Galway Light Rail?

dodgyme

nipplenuts wrote:

After all, until very recently Galway was a medium sized provincial town. No reason to plan for a future

Galway was never a medium size provincial town. It is the capital of a county and province, is and has always been the thrid and/or fourth (depending on variables) biggests urban city in the Rep of Ireland (fastest growing in the 1990's) and the largest urban hub on the western corridor from Limerick in the south to Donegal in the north. It is an important education/Health/tourist/commercial centre with a large university and an institute of technology, so there is no need plan for the future.? Cop on mate!

A medium size provincial town is "Claremorris" or "Mallow" in an irish context.? and there is a need to plan here also.

MLM

lukas wrote:

could lead to the kind of higher densities that we in Ireland seem to avoid when urban development is handed over to developers only.

I think most developers would gladly welcome higher densities as it will increase their profits. Opposition of this type tends to come from Nimby's, fear of high rise etc. From what I remember Galway is very spread out making it less suitable for LRT. Concentrating high-rise/high density in a number of key areas, with a view to linking them with high frequency public transport, would help make Galway a suitable candidate for LRT in the long term.

dowlingm

dodgyme

in all fairness, in virtually any country except Ireland only three or four urban centres in the whole island would be counted as cities - and Galway ain't one of them. Here it goes more to historical grants of charters than a urban criteria.

lukas

yeah... developers only build what they can sell I guess... But that only begs the question, doesn't it: whence the fear of higher densities in Ireland? Paris has 5 times the density of Dublin and leaving aside questions about boundaries and all that, in many ways this seems the hub of planning here.

dermo88

I find this crayon and fantasy stuff a bit irritating when there are other, more densely parts of the country crying out for it.

Galway has medieval narrow city centre streets. Its better served by having a proper bus based park and ride system in place, and restrictions on cars going down those streets. These are the main cause of congestion in Galway, it simply was not designed for modern traffic. The same applies to many towns around Ireland, Waterford being one, Wexford being another.

Its Bus and Rail station at Eyre Square is the most centrally located station in Ireland, in fact I have'nt seen anything better located than it anywhere except Birmingham New Street, but thats in a city 10 times the size and 3 times as densely populated.

By all means set aside reservations and prepare proper land use strategies. Thats the Singaporean system, where they clearly define targets on acting once reaching a certain critical mass. In Galways case, set that at 250,000 people, along a 15 kilometer stretch. Thats just an example.

But for now.....I would'nt take Mr Brian Guckian too seriously. Hes an idealist, a dreamer, but theres too much of the Dougalbahn in his proposals.

lukas

dermo88 wrote:

Galway has medieval narrow city centre streets. Its better served by having a proper bus based park and ride system in place, and restrictions on cars going down those streets. These are the main cause of congestion in Galway, it simply was not designed for modern traffic.

Agreed - as a first step. Why we still have cars and busses and lorries going down Williamsgate and Lower Abbeygate Street is beyond me. As for the rest: no - the space is there and the densities will follow. If we use the old pylons left over from when we dismantled the Cilfden railroad (thus neatly connecting NUIG to the rest of the city) and fork over to a revamped Ceannt station, further on across to Remore... Utopian perhaps - outside the box certainly - but is not that what's needed to initiate change?

dermo88

Not today, someday beyond tomorrow. Its not an immediate priority and won't be for another 20 years. But in the interim, keep the plans, and make sure that when the time does come, that its quick to implement. People in Tallaght waited and heard repeated promises for DART/Luas from 1983-2000, Dundrum for the same length of time. Midleton keeps hearing them.

Just be very cynical when you see these things. Be aware that each time a Transport minister or politician sees these rail based wet dreams, that they detract from what modern rail transport should be. Fast, efficient, and moving as many people as quickly as possible. An old engineering maxim is "faster, cheaper, better", take two out of three. In this case, at this time, Galway Light Rail does not fit into these criteria.

1. A proper independent Bus service for the city first, with Park and ride facilities that attract motorists.
2. Galway needs Oranmore and Athenry commuter.
3. Rail to Limerick third.

DerekP11

Slice wrote:

I still think it's such a shame that P11 is not a public transport lobby group instead just a rail lobby group, has there been any consideration given to this in the organisation? The above comment is a good example of how such an organisation would be far more effective than one that deals exclusively with rail. I would definitely join and also it would be far more effective at lobbying for rail issues in such a circumstance and have a far larger potential membership base.

I agree. It has been discussed, but I can't recall what the various opinions were at the time. But the usual barriers are time and manpower.

lukas

dermo88 wrote:

(Galway needs): 1. A proper independent Bus service for the city first, with Park and ride facilities that attract motorists.
2. Galway needs Oranmore and Athenry commuter.
3. Rail to Limerick third.

