M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119025293#Comment_119025293

'Maybe a new distributor really is all that's needed, but this could have been avoided by making the bypass 4 lanes + 2 bus lanes back in the 1990s like they should have.'

They can still do that now. Bothar na dTreabh for most of its length could take that. Free flow junctions would be possible at much less disruption that the proposed GCRR. The dificulty is getting across from Terryland to Newcastle - a distance of less than 2 km. There are only four junctions before the N84/N6 junction.

They picked the wrong route and the wrong solution. It would be cheaper to put in P&R and a Luas based solution instead. Surely everybody would love a shiny tram.

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119026559#Comment_119026559

How could it be easier to free flow that than a greenfield dual carriageway? I can’t see how.

Galway doesn’t have anything near the population density for a Luas. And anytime densification is suggested the usual suspects (funnily enough who are anti bypass but pro Luas) are out making racket about densification. They can’t have it every way

Sam Russell

@marno21 You have highlighted the biggest problem of the upgrading of Bothar na dTreabh - the area of Terryland and how do they cross the Corrib. Well, the GCRR also has that problem and they resorted to a tunnel. Also the GCRR is not dealing with a green field site - ask those whose house are going to be compulsorily purchased, and those who will be living next to a motorway, like those in Menlo.

If they can tunnel under the racecourse and near the Corrib, then they can work out how to go the 2 km to go from Terryland to Newcastle.

Well, they do not need a Luas, but a decent frequent bus service would make a huge difference.

KrisW1001

It's incorrect to claim that those opposed to densification are the ones who are in favour of a light-rail system. Densification of development outside of Galway is badly needed: it's the worst example of low-density sprawl in Ireland.

This low density is the ultimate cause of the horrendous traffic: lots of people live in dispersed housing which is impractical to serve by public transport, so travel by car is the only practical option. However, unlike other car-dependent environments (e.g., Western USA), the main destination is not a similar sprawl, but rather a very compact city. So, every morning, we try to squeeze all those cars into a space too small to take them. You cannot have a car-dependent transport unless everything is built at car-friendly densities. That's why Los Angeles or Dallas can manage with cars alone, but more compact cities like San Franciso or New York require mass trasnit.

GCRR will not fix this fundamental problem of mismatched density; it will only make the city fill faster in the morning. This is my primary objection to the scheme.

The solution is to better serve those origin-points with connections to higher capacity transport. A good start would be a light-rail or dedicated bus corridor running west and east, with park-and-ride every 4~5km. You cannot eliminate driving from suburban Galway, but you can confine it to the suburbs, where there is at least enough space for those cars to move around. Thing is, this would have to be a continuously funded and managed transportation system, rather than the politically easier path of just paying someone €600million in a once-off action to build a road, and that is why it won't happen so easily.

Aontachtoir

"GCRR will not fix this fundamental problem of mismatched density; it will only make the city fill faster in the morning. This is my primary objection to the scheme."

But the GCRR is not supposed to fix that problem by itself. That problem can only be managed properly as part of a multimodal solution, such as the Galway Transport Strategy (of which the GCRR is only a component), and which already includes major improvements in public transport. This has been repeatedly pointed out by other posters.

It's not clear either what distinction you are making between a "continuously funded and managed transport system" and the system that exists today. Do bus routes organically grow on their own? Do cycle lanes appear our of thin air? Do roads maintain themselves for free? Of course not. The current transport system is continuously funded and managed too.

TnxM17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119028280#Comment_119028280

You are correct to say that the GCRR is only a competent to the Galway Transport Strategy …….. the €600 million part.

what_traffic

€600,000,000 figure is from 2016....... its heading towards double that unless they further water down some of the proposals contained within it. Build as far as the N59 perhaps?

Primary purpose of the GCRR is to cater for the huge volume of single vehicle cars at peak times from the rural towns and rural commuters coming into the City. Majority of whom are coming from North and East of Galway City. It was a 50/50 split of Commuters between City and County at the Oral Hearing

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119028280#Comment_119028280

The GCRR actively undermines any attempts at public transport or sustainable travel because it will lead to induced demand and even greater car use. The council's own reports state this! Car usage is projected to increase further after the GCRR is built.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119025293#Comment_119025293

but this could have been avoided by making the bypass 4 lanes + 2 bus lanes back in the 1990s like they should have.

