Ideas for Galway in 2040?

jkforde

Was at the Galway2040.ie event in GMIT today and they're looking for any ideas from the public on how they want Galway to develop in the next 30 years.... reckon this is a genuine attempt to reach out to the regular JJs to see what we think and since it'd be too easy and lame to sneer at it and be cynical that it's all about the filthy lucre, what about we send them some feedback and get involved... :eek:

It's kinda ridiculous to call it 2040. I'd be much more interested in the way Galway will be in 2011, or 2012 than 30 years down the line.

jkforde

Deleted User wrote: »

It's kinda ridiculous to call it 2040. I'd be much more interested in the way Galway will be in 2011, or 2012 than 30 years down the line.

BABM, it's called vision. Nimmo built some of the infrastructure around Galway and the city and it has lasted 200+ years. He wasn't thinking one or two years down the line.

biko

One doesn't exclude the other. With a long term goal you can then break it down to several measurable short term goals while still keeping an eye on the long term goal.

jkforde

biko wrote: »

One doesn't exclude the other. With a long term goal you can then break it down to several measurable short term goals while still keeping an eye on the long term goal.

Of course, totally agree Biko, a vision isn't easily fertilised now and doesn't just suddenly hatch later and hey presto, out pops a fully formed vision. But I think BABM was suggesting (maybe I'm wrong) that visionary thinking is misguided and we should only always look to the myopic future.

Mrs OBumble

jkforde, I was there in the afternoon only, and was going to post to see if anyone else attended at what they thought: it seemed to me that the values behind many of the visionary ideas suggested fit my ethical perspective, but are a long way from where your average Padraic and Patricia are now.

Interesting to pick up a comment that they're planning to establish an on-line discussion forum as part of the process: wonder how many people they'll actually recruit to something short term to that vs hooking in with an established forum that's already got an audience.

ScumLord

Deleted User wrote: »

It's kinda ridiculous to call it 2040. I'd be much more interested in the way Galway will be in 2011, or 2012 than 30 years down the line.

2012, panic, as it all goes to hell.

blindpilot

Traffic will be a bitch in 2040.

jkforde

blindpilot, scumlord - with respect, this place is full of wit in other threads.... is there aaaany chance that ye could bottle it just this once and be constructive?

blindpilot

jkforde wrote: »

blindpilot, scumlord - with respect, this place is full of wit in other threads.... is there aaaany chance that ye could bottle it just this once and be constructive?

Fair enough. Apologies guys. Although there was a little seriousness in my post. I wonder what can be done about it in years to come. Especially on the west side of the city where it really is bad at the moment.

Steyr

Monorail FTW. Make sure whatever transport happens that it bloody well goes out to the Airport on a hourly basis, we still dont have this service to/from the Airport in 2010, idiots.

Steyr

Also while im at it another poster talked about the Rivers that will overflow, this is a Nationwide issue, if there was more balls and less bickering in Local Govt/Council and National Govt the Rivers/esturys/inlets etc whatever would be deepened and dredged overy 5 years.

I wonder if the city will have doubled in population in the next 30 years like I think it did in the last 30.

A Galway of 150,000 people would be very different to the Galway of today.

There would probably be a lot more pedestrianisation and quality bus corridors across the city.

And hover cars

jkforde

ya, population projections say 250,000 - 400,000 by 2040 so something radical is going to have to be done alright. all the reports and such are going up on the website in the next few weeks so keep an eye on that if you want details of the ideas that were concocted by the various groups.

mikom

Roma's workin' the streets from hoverboards.
Travellers finally feeding their horses..... in pill form.
Rocket ships slowing to a crawl on the quincentennial bridge once it rains for more than a few minutes.

jkforde

mikom, any real world ideas?

without being a freakin pain in the hole about this but can we not have one thread on here where the display of one's infinite wit isn't the default currency?

galwayrush

With those population projections,now is the time to start planning new suburbs of suitable density to make high speed rail connection viaible.

jkforde

ya, it's time we demanded top notch public transport facilities in this town. the latest development plan has already gone through the public consultation stage so it's too late this time around but all the councillors are on the ole email... www.galwaycity.ie/AllServices/YourCouncil/CouncilMembers/

I would have thought an extensive tram system would be better unless all development takes place on a Galway-Oranmore-Athenry corridor.

A population of 250,000 would probably have sprawled out beyond the proposed outer bypass making it an inner bypass like the new bridge.

Hopefully all theses extra people will be living in proper urban areas rather than sprawling out into the countryside as one off rural houses.

