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Galway Ring Road- are there better ways to solve traffic?

Sam Russell

mod: Ok, I have moved the posts that were off topic on the M6 Galway ring road thread.

The guidelines for this thread are :

1. Discussion of ways to better serve the Galway traffic distribution.

2. No talk of VRT, Motor Tax, etc. They are not Galway specific.

3. Modal switch is OK if it avoids slagging off other types of traffic, and is relevant to Galway.

4. Suggestions of P&R locations if it would solve problems.

Usual rules apply - do not attack the poster, and be civil.

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cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Like that time greens aided fianna fail with 60+ billion aid to banks?

What is the actual point of this post?

hans aus dtschl

cgcsb wrote: »

It has to end somewhere.

Or start somewhere, as it were.

The reason Dublin's getting such high numbers using sustainable modes now is because of the total failure of cars. The ring road didn't solve traffic. It didn't work. It doesn't work.

In Cork it's exactly the same.

Regarding Galway I don't have a horse in this race: I don't live there. But I also don't believe that the Ring Road is the solution to the traffic issues. It might be a part of the solution, but not all on its own, from what I can see. And though the ring road will need completion to see gains (full expenditure) a sustainable transport plan can be realised incrementally piecemeal.

hans aus dtschl

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Sure why not, can you guarantee that it can be done in 3 quiet summer months?

Yes I think so. Not an entire plan by any means, obviously, but certainly first phases. Ideally enough to analyse any bottlenecks before any following phases.

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Aside the fact that there is corellation between schools and traffic shows a need for school buses first.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here.
I think school buses are only subsidised for journeys over a set distance. I don't think school buses are useful (maybe not even used?) for short distances. The schools traffic you'd ideally convert would be those dropping children distances of less than 1-2km. Temporary drop-off exclusion zones MIGHT be a solution to this, that could be tried one day a week even right away. Again, not sure if I'm addressing your point here.

cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Environmentalists going on about waste of resources when they are responsible for sadling me and my children with debt for decades to come.

Hypocrite

The Green party aren't environmentalists, they are politicians :pac:

Your post has nothing to do with this topic though.

cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

You literally proclaimed that there is nothing more important than saving the planet farther up on thread,

Which has nothing got to do with the Ireland Green party of the bank bailout :pac:

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

which I actually agree with.

lol, right, we'll start saving the plannet after this motorway, right?

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

However blind ideology won't get you there nor will living in a cave. Pragmatism and realism will. Galway needs a bypass, building one will help towards accomplishing your goal of public transport etc.

Nobody really believes that.

Ruhanna

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Galway needs a bypass, building one will help towards accomplishing your goal of public transport etc.

Firstly, it's not a "bypass". It's a new ring road for car commuters, as described by the engineers running the project (Arup). Only a small fraction of car traffic in Galway is bypassing the city entirely. The vast majority of traffic originating in both the city and the county is heading into Galway City, not away from it.

Secondly, it will not "accomplish the goal of public transport". That is a meaningless statement. Nowhere in the plans (as opposed to the promotional materials) are there targets for modal switch to public transport (or cycling or walking).

The purpose of the proposed road is to make car commuting across the city easier. Anyone who believes that building a motorway designed to make driving easier will prompt thousands of commuters to leave their cars and take the bus instead is either deluded or a liar. It's like claiming that installing a new speedy lift in your multi-storey office block will suddenly make the resident workers very keen on taking the stairs, when they never bothered to do so before. Pull the other one.

Ruhanna

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Why do you keep framing this as one vs other choice? We can have both and eventually will.

We can't and we won't.

Build a cross-town motorway and you can kiss goodbye to any hope of modal switch for another generation.

That's not speculation either. It's in the plan. If you can find any actual targets or projections (not aspirations) for modal switch from car commuting to public transport, post them here.

xckjoo

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Sure why not, can you guarantee that it can be done in 3 quiet summer months? Aside the fact that there is corellation between schools and traffic shows a need for school buses first.

Can you guarantee that a new road would fix the traffic issues in Galway? The experts can't. Can't even say it's likely to.

School buses are a good idea, but there's little point before we have proper bus lanes.

cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

And we can't have proper bus lanes without either taking cars out of city or more extremely knocking down whole rows of buildings bordering narrow streets.
To accomplish one goal the other is needed as prerequisite.

