M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

what_traffic

what_traffic wrote: »

Just posted on the Tribune website
https://connachttribune.ie/decision-on-proposal-for-galway-city-ring-road-pushed-back-to-june/

On RnaG this morning Adhmaidin - they had a date of the 25 June 2021 for ABP decision.

Limerick74

Minister urges focus on Galway bus services ahead of new road projects
https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2021/0420/1211040-galway-transport/

SeanW

That makes sense, so long as it's "ahead of" and not "instead of".

Limerick74

Limerick74 wrote: »

Minister urges focus on Galway bus services ahead of new road projects
https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2021/0420/1211040-galway-transport/

Apparently the NTA, Galway councils and the govt have mastered the ability to bend time when it comes to the ring road

According to that article "It is expected that, were planning to be granted, it would take between 12 and 18 months to finish the project."

timmyntc

Deleted User wrote: »

Apparently the NTA, Galway councils and the govt have mastered the ability to bend time when it comes to the ring road

According to that article "It is expected that, were planning to be granted, it would take between 12 and 18 months to start the project."

FYP

timmyntc

timmyntc wrote: »

FYP

Yeah, even that is wildly optimistic

If permission were granted in June and there was miraculously no appeals, it would still be several years before they would even start (CPOs, Prep work, tendering etc)

spacetweek

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah, even that is wildly optimistic

If permission were granted in June and there was miraculously no appeals, it would still be several years before they would even start (CPOs, Prep work, tendering etc)

Why is that? Lack of capacity/funding, or general slowness of process?

spacetweek

spacetweek wrote: »

Why is that? Lack of capacity/funding, or general slowness of process?

Why is complicated to answer, at least from what little I know, however looking at examples from other projects you can see, for example, that the CPO process can be dogged with legal challenges that can go on for ages.

Another example is the Prep work, between the classification of what it entails, the boundary markings, the costings, the application for funding, the granting of funding, the tendering, the awarding, and finally the completion of it, that can take a year or two if not more.

Overall, its not a system designed for speed

Chris_5339762

Deleted User wrote: »

Apparently the NTA, Galway councils and the govt have mastered the ability to bend time when it comes to the ring road

According to that article "It is expected that, were planning to be granted, it would take between 12 and 18 months for the High Court to hear the first objection."

FYP even better

Came across this little vid and I think it perfectly covers the case for the ring road and the effect it will have

https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1207395329236013056?s=20

remfan

We don't need wider roads, we just need one decent road that will take the traffic away from the city. Then more bus, cycle lanes etc. can be added in the center.
As I don't expect Galway's population to get past 120K in the next 30 years, a properly built bypass will more than serve the needs of the city over that time frame.

Of course we can all spend hours every weekday for the next 30 years in traffic jams from Doughiska to Barna, cars belching out fumes etc. as they move at 5K an hour. I know this is as I have worked on the East of the city for the past 25 years and live in the west of the city. I have experienced it first hand. An already the traffic is building and we are not even fully out of the lockdown.

Galway is the only city/town of any size in Ireland that is not bypassed. And when you see the bridges built as part of the Waterford and New Ross bypasses you can see that when done properly will not be the horrible eyesore that some portray.

timmyntc

remfan wrote: »

We don't need wider roads, we just need one decent road that will take the traffic away from the city. Then more bus, cycle lanes etc. can be added in the center.
As I don't expect Galway's population to get past 120K in the next 30 years, a properly built bypass will more than serve the needs of the city over that time frame.

Of course we can all spend hours every weekday for the next 30 years in traffic jams from Doughiska to Barna, cars belching out fumes etc. as they move at 5K an hour. I know this is as I have worked on the East of the city for the past 25 years and live in the west of the city. I have experienced it first hand. An already the traffic is building and we are not even fully out of the lockdown.

Galway is the only city/town of any size in Ireland that is not bypassed. And when you see the bridges built as part of the Waterford and New Ross bypasses you can see that when done properly will not be the horrible eyesore that some portray.

I would agree, but the proposed is not a bypass but a ring road. It's too close to the city, and is being built with intent to "unlock" further development lands in the city, that will now have a fancy ring road going right by them. It won't solve any traffic problems because of this.