Existing houses and estates nearer the centre would have to be bulldozed to push up the density. I don't think I would like very tall buildings here (>10 stories)

biko

This thread reminded me of something I've been meaning to do a long time, see the new sticky.

Sponge Bob

jkforde wrote: »

ya, population projections say 250,000 - 400,000 by 2040 so something radical is going to have to be done alright.

The population projections are utterly ridiculous. 400,000, don't make me laugh.

Since 1980 Galway City has gone from say 50k people to 80k. It will likely hit the 100k but no more. The county has 200k now including the city.

I reckon that yer Tuams and Ballinasloes will shrink, Galway City will grow. Short distance commuter towns ....certainly no further out than Athenry.. will grow too.

But the population of the entire county will not exceed 250,000 and half or more of them will be in the City or within 10 miles. In 1980 less than half the population were in the city or within 10 miles of it...Oranmore Barna Moycullen and Claregalway were crossroads...not villages..back then.

A sprawl of 120,000 people from Barna to Athenry might justify one luas style line east west ....in 2040 and ata pinch.

We will need the bypass first to remove traffic from the city so that we can cycle and walk in it and dig up the streets for trams.

For electric cars one needs fairly clear roads, they take to long to charge you see

Mrs OBumble

galwayrush wrote: »

With those population projections,now is the time to start planning new suburbs of suitable density to make high speed rail connection viaible.

Done before: Aradaun.

Comments made yesterday by someone from GMIT about the possibility of high density living area which made it possible for people to walk most places were fascinating. However the more I think about them, they're just not what Irish people seem to want. Which means that planning for the future would really be about huge attitude change for the population.

There were also assumptions about social inclusion that I don't believe the majority of Irish people really support at all.

I didn't hear the economics part of the discussion, but would be more interested in starting with where all those new people would work, and planning the living around that.

ScumLord

jkforde wrote: »

blindpilot, scumlord - with respect, this place is full of wit in other threads.... is there aaaany chance that ye could bottle it just this once and be constructive?

2040 is pie in the sky imagination land. Why not just put all the valuable information we have right now into action instead of dreaming about what others might do sometime down the line when this conference is long forgotten about.

We have the technology and knowledge right now that would seem so alien to people it would be like moving 10 or 20 years into the future if we made use of them today.

jkforde

ScumLord wrote: »

2040 is pie in the sky imagination land. Why not just put all the valuable information we have right now into action instead of dreaming about what others might do sometime down the line when this conference is long forgotten about.

We have the technology and knowledge right now that would seem so alien to people it would be like moving 10 or 20 years into the future if we made use of them today.

sure, but like Biko said, vision and current action aren't exclusive. do you think infrastructure projects, like the national motorway scheme, were planned 2 or 3 years before they were started? they were planned 10-15 years at least. forward planning or vision, what term we use is a mute point. the point of this 2040 initiative, and others growing around the place, is getting the likes of us thinking and directly involved in the decision making process instead of coming on here in 20 years time moaning that 'no one bothered to ask me my opinion at the time'.

but completely agree with you on your second point, in a sense we are living in the future if we just grasped and demanded it!

time for all of us to get off our comfy pontificating fence where we Irish love to smugly sit... (sorry, end of rant for rest of thread!)

Could we impose some sort of grid on the city?

ScumLord

jkforde wrote: »

sure, but like Biko said, vision and current action aren't exclusive. do you think infrastructure projects, like the national motorway scheme, were planned 2 or 3 years before they were started? they were planned 10-15 years at least.

The vast majority of that time is wasted on bureaucracy and politics. Such and such is complaining about it, the local TD wants it put through he's brothers land so he'll get a big pay off, then there's the issue of who gets the money, I mean the job to do the work. A road could be planned and built within two or less years as the research is done the skilled labour knows how to do it and the supplies can be shipped from just about anywhere in the world in about 2 weeks.

I'd agree that a vision is needed, a clear and definite goal, at the minute or leaders are running around like headless chickens with no idea where they're actually going with their decisions but still, by the time 2040 comes around if we haven't done the work there'll be no saving us, we'll be falling head first into a food and population crisis that can't be solved.

Maybe it's just that the website is so cryptic in that it's not giving any reasons to turn up. It's lacking any real information on what will be going on at the show it looks like any other brochure website for one of these pay on the door shows.

galwayrush

Deleted User wrote: »

Could we impose some sort of grid on the city?

That could be done with new suburbs.

Amhran Nua

Whatever else needs to be done, don't try to copy Dublin. Not because its a unreachable, but because it's been used as an example of how not to do city planning at the European level.

