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Galway traffic

ben.schlomo

Seemed light this evening, seeing as there doesn't seem to be a thread on traffic here I said I'd start this due to the importance of the issue.

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phelant

roytheboyo wrote: »

I check in on this every few months just to see if the same 6-8 people are arguing with each other about various tangents and trying to one up each other, rather than discussing how to do something about the traffic that takes chunks out of my and thousands others week.

Some even go offline and PM you to laugh at how you’ve been ‘owned’ when you dare to argue a different point to them and their pals. Pathetic behavior.

[Deleted User]

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

No government will even dare attempt to stop people building. Its already limited to people who are from the area, are building on family land etc. Even attempting to further curtail selfbuilds will not end well for any government that's for sure. Its not many issues that I would say this for but I will be on the streets protesting at the suggestion of stopping one off houses for locals.

Personally it won't impact me as my planning application will hopefully be submitted by the end of this month or not long after but I'd like to see future generation of my family be able to continue to live in the area and build homes on our own land.

You're probably right, though we are in strange political times, so who knows what kind of combination could be in power by the end of Feb, so there could be some dramatic changes coming down the line.

I'm not sure why the rest of society should be left covering the costs of providing infrastructure up every boreen in the country, like the National Broadband Plan and more.

cooperguy

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

I was sort of hoping that people had the smarts to see the general principles involved and see how these also relate to the Irish situation.

I was hoping that might trigger some of your smarts to maybe realise that a lot of these simply dont relate to the Irish situation. Largely undermining your point that society subsidises car ownership. Everything from the taxation, the safety standards etc. etc. dont apply

Johnny_BravoIII

John_Rambo wrote: »

It's impossible for super fast, convenient public transport to go from door to door to every one off house built in the countryside and park and ride is dismissed by them. They just want to drive from door to door (and give out about the other people that do it.. and call them "traffic")

Yes but what if we had a free fast reliable convenient public transport network serving the wider galway region with local hubs. I.e if you could park your car in gort, oranmore, claregalway, moycullen etc and jump on a free/low cost, direct train to the city centre in 10 mins every 15 mins. Combine that with surcharge on non-commercial, solo occupant vehicles entering the city...problem solved.

E.g. there is 1 train from gort to galway every morn at 7.15am. It arrives at 8.10am and costs circa 7e. This is not good transport planning.

Johnny_BravoIII

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

No government will even dare attempt to stop people building. Its already limited to people who are from the area, are building on family land etc. Even attempting to further curtail selfbuilds will not end well for any government that's for sure. Its not many issues that I would say this for but I will be on the streets protesting at the suggestion of stopping one off houses for locals.

Personally it won't impact me as my planning application will hopefully be submitted by the end of this month or not long after but I'd like to see future generation of my family be able to continue to live in the area and build homes on our own land.

Nox's opinion would be shared by most rural people. My bet is the greens get in, force through deep changes and commit political hari kari again.

Fitz*

Johnny_BravoIII wrote: »

Yes but what if we had a free fast reliable convenient public transport network serving the wider galway region with local hubs. I.e if you could park your car in gort, oranmore, claregalway, moycullen etc and jump on a free/low cost, direct train to the city centre in 10 mins every 15 mins. Combine that with surcharge on non-commercial, solo occupant vehicles entering the city...problem solved.

E.g. there is 1 train from gort to galway every morn at 7.15am. It arrives at 8.10am and costs circa 7e. This is not good transport planning.

And in addition to that, if anyone is working in Parkmore, which is very likely, they then have to get a bus back out the same direction they came in in, which takes another 40 minutes and a couple euro. 1 hour and 45 mins from Gort -> Parkmore, roughly double what it takes to drive.

The PT planners will probably say something like 'well our numbers suggest that there is not enough people using this route to warrant increased services'. Of course there aren't people using the route as it takes so long! Put in a proper service in place, and people might actually use it.

[Deleted User]

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

You're probably right, though we are in strange political times, so who knows what kind of combination could be in power by the end of Feb, so there could be some dramatic changes coming down the line.

I'm not sure why the rest of society should be left covering the costs of providing infrastructure up every boreen in the country, like the National Broadband Plan and more.

In the middle of a housing crisis do you think they are going to stop the group of people who providing their own housing out of thin air (and completely out of their own pocket, providing the land etc) basically?

As for your second point, nonsense. People who live rurally are tax payers also and they also provide most services out of their own pocket or pay extra over urban dwellers. On top of all that all the infrastructure is required regardless as farms need roads, electricity, broadband etc. So as I've pointed out many times before the more people who live rurally the better value you get from infrastructure as its being funded by far more tax payers.

