M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

The ecoablism is nauseating.

An aside- Why is the Galwegian works singled out for national attention? My guess is it has been a succes where the other anti-road (eg anti-M50) movements have failed.

waterwelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193063#Comment_120193063

The M50 is a failure. Decades of investment in metros instead would have left us in a much better place right now.

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120192917#Comment_120192917

And I don't even think that people who are in favour of the Ring Road are opposed to some of the public transport/active travel schemes that are being put on the never-never. It's possible to be in favour of both.

Bus Lanes on the Dublin Road and the WDR are not to be done at the expense of the Ring Road, but rather as well as.

The problem is that the council are putting the Ring Road first, and seemingly refusing to do (almost) anything else in the meantime.

Larbre34

Isn't it interesting that the argument against here, is about an induced demand increase in greenhouse gas emissions from ICE vehicles, yet by the time this road is opened, ICE engines in new passenger and light commercial vehicles will no longer be available and will be an already diminishing presence in the national fleet.

And so, the real argument becomes about reducing extraneous multi-purpose traffic of every sort from Galway City Centre and suburbs, including that bound for Connemara and the west coast, to free up space for sustainable solutions in and around the City core.

If you don't think the Government who passed the climate legislation in the first place, isn't prepared to work around it to deliver the above scenario and deliver the NDP and GTS, you're very naive.

The climate parameters are entirely satisfiable and they will be.

TnxM17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193147#Comment_120193147

Sure, won't we will all be in flying cars by the time its built.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193121#Comment_120193121

my trip to Rosslare via it from Athlone suggests otherwise. As does countless airport runs, Swords visits, Dublin visits, and the odd trip to Northern Ireland. One near miss with a boy racer blasting towards me on a blind bend the far side of (Trim? I forget) showed me the value of Dual Carriage, even if it's a longer distance.

and I'm talking about the prevention of sodturn. Prevention of the work getting done. This has occured for the past 30 odd years in Galway. It did not in Dublin.

so, again...Why is the Galwegian works singled out for national attention? My guess is it has been successful in preventing the works going ahead where the other anti-road (eg anti-M50) movements have failed.

Larbre34

But not flying 40 foot lorries and tipper trucks, eh boss?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193147#Comment_120193147

to free up space for sustainable solutions in and around the City core

I seem to have to repeat this fairly regularly

There are no plans anywhere, by anyone, to reallocate any space once the ring road opens.

If there was such a plan, and it laid out in details how a huge load of space was going to be reallocated and it was scheduled to happen the day the ring road opened and it was set down in law so nobody could pull a fast one, was fully funded, planned & ready to go then you'd see a lot of resistance wither away.

As it stands, however, its very much a case of having the cake and eating it i.e. get the ring road and keep as much space for cars in the city as possible.

The argument that the ring road is needed to "free up space" is a blatant lie without any shred of evidence to back it up. Its the equivalent of "trust me bro"

and you're not fighting tooth & nail to get those plans in, even when a golden "you can get your tarma-Satan ONLY IF you include THIS" opportunity sits in front of you with the review?

Yeah......

waterwelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193194#Comment_120193194

It's been said already, moving 1 person in a 1 ton box measuring about 4m X 2m is not the way to go.

A full integrated public transport would be serving us much better now.

TnxM17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193063#Comment_120193063

When planning permission was approved a few months ago that too got national attention.

Juran

People see the Galway ring road as a local bypass eg. knocknacarra to ballybrit. Its not, its also a critical.a bypass for thousands of people living in Connemara south (spiddal, cois fharraige, carraroe, letirmor, casla, rosmuc, carna) and Connemara north (clifden, maam, rounstone, ballyconneely, oughterard) to travel to east (athenry directiin), north east (tuam) and south of Galway (gort), as well as Dublin, Limerick, Sligo and the rest of the country. A big huge lake and river seperates west Galway from the rest of the country, and to pass this lake/river, all Galway west communters have to drive through the city, westside and QC bridge.

Same goes for holiday makers coming from Dublin, east of Galway, Cork, etc.. they all have to drive thru the city to get to Connemara/West.

Yes, the city needs city public transport for city and suburbs like knocknacarra, oranmore, etc.. but a ringroad would serve more than local traffic.

Unrealistic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193391#Comment_120193391

That also sounds intuitive and logical until you look at the Councils' own submission where it is made very clear that journeys between Connemara and points east of Galway city account for only 3% of journeys. The other 97% of journeys have a departure point, destination, or both, within Galway City.

