Light rail for Galway

cgcsb

a reliable bus network in Galway needs to come first, and for that you have to shift them cars, but they lover their cars in those parts.

Fitz*

Get an actual reliable public transport system in place from the commuter towns to the industrial parks. Leaving every 15 mins max. Make it reliable, so that if you miss one, you are not waiting an hour for the next one. Make it easy to use, cheap and reliable.

Right now, there is a necessity to drive to these industrial estates as there is no other option. The bus routes are set up to ferry people from Eyre Square to Parkmore but to be fair, not many other places. If you live in Oranmore and work in Parkmore, what public transport system options do you have? To my knowledge, the options are;

1) drive to Oranmore train station, park and then get the train to Ceannt station and then leave Ceannt station and walk to Eyre Square and go back the direction you came from on the BE bus and arrive in Parkmore. Around a 45 minute journey
2) get the BE bus from Oranmore heading towards Eyre Square and get off the bus near Roscam and then wait for another bus to arrive and hop on this bus and get to Parkmore. Around a 50 min journey

Driving is around 15-20 mins drive so why would people use public transport when it more than doubles your journey time and even that is when you leave at the exact same time that a bus leaves and no delays or late buses etc.

The options are even less for Loughrea, Athenry, Claregalway etc. The options are not there, so people are forced to drive unless they happen to live close to Eyre Square.

Make people have a real choice to make in terms of public transport costing €4.00-5.00 return for the day and be roughly the same time as a car journey, if not quicker, and then the number of single occupancy cars all doing the same journey as each other at the same time will slowly reduce.

Ashleigh1986

cgcsb wrote: »

a reliable bus network in Galway needs to come first, and for that you have to shift them cars, but they lover their cars in those parts.

Cgcsb .... It's not possible to have a reliable bus service at present in galway with the mixture of roundabouts / traffic lights .
Token gestures of the present bus lanes aren't working.
Buses are struggling at the moment to get out of the city i.e around the square / eglinton street / bohermore / courthouse to tesco .
A one way sytem with bus lanes along these roads is our only hope of getting buses out of the city .

cgcsb

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

Cgcsb .... It's not possible to have a reliable bus service at present in galway with the mixture of roundabouts / traffic lights .
Token gestures of the present bus lanes aren't working.
Buses are struggling at the moment to get out of the city i.e around the square / eglinton street / bohermore / courthouse to tesco .
A one way sytem with bus lanes along these roads is our only hope of getting buses out of the city .

Yes of course. These are small, cheap changes. But if they actually happened and people could easily get around on buses, the business case for the bypass evaporates

Mrs OBumble

cgcsb wrote: »

Yes of course. These are small, cheap changes. But if they actually happened and people could easily get around on buses, the business case for the bypass evaporates

Except that the changes listed are for the city centre, which isn't actually the problem. Regional towns and business parks are where the real problem is.

AaronEnnis

FitzShane wrote: »

The options are even less for Loughrea, Athenry, Claregalway etc. The options are not there, so people are forced to drive unless they happen to live close to Eyre Square.

I think the Athenry buslink goes to Parkmore, Ballybane and Mervue at 7 every morning. Used to pass the stop some mornings and it seemed quite busy. Surprised a similar service hasn't taken off in other towns.

JohnnyFlash

AaronEnnis wrote: »

I think the Athenry buslink goes to Parkmore, Ballybane and Mervue at 7 every morning. Used to pass the stop some mornings and it seemed quite busy. Surprised a similar service hasn't taken off in other towns.

There’s a bus leaving Loughrea for Galway every 45 minutes from 7 to 9 in the morning.

xckjoo

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Except that the changes listed are for the city centre, which isn't actually the problem. Regional towns and business parks are where the real problem is.

So how does a bypass help that? The vast majority of towns and business parks are to the East of the river.

