BusConnects Cork

namloc1980

The consultation on the infrastructure element of the BusConnects corridors is now open.

https://busconnects.ie/cork/

Unfortunately it looks like BusConnects in Douglas at least is dead before it begins thanks to the genius councillors in City Hall.

https://twitter.com/CllrDesCahil/status/1546808046327840770?t=VnCSmqspP8VxPnLbMwWAcw&s=19

DylanQuestion

Kinsale Road - Douglas is a goner because of the Grange Road extension over Ballybrack Woods. Maryborough Hill - City Centre will be the same due to the Douglas Road works and removal of the Fingerpost Roundabout (even though the new Fingerpost looks way better). Hopefully they'll quickly fix Maryborough Hill - City Centre by changing it so Douglas Road is one way northbound and South Douglas Road one way southbound with bus lanes on either road. Not sure how they'll resolve Kinsale Road - Douglas

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332158#Comment_119332158

Local councillors are strongly against any changes to Douglas including one way movements. It's dead in Douglas as it stands. Feel sorry for anyone living in Douglas who thought the BusConnects could be an option for the future, as local councillors appear determined to keep it a car dominated hole.

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332553#Comment_119332553

And no Luas plans either. The problem is Douglas Road and South Douglas Road are major pinch points going to the city centre. Boreenmana Road and Grange Road are good alternatives, but first have to be accessed by the narrow Well Road and Church Road. The only way to bypass those two are bridges through Ballybrack Woods or a bridge over Lough Mahon, neither of which are ever likely to happen. I'm not sure what the NTA are going to be able to do, as its likely the most populated area of the city (probably around 30k people) so something needs to be done

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332713#Comment_119332713

Their hands are going to be tied by these councillors. Terry Shannon has already come out and said he wants the entire BusConnects scheme to fail. It must be incredibly frustrating for the NTA to be dealing with such narrow minded nimbys.

DylanQuestion

It will be an ABP process though, so I'm not sure how much councillors will matter in the end. Plus these are just emerging routes so the NTA has said they're willing to be flexible (and were the routes a few weeks back). If you're in support of this, I definitely recommend putting that in a submission. Sometimes submissions are only used by people to voice their lack of support in something. I plan on for Maryborough - City Centre as, while the route will directly affect me, I am broadly supportive of it

thomil

Is there no way at all for the NTA to override these councillors? It's clear that Cork will have to be forced into any improvements with local politicians like Shannon and Cahill.

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332827#Comment_119332827

Councillors have as much input as you or I. It will be through ABP approval, not council approval. I guess they could bring legal action against it, but I doubt the council executive would support that, and again you and I could too so councillors aren't special here. Just have a platform

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332840#Comment_119332840

If the council are slapping preservation orders on the Douglas Rd, which is totally bizarre, then the NTA aren't going to ignore and steamroller that. These councillors are an embarrassment to the city and basically saying "no thanks, we don't want €600m in transport and public realm investment in Cork".

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332866#Comment_119332866

Ngl I have no idea what a preservation order is. A very small section of the road is ACA (the terrace across from Belair). The City Development plan, which will formally be adopted in August, makes no mention of any kind of preservation order or ACA for the road outside of the afformentioned section. I feel the adopted motion was to look for one, not to add it. Hard to tell. I also assume anything like that would need public consultation first

EDIT: ACA = Architectural Conversation Area

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332896#Comment_119332896

We'll have to see how it plays out but the optics are dreadful from so called public representatives.

Gru

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332553#Comment_119332553

People in Douglas are rightfully annoyed at the idea that a 6 lane bridge over the Ballybrack woods is an option here, we shouldn't have to sacrifice our only walkable woods/car free/green corridor space in Douglas so people can drive over it. douglas had that before with the N40 and people saw the dirty/concrete mess those brought to the village and they are less than half as wide as this would be. If it was a cycle/pedestrian only bridge and something like a suspension bridge (less obtrusive and less damaging) a lot more would be for it, myself included.

it doesn't make sense to build it, especially when a new cross road is currently being built between donnybrook and the carrigaline road, and when the ballinrea road is in existence and could be widened.

Busconnects would stand a much better chance of happening if they chose instead to bring the buses up to either of those cross roads, alongside the benefit of future proofing a bus route for the 1000's of homes which will be built in those fields in years to come and maintain a bus route in Donnybrook which is about to lose one via bus connects which will force those 1000's of people into their cars. it's nonsense created by someone using google maps and zero local knowledge. This is very evident where they say they will take 5m of a "garden" where now a home/house stands as people have built into these large gardens since whatever map they had was created. The idea of peoples homes being demolished isn't favoured in the current housing climate.

