Cork - Light Rail [route options idenfication and initial design underway]

The Cork Luas is doomed with this continuous tinkering, interference and delays. Hate to say it but this feels like another Event Centre debacle.

Only state owned buildings and long derelict private buildings are realistic targets for knocking. Proposing demolishing occupied private houses would be a death sentence for the project, although maybe that's CCC's intention.

That map was really more of a schematic than an actual proposed alignment (note how it runs straight through the English Market in the city-centre..!). There’s supposed to be at least one stop for the hospital on that segment, but where they’ve drawn the line it will not serve the CUH campus very well at all. If you bring the line properly into CUH’s grounds, the onward routing to the west gets easier.

The reason trolleybuses are ruled as a general solution in Cork is simple (and it’s the same reason they’re not used in Dublin): they’re a bad mix with double-deck buses, and double-deck buses are needed on some routes that would need to traverse any electrified sections.

However, if a way is created with the view of becoming a tram line in future, there‘s no reason not to use trolleybuses as a first step: the cost in an efficient high-capacity bus system isn’t the vehicles, it’s in creating the clear path, and trolleybuses are a much more cost-effective option than BEV buses - especially in hilly areas like Cork.

If it is going to become a tram line in the future, what is the benefit of making it a busway in the medium term? Surely if it is to be of any use as a busway, there will be a good amount of work to be done and then altered or undone to make it a tram line.

Budget would be a reason. Trolley buses are a step towards a tram that allows you to preserve your investment in infrastructure. First step is to clear services from under the chosen way, and then segregate that bus-way from other traffic and provide overhead power. That’s about half the work of a tram system, but now you can run services while you get the funding for a tram. And while you won’t have the capacity of a tram, it will have a much greater reliability than a bus in shared traffic, and the step up to a tram is only the extra cost of track, platforms, signalling and rolling-stock.

With high reliability, people will take a bus. The problem right now is that the buses in Cork are horribly unreliable - you might get one on time; you might be waiting forty minutes. If the bus has its own “track” that cars cannot use, then that improves service reliability. Of course, there are snobs who would never take any kind of bus, but they can sit in traffic until they cop on...

Not sure if funding is an issue, there's 2 bigger issues anyway, Nimbys and therefore the council don't want it and our planning system is a joke.

Very rich area right next to the hospital and the road is really not wide enough there for a decent Luas style system. Also two GAA clubs will be badly effected.

When theres the rarely used bus lane next to the hospital at the roundabout with plenty of room for a Luas stop, and the dual carriageway section just outside of the hospital, I cant' see any other route being sensible.

BRT is the preferred fallback now, as the "Light Rail" talk gets quieter. Trolleybus would fit between BRT and true Light Rail, and in a hilly city like Cork it may actually be a better zero-carbon alternative than either battery-bus or light rail.

The idea of a tram-bus on a BRT system was floated, but I don't think that's going to work very well in Cork unless they produce a gold-standard BRT alignment - a longer vehicle just has more potential to get stuck in traffic, especially while attempting to turn. (Too many people in this town still think amber traffic-lights don't count when there's long queues)

I will be (happily) surprised if they manage a true BRT, which is basically a tramway without the tracks, with physical separation between bus lane and other traffic for almost all of the route. Overview here for anyone not familiar with what a BRT system is: BRT Standard - Wikipedia

Sorry to have caused confusion here: Yes, I am the only person suggesting a trolley-bus, as a speculation about what could be done that was better than a red-painted road lane but not as expensive as a full tram. BRT was mentioned during the CMATS studies as a precursor to an eventual light rail system, but it seems that has now been watered down to a "high-frequency bus route". I suggested trolley bus as a better (and zero-carbon) precursor to trams - you'll forgive me if I'm not optimistic about a Cork Luas...

The corridor shown in CMATS is just about viable with trams, although the long haul up Wilton Road is not ideal, but if any other north/south routes were planned (and I think they should be looking at these), the gradients would favour rubber rather than steel-wheeled vehicles.

The Trambus system in Metz, France. They are not powered by trolleys (electric) but by onboard hybrid diesel generating power for the electric drive system.

The ones used in the Metz system, supplied by Van Hool, can have multiple power source options, including trolleys to overhead cables, onboard batteries, and Hydrogen fuel cells. https://www.vanhool.com/en/vehicles/public-transport

I've actually traveled on the Metz system and the only difference from the Dublin LUAS system is the lack of grinding from the steel wheels on steel tracks on tight turns otherwise they are a pretty much identical travel experience except they are not as long.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydf-ijXirdg&ab_channel=TravelImpressionsbyHaiko

Busconnects is almost certainly going to proceed, just at a rate so scaled down that it won't have a major impact on commuting patterns. Its pretty much the same in Dublin, when concerned locals are given free reign over multiple consultation stages bus infrastructure gets so watered down that it ends up being ineffective. This will ultimately and eventually force the hand of light rail in Cork, particularly if growth rates continue as they have for the last 10 years or so.

Nonsense

There's any number of schemes and plans drawn up but it's politicians who cancel them (e.g. Leo Varadkar and Metro North)

You missed the point

Plenty of plans and schemes have been drawn up over the decades but never implemented.

Politicians refuse to commit the money and to stand up to the small number of NIMBYs for the greater good (e.g. cancelling the conversion of the southern Green Line to metro)

Metro North was literally shovel-ready and would have provided thousands of much-needed jobs. If politicians had had due regard for its importance, they'd have found a way to implement it.

Like every other cancelled PT scheme, the "gains" of doing nothing are immediate, the far larger and long-term losses to society are someone else's problem

There's some Mandela-effect phenomenon going on where people claim we actually had plenty of money during the recession and we requested a bailout just for fun.

Now here's a novel approach to providing a Rapid Transit System for Cork and it it would cost only one tenth of a conventional rail system https://traveltomorrow.com/chinas-trackless-trams-could-revitalize-city-suburbs/

They are being used all over Europe already. The Belfast Flyer uses these.

Thing is they are useless if not on practically 100% bus lanes so all the same NIMBY problems exist.

Varadkar publicly poured cold water over light rail for Cork so that could be the end of it.