Fitz*

AaronEnnis wrote: »

I think the Athenry buslink goes to Parkmore, Ballybane and Mervue at 7 every morning. Used to pass the stop some mornings and it seemed quite busy. Surprised a similar service hasn't taken off in other towns.

While this is good, and a start, it's a once off bus at a once off time. How many Parkmore shifts start at 6.30 or 7.00 or 7.30? I would estimate a lot. And they do not have the option of getting this bus to Parkmore so have to drive. And as I mentioned above, unless it is frequent then it will not be utilized. What happens if you miss this once off bus or the time does not suit? You have to drive.

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

There’s a bus leaving Loughrea for Galway every 45 minutes from 7 to 9 in the morning.

And this is better. But again, the frequency would have to improve I would think in order to get real take up of it. I don't know exact numbers of how many people would take this journey but only one way to find out.


I didn't even know that both services were available. I wonder how many more are in the same shoes as me? Especially people who could actually use the service.

Ashleigh1986

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Except that the changes listed are for the city centre, which isn't actually the problem. Regional towns and business parks are where the real problem is.

The city center isn't the problem???
Inbound Lough atalia by the docks to Jurys ??
Outbound bohermore ???
Eglinton street ??
Headford road from courthouse to tesco lights ??
Outbound along the Dublin road ??
All along eyre square ??
Tuam road in the evening outbound? Etc etc
Are you living in the same city as me ????????

Ashleigh1986

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

The city center isn't the problem???
Inbound Lough atalia by the docks to Jurys ??
Outbound bohermore ???
Eglinton street ??
Headford road from courthouse to tesco lights ??
Outbound along the Dublin road ??
All along eyre square ??
Tuam road in the evening outbound? Etc etc
Are you living in the same city as me ????????

You left out a question mark

Ashleigh1986

Deleted User wrote: »

You left out a question mark

?

grbear

Based on the news about a Cork version of the Luas being on the long finger until 2031 I'm just wondering what changes would be need to implemented in Galway to make it a viable candidate for alight rail by 2040.

-Upgrade the railway line between Athenry and Galway to to enable it to run more often
-Im guessing connecting Galway to Claremorris, onto Sligo, then Sligo to Derry
-A frequent Galway to Tuam, via Claregalway, service on the Galway-Claremorris line
-Is the current train station big enough to handle being a hub for increased traffic from commuter towns and a Gluas
-Is it even in the right location to fulfill such a task
-Map out a proposed route today and then stop that line being built on

By 2040 we'd probably be looking at a driverless solution right?

grbear

grbear wrote: »

Based on the news about a Cork version of the Luas being on the long finger until 2031 I'm just wondering what changes would be need to implemented in Galway to make it a viable candidate for alight rail by 2040.

-Upgrade the railway line between Athenry and Galway to to enable it to run more often
-Im guessing connecting Galway to Claremorris, onto Sligo, then Sligo to Derry
-A frequent Galway to Tuam, via Claregalway, service on the Galway-Claremorris line
-Is the current train station big enough to handle being a hub for increased traffic from commuter towns and a Gluas
-Is it even in the right location to fulfill such a task
-Map out a proposed route today and then stop that line being built on

By 2040 we'd probably be looking at a driverless solution right?

First off, it'll be 2050 before Galway sees light rail

Second, rofl @ the bold bits

biko

This thread is about a light rail solution in the city.
Not bypasses nor trains around the country, nor other means of transport.
Try to stay on topic.

grbear

I'm just using 2040 as that's the date the government used on their strategic plan.


I don't think there's any real chance of a Galway-Sligo rail route anytime soon.

grbear

biko wrote: »

This thread is about a light rail solution in the city.
Not bypasses nor trains around the country, nor other means of transport.
Try to stay on topic.

Based on what I've read of the Cork plans the basic idea can be boiled down to implementing changes and improvements to public transport to make a light rail solution viable.
A light rail system can't just exist in isolation, it has to be part of an integrated solution.

biko

Sure, as long as it is directly related to the light rail.