People are in favour of a busconnects program that works, these proposals are no where near "working" especially when the clear result is pushing people into their cars more than the current terrible system does, or into having their homes demolished. These are real objections and to save what 5 minutes of journey time? this is clearly an attempt to aim high to deliver low.

I'd rather see this money invested into a better (protected) cycle lane network imo than a bus one.

DylanQuestion

Did anyone go to the community engagement events?

Nigel Fairservice

We got a flyer in the door. We live near Ballybrack Woods and the local Bus Connects plan is looking for a good chunk of our green at the side of our estate.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119364506#Comment_119364506

You seem to make a big jump from opposing one bridge to opposing the entire Busconnects scheme, for Douglas at least. The big fight will be on the Douglas Road, the ballybrack bridge won’t happen. I see absolutely no issues with the Douglas Road plans. There needs to be a a public transport route from Carrigaline/Rochestown/Maryborough/Douglas to the city centre. There are 16k people living in Carrigaline and 27k people living in Douglas/Maryborough/Rochestown (2016 census numbers, likely to be much higher in 2022 census) “a couple of cycle lanes” won’t do for serving the public transit needs of 50k people. The only criticism I’d have is that they aren’t going all in and building a north/south Luas via the soon to be closed N28 and the Douglas route proposed and getting it over with in one go.

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119392454#Comment_119392454

What park? There are none directly next to Ballybrack Woods with green areas. Do you mean Grange Avenue or Eugene Drive? Here are the drawings, I hope they were included in the flyers and it wasn't just a sentence saying it

namloc1980

There's a scandalous amount of disinformation floating around about BusConnects on social media in particular people talking about multiple houses being demolished, people being barred from owning cars and other nonsense.

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394036#Comment_119394036

Meanwhile, if you look at the plans, they are going out of their way to CPO small sections of gardens rather than needing to CPO any houses. I have so far read through Dunkettle, Mahon and Maryborough extensively and have yet to see a house fully being CPO'd. This is a problem with public consultation. Public consulation is extremely important, but extremely difficult to get right with very detailed and info heavy projects like this. Especially when newspaper look for headlines and feed bits of infos, while councillors give vague reasons they are against it. I am doing a series on Reddit to explain the proposals in detail, but in an easy to understand way, as I am sick of people spouting misinformation about this. Everyone is 10000% entitled to be against these proposals, but only when their objections are based on actual, real info, not misinformation

https://www.reddit.com/r/cork/comments/w57u8a/bus_connects_the_real_deal_part_1_maryborough/

zilog_jones

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119332713#Comment_119332713

Can we not say "Luas", please?

It's a tram, or light rail, but "Luas" is just a brand name for a privately operated tram system in Dublin. Nothing to do with Cork.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394699#Comment_119394699

The NTA are calling it the Luas Cork. So there's no problem people using that as it's what it is being referred to in official documents. Example below:

hans aus dtschl

Yeah it's not a TransDev name or anything in fairness, it seems to be an NTA name. If they want them to all be "Luas" then fair enough I guess.

beer enigma

The Douglas Road plans are lunacy, but at least we get a say. I was at the council drop in at Nemo today.

Forcing traffic up Bel Air, past Lady of Lourdes school and down Wallace's avenue is stupidity defined...those who know the area will know

In fairness to the council today, they made it clear it was still very open to change

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119400260#Comment_119400260

Who would make that movement? The only people who can access it are those already on the Douglas Road due to the bus gate at the Well Road. Which is still a lot of people, but it isn't all current Douglas Rd movements moving to there. Although, cars coming from Ballinlough Road will need to turn right now at Wallace's Avenue. That won't be good enough, the road is two way with one lane and parking on both sides. However, I do wonder what the purpose of the bus gates are since there is a continuous bus lane outbound as is, it will only help buses going to the city centre and as someone who often gets the bus that way, there is never traffic going into town. Even in rush hour, it's people leaving town, which the bus lane fixes. I'll like add that to my submission too

https://www.reddit.com/r/cork/comments/w57u8a/bus_connects_the_real_deal_part_1_maryborough/

beer enigma

Coming off the South Link at the second Douglas exit will no longer have a left turn, it's up the well road or right into Douglas.

