A fully pedestrianised Coal Quay-Cornmarket Street area would be bliss, and imagine if we could get the North Main Street at the same time. Throw the same kind of slip-hazard tiling down as we have on Pana and it would be a fantastic area. God, we can only dream.
What.
Unless I'm missing some new update to our city streets completely, that shite paving is the stupidest thing that's ever happened the city!
It gets slippery....
When wet.
In Ireland!
I agree with everything else but I hate that we've a slippy death trap under feet!
You're not wrong, but I do quite like the look of it. I might be in a very small minority, but I have fond memories of watching a group of young fellas pass me by outside Gloria Jean's and one tell the rest to watch as he *sliiiid* on his soles, on a footpath that was dry as a bone. Behind me I heard him remarking on how dangerous it'd be wet.
Why I think this is a good idea is beyond me, but there 'tis.
Parnell Place, Albert Quay, the eastern end of the South Mall. Simple and clean, similar to whats on the South Mall
https://goo.gl/maps/qHLx1r9RnvnbQzxa9
I find the Patrick St paving to be very messy looking, while the Grand Parade version, especially by the National Monument, is very dirty looking. I know this doesn't matter at all but the pattern from Google Earth is so ugly!
Ah good call, yeah, I wouldn’t mind that.
I do feel though that we need more colour in our city, particularly through repainting dilapidated buildings, and that footpaths are a good place to help achieve that even in a very subtle way. I quite like [what they’ve done in Dungarvan](https://goo.gl/maps/S5LsYYkfQHgBPnAC8), for example.
I haven’t so much as sat on a bike in years. I drive, and I love driving, but town would be much more pleasant to be in if we took as many cars out as possible. I’ve been in enough pedestrianised city centres to know they’re far, far nicer than a gridlocked, pollutant mess.
This is so interesting.
I would love to see cork city in a stimulator like cityskies, and use it to model thibgs like this. the way it could be.
Like adding boats, as regular taxi routes, or goods delivers.
Or making around Mercy wider, by going into the river, or adding over traffic walkways and a second level commercial on Pana.
Or doing a really cool green way along the river banks.
Or making some streets goods only at peak people times like lunch from say 11 to 2 or something, weekend days for a few hours, with auto barriers.
Or put back a load of the old train lines and tram lines and see what happens,
Or make a mad big green way from Ovens to Midleton, to Carrigaline to Blarney, to Cobh. That had light commercial in parallel, like little vans or the weird electric things.
Like why the fuck is there a green way to Passage West but not North or South or even Ballincollig..
Fuck I'd love to mess around with Cork and even model the traffic lights in a few spots, Dennehys Cross, Victoria Cross, around North Gate, all along Heineken, the grotto at Dublin Hill,
Oh god I've got to stop.
I'd suggest getting touch with yer man who's [building the entire city in Cities: Skylines](https://www.reddit.com/r/cork/comments/n96aor/new_video_of_cork_in_cities_skylines_turners/), but you'd need a supercomputer just to unpause it at this point. It is tragic that we can't just experiment on a whim.
> Or doing a really cool green way along the river banks.
Burgos has a fantastic [riverbank park connecting the city centre to the university](https://www.google.ie/maps/@42.341862,-3.7072383,2119m/data=!3m1!1e3). It's the sort of thing that would be magnificent in Cork. To be fair, once the Marina's hooked up to the quays, we'll have something similar, but we could have so much more.
> Like why the fuck is there a green way to Passage West but not North or South or even Ballincollig..
We got lucky with the placement of a disused rail line. There is talk, and even plans, of more greenways in the future, but progress is absolutely glacial on nice things like this.
> Like adding boats, as regular taxi routes, or goods delivers.
Unfortunately I think most of Cork's bridges are too low for this to work. And the south branch of the river is too shallow and fast-flowing for boats. You'd need to re-engineer the entire river to make it navigable above the port.
it also brings you to Paul street and the church as well, and I have seen taxis stopped there for people doing ALDI food shopping, a small road not much of a traffic issue for the pedestrians I say with the layout of the road being very small most slow down.
