Croke Park Traffic Plan
 

I sometimes sits and thinks and I sometimes just sits.....!

The effects of all this sitting is to increase my Blood Pressure a hundredfold :mad: when I sit and read blatant nonsense such as the "Guide to beating Croke Park Traffic" now being touted in the national media.

Just allow me to detail a couple of nuggets from this Meisterwerke !

"Officials have introduced the Croke Park Stadium Transport Guide,which will be delivered to every sports and music fan who buys a ticket for one of the 35 events there this year"

Wow..! How come I never thought of that ????

And then we have.........

"The Brochure features a detailed map of the area around Croke Park,and highlights the nearby rail and Dart Stations,bus stops,Luas line and car parks"

Ahem......pay attention down the back,while we continue this wonderous voyage....

"The busy schedule of events at the Northside Stadium has caused several traffic and parking nightmares for fans. Hundreds have been clamped,having resorted to illegal parking in the absence of dedicated parking spots"

Ahhhhhh...something taking shape here...or is it....???/

"The new guide was introduced after revelations that plans for a dedicated Park n Ride scheme to the 82,000 seat stadium have been Put on Hold "


SO.....is it SPIN or is it SUBSTANCE...???

Wellllll before YOU vote on this one listen to the sage like contribution from THE MAN !!

"Stadium Director Peter McKenna said the Initiative would make a MAJOR difference to the traffic problems around Drumcondra"

No colour needed there as there`s the full rainbow over this mans head !!

The benefit of having a Professional Public Relations setup is immediately obvious here......Instead of having a Press Conference to announce the NON Implimentation of a plan that WOULD have at least addressed the Problem in a REAL way we have sharp suited young flappers providing Mr McKenna with bucketfuls of gaily coloured confetti to throw about the room. :(

To paraphrase the man who`s statue sits alongside the Canal ......Plan..? My Arse....!!!

Tell me this has have we managed to find the place for the last 90 odd years?

GAA fans have a long long association with the use of rail to reach games

Not much rail connections from Tir Eoghan or much of Cuige Uladh though.

I saw cars abandoned on the M1 just south of the M50 junction last year on the day of the ulster final.

I wonder if the Dublin city chamber of commerce will pay for a park and ride system to help the GAA out as the gaa acceded to their plaintive begging and let dublin city chamber of commerce make loadsa money off the backs of foreign games.

Or now that the port tunnel is almost over will the agricultural field where the tbm launch pit was be converted into a park and ride carpark
or will the park and ride carpark system be re-instigated beside Holy Child church. I'd say the only thing the corpo will do in fact is clamp cars parked in free parking spaces like years before. Actually they will probably make all spaces on the northside pay parking on a Sunday instead. and then clamp them.

Anyway I'm sure handing out a leaflet will prevent a group of 82000 people from causing any traffic problems. Well that and moving Quinns to the east side of Drumcondra road.

Unless we see Local Authorities CPO'ing property at full market prices we wont see P&R anywhere.

There is a way to change this, we have to modify the consitutional rights regarding property, but this is rathter like asking Turkeys to Vote for chrsitmas, no political party will touch it and there are many fingers in the financial cake who will oppose it.

Thomas, the field where the port tunnel tbm launch pit had corn growing in it in 1997. I don't know when the tunnel took it over but agricultural land it was and I'd imagine it is now belonging to the corpo. so free site here.

Where will the park and ride for metropark on metro north be? Why not start that up sooner with an express bus link to city centre?

Used to belong to the Nuns (cant remember which order) whose convent is there wither Grace Park Road or Collins Avenue. AFAIK DCC didn't buy it, they have been either renting it or using it under a licence.

In any event, buying sites big enough for P&R in the right areas will be costly. Previous much heralded P&R schemes have fallen by the wayside because of the lack of "suitable" sites.

Well people are not thick; look at Red Cow P&R on country match days [ e.g. Cork/Kilkenny hurling match in Croker ] it is full of cars with people getting Luas to Connolly for match rather than park in town

As far as I know the site will return to the same owner who had it before and who also owns the site directly south of it.

The car park at Whitehall church has been relaid but after the dismal P&R exercise exercise two years ago (where no more than 5 cars a day used it), I can't see it being done again. I don't think it was even used as P&R this year. I don't think its a great spot for P&R anyway, it's too close to the city centre.

The park and Ride in Lissenhall will be packed on match days in the future I reckon.

