20 September 2017
By Bryan Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
The Green Party in Cork has welcomed proposals from Cork Chamber to improve commuter services at Little Island.
The proposals include bike share stations on the island and at the nearby train station, a shuttle bus service from Little Island Train Station, a city bus service, and dedicated car pool lanes.
Little Island is fortunate to have a train station, more through historical accident than design. It has a small station on the Cork to Cobh line. However most of modern Little Island has developed in business parks and industrial estates which are South of the station, over a 120km dual carriage way. This long one mile walk discourages commuters, who mainly choose to drive. That is facilitated with free parking next to various business premises.
Speaking after the announcement of the Chamber plan, Oliver Moran, the Green Party representative in Cork North Central, said these suggestions were just what Little Island needed:
Oliver Moran from the Green Party in Cork
“Speaking as someone who works on Little Island, these are both very urgent and very sensible suggestions. Little Island is a great place to work, and has a great local community, but it’s traffic deadlock at rush hour.”
Speaking specifically about proposals to connect the train station, businesses and residents by a shuttle bus and bike share scheme, Mr Moran said:
“The train station is a brilliant service for Little Island but it’s another mile of a walk at least to get to work. With park-and-ride in Carrigtwohill and Midleton and the turning around of the city centre train station to face Horgan’s Quay, simple but imaginative ideas like the businesses here are proposing really are the missing pieces of the jigsaw for Little Island.”
“Little Island is ideal for a cycling. It’s so flat and compact an area. We’ve seen how Cork people have taken to the bike share scheme in the city. Why not see if it will work in Little Island as well? As the largest industrial and commercial space in Metropolitan Cork, it deserves more than it has for the people living and working here.”