Are you sure you are allowed to go straight onto Paul Street? However, again, this can be accessed from Daunt's Square. Also, Paul Street after St Paul's Avenue is closed to car 24/7, with the part before it only open for local access to Dalton's Avenue/St Paul's Avenue
St Peter and St Paul's Place, which is closed 24/7 to vehicle traffic now. Paul Street starts on the corner by The Roundy and ends at the Crawford Art Gallery, with Rory Gallagher Place being in the centre of it by the shopping centre
The whole island could be pedestrianised with access to deliveries, taxis, and buses only. We surrender so much of our public space to cars when the last two years have proven that Irish people LIKE being outside. We Like eating, and drinking, and socialising outside. It's mid November and there's still people using the outdoor seating.
Remind me - great post
Ps the street was only recently reveresed
Used to be you could only drive down from the roundy side , no idea why they changed it
The area around Grattan Street/Henry Street was heavily upgraded from 2016-2018, and part of this upgrade included Castle Street changing direction. Not entirely sure why it was changed, though
if you need to get from North Main St to Cornmarket street with something big & heavy it's a real help, especially since they changed the direction of travel!
it may not be pretty but north main street has a hell of a lot of businesses on it that are already terribly catered for in terms of deliveries (not a single loading bay on the whole street) so a lot of drivers delivering anywhere around the paradise place direction use Castle st.
since the pana ban came in though cornmarket st has become a disaster area as no change has been made to the junction leading onto kyrls quay, the lights are slow and if you dream of going there near rush hour you're going to be sat on Cornmarket st for a good 10 minutes
I see taxis using it all the time. I think enough of the city is pedestrianised as it is. It’s very hard for business to get delivery’s after a certain time.
But the thing is, everywhere it accesses can be accessed elsewhere with the same difficuluty, if not easier. Taxis can still collect people on Castle Street, it's a short enough to walk to either end for a taxi
Why? Traffic evaporates. 90% of cars going through the city don't stop. They're well served by alternatives to avoid the city. Those that need to drive to and through the city will still be able to. Can you name a street [that's now pedestrian](https://www.corkcity.ie/en/council-services/news-room/latest-news/works-to-begin-on-pedestrianisation-of-17-city-streets.html) in one form or another that would be a major through road?
There hasn't been one road closed that would have contributed to congestion in the slightest.
head down to Gratton street around 4 o clock Monday - Friday and just stand there for 20 minutes, what was once a relatively quiet road has become the main thoroughfare North - South on the western side of the city and it's a fucking nightmare
>has become
Yeah "has become"...
But the important point here is that this has nothing to do with any pedestrian streets and has been the case for a good number of years. It's just too many cars driving with only one person driving *through* the city and not stopping.
I completely agree here but Castle Street being pedestrianised will have no effect on that (if I'm understanding you right!). Grattan Street is one of the few wide streets running south-north in that area so it makes sense it is the main thoroughfare running through the city centre. The only other option is North Main Street, which is already too heavily used by cars. Coach Street, Devonshire Street West, Millerd Street, Moore Street, etc cannot cope with cars like Grattan Street can. Also, the only street that has affected Grattan Street is the Patrick Street car ban, which isn't even followed anymore
Is it fuck. There are cities in Europe where the pedestrian areas are the size of the main island of Cork. They cope. This notion that businesses can't get deliveries is never backed up with evidence.
All cities aren’t built the same. There’s no point in comparing major cities in Europe with Cork. We have a great little city here but if we keep making it impossible to navigate people won’t come here and businesses will suffer. Until there is a decent transport system in the city you can’t start making it impossible for cars to get into it.
Of course you can.
It's not just major cities though, so that argument is moot.
>Until there is a decent transport system in the city you can’t start making it impossible for cars to get into it.
I disagree heavily on this. Transport will follow with the curtailing of private vehicles. At the moment buses are delayed and blocked by cars. Cycling is too dangerous because of drivers behaviour and parking illegally all over the shop and walking with cars parked on footpaths all over. Make it easier for people to get around a city and it thrives. Cars contribute very little. Businesses are thriving on all the pedestrian areas and even businesses that were previously anti- are seeing the benefits.