To be honest though any serious effort along these lines is going to need cooperation at the national level, for funding if nothing else, including a complete shakeup and consolidation of the various ineffectual councils and committees around the county, and it should move beyond the concept of Galway as the living waxwork tourist town/permanent stag night student houseparty/FDI partner, which is again dependent on national vision.

Are there any other examples of successful revamps of medieval cities into modern metropoli we can look at for comparison, surely the organisers have examples to present?

Amhran Nua

ScumLord wrote: »

Maybe it's just that the website is so cryptic in that it's not giving any reasons to turn up.

Sadly typical of local authority beaurocracy, everyone is too busy trying to justify their jobs and advance their careers to actually achieve much of any use. As they say, if you can't blind them with brilliance...

ScumLord

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Whatever else needs to be done, don't try to copy Dublin. Not because its a unreachable, but because it's been used as an example of how not to do city planning at the European level.

To be honest though any serious effort along these lines is going to need cooperation at the national level, for funding if nothing else, including a complete shakeup and consolidation of the various ineffectual councils and committees around the county, and it should move beyond the concept of Galway as the living waxwork tourist town/permanent stag night student houseparty/FDI partner, which is again dependent on national vision.

Are there any other examples of successful revamps of medieval cities into modern metropoli we can look at for comparison, surely the organisers have examples to present?

They could just avoid the city centre leave it as the unique medieval town that it is and build modern living centres just outside it with proper roads and infrastructure. I've seen enough of gutting old buildings, developments tucked into corners and clogged transport networks.

No more estates and housing either they're the worst form of living accommodation out there.

jkforde

sigh...this thing has nothing to do with the local authorities.. this is business and civic groups coming together to generate ideas and to distill some of those into tangible action on the ground. why lazily knock something that you obviously don't understand? comfy on the fence is it?

and on the day the planning part of it highlighted the fact that the centre is untouchable and all new infrastructure must be high density with civic-led project management. keep an eye on the website, all their reports will be on there soon.

Amhran Nua

jkforde wrote: »

sigh...this thing has nothing to do with the local authorities.. this is business and civic groups

Which business and civic groups? I couldn't find any on the website. Despite organising a seminar in GMIT there isn't so much as a phone number there. I haven't the energy to go rooting around the web for information as today is a Sunday, so perhaps you could provide further details?

jkforde wrote: »

why lazily knock something that you obviously don't understand? comfy on the fence is it?

Its really not a hard concept to get, and get it I do. However the point I was making is that given the turbulent national economic and political situation, you won't be able to make any decent plans for at least five years.

Maybe a new government will want a focus on maritime shipbuilding, and demands the gearing up of much of the docklands area to that end. Maybe government ineptitude continues and emigration causes Galway's population to drop.

Whichever, the national picture is too important to ignore, and that picture is just not clear yet. Galway is not a city-state.

jkforde wrote: »

and on the day the planning part of it highlighted the fact that the centre is untouchable and all new infrastructure must be high density with civic-led project management. keep an eye on the website, all their reports will be on there soon.

Just off the top of your head, what would be the average age of buildings in the city centre, fifty or sixty years?

jkforde

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Which business and civic groups? I couldn't find any on the website. Despite organising a seminar in GMIT there isn't so much as a phone number there. I haven't the energy to go rooting around the web for information as today is a Sunday, so perhaps you could provide further details?

The thing is organised around 'pillars' or teams of representative people from the different strands of life in the city and county. So there's Marine & Energy\Research, Enterprise & Innovation, Infrastructure & Environment, Galway Docklands, Tourism, Culture\Arts, Agriculture & Food, Education and Social Inclusion. The chair of each group presented summaries of their group's work on the day and each will publish their own report soon. Some of those presenters came from...

Galway City Chamber of Commerce
NUIG Research
GMIT
HP | Boston Scientific | Medtronic
VEC
Marine Institute
Artists coordinated by Galway City Artist in Residence
Fáilte Ireland
BurrenLIFE
EPA
IFA
SIPTU
Galway Harbour Authority
National Women's Council
Galway Cycling Group
.......

The next one will be next March sometime. And there's this email on the back of the brochure: galway2040@gmail.com. The contact form on their website worked fine for me though. Drop them a line with some improvement suggestions, I found them to be open and welcoming of constructive criticism.

Amhran Nua wrote: »

Just off the top of your head, what would be the average age of buildings in the city centre, fifty or sixty years?

no clue. what the planning speaker on the day said though was that downtown is zoned as medieval in character and is considered an archaeological minefield in terms of taking on any substantial reordering of infrastructure there so the idea is to focus future development upwards (15+ stories) and on the dockland area and out towards what he called the Arduan Corridor. Should have a more detailed idea once their respective reports come out.

