Michael Moynihan: Cork should copy Colombia and bring in gondola lifts to help city
Cork is uniquely suited to a gondola system like the one in Medellín in Colombia, above, given the bowl effect of the hills of the northside leading down into the city centre.
Learning what works for cities is one of this column’s obsessions, which is why thanks are due to the reader who pointed me towards an interesting piece published a while back.
And thanks also to Jenna Schnuer, the author of the piece. She looked at six cities on five continents which are reimagining urban life, but, more importantly, she dug into the detail to get some concrete examples of what that ‘reimagining’ means in real life.
Are there any lessons for Cork in her research? Any examples worth adopting for ourselves — or initiatives we could compare to the work being done here?
It looks like all three. For instance, Schnuer took one project in Paris as a prime instance of a city moving beyond aspiration to action, and all to the benefit of the local community.
“One example is La Recyclerie, a community-led project created in 2014 that transformed a former train station into a space that includes an urban farm, a recycling centre and education and community centres. And, in 2017, the city replaced sections of the roads alongside the Seine river with parks and play spaces.” Park that last bit for a second. The very idea of work alongside the river is something we will need to return to in a later column — and look slightly south of St Patrick Street.
The Nano Nagle Centre is not a former train station, but it is a transformed space — what was once a convent is now a community hub, cafe, and shop and a terrific addition to the city. A success by any measure.
But are there other places in Cork which would benefit from the same transformation? Could we see more being done in the Shandon area, for instance?
It’s at a similar distance from the city centre as the Nano Nagle Centre, the Firkin Crane already exists as an anchor attraction, and the Butter Exchange building is already there. The potential for a balancing development just north of the Lee is surely worth exploring.
Schnuer also reported on pedestrianisation in Sydney, citing the George Street area specifically where pedestrianisation work “... began in December 2020; when finished, it will have more than 9,000 new square meters (about 97,000 square feet) of walkways. The street will also receive new lighting, seating, trees and additional spaces for outdoor dining.
“Through the Pyrmont Ultimo Landcare program, volunteer gardeners return native foliage to its natural landscape in the Pyrmont neighbourhood. The city buys the plants from IndigiGrow, an Indigenous owned nonprofit nursery that specialises in growing local endangered plants.
“The plants provide shade, help cool down high density areas, attract birds and even store carbon.”
I won’t bore everyone by revisiting a recent column on pedestrianisation, and why the current refurbishment work on St Patrick’s Street is an obvious opportunity to pedestrianise the city centre (Point made, let’s move on — ed.), but look elsewhere in Cork.
The redevelopment of MacCurtain Street was unveiled with a good deal of pomp and ceremony last November, but where is the alternative to the concrete and asphalt — the natural materials offering some relief from the concrete and asphalt which might “provide shade, help cool down high density areas, attract birds and even store carbon” just like Sydney?
Schnuer took in Lisbon in her piece as well, referring to the fearsome temperatures which sometimes afflict the Portuguese capital — but she also pinpointed the ways Lisbon offers its citizens some respite from those temperatures.
“Starting with the 'Green Plan' in 2008, which detailed measures to offset ecological damage from land development, the city has begun numerous initiatives to boost the amount of public green space. In 2012, the city implemented the Main Green Corridor, a 1.4-mile green stretch that connects the 65-acre Eduardo VII Park near the city’s centre to the 2,223-acre Monsanto Forest Park.”
Could Cork do better here? The ongoing works in Bishop Lucey Park mean there is no public park open in the city centre (see previous columns for the official position on whether Fitzgerald Park is regarded as a city centre amenity).
And then there was this one.
Medellín in Colombia, long associated with violence and drugs, but which has enjoyed a renaissance in recent years. Among the innovations which helped to turn the city around was one which leaned heavily on the city’s geography, and turning an apparent disadvantage into an attraction.
“The poorest neighborhoods were high atop steep mountains, far removed from the city centre," wrote Schnuer.
“There was no easy or inexpensive way for people to commute to town for work and access to resources, since the building density and mountains made it impossible to build new train lines.
“In 2004, the city began adding a system of gondola lifts in the sky, connecting the steep mountain towns to other areas, dramatically reducing the cost and time it took to commute ... There was this second order effect of community development and ownership.”
Don’t all shout at once. Cork is uniquely suited to a gondola system, given the bowl effect of the hills of the northside leading down into the city centre. No doubt there are naysayers quick to dismiss this as unrealistic — achievable for a South American city ravaged by drug cartels for decades and synonymous with deadly gang violence — but not a runner on Leeside.
Even though Cork is the only county in Ireland which already has a working cable car.
Lest anyone think I’m being unduly pessimistic, I did find a city with an ‘innovation’ that we ... well, see for yourself.
New York recently enlisted consultants McKinsey to come up with solutions for its rubbish problem, one which is exacerbated by rats feasting on said rubbish.
McKinsey produced an impressive 95-slide presentation to share its ideas — such as “containerization”, which it described as the “storage of waste in sealed, rodent-proof receptacles rather than in plastic bags placed directly on the curb”, with two main types involved: “. . . 1) individual bins for low density locales; 2) shared containers for high-density.” Of course, ‘enlisted’ doesn’t quite do justice to McKinsey’s side of the deal. They charged $4 million to come up with these solutions (a sum so big you’d need a “sealed, rodent-proof receptacle” for it).
Their proposals resulted in the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, popping up at a press call to unveil the answer to Manhattan’s problems: a wheelie bin.
An innovation we’ve used here for almost forty years.