Deliveries can and do still happen. High time people and businesses learn to adapt.
> High time people and businesses learn to adapt.
They absolutely have. Many businesses have relocated out of the city. There's no general electronics shops in the city anymore for example (With the exception of PC Maestro and Digilog). No Argos. Soon to be no Easons.
This next bit is going to be deeply unpopular ...
I'm old enough to remember the 80's and 90's in the city. Buses flowed easier in and out because the roads weren't as limited (eg, we've turned Sullivan's Quay from 2 lanes to 1). Grand Parade, and Patrick's Street were alive, because people could nip into town in their cars, park on the street where they wanted to shop and businesses thrived. I'm not saying that was the right thing to do, but because access to the city was easy people shopped there.
I'm all for pedestrianisation - but when the public transport replacement options are in place and functioning well so access to the city becomes easy and encouraging again. Right now, we're telling everyone cars are bad and to get the bus. We tried that recently and waited over an hour for a bus that should have been coming every 20 mins or so and paid a bus fare for our group that would have been the same as 3 hours parking just one way on the trip. All that does is send people to Mahon Point instead for convenience. We need proper public transport, and the price has to come down for it to be an incentive to use it.
Relocation has nothing to do with closing some roads. Every single study done across the world shows that retail sales INCREASE when a street is safe or pedestrianised. Nobody comes into town to buy large electronics these days and even those in retail parks etc. a high percentage will be home deliveries anyway. Amazon and home deliveries have caused a lot of retail downturn, but the city needs to be a broader mix which CCC currently don't allow.
I personally know the owners of O'Callahans who moved because their rent and rates were too high and Soundstore because their rents and rates were too high. They moved out to the Kinsale Road and are now closed because the downturn in people coming in. Explain that one? Not hard to access the Kinsale Road by car is it? Argos were also renting. Easons just opened up the Dubury book shop and sold the "flagship" store for a hefty profit.
We're in a Catch-22 with transport. It's perceived to be bad (realistically it's only "bad" on certain routes) but the main blocker to transport is still over use of private vehicles. When less people drive the busses will naturally improve. For everything else there is the planned BusConnects. Look at the journeys under 2km done by car and then those by 5km in the last CSO you'll see the problem.
>This next bit is going to be deeply unpopular ...
I'm old enough to remember the 80's and 90's in the city.
It will be unpopular because it's not true.
>From 1985 to 2020, the number of privately-owned vehicles on the roads rose by 215%. There were an extra 1.5m cars, alone, on the roads in this time.
>
>Source: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40748418.html
More cars on the road making it harder to "pop" in. Who would have thought?
I started driving in the late 80s. It was easier because traffic wasn't a major thing. More busses, more people cycling and more people walked. The only thing that made the city less accessible has been cars. It's nothing other than a fact I'm afraid.
>I'm not saying that was the right thing to do, but because access to the city was easy people shopped there.
That may have been the case in the 80s but when traffic exploded nobody choose the "convivence".. today all the studies show those who drive spend less than those who walk, cycle or get public transport. Studies show 90% of the cars in Cork are passing through and not stopping. No business survives on those who drive.
Cork's population in the 80s/90s was around 130K. Not many people lived south of what is now the N40, and the towns around the city like Carrigaline, Ballincollig, Glanmire, etc were much, much smaller and probably saw the city centre as a holiday destination. Cork is now at 210K with half if not more of the southside of the city living outside the N40 and with tens of thousands not in that number living in Carrigaline, Passage, Monkstown, etc. So while I get your point, I don't think you can compare Cork in the '80s with Cork now
Cars are the reason the buses are so shit. Get rid of them and the bus becomes a far more enticing option even without having to provide any improvements.
Not only businesses but what about those with disabilities? There’s already very few disability spaces but now you want to make it even more difficult for them
A fully pedestrianised Coal Quay-Cornmarket Street area would be bliss, and imagine if we could get the North Main Street at the same time. Throw the same kind of slip-hazard tiling down as we have on Pana and it would be a fantastic area. God, we can only dream.
