Michael Moynihan: Light rail system for Cork would be revolutionary in every sense

It’s a piece well worth your time because it itemises what is spent in the city, and where, in hard facts rather than relying on outmoded notions and old grudges.

(Not that those don’t have a place, but anyway.)

Council officials used the 2022 Census figure for the population of Cork City of some 222,333, reported Eoin, “but then excluded the 24,400 population figure for the city centre and docklands drawn from the 2016 Census... They then analysed the spend northside versus southside... excluding the city centre and docklands between 2017 and 2021 was about €245m — €113.7m in the two northside LEAs and just over €132m in the southside LEAs.

“ ... almost 71,000 people living in the two north-side LEAs, and just over 115,200 people living in the three southside LEAs, according to the 2016 census . . . the capital spend per capita in the northern LEAs will be higher at €3,772, while it is almost €1,000 less in the three southern LEAs, at €2,835 per capita.”

There you have it in black and white, €113.7m in the northside LEAs in comparison with over €132m in the southside LEAs.

Back to that in a second.

In producing the figures, the city centre and docklands were omitted. There might be some logic to excluding investment in the central island of the city, given it’s neither north nor south of the river, but the docklands?

In March 2021 we learned that “the city’s vast docklands site, described as one of the largest brownfield regeneration sites in Europe, is in line for just over €353m of the €405m funding which has been announced for Cork under the Urban Regeneration and Development Fund (URDF) package”.

Why not include gems like this?

Over the course of the holidays more than one person mentioned Eoin’s piece to me, and almost all of them cited their surprise at the difference in population between the north- and southside of the city according to those census figures.

One cynic of my acquaintance — I can’t give any more identifying details than that for legal reasons — bucked the trend when it came to the general view of the numbers, however.

“Why would you be surprised?” he asked.

“There are two universities on the south side of the city, as well as the largest hospital for 100 miles around. The IDA Technology Park. The HQ of both FAS and the ESB. If you took the working populations in those places alone you’d nearly have the difference between the northside and the southside.

“That means thousands upon thousands of people working somewhere specific. And spending their money on coffee, lunch, petrol, parking, all of that. And on top of all that the council spends more money there than it does north of the river.

“I’m just surprised Kent Station is still on the northside.”

Apologies. It’s easy to shift into insult mode. 

But is it worth pointing out that the major public institutions are congregated south of the river — hospitals and third-level institutions — while the most significant comparable presence on the northside is a private enterprise in Hollyhill?

Yet more council money is being spent south of the river, where those public institutions are congregated, than north of the river.

That focus on population numbers was interesting, even if my sample size of contributors was pretty small. At a time when housing and accommodation are never far from the headlines, the imbalance between 77,000 people north of the river and the 113,000 looking up at them from the southern flatlands was striking. As is the discrepancy in spending.

Of course, those with long memories will recall the ambitious plans to swell the population north of the river with a new town in Monard — around 4km northwest of Blackpool — in the administrative area of Cork County Council but with its southern boundary flanking the northern extent of the city’s 2019 boundary extension.

These plans have been in the air for over two decades with nothing northwest of Blackpool to be seen, alas.

A town just outside Dublin has been suggested, planned and built since Monard was first mentioned. You can see Adamstown from the train as you come to Dublin, which recalls a quip from someone on social media about the Monard ghost town.

Having moved to the general area about 20 years ago he had hoped his young children would avail of the facilities which a new town would bring. Now, of course, they’re old enough to move out and move on, and Monard is still green fields and silent ditches when you look out of the train on the return journey south.

Proposed light rail system

My favourite example of the north-south imbalance comes from a related field.

Recently this newspaper revealed Finance Minister Michael McGrath’s commitment to follow through on ambitious transport plans for Cork: “On the public transport space is where a lot will be happening,” McGrath told Paul Hosford, and presumably ‘a lot’ covers one of the shinier items in those plans — the proposed €1bn Cork light rail system.

This Luas-type system, a significant part of the Cork Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy, is to serve 25 stops including Ballincollig, the proposed Cork Science and Innovation Park, Munster Technological University, Cork University Hospital, University College Cork, Cork city centre, Kent Station/Cork North Docklands, Cork South Docklands, and Mahon.

Readers with a sense of geography will identify a slight detour north of the river to the train station before the line chugs back across to the southside (readers with a sense of the colourful history of capital projects in Cork will pay closer attention to how firm that €1bn price tag remains in the years to come).

A light rail system like this would be revolutionary in the best sense — it would show the true meaning of the word ‘revolution’, which comes from revolve, as in going around again.

In this case going around again like a return to the Cork tram system of 100 years ago. It would certainly be transformative for the city.

Do you know what else would be transformative for the city?

Just one station — rather than 25 — being opened on the national rail line, which already goes through the northside of the city.

You can brace yourself for years of computer-generated simulations (look, Washington Street with a fake train!) for the Cork Luas.

Or you can go to the Blackpool Retail Park, with its hundreds of employees and thousands of visitors daily, and imagine a commuter rail stop at Kilbarry, with people stepping down to the city — no cars, no pollution, no traffic — and back again.

All for a fraction of the cost of the ‘Leeas’.

Just head up the northside and see what I mean.