M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

what_traffic

Cookiemunster wrote: »

Which will be protected from development along the round and will have free flow junctions.

Are you sure?
The 6km single carraigeway section certainly will not be "free flow".

what_traffic

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

edit: tho is there even any bus routes that go via Quincentenary bridge?

EXACTLY. There is none currently. Not ONE city orbital bus route right now here in Galway City.

what_traffic

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I'll hold my hands up and say I'm not a Galway native and don't drive through the city centre often, but I don't fully understand your argument. Why do people need to drive through the city centre: I presume because they're living in a Western suburb and working in an Eastern one and vice versa?

Should traffic not be minimised through the city centre, allowing private vehicles only to use the N6 and Salmon Weir Bridge crossings? it seems like there should be very little traffic transiting south of that. The same thing is currently going on in Cork where people are protesting heavily that there's a need to transit through the city centre.

But it seems fairly obvious that if you allow people to drive straight through your city centre as a shortest-route option, it will effectively lead to a dependency on that route. You can put the ring roads in place and people will still want to use this route as it'll be "shortest". That's not OK. Perhaps an option for Galway and Cork, where a bad-planning related dependency on city-centre driving has built up, would be a congestion charge on the city centre streets?

By all means build the ring road too, but the idea that it needs to come first to solve Galways traffic problems isn't necessarily correct from all I can see, I think people should be heavily discouraged from driving through a city centre, in general, and that there needs to be a modal shift.

The biggest problem here seems to be the very idea of weaning people off the car. I say seems, again, because I'm not a Galway native and don't drive through the city centre very often.

I am a Galway City native who lives and works here in Galway City. I agree with everything you say here.

what_traffic

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

edit: tho is there even any bus routes that go via Quincentenary bridge?

I thought you were a local

what_traffic

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Well without a bypass, any bus that goes via this chokepoint would be sitting pretty in the same traffic car park

One is not independent of the other.
Pragamatic thinking? You need to widen out your thinking techniques.

what_traffic

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

I regularly seen private and BE buses on it several times, hence unsure

The only "scheduled" bus that goes over Quincentenary Bridge is the HSE P&R shuttle bus for HSE Staff only. Between Merlin Park and UHG.

http://www.saolta.ie/hospital/uhg/directions

remfan

Unless you have spent some time in Galway it is difficult to clearly understand the need for this bypass. Galway city does not have a ring road (there is a major road that 30 years could have been regarded as being a partial ring road). The city centre roads are too narrow for bus, cycle and pedestrian lands to co-exist. From 7.30 AM to 7 PM Monday to Friday the city is choked. Just look at Google maps with traffic enabled. Access to the major industrial zones and the University is severely limited.  Galway is the only city/town of any size in Ireland that has not been bypassed.
The bypass is vital to secure Galway’s future as a vibrant modern city. We need to take the traffic out of the city centre and a bypass will allow for more extensive pedestrianisation of the city centre, more cycle and bus lanes in the city centre including the potential to add bus lanes to the Quincentennial Bridge which is a key internal artery connecting the city East-West of the Corrib.
There is a lot of nonsense being spouted about alternatives such as Gluas and more public transport. We cannot make people use public transport whether we like it or not. We are on a large island with a small population, for many cars are required, not just for commuting etc. If we can make public transport effective, and this means taking the cars out of the city via the bypass, then perhaps more will be encouraged to use PT. 
A properly managed, safe and secure public-school bus system like the USA (with a driver and an assistant and laws that prevent passing of school buses when their hazards are flashing etc.) could be very effective in the peak traffic season when the schools and colleges are open. Parents would be more likely to use such a service if it was done properly. However, this would not alleviate the serious congestion we have each evening, and which is exacerbated during the summer months by our much welcomed and needed tourists.
There are also many pinch points in the city that could be improved. Again, if you look at the live traffic it is clear where they are. More yellow boxes, left turns on red, automated pedestrian lights, removal of some roundabouts etc. would help but these are only band-aids in the longer term.
The city continues to grow, and we need to grow with it. You would think that reading some of these posts that the construction of modern infrastructure was some form of a crime. We can choose to live in mud huts or we can choose to adapt as we have always done. There is room and need for a bypass and at the same time there is a need for better public transport, pedestrian and cycle friendly infrastructure and bus lanes also. 
We also cannot allow those with deeply vested interests in this bypass never seeing the light of day to prevail. I bet that many of those who are against the bypass don’t take the old R446 between Galway and Dublin, I bet they are on the M6 in their Audi A8s etc.