Agreed on (1) but the currently proposed 'railbus' will (I fear) stall any alternative development for years to come;

(2) not so sure here as it'll again bypass the plans for Ardaun and create yet another car-dependant suburban wasteland and will do nothing to answer the needs of those living in the West;

(3) agreed. it'll need to be linked to Shannon Airport though. does anyone know whether this is part of the plans?

dermo88

Well, you either get that, or get nothing. You gets your options, and you take your choices.

But.....theres going to be something that everyone has overlooked, and I will leave it to Platform11 to reveal any problems. Check their website for details.

MLM

lukas wrote:

(3) agreed. it'll need to be linked to Shannon Airport though. does anyone know whether this is part of the plans?

Not at the moment. As far as I know its open/reopen a station at Sixmilebridge and run a feeder bus service from there, if we're lucky.

dodgyme

dowlingm wrote:

dodgyme

in all fairness, in virtually any country except Ireland only three or four urban centres in the whole island would be counted as cities - and Galway ain't one of them.

What? Galway IS one of them, it is the thrid largest city in the country dowlingm. Do you live in Ireland?

Also in case you didnt know Limerick is the 3rd largest urban area. The reason for this is the large area of limerick city which is in the area of co clare. But Galway metro area is more populated, check you census.

OTK

I started this thread because I thought maybe improved Galway city transport would be a better way to spend money on public transport in the West of Ireland than the WRC.

So the Corrib Light Rail is the proposal of an person unpopular in some quarters - I don't think this is relevant to the validity of the plan itself.

Galway is mostly on an east-west linear axis so it may be a good idea to have some kind of quality public transport along this route.

The WRC envisages people commuting from Athenry (25km) and later Tuam (50km I think). I'd suggest it would be better to improve short distance commuting options rather than encourage living far from town. I see that Platform 11 have a proposal to introduce commuter services along the existing line from Oranmore to Galway(8km) and to build a station at Oranmore and a few intermediaries to support this. I imagine this would carry way more people than the revived Athenry-Ennis WRC section.

On the Western side of Galway to Salthill, what could be done? OK so there are proposals for a bus service and the old arguments that light rail has no advantage over a quality bus service just vastly increased costs. The roads are narrow in central Galway and a decent service would have to reach Eyre square to integrate with the railway and bus station.

As the train arrives in Ceannt station, there is a railway alignment that curves off to the West towards the docks. I wonder could this be extended across a bridge over to West Galway and on to Salthill? Or fit light rail or a bus corridor along this route?

The proposed route from the Greens looks too indirect and too far away from the centre city to be popular.

As regards tram vs bus. In theory I believe that a bus on a mostly segregated route could achieve the capacity and reliability of tram but in practice it seems very hard to achieve. It would require good management (we have only known famously poor mangement of bus services in this country) and you'd need to be sure that the bus tracks didn't degrade in the way that the QBCs in Dublin have done (local authorities and other have made many changes to the road layout and light sequencing, the bus lanes are full of 20 other categories of vehicle with allowance to drive there and so on.). Finally there is the marketing aspect. The ultimate metric of any public transit utility is passenger numbers and it's hard to believe that a bus would have carried the 26 million passengers that Luas managed to attract.

Transport21 Fan

I think that a light rail line for Galway is not a bad idea really. That city is a mess of low density suburban sprawl and a light rail system there would be good for tightening up the suburbs and creating a larger population in these suburbs.

It's the same reason why I fully support the Metro West idea as well. Folks will want to live next to it and good rail services are the only thing which seem to make Irish people want to live in closer proximity. Or even use public transport at all for that matter.

If they are building a light rail for Galway then it should be just a single line from the industrial estates near Oranmore to the tainstation and out past Terryland and not much further. This would do a lot to make a proper city of Galway.

One of the reasons I shy away from this bus solution is because the same "flexibility" which buses offer, also makes the bus a facilitator for sprawl.

A rail line of any kind is by its nature inflexible and therefore the population has to move to the rail lines - whereas with the bus the suburbs can spread out all they want and the bus just follows.

Buses are too sprawl-friendly IMHO. Their purpose should be to feed people into rail lines if possible and/or as QBC. When they are the backbone of a city and it's suburbs, they become the public transport of last resort and you get a city chocked with single-occupant cars and packed slow buses.

Rail Mass Transit is the perfect solution - everything else is second rate. It not only gets Irish people who normally would not take public transport out of their cars, but it also performs the miracle of making Irish people want to live closer together. Look at the development in and around rail and Luas lines and then show me one bus route which did the same. You can't, the bus and sprawl go hand-in-hand.

Therefore I support all light rail, metro and commuter heavy rail proposed and were viable in and around Irish cities.

lukas

OTK wrote:

The proposed route from the Greens looks too indirect and too far away from the centre city to be popular.