Not true though, 4 or 5 good quality bus corridors would mean reduced space for cars, not a blanket ban.

Ruhanna

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

And we can't have proper bus lanes without either taking cars out of city or more extremely knocking down whole rows of buildings bordering narrow streets.
To accomplish one goal the other is needed as prerequisite.

It's not. There is no logic or sense to this proposition.

Taking "cars" out of the city is not an abstract concept. Cars have drivers. Some cars (a minority) even have passengers.

Take the cars out and you also take out potential bus passengers.

If commuters can drive across the city in less than ten minutes, who will take the buses?

Are you seriously expecting us to believe that a cross-town motorway will achieve two things simultaneously: (1) make car commuting easier, and (2) make public transport work better so that the people who are now commuting more easily by car will suddenly find that taking the bus is even more attractive than using the motorway that was built to make driving easier?

Like, seriously???

cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

It is quite disingenuous to point at cost of this, most of the cost is due to trying to be good to the environment.

:pac: right, ya, so the projected increase in car use as a direct result of this road being in place is good for the environment?

xckjoo

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

It is quite disingenuous to point at cost of this, most of the cost is due to trying to be good to the environment. I am sure let's say Chinese could build this for a 10th of price but that would suck for environment and people of Galway.

Pointless statement. If we shot half the population we wouldn't have any traffic issues. Do you want to volunteer to go first?

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

If you actually lived and worked in Galway then you wouldn't be asking such silly questions

I work and live in Galway and take the bus or cycle to work daily. Never take the car for the commute. BUT my route is probably the best served bus route in the city so never have more than about 15mins to wait for the bus and it's only marginally slower than driving. If there was more bus lanes it would be faster than driving and be even more attractive.

Ashleigh1986

You can put bus lanes in galway city.
You could put one on Lough atalia going all the way from traffic lights at bottom of college road and up galmont hotel hill.
You could put one college road outbound.
You could put one inbound bohermore.
You could put one outbound from courthouse to tesco lights .
But to do this you would have to make these roads one way.
Please let nobody respond by saying it would mean drivers would have to be driving longer distances around galway .
Give me that than this nonsense stuck in traffic and not moving and the stress that causes .

cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Reduced space would mean a blanket ban in reality,

No it wouldn't

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

especially since there is still no cross city routes nor Park and ride at strategic locations connected to buses.

If we're going to invest in the bus network, logically P and R and a re-organisation of the routes is on the cards. That's like not buying a house because the tables and chairs are in a less than ideal location. Changing bus routes around can be achieved for almost no costs, the bypass will cost €600m and worsen traffic in the long term.

xckjoo

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

Give me that than this nonsense stuck in traffic and not moving and the stress that causes .

It does do weird things to your head. Used to arrive home far more stressed before I gave up on driving to work. I'm just lucky enough to have the option.

Ashleigh1986

Xckjoo..... Thank god us locals know some roads that you can take to try and get around some of the traffic.
But the first time visitors to galway are signposted a certain way to get into our city and from there to salthill.

This city quickly needs to get its finger out and it's going to take out of the box thinking to get it sorted.
Galway can't wait 8 to 10 years for a ring road.

what_traffic

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

Galway can't wait 8 to 10 years for a ring road.

Exactly.
What have City Council done in the last 5 years since this Ring Road was first mooted?
Galway Transportation Study has been around since 2015 - practically nothing done with that yet.

markpb

markpb wrote: »

So I assume you can't point me in the direction of an ubran road project that reduced traffic volumes then?

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Taking traffic that doesn't need to go anywhere near city centre out (bypassing Galway) frees up the city to dig up the roads for whatever fantastical schemes are currently in fashion up to and including pedestrianisation.

Is that a no?

cgcsb

markpb wrote: »

Is that a no?

You'll only get a, look over there, response. Mine was; 'but the greens backed the bank bailout'.

Sam Russell

Grafton St in Dublin used to have two way traffic, which then went one way and then no way, just pedestrians and buskers. How did they manage that? Magic. Part of Dawson St is buses and trams only. More magic.

