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

Would greatly appreciate if specific instances of councillors stalling and slowing down improvement projects could be posted here, e.g. links to public statements, council debates or tweets (I can think of one particular suspect but there must be more). It's time to put pressure on them while the elections are approaching. The city is grinding to a halt with car traffic, we need better bus routes and cycle lanes in the short term and some kind of mass transit as soon as possible.

I've thought about this and can't fathom why the docklands is no longer the desired path as I thought it was a pre requisite for the planning and development we're all looking forward to and the only illogical answer I can come up with (forgetting our consistent lack of foresight and care/diligence) is that they're planning a second line.

Tivoli (New Bus/Rail Terminus?) → Eastern Gateway Bridge → Center Park Road → Intersection To Ballincollig Mahon Line → Turners Cross → Ballyphenane → Togher → Airport

All to be figured out is the Douglas to Blackpool Line and we're relatively set for our metro albeit some rail to the port is going to be required at some stage.

*I'll go back to my day dreams

I'd have thought it's more that parts of the Passage line aren't very accessible from the street and has long runs where it doesn't go near dense housing which makes it less useful for PT. Assuming the images are actually serious and they're not just creating unrealistic graphics cause they know it will never happen.

Why though? Why not just stay on the original alignment until St. Michael's Drive and turn directly into Mahon Point from there?

Cork Commuter Rail has been done outside of the planning process. The Irish planning process is infrastructure kryptonite.

Ending in Mahon, with Rochestown, Passage and Douglas so close, seems very short sighted. Why not run it over the South Ring and then have a split with one route going to Passage/Monkstown (with the possibility of onward to Carrigaline) and the other spur routing back up the Rochestown Road to Douglas?

A bigger project cost more money and takes longer to build. Consider this Phase 1 in the Cork LRT project.

Others here may also not have seen the type of foreshore harbour SPA objections on "environmental grounds" that can come through, the closer you get to the Rochestown Road. There's a reason the greenway turns to sh1t for a few hundred metres there, and it's down to not Council laziness!

That's because those initial projects are funded by the EU Covid recovery fund which has a hard deadline of the end of 2026 for projects to be delivered so that covers the resignalling, new platform at Kent and Midleton to Glounthaune dual tracking.

However the other elements like new stations, rolling stock, electrification and new depot are not funded and have no detailed plans.

True. Very true. Wonder, being serious, if it will be built by even say 2040?

I don't see it to be honest. The emerging preferred route was supposed to be revealed by the end of 2022, then it was deferred until July 2023 and then it was further deferred with hardly a word since. And that's just the first step in the process. It's not funded, and based on the backlash to BusConnects, the amount of nimbyism and objections will be off the charts if it ever does go for consultation/planning.

Between the painfully slow development of infrastructure in this country anyway, and the extreme nimbyism I can't see this happening for decades, if ever. Hope I'm wrong.

Where was that plan published? I don't remember any detailed proposals involving a tram in the Wilton road.

Yes, it's the 2019 proposal, but it wasn't just a bus lane. Residents were given two scenarios for CPO: one for a bus lane, and a second for a bus lane plus light rail. The route shown in the initial Cork LRT proposal goes right up Wilton Road… you really can't serve both UCC and CUH without going this way.

All land take was on one side of the road, which sounds like a recipe for disaster in planning as it can be easily argued to be unfairly placing all the negative impacts on one group of people while leaving others untroubled. Both sides of the street are equally set back from the current road; if anything the side that was to be untouched had more space than the side that wasn't... the cynic in me does note that the sacrificial side of the road is all residential, while the untouched one has a couple of businesses located on it, and homeowners can't write off their legal fees against taxes...

Not taking in Kent Station would be absolutely outrageous. The only way they are going to help reduce traffic from the east is to better connect Kent to Cork via a nice reliable Luas - as currently the onward connections might as well not exist.

Leaving Kent Station out of Luas plans would be a disconnected-green-and-red-line-and-lets-not-link-to-Dublin-Airport level of stupid all over again.

Maps are dangerous at this point in a project.. it's too easy for people with an axe to grind to distribute a proposal drawing as if it were the final plan, and suddenly we're knee deep in objections.

From what I understand, the council proposal is that the tram line turns left at the Capitol, travels along Patrick St to the river, then crosses the bridge. At this point the tracks split: The city-bound track is routed along the quays, while the track for Kent continues along MacCurtain St, the tracks meet again somwhere around Penrose Wharf, both pass through the Kent Station site, and are then carried south on a new light rail bridge towards the Docklands.

The simpler option is that at the city end of Washington Street, both tram lines turn right, follow Grand Parade and South Mall, then cross the river somwhere to the east of City hall and continue into the Docklands.

I agree. I only favour the "turn left" option promoted by Cork City Council that would bring the line across the North Channel and link directly with Kent Station.

The "simple" option is a minor cost-saving that would dramatically reduce the ridership of both the light rail line and the Cork commuter rail service.

Docklands is the future of Cork City. Go have a walk around there sometime and see just how much empty space there is there.. I only hope the city holds its nerve and insists on proper long-term habitable apartments being built.

... but then, we are dealing with the organisation that granted planning to the Elysian without requiring rubbish chutes (yep, "modern city living" means bringing your dripping bin bags down 17 floors in the lift..)

Theoretically you could start by putting the tram down the docklands before anywhere else was completed, and expanding in either direction from there. It would be an inefficient way to run the project obviously but just saying it would be possible to unlock sustainable development in the docklands before anywhere else.

People living or working in the new developments, wanting to connect to or from Kent. I know it's only a short stretch, but the convenience (and you'd hope integrated ticketing) would make it desirable. Again, an obviously inefficient way to develop the network

There should really be a 3 line system, ballincollig to mahon via south docks, a Wilton to Kent line and a Douglas to Blackpool line with an airport branch. You can't serve everything with one line.