Public transport important in future-proofing city centre, council chief says

Cork’s public transport system has been described as one of the most important elements to get right in terms of transforming and future-proofing the city centre.

Chief Executive of Cork City Council Ann Doherty was asked during Cork Chamber’s Business Breakfast if she could fast forward one action to really transform Cork, what would it be.

In response, Ms Doherty said Cork’s public transport system would be one of the things she would fast forward as “transport leads to everything”.

“Getting our public transport and that people have confidence in it would be a game changer,” she said.

Ms Doherty spoke of the “huge reliance” people have on the car and said people will not make the switch to public transport “unless we’re confident in the reliability”.

“One of the things I would fast forward would be our public transport system because that's going to change how we interact with our space, how we live, and actually the amenities that we can have.” 

Speaking about the €600m invested in the BusConnects programme, which aims to provide a better, more reliable and more efficient bus service, she said a third round of public consultations will take place in November.

“BusConnects is a programme that will develop bus services across the city including network frequency, intermittent ticketing, real-time timetables, ticketing information and also better fares and delivery in terms of the type of fleet in the city.

“There's two parts of it, one is the network and that’s where the routes are and where they go and that’s hoping to be rolled out between 2024 and 2025. That’s been through public consultation.

“The second part then is about the corridors that the buses will run on and currently, we’ve had two rounds of consultation on that and that's very contentious as you know because people are very protective of their gardens or how they move about currently and that’s going to come out in another round of consultation in November we hope, with amendments based on the public consultation.” 

She said that hopefully, some construction on the BusConnects programme will start on the back end of next year into early 2025.

Speaking about the importance of road connectivity for the growth of the city centre, she said there are 70 projects at different stages across the city from design, to planning, to construction, which cover areas of the city centre to Glanmire, Ballyvolane, Donnybrook, and Blarney.

“Some of them are in process and some of them are in development and again, it is really important to create facilities where people can move around well by road but also that we can put in these services where people can be active in terms of walking and cycling as well as having that road,” she said.