Just put in bus lanes and cycle lanes into Galway and restrict the cars, and at least the buses will move. Mind you, it needs decent planning, and new bus routes that provide services people will use.

The ring road is a decade away.

markpb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Uhm Dublin has m50

I'd have to consult my history book but I suspect the pedestrianisation of Grafton at pre-dates the M50. The first bus lanes probably also do.

markpb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

My point is there is a bypass to take cars/trucks leaving city to add infrastructure such as luas.

Imagine if there was no m50/Dublin tunnel now and there was attempt to accomplish same. Dublin be in constant gridlock.

You're claiming the Galway can't reapportion road space for cycling or buses until the bypass is built. I'm showing you that Dublin did just that. The first bus lane was opened in 1980. Grafton st was pedestrianised in 1983. The first section of the M50 didn't open till 1990, the last part until 2005 and the upgrade until 2010. There was almost a decade between them. Why can't Galway do the same?

serfboard

Well now, this is funny.

A few days ago I said:

serfboard wrote: »

in any example that's quoted in these discussions (look at City X), when you follow up on it, City X will have a dedicated freeflow bypass which then allows for public transport to be developed within it.

And today this was said:

cgcsb wrote: »

if you are going to make a Dutch comparison, try Leeuwarden

OK - let's look. Well whaddya know, Leeuwarden has a dual-carriageway freeflow bypass called the N31 which ensures that long-distance traffic doesn't have to go through the city centre ...

Sam Russell

Mod: Posts deleted. Please observe the charter. It is not acceptable to attack poster, nor to suggest harm to others. Warnings and bans issued,

SeanW

what_traffic wrote: »

Pragmatic? Perhaps.
Its the exact same opinion of the N6 Galway City Project Lead, Eileen McCarty of ARUP.
Who also acknowledges that the Ring Road will not solve Galways Car Traffic Problems.

Except it isn't supposed to. It supposed to get people who don't need to be in Galway off its city streets. You're beating a straw man.

cgcsb wrote: »

Maybe they have children? They probably don't want their kids to see the human food chain collapse and force them to fight wars over the remaining scarce resources, or force them to move to high ground to survive, or to drink polluted water or eat plastic. Actions have ripples into the future. So on a micro level they have a choice:

There are just two little issues with this.

Anyone who seriously thinks that building the equivalent of the N31 around Leeuwarden is going to cause the seven horsemen of the apocalypse to show up has been drinking WAY too much Kool-Aid.
If such a person really wanted to leave a better planet to their children they would advocate full throatedly for the increased use of nuclear energy. Below I provide a link to electricitymap.org which lists the real time carbon emissions of a wide variety of countries from their electricity sectors. Guess which country consistently gets the lowest level of CO2/kwh without having lots of hydro? That's right, France, which along with Sweden and I think Switzerland, have the vast majority of their electricity from non-fossil sources. In particular nuclear energy and lots of it. Compare and contrast the CO2/kwh figures for France versus Germany or Ireland. And then remember it's been the same story every day for the past 30 years. Every day that this madness is allowed to continue, many many tons of CO2 are needlessly pumped into the atmosphere. For no reason whatsoever. Yet where do "environmentalists" stand on this? Against the use of nuclear energy. Yet doing what we're doing, burning gas and coal for electricity will cause a lot more climate change than building a bypass around a minor provincial city. If you really want to take meaningful climate action, you have to start elsewhere. In the interim, I call BS on your supposed concern for the climate.

https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&remote=true&wind=false&countryCode=FR
Electricity Map is updated in real time, but I feel confident enough to provide a static link rather than a screenshot because France's CO2/kwh figures do not vary too wildly, 25g-100g at most. Very often, France emits at least one order of magnitude less CO2 per kwh than Ireland or Germany, which has a lot more "Green" influence, and consequently the increased needless CO2 output that naturally attends this.

When you are ready to advocate doing more of what the French are doing and less of what we and the Germans are doing, I will believe that you are serious about averting climate change and leaving the world a better place for the next generation. That would mean telling the "environmentalists" to take a long walk off a short pier. When you're ready to do that, I will take your seriously. Not before.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

Funnily enough it's notorious for traffic jams and when it was built it was soon accompanied by a grassroots campaign to stop prioritising cars in Amsterdam called "Stop de Kindermoord".

