Is more congestion in Cork City an inevitability?

Irish Examiner

3 hours ago

The Department of Transport recently reported that the cost of traffic congestion in Cork is likely to increase by almost 70% by the year 2040, even if the various plans for public transport and active travel infrastructure are delivered.
This scenario is presented as an inevitable outcome of population increase and economic growth, which will increase demand for transport. But how did we get here, and is it really unavoidable?
On one level perhaps it's not surprising — the National Planning Framework published in 2018 reported that 'cities and major urban areas are too heavily dependent on road and private, mainly car-based, transport with the result that our roads are becoming more and more congested'.
Since then, the Government has invested €215m upgrading the Dunkettle Interchange and has recently committed to spending a further €456m to upgrade the N28 Ringaskiddy Road to a motorway.
Trying to solve congestion on the approaches to the city by building bigger roads is like trying to get more milk into a pint bottle by using a bigger funnel. You're only going to create a bigger mess.
The Government has also committed to significant upgrades to the N20 and the N25, as well as a new Northern Distributor Road. The combined cost of these roads projects is an estimated €3.16bn, and that's before we consider the proposed North Ring Road, which has recently been rebranded the 'Cork City Northern Transport Project'.
The congestion report acknowledges that 'while the expansion and improvement of road and sustainable transport infrastructure can temporarily alleviate congestion, demand will gradually increase in response to the increased supply'.
So why then are we continuing to invest so heavily in new roads projects that we know will only increase congestion?
The maps accompanying the congestion cost report show increased congestion throughout the city by 2040, but with two notable hotspots at the Dunkettle Interchange and the junction of the N28 Ringaskiddy Road and the South Ring Road. Surely this can't be right? After all that investment?
Barely a year after the opening of the interchange we have begun to hear calls for additional measures to ease the congestion, with some even suggesting widening the tunnel bore. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
All this money is being spent, it is said, to reduce journey times for private car traffic, but it is increasing congestion at the destination for that traffic.
In announcing the go-ahead for the M28 just two months ago, Minister of State and TD for Cork South Central Jerry Buttimer said it would reduce journey times for those on their daily commute. Perhaps it will, for a time, but it is clear from the congestion report that that relief will be short-lived.
Trying to solve congestion on the approaches to the city by building bigger roads is like trying to get more milk into a pint bottle by using a bigger funnel. You're only going to create a bigger mess.
The Dunkettle Interchange has been celebrated as a triumph of engineering, and it certainly is impressive on a technical level — 15 hectares of a complex interlacing of roads, bridges, and embankments constructed with 58,000 tonnes of concrete and 72,000 tonnes of asphalt on a land that up to about a century ago was mostly mud flats.
A preliminary analysis of traffic suggests peak journey times have improved but it also reports the volume of traffic going through the junction is now higher than it was pre-covid. This has inevitably put pressure on other road infrastructure in the area, with commuters coming from east Cork complaining of long delays trying to access the Jack Lynch Tunnel.
Barely a year after the opening of the interchange we have begun to hear calls for additional measures to ease the congestion, with some even suggesting widening the tunnel bore.
Perhaps this experience should inform the upgrade of the N20 to a motorway. An M20 motorway may reduce journey times between Dooradoyle and Blackpool, but you're then delivering a higher volume of traffic, more quickly, into the cities at either end, with an inevitable increase in congestion in those cities.
Again, this is reflected in the congestion report, with significant congestion predicted in the Blackpool area of the city. If you really want to improve journey times from Limerick to Cork, look to the train.
The All-Island Strategic Rail Review published last year calls for direct trains between Limerick and Cork at least every two hours. There's nothing to stop that from happening straight away at very little cost. Another €100-€200m would provide a rail link on to Shannon Airport and a few hundred million more investment would provide increased train speeds on the route.
The Rail Review also looks at the opportunity for rail freight, and points to Ireland's very low use of the railway system for freight — it is in fact the lowest mode share in all of Europe. It sets out a series of proposals for how this could be improved to reduce our reliance on road freight and identifies Marino Point as a location which has good access to the rail network.
There is a direct correlation over the last 15 years between the number of cars on the road and the number of deaths and serious injuries.
This begs the question, why are we choosing to redevelop Ringaskiddy Port which requires a €500m road investment, and which will add to the existing traffic on the South Ring Road and the Jack Lynch Tunnel, when there is another option which could limit the impact on the road network?
Road safety concerns are often touted as a justification for new roads, and it's hard to argue against that when you look at any project in isolation. However, if there is one certainty about road safety trends it is that more cars equals more deaths and serious injuries.
There is a direct correlation over the last 15 years between the number of cars on the road and the number of deaths and serious injuries. This has been acknowledged by the Road Safety Authority on several occasions, and a reduction in car dependency as a means of improving road safety features as an objective in the Road Safety Strategy.
We also know that more roads bring more cars. At some point, we are going to need to acknowledge the link between the two and decide which is more important — continuing to facilitate ever increasing car use or reducing the death and injury toll on our roads.
There are, of course, plans for public transport in and around Cork which will undoubtedly improve the situation: the recently announced Cork Luas project, the BusConnects network, the Cork Area Commuter Rail plan, and various active travel infrastructure projects, but these will only mitigate the worst impacts of congestion as long as we continue to prioritise road building over public transport.
The Cork Luas project is still at a very early stage of development, with a public consultation currently under way on the initial plans. BusConnects was launched three years ago this month but has yet to be submitted to An Bord Pleanála for planning permission.
The Commuter Rail plan has made some progress with an upgrade of Kent Station completed earlier this year, and works under way on twin-tracking the Glounthaune to Midleton line, and upgrading signalling and communication, but there is no clear timeline for the next phase of works which would add commuter rail stations.
It's clear there is not the same political urgency or will to develop public transport solutions as there is with roads.
And even if all these projects are delivered by 2030 as assumed by the congestion cost report (and that seems incredibly optimistic right now), they will still not be enough to offset the induced demand created by the investment in road infrastructure.
The report predicts an increase in public transport use from 8% to just 10% and a reduction in car use from 68% to 63%. This seems incredibly unambitious.
Compare with the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, a city with a slightly larger population than Cork, which recently published an updated transport plan for 2040 that aims for 23% of trips to be by public transport, 39% by cycling and 37% by car.
If the congestion report has taught us anything, it is that we need a lot more ambition and a greater sense of urgency in the delivery of public transport and active travel infrastructure. We need to plan for the future we want, not just mitigate against the future we might have. And this future is ultimately is in the hands of the Department of Transport.
Ciarán Ferrie is an architect and transport planner