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119400859#Comment_119400859

Yup, but that doesn't affect Wallace's Avenue (unless you are saying that separately), those cars would go down to Boreenamana Road

beer enigma

Sorry just a seperate observation...reading through the book bit by bit.

215 services through Ballinlough are being slashed in favour of Douglas road buses. A lot of elderly rely on the 215.

I'm up the top of the Well Road, so if I want to go to St Finbarrs hospital I won't be able to turn right by Eglantine, have to go through Douglas which will be even more fun when Lidl is built.

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119401523#Comment_119401523

Wait. How actually can you access the hospital? I would go towards Ballinlough on the Well Road, go through Lake Lawn to go passed St Anthony's school, left onto Ballinlough Road and go down to the very end (i.e. passed Our Lady of Lourdes and BellAir), then St Finbarrs is right in front of you. However, there is no entry to the part of the Ballinlough Road after Bellair. I don't see any other way through Douglas due to the bus gates, as they are at either side of the hospital, i.e. you can't go onto the South Douglas Road and then up the Cross Douglas Road or Capwell Road. I would probably include that in your submission if you're making one, and I will too, as it seems it isn't possible to make any movement to the hospital? Unless cars coming from Southern Road are allowed into the bus gate at Ballinlough Road? But that seems extremely difficult for almost everyone in City South East (Douglas, Mahon, Rochestown, Ballinlough, etc). The more I think about the Douglas Road bus gates, the more I think about how impractical they are

Pepsirebel

The bus gates are all well and good but what about the 3 schools..douglas comm, regina monday & eglantine primary. What ever about the 2 secondary schools & pupils using the bus ( where they can get it ) what about dropping & collecting junior infants and the like. They're not expected to get the bus on their own surley

Gru

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119408944#Comment_119408944

The donnybrook based secondary school students are losing access to a bus route (assuming the buses coming from carrigaline at rush hour will be full and nobody will be getting off them in Donnybrook itself) and there is no route on the south Douglas road so Christ the King students i was told by Con from the NTA will be expected to get one route into the city and a second bus back to the school or walk 30 minutes to the nearest bus stop.

i'd imagine it'll be similar situations for the schools named. walk or cycle.

BagofWeed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394036#Comment_119394036

But that's Cork for you. Its a bastion of ignorance and scaremongering. The Bus Connects is a fairly well meaning and well thought out plan but it'll be nit-picked and before we know it only the bare bones of a plan will be left. It'll be as useful as an ashtray on a motorbike then. Committees are being formed by nimbies all over the city about it.

snotboogie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119409043#Comment_119409043

The South Douglas Road has the number 7 bus, it just won’t have any dedicated bus lanes as is the case now. Not sure why someone from the NTA would be telling you there is no route on the South Douglas Road?

DylanQuestion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119408944#Comment_119408944

You can still drive on the Douglas Road, you just can't drive the length of it due to the bus gates (Well Road, Bellair and Ballinlough Road). You can still access it by car from Belvedere Lawn, Tramore Lawn, Rathmore Lawn/Rhodaville Estate, Rosebank, Bellair, Eglantine Park and the Cross Douglas Road. By foot/bike, you can also access it from Clermont Avenue and Woodview.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119409043#Comment_119409043

I don't think that will be the case for Donnybrook. Otherwise, it would be the same right now for Maryborough Hill with the 220. It is sometimes in the morning I think but otherwise it's not. The 220 replacement (3) will split between 3A and 3B, plus a few other going from Carrigaline to the city centre, so I don't see capacity for Donnybrook being an issue.

South Douglas Road does have a bus route, No 7 (Kent - Mount Oval), 20 minute frequency. The No 6 is every 15 minutes (Grange - UCC) stops on South Douglas Road too, it just doesn't travel down it. Maybe a 2/3 minute walk from the school

the beer revolu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119409096#Comment_119409096

I don't think that's particular to Cork, at all, but it is what will probably happen.

Dangel4x4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119400260#Comment_119400260

Yep, "bus gates" at Bellair traffic lights to stop cars going towards town...all on-street parking to be removed on this stretch also (with 15-20? parking spaces at St Finbarr's entrance to compensate). Outside of peak hours, all buses that pass this way are empty (215, 207, 220, 216 etc) so the proposals are complete overkill and deserve to be killed off.

If this does somehow go ahead, parking will need to be removed on Wallace's Avenue too as this will be the new rat-run into town. Of course the NTA only inform residents of what's happening on their 200m of road so it's hard to visualise the scale of the stupidity on a city-wide basis...