Not sure if this is a good one to reference.

Yes, when you have all the long distance traffic on a road, you can re-prioritise the streets for other kinds of travel. Obviously that's what they did in Amsterdam, and it continues to this day with new plans by Amsterdam City Council to remove petrol and diesel cars from the city centre altogether ... the boundary of such plans being inside the A10. Under plans being put into place by the city, you can still have your "polluting" car and drive it wherever else you need to including around the Amsterdam bypass, but not into the central area.

One thing that the Dutch have done very well is to avoid building Stroads.
Defintion.
Video.
In the Netherlands it seems like the vast majority of their paved surfaces are either high speed roads for traffic or streets designed to capture value in the space, provide for cyclists, pedestrians etc. They don't seem to have a lot of street/road hybrids.

And yes, they have lots and lots of roads. Everywhere. Just not in spaces where they're trying to capture value.

The important thing is that roads and streets are of equal priority. If you force ANY long distance traffic onto a Street, you have by definition turned that street into a Stroad. And that's what Galway did in the 1980s, they did not bypass the National roads properly, instead trying to accommodate everyone on a new set of stroads. It might have made sense in the 1980s when no-one had a job and there was no money to do things properly, but it was fundamentally a bad idea. That's what has to be fixed now.

cgcsb wrote: »

Not true though, 4 or 5 good quality bus corridors would mean reduced space for cars, not a blanket ban.

And no provision for through traffic whatsoever. People and freight trying to get between the Western county and the rest of the country will still have to be driven on Galway City streets because there will be no bypass. Not only that, but it will be harder because the streets will be re-purposed for short haul "sustainable" travel. But the key point remains you propose to do this while providing nothing whatsoever for those who simply should not be on local streets in the first place. That's crazy.

serfboard wrote: »

Well now, this is funny.

A few days ago I said:

And today this was said:

OK - let's look. Well whaddya know, Leeuwarden has a dual-carriageway freeflow bypass called the N31 which ensures that long-distance traffic doesn't have to go through the city centre ...

Thanks for that, indeed it looks like even in Leeuwarden there are very few through routes that require driving on the city "straten". So, yes, the people here are proposing something that just isn't done.

hans aus dtschl wrote: »

The reason Dublin's getting such high numbers using sustainable modes now is because of the total failure of cars. The ring road didn't solve traffic. It didn't work. It doesn't work.

Have you tried driving from Mullingar to Swords outside of peak hours? (Or indeed any long distance combination that would formerly have forced you onto Dublin streets). The M50 works fine most of the time, it just has too much commuter usage in the peak.

Ruhanna wrote: »

It's like claiming that installing a new speedy lift in your multi-storey office block will suddenly make the resident workers very keen on taking the stairs, when they never bothered to do so before. Pull the other one.

If your building is 100 stories tall, encouraging people on the top floor to take the stairs probably shouldn't be your top priority. Just sayin'.

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

Why do you keep framing this as one vs other choice? We can have both and eventually will.

It's important to extremists to make such false binary paradigms. That they are the only ones saying "it must be one or the other" is irrelevant.

cgcsb wrote: »

Modelling shows only a tiny % of the traffic is long distance. Vast majority of trips start/finish in the urban area. We've been over this many times.

Yes, and your point was proven to be fallacious at least once. Your figures specifically excluded:

All forms of non daily commuter travel.
Any travel that would be legitimately bypassing the city but not using the full length of the bypass, e.g. from Athlone to Oughterard of from Barna to Tuam (using the old road) would be legitimate bypass traffic that would only use part of the bypass.

You continue to claim that there is no real legitimate bypass traffic despite the fact that your data is skewed horse manure. Why?

McGiver

correct horse battery staple wrote:

Why do you keep framing this as one vs other choice? We can have both and eventually will.

No we won't. And it's mainly to how Ireland is governed on local level, there's no regional autonomy (say Connacht, Munster) and local councils have very limited autonomy and especially budgets. They have to beg the central government for money, also TDs are involved in this begging and work as "regional beggars" to get funding for local stuff instead of actually working on national issues as they are supposed to. Central government will give money to the Pale, the some scraps to Cork and the remaining scraps are up for fight between Limerick, Galway, Waterford etc.
And to make it worse the Galway Council are incompetent and unable to plan and get the few scraps that are available. Compare to Limerick, they at least have transport and development stratagy. Galway has none, just fingers crossed, maintain the status quo while the quality of live is dropping. With no clear plan and planned development quality of life will never improve in Galway.