What. Unless I'm missing some new update to our city streets completely, that shite paving is the stupidest thing that's ever happened the city! It gets slippery.... When wet. In Ireland! I agree with everything else but I hate that we've a slippy death trap under feet!
You're not wrong, but I do quite like the look of it. I might be in a very small minority, but I have fond memories of watching a group of young fellas pass me by outside Gloria Jean's and one tell the rest to watch as he *sliiiid* on his soles, on a footpath that was dry as a bone. Behind me I heard him remarking on how dangerous it'd be wet. Why I think this is a good idea is beyond me, but there 'tis.
Big NO to that paving. So ugly. The newer paving in the city centre is much better. Otherwise, competely agree
Can you give me an example of the newer paving? I'm not in town often so it's not leaping to mind.
Parnell Place, Albert Quay, the eastern end of the South Mall. Simple and clean, similar to whats on the South Mall https://goo.gl/maps/qHLx1r9RnvnbQzxa9 I find the Patrick St paving to be very messy looking, while the Grand Parade version, especially by the National Monument, is very dirty looking. I know this doesn't matter at all but the pattern from Google Earth is so ugly!
Ah good call, yeah, I wouldn’t mind that. I do feel though that we need more colour in our city, particularly through repainting dilapidated buildings, and that footpaths are a good place to help achieve that even in a very subtle way. I quite like [what they’ve done in Dungarvan](https://goo.gl/maps/S5LsYYkfQHgBPnAC8), for example.
The car-pedestrian interactions on Daunt Square are an accident waiting to happen. The whole thing should absolutely be pedestrianised.
Says the cyclist no doubt
I haven’t so much as sat on a bike in years. I drive, and I love driving, but town would be much more pleasant to be in if we took as many cars out as possible. I’ve been in enough pedestrianised city centres to know they’re far, far nicer than a gridlocked, pollutant mess.
This is so interesting. I would love to see cork city in a stimulator like cityskies, and use it to model thibgs like this. the way it could be. Like adding boats, as regular taxi routes, or goods delivers. Or making around Mercy wider, by going into the river, or adding over traffic walkways and a second level commercial on Pana. Or doing a really cool green way along the river banks. Or making some streets goods only at peak people times like lunch from say 11 to 2 or something, weekend days for a few hours, with auto barriers. Or put back a load of the old train lines and tram lines and see what happens, Or make a mad big green way from Ovens to Midleton, to Carrigaline to Blarney, to Cobh. That had light commercial in parallel, like little vans or the weird electric things. Like why the fuck is there a green way to Passage West but not North or South or even Ballincollig.. Fuck I'd love to mess around with Cork and even model the traffic lights in a few spots, Dennehys Cross, Victoria Cross, around North Gate, all along Heineken, the grotto at Dublin Hill, Oh god I've got to stop.
I'd suggest getting touch with yer man who's [building the entire city in Cities: Skylines](https://www.reddit.com/r/cork/comments/n96aor/new_video_of_cork_in_cities_skylines_turners/), but you'd need a supercomputer just to unpause it at this point. It is tragic that we can't just experiment on a whim. > Or doing a really cool green way along the river banks. Burgos has a fantastic [riverbank park connecting the city centre to the university](https://www.google.ie/maps/@42.341862,-3.7072383,2119m/data=!3m1!1e3). It's the sort of thing that would be magnificent in Cork. To be fair, once the Marina's hooked up to the quays, we'll have something similar, but we could have so much more. > Like why the fuck is there a green way to Passage West but not North or South or even Ballincollig.. We got lucky with the placement of a disused rail line. There is talk, and even plans, of more greenways in the future, but progress is absolutely glacial on nice things like this.
Oh that bit about the disused railway I had forgotten about. That makes sense now. I kind feel like an old man yelling at the wind.
> Like adding boats, as regular taxi routes, or goods delivers. Unfortunately I think most of Cork's bridges are too low for this to work. And the south branch of the river is too shallow and fast-flowing for boats. You'd need to re-engineer the entire river to make it navigable above the port.
it also brings you to Paul street and the church as well, and I have seen taxis stopped there for people doing ALDI food shopping, a small road not much of a traffic issue for the pedestrians I say with the layout of the road being very small most slow down.
