Galway's traffic issues

what_traffic

https://connachttribune.ie/call-for-rethink-on-salmon-weir-pedestrian-bridge-700/
"
He also said that the other main pinch point for the buses in the city centre area was in the Eglinton Street area, where parked cars just made it impossible for buses to pass.
"

When are the Council going to ban car parking on Eglinton Street? Simple solution.

?Cee?view

what_traffic wrote: »

https://connachttribune.ie/call-for-rethink-on-salmon-weir-pedestrian-bridge-700/
"
He also said that the other main pinch point for the buses in the city centre area was in the Eglinton Street area, where parked cars just made it impossible for buses to pass.
"

When are the Council going to ban car parking on Eglinton Street? Simple solution.

Wouldn't a clearway during business hours be sufficient?

what_traffic

?Cee?view wrote: »

Wouldn't a clearway during business hours be sufficient?

Wish it was - Council are so poor for enforcement though

?Cee?view

what_traffic wrote: »

Wish it was - Council are so poor for enforcement though

True, and Gardaí

Ashleigh1986

what_traffic wrote: »

https://connachttribune.ie/call-for-rethink-on-salmon-weir-pedestrian-bridge-700/
"
He also said that the other main pinch point for the buses in the city centre area was in the Eglinton Street area, where parked cars just made it impossible for buses to pass.
"

When are the Council going to ban car parking on Eglinton Street? Simple solution.

What have I been saying ???
Traffic lights not linked !!
Parking allowed on foster street and eglinton street .
These 2 streets in particular need to no parking after 11 am .
If business'es can't get their orders delivered by than ... Tough .
Zero tolerance by gardai and traffic wardens .

what_traffic

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

Parking allowed on foster street and eglinton street .
These 2 streets in particular need to no parking after 11 am .
If business'es can't get their orders delivered by than ... Tough .
Zero tolerance by gardai and traffic wardens .

Agree 100% - such simple wins for Council + business wont really be affected; they really do get vast majority of delivery's in the morning.
Would go further on Foster street Bus Lane. Should be Bus Lane 07h00--> 19h00
and put in Delivery Clearway opposite the Tourist Office where current car parking exists.

Ashleigh1986

I would turn foster street into the following
(1) left hand side of road to go down by the docks
(2) right hand side for turning at garveys to either go out bohermore or to go towards eglinton street .
(3) take out traffic lights at garveys corner.
Move them up to alleyway above O'Connells bar
(4) put permanent plastic bollards along foster street to force people to use correct lane
These bollards could be put in place at 11am by council workers after deliveries made .

On eglinton street same plastic bollards put in slots all along eglinton street after 11am to stop the " I'm only popping into the post office brigade for a second " craytures .

xckjoo

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

I would turn foster street into the following
(1) left hand side of road to go down by the docks
(2) right hand side for turning at garveys to either go out bohermore or to go towards eglinton street .
(3) take out traffic lights at garveys corner.
Move them up to alleyway above O'Connells bar
(4) put permanent plastic bollards along foster street to force people to use correct lane
These bollards could be put in place at 11am by council workers after deliveries made .

On eglinton street same plastic bollards put in slots all along eglinton street after 11am to stop the " I'm only popping into the post office brigade for a second " craytures .

Sounds good except for this. People naturally take the shortest path between two points. Expecting them to walk halfway up the Square to cross safely will just cause most people to cross without the lights due to human nature. I'd go back to a zebra crossing approach near the bottom (like the old days). Raise the road a bit at the crossings to force cars to drive slower. There's no need to be flying up the road at anything more than 30kmph in the middle of a city. Should allow for a more continuous flow of people walking and driving and remove the need for stop-start traffic lights and "jay-walking" (for want of a better term).

Ashleigh1986

xckjoo wrote: »

Sounds good except for this. People naturally take the shortest path between two points. Expecting them to walk halfway up the Square to cross safely will just cause most people to cross without the lights due to human nature. I'd go back to a zebra crossing approach near the bottom (like the old days). Raise the road a bit at the crossings to force cars to drive slower. There's no need to be flying up the road at anything more than 30kmph in the middle of a city. Should allow for a more continuous flow of people walking and driving and remove the need for stop-start traffic lights and "jay-walking" (for want of a better term).

I agree xckjoo... I beleive there should be no separate pedestrian traffic light crossings .
Should be all raised platforms with proper signage and lighting warning motorists in advance of these crossings .
Will city hall do it ...
I doubt it

what_traffic

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

I agree xckjoo... I beleive there should be no separate pedestrian traffic light crossings .
Should be all raised platforms with proper signage and lighting warning motorists in advance of these crossings .
Will city hall do it ...
I doubt it

This was the way it used to be until the "Renovation" of Eyre SQ. Zebra crossings (not raised though)

DuckSlice

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

I agree xckjoo... I beleive there should be no separate pedestrian traffic light crossings .
Should be all raised platforms with proper signage and lighting warning motorists in advance of these crossings .
Will city hall do it ...
I doubt it

I cant imagine the pedestrian crossings working, there is nearly always people crossing the road there. Would the traffic not just be stopped constantly?
I know they were in before but there is a lot more traffic and people in the city these days.