[Deleted User]

In the news today.....

Minister confirms transport strategy delays

https://connachttribune.ie/minister-confirms-transport-strategy-delays/

Transport Minister Shane Ross has admitted there will be delays in implementing the Galway Transport Strategy – which includes new cross-city bus routes, Park & Ride facilities, cycle and walking routes.

A work programme for the implementation of the €250 million strategy was due to be published in April – the Minister has confirmed that this will not now be published until “later in the year”.

It will take around five years to bring in proposed infrastructural developments required under the strategy and the Minister confirmed that specific locations for Park & Ride have still not been identified.

The Minister was responding to Deputy Catherine Connolly in the Dáil last week, who asked when the Galway Transport Strategy (GTS) will be implemented and when Park & Ride will be rolled out to address climate change and the city’s “parking chaos”.

The Minister said he was anxious that the implementation process begins, but there are delays.

“A work programme to guide the implementation of the GTS is currently under development by the local authority. I am informed by the National Transport Authority that it had been hoped to publish this programme last month; however, the programme is still under development and will now be published later in the year.

“I am as anxious as the Deputy that implementation of the GTS begins in earnest, but I recognise the need to ensure that implementation is conducted in a planned and co-ordinated manner. I am advised by the NTA that the implementation of the proposed infrastructure development required by the strategy will be approximately five years,” said the Minister.

Deputy Connolly pointed out that the introduction of Park & Ride for Galway City was included in the 2005 City Development Plan, when she was Mayor of Galway.

cgcsb

correct horse battery staple wrote: »

My point is there is a bypass to take cars/trucks leaving city to add infrastructure such as luas.

Imagine if there was no m50/Dublin tunnel now and there was attempt to accomplish same. Dublin be in constant gridlock.

Galway has the existing N6, more than sufficient for a City of it's size in a Peripheral location.

cgcsb

serfboard wrote: »

OK - let's look. Well whaddya know, Leeuwarden has a dual-carriageway freeflow bypass called the N31 which ensures that long-distance traffic doesn't have to go through the city centre ...

It's not 'freeflow' it's at-grade junction 4 lane road, same as Galway's existing N6.

hans aus dtschl

SeanW wrote: »

Have you tried driving from Mullingar to Swords outside of peak hours? (Or indeed any long distance combination that would formerly have forced you onto Dublin streets). The M50 works fine most of the time, it just has too much commuter usage in the peak.

SeanW, that's a very long post so I'll just reply to the bit that's directed at me.
Mullingar to Swords is probably a bad example to work with. How about Bray to Swords though, this possibly fits your point? Then M50 is good for such a scenario. Obviously if a public transport option like rail or metro were available that would be better, as they're both suburbs.

But the key point - as you've identified perfectly yourself - is the volume of commuters. I'd describe someone doing Bray/Swords as a long distance commuter. Probably the type of user that many who are strongly in favour of the Galway Ring Road have in mind. Because it's these longer distance journeys that a ring road would be most beneficial for. That's understandable.

But just looking at the CSO tells us that large numbers of commuters in Galway are not doing these long-distance journeys. They're driving sub 5km journeys. 55% of people living in Galway city and suburbs drive a car, another 16% are passengers. The average commute in Galway city is 20 mins or 9.58km. (I'm not pointing fingers here, Cork is actually worse!).

We need to be getting most of THOSE people out of their cars. It has been proven that other modes need to be more convenient, faster and cheaper in order to get people out of the car. You cannot entice people out of the car (a sunken cost) by investing in making their commute by car even easier. There is no example of such a thing occurring anywhere that I'm aware of.

Now I can say all of the above and still say that I'm not specifically against a Galway Ring Road. But such a road should not be for suburbian <10km commuters. Accordingly, the solution to Galways traffic will probably not be a <10km distributor road.

I hope all of this weighs up and makes sense to you too. The only solution will be getting short-distance commuters out of the car. Incidentally, this is the same solution to all sorts of other urban issues too.