The worst thing however, in my view, is the amount of trees they plan to cut down...on the Douglas Rd and Boreenmana Rd...to facilitate road widening 😡😡😡

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119408944#Comment_119408944

To be fair the Regina Mundi crowd are a pain in the h*le and cause traffic chaos on the Douglas Road every morning and afternoon...blocking cycle lanes, the bus stop, the petrol station forecourt, etc. Yes, their little angels should be getting the bus where possible (but I guess the problem here is that so many students aren't from the local area and rely on being driven to school...but there's a separate thread).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394036#Comment_119394036

Citation please?

I haven't read anything about houses being demolished or people being barred from owning cars. However the question of continued car ownership is an interesting one: with onstreet parking being removed for High Street and the Douglas Road, one has to question where car owners will continue to park their cars (as the proposed number of spaces at the front of St Finbarr's is clearly inadequate for the number of residents in the area)?

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119489122#Comment_119489122

https://twitter.com/bus_conn_stinks/status/1549318964328759296?t=R3Zqaz4u1WZ5D2v5gkX64w&s=19

Where someone stores their private property is entirely a question for the car owner to resolve and should not entail handing over the public realm to private storage.

Dangel4x4

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119491431#Comment_119491431

lol, your source is one tweet from a crank account with 35 followers? Ironically you've probably trebled their audience by posting that tweet.

Is that all you have to support your claim, seriously? That's not "a scandalous amount of disinformation". Less of your hysteria please.

namloc1980

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119497285#Comment_119497285

Ah the classic "but not that". Why don't you do us a favour and look it up yourself. 👍 Councillors spreading misinfo and negativity also. I'm not going to spoon feed you 🙄

Dangel4x4

lol at you claiming I made some kind of logical fallacy in response to your hyperbole...

It's not my responsibility to "do us a favour and look it up" myself in order to verify your claim. Specially when the claim has no grounding in reality.

You make a claim..be prepared to back it up. That's not spoonfeeding.

notAMember

Agree the amount of trees coming down is disappointing. They did the same in douglas park and on skehard road. The new trees are never mature ones.

I find the flow quite hard to visualise , it’s a pity there isn’t a simulator version of the traffic where you could load it with school or match traffic.

gooseman12

I'm beginning to think, actually i'm quite confident at this stage, that BusConnects is going to fall at the first hurdle.

We have councilors voicing fierce opposition to every single aspect of it and demanding the entire plan be discarded, residents crying over the plan (not my words, see here https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/munster/arid-40960250.html), road conservation status' changes in the hope of protecting the fabric of the city (https://twitter.com/CllrDesCahil/status/1546808046327840770?cxt=HHwWhICykaHurvcqAAAA). Parking in St. Lukes also seems to be causing some major issues, and i'd imagine the list is far far longer than only the ones I am aware of.

The greenfields/coolroe meadows scheme, while not part of the bus connects plan, i think shows a microcosm of what awaits for the bus connects plans, very vocal local objections, backed up by councilors seemingly results in the plan being entirely discarded in favour of the status quo. While the plans may not have been the best, i really feel the status quo is not the best outcome for anyone here.

I see bus connects headed the same direction. At most it ends up being a completely watered down version of the plan with very little changes.

While this is cork focused, it is probably not just a cork thing, I can imagine the dublin plans are headed in a similar direction.

thomil

Oh, this project is dead, no doubt about it! Unless the government somehow gets both the authority and backbone to go all Tienanmen Square on the NIMBYs and Cork Sh!tty Council, which is honestly still better than they deserve, this will never get anywhere.

All those who are b*tching about why Cork isn't what it used to be, just look at what's going on with BusConnects and you'll see that the Leesiders are more than happy to kill their own city in favour of chasing some mystic rose-tinted past that never existed in the first place!

namloc1980

Any chance of a Cork Luas will be stopped in it's tracks by these same Councillors and NIMBYs. Meanwhile our roads are creaking under car traffic but it seems Cork people are happy enough with that.

BagofWeed

More of the same. BC is dead in the water and not a penny more should be wasted on transportation in Cork. Let them enjoy their dreadfully slow buses while they crawl through the heavy congestion and the web of badly timed traffic lights, a complete mess but its what the people want, so be it.

BusConnects and NTA controversial plans for Cork: unique opportunity or highways to Hell? (irishexaminer.com)

BagofWeed

More of the same. A city of anti-progress.