Wouldn't be hard to drive to Dun Dealgan or Newry though would it?

Ireland's not really big enough for most people to justify driving to a train station when the overall trip is likely to be slower because of it. It would be in the common good if they did but you'd find it hard to convince people of that.

this is probably to placate the residents and try and get even more night events there.

Oisin and CSL are spot on. In addition to Luas users from the N7, many Wexford and Waterford fans park in Bray and outer southside Dart Stations and happily alight at Connolly.

I don't know the the Northern line well enough to know where the car parks are but surely Drogheda / Laytown / Balbriggan / somewhere must have a decent car park and a couple of quiet Arrow services on a Sunday which could be promoted in the local press when Meath / Louth / Ulster teams are in Croker.

Croke Park
 

Very few stadia like Croke Park have got two railway lines running at each end.
SO how come it does not have proper stations for match days?
Yes, Drumcondra is there - and maybe it could be dedicated for people using Hill 16 or the Hogan Stand side.
Surely it would be possible to open a new station at the Canal End for the Canal End and Cusack stand side.
I was in Old Trafford recently and it has a train line right beside the stadium.
If thousands of people could be catered for religious traffic in the past in places like Claremorris and Ashtown, then in this day an age why can't brilliant Croke Park have decent train links?
Trains can surely queue up like buses. If there were departures every 2-3 minutes in each direction, it would encourage people to use public transport on match days?
Or our we just not capable of organising this?

This is Ireland where we close stations on match days (Grand Canal Dock) and fail to run any extra trains to cope with demand.

No Crewalex,not to labour the point but we are NOT capable of organizing it. :p

In fairness, Ashtown was for a million person event.

I find it interesting and not a little perplexing that an annual event such as the Slane or Witness events merit a plethora of special consideration such as dedicated Bus Services,pre-paid ticketing,fully supervised loading etc.

Yet,the "New Improved" Croke Park events with 80,000+ attendees recieve nothing in the way of "Dedicated Public Transport Assistance"

For example,ALL Northbound Bus Routes running along the Drumcondra Rd corridor from An Lar (3,11,16,33,41) are expected to continue to utilise the SINGLE Bus Stop directly outside Drumcondra Railway Station.

This stop in the normal course of events is quite usable and safe.
However,In the context of a Croke Park event,the situation alters dramatically.
I am not at all convinced that unloading Bus Passengers directly into the flow of Rail Passengers exiting Drumcondra Station is a good idea.

There is the added Public Safety aspect of what appears to be Total Confusion within the serried ranks of the Gardai on "Traffic Control" duty at this location.

I believe the very concept of allowing several hundred people to congregate,mill around and consume alcohol outside Quinns Pub is deeply flawed and when added to the new reality of darkness is pretty much guaranteed to lead to trouble.

It`s not the gathering or the "Craic" to which I object but rather to the blind eye which the Authorities are turning to the hugely increased Risk factors.

Why for example do the Gardai refuse to switch off the traffic signals at the junction.
The causes of accidents can be legion but one common thread is Indecision and Confusion,both ingredients in plentiful supply at Drumcondra Station/Clonliffe Road.

There is for example a sufficient amount of newly constructed pull-in space bewteen Binns Bridge and Drumcondra Station to allow for segregation of arriving Buses.
Currently this space is utilized by the public as a space in which to consume Chicken in a Basket and to generally mill about as per Quinns.

There really is little point in Peter McKenna and the Croke Park authorities putting together glossy flyers extolling the virtues of Public Transport to the venue when the actuality is little more than a sad dangerous shambles.

This is of course a post which deals only with the Venue arrangements.
There is a far wider issue which Dublin Bus must address and that is the extent of the service disruption to Major X City Trunk Routes such as the 11 and 16 Groups.
The nature and extent of disruption to these groupings can often last long after the "Event" has finished.

I remain unconvinced that agencies such as An Garda Siochana and the City Council are making any real contribution to maintaining an operational corridor for Public Transport.

The very existance of Paid Car Parking in a location such as Clonliffe College underlines a serious vacuum in the official thinking on how such events are managed......or perhaps not.... :mad:

Well Alek, a particular TD warned a particular public tavern recently to stop its customers congregating outside [ illegally ] with drink on pain of loss of licence .... lo and behold the next night the problem was fixed.


no prize for the pub and TD as we don't want any scandal now.

The Health & Safety Authority and the Road Safety Authority might take a different view. Could a complaint be put together?