KrisW1001

There are two exits on the Waterford Bypass, one on either side of the city (the second is actually far outside the city, in Co. Kilkenny, but whatever). That is a bypass: it exists to serve traffic that does not need to enter the city.

If the Galway road was like the Waterford one, I’d be all for it. As it is planned, I have serious reservations. We should learn from previous mistakes, not repeat them. The N6 Galway scheme, as planned, is not a bypass. It has multiple, closely-spaced junctions to serve neighbourhood traffic. It's a Collector-Distributor road masquerading as a bypass, like Cork's N40, and like Cork’s N40, it will become an unholy mess that creates congestion, and within a decade much more money will have to be spent to widen the road to and reduce the number of junctions (as happened with Cork).

marno21

Deleted User wrote: »

Came across this little vid and I think it perfectly covers the case for the ring road and the effect it will have

https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1207395329236013056?s=20

Sorry, but that's a poor comparison. Many cities, especially in North America, have urban freeways designed to carry traffic to, or through, downtown areas. The US being a prime example. These are all congested at peak times, and attempts to decongest them by widening them, adding additional lanes, adding longer slips etc fails. The M50 is an example of this, but the M50 shouldn't have been built with 2 lanes in the first place when it links together six two lane motorways.

The Galway Ring Road provides a bypass of Galway. There is considerable scope for debate about how many and where the junctions should be, but in practice its a road to remove traffic from the city roads that has no business being there. Galway has no bypass at present. It has a reasonably decent dual carriageway from Doughiska to Ballybrit, which becomes an inner relief road, dumps traffic on the Headford Road, forces all that traffic to share an urban road that has multiples accesses to retail outlets, carries the traffic over a nice wide bridge before dumping it into a dense residential area which also has a major hospital and a university. Calling the section of road through Terryland a bypass is laughable.

The aim of the Galway City Ring Road is to provide a high quality route that separates traffic using the national road network around Galway from city traffic and the city itself. It doesn't go near, nor aim to provide access to the city centre. The debates about planning, sprawl, car dependent development are a separate matter that need to be dealt with using the planning system. This road is in no way comparable to urban freeways or the like which are a different type of problem. With the exception of the Dublin Port Tunnel and the N27 Cork South City Link Road, we have no urban high quality access routes in this country.

marno21

marno21 wrote: »

Sorry, but that's a poor comparison. Many cities, especially in North America, have urban freeways designed to carry traffic to, or through, downtown areas. The US being a prime example. These are all congested at peak times, and attempts to decongest them by widening them, adding additional lanes, adding longer slips etc fails. The M50 is an example of this, but the M50 shouldn't have been built with 2 lanes in the first place when it links together six two lane motorways.

The Galway Ring Road provides a bypass of Galway. There is considerable scope for debate about how many and where the junctions should be, but in practice its a road to remove traffic from the city roads that has no business being there. Galway has no bypass at present. It has a reasonably decent dual carriageway from Doughiska to Ballybrit, which becomes an inner relief road, dumps traffic on the Headford Road, forces all that traffic to share an urban road that has multiples accesses to retail outlets, carries the traffic over a nice wide bridge before dumping it into a dense residential area which also has a major hospital and a university. Calling the section of road through Terryland a bypass is laughable.

The aim of the Galway City Ring Road is to provide a high quality route that separates traffic using the national road network around Galway from city traffic and the city itself. It doesn't go near, nor aim to provide access to the city centre. The debates about planning, sprawl, car dependent development are a separate matter that need to be dealt with using the planning system. This road is in no way comparable to urban freeways or the like which are a different type of problem. With the exception of the Dublin Port Tunnel and the N27 Cork South City Link Road, we have no urban high quality access routes in this country.