Cookiemunster

what_traffic wrote: »

Are you sure?
The 6km single carraigeway section certainly will not be "free flow".

Sorry, I meant the dual carriageway. By the time you reach the first at grade junction on the single carriageway section you'll be West of the city. Unlike with the current mishmash of dual carriageways and roundabouts.

cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Are you from Galway? have you seen how narrow the roads are and close in the houses are on both sides of every street leading into city center?

How would you put in more bus lanes and cycle paths without serious amounts of CPO and demolition on every single steet heading into city center.

We keep hearing about how nice it be to have this and that (yes of course it be nice), but completely avoiding the elephant in the room, narrow streets.

Bus Connects will solve this, there'll be a long stretch of bus corridor through the city centre, from which cars will be banned.

revsperminute

My two penny worth, but I do think there was an opportunity missed by Galway City Council when the railway bridge on Lough Atalia was being developed. This road was changed to one way inbound with Collage Road and Foster Street acting as outbound. When the bridge was reopened both roads should have been left as one way and a bus lane introduced on both as a trail to see how it would work.

The Bypass needs to be built in order to take the traffic away from the city centre, once its done, more road/streets within the city could revert to one way with bus lanes. For instance the Bohermore Road could act as an inbound route with a bus lane and the Headford Road could act as outbound with a bus lane. Its only a suggestion as I cannot see how we can introduce bus lanes at present without major change to some of the streets

I live in Ballinfoyle and I can walk to Eyre Square quicker than getting the 407 bus and that is with no traffic. Its far more complex a situation than just introducing bus lanes without the bypass.

hans aus dtschl

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Building a bypass would allow traffic to stay out of city

Which can then be pedestrianised further and/or narrow streets replaced by bus+cycle only lanes.

The alternatives are basically knocking down huge chunks of the city to widen streets which wont be ever accepted

I can not understand the dogmatic lack of understanding that by taking cars out of city that dont need to be there, that opens up room for all sorts of pedestranization and bus lane plans, without demolishing hundreds of homes.

This sounds logical.
What I'm saying is that traffic will possibly increase further to the point where the new road fails as a result of there being no meaningful effort to provide for sustainable transport methods the way we do for private motors.
I don't believe that the commuter cars will necessarily be taken out of the city centre by this road: they're unfortunately still trying to get cars out of Cork city centre some 20 years after the Jack Lynch Tunnel opened. You won't get cars out of the city centre by spending more of your budget providing for cars, only by spending a larger portion of your budget on other transport modes.

Of course the argument for this ring road can still remain beside all of what I've just written: there's a significant population west of Galway with no proper road link as you have pointed out and that seems to be a perfectly logical reason for it. I just struggle with the idea this road is necessarily the precursor to solving Galway's traffic problems. It'll probably just facilitate further development east and west, much the same as we saw in Dublin and Cork when their orbital roads were completed.

Edit: just to state once again I'm not against this road, and I'm willing to trust local knowledge in saying it's badly needed, but I don't subscribe to the idea of spending more on roads and achieving modal shift.

what_traffic

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

I just struggle with the idea this road is necessarily the precursor to solving Galway's traffic problems. It'll probably just facilitate further development east and west, much the same as we saw in Dublin and Cork when their orbital roads were completed.