Agreed with most of the above - but the "Green" proposal has two major advantages: (1) its trajectory runs as a spine in the middle of the most populated areas of Galway (especially in the West and crucially including NUIG); and (2) it would not require new lands to be laid aside as most of the proposed tracks are free at present. Even aesthetically, using the old railroad pylons in the Corrib could become quite an attraction!

And as to transport21fan: stopping at Terryland would again leave the university without a proper connection - surely students are deserving of such investments?

Zoney

dmeehan wrote:

what about these new fancy "bus-trams"?

They would need to be run as a tram-style service; i.e. ticketing machines at the stops (otherwise loading times are absurd and only one set of doors can be used), extra staff to do the ticket checks ala Luas, decent bays at stops, realistically they need a bus lane to be effective as they can negotiate traffic/junctions/turns even less effectively than a normal bus. Add to this that if the service improves as a result of higher capacity being available, then the capacity will be filled all the quicker. So you need to have plenty of bus trams ready to roll out if you actually go the route of providing the infrastructure (ticketing, stops, bus lanes).

Realistically, the bus trams are a con-job and PR stunt that will provide the usual poor bus service but with new problems. They are new and shiny and so Bus Éireann and politicians will use them to try quell demands for trams or just decent public transport (more buses, greater punctuality, priority at junctions etc).

Victor

These are on different scales, but I think the only way to support a railway would be to put high density development along the rail line and knock a few hundred / thousand semi-Ds in other areas.

Galway

Dublin

Transport21 Fan

lukas wrote:

surely students are deserving of such investments?

*sniff sniff*

hmmmmmmm?

dermo88

Transport21Fan, I think that was a "gick", or was it a Guckian?

Brand new poster and all......

At least hes Irish and lives in the country but for heavens sake, that social justice nonsense just does'nt work.

And rest assured. If that Helfner character pops his head up in any Irish transport forum, I will publicly disgrace him, it won't be poisonous drivel either. It will be facts, quotes, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

In the meantime, meet my online Fido to scare him away. He growls just like an 071 when hes hungry (how cute!), for all you rail enthusiasts out there, feel free to feed him.

lukas

Transport21 Fan wrote:

*sniff sniff*

come on mate! the issue is not about particular social groups but about numbers - and there sure are a lot of THEM around... key is to construct something that allows for expansion, gets people to use public transport, is integrated and sustainable. Funnily, one thing no-one has mentioned so far with regard to light rail systems (or trams - need we differentiate?) is that many Continental small-to medium-sized cities that did not jump onto the 1960s and 70s bandwagon of ripping up their tramlines (to replace them with the ah-so-efficient buses) are now reaping huge rewards and expanding their networks. Also - funny, isn't it - they are also the cities that attract inward investment coz they are perceived to be offering a higher standard of living...

randylonghorn

dermo88 wrote:

Galway needs Oranmore and Athenry commuter.

OTK wrote:

I see that Platform 11 have a proposal to introduce commuter services along the existing line from Oranmore to Galway(8km) and to build a station at Oranmore and a few intermediaries to support this.

I'm no transport expert, just an ordinary person living in Galway, but I honestly don't see why this would be so difficult or expensive (relatively speaking) to implement. If a good, reliable, efficient service were put in place, accompanied by Park and Ride facilities, I know a lot of people living to the east of the city who would be only too happy to avail of it.

Prof_V wrote:

What can be reasonably done now is long-term planning (I know, I know - not Ireland's strong suit), reserving corridors - remember, for instance, that Luas in Tallaght uses reservations made in the late 1970s - and trying to make sure land use supports the future possibility of rail.

lukas wrote:

Reserving spaces for future possibilities is what it is all about

I totally agree. I would be shouting not so much for a light railway system NOW, as for the planning to be done now, and the necessary reservations to be made. Given the lay-out of Galway, there is no doubt in my mind that such a system WILL be implemented at some stage in the future.

RedPlanet wrote:

One thing that gets overlooked i think, is that public transport must be attractive in order to entice people out of their cars, buses are not it.

Attractive, reliable, punctual, efficient ... no public transport system scores 100% on these, but rail certainly scores much higher than buses.

Hamndegger wrote:

bringing the DART to Dingle

Dingle originally had a rail service. A shame that it was allowed to fall into disuse, not so much for the ususal "commuter" reasons as that it would have been a valuable tourist attraction, as old railways are in so many parts of the world. Also, while things have improved a little in recent years with the quays bypass, for many years it was common to spend up to an hour in the summer passing from one side of the town to the other (say from the Mail Road to Milltown Bridge) ... a distance of say 400 yards. If the train still ran during the summer months, huge numbers of day-trippers could have been brought into the town this way, done their bit of shopping, had lunch, gone for a tour of the western part of the peninsula by bus, and hopped back onto the train in the evening. Not alone would this type of package have generated valuable tourist revenue, it would have taken hundreds of cars a day out of the bottleneck which is Dingle. As someone above said, very few places which resisted the urge to pull up their train / tram tracks have lived to regret that decision.