Virgin Media News on Twitter: "#WATCH A €600 million Bus Connects project planned for parts of Cork is being met with opposition Southern Correspondent @PaulByrne_1 reports from Ballincollig ⤵️ #VMNews | #busconnects | #Ballincollig https://t.co/zSQGWNzmv2" / Twitter

notAMember

I think it's a shame the concerns aren't being addressed publicly, through communication channels they have.

For people losing their property - tell people up front what they will be paid for their land, and make sure it's based on some logic, and reasonably generous.

For people losing parking (and I know some of these are elderly people in wheelchairs losing accessible parking spaces), pay them, or facilitate them relocating to a suitable house.

For people who are concerned about our mature trees being pulled down, integrate the existing trees into the design.

It shouldn't be a take it or leave it conversation. Don't know why people have to be so black and white about it.

That's what these consultations are for, to take input and assess whether an adjustment makes sense or not.

DylanQuestion

I think people are forgetting what this process is for, though. All these issues people have with it, that's what they're looking for. They designed these routes based on past experiences and Google Maps. For example, they're not aware of the historical significance of the Douglas Road's wall or the trees. They also don't know of the importance of certain parking spots, or how certain roads don't work the way they think they do due to XYZ. This process is to gather all of that local knowledge, to combine it with their plans. For instance, none of these schemes are in planning. These aren't concrete plans in anyway. So I am completely fine with people having issues with these plans, such as a a bridge going through the Mangala or them not noticing that Maryborough Hill was already widened in 2019 and doesn't need to be widened again or more. What I do have an issue with is people thinking this is being railroaded into their lives and the detriment of everyone. I'm sure the next round of consultation will see large scale changes, especiallt with the Mangala Bridge being removed. Even after then, they will need to go for planning permission, which will be another opportunity for people to raise issues. It's just for some reason people in Ireland catasrophise everything. The whole aim of this project is to improve public transport, traffic and lives, not to ruin them. They want our knowledge

However, as notAMember said, more communication is needed, such as the above I just mentioned. It's hard though when councillors with vested interests try everything to have this project fail before it even starts

the beer revolu

I see a problem where a lot of the objectors, despite what they say, do not actually want more efficient and sustainable transport if it impacts on their car use in any way whatsoever. I believe that most of the loudest voices of objection come from people who have no desire or expectation to ever step foot on a bus.

These people seem to fail to realise that unless there is a huge shift in how people travel, traffic is just going to get worse and worse and worse. No amount of road building or improvement is going to change that.

DylanQuestion

I have noticed just in the last few weeks that traffic is horrifically bad too, I'm not sure what the reason is or I'm just now noticing it. However, the Douglas Road (especially at the Well Road end) always feels bumper to bumper. I've also saw people highlight that this traffic won't be solved by electric cars

Mefistofelino

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119708765#Comment_119708765

It's possible - if not probable- (based on U.S. studies) that electric cars will actually make the problem worse. Because owners believe that 1) the running costs are effectively nil (lower running costs and those charging costs are essentially "lost" in a bimonthly electricity bill) and 2) there is no environmental or societal impact from an EV, owners are inclined to use them more often compared to those with ICE cars.

namloc1980

Traffic won't be solved by EVs and it won't be solved by Dunkettle interchange being finished. A lot of people out there think that Dunkettle is some sort of panacea for Cork traffic once it's completed.

People who have no intention of ever setting foot on a bus are dictating the debate over BusConnects and active transport in the city.

the beer revolu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119708765#Comment_119708765

The reason is really very obvious and simple. There are too many cars on our roads at the same time.

Car ownership per 1000 people has jumped from 228 in 1990 to 442 in 2019! There was no shortage of traffic in 1990 yet we've almost doubled the amount of cars on our roads in that 29 years (probably by more than that as the population has also increased). What did we expect to happen?

Have no doubt, that without intervention, ownership will continue to increase and so will traffic. People see measures as "anti car" or as a "war on cars", but the reality is that it just cannot continue on as it it - it won't work for anyone - certainly not for car owners (I am one). And, no, EVs won't help.

What might help would be a massive shift towards shared car systems but people are so wedded to their cars that there is reluctance to this.

Oh, I've just remembered the solution that a poster on this forum came up with a few years ago - they suggested that if the cost of car ownership and use was substantially reduced, people would be encouraged to use them less🤣😂😅😁. That was a good one. Anyone want to claim ownership of that bright idea??