I don't struggle at all, we also have the evidence from other Irish Cities which are in similar size to Galway City like Waterford and Limerick which have NEWISH orbital roads around them now and do not show any shift in transport modes since those have been built.

what_traffic

revsperminute wrote: »

My two penny worth, but I do think there was an opportunity missed by Galway City Council when the railway bridge on Lough Atalia was being developed. This road was changed to one way inbound with Collage Road and Foster Street acting as outbound. When the bridge was reopened both roads should have been left as one way and a bus lane introduced on both as a trail to see how it would work.
.

Might make more sense to make a BUS Gate out of College Road. Then it would be a local traffic only with buses.
Outbound Galway Port traffic should stick to the Lough Atalia Rd (still not adequate ) Routing HGVS between the CIE Bus& Train Station and the Coach Station on Fairgreen Road to get onto College Rd is not a good idea IMHO.

Donegal Storm

The huge amount of car parking all along Headford Road is surely something that needs to be addressed as well. This small stretch is near permanently gridlocked and probably the biggest pinch point along the N6



The roundabout in the middle has been removed which from my limited experience since seems to have improved things a bit but it's still a ridiculous amount of space given over to surface car parking so close to the city centre

Sam Russell

Freeflow the whole of Bothar na Treabh and the Tuam Rd and congestion will be relieved. Then carry Bothar ns Treabh across the Corrib on a new bridge into Newcastle.

It is the love of roundabouts and traffic controlled junction that contributes to the congestion, and the provision of plenty of parking.

Just look at the difference the flyover made to the Mad Cow Roundabout on the N7.

hans aus dtschl

Since there's probably no better thread to ask this:
Is there nothing to be gained from making those roundabout junctions all along the N6 freeflow? Seems like there's some space around every junction east of the Corrib.

hans aus dtschl

Sam Russell wrote: »

Freeflow the whole of Bothar na Treabh and the Tuam Rd and congestion will be relieved. Then carry Bothar ns Treabh across the Corrib on a new bridge into Newcastle.

It is the love of roundabouts and traffic controlled junction that contributes to the congestion, and the provision of plenty of parking.

Just look at the difference the flyover made to the Mad Cow Roundabout on the N7.

You're thinking about the exact same thing as me, just posted as I was typing!

hans aus dtschl

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

How many houses would that cause to be demolished? and where exactly will this bridge be build (without having to demolish new University buildings)? compared to proposed bypass and existing bridges.

I would have said cut-and-cover and then widen the Coolough road and get your new crossing and West-of-Corrib to join the N59. But I'm just looking at maps, I don't know the area well at all.

hans aus dtschl

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

There is only two left on east side (one on west), one at menlo (right hand side of above old photo) which is soon to be gone and one at end of m6 in Doughiska, which the new bypass replaces with flyovers...

Here is what it looks like on Friday evening when factories finish early, as you can see most traffic is just trying to get cross city

Yep it seems clear that a new bridge is needed to the north of the current ones.

what_traffic

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Some here would insist that this is not city center and is on the "orbital"

Funnily enough the amount of parking has reduced greatly since above picture to accomodate new junction, wider paths and a bike rack also the park that runs thru this area has grown up quite a bit, all those green areas in photo are still there

Finally notice how narrow the streets get towards bottom left (city center)

This is 100% false.
One might think it did - but the roundabout itself was taking up a huge amount of space.

what_traffic

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Erm Galway shopping center does have less parking, are you sure you are from Galway?

You said reduced greatly?
Go on prove it?
How much parking before and after.

cgcsb

cgcsb wrote: »

Bus Connects will solve this, there'll be a long stretch of bus corridor through the city centre, from which cars will be banned.

Have any plans for Galway city bus connects been published yet?
I had a search but didnt find anything a while ago.

The ring road and bus connects plan together should jump the city forward.

what_traffic

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Erm Galway shopping center does have less parking, are you sure you are from Galway?

