Ambitious overhaul of Cork's transport network to be unveiled today
To More Under Togher, And Airport From Hill, Transport Reliable Larry The Links Will And Sunday's Faster Cummins Busconnects Cork Cork Plan Benefit Maryborough Public Blackpool, €600m Well, Picture: Mahon,
Details of 12 sustainable transport corridors designed to improve Cork City’s bus network and slash journey times in half will be unveiled today as part of the city’s €600m BusConnects plan.
The National Transport Authority (NTA) will publish a sustainable transport corridors report this morning setting out its “high-level” proposals for 75km of new bus lanes and 54km of cycle routes along a dozen strategic transport corridors that it says will help make the bus system operate more efficiently and make cycling safer.
The corridors will be designed to remove delays currently experienced by the bus system in a city with just 14km of dedicated bus lanes, and give passengers greater certainty about bus arrival and bus journey times.
Details of all 12 corridors will be unveiled at a press conference later, but the can reveal that the report sets out proposals for massive investment in infrastructure to deliver continuous bus priority lanes in each direction along each of the corridors, including:
- Maryborough Hill to the city centre;
- Cork Airport to the city centre;
- Blackpool to the city centre;
- Togher to the city centre;
- Mahon to the city centre;
- Sunday’s Well to Hollyhill.
A transport corridor running west to east, from Ballincollig, via the city centre, and on to Mahon, along the indicative route of the proposed €1bn light rail system, is also proposed.
Planners hope that a reliable high-speed bus service along this corridor will build sustainable demand for the proposed light rail system.
Initial public consultation on the proposed corridors is due to start in June with the emerging preferred routes set for discussion at community forums and at public information events later in the year, before final detailed design proposals are drafted.
Ciarán Meers, chairman of the Cork Commuter Coalition, who was recently appointed to the NTA’s Transport User Advisory Group, said it is vital that continuous bus and bike lane infrastructure is delivered in full along the selected corridors. He said:
“The bus has been described as the workhorse of the city’s public transport system but if this is done piecemeal, it won’t have the desired effect.
“If we don’t have continuous bus lanes, this will just be a massive investment in car infrastructure.”
Delivery of the Cork BusConnects project is a key part of the multi-billion Cork metropolitan area transport strategy — the ambitious blueprint published in 2019 to guide the delivery of public transport projects and investment to meet the needs of the growing Cork metropolitan region over the next 20 years.
It set out major improvements in the region’s transport network, with investment in commuter rail, bus corridors, light rail, park-and-ride facilities, walking and cycling infrastructure, and new roads.