BusConnects Cork - Unable to Connect?

First cycling, now public transport, the last month or two have really been like a best-of of my favourite topics on this blog. Unfortunately, like so many developments in Cork, the news that broke in the first week of November 2021 have left a stale aftertaste in my mouth. What the hell I’m blabbering on about? BusConnects Cork, or rather the recent publication of their new network draft for Cork.

But exactly what is BusConnects? In broad terms, it is the brand name used by the National Transport Authority in Ireland for a series of major public transport improvements in Dublin as well as in all of Ireland’s major cities. The first phases of BusConnects in Dublin are currently being implemented, which isn’t surprising at all since those bloody guys always need to have everything first. BusConnects Cork on the other hand has been in the planning stages since 2019. On paper, BusConnects is certainly impressive: A complete redesign of the entire bus network, the constructions of dedicated bus corridors and cycle lanes, as well as new bus stops, shelters, information displays, a new fare structure, ticketing system and contactless payment options and a new livery to be applied to a brand new fleet of zero-emission buses. All of this is to be implemented on a phased basis over the next several years. It certainly reads very impressive at first glance.

But what of all of that was announced this week? Basically, it’s the redesigned bus network. It is the biggest change in the Cork public transport network for the last several decades. It is currently in draft form and awaiting feedback from the public, something I’ll definitely do. In fact, parts of this blog post will be taken and added to my submission verbatim! On first glance though, the new network is actually pretty impressive. 

While it may look like the "emanations" of an incontinent octopus, this map represents a drastic change for public transport in Cork.

On a purely selfish basis, my local bus route will increase in frequency again, while being slightly rerouted on the way to town and actually stopping closer to my office than it currently is. It looks as if it will also avoid Mardyke Walk, meaning that it likely won’t be affected by the horrendous school traffic there quite as much. At the same time, more areas of Ballincollig will be covered by public transport and there will actually be a new bus line connecting Ballincollig with Blarney and Tower every hour. Cobh will get its own dedicated bus service which is going to be a major improvement for the town, which is currently a public transport desert. Finally, a lot of cross-town bus services will be split, meaning an accident in Carrigaline or on Maryborough Hill will no longer keep me waiting for hours at Grand Parade for a bus home!

Ballincollig will definitely profit from the changes, with coverage extending beyond Main Street.

Once you start looking a bit closer though, the numerous issues with this revised network become blindly obvious. While eliminating extra long cross-city routes such as the 220 in favour of shorter routes will undoubtedly increase the resilience of the network as a whole with regards to traffic issues and road closures, it will also mean that passengers wishing to travel on these longer routes will have change buses at least once, possibly twice. While this is not necessarily a negative if the connections work out, it is by no means a given that they’ll work out, especially given the reputation of the current operating company Bus Eireann. The fact that there’s no increase in connectivity at all for Cork Airport is far more worrying. Cork is Ireland’s second largest airport and was on a straight course to handle more than three million passengers prior to the pandemic. Yet, the only connection to the city is a half-hourly service to the bus station in a clapped-out Bus Eireann coach that actually continues on to Kinsale half of the time. BusConnects Cork will not change a single thing about this. No dedicated Airport bus, and no additional services to connect the airport to other population centers in the region, such as Ballincollig or Little Island. Never mind that both of these places are the home of multinational companies with thousands of employees and a considerable volume of business travellers, the NTA intend to leave everything as is.

The fact that Cork Airport will not receive any extra connections under the current proposals is nothing short of a disgrace!

The Cobh service is a bit of an odd one as well. Don’t get me wrong, the town desperately needs a bus service and BusConnects will provide that. However, it will be effectively isolated, only allowing interchange at Cobh train station. Why did no one think of additional services linking Cobh to either Carrigtohill or Midleton and the bus services there? Any issue with the rail line will continue to leave Cobh effectively isolated. Then, there’s the issue of Sunday services, or rather the lack of them. A lot of the new services will not operate on Sundays, which is wholly unacceptable in my eyes. Take the new Ballincollig to Blarney service proposed in the draft plan, 16L. Blarney Castle and its gardens are a major attraction and recreational spot in the Cork area. Cutting Ballincollig, probably the largest of Cork’s commuter towns, off from this recreational spot on a Sunday, the only day when many people would be free to enjoy it, is simply idiotic. Never mind all the people who still have to work on Sundays and rely on public transport to get to work. It seems that the planners are still stuck in the parochial and dysfunctional Ireland of yesteryear.

