The public consultation phase for the National Transport Authorityâs Bus Connects Cork project draws to a close for public submission on October 3. I would strongly encourage the public to review the plans and make submissions if they have not already done so.
The contentious plan has already stirred emotions and drawn criticism. This project represents the largest infrastructure overhaul of public transport in the Cork Metropolitan Area in our lifetime. The plan is meant to future-proof the city for population growth and climate change, aiming to help with the city executiveâs aim to be an EU carbon-neutral city by 2030.
The premise of mode shifting commuters from private car use to public transport, walking and cycling is to be supported and lauded.
However, since before even its launch, it has been mired in controversy: a bus network redesign that concentrates service along corridors reducing service elsewhere; an ignored Cork Metropolitan Area Cycle Network Plan; a sidelined Douglas Land Use and Transport study; and a Cork City Development Plan that is undermined.
A selective and poorly developed communication strategy that only partially informed residents of the city and along the corridors, selectively (and methodologically flawed comparison of 95th percentile journey times to estimated future median journey times) represents the potential benefits of the plan, and strategically ignores the detrimental environmental impact and cultural heritage impact of the development.
No traffic modelling, traffic surveys, environmental impact surveys, noise and air pollution surveys, no subsidence and flooding analysis, school transport planning, future journey modelling, impact of the M28 development on traffic dispersion models, and no analysis of the pandemic impact on future working patterns has been undertaken by the NTA.
Take for example the section of the city in which I reside, the south-east suburbs/Douglas. The NTAâs own proposed new bus network survey shows that only 15% of surveyed individuals feel the new proposed bus network is an improvement, with 49% believing it is worse. The NTAâs own access analysis, published as an appendix to their network redesign, concretely demonstrates that commuters in the area will have worse access to work by 30 to 60 minutes by public transport; South Douglas, Garryduff, Mount Oval, Moneygourney, parts of Rochestown, and Carrigaline, all worse access. If the purpose of the network redesign and BusConnects is to provide a viable alternative to car use in these commuter areas, how is that possibly going to happen when the surveyed public feel the new network is worse and the access analysis proves it? It will not, unfortunately, result in a behavioural mode shift.
The plans widen 12 approaches to the city centre, ranging from 17m to 22m wide, in order to add dedicated cycle and bus lane infrastructure. None of the 12 proposed routes involve exclusive removal of car lanes and reallocation to public transport. The fundamental character of the city will be altered permanently with this plan. The current city development plan recognises the importance of this built heritage to the city and demands it is protected into the future.
The opportunity exists now for the NTA and the city executive to take a bold forward-looking step and amend their plan substantially.
Ronan Margey
Douglas Rd
Cork
UN security council all warmongers
Having listened to the recent address by Taoiseach MicheĂĄl Martin to the UN General Assembly, I am struck by how much lip service is paid by some Irish politicians to creating a fairer world as they pursue the failed western world policies with sanctions against Russia.
These sanctions appear to have no impact on stopping the senseless slaughter in Ukraine but are causing extreme food and energy poverty in Ireland and the most vulnerable countries across the globe.
I draw your attention to remarks by the Taoiseach referring to Russia as a rogue state because of its decision to carry out a referendum in eastern Ukraine on whether to join the Russian Federation. He went on to quantify that Russia should be removed from its permanent position on the UN Security Council because it has veto powers when it is involved, in his words, in âan unjust warâ in Ukraine.
I cannot be alone in seeing the hypocrisy of the Taoiseachâs partial views in condemning only one of the five permanent UN Security Council members (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US) when the entire group could be removed by this unjust war criterion.
There should be a distinct focus on calling out the US because they also continue to veto the many UN resolutions condemning the brutal apartheid state of Israel which oppresses with impunity our Palestinian brothers and sisters.
Michael Hagan
Dunmurry
Co Antrim
Asteroid near miss or still on target?
On the basis that the asteroid was going to miss Earth anyway (wasnât it ?), I hope that they havenât managed it to divert onto a direct hit course.
Liam Power
Dundalk
Co Louth
Global governance costs many lives
Our lives in Ireland, and probably billions of other humans in the rest of the world, are slowly being destroyed by the total lack of responsibility and accountability of governments.
Some countries have hundreds of people starving on the streets while their governments seem to imagine that spending billions on looking at stars or sending three or four people into space will improve anything.
Even this apparently successful country of ours can only keep going because of more than 10,000 registered charities and a huge government debt.
Richard Barton
Maynooth
Co Kildare
High earners profit while poor struggle
In spite of having undergone 38 amendments since 1939, our Constitution is still premised on Christian beliefs. Our government should, therefore, be mindful of the Magnificat when giving costly energy concessions to both rich and poor.
The Magnificat tells us that the Lord âfilled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away emptyâ.
How can it be fair to give concessions to both struggling families and those of wealthy electricity company CEOs?
The budget has also greatly benefited the highest earners in society.
Florence Craven
Bracknagh
Co Offaly
Self-education is the only solution
One of the strategies of âthe leftâ is to support every labour issue (wage demands, improvements in working conditions, 35 hour week, etc) no matter how unrealistic. Itâs through these struggles that working people realise that the economic system as it stands canât provide adequate living conditions for all - so the theory goes.
Whether this is true or not, my point is that even the left doesnât seem able to come out and say whatâs what.
The other side of the argument are those claiming if you work hard you will succeed, economic growth has no ceiling, rich and poor is the natural order, etc, and other fairytales. What both sides contend is that ordinary people must be mollycoddled as they donât seem to have the ability to understand reality.
Maybe the âintellectual leftâ think they have to lead the masses towards the promised land; the other side want the masses to exist in some misconceived idyll. As these strategies play out, the antidote to both is threefold: self-educate yourself on whatâs going on, self-education, and although it might seem far flung to some, self-education with no compromise.
Louis Shawcross
Hillsborough
Co Down
Budget âleakâ now a weapon of spin
In 1995, the leak of budget information resulted in the resignation of a junior minister who lost his job as a result of a minor leak to an evening newspaper.
In 2022 it appears the leak has become a tool of government used in the main by their spin doctors to dampen public expectations.
Different standardsâŠ.
Gerry Crosbie
Ballsbridge
Dublin 4
Lucia Joyce was a replacement child
Can I add to Clodagh Finnâs fascinating article on Lucia Joyce (28/9/22) the fact that Lucia could, like Joyce himself, be considered a âreplacement childâ. Nora had a miscarriage when Lucia was only one and it was a source of deep sadness to Joyce that they never had more children. This could have contributed to his great
involvement/identification with Lucia. So many âreplacement childrenâ have been cruelly misunderstood and misdiagnosed, beginning with Freud (himself a replacement child) and his failure to recognise the trauma of the lost sibling, in the case of âAnna Oâ.
Mary Adams
Beckenham,
England
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