Victor

randylonghorn wrote:

Dingle originally had a rail service. A shame that it was allowed to fall into disuse, not so much for the ususal "commuter" reasons as that it would have been a valuable tourist attraction, as old railways are in so many parts of the world.

The Dingle Peninsula already has a tourist railway at Blennnerville, complete with windmill! :rolleyes:

randylonghorn

Victor wrote:

The Dingle Peninsula aleready has a tourist railway at Blennnerville, complete with windmill! :rolleyes:

Aye, that's the remnants of the one I mentioned ... unfortunately it no longer really GOES anywhere (sorry, Blennerville!) so doesn't really take any cars off the road.

Anyway, Victor, I wasn't actually suggesting that the old Dingle railway be re-built ... but rather regretting that when they stopped the service (at a time when it realistically wasn't viable) it was a pity that they allowed the line to fall into complete disrepair / built across it, etc. More a side-comment on the planning issue I mentioned re: Galway than a call to arms for Dingle at this late stage ...

lukas

randylonghorn wrote:

I wasn't actually suggesting that the old Dingle railway be re-built ... but rather regretting that when they stopped the service (at a time when it realistically wasn't viable) it was a pity that they allowed the line to fall into complete disrepair / built across it, etc.

...same in Galway: note what has happened to the old Clifden railroad tracks. What a wonderful cycle track they would have made - think sustainable tourism, etc. Again: lack of foresight, etc...

dermo88

I see Gordon, George, Bungle and Zippy have entered the planning of the modern Irish Rail network....is'nt that right Crilly.

Crilly, end this Dougalbahn nonsense right now, otherwise, I'll have to send him to some over populated impoverished dump in the Phillipines to build light railways. Lets think........

Very carefully.

I like the cycle path suggestion though.

lukas

...but that's the point, dermo88: yesterday's missed opportunities - see cycle lanes on disused rail tracks - have been 'missed' precisely because people at the time did not think outside their boxes and (even more crucially) did not leave spaces for un-anticipated future uses. Returning to the 'light railway' question I sense that this is what drives at least part of the discussion: the fear that we're creating facts on the ground that may make such a development difficult, if not impossible to achieve in future years. People approach sub-urban sprawl the way we treat the medieval character of central Galway: as a FACT when it is very much a development we can steer. And unless we steer it now, we may look back in future years only to say: "now it is thus and we have to live with it..." Take Seamus Quirke Road and its extension towards the West: the upgrade to dual carriageway IMO will usurp spaces that could otherwise be used - differently. Once drivers have gotten used to two lanes, there's hardly ever a going back...

Chris_533976

They should include land along there for a future Luas of some sort, but something does need to be done about that road... its an absolute joke

Slice

What's peculiar is that there is rarely debate, disagreements or questions asked about decisions to build the many new roads that are being planned or recently completed around the country. Obviously the M3 is an example where there is such debate but when taken as a proportion of the number of roads in the planning it's quite small. And yet when it comes to rail the debate is suddenly fixated on cost in such a way that roads are never subjected to. This is even so in the many cases where investment in road infrastructure far exceeds the capital costs of rail, and all despite the fact that the benefits of rail is not limited to those who choose to drive. If we were to examine investment in roads in the same way then I have no doubt we'd realise that half of the many new motorways completed and under construction are not needed.

It's as though investment in rail needs to be justified yet investment in roads rarely do.

lukas

Slice wrote:

It's as though investment in rail needs to be justified yet investment in roads rarely do.

Slice - well said! Is that because our society fetishizes the car as an enblem of individuality (wrongly, IMO, equated with freedom) at the expense of communal (=public) modes of transportation? If so, what could bring about change?

Schuhart

Slice wrote:

If we were to examine investment in roads in the same way then I have no doubt we'd realise that half of the many new motorways completed and under construction are not needed.

It's as though investment in rail needs to be justified yet investment in roads rarely do.

Good point and, indeed, if we didn't need to spend so much on roads, presumably there would be less need to bring in private finance and hence less need to toll roads.

(Just anticipating a potential blind alley - I don't have any problem in principle with the State collecting a toll for a road either to regulate usage or just to raise revenue. I do see a problem in giving a right to toll to a private operator in exchange for financing a streach of road because, as we know, that simply means it costs us (the public) far more to pay for the road with the benefit of that revenue ending up in the pocket of the private operator and not the State.)