So, while I feel for those taking part in those 3% of journeys, in the overall scheme of things those journeys are necessarily quite far down on the list of problems that need to be solved. Even the headline 3% makes no distinction between those who can time their journeys to avoid peak times, and thus aren't seriously inconvenienced by the status quo, and those who have no choice, which will be only a fraction of the 3%.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120192856#Comment_120192856

Ah, it’s perfect-is-the-enemy-of-better, then.

I really don’t see your point. Transportation uses an enormous amount of fossil fuels, but electricity generation is moving away from fossil fuels. If you want to reduce fossil-fuel use, you must tackle three big areas: electricity generation, heat and transportation - these are the biggest users. Switching transport over to using electricity means that you now have only two sectors to clean up, and the electricity generation sector is composed of a small number of emitters, not the hundreds of thousands in transport or heating. Replacing fossil-fuels with electricity wherever possible is the enabler for reducing CO2 emissions. It’s no use having 100% renewable electricity if every house burns gas and every car burns petrol.

Maybe you’re misreading the word “transportation” as “cars”, but if I’d wanted to say “cars”, I would have written it. I mean electric public transportation, electric freight, and yes, electric private cars.

@Juran - if it were a bypass, it would have far fewer exits, maybe just four. This road is basically a collector-distributor, used for urban traffic from one area of Galway to another, like Cork’s N40, but at least N40 also carries cross-country traffic, something you can’t say for N6 here. This is not even disputed by the people who want to build it - the traffic surveys showed that less than 3% of journeys in the study area crossed the Corrib.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193391#Comment_120193391

According to the planning documents, the % of traffic that you define equates to 3%

You don't spend 1 billion for an 18km road for 3% of demand

Not when 1 fifth of that spent on more sustainable options would free up far more capacity on the existing network

Larbre34

Trust me bro, is as good as you're gonna get.

FF and FG will agree to bulk up the sustainable commitments to get Ryan to roll over and that'll be the beginning of road space allocation.

But only if the GRR is allowed proceed.

There's more than one way to hold a hostage.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193347#Comment_120193347

So my experience is an abomination and I am utter scum for having it, as is everyone who does similar acts. Cool, cool….

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193623#Comment_120193623

Trust me bro, is as good as you're gonna get

Which is exactly why nobody believes a word of it

Muahahaha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120192917#Comment_120192917

well fair play for changing your mind over the years, Id imagine some are in the same boat as well. But I still get the impression that those in favour of the road tend to shout the loudest and are heard more. Im also thinking back to the Salthlll cycleway where local businesses scuppered that despite Salthill looking like one giant car park. There are a lot of powerful voices in support of the ring road and my impression is they are heard the most.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193063#Comment_120193063

I think its because whatever way the Ring Road goes it is a barometer nationally on how seriously or not the government are willing to take hard decisions to reduce carbon emissions. That environment didnt exist when the M3 and M50 were built, it wasnt a concern back then. Now we are locked into global agreements to reduce emissions which eventually have huge fines attached. Proceeding with the ring road effectively locks in even more carbon emissions for decades compared to building sustainable mass transport.

The other side of it as well is probably many living and commuting in Leinster have now lived through the induced demand of the M50 for close on two decades now and it is still a car park. Its gone through widenings, free flow junctions introduced and toll barriers removed and is now over capacity with no more space for improvements and it wlll now remain a car park until viable public transport is introduced. Induced demand is a real thing and new roads quickly become over capacity with it. There are paraellels between the M50 and the ring road in that back then huge numbers of people were shouting for it to be upgraded, that happened and then within a year it was back to being a car park again. Its not hard to see the ring road go the same way, it will probably be fine for a few years but then induced demand will kick in and turn it into a car park. People who have commuted the M50 for years have lived this and can see the same mistakes becoming very likely in Galway with this ring road.

what_traffic

The Connemara issue is not about people wanting to go around the City - the vast majority are going into the City. 3% figure is for Bearna to beyond and about 5/6% from N59 if I remember the ARUP stats correctly so about 10% - the other 90% travelling on the Coast Road and Clifden Road are going into the City.

If the Ring Road is in place in 10years time, YES it will alleviate congestion for about 5-10yrs on some of the routes into the City but would increase congestion on other sections of the City Network so by 2039 we would be back to square one again. ARUP's own figures for 2039 projections if a Ring Road was in place of walking, cycling and public transport numbers were abysmal. These are projections with the entirety of the GTS been in place. Cycling and public transport numbers were in the single digitS and walking as modal share decreased. I thought that alone was the death knell for this project when I seen these numbers in the reports. Maybe it was ARUP's way of covering their integrity on it.