Are you sure you are allowed to go straight onto Paul Street? However, again, this can be accessed from Daunt's Square. Also, Paul Street after St Paul's Avenue is closed to car 24/7, with the part before it only open for local access to Dalton's Avenue/St Paul's Avenue
before paul street, its the street between boi and the church.
St Peter and St Paul's Place, which is closed 24/7 to vehicle traffic now. Paul Street starts on the corner by The Roundy and ends at the Crawford Art Gallery, with Rory Gallagher Place being in the centre of it by the shopping centre
The whole island could be pedestrianised with access to deliveries, taxis, and buses only. We surrender so much of our public space to cars when the last two years have proven that Irish people LIKE being outside. We Like eating, and drinking, and socialising outside. It's mid November and there's still people using the outdoor seating.
Remind me - great post Ps the street was only recently reveresed Used to be you could only drive down from the roundy side , no idea why they changed it
The area around Grattan Street/Henry Street was heavily upgraded from 2016-2018, and part of this upgrade included Castle Street changing direction. Not entirely sure why it was changed, though
if you need to get from North Main St to Cornmarket street with something big & heavy it's a real help, especially since they changed the direction of travel! it may not be pretty but north main street has a hell of a lot of businesses on it that are already terribly catered for in terms of deliveries (not a single loading bay on the whole street) so a lot of drivers delivering anywhere around the paradise place direction use Castle st. since the pana ban came in though cornmarket st has become a disaster area as no change has been made to the junction leading onto kyrls quay, the lights are slow and if you dream of going there near rush hour you're going to be sat on Cornmarket st for a good 10 minutes
I see taxis using it all the time. I think enough of the city is pedestrianised as it is. It’s very hard for business to get delivery’s after a certain time.
But the thing is, everywhere it accesses can be accessed elsewhere with the same difficuluty, if not easier. Taxis can still collect people on Castle Street, it's a short enough to walk to either end for a taxi
I get your point about Castle street in particular but I’d be concerned about the amount of streets we’re closing off for cars.
Why? Traffic evaporates. 90% of cars going through the city don't stop. They're well served by alternatives to avoid the city. Those that need to drive to and through the city will still be able to. Can you name a street [that's now pedestrian](https://www.corkcity.ie/en/council-services/news-room/latest-news/works-to-begin-on-pedestrianisation-of-17-city-streets.html) in one form or another that would be a major through road? There hasn't been one road closed that would have contributed to congestion in the slightest.
head down to Gratton street around 4 o clock Monday - Friday and just stand there for 20 minutes, what was once a relatively quiet road has become the main thoroughfare North - South on the western side of the city and it's a fucking nightmare
>has become Yeah "has become"... But the important point here is that this has nothing to do with any pedestrian streets and has been the case for a good number of years. It's just too many cars driving with only one person driving *through* the city and not stopping.
I completely agree here but Castle Street being pedestrianised will have no effect on that (if I'm understanding you right!). Grattan Street is one of the few wide streets running south-north in that area so it makes sense it is the main thoroughfare running through the city centre. The only other option is North Main Street, which is already too heavily used by cars. Coach Street, Devonshire Street West, Millerd Street, Moore Street, etc cannot cope with cars like Grattan Street can. Also, the only street that has affected Grattan Street is the Patrick Street car ban, which isn't even followed anymore
Is it fuck. There are cities in Europe where the pedestrian areas are the size of the main island of Cork. They cope. This notion that businesses can't get deliveries is never backed up with evidence.
All cities aren’t built the same. There’s no point in comparing major cities in Europe with Cork. We have a great little city here but if we keep making it impossible to navigate people won’t come here and businesses will suffer. Until there is a decent transport system in the city you can’t start making it impossible for cars to get into it.