Things like the national broadband plan are of massive national importance and it shows the backward, selfish and clueless attitudes when people complain about it.

John_Rambo

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

So as I've pointed out many times before the more people who live rurally the better value you get from infrastructure as its being funded by far more tax payers

The more people that live in one spot the better value you get from infrastructure?

Lets call them towns and cities!

[Deleted User]

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

In the middle of a housing crisis do you think they are going to stop the group of people who providing their own housing out of thin air (and completely out of their own pocket, providing the land etc) basically?

As for your second point, nonsense. People who live rurally are tax payers also and they also provide most services out of their own pocket or pay extra over urban dwellers. On top of all that all the infrastructure is required regardless as farms need roads, electricity, broadband etc. So as I've pointed out many times before the more people who live rurally the better value you get from infrastructure as its being funded by far more tax payers.

Things like the national broadband plan are of massive national importance and it shows the backward, selfish and clueless attitudes when people complain about it.

That's literally the opposite of how to get value from infrastructure.

Using your example of broadband, its exactly why no company has provided Internet to a large part of rural ireland, its simply not cost effective to do so. It spectacularly fails any CBA performed due to the dispersed nature of one off housing.

Now, if you want to suggest that the rural population should be clustered in towns and villages only, you'll find no arguments against that sane idea

[Deleted User]

John_Rambo wrote: »

The more people that live in one spot the better value you get from infrastructure?

Lets call them towns and cities!

You know the point I was making, no need to be twisting it to your agenda.

If you have 20 people living on a "boreen" or 1 farmer at the end of it the same infrastructure and services are required. ESB lines, roads, broadband etc. People appear to think that if everyone who worked in Galway city was stopped living rurally that it would remove the need for infrastructure, it would do no such thing.

John_Rambo

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

You know the point I was making, no need to be twisting it to your agenda.

If you have 20 people living on a "boreen" or 1 farmer at the end of it the same infrastructure and services are required. ESB lines, roads, broadband etc. People appear to think that if everyone who worked in Galway city was stopped living rurally that it would remove the need for infrastructure, it would do no such thing.

Sounds great, but as people abandon the rural towns and villages the post offices, butchers, bakers etc... close down. Then the Garda station closes down as it's very difficult to police such a spread out diaspora.

Then there's panic about rural crime.

All these people then start driving to the city and causing bad traffic and people start threads called "Galway Traffic" and wonder where all the traffic is coming from.

Then someone logs on to the Galway Traffic thread and says there should be 20 people living down boreens in one off houses.

Then someone logs on and explains again why that's not a great idea after all.

And it goes around in circles.

Ruhanna

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

If you have 20 people living on a "boreen" or 1 farmer at the end of it the same infrastructure and services are required.

Nonsense. Ireland's crazy policy of low-density scattered development has significant additional costs in terms of infrastructure and its maintenance. To take just one example, the ESB has to provide about five times the length of overhead line to supply electricity as their counterparts do in Scotland, yet the ESB only has about 2.5 times as many customers. A disproportionate number of transformers is needed as well, to avoid voltage drop-off.

The prevalence of scattered rural housing development in Ireland presents additional costs in terms of infrastructure provision. Such development presents additional costs in terms of maintaining minor roads, supplying electricity, school transport and postal services. Very little of this cost is recouped directly. In most cases, whether borne by government or the utility companies, the costs are ultimately passed onto the wider population to become an external cost.

That was in a report from several years ago, so things have not got better since there is even more rural one-off housing now.

Ruhanna

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

Personally it won't impact me as my planning application will hopefully be submitted by the end of this month or not long after but I'd like to see future generation of my family be able to continue to live in the area and build homes on our own land.

To Galway County Council, presumably, the local authority that has filled up the countryside with car dependent ultra low density housing, and then wonders why thousands of solo car commuters clog up the arterial roads into Galway City every morning.

"Er, maybe it's because there aren't enough roads?

No, you dolts, that's not the reason.

cooperguy wrote: »

Nowhere to put the public transport without the bypass

Nonsense. For two reasons:

(1) if there is room for cars, why would there not be room for public transport?

(2) if commuters use the bypass, who will use public transport?

roytheboyo wrote: »

I check in on this every few months just to see if the same 6-8 people are arguing with each other about various tangents and trying to one up each other, rather than discussing how to do something about the traffic that takes chunks out of my and thousands others week.

How have you changed your own travel behaviour to save time? Or are you waiting for somebody else to make changes? In which case, how will your travel behaviour change if a bypass is built?

donvito99

Can someone point to a city that has actually reduced congestion having built a bypass?

