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Light rail for Galway

WillieB1

Hi Recently I went into Holland's Newsagents in Galway, and the girl in there asked me if I would like to sign a petition for the Light rail, which I think is a fantastic idea, but I said is Galway not to small, maybe now it is but in 20 years time they expect the pop to be 140,000, do we wait for the traffic to get worse before we start planning, so I signed up immediately , the more I think about same the better the idea, if its doing such a fantastic job in Dublin why not in Galway. hope to get opinion

WillieB1

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what_traffic

Deleted User wrote: »

By all accounts, they'll soon be getting them

Not sure, Council proposals are all over the place.
The cronic addiction they have to Car Parking revenue is not been addressed in a meaningful way in the Galway Transportation Study.

Back to the Light Rail.
In todays Galway Advertiser

Petition for light rail launches on Saturday

http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/97771/petition-for-light-rail-launches-on-saturday
"
The petition, which is being organised by Independent Galway West TD Catherine Connolly, will start on Saturday on Shop Street, from 11am to 4pm, and will continue for the next eight weeks
"

xckjoo

what_traffic wrote: »

Not sure, Council proposals are all over the place.
The cronic addiction they have to Car Parking revenue is not been addressed in a meaningful way in the Galway Transportation Study.

Back to the Light Rail.
In todays Galway Advertiser

Petition for light rail launches on Saturday

http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/97771/petition-for-light-rail-launches-on-saturday
"
The petition, which is being organised by Independent Galway West TD Catherine Connolly, will start on Saturday on Shop Street, from 11am to 4pm, and will continue for the next eight weeks
"

Can we petition against it?

Jimbob1977

The Western Rail Corridor will always be held up as an example of bad investment. The vastly improved motorway network for cars and express coaches has made the WRC a 'white elephant'.

In terms of a Galway City tram, I could see the potential. It wouldn't have to be fancy.... Maybe a dozen stations (with ample parking) traversing the main suburbs and the City Centre.

From what I hear about Galway City rush hour, it's quite hectic.

what_traffic

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

The Western Rail Corridor will always be held up as an example of bad investment. The vastly improved motorway network for cars and express coaches has made the WRC a 'white elephant'.

In terms of a Galway City tram, I could see the potential. It wouldn't have to be fancy.... Maybe a dozen stations (with ample parking) traversing the main suburbs and the City Centre.

From what I hear about Galway City rush hour, it's quite hectic.

Not sure about adding WRC to the mix? But if you think that the money (€105,000,000) should have been spent on public transport in Galway City /Metropolitan area itself than I would agree with ya. Actually same goes for the Tuam - Gort Motorway (€550,000,000) - alot of money for very low usage it will be a grey elephant for a decade. A few cheaper bypasses would have gotten the same result

Not sure about light rail for Galway, do we have the density for it now? Or in the future? Have not seen evidence that Galway City going down this route. Both rural and urban sprawl
Buses are the cheaper and more flexible. Curtailment of private car usage in the City will have to be done if either of the above is going to work.
On street car parking removal and some multistory car parks in the City should be converted into retail/apartments.

dok_golf

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

The Western Rail Corridor will always be held up as an example of bad investment. The vastly improved motorway network for cars and express coaches has made the WRC a 'white elephant'.

In terms of a Galway City tram, I could see the potential. It wouldn't have to be fancy.... Maybe a dozen stations (with ample parking) traversing the main suburbs and the City Centre.

From what I hear about Galway City rush hour, it's quite hectic.

WRC was a white elephant from day 1 regardless of motorways

cgcsb

talking_walnut wrote: »

I'm always surprised that so many people seem to be for a light rail system while so many seem against an increase in bus lanes and corridors. Surely that's the cheaper, easier and faster option.

Fascinating isn't it. Light rail would actually take up more space than bus lanes would on the road and modern trams can't take corners as handy as a bus can, so more priority at junctions is required. People don't like the bus system because it's unreliable and 99% of it's unreliability is soley due to the lack of dedicated road space.

cgcsb

Regarding transport funding in Galway it's absolutely bonkers. €100mil to re-open the Victorian era railway when for only a slightly higher price we could of had a modern railway to Limerick with double track and delivering good journey times and high frequency.

Half a billion for a motorway to Tuam is also completely bonkers. It'll never reach it's design capacity. Half a billion could have got galway a 2 line tram system with park and ride, a massive array of BRT and quality Bus routes, a network of bicycle lanes to make Amsterdam envious and a pedestrianized City Centre. Car usage and congestion could have been completely wiped out with that money.

schemingbohemia

What route is the GLUAS to take? Have there been any route selection plans carried out or is this all pie in the sky stuff? Struggling to figure out a route that it could take that is feasible, that hits the transport nodes required and that would not bring the city to a standstill during construction.
Surely more, continuous bus lanes with park and rides would make more sense - cheaper and easier to implement.

