N6 - Galway outer bypass: Is it needed?

And this is where things get interesting and side tracked into talks of a bungalow blitz which in reality has less to do with city traffic than the fact that a large number of farmers & people that had jobs in the county are having to look increasingly to the city for work (a phenomenon that started in the 80s).

Regardless of the origins (and it's true, pluriactivity on farms has become a characteristic of Irish farming since the 1970s, particularly west of the Shannon), the problem is that it is very much a factor when it comes to city traffic. As the figures show, County Galway is far more rural in nature than other comparable Irish counties (Cork and Limerick in particular), with fewer and far smaller urban centres (something that drives non work related trips to Galway also). Also, very many of those rural houses have practically nothing to do with farming - they are and were urban generated in the first place. Unless you can stop that spread, everything else is a waste of time (a lot has already been done, but not nearly enough).

In terms of what to do - well, a lot of what needs to be done has to depend on a fairly rigorous analysis of the POWCARS and demographic data (where people live, where they work, and the likely trends over time). From that also will flow a lot of data around future infrastructural requirements, not just transport but schools, healthcare, electricity, telecoms, water, waste water etc. Only then can you start looking at options properly. Given the basic population and industrial geography of the city already however, it looks a candidate for a kind of multi-polar model (mainly due to the constrained nature of the city centre and the small size and relative distance of the potential dormitory towns), with dense and properly planned small centres arrayed around the existing suburbs, including new residential zoning on the Eastern fringe and limited further industrial zoning on the western fringe, all premised on good public transport links (bus lanes post GCOB in this case).

antoobrien wrote: »

how many child occupants (and adults for that matter) per car there are and where does the driver go from there. I'm sure some of the parents here will immediately and strenuously disagree but I know of a at least half a dozen families with 2 or more children that are dropped off on the way to work. These are the cars that will show up later as "single occupant" cars in studies that look at cars on the road to be further abused by statistics.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

So even if all the parents still bring the car to work (which I don't accept) getting more kids walking and cycling to school still removes a significant burden from the city's road capacity.

From the Irish Heart Foundation's 2010 report, Building Young Hearts:









*I haven't cross-checked those figures, but that's what the IHF said anyway.

are you saying that traffic (or traffic congestion) is a direct cause of car dependence in Galway City?

That wasn't what I meant, but to a certain degree it happens to be true. What I was trying to say (badly) is that car dependence is higher in Galway than in other Irish cities, and the underlying reasons for this needed to be examined. Essentially it's down to the fact that Galway was a county town that grew massively, in a poorly planned way from the 1960s onwards, and infrastructure has never managed to keep up. So the core is too small and narrow to allow traffic to flow through it, and the more recent road network has too many blockages and pinch points to deal with the volume of traffic (particularly that crossing the city). Before you do anything else, you have to take these cars off the streets - the only way of doing that in a practical sense is push them onto a orbital or ring road. However if you only do that, and don't make the city more habitable, don't invest in public transport, or don't plan land use and transport in the entire city region (50km+ around the city) properly, then you merely commit to another generation of car dependency.

But as it happens, car dependency does tend to breed car dependency, because (a) the more people are forced into their cars by a lack of plausible alternatives, the more services and retail becomes car oriented, and (b) the more hostile the urban environment is to other transport means. Essentially, I'm suggesting that the GCOB should be seized upon as a means of making Galway more pedestrian and bike friendly, and re-orienting the city towards far more sustainable transport by controlling demand on the GCOB by using the planning system effectively.

The provision for cycling and walking in Galway is lacking or of very low quality -- often where there's some or lots of space.

The issue is not those areas where there is lots of space, but rather where there is very little - Galway is best by pinch points, some very old (like around the city centre), others much newer (modern road junctions). And while elevated junctions are great in a lot of locations, the distruption of even building them in Galway would shut the city down, even before you consider the fact that there really isn't room for that kind of thing in those areas in Galway. Vertical separation requires ramps to get traffic/people up and down, and for a lot of key junctions, that would require demolition too. More to the point though, these things are generally visually intrusive and out of character with a city - an urban motorway with elevated junctions was recommended in the BKS study for Cork in the late 1970s - it drove home to policy makers that a LUTS was required. They also distort the urban grain and the scale of development, and make the city less welcoming as a place to live. Again, it is by far a better option to push traffic out of town (while managing demand and car dependency), and restore the city as a place for people to live.