Regardless of the specifics, there was a good buzz there that day with people fired up to do something and not just to moan over pints and wait for the same shower in Dublin to throw us some scraps.

Amhran Nua

jkforde wrote: »

The chair of each group presented summaries of their group's work on the day and each will published their own report soon.

Okay, but I assume these groups didn't spontaneously appear, who was the initial primary motivator? There is a real issue with local level publications in my experience, they have a tendency to make the Lisbon treaty look like light summer afternoon reading, which is completely unneccessary; I hope this group can overcome that. I will say that its great to see a combination of groups as involved in the city as this putting their heads together though.

jkforde wrote: »

no clue. what the planning speaker on the day said though was that downtown is zoned as medieval in character and is considered an archaeological minefield in terms of taking on any substantial reordering of infrastructure there so the idea is to focus future development upwards (15+ stories) and on the dockland area and out towards what he called the Arduan Corridor. Should have a more detailed idea once their respective reports come out.

If its untouchable so we'd be better off just to preserve it, and build two or three new complete city centres at the three points of the compass that aren't underwater, and fast connections between those, not centred on the old city as they are now. If I want to get a bus from Rahoon to Salthill, I've to go through Eyre Square to get there. This would mean making a deliberate effort to sidestep the medieval parts as much as possible. If it can't be changed its of limited utility for the future.

Speaking of water, has anyone given any thought to the likelihood of sea level rises over the next fifty years, and the possibility that low lying areas might become uninhabitable?

jkforde wrote: »

Regardless of the specifics, there was a good buzz there that day with people fired up to do something and not just to moan over pints and wait for the same shower in Dublin to throw us some scraps.

Those scraps include money though. Its true that there should be a plan ready for when the money comes in however.

jkforde

I think the two main movers are Paul Shelly and Rory O'Connor, the latter is esp. regarded as inviting in the non-business people to prevent the thing turning into just money-money-money. The members of the steering committee are: Paul Shelly, Rory O'Connor, Jim Fennell, Michael Coyle, Kevin Leyden and Padraic Fogarty.

and I thought of the sea level rise and storm surge issue as well but no one mentioned it but the Marine Institute are modelling it...I think they're saying there'll be a 25% increase in surge frequency by 2050 with up to 0.25m increase in mean sea level.

Sponge Bob

It is a worthwhile initiative, I hope they complete their macro scoping phase soon and start to prune the initiatives down to a few good ones per major strand .

Then lets roll with those.

mikom

Sponge Bob wrote: »

It is a worthwhile initiative, I hope they complete their macro scoping phase soon and start to prune the initiatives down to a few good ones per major strand .

Then lets roll with those.

That's some blue-sky thinking right there.

Mrs OBumble

ScumLord wrote: »

No more estates and housing either they're the worst form of living accommodation out there.

Care to expand on that a bit?

I'm not fond of rows of little boxes (which is what estates look like to me), but have been quite surprised by how many Irish people like the uniformity of them, and the way they group people into village-sized units.

Some food for thought from the CSO:

Population of each Province and County as constituted at each census since 1841
Geographic Area
Galway County and Co. Borough
Census Year-Population
1841-440198
1851-321684
1861-271478
1871-248458
1881-242005
1891-214712
1901-192549
1911-182224
1926-169366
1936-168198
1946-165201
1951-160204
1956-155553
1961-149887
1966-148340
1971-149223
1979-167838
1981-172018
1986-178552
1991-180364
1996-188854
2002-209077
2006-231670

ScumLord

JustMary wrote: »

Care to expand on that a bit?

I'm not fond of rows of little boxes (which is what estates look like to me), but have been quite surprised by how many Irish people like the uniformity of them, and the way they group people into village-sized units.

The spread out living in estates is short sighted and more individualism that we just can't afford as a community any more.