Patrick Street will need to be aggressively pedestrianised for BusConnects to have any chance of success!

New buses on the other hand will be very much welcome!

The biggest problem however is that the network will simply not work if implemented now. There is no way that a ten minute frequency will work on the old 220 corridor given the lack of clear bus lanes or dedicated bus corridors. The interchange facilities required for all the bus connections simply do not exist at the moment. What’s worse, even if the infrastructure could somehow be built without interminable appeals by sanctimonious and self-serving NIMBYs, and would be of the level of quality required to make it attractive, it would be worthless without rigorous enforcement of bus priority on this infrastructure. Because let’s face it, 95% of drivers in Ireland not only don’t know how to drive, they are also completely clueless or wilfully ignorant about anyone outside their vehicle. They’ll ignore red lights, block intersections, park on plazas and green spaces without ANY regard for locals, pedestrians or cyclists. Without widespread video surveillance of bus lanes, combined with automated numberplate recognition and draconian penalties, the bus corridors will simply degenerate into yet more parking spaces for white van driving “tradesmen” and other detritus. This is especially true for the new central artery of this bus network, Patrick Street. Under the new plan, all buses coming in from the west will run through this street. If this is to work, private cars will need to be banned from it without exceptions. The last time this was attempted, it was sabotaged by greedy and selfish traders along that street. These “traders” will need to be silenced if the new plan is to have any chance at success. Apparently, the infrastructure component of BusConnects Cork is due for publication in Q1 2022. We'll see what happens then.

It appears that some preparatory work for BusConnects has already begun, if that new bus stop on Lower Glanmire Road is anything to go by.

Currently, the only bus stop can be found on a small link road from MacCurtain Street to Alfred Street, but the sidewalk outside Moody's has also been built with bus stop kerbs, hinting at a future second bus stop there.

I hope we'll see more co-location of TFI Bikes stations with public transport stops if BusConnects is ever fully implemented.

Speaking of sabotage, one of the most worrying aspects of the plan is the public reaction towards it, or rather the lack of said reaction. Sure, the Examiner, Echo and other papers all ran stories on it. Hell, even RTE, the national broadcaster got in on the act when the draft network was published. However, beyond that, the reception was strangely muted. Discussions on forums like boards.ie or Skyscraper City quickly died down again, the reaction on Twitter was almost as muted as the ones I'm normally getting on my own tweets, and not even the knuckledragging torch & pitchfork mob on Facebook so much as stirred beyond the anguished complaints of long-suffering bus users in Cork. While this is almost certainly at least in part due to the fact that the people of Cork have given up on the idea of anything useful coming out of either city hall or government, this silence is still concerning, as both this plan and any infrastructure improvements depend on constructive engagement with this plan. Public silence will simply serve to amplify the habitual objectors, the bigots and the begrudgers.

Finally, there is one more major flaw with the concept, namely the company slated to operate these new services: Bus Eireann. I’m not a great fan of this company, and neither is anyone I know who actually relies on them as a commuter. Under Bus Eireann, services are generally unreliable, while information for passengers in non-existent. Their “social media teams” are about as helpful as a bullet through the head and the work ethic of their drivers, especially the older ones is, in a word, atrocious! Any plan to improve public transport anywhere in Ireland that relies on Bus Eireann is doomed to failure from the start and implementing BusConnects Cork with that company as an operate will simply result in an increased frequency for buses to not show up. I’ve advocated before for Bus Eireann to be disbanded and its elements privatised and my experiences with them since returning to the office have only hardened my opinion in that regard.

Don’t get me wrong, public transport in Cork needs a major shake-up. If BusConnects is implemented in its entirety, it would represent a major improvement over the current status quo. However, my almost ten years in Cork have caused me to be more than a little sceptical with regards to any major initiative in the public realm. When you have a government that is fumbling around in the dark, a city council whose chief executive obviously only cares about looking good in the papers, a populace who on the whole shouldn’t even be let behind the wheel of a Hot Wheels toy care let alone a real one, citizens who will object to every project under the sun at the slightest whim, and a bus operator whose drivers have a proclivity for going on strike for the slightest of reasons, it’s hard to be optimistic about the prospects of any aspect of this plan to ever see the light of day. I hope to be proven wrong, but I somehow doubt I will.

Details of the plan can be found on the BusConnects Website linked below. The NTA is asking for feedback from the public:

https://busconnects.ie/busconnects-cork/