Will help you out a bit here.
So today: Galway Shopping Centre has 760 car parking spaces.
http://www.galwaysc.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/01/Galway-Shopping-Centre-Brochure.pdf
That figure is greatly reduced from what amount before the Roundabout was removed?

dtlibra

Will we open before the Sagrada Familia in 2026?
Sagrada in Barcelona, has been under construction for over a hundred years!

monument

L1011 wrote: »

Galway's existing ring road ceased to be capable of providing that function a decade and a half ago due to development. That can't be undone now. Motorway status protects new roads from that kind of development

I’m not an engineer and even I can see how it can be undone if the overall goal includes unsustainable travel.

marno21 wrote: »

Galway does not have a ring road. It has a dual carraigeway relief road which turns into an single carriageway relief road with traffic lights before stopping dead at a roundabout surrounded by housing estates

There’s the guts of what is needed and that could be improved without the size of a project which is needed.

marno21 wrote: »

Easily done by building a road for cars and using existing urban roads for public transport and active transport.

Really? So, you build more road capacity than overall cross-city/river trips and that’ll have people flowing into public transport and active travel... has that worked anywhere?

JCX BXC

City absolutely paralysed at this time already. No traffic light outages and the only thing contributing is the fact that it's drizzling. If a bit of rain can do this to the traffic in Galway then we really are past the point of suggesting Public Transport will solve the problems.

Bobeagleburger

Was chatting to someone Tuesday afternoon. It took her 2 hours to drive from Tusm to Galway in the morning.

Also, tailbacks from Galway City to Moycullen reported same day. Meanwhile, nothing being done ahout it. Total incompetentcy by the people in charge. Galway councillors are embarrassing. Still talking about a Gluas ffs. Time wasters.

RoboKlopp

RoboKlopp wrote: »

Meanwhile, nothing being done ahout it. Total incompetentcy by the people in charge.

The roads have a finite capacity. Once that is met or exceeded, you get congestion.

Mediums to long term the following is being completed:

- The bus connect project is kicking off shortly.

- The ring road has just been signed off by cabinet

- Construction of additional bus lanes is commencing

- Works being completed in Parkmore to prioritise buses and increase capacity

That's not to mention the further plans for The Salmon Weir, Eglinton st, etc.

As for short term measures, what, in your opinion, could be done to react fast enough on any given day, to over capacity situations?

I'd wager little to nothing simply because you can only gets something many cars through a junction inside a given time.

Bobeagleburger

Deleted User wrote: »

The roads have a finite capacity. Once that is met or exceeded, you get congestion.

Mediums to long term the following is being completed:

- The bus connect project is kicking off shortly.

- The ring road has just been signed off by cabinet

- Construction of additional bus lanes is commencing

- Works being completed in Parkmore to prioritise buses and increase capacity

That's not to mention the further plans for The Salmon Weir, Eglinton st, etc.

As for short term measures, what, in your opinion, could be done to react fast enough on any given day, to over capacity situations?

I'd wager little to nothing simply because you can only gets something many cars through a junction inside a given time.

The ring road is 19 years and counting in the pipeline. By the time it's completed it'll not be far off 30 years.


Short term - get more people out of their cars. Encentivise. A large % of the congestion is from workers crossing from west to east and back again. Most cars have one person in them. Lay on buses to do this and do it at a price that'll make people use them. I'm a regular road user, watching this every day. There's people being paid to fix this and there's no short term plan. It's chaos.

Sam Russell

RoboKlopp wrote: »

The ring road is 19 years and counting in the pipeline. By the time it's completed it'll not be far off 30 years.


Short term - get more people out of their cars. Encentivise. A large % of the congestion is from workers crossing from west to east and back again. Most cars have one person in them. Lay on buses to do this and do it at a price that'll make people use them. I'm a regular road user, watching this every day. There's people being paid to fix this and there's no short term plan. It's chaos.

Could they run free buses as an experiment? Even a €1 fare might be enough to entice commuters out of their cars.

You can run a lot of buses for a long time with the €600 million that the ring road will cost. If it cost €10 million a year for the buses, that is 60 years.