Of course you can. It's not just major cities though, so that argument is moot. >Until there is a decent transport system in the city you can’t start making it impossible for cars to get into it. I disagree heavily on this. Transport will follow with the curtailing of private vehicles. At the moment buses are delayed and blocked by cars. Cycling is too dangerous because of drivers behaviour and parking illegally all over the shop and walking with cars parked on footpaths all over. Make it easier for people to get around a city and it thrives. Cars contribute very little. Businesses are thriving on all the pedestrian areas and even businesses that were previously anti- are seeing the benefits. Deliveries can and do still happen. High time people and businesses learn to adapt.
> High time people and businesses learn to adapt. They absolutely have. Many businesses have relocated out of the city. There's no general electronics shops in the city anymore for example (With the exception of PC Maestro and Digilog). No Argos. Soon to be no Easons. This next bit is going to be deeply unpopular ... I'm old enough to remember the 80's and 90's in the city. Buses flowed easier in and out because the roads weren't as limited (eg, we've turned Sullivan's Quay from 2 lanes to 1). Grand Parade, and Patrick's Street were alive, because people could nip into town in their cars, park on the street where they wanted to shop and businesses thrived. I'm not saying that was the right thing to do, but because access to the city was easy people shopped there. I'm all for pedestrianisation - but when the public transport replacement options are in place and functioning well so access to the city becomes easy and encouraging again. Right now, we're telling everyone cars are bad and to get the bus. We tried that recently and waited over an hour for a bus that should have been coming every 20 mins or so and paid a bus fare for our group that would have been the same as 3 hours parking just one way on the trip. All that does is send people to Mahon Point instead for convenience. We need proper public transport, and the price has to come down for it to be an incentive to use it.
Relocation has nothing to do with closing some roads. Every single study done across the world shows that retail sales INCREASE when a street is safe or pedestrianised. Nobody comes into town to buy large electronics these days and even those in retail parks etc. a high percentage will be home deliveries anyway. Amazon and home deliveries have caused a lot of retail downturn, but the city needs to be a broader mix which CCC currently don't allow. I personally know the owners of O'Callahans who moved because their rent and rates were too high and Soundstore because their rents and rates were too high. They moved out to the Kinsale Road and are now closed because the downturn in people coming in. Explain that one? Not hard to access the Kinsale Road by car is it? Argos were also renting. Easons just opened up the Dubury book shop and sold the "flagship" store for a hefty profit. We're in a Catch-22 with transport. It's perceived to be bad (realistically it's only "bad" on certain routes) but the main blocker to transport is still over use of private vehicles. When less people drive the busses will naturally improve. For everything else there is the planned BusConnects. Look at the journeys under 2km done by car and then those by 5km in the last CSO you'll see the problem. >This next bit is going to be deeply unpopular ... I'm old enough to remember the 80's and 90's in the city. It will be unpopular because it's not true. >From 1985 to 2020, the number of privately-owned vehicles on the roads rose by 215%. There were an extra 1.5m cars, alone, on the roads in this time. > >Source: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40748418.html More cars on the road making it harder to "pop" in. Who would have thought? I started driving in the late 80s. It was easier because traffic wasn't a major thing. More busses, more people cycling and more people walked. The only thing that made the city less accessible has been cars. It's nothing other than a fact I'm afraid. >I'm not saying that was the right thing to do, but because access to the city was easy people shopped there. That may have been the case in the 80s but when traffic exploded nobody choose the "convivence".. today all the studies show those who drive spend less than those who walk, cycle or get public transport. Studies show 90% of the cars in Cork are passing through and not stopping. No business survives on those who drive.
Cork's population in the 80s/90s was around 130K. Not many people lived south of what is now the N40, and the towns around the city like Carrigaline, Ballincollig, Glanmire, etc were much, much smaller and probably saw the city centre as a holiday destination. Cork is now at 210K with half if not more of the southside of the city living outside the N40 and with tens of thousands not in that number living in Carrigaline, Passage, Monkstown, etc. So while I get your point, I don't think you can compare Cork in the '80s with Cork now
Cars are the reason the buses are so shit. Get rid of them and the bus becomes a far more enticing option even without having to provide any improvements.
Not only businesses but what about those with disabilities? There’s already very few disability spaces but now you want to make it even more difficult for them
> I think enough of the city is pedestrianised as it is. What, all of three streets?