Cork developments

The discussion I was having with the other poster was about the Ballyvolane development and their false statement about it so it was relevant to your commenting on the discussion. Yes I grouped this person with others as being anti car ownership and against investment in road infrastructure due to what they said about the new development not having access to anything without having a car which I have shown is not true. I did appologise to them if they had supported the project of the north ring road elsewhere as they stated later and once again I am explaining this was due to not investigating their post history and just responding to what they had posted in reply to what I had posted about the Ballyvolane development. I don't understand why you can't read what I actually said in the post you quoted:

"I am sorry if you have posted in the past about the benefits of a proper north ring road but I did not investigate your posting history and this was not obvious from what you posted in reply to my post about a new development in Ballyvolane."

If you are saying you are most likely not going to reply to me that is fine by me but don't be making false accusations about me and setting up straw man arguments by twisting what I actually said into some sort of personal attack which it was not.

OK I disagree with you. And it appears that the Cork City Draft Development Plan explicitly disagrees with you too. I think it's possible to create 15 minute neighbourhoods. I don't think it's a "cloud cuckoo land idea". I agree that there's a crisis in housing and agree that we need to move fast but I don't believe that we should repeat known mistakes because we're in a difficult situation. Again, nowhere in any government plan (local or national) have I seen such a view stated.

But it's ok to disagree, that's fine by me. I'm not always right, I've been wrong about plenty of things before.

I agree with Hans that this scheme is "just a drop in the ocean unfortunately". I don't think it will fully address some of the issues with traffic movement in the area. I am unsure of how the current version of the improvement is planned but there was talk of the city council taking some of my parents' front garden along the road being improved and the latest they have been told is that this is no longer part of the plan.

I think the Northern distributor is needed urgently now: plan out all of the land around Banduff Road, and create a formal link directly Westwards to the N20 and in an ideal world a Kilbarry train station. Get the 201 orbital bus to leave the current North Ring Road, go on this distributor, go through Hawthorn Mews and stop at Kilbarry train station

Sorry to dwell on the topic further (I think we're all confident of where each other stand now) but it's the connections to some of the big employment centres that are difficult. And the new Sarsfield's Court hospital will need to be well connected too. A local roads improvement scheme is welcome, and is needed, but the big-project stuff is not happening yet.

I thought there was a route announcement on the Northern Distributor a few months ago? Am I mistaken on that? Was it wishful thinking on my part?

I'd also be optimistic that the Sarsfields' Court hospital could hopefully provoke some road upgrades in any revised CMATS or they'll be implicitly encouraging rat-running through Upper Glanmire. I don't know how they'll square the lack of a Northern Distributor with the cycle area plan and busconnects, and for that reason I suspect it will be included. Again could be wishful on my part.

Its not that specifically Ballyvolane needs them in my opinion but the city needs more affordable homes and low rise apartments within 30 odd minutes walk of the city centre seem to me like a viable option to address this need.

I don't think that's a helpful way to think of it. For instance I'm extremely pro-active-travel but I know that a distributor without a bypass is a recipe for failure. A new distributor without a bypass would have high volumes of traffic, HGV's etc.

The new distributor needs to facilitate sustainable development. It needs to be bus, cycle and walk oriented, and should encourage development. It should have local and commuter and school traffic for the most part. Whereas the bypass needs to be HGV oriented and predominantly not local traffic. People proposing one without the other are proposing something that won't be very sustainable.

ABP rejects appeal against Penneys expansion

The entrance on Cook Street will be huge for the street. Too bad the Easons one looks like an emergency exit, but the new windows make a huge difference there. Hopefully all of the units will be full by 2025. I can't wait to see the new shopfront on Patrick Street, with new limestone pillars and plinth. Oliver Plunkett Street was supposed to get the same design but sadly the council said that it wasn't original enough to the building

Work will be done in phases to allow for the shop to remain open. From SkyScraperCity:

Phase 1

• Demolition of internal walls in the former Vero Moda building and the Tiger building to allow them to be joined together, as well as any other necessary construction and demolition
• Everything but the facades of 2 and 3 Cook Street will be demolished, with the new construction following. The other three buildings, the corner building on OPS and the building on the southern corner of Elbow Lane will be own door buildings
• The external walls of the existing Penneys building that face onto Eblow Lane will be demolished
• The footpath on Patrick Street will be surrounded in hoarding, with the existing loading bays outside the building converted to a covered and protected footpath. Some of the Cook Street facade will be hoarded off to allow for support structures for the retained facades to be erected
• The street lighting on Patrick Street will be removed, stored and sadly returned before hand-off
• Existing paviors on Patrick Street will be replaced where damaged

Phase 2

• Work will start on the southern half of the existing Penneys building, i.e. 99-102 Oliver Plunkett Street, as well as work on Robert Street
• The northern footpath on Oliver Plunkett Street will be hoarded off and the road converted to a shared space with pedestrian priority (this will include relevant road markings and signage)
• The above is also proposed for Robert Street. The existing concrete footpath will be replaced before hand off but I haven't been able to find details of what this entails yet as there are no drawings up yet
• Damaged paviours on Oliver Plunkett Street will be replaced before hand-off

Phase 3

- Work will then start on the northern half of the existing Penneys building

Work on MacCurtain Street looks to be almost finished.

Nice to see trees there but I'm not sure about the decision to put them in massive planters rather than in the ground. The c. 1metre cubed planters take up a lot of footpath space. In places, it seems they are there purely to stop cars from driving and parking in pedestrian areas.

Yeah, general cleaning and maintenance of the city leaves a lot to be desired.

I believe I saw a picture before showing that that building has red brick underneath its paint like the rest of the street. I’d love to see it exposed