JCX BXC

It's becoming the distant past, but the drive through Limerick before before the bypass was never fun.

ratracer

JCX BXC wrote: »

It's becoming the distant past, but the drive through Limerick before before the bypass was never fun.

Or Athlone

xckjoo

The city is already bypassed north - south and there isn't much traffic flow east - west. Most of the commuters coming into the city are coming from the county to the east of the river so won't be impacted by the bypass. The bypass is a con

[Deleted User]

xckjoo wrote: »

The city is already bypassed north - south and there isn't much traffic flow east - west. Most of the commuters coming into the city are coming from the county to the east of the river so won't be impacted by the bypass. The bypass is a con

There is massive traffic flow east - west and west-east every mornings and evening . The bypass will take a large amount of this off the bridge and the city centre. It will also allow a dedicated exit into park more meaning all this traffic and a large amount of the traffic that has to go through briar hill junction now no longer has to.

Honestly the anti-car and anti-road bias is blinding a small number of people who all post here. In the real world where people actually understand the vital need for the bypass it has almost total support. Without the bypass galway is going nowhere as far as traffic is concerned, simple as that.

what_traffic

There is NO Bypass. It is a Motorway Ring Road.
What is been proposed is a distributor road that will distribute traffic into the City, it is not a true Bypass. (Athlone does has it had Galway to Dublin and vice-versa)

http://www.n6galwaycity.ie/
"
N6 Galway City Ring Road
Galway County Council (GCC), on behalf of itself and on behalf of Galway City Council, is proposing to develop the N6 Galway City Ring Road (N6 GCRR) around Galway City.
"
Ring Road is 10 years away if it does get the go ahead.

How long the Oral Hearing will last next month will be interesting.
http://www.n6galwaycity.ie/phase-4/bulletin-23-update-15012020/
"
Start Date: Tuesday 18th February 2020

Start Time: 10am

Location: The G Hotel, Old Dublin Road, Galway

End Date: To be confirmed
"

flazio

OK, but it's still a road that eliminates the need to go into town to get to your desired onward route you could say you "bypass" the town to keep going.
I think Nenagh is the best example of what you're trying to describe as it has two types of bypass. Firstly you have the end of the N52 which rings around the town to link up with the former N7 on the Limerick side, then you have the dual carriageway which eventually became part of the M7. Locals tend to refer to the former as the Nenagh bypass.

what_traffic

flazio wrote: »

OK, but it's still a road that eliminates the need to go into town to get to your desired onward route you could say you "bypass" the town to keep going.
I think Nenagh is the best example of what you're trying to describe as it has two types of bypass. Firstly you have the end of the N52 which rings around the town to link up with the former N7 on the Limerick side, then you have the dual carriageway which eventually became part of the M7. Locals tend to refer to the former as the Nenagh bypass.

Nenagh is on the Limerick to Dublin Road.
It only really has one true "bypass" - the M7(Limerick to Dublin Road), the N52 acts as a distributor road for Nenagh itself.
Does not matter what the locals call it - what is the function that the N52 is carrying out?
Galway City is not going to be like this. What is proposed is a Ring Road. There is no major town let alone City West of Galway City

[Deleted User]

what_traffic wrote: »

Nenagh is on the Limerick to Dublin Road.
It only really has one true "bypass" - the M7(Limerick to Dublin Road), the N52 acts as a distributor road for Nenagh itself.
Does not matter what the locals call it - what is the function that the N52 is carrying out?
Galway City is not going to be like this. What is proposed is a Ring Road. There is no major town let alone City West of Galway City

Both terms are correct. If you work in parkmore and live on the east suburbs or east of the city (out the country) you are bypassing the city by using the road. If you are coming to Galway from almost any direction and the going to the east of the county on business or as a tourist (which is massive numbers by the way) you will cruise past the city on the bypass making your journey massively less painful.

If you get into the road at one part of the city and exit into another part of the city you are using it as a ring road to make your journey much easier and keep traffic out of the city centres for cross town trips.

Having a major town or city on the route after the bypass is not a requirement to call it a bypass.

what_traffic

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

Having a major town or city on the route after the bypass is not a requirement to call it a bypass.

So call it what it is then - a distributor Ring Road. This is what the designers and the funders of it are calling it anyhow. The primary purpose of this Ring Road is to act as a distributor road for the car traffic coming into the City, it will not be a motorway "bypass" like Ennis or Nenagh have.

xckjoo

Jazmin Harsh Gold wrote: »

There is massive traffic flow east - west and west-east every mornings and evening . The bypass will take a large amount of this off the bridge and the city centre. It will also allow a dedicated exit into park more meaning all this traffic and a large amount of the traffic that has to go through briar hill junction now no longer has to.