SaltSweatSugar

skinny90 wrote: »

Anyone know whats the story with traffic in Oranmore this week. On top of the usual school traffic its backed up from Costa na mara right up to the coast road from 8 am onwards. Thankfully I was getting the train but ive never seen that road backed up on my commute

There’s road works on the Coast Road. At least two sets of traffic light controlled works from what I could see.

xckjoo

etxp wrote: »

I cant imagine the pedestrian crossings working, there is nearly always people crossing the road there. Would the traffic not just be stopped constantly?
I know they were in before but there is a lot more traffic and people in the city these days.

Should work as a "shared space" type approach. Slow moving cars in general would allow people filter around them. People are much more mobile than a car is.

DuckSlice

xckjoo wrote: »

Should work as a "shared space" type approach. Slow moving cars in general would allow people filter around them. People are much more mobile than a car is.

Then why bother with the crossing?

xckjoo

etxp wrote: »

Then why bother with the crossing?

Forces the drivers to slow down and enforces a right-of-way when needed. A big open road just invites speeding. Human nature again. We see, we go.

DuckSlice

xckjoo wrote: »

Forces the drivers to slow down and enforces a right-of-way when needed. A big open road just invites speeding. Human nature again. We see, we go.

But you have to stop at a crossing until it is clear. imagine stopping there after a busy train comes into the station or a few buses arrive at the same time. Would be a nightmare. Obviously most of the time it should be fine, but busy times it would be worse in my opinion.

Mrs OBumble

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

I
(3) take out traffic lights at garveys corner.
Move them up to alleyway above O'Connells bar
.

And people who arrive at the bus station can just stay there???

xckjoo

etxp wrote: »

But you have to stop at a crossing until it is clear. imagine stopping there after a busy train comes into the station or a few buses arrive at the same time. Would be a nightmare. Obviously most of the time it should be fine, but busy times it would be worse in my opinion.

Not if you consider it in terms of overall movement of people like we should be thinking. Not sure what a intercity bus holds but I've the figure of about 30 in my head. Most cars journeys in Galway are single occupant trips. So the 30 odd people getting off a bus should indeed get priority over single occupant cars. It'll only take them a few minutes to cross the road and be gone since they'll be much more densely packed than 30 cars. And those people will have to cross the road anyway. The stop-start effect of traffic lights is a killer on Irish traffic. Look at how long it takes the average driver to move off when a light turns green. A couple of changes of the lights that might be needed to get the groups across must be currently having huge knock on effects. It's just not as obvious because you aren't aware of the delay source when you're 30 cars back in a queue.

Mrs OBumble

xckjoo wrote: »

Not sure what a intercity bus holds but I've the figure of about 30 in my head. .

More like 52.

And those 52 people would also hold up the next bus to leave the station and the tour bus picking up from the Meyrick and the Salthill bus coming thru from Parkmore.

In short-crazy idea.

xckjoo

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

More like 52.

And those 52 people would also hold up the next bus to leave the station and the tour bus picking up from the Meyrick and the Salthill bus coming thru from Parkmore.

In short-crazy idea.

I've no idea what your point is here. Those people are already arriving and getting off the bus and crossing the road. I haven't suggested any changes to the bus system.
I'm suggesting that it's probably more efficient to have a system that allows a more continuous flow of pedestrians and cars than the stop-start system that traffic lights bring. Every change of the lights brings in a delay. Those 52 aren't all going to cross at the same time (some people take longer to get off the bus and start moving than others) so you'll have multiple changes of the lights and so multiple delays. People don't switch off at the wheel the same way when they're only waiting for people to cross vs waiting for lights to change. Watch it in action if you don't believe me. Slower but more continuous will get a higher throughput that stop-start. Going from bottleneck to bottleneck as fast as possible is very inefficient

jjpep

xckjoo wrote: »

I've no idea what your point is here. Those people are already arriving and getting off the bus and crossing the road. I haven't suggested any changes to the bus system.
I'm suggesting that it's probably more efficient to have a system that allows a more continuous flow of pedestrians and cars than the stop-start system that traffic lights bring. Every change of the lights brings in a delay. Those 52 aren't all going to cross at the same time (some people take longer to get off the bus and start moving than others) so you'll have multiple changes of the lights and so multiple delays. People don't switch off at the wheel the same way when they're only waiting for people to cross vs waiting for lights to change. Watch it in action if you don't believe me. Slower but more continuous will get a higher throughput that stop-start. Going from bottleneck to bottleneck as fast as possible is very inefficient

I recently moved to a city which is set up like this. Very few traffic lights but a huge amount of zebra crossings. People on foot or on bike have right of way at all times so car traffic tends to be quite slow moving but you never see a big build up or people racing from one stop to the next.

Also really good dedicated bike infrastructure. Have yet to see a car traffic jam.

The system in Galway, and Ireland in general, will never work above a relatively low level of car traffic.

