A connected city

I love to walk and try to avoid using the car. However most of the streets outside the city center do not provide any sidewalks and are too dangerous for walking. I would love to see sidewalks next to roads, especially roads leading from the suburbs towards the city center, as for example Blarney to the North of the city, to encourage and enable people to walk or use the bike.

Many people I know rather take the car or live in the city center as they need to commute to work in an acceptable amount of time. However commuting from a suburb or outer city center region towards the city center often takes a lot of time, as busses do not operate at that time, are not always reliable, or the journey is very time intensive. Therefore I would suggest zero emission express busses, that operate from and to the suburbs or outer city center areas to the city center with very little stops, clean, reliable, effective in time of transport, also operation early morning and late evening/ night and scheduled based on passenger volume and needs. Regarding the overall traffic, a bus should also have priority in traffic to make sure, that a bus is on time etc. and best would be to provide a bus lane, if possible.

Another idea is to change the signal sound of traffic lights. What if the traffic lights in Cork in different areas, for example compass areas, still fulfil security demands, but get a different sound. That could be animal sounds (in Cork), so in one area you would hear bird sounds (e.g. seagull and also the species is named), in another area you hear mammal sounds. What advantages would that bring? People can orientate, for example visually impaired people, or people that are not from the city and know right away in which area or at which location they are. It can also have an educational effect, adults as well as children can learn about the animal life (or other topics) in Cork.