Aidan1 wrote: »

That wasn't what I meant, but to a certain degree it happens to be true. What I was trying to say (badly) is that car dependence is higher in Galway than in other Irish cities, and the underlying reasons for this needed to be examined. Essentially it's down to the fact that Galway was a county town that grew massively, in a poorly planned way from the 1960s onwards, and infrastructure has never managed to keep up. So the core is too small and narrow to allow traffic to flow through it, and the more recent road network has too many blockages and pinch points to deal with the volume of
traffic (particularly that crossing the city).

Thanks for re-engaging with this debate.

First up, I think it's necessary to distinguish between car ownership, car use and car dependence.

I walked and cycled to school as a child. As the years went by more people bought cars and more people drove. Same infrastructure and roads environment, different number of cars.

Lots of people don't own a car these days. Last time I checked there were c. 28,000 cars registered in Galway City iirc -- I don't know what the figure is now. Regardless of that figure, it is self-evident that not everybody uses their car all the time. It is also a truism that well over 90 percent of our roads are uncongested for well over 90 percent of the time, which means that car ownership does not inevitably result in perpetual congestion.

Some people own a car, myself included, but choose to commute by other means. Others could travel by other means but tend to use the car more often than not. Another cohort cannot do without their car, for one reason or another.

As we know, Ireland has a level of car ownership below that of France, Norway, Austria, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita). Yet in all these countries, their higher level of car ownership apparently does not result in a higher level of car use than we have, as evidenced by, for example, their percentages of total trips by bike (http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/irresistible.pdf). In the EU, Denmark has both a lower level of car ownership and a much higher level of cycling than we do.

We can therefore regard car use & dependence as being on a spectrum, which might look something like this:
My father-in-law is in Category 2, whereas I am in Category 3.

I know of many people who seem to be at an advanced stage of car dependence. My aforementioned father-in-law walks to mass every Sunday, while his equally able-bodied neighbours always drive to the same church. Neighbours of mine drive their kids to the local creche and primary school, while my kid now cycles over four times that distance to Junior Infants.

The cardinal signs of dependence include tolerance and withdrawal (http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/terminology/definition1/en/). Habitual car use seems to make a given distance eventually feel too far to walk or cycle. Maybe that's just an issue of time: if I can get to somewhere in the city more quickly by car than by walking or cycling, I adjust by leaving home that little bit later. On the other hand, if driving takes longer because of all that traffic (ie all the other drivers who think it takes too long to walk or cycle) then I can maximise the pleasure quotient by settling into the comfortable upholstery and turning the radio up a little. On the other hand, if I'm carless for any reason I'll end up like one of those sad sacks schlumping around in the rain or, god forbid, I'll have to sit beside some w*nker on the bus. I recall someone telling me that she'd rather chew her own arm off than leave her car. Ironically, she was working in Public Health!

To continue the substance use analogy, another key point to remember is that, rather like passive smoking, indiscriminate car use affects citizens who do not drive a car (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/mar/22/guardiansocietysupplement7).

We therefore have to deal with car use and dependence at societal level, taking cognisance of the fact that there are degrees of use and dependence. If it's the case that "infrastructure has never managed to keep up" then imo the policy response should be to prioritise infrastructure that facilitates a move away from driving as the primary mode of travel. Building roads does not encourage a reduction in car use and car dependence: the exact opposite is the case.

It is also self-evident that the current level of infrastructure across Galway City, which is the same for all of us, is (a) already used by pedestrians and cyclists etc and (b) not congested 100% of the time. It is not true to say that "that car dependence is higher in Galway than in other Irish cities." According to Census 2011 proportionally more commuters walked to work in Galway, with 17 per cent walking compared to 14.5 per cent in Dublin and Waterford.

There are therefore 'elasticities' in travel demand which deserve much greater attention and which could be managed in such a way as to significantly reduce traffic congestion on the existing network. I have already referred to the rice analogy: same 'bottleneck' but entirely different flow rates, depending on how the inputs are managed. If there are "too many blockages and pinch points to deal with the volume of traffic" then start with tackling the volume of traffic, since that is a variable, not a constant. And no, a bypass is not the automatic first step in that regard.

Before you do anything else, you have to take these cars off the streets - the only way of doing that in a practical sense is push them onto a orbital or ring road. However if you only do that, and don't make the city more habitable, don't invest in public transport, or don't plan land use and transport in the entire city region (50km+ around the city) properly, then you merely commit to another generation of car dependency.

For some reason this reminds me of Cold War political rhetoric! It used to be said that the likes of CND were just a communist front because they insisted on unilateral nuclear disarmament of the western democracies first. No government in the Western Bloc wanted to back down, and it was subversive to suggest that they should eliminate their nuclear weapons as a matter of principle.

