Bike station broken for a year

The reason the rent a bike station at Morrison’s Island has been out of action for more than a year has been revealed.

It is due to damage to the cabling and the bike unit caused by ongoing flooding of the station and repairs to date have proved ineffective, a City Hall official said.

Assistant Director of Infrastructure Development Edith Roberts was replying to Green Party councillor Colette Finn after she asked for an update on several stations during question time at a recent meeting of Cork City Council.

Ms Roberts told Cllr Finn: “It is the intention to relocate this station as part of the Morrison’s Island scheme. The National Transport Authority has confirmed that there were issues at a number of stations before Christmas due to software malfunction.”

Ms Roberts added that a new version of software has now been installed at these locations and all stations are back in operation.

“This new software is also being rolled out to all of the existing stations in Cork and this should reduce the instances of short-term outages for the foreseeable future,” said Ms Roberts.

Parliament Bridge

Meanwhile Ms Roberts was also asked for an update on repair work on Parliament Bridge by Independent councillor Kieran McCarthy.

He was told: “Cork City Council is in the process of appointing a contractor to undertake emergency repair works to a partial collapse of the northwest wing wall at Parliament Bridge. It is anticipated that these works will be completed by mid to late February 2021.”

Cllr McCarthy followed up asking City Hall officials if there was any long-term plan for conservation work on Parliament Bridge adding that it “doesn’t look well” anytime he passes it.

Director of Infrastructure Development Gerry O'Beirne added that City Hall is to look for more funding to carry out works on bridges across the city and that the money will be allocated to the bridges that urgently need remediation.