[Deleted User]

It's at the crayon drawing on maps phase.

cgcsb

schemingbohemia wrote: »

What route is the GLUAS to take? Have there been any route selection plans carried out or is this all pie in the sky stuff? Struggling to figure out a route that it could take that is feasible, that hits the transport nodes required and that would not bring the city to a standstill during construction.
Surely more, continuous bus lanes with park and rides would make more sense - cheaper and easier to implement.

Essentially it won't happen. If that amount of money was available and you had a government that wasn't idealogically opposed to public transport, Galway would have a number of bus only streets continues bus lanes into the suburbs and 3 or 4 BRT routes with park n ride operating at 10 minute frequency at peak times with excellent journey times.

xckjoo

Looks like something might be happening early 2019: http://connachttribune.ie/city-councils-e1-billion-plan-get-galway-moving-033/

[Deleted User]

cgcsb wrote: »

Essentially it won't happen. If that amount of money was available and you had a government that wasn't idealogically opposed to public transport, Galway would have a number of bus only streets continues bus lanes into the suburbs and 3 or 4 BRT routes with park n ride operating at 10 minute frequency at peak times with excellent journey times.

The first part of that is essentially what is proposed in the Galway transport strategy.

http://www.galwaycity.ie/galway-transport-strategy

dok_golf

cgcsb wrote: »

Regarding transport funding in Galway it's absolutely bonkers. €100mil to re-open the Victorian era railway when for only a slightly higher price we could of had a modern railway to Limerick with double track and delivering good journey times and high frequency.

Half a billion for a motorway to Tuam is also completely bonkers. It'll never reach it's design capacity. Half a billion could have got galway a 2 line tram system with park and ride, a massive array of BRT and quality Bus routes, a network of bicycle lanes to make Amsterdam envious and a pedestrianized City Centre. Car usage and congestion could have been completely wiped out with that money.

That motorway was to allow Enda's constituents an easy run to do a day's shopping in galway or Limerick.

dok_golf

If they are going to build a Gluas, then they should put it underground. You know, just to future proof it against the expected demand in 3177.

KevR

cgcsb wrote: »

Regarding transport funding in Galway it's absolutely bonkers. €100mil to re-open the Victorian era railway when for only a slightly higher price we could of had a modern railway to Limerick with double track and delivering good journey times and high frequency.

Half a billion for a motorway to Tuam is also completely bonkers. It'll never reach it's design capacity. Half a billion could have got galway a 2 line tram system with park and ride, a massive array of BRT and quality Bus routes, a network of bicycle lanes to make Amsterdam envious and a pedestrianized City Centre. Car usage and congestion could have been completely wiped out with that money.

Such a shame that a road has been built that will meet demand for the next 50 years, providing reliable journey times between Galway and Limerick (and hopefully onto Cork eventually).

Rule of thumb for building any transport infrastructure in Ireland is that it should be close to its capacity limit upon opening and exceeding it within 10-15 years.
Congested. Unpleasant. Stressful. :rolleyes:

I always refer to the Athlone Bypass in this type of conversation. People could have made the case at the time of planning (more than 35 years ago) that it was hugely over spec. A far cheaper non-grade separated road (horrible roundabouts) with only one lane in each direction would have been sufficient for at least 20+ years. Thankfully it was decided to go with a high spec solution despite the extra cost. It is still providing fast and reliable journey times all these years later.

Grassey

KevR wrote:

It is still providing fast and reliable journey times all these years later.

Fast.. Is that because nobody observes the 100km/h speed limit?

Unrealistic

Grassey wrote: »

Fast.. Is that because nobody observes the 100km/h speed limit?

I find that the majority do, or stay within a couple of km of it. I've noticed when doing the Galway-Dublin route recently that, if I stay exactly on the speed limit, I'm one of the faster cars on the road. It might be due to the fact that the Traffic Corps are becoming more noticeable. Last Saturday I saw them stopping cars on three separate stretches of motorway between Galway and Dublin airport. You still get passed every so often by a gob$h!te doing 140+ but it's much less common than speeding on urban roads. As an experiment I made a conscious effort to stay under 50km/h on Bothar na dTreabh a couple of times recently. Absolutely no one was willing to match speed with me. Every single car chose to overtake me, breaking the speed limit by a significant percentage in the process.

Wagon360

xckjoo wrote: »

Can we petition against it?

Sure you can. Someone petitioned against Jazz on Radio Eireann back in the 30s so there is a precedent.