Only 3% of all road traffic in Galway match the needs you have laid out which is why it has been designed as a distributor road and not a bypass. They even stopped calling it a bypass because it was obvious to all that it wasn't one

marno21

Deleted User wrote: »

Only 3% of all road traffic in Galway match the needs you have laid out which is why it has been designed as a distributor road and not a bypass. They even stopped calling it a bypass because it was obvious to all that it wasn't one

That's Barna -> Doughiska though. There's a similar level of traffic going M1 -> M11 in Dublin. It doesn't account for N59 -> M6, N84 -> M6, N83 -> N59/R336 etc.

I do agree that when this is built it needs to be protected to stop it becoming a mess. That should be a pre-requisite condition of planning. Another pre-requisite condition of planning should be that road space on the existing N6 is given over before this opens. The planning system should be robust at dealing with issues that we can foresee ourselves on the forum.

marno21

marno21 wrote: »

That's Barna -> Doughiska though. There's a similar level of traffic going M1 -> M11 in Dublin. It doesn't account for N59 -> M6, N84 -> M6, N83 -> N59/R336 etc.

No thats external Galway city to external Galway city crossing the river. 3% was the grand total. More info on this covered in this post

marno21 wrote: »

I do agree that when this is built it needs to be protected to stop it becoming a mess.

The route has been designed to open up land for development, not prevent it

marno21 wrote: »

Another pre-requisite condition of planning should be that road space on the existing N6 is given over before this opens.

No plans anywhere for that. The existing N6 will remain as-is post ring road.

marno21 wrote: »

The planning system should be robust at dealing with issues that we can foresee ourselves on the forum.

The Irish planning system?

Given all that you know from your many years on this forum, do you believe it is "robust at dealing with issues that we can foresee ourselves on the forum".

Sam Russell

marno21 wrote: »

That's Barna -> Doughiska though. There's a similar level of traffic going M1 -> M11 in Dublin. It doesn't account for N59 -> M6, N84 -> M6, N83 -> N59/R336 etc.

I do agree that when this is built it needs to be protected to stop it becoming a mess. That should be a pre-requisite condition of planning. Another pre-requisite condition of planning should be that road space on the existing N6 is given over before this opens. The planning system should be robust at dealing with issues that we can foresee ourselves on the forum.

It will be at least a decade before this road is built. And no real plans to put PT or P&R infrastructure in place.

The current Botha na dTreabh road could be adapted to include bus and cycle lanes with three or four junctions needing serious work. If all junctions were made free flow much of the problems from Terryland to the Coolagh Roundabout (which should also be free flow) could be solved.

Terryland to Knocknacarra is a different problem that requires substantial work, including a new bridge. The current QCB has no PT crossing it.

marno21

Sam Russell wrote: »

It will be at least a decade before this road is built. And no real plans to put PT or P&R infrastructure in place.

Most likely. The PT/P&R is a job for the NTA/Galway Council though rather than TII. TII will be handing the N6 to GCC after this project is done.

Sam Russell wrote: »

The current Botha na dTreabh road could be adapted to include bus and cycle lanes with three or four junctions needing serious work. If all junctions were made free flow much of the problems from Terryland to the Coolagh Roundabout (which should also be free flow) could be solved.

By removing a general traffic lane in either direction?

There is no scope to make any of the junctions freeflow with the exception of the Coolagh roundabout. All of the other junctions east of Terryland have development up to the road boundaries on every corner of the junction, and the 2 on the Headford Rd are 90 degree turns. The cost of CPOing the land alone would make the project much more expensive than the Ring Road with many less benefits

Sam Russell wrote: »

Terryland to Knocknacarra is a different problem that requires substantial work, including a new bridge. The current QCB has no PT crossing it.

A new bridge there would require access roads and there's nowhere to put them without more large scale demoliton.

marno21

Deleted User wrote: »

No thats external Galway city to external Galway city crossing the river. 3% was the grand total. More info on this covered in this post

The route has been designed to open up land for development, not prevent it

No plans anywhere for that. The existing N6 will remain as-is post ring road.

Given all that you know from your many years on this forum, do you believe it is "robust at dealing with issues that we can foresee ourselves on the forum".

My apologies, you clearly have more of the figures involved than I do.

However, there is scope for there to be PT requirements in conjunction with the Ring Road. And for there to be planning conditions around car based development.

