Cork Views: Scrap road plans, and opt for rail instead

I noted your report last week (‘Cork expected to receive around €140m funds for national road works’, Feb 17), on the extra funding to allow yet another new road to Ringaskiddy, as well as bypasses on the N25 around Castlemartyr and Killeagh.

After all the huge publicity over climate change and consequent floods and forest fires, has the Government not learnt a single lesson over the past 40 years?

Are we simply going to see yet more demands for motorway links to nowhere in another 40 years as the sea levels start rising and lapping around the last 40 years of new roads, including all of the N25 itself?

No, it is effectively now plain for all to see that building any more new major roads is a thing of the past due to their environmental cost, as well as the huge areas of land that the average dual carriageway takes up - land that is essential for farmers to grow our food and to build desperately needed homes in commuter towns outside our cities where few can now afford to buy even a tiny apartment.

And to realise that need for affordable, accessible housing, only one transport mode will do, rail, including electrified light rail.

One single-track rail route, such as the current reopened route from Glounthaune to Midleton, takes up just a fifth of the space needed for a four- or six-lane dual carriageway and all its huge roundabouts and sliproads.

So WHY, may I ask, does even Iarnród Éireann itself see no urgency in reopening the remaining disused rail route between Midleton and Youghal, which, yes, surprisingly, actually passes through both Castlemartyr and Killeagh, and would be a priceless addition to the already highly successful Cork-Midleton section.

This route is so successful that the track is now being doubled to accommodate more trains; even this double track route takes up only a quarter of the width of the wider parts of the N25.

Furthermore, the Government should be considering - and soon starting work on - extending the railway from Youghal with an immersed tube tunnel under the Blackwater and a new section of route along the N25 to Dungarvan, from where it will mainly follow the former trackbed of the disused line from Dungarvan to Waterford.

Reopening of the disused lines from Waterford to Rosslare and to New Ross will open up further passenger and freight connection possibilities, in much the same way that the successful Western Rail Corridor has developed from the initial reopening of the Limerick-Ennis line more than 30 years ago.

Back in Cork, one desperately needed rail route would be a passenger and freight route from Cork to Ringaskiddy, which would take thousands of lorries and cars a week off the horribly congested roads around the city.

All the money for the Government’s fantasy M28 Cork-Ringaskiddy motorway MUST be withheld and redirected to building this rail link, and it will be up to all TDs to back this rethink, if they are not to be remembered as those who abandoned Cork to rising sea levels, more road accidents, and more precious lands lost to farming and housing.

Finally, there is one issue relating to the reuse of former rail routes instead of reopening them to trains that I do certainly not agree with: the recently fashionable creation of ‘greenways’ along many disused rail routes, including the Midleton-Youghal section.

Hundreds of millions of euro has been spent on what are in effect cycle routes from nowhere to nowhere, as they go nowhere near the schools, workplaces, houses, and shops which we are so desperate to encourage people to cycle to rather than use the car.

They travel far from most people’s houses and have few connections with the local road network.

They mainly appear to have been created for a tiny minority of tourists who are too timid to use the proper road system like the rest of us.

As a cyclist myself, I almost never use ‘greenways.’ because they are so useless and the enormous amount of money squandered on them should be instead used on bringing the trains back, creating more scenic riverside paths, and creating more cycle routes along the actual roads - including the N25 - where most cyclists actually want to go in order to access the shops, workplaces, neighbourhoods, etc.