Whereisgalway

Mrs O Bumble were there many signatures collected today?

Mrs OBumble

Whereisgalway wrote: »

Mrs O Bumble were there many signatures collected today?

I have no idea.

And am confused that you even think I would.... (my IRL name is not CC if thats what you were implying! )

Lissavane

dok_golf wrote: »

That motorway was to allow Enda's constituents an easy run to do a day's shopping in galway or Limerick.

I think not. Kenny did little / nothing for his constituents but actively removing business from the county was hardly his goal.

dok_golf

Lissavane wrote: »

I think not. Kenny did little / nothing for his constituents but actively removing business from the county was hardly his goal.

tongue in cheek

Padkir

Unrealistic wrote: »

I find that the majority do, or stay within a couple of km of it. I've noticed when doing the Galway-Dublin route recently that, if I stay exactly on the speed limit, I'm one of the faster cars on the road. It might be due to the fact that the Traffic Corps are becoming more noticeable. Last Saturday I saw them stopping cars on three separate stretches of motorway between Galway and Dublin airport. You still get passed every so often by a gob$h!te doing 140+ but it's much less common than speeding on urban roads. As an experiment I made a conscious effort to stay under 50km/h on Bothar na dTreabh a couple of times recently. Absolutely no one was willing to match speed with me. Every single car chose to overtake me, breaking the speed limit by a significant percentage in the process.

That's because bother na dtreabh's limit is ridiculously low and everyone knows it, therefore ignore it.

If more people are ignoring a limit that adhering to it, it's usually the limit that is wrong.

seanin4711

Crazy waste of taxpayers money,that's why it will be done.
Nobody uses oranmore station as it is

Elephant on the room is outer bypass.

Park and ride at compass points into Galway, and charge a nominal fee,not look to make a profit on it.
Oxford UK,Â£1 a car ,not per person.
If its efficient people will use it.

cgcsb

KevR wrote: »

Such a shame that a road has been built that will meet demand for the next 50 years, providing reliable journey times between Galway and Limerick (and hopefully onto Cork eventually).

Rule of thumb for building any transport infrastructure in Ireland is that it should be close to its capacity limit upon opening and exceeding it within 10-15 years.
Congested. Unpleasant. Stressful. :rolleyes:

I always refer to the Athlone Bypass in this type of conversation. People could have made the case at the time of planning (more than 35 years ago) that it was hugely over spec. A far cheaper non-grade separated road (horrible roundabouts) with only one lane in each direction would have been sufficient for at least 20+ years. Thankfully it was decided to go with a high spec solution despite the extra cost. It is still providing fast and reliable journey times all these years later.

Apples in oranges. Athlone bypass is part of a major interurban demand was always going to grow. The north west corner of Ireland is rural, Sligo is by far the largest town. Ireland is going to catch up with the rest of Europe in terms of urbanization over the next few years meaning that the population served by said motorway is only going to decline. Look at the M3 in Meath, it's a motorway from one urban area to nowhere, and even though one end is attached to Dublin it's unlikely to see major growth in volume.

what_traffic

KevR wrote: »

Such a shame that a road has been built that will meet demand for the next 50 years, providing reliable journey times between Galway and Limerick (and hopefully onto Cork eventually).

I think you are missing the point of cgcsb post and have just focused on one line in it.
cgcsb is incorrect that M17/M18 will never reach its design usage, it eventually will but when will that occur? Could be a decade or two away. The key issue of cgcsb post is that all that money could have been better spent? Far more people would have benefited in the short,medium and long term if it had been spent on Public Transport in the Urban area of Galway City.

stephenweb

cgcsb wrote: »

The north west corner of Ireland is rural, Sligo is by far the largest town.

2016 Populations
Sligo - 19,199
Letterkenny - 19,274

Unrealistic

stephenweb wrote: »

2016 Populations
Sligo - 19,199
Letterkenny - 19,274

And Derry, half an hour further up the road, is close to 100k population.

cgcsb

stephenweb wrote: »

2016 Populations
Sligo - 19,199
Letterkenny - 19,274

Ok there's two towns of note, if you want to consider somewhere as far away as Letterkenny. Hardly justifies such a massive overspend when for less than 10% of that cost Galway could have a comprehensive integrated high frequency and reliable public transport system that would move more people to where they wanted to go in an hour than the motorway would in several days. That's before you even consider the GIGANTIC underspend in transport in the Dublin region.

cgcsb

Unrealistic wrote: »

And Derry, half an hour further up the road, is close to 100k population.

Derry-Galway journeys, at about 300km distance and a void of human habitation in between, are as rare as hens teeth. There's no need to spend so much to accommodate epic international drives when the needs in the Cities are far more pressing.