EdgeCase

daithi7 wrote: »

Well said. this main route into Cork has looked awful for ages. The city council have let this area go to pot, and it looks really lousy for the marketing of Cork to have an entrance road look so crap imho.

What's even more annoying about it is that the Lower Glanmire road *has* all the ingredients to look fantastic:

Setting : big, impressive riverside view on one side. Montenotte ridge, which is almost like a deciduous urban forest on the other side.

Views of the Marina, active shipping and leisure use of the river, Parc Ui C. looking all modernised and impressive, a growing number of attractive looking docklands buildings, old classical period Victorian, Edwardian and even some Georgian architecture on the hills. Cute smaller buildings, classical, ornate victorian railway foot bridges in wrought iron.

It has it all but it's wrecked by lack of maintenance and no attention to the details of the areas that the council controls i.e. the landscaping of the roadway and that bloody awful looking crest thing that seems to not be maintained at all.

It's fairly obvious that they do almost no maintenance at all.

opus

I do a fair bit of jogging & try to do a bit of plogging (Google it ) as well, there is a total of one bin on the Marina I think & none at all on Centre Park Rd. Not surprising that the place looks like a tip after a match or concert & once people see rubbish everywhere they're more likely to dump more

A friend of mine from Dublin who got a job in Cork straight out of college once said that in any other city in the world, the Maria would be a row of beautiful houses but in Cork it was an industrial estate! And that was years ago when it didn't look as much like an industrial wasteland as now.

Outkast_IRE

If you think that's bad , come down to little island at times and the amount of rubbish thrown out windows etc is unreal, it's the county council's moneymaker but they seem allergic to keeping the island somewhat tidy or public paths in good shape etc.

namloc1980

daithi7 wrote: »

Well said. this main route into Cork has looked awful for ages. The city council have let this area go to pot, and it looks really lousy for the marketing of Cork to have an entrance road look so crap imho.

It's not the City Council in this case. This road is the N8 through Tivoli and Lower Glanmire Rd - TII are responsible for it and maintaining it which includes the margins and central median. It seems their main concern is maintaining the motorway network and other primary roads like this go by the wayside.

namloc1980

Sonics2k wrote: »

Let's be honest here, as much as I love Cork, the general infrastructure of the city and county is absolutely abysmal.

I recently had friends from across Europe (Manchester, France, Germany and Spain) come to visit and they were shocked by the absolute state of the roads and just general appearance.

I never buy these stories about shocked foreigners who can't believe the state of Ireland. Was in Paris in 2016 for the Euro's and the place was absolutely filthy. The area around the stadium in St Denis is a complete and utter kip. Makes the area around Croke Park in Dublin look spotlessly clean.

EdgeCase

namloc1980 wrote: »

It's not the City Council in this case. This road is the N8 through Tivoli and Lower Glanmire Rd - TII are responsible for it and maintaining it which includes the margins and central median. It seems their main concern is maintaining the motorway network and other primary roads like this go by the wayside.

Are you sure about that, as the Lower Glanmire Road is a city street in reality.

I mean do the TII maintain the Drumcondra Road trees and footpaths, which is part of the N1?

namloc1980

EdgeCase wrote: »

Are you sure about that, as the Lower Glanmire Road is a city street in reality.

I mean do the TII maintain the Drumcondra Road trees and footpaths, which is part of the N1?

Yeah national primary routes are the TII. Doesn't matter if the road is in the countryside or the city. I know because I contacted the council before about the Tivoli road (specifically the stainless steel sculpture of the coat of arms as it's covered in weeds for years) and they directed me to the NRA, as they were before TII.

marno21

EdgeCase wrote: »

Are you sure about that, as the Lower Glanmire Road is a city street in reality.

I mean do the TII maintain the Drumcondra Road trees and footpaths, which is part of the N1?

The N1 south of the Whitehall flyover was detrunked to become the R132 in 2012, north of there remains N50

In Cork, Patrick Street, Washington Street amongst others remain national roads. I'd expect most national roads in Cork city centre to be detrunked when the North Ring road opens

whisky_galore

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

If you think that's bad , come down to little island at times and the amount of rubbish thrown out windows etc is unreal, it's the county council's moneymaker but they seem allergic to keeping the island somewhat tidy or public paths in good shape etc.

Whatever about the council, we are a filthy race.
D'Island's pavements are coated in dog sh1t too.