Yes, and maybe LA's traffic problems could have been avoided if they just built it with 6 lanes from the outset. Or the M50 would have worked if only it was 4 lanes, or 5. 🙄

If you build it, they will come - that's pretty much how roads work. You build more capacity, and it will fill. They you're back to square 1.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119039720#Comment_119039720

With interest rates set to rise, and all our construction/materials/fuel inflation to date, the cost of this is going to be astronomical. I wouldnt be surprised if it topped the 1bn€ mark now with cost of finance. Will the government approve that kind of expenditure in an era of tightening our belts?

what_traffic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119039823#Comment_119039823

"If you build it, they will come - that's pretty much how roads work. You build more capacity, and it will fill. They you're back to square 1."

Yup, in 2055 can see this happening for sure if the GCRR goes ahead, another generation locked in regardless of what the head of the GCRR project said, I am paraphrasing here "we cannot keep on building more and more roads."

CatInABox

I already had a serious question mark over this, due to the many legal challenges it faces, but the current head winds from inflation and environmental policies must mean that this has very little chance of proceeding.

Consider that Eamon Ryan has already cancelled the Limerick Northern Distributor Road, the TII have launched a review into just how much the current budget can deliver with the recent inflation pressures, and the Killaloe Bypass has been delayed due to cost increases, I don't really see how you can look at this road and think that it's going to go ahead.

TnxM17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119039720#Comment_119039720

The reason I use the €600 million figure is that as far as I am concerned the GCRR is bad value at that cost, let alone what it would be now.

And the reason why I don't agree with this current plan is exactly for the reason you state - it will offer very little to all the cars currently coming in to the city. I am fortunate that I leave Galway early in the morning so I am against the traffic, which is in one constant line from Headford Road to the crossroads near Corrandulla on the N84.

KrisW1001

Galway is repeating its past mistakes. It already has way more road lanes than you’d expect in a city of its size, and that only created worse traffic. Now, they’re trying to fix the problems of induced demand by inducing more demand.

The Galway metropolitan area (city+nearby parts of county) has a population of 94,000. For comparison with its peers, Waterford’s metropolitan area had a population of 60,000 and Limerick’s figure is about 105,000. These are all basically in the same size bracket: there’s a major leap to get to Cork, whose metropolitan area has 300,000 inhabitants (All figures are from the 2016 Census).

If you’ve driven in Waterford, Limerick or Cork, you'll see the big difference in road provision within the city limits: Galway has clearly used an American model of wide collector-distrubutors that slice through the inner suburbs, while both Limerick and Waterford* have followed a more European model of orbital relief routes and primary streets (not roads). You only have to listen to the traffic reports in the morning to see that Galway’s approach does not work. Even before Limerick and Waterford had full bypasses, neither of those cities reached Galway’s level of gridlock, but Galway was so bad that I, who never set foot in Galway until ten years ago, already knew the names of every arterial road into the city thanks to long repetition by AA Roadwatch.

(*I would argue that in general, Waterford is the best-planned city in the State, especially when it came to residential zoning and servicing of lands, but that’s really not on topic here, except to note the general point that if you have good land-use planning, you don’t get bad traffic).

The point really is that Galway’s problems have been created by inappropriate traffic infrastructure. Another, more extreme version of the same wrong idea is not going to fix the problem. Roads are needed, and I've said before that I have no problem with 600 million euro being spent on roads in Galway, but my problem is with this "magic bullet" approach to transport planning, as if just building a road that can bring more cars into the city will somehow fix the existing problem of too many cars trying to access the core of Galway city.

For that approach to work, you need to demolish parts of the city centre, widen streets and convert them into urban expressways. Traffic will flow better, but there'll be nothing worth driving in for anymore.

what_traffic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119040366#Comment_119040366

Very true. Similar if one was to travel against the traffic on the N83 either side of Claregalway (which is mentioned on the Radio 1 every morning) and the N59 inbound from Moycullen direction.

?Cee?view

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119040007#Comment_119040007

Ryan really is a menace

Aontachtoir

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119040501#Comment_119040501

But the GCRR is not supposed to be a magic bullet. It is merely a part of the much larger Galway Transport Strategy. This has been repeatedly pointed out.

At this stage, it is misleading to suggest that the road is supposed to be a magic bullet that solves all of Galway's traffic problems by itself.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119040738#Comment_119040738

Depends on your perspective of course, but he's done more to benefit sustainable travel in the last 2 years than the last 3-4 Ministers for Transport combined.

I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store over the next few years as the newly funded active travel roles in County Councils start having an impact.

