Top 5 Northside’s Traffic Tormentors

10th Nov 2011

Part wan of our 'favourite' steering wheel punching vein popping stroke inducing bottlenecks on the lofty heights of Cork city....

Dino’s Dilemma
There you are. Sitting boggle eyed, lamping in the window of Dino’s drive thru on the Common’s Road and the mouth watering on you for a bag of chips. It’s sometime after 5.30pm and your tired watery eyes home in on the sight of someone in the drive-thru mangling a tasty looking bag of chips covered in salt and ketchup.
 

Dino's junction between the murayeah Mallow Road and the Commons

Your belly rumbles to remind you how far you’ve travelled in the last ten minutes: approximately 30cm. Your dinner and destination seem like a lifetime away.

Cars coming from Popham’s Road, the old Common’s Road, Blackpool and Fair Hill all converge on that narrow gap opposite Blackpool Shopping Centre in a logjam lottery all vying for the chance to win a golden opportunity: to get on to the Mallow Road.

The traffic seems to be annoying Stella. Either that or she's listening to the secret sound on 96fm.

The look on some drivers’ faces suggest they have been in their cars for days on end as the game of inches is scuppered by someone up ahead cutting out just as the lights flick green for a few seconds. Dinners waiting in ovens and grills that were previously edible now have a carbon rating akin to a small country.

C’mere Dino, you might come out to us with a few chips in the traffic next time bubbila?!


Tinkers’ Cross
Wig makers and barbers could make a killing selling their services from car to car as drivers tear their own hair out at this particular traffic trouble spot. Scientists at UCC who are looking at the causes of premature ageing in Corkonians, are believed to be very interested in those who are forced into the Mayfield Muddle at rush hour.

Plenty of time to be tinkin' at Tinker's Cross

Many twenty-something’s from Glanmire are seen entering their vehicles young and vibrant only to emerge as grey haired pale faced shrivelled shadows just a few months later.

This also explains why many students from Sallybrook and Glounthane suddenly find themselves at their own fiftieth birthday party when their last recollection was graduating from college in their twenties.

Initial tests have revealed that, what experts are calling “The Tinkers Cross Effect”, is a more powerful ageing agent than watching the Republic of Ireland play soccer under Trappatoni. And that’s saying something. Whoever that famous Tinker was, he certainly wasn’t in a hurry!

Put On the Kettle Roundabout
Drivers arriving from the M8 could be forgiven for thinking that the green never actually lights up as they queue for a bash at the Dunkettle Roundabout. A blink of green light that wouldn’t be out of place attached to a DJ’s turntable at a 21^st allows only one or two rows of cars out of traffic prison at a time causing fellas to activate their airbags from dawking their steering wheels in frustration.

As well as all the north Cork traffic it sometimes seems as if the lights are taunting drivers arriving from Dublin – begrudgingly letting them enter the promised land but not without fifteen minutes quarantine in traffic that’ll make them seriously consider ever leaving again:

Wanna come into Cork? Ok, here’s the green! Not so quick Ronnie! Here’s the red again!

Dunkettle: what goes up (to Dublin) must come down

Dunkettle has two rush hour modes: “chaotic” when the tunnel is actually open and then “super-jammed” when the lads shut the gaf down to put more bicycle patches on the roof. You’d be tempted to suggest they build a suspension bridge over the Lee but the bedlam would actually have a major affect on Irish GDP.

Even small crashes on the roundabout has been know to affect the global stock market and after one minor tip in 2007 caused mayhem it is believed that the ensuing tailbacks were so enormous that some motorists caught up in the gridlock are not due to arrive home until early 2013.

North Gate Smidge
Watching the movement of continental plates would produce more results than monitoring vehicles as they inch their way from one side to another of this critical piece of Cork infrastructure.

Some drivers treat the journey like a ferry crossing and can be seen, like those in shipping terminal car parks, catching up on sleep in the “turning right” lane on Kyrl’s Quay so slow is progress - even though they can almost touch the Northside just a few yards away. It’s also true that one can buy and Echo on the bridge and have it read cover to cover by the time you crawl to the bottom of Shandona.

North Gate Bridge: believed to be older than many continental shelves

And here’s a dilemma most Northsiders will have encountered: should you turn right onto the North Gate Bridge if there’s a green arrow for straight ahead even though the right arrow hasn’t turned green? It may or may not be against the law but a honking taxi driver frothing at the mouth, hopping up and down in your rear view mirror doesn’t help clear thinking. There’s no red light boy, drive on willa!

Blarney Street
The pangs of childbirth may come to mind when female drivers try to get from one end of this ancient artery of Cork to another. A narrow dark passage in which one has to squeeze a giant object past a number of other important objects – one false move could be very costly.

Even google street picked up some early morning gridlock at the Gurranabraher Avenue junction on Blarney St.

This street was not built for pairs of SUVs and coal lorries to pass each other yet they continually pour into the street from Blarney Road, Guarranabraher and Shandon creating hundreds of mini-logjams everyday.  

Carbon emissions from the street would alarm climate change scientists such is the rowdy revving and roars of reversing engines as all sorts of vehicles squeeze past each other. If you’re ever short a hub cap or a wing mirror, this thoroughfare is worth a look – don’t bring the car though.