The last of the full city bypasses to go through planning was Limerick/Waterford in the early 2000s and the Cork and Dublin routes (and indeed Limerick too) were built in phases in the 90s and early 00s. We have no precedent for a situation like this which gives scope for new thinking.

Sam Russell

marno21 wrote: »

Most likely. The PT/P&R is a job for the NTA/Galway Council though rather than TII. TII will be handing the N6 to GCC after this project is done.




By removing a general traffic lane in either direction?

There is plenty of space outside the few junctions. Driving on the road, and looking at google maps, it is only at the junctions that there would be problems. That is just as true for the bypass.

There is no scope to make any of the junctions freeflow with the exception of the Coolagh roundabout. All of the other junctions east of Terryland have development up to the road boundaries on every corner of the junction, and the 2 on the Headford Rd are 90 degree turns. The cost of CPOing the land alone would make the project much more expensive than the Ring Road with many less benefits

Well, the Tuam Rd and Monivea junctions could take it but it might be tight. Raising the main road might be required.

A new bridge there would require access roads and there's nowhere to put them without more large scale demoliton.

Yes, that is where the problem lies. Dunnes stores to past the hospital.

Look, if it will be a decade before it opens, they should concentrate on public transport and cycling infrastructure which can be delivered in a very short time. Just look at how fast the DCC moved to get things done during the Covid shutdown.

remfan

The section East of the Corrib does not open any new land up, there are 2 junctions Parkmore/Ballybrit (to the industrial/business parks) and the Headford Road
West of the river there is a junction for the N59. After that there are a number of junctions however there are already many smaller roads that provide access for any developers wishing to build, the bypass will not change this. The route cannot go further north as we have the Lake and the SAC. So it has to go where it currently designed to go. As for the comparison with Waterford, it is bypassed to the north and also has the new ring road right around the south of the city, with lots of junctions.

SeanW

Sam Russell wrote: »

Look, if it will be a decade before it opens, they should concentrate on public transport and cycling infrastructure which can be delivered in a very short time. Just look at how fast the DCC moved to get things done during the Covid shutdown.

Isn't that what's being proposed with the Galways BusConnects?

remfan

The Galway City Council online planning tool shows the land take quite clearly. It is clear from this that very little land would be opened for development, land that isn't already accessible by poorer quality roads, and also how the route is staying very close to the built up areas of the city, and constrained by the lake, and some very wet bog land in the Barna area. If the route went any further north it would clearly have potential to open significantly more land for developers.

spacetweek

"Not allowing sprawl" is a difficult sell. The whole point of infrastructure is to provide transportation service. Imagine opening a railway line then not serving communities with stations. The London Greenbelt is widely considered to be one of the main reasons for the city's low house completion rates.

KrisW1001

Sprawl is not “communities”, though. A community has meeting places (shops, pubs, churches, greens, schools, etc). Urban sprawl is the death of communities: these low density area offers nothing to young people, so as soon as children are grown, they’re gone. You’re never “from” places like this, you just grow up there.

The benefit of rail is that it encourages densification: a good rail service makes people buy or build close to the stations. That higher density increases footfall and makes other businesses and social amenities viable there too.

timmyntc

remfan wrote: »

The Galway City Council online planning tool shows the land take quite clearly. It is clear from this that very little land would be opened for development, land that isn't already accessible by poorer quality roads, and also how the route is staying very close to the built up areas of the city, and constrained by the lake, and some very wet bog land in the Barna area. If the route went any further north it would clearly have potential to open significantly more land for developers.

Any land either side of the ring road would become high value since it now has "good" transport links and would end up developed. Especially north of the ring road. The city will continue to sprawl outwards until we need another "bypass" that goes even further away.

Sam Russell

timmyntc wrote: »

Any land either side of the ring road would become high value since it now has "good" transport links and would end up developed. Especially north of the ring road. The city will continue to sprawl outwards until we need another "bypass" that goes even further away.

North of the ring road is water.

KrisW1001

North-west isn't

zell12

To remind that Taoiseach admitted in 2018 that the ring road was to open up land for development
https://twitter.com/cosaingalway/status/984543819160047621?s=20