Some clarifications from Pauline O'Reilly

First tweet of the thread below and a link out to threadreader for any that want to read it as a webpage

https://twitter.com/paulinegalway/status/1621252761919553537

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1621252761919553537.html

Larbre34

No boss, they are interpretations from O'Reilly and mostly guff too.

Mainly, she is under the impression that this stuff is not subject to other interpretation, that it's fixed for all time and that it is not in gift of this or future Governments to provide a statutory solution to enable it.

That makes her naive and wrong.

Bobeagleburger

What's the outlook for car usage in 20/30/40 years?

I remember watching a TedTalk a few years ago, and the whole car ownership was being questioned. The slant was vehicles would be used to when required, similar to a Uber, but the cars were self driving.

Seems pie in the sky for Ireland as it would require vast investment etc. Interesting all the same.

Anyway, when a tiny city can't even sort out a traffic problem it doesn't fill me with hope.

The GRR was first discussed nearly 25 years ago. The climate change action plan is the best excuse the government main party's could ever have been given. It's a easy way to duck out of it and not be blamed, the greens will take the hit.

It'll never be built imo. I could accept that if they started proper alternative measures.

Increase bus frequency from all commuters towns as well as city buses.

The most important one. Have massive discounts on bus/train tickets.

If they want to get people to use public transport you need to have a top service, and also make it very financially appealing. The climate debate will not make the majority of people choose public transport. That's the reality.

CatInABox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120195365#Comment_120195365

That idea of self driving cars arriving when you want them and leaving to do something else once it's dropped you off has been roundly shot down at this stage, it'll involve a massive increase in the amount of car journeys, not a reduction. That's not the only major problem with it as well, first among the problems is that self driving cars are a total bust. Tesla are being sued over their "self driving" features, and other companies are drastically scaling back their attempts at creating a self driving car.

Agree on the public transport front, have to admit that they're taking the right steps in Dublin at least. The 90 minute fare has been great, and the increased frequency on some routes has been revelatory. It's definitely resulted in more people using the service, but it has been botched a bit as well, with driver shortages resulting in disruption.

Seth Brundle

Increase bus frequency from all commuters towns as well as city buses.

The most important one. Have massive discounts on bus/train tickets.

If they want to get people to use public transport you need to have a top service, and also make it very financially appealing. The climate debate will not make the majority of people choose public transport. That's the reality.

I don't think cost is actually much of a factor when compared to efficiency but if course busses are not running at efficiency because they get held up by drivers in cars

cgcsb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120194253#Comment_120194253

Funny you mention the M50 and it's continued worsening despite multiple improvement projects and yet there are currently no proposals to build a parallel public transport option. You simply cannot cross the liffey in West Dublin without a car which is astounding, you have hundreds of thousands of people looking at eachother across a river with massive shopping centres, hospitals, offices, colleges on both sides and no way of reaching eachother other than by car on the m50

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120193147#Comment_120193147

All cars even electrics pollute.

Tyre pollution from driving (where do you think the tyre goes when it wears?) is much bigger than you think for starters.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120195391#Comment_120195391

People would rather sit in traffic in their car than on a bus - thats the issue.

That and the fact all buses from west to east need to transit through Eyre Square. Orbital routes and bus lanes badly needed.

Sam Russell

Make the public transport free (or nearly so) and provide useful P&R and if that only reduces car use by 10%, it will make a difference to congestion.

Making city centre parking hard to find, and expensive would increase the use of free PT, particularly if it introduced gradually over a number of years. The old philosophy of parking in the first spot near your destination is a good strategy as you will spend longer looking for a better spot that walking to your destination.

The congestion is not caused by first 50% of motorists, it is by the second 50%. But who claims to be in the first 50%? - everybody!

Unrealistic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120195696#Comment_120195696

@Sam Russell "Making city centre parking hard to find, and expensive would increase the use of free PT, particularly if it introduced gradually over a number of years."

Indeed, it's already happening. The area I live in isn't served by any bus routes but there is a small area of free parking next to a bus stop on the route that does come the closest to our area. Quite a few of my older neighbours drive there, park their cars, and hop on the bus to get into the city centre. The combination of free parking and free travel is a compelling alternative to driving into the centre and paying €6.50 for parking.  

TnxM17

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120195696#Comment_120195696

Higher bus frequency and consistent times will always trump price IMO. People would pay for a reliable consistent service, but as noted above if you're going to be stuck in traffic most people would rather sit in their own vehicle than share. However, if you're sitting in traffic & watching buses zip by then there could be a shift in people's attitude to buses.