McGiver

jjpep wrote: »

xckjoo wrote: »

I've no idea what your point is here. Those people are already arriving and getting off the bus and crossing the road. I haven't suggested any changes to the bus system.
I'm suggesting that it's probably more efficient to have a system that allows a more continuous flow of pedestrians and cars than the stop-start system that traffic lights bring. Every change of the lights brings in a delay. Those 52 aren't all going to cross at the same time (some people take longer to get off the bus and start moving than others) so you'll have multiple changes of the lights and so multiple delays. People don't switch off at the wheel the same way when they're only waiting for people to cross vs waiting for lights to change. Watch it in action if you don't believe me. Slower but more continuous will get a higher throughput that stop-start. Going from bottleneck to bottleneck as fast as possible is very inefficient

I recently moved to a city which is set up like this. Very few traffic lights but a huge amount of zebra crossings. People on foot or on bike have right of way at all times so car traffic tends to be quite slow moving but you never see a big build up or people racing from one stop to the next.

Also really good dedicated bike infrastructure. Have yet to see a car traffic jam.

The system in Galway, and Ireland in general, will never work above a relatively low level of car traffic.

How big is the that city? Urban population, say within a 20km radius.

McGiver

xckjoo wrote: »

There's no need to be flying up the road at anything more than 30kmph in the middle of a city.

Many parts of the town should be 30 kph limit, no idea why they are not. In England and elsewhere tight corners and narrow roads are below 50 limit (typically 30). Many places outside of the centre could be 60 on the other hand. Blanket 50 in almost the whole Galway is just nothing but laziness of whoever is responsible.

McGiver

what_traffic wrote: »

etxp wrote: »

What does it matter if a taxi uses a bus lane, there is only one or two routes where it will actually gain you any time.

Agree, think conversation has veered off from Bus Gates at the City Centre Bridges to Bus Lanes, as you rightly point out very few bus lanes in Galway City anyhow. About 9% of the City Bus Network has bus lanes.

The 9% isn't an issue in itself. The issue is that major, arterial bus routes (whatever they are) either don't have bus lanes or don't have continuous bus lanes. That's a minimum requirement for the PT service to operate in a overloaded road traffic scenario.

jjpep

McGiver wrote: »

How big is the that city? Urban population, say within a 20km radius.

About 125,000 (according to local city council website)

McGiver

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

Deleted User wrote: »

The more you post about various problems areas of Galway the more you convince me that cars should be outright banned from the city centre. Would solve virtually every issue you raise.

While your at it with that train of thought ...
Just ban humans from city center .
All problems solved .
Next

You're wrong on this one. Visit Oxford, Brugges, and, and, the list is long......... Please! City centre belongs to the people, not to the cars. Then the quality of life rises significantly.

McGiver

jjpep wrote: »

McGiver wrote: »

How big is the that city? Urban population, say within a 20km radius.

About 125,000 (according to local city council website)

Fair enough. What country is it?

McGiver

timmyntc wrote: »

The 'obvious' solution is to create a bus corridor from knocknacarra to roscam. There are bus lanes most of the way already, and where there aren't - the roads are already 2 lanes each way, very easy to convert 1 lane each way to bus lanes.

Then run a high frequency orbital bus route that just goes along that route.
The biggest problem with galway's bus service at the minute is that every bus has to go to the cramped and crowded city center with no bus lanes and chronic traffic issues, in order to change over. I don't know if this is due to poor planning or a deliberate attempt to get more people into the city to shop and spend etc. Regardless, it's a bad idea and adds a lot to journey times.

To get people to switch from cars you need to incentivise them - make it more attractive to take a bus than car. However right now, knocknacarra to parkmore is still marginally quicker/easier in a car than a bus, despite the bus lanes that exist. Why would anyone take a bus if they could drive there quicker in the comfort of their own car?

Remove roundabouts behind hospital, at cemetery cross, and possibly at fort lorenzo. Bus lanes all along N6. And a bus route that goes from far side of knocknacarra - westside - QCB - cemetery cross - GMIT - roscam. Anyone who wants to get anywhere east/west of the city can do so knowing it's a consistent travel time not dependent on traffic/schools/weather, and it would be easy to transfer to other bus routes as almost all would intersect with this one somewhere along the line.

Where can I sign this?

McGiver

McGiver wrote: »

You're wrong on this one. Visit Oxford, Brugges, and, and, the list is long......... Please! City centre belongs to the people, not to the cars. Then the quality of life rises significantly.

“The people” need their cars though especially though who live in the country and need to get into the city for work or other business.

McGiver

Gwen Shallow Raccoon wrote: »

McGiver wrote: »

You're wrong on this one. Visit Oxford, Brugges, and, and, the list is long......... Please! City centre belongs to the people, not to the cars. Then the quality of life rises significantly.

“The people” need their cars though especially though who live in the country and need to get into the city for work or other business.

They can keep them and drive back to the lowly populated areas. But not to the city centres, sorry pedestrians only. The city centres belong to the people. It's ridiculous that I have to be explaining this. Have you not ever visited Europe or what? Even England.