M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

Suburb to suburb public transport connections in Dublin are very poor and are based largely on a system of into-city, transfer, out of city routing.

There are large numbers of barely used bus-lanes in the suburbs, where there are no reliable frequent fast bus services and sometimes no service al all.

The anti-Galway bypass arguments are largely advocating a stand-alone public transport solution that doesn't exist anywhere else.

Good points. You are cutting to the core of the overall problem, which is evident in Dublin as it is in Galway. Of course our westernmost city is tiny compared to the capital, but the issues are still the same.

If there are no reliable public transport services, or no services at all, it is because of planning and policy failures over decades.

A new expressway in Galway is therefore a very expensive monument to those planning failures, because it is entirely focused on providing a solution based on private individual transport.

So you are confirming my earlier point: that the purpose of the proposed expressway is to dodge the need to plan, develop and run a reliable and efficient public transport service. In our state of extended post-colonial adolescence we are able to build shiny new roads but we are still not mature enough to develop an integrated public transport system providing a high Level of Service to commuters.

ARUP's project manager for the expressway recently declared on local radio in Galway that "we can't keep building more roads" and indicated that in terms of modal switch they are targeting "people who are driving two kilometres and that". I don't know what she means by the first comment, because she's being paid to do the exact opposite, but her second remark suggests to me that there is no intention to develop a comprehensive and integrated public transport solution that will provide a high Level of Service for cross-town commuters.

The anti-expressway arguments (from people whose homes, properties and neighbourhoods are not directly affected) in Galway are largely advocating that the project is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. For one thing, the congestion problem largely disappears when the schools are off. This is a well-recognised phenomenon, and is another manisfestation of the planning failures that have left the city without proper school transport for decades.

The anti-expressway arguments are not advocating a stand-alone public transport solution. Rather, such arguments are saying that if public transport was massively improved, and if the existing road network was used much more efficiently, then €500 million might not have to be spent on an expressway, or could be spent on an entirely different transport project.

The anti-expressway arguments are saying that in political terms the project is bypassing policy imperatives to provide passenger transport for the mobility of people, in favour of infrastructure to facilitate the mobility of private vehicles.

The observation that public transport is very poor is not a valid argument in favour of more roads and more private transport, it is an argument in favour of better public transport. And that is the real debate at the heart of this ongoing controversy.

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

I don't agree. Take the local Sandyford Industrial Estate - it expanded to almost it's current size before the M50 was built; the traffic chaos, bad enough at peak hours today, was vastly worse 10 years ago before the M50 Southern Cross opened.

And getting from here to the Naas Road (for travel to all places now served by the M7,8,9) was an hour long nightmare much of the day.

A new road will buy you time, but that's all it does. It can not, and will not, provide a sustainable solution to the problem of traffic congestion. As an urban population grows, a certain amount of congestion has to be accepted, perhaps, whether on public transport or on roads. However, it's a fool's game to continue with "predict and provide" policies favouring private transport.

Perhaps that's what ARUP's Associate Director was thinking when she declared that "we can't keep on building more roads." I just wish she'd thought of it sooner...

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

that's because "planning driven solutions" have proved disastrous in many contexts!

A sensible planning "solution" cannot ignore market considerations and must be largely guided by them.

Otherwise we get the "bridges to nowhere" results, like the Ennis - Galway railway line.

I'm sure there's a thread on that somewhere. When I say planning I mean public policy based on evidence, rational thought, foresight, sustainability, the common good etc. I don't mean "Planning", which is a different animal entirely in the Irish context.

Sam Russell wrote: »

It is worse than that.

Once decentralisation starts, it encourages more decentralisation and results in the hollowing out of town centres such that they die economically. In many UK towns, the centres of small towns consist on just charity shops, the odd bank and vacant sites.

This is happening in Dun Laoghaire.

Known as "doughnutting" I believe. And then you get nutters, such as that journalist fella, blaming the inevitable consequences on parking charges and parking law enforcement.

Here in Galway there's a Labour TD who apparently believes parking is an important support for the city-centre retail sector, even as a €500 million "bypass" is being planned, supposedly to take cars out of city. To say there's a lack of joined-up thinking is to be charitable through cliche.

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

Well, this one has bought 10 years and counting....!

If Galway's new €500 million expressway buys us another, say, 20 years, then that's €25 million per year. TTBOMK there is no plan to provide that much funding for public transport, even in one year. Certainly such sums have never been spent in the past.

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

It is only an example of un-joined-up thinking if it is the same TD who is advocating a bypass to take shoppers out of town and carparks to facilitate them down town.

I would be astonished if any TD, even a Labour one, was proposing both things

It is of course absolutely rational to propose a bypass to take through traffic out of the City, to facilitate suburb to suburb connectivity and still want to facilitate shoppers in the centre with car parks.

No dots unjoined...

It depends on what you mean by "joined-up" and "thinking", perhaps.

In NRA-land, for example, there is no contradiction in declaring that "we can't keep on building more roads", while proposing to spend €500 million doing exactly that.

In business-as-usual-land, it is absolutely joined-up to declare that "we need a facility to remove traffic that doesn't need to traverse the city itself, if we are to facilitate the smoother flow of cars that actually do need to be in the heart of town."

And in Councillor-land a "bypass" is needed for Galway so that motorists who are currently bypassing Galway will stop bypassing Galway.

The only thing joining those dots is an unshakeable belief that "car park" and "city" are reciprocal terms.