A high rise village, and I do mean village with modern amenities would be much, much easier to build and run, you'd have transport, power, sewage all going to one point. While I'm not gone on some of the designs I've seen as they're too modern and bland looking for my taste (although that's just aesthetics which is easily fixed) the principle of the idea is the only one workable in a modern over populated world.

lampsie

I'd like to see in Galway City, by 2040:

a) Completion of city bypass (one would hope it would arrive earlier, but signs this far are far from good)
b) Pedestrianisation of Eyre square and its surrounding area's (e.g. the square itself, middle street etc)
c) Harnessing of the coastal resources, including but not limited to modernisation of the harbour (thread on that in last few weeks with a pre-viz youtube link?) and harnessing tidal and/or offshore wind for the city

If I've completely missed the point of this thread - ah well

mrsdewinter

PG633's figures are interesting - but I don't see Galway city becoming a 100,000-plus city any time soon. The growth of the past 20 years was fuelled by the boom, which attracted lots of natives home from abroad/Dublin and lots of non-nationals. As belts tighten, I think a lot of the younger people with no ties will leave.
And honestly, it's no bad thing. When I lived there eight years ago, it was bursting at the seams. If you lived on the western side and worked on the east side (a choice a lot of people made), you were punished for it during the drive to and from work.
Why does nobody address the issue of why Galwegians continue to live in Salthill/Knocknacarra, a cluttered city-centre away from their place of work on the east side?

ScumLord

lampsie wrote: »

I'd like to see in Galway City, by 2040:

a) Completion of city bypass (one would hope it would arrive earlier, but signs this far are far from good)
b) Pedestrianisation of Eyre square and its surrounding area's (e.g. the square itself, middle street etc)
c) Harnessing of the coastal resources, including but not limited to modernisation of the harbour (thread on that in last few weeks with a pre-viz youtube link?) and harnessing tidal and/or offshore wind for the city

If I've completely missed the point of this thread - ah well

Those things shouldn't take any longer than 5 years. The human race at this stage in their existence can make just about anything happen in ridiculously short amounts of time. The major obstructions to anything we do these days are money and bureaucracy. Both of which are imaginary constructs.

jkforde

what'd I'd like the west to do is to install a dedicated tera\petabit cable (and upgradable as tech leaps on) across the Atlantic to MIT\Boston and make Galway the sister tech town over here with equivalents of MediaLab, MIT research, etc. and have the next generation WiMax (or whatever is next) for 20miles around Thonabrucky. Online is where everything is going so I'd dream of Galway being a mini-Korea (the Koreans are making 1Gbit standard by 2012!...aah, what's Eirscam planning again?!)

Jamey

I was at this conference for the morning. It was very city-based, and I was disappointed at this as they had mentioned it being a plan for the county as well in much of the documentation before the event.

However, I found the talk given by the Harbour master very encouraging, and his vision for the development of the docks looks promising.

Did anyone else see the crazy entrepreneur who stood up early in the morning and went on a rant about the city failing him? He walked out after his rant. He had been trying to get permission to build an ice rink in the city for something like 15 years with no luck. Complained about teenagers only option being to drink cider in a park as there wasn't enough amenities in Galway for adolescents. Personally, I don't see an ice rink as the solution to any teenage anti-social behaviour in the city... :rolleyes:

DRakE

blindpilot wrote: »

Traffic will be a bitch in 2040.

hover cars

jkforde

Jamey wrote: »

I was at this conference for the morning. It was very city-based, and I was disappointed at this as they had mentioned it being a plan for the county as well in much of the documentation before the event.

the afternoon sessions dealt with farming and tourism so not as city focused.

Jamey wrote: »

Did anyone else see the crazy entrepreneur who stood up early in the morning and went on a rant about the city failing him? He walked out after his rant. He had been trying to get permission to build an ice rink in the city for something like 15 years with no luck. Complained about teenagers only option being to drink cider in a park as there wasn't enough amenities in Galway for adolescents. Personally, I don't see an ice rink as the solution to any teenage anti-social behaviour in the city... :rolleyes:

that was Joe O'Donnell trying to get his ice-skating park on Terryland Forest Park lands, a council saga I'd say! he did come back in but he didn't stay for the whole thing, looked :mad: as hell.

Sponge Bob

jkforde wrote: »

what'd I'd like the west to do is to install a dedicated tera\petabit cable

That is already being planned but not by Galway2040 .....at this time anyway.

jkforde

Sponge Bob wrote: »

That is already being planned but not by Galway2040 .....at this time anyway.

am intrigued SB, any more info, this a national thing? anyhow, any time you read about the latest tech advances it's invariably either the east coast or the west coast of the States coming out with the research so a dedicated research link to the east coast centres would pay for itself multiples I reckon

Sponge Bob

Nope, Galway thing for now, then International _obviously_

challengemaster

ScumLord wrote: »

Those things shouldn't take any longer than 5 years. The human race at this stage in their existence can make just about anything happen in ridiculously short amounts of time. The major obstructions to anything we do these days are money and bureaucracy. Both of which are imaginary constructs.

You're forgetting that anything county council related completely defies this, and will take atleast 4 times the normal amount of time :pac: