Michael Moynihan: Cork must shake off its inaction to tailor for new eras of big events

(Can we . . ? - ed.

I’m getting to it - me.)

The experience was terrific, not least because of a good-natured crowd which leaned heavily on the hardcore Swift demographic, the implacable female teen/tween. Getting out of the stadium afterwards was relatively painless, with little of the drunkenness or general caffling one might associate with a different crowd.

Outside of the concert, though?

Yours truly was not looking forward to the experience, to be honest.

It was a busy weekend in the capital. By last Thursday, a traffic apocalypse seemed to be on the cards: some estimates of the crowds expected in Dublin over the couple of days at around six hundred thousand people, all of them stomping, driving, bussing, taxiing, Luasing and generally clogging up the transport system.

On the agenda you had the three Tayor Swift concerts in the Aviva and the Longitude festival in Marlay Park. Shania Twain played at Malahide Castle as well, but that’s not to forget artists as various as Patti Smith at Vicar Street, and Air at Trinity College as well.

That’s a lot of people on the move.

Factor in the Pride Parade gathering on O’Connell Street, for instance, and there were all sorts of implications for traffic management in that area. Add in the All-Ireland senior football semi-finals on the Saturday and Sunday: those were pulling in almost one hundred thousand people to one venue at various times in the afternoon, many of them using O’Connell Street (after the Kerry-Derry game they probably clawed down the gates to escape, mind).

All things considered the challenges were significant. Despite the considerable attraction of the Eras Tour your columnist wasn’t looking forward to pointing the car north and puzzling a way through Stephen’s Green and Schoolhouse Lane to a parking spot, never mind the inevitable snarl-up afterwards. I can recall the early days of the Web Summit, when it was held in the RDS and appeared to shut down the capital every morning, with traffic jams in every direction.

Surely Saturday night would be the same, with Dublin resembling the early scenes of World War Z as the undead ravaged those trapped in their cars, unable to fend off their zombie attackers even as the gentle groove of Lavender Haze rose into the evening sky?

Actually, not so much.

When we got to the car and out onto the streets the traffic was heavy but not unreasonable, given the amount of people around. We were a while getting out of Baggot Street and up onto the Canal*, but then we had a pretty painless run out of the city.

(*that’s the route I know, ok?)

Clearly experiences may vary. I wasn’t on public transport over the weekend in Dublin so I don’t know how that went. I’m aware that there was some criticism of Dublin Bus online, and that someone drove a vehicle onto the Luas Red Line which obviously led to delays, but I saw no evidence of the collapse of civilisation that was mooted in some quarters.

Would the experience be the same in Cork? On the available evidence, I’m afraid I doubt it.

There have been busy weekends and big events on Leeside, and they have had their challenges.

A good example is the Bruce Springsteen concert held in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last May.

Des O’Driscoll pointed out one glaring issue with that event in these pages: “The 40,000 or so punters must either park in the area or walk the 30 minutes from the city centre and back again. Inevitably, this leads to traffic chaos, air-pollution, etc, around every event.

“The city's Park & Ride facility doesn't even stay open late enough to accommodate the 10.30pm finishing time for concerts. Perhaps somebody is working on a solution, but it feels like a long way away.”

It’s depressing that matters don’t appear to have improved since another large-scale event caused similar havoc in the city.

When Munster played a rugby game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh a couple of years back the post-match public transport situation was branded a “shambles” — Eoin English wrote here then that “Thousands of fans attending the first rugby game in the GAA stadium on Thursday heeded advice to use public transport to get to and from the stadium, but many were left stranded afterwards because not enough buses or rail carriages were laid on. Some fans faced waits of up to two hours to get a bus or a commuter train home...

“Chronic traffic congestion was reported across the southside of the city for several hours before the game, with major tailbacks on the N40 slip roads to Douglas and Mahon, and in the suburbs around the stadium.”

(Bear in mind that the crowds at such events in Cork are less than one-tenth the size of those circulating in Dublin last weekend.)

It’s interesting to drill into the detail on the Springsteen concert in particular, given it happened about six weeks ago.

The authorities were warned well in advance of that people might have to hike up from the stadium in the dark, for one thing.

Councillor John Maher submitted a council motion in January asking Cork City Council to engage with the NTA, Bus Éireann, and concert organisers to ensure additional bus services for the concert.

January.

Come the night in question, however, Maher told The Echo that the experience was a poor one: “They expected people to walk and cycle in areas that were not well lit, flooded, not drained properly and on footpaths that are in a shocking condition.”

A Bus Éireann spokesperson told The Echo that planning and licensing in relation to additional public transport for concerts, events, etc, falls under the remit of the NTA, local authorities and event organisers. Cork City Council said there are many organisations involved in the management of large events and that they “engage with all parties involved” with regards to the Park & Ride facility supporting events. A Garda spokesman said there were difficulties with shuttle buses because sometimes there were so many pedestrians that it was difficult for the buses to operate.

As an example of pass-the-parcel it would be hard to beat. It’s not my fault, it’s them; we’re doing our best; and everything would work perfectly if it weren’t for the people.

Bear this attitude in mind the next time you hear about big events being planned for Cork. Or take solace in the prospect of a non-existent concert venue squeezed into the medieval heart of the city, one which will no doubt benefit from a notional light rail system years in the future.

Let’s be honest. Much as it might gall Cork readers, for the really big shows there’s only one place.