If you use sustainable options for travel in Ireland things are only going to get better.

The other side of that, naturally, is the de-prioritisation of the private car i.e the least sustainable option. Long overdue imho.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119040745#Comment_119040745

The problem I see is that as soon as GCRR is built, every other urban centre will use its cost as a reason to favour them over Galway for future funding. In that environment, it will be very, very hard to secure the funding needed for the public transport aspect (my guess, around 4~500 million at the same pricing values as the GCRR estimate), and because these actions are not one big project like GCRR that you either have to fund all of, or do without, the plans can get whittled away by politicians looking for a way to cut budgets, and you’ll get a half-assed service that won’t sustain itself.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119041359#Comment_119041359

Except the lead time for the GCRR is getting on for decade, while the activity for cycling infrastructure has been months. Let us see the PT put in place now, and we can wait for the judicial revues to wend their way through the courts.

Seth Brundle

Looks like GCC is allowing low density car dependent developments north of the proposed ring road...

https://twitter.com/ccferrie/status/1527571946283606017

https://twitter.com/ccferrie/status/1527575179618144256

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119088658#Comment_119088658

The ring road was always intended as another distributor to get people from knocknacarra to parkmore quicker, what better way to reduce journey times than to put people's houses right next to the road!

marno21

Is that housing development near to an access point to the GCRR?

Galway’s tricky geography means eventually there will be some need for housing development in the land outside the GCRR, but this should be sustainably planned and dense where possible

Seth Brundle

You don't reduce car dependency by continuing with urban sprawl. This just shows that Galway is not following a sustainable approach to development. It also helps prove that the cost of the GCRR would a complete waste of money because before long, it too would be massively congested

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119088714#Comment_119088714

Nonsense, there is ample space within the ring road to accommodate a trppling if galways population

Pete_Cavan

Well, it didn't take long for the pretence that the GCRR isn't intended to facilitate Galway city in sprawling further to be dropped. I'm sure this will only help the appeals against the planning permission for the road, shows how little the council care. The lure of a housing estate on the west side of the city is too strong, they just can't resist approving it.

cgcsb

You'd think they'd be working to deliver housing on a massive scale with CIE at Ceannt Station but naw

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119088762#Comment_119088762

I would absolutely love to see this as I’m sure you would; so much land around the docks and around the railway station, but how much can you fit in there without the Galway is not Dubai stuff flaring up?

That new development at Bonham Quay would be even better if there was waterfront apartments nearby, within walking distance of the office, town and public transport.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119089152#Comment_119089152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119088899#Comment_119088899

This is the plan, to develop a massive area around the station lands.

In fact its the plan several of the major PT hubs

https://www.mola.ie/portfolio/ceannt-station-urban-quarter/

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119089176#Comment_119089176

Fantastic. I had forgotten that plan, has there been any movement recently?

Ideally though, there’s a lot more land around there for development beyond the station site itself. Apartment construction in particular is quite challenging at the minute which won’t help

Aontachtoir

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119088811#Comment_119088811

This is interesting, as it is not even a case of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" but "ante hoc ergo propter hoc". The GCRR hasn't even made it through the planning process and won't for years to come. Will permission be revoked for this development if the GCRR is not built (as many posters on this thread insist it will not)? That seems highly unlikely. If one is not contingent on the other, it seems a bit of a reach to claim these houses are being built because of the road. Or is the plan simply to say that any future developments outside Galway's city centre are due to the GCRR?

There are huge plans underway to densify central Galway, especially around the station, which I am all in favour of. However, Ireland is in the middle of a severe housing crisis, and we should be building as many houses as possible as quickly as possible. In a city that is already car-dependent, another tiny housing estate isn't going to make any significant difference to traffic, but will make a huge difference to those who are able to purchase their own homes.

As always, a multi-pronged option is the most sensible and realistic approach to real-world problems.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119089305#Comment_119089305

In fairness, I don't think anybody was arguing causation between the Ring Road and this housing development, rather that all the discussion of "we won't allow this road to become flooded by new car-oriented developments" are now demonstrably false.

The whole thing looks like a copy of the M50 or N40 mistakes, but decades later. A distributor/bypass fudge road. Really hard to reverse these mistakes.

The answer in my humble opinion is to either build a Galway bypass or not. Building a new outer distributor is a bad idea. Again in my opinion. Because the council will use the spare capacity of the distributor as an excuse to permit more sprawl.