The debate on this particular aspect of the GCOB proposal seems to be polarised. IMO, there are the Bypass First advocates ("we just want a bridge") and the TDM First advocates, myself included, who would argue that serious initiatives need to be put in place to tackle car use and car dependence in the short to medium term, as well as to ensure that over the long term a bypass will not, whether by accident or design, do exactly the opposite.

As you rightly point out, bypasses do not necessarily mean reduced car dependence. In Waterford City, for example, where a bypass was opened in 2009 iirc, the proportion of people walking to work decreased from 16% in 2006 to 15% in 2011. Bus use dropped from 4% to 3%, while the number of car passengers decreased from 9% to 8%. Meanwhile, the proportion of people driving to work increased by five percentage points, from 58% to 63%. And wasn't Waterford a successful bidder in the Smarter Travel programme three or four years ago?

It seems to be accepted that there will be no GCOB until 2019 at the earliest. Given that time constraint, and given the well-recognised phemonenon that new roads attract new traffic, what is the evidence-based justification for building a bypass "before you do anything else"? What policy-based reasons are there for us to sit in our cars and wait for six years until a bypass materialises? Note that I'm asking for a rationale based on evidence and policy. Arguments based on the premise that you can't expect people to own cars and not use them just do not cut the mustard, in my opinion.

But as it happens, car dependency does tend to breed car dependency, because (a) the more people are forced into their cars by a lack of plausible alternatives, the more services and retail becomes car oriented, and (b) the more hostile the urban environment is to other transport means. Essentially, I'm suggesting that the GCOB should be seized upon as a means of making Galway more pedestrian and bike friendly, and re-orienting the city towards far more sustainable transport by controlling demand on the GCOB by using the planning system effectively.

Galway City already has one of the highest levels of walking and cycling outside Dublin. Where's the implausibility there? That said, I accept that there's a bit of a Catch 22 for people who have become conditioned to car use: both current and potential walkers/cyclists/bus users often find the current environment unconducive (roundabouts, speed, lack of crosswalks etc), so the tendency is to stick with the car. That keeps more cars on the road, and so the vicious circle goes.

However, more walking and cycling also means safer walking and cycling. The presence of more pedestrians and cyclists on the road makes walking and cycling more normalised, creates greater visibility and acceptance of these modes of travel, and encourages "me too" reactions. More people walking and cycling also means fewer cars, which improves the roads environment further, in a virtuous circle.

Where the disagreement arises on this issue is bypass now or bypass later.

It is my contention that a large proportion of car use is not "forced" at all. Pre-bypass TDM would test that assumption PDQ. My gut feeling is that a good chunk of opposition to pre-bypass TDM is based, not on a defeatist belief that there are no plausible alternatives but on the socio-economic objection that you can't expect people who own cars not to use them. That's politics imo, and as Lasswell said, politics is about who gets what, when and how.

antoobrien wrote: »

Totally different economic circumstances - which are being totally ignored.

I'm not ignoring it, but it's a red herring in terms of the school traffic that I referred to by way of example.

According to the survey done as part of the mayoral initiative on traffic and transportation, 55% of drivers doing the school run do not go on to work.

The main economic change in this regard is increased car ownership, which in the Irish "planning" context inexorably led to greater car use and car dependence.

My neighbours are in similar economic circumstances to me. A bunch of them drive 800 metres to the local school, while my child cycles 3 km. Trends in employment have no bearing on that.

It's an example of where the notion of people being "forced" to use their cars is exposed as a myth, imo.

antoobrien wrote: »

The school traffic is the red herring. It causes a problem because it clashes with people trying to get to work for 9am (which is a majority of those working) not because of numbers. If you were serious about it you'd suggest that schools started at 8am.

TDM measures aimed at schools is one possible approach among many.

http://www.mrsc.org/subjects/transpo/tdm.aspx
http://www.uctc.net/papers/086.pdf
http://depts.washington.edu/trac/bulkdisk/pdf/685.1.pdf

It's absurd to try to claim that a major source of traffic congestion within the city is a red herring.

The whole point is that in the summer months, when tourist influx is at its peak but when primary, secondary and tertiary students are off, traffic flows better both within and -- crucially -- through the city.

You have made the point repeatedly that all traffic must flow through a certain triangular area across the river.

I have countered by saying that the same bottlenecks/pinch points do not result in acute congestion when traffic volume is reduced at certain times of the year. It is a truism in traffic engineering that 90% of the existing roads network is uncongested 90% of the time, therefore acute congestion is not due to the roads network as is but to the extreme (and unmanaged) demands placed on it at peak times.

I have also referred to independent sources showing that relatively small reductions in traffic volume can result in significant shifts in Level of Service.

Do you accept those basic principles? If not, can you point to any independent sources that explain where they're wrong?