Honestly the anti-car and anti-road bias is blinding a small number of people who all post here. In the real world where people actually understand the vital need for the bypass it has almost total support. Without the bypass galway is going nowhere as far as traffic is concerned, simple as that.

I'm not anti - car or anti - road and it's laughable for you to accuse anyone of having bias since you can't see anything past your steering wheel. I am however in favour of reducing traffic congestion and all the evidence tells us that more roads create more traffic. So it's going to be a massively expensive waste of money. Which I'm also against.

cooperguy

Ruhanna wrote: »

Nonsense. For two reasons:

(1) if there is room for cars, why would there not be room for public transport?

(2) if commuters use the bypass, who will use public transport?

How have you changed your own travel behaviour to save time? Or are you waiting for somebody else to make changes? In which case, how will your travel behaviour change if a bypass is built?

Bus Eireann have already said there is no capacity for more buses on the roads. The traffic already makes the buses so unreliable that they are unusable for large parts of the day if you actually need to be somewhere for a certain time. You would need to close down roads in order to introduce bus lanes to make them reliable. There would need to be a giant reduction in traffic to offset the reduced capacity.

If there is a reliable, cheap and efficient service people will use it. There would be families who might be able to eliminate a second car (and associated cost) in the household. There is a huge monetary incentive to do that.

I travel to and from work outside of peak time. That is how I have changed my behaviour. Considering there is a bus stop outside my door, I would use it if I was guaranteed a fast service. Any time I have attempted to use it I have been stuck waiting 40 minutes for a bus to turn up.

JCX BXC

cooperguy wrote: »

Any time I have attempted to use it I have been stuck waiting 40 minutes waiting for a bus to turn up.

Just go 40mins later then!

Galway bus services aren't great in fairness, if I need to get anywhere I just walk unless the weather's horrific.

My biggest gripe is the phantom buses, those that you watch on real-time running down the minutes, yet never appear. Very easy leave early/on time knowing a bus is coming yet be very late to whatever commitment you have.

It would be great if City Direct had realtime, the 411 doesn't seem to follow any timetable alot of the time (at least in suburbia) just turn up and wait at the bus stop.

Wompa1

JCX BXC wrote: »

My biggest gripe is the phantom buses, those that you watch on real-time running down the minutes, yet never appear. Very easy leave early/on time knowing a bus is coming yet be very late to whatever commitment you have.

That was always my biggest problem with the buses in the city. Even on a Sunday when there was no traffic, buses that just don't show up. It's beyond f*cked. How many companies could get away with that or how many workers could get away with no doing their job.

It was made all the worse if it was p1ssing rain at the time

at1withmyself

cooperguy wrote: »

Bus Eireann have already said there is no capacity for more buses on the roads.

There is a lot they could do to improve the service though. 1 example would be a bus across the Quincentenial Bridge in the Morning and again in the afternoon. Perhaps do like Corks 220 run a 405x but have it cover all of knocknacara and after Hewlett Packard continue onto Parkmore. Say from 06:30 to 08:30 and again from 15:00 to 18:00 or similar on timings, The normal 405 could run in parallel. Things like this wouldn't require any structural changes. Trial it and if successful then look at making a bus route across the bridge, service becomes faster and more start using it and reduced traffic congestion! Companies paying big money for car parking spaces should look at how they can help to incentivise their employees and reduce there own costs on land.

A few trials like this shouldn't be that hard to at least try.

at1withmyself

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

The traffic lights at Boston sientific are a joke .
Picked someone up at 7.30 am from renmore .
Didn't get to Boston sientific until 8.10 am .
It's obvious they haven't given enough time to the ballybane road sequence .
These muppets in city hall haven a clue how to manage a city .
How was it ever passed that you can drive up by cregal art and expect no traffic choas ???

Sorry to drag this one up again but I decided to watch the junction this week and well the back ups are all being caused by drivers and not the lights. Drivers coming from the N6 and turning into the Ballybrit business park are stopping then to let drivers coming from McDonaghs out the slip road and thus causing the cars behind to remain in the middle of the junction, lights then go red and cars still there blocking the next arm of green light cars moving and thus a domino effect.

Those coming from McDonaghs already get a number of opportunities to move through as the normal sequence of lights works so why these drivers are stopping to let them out I don't know. If people just followed the sequence then it would run better (I think this is probably the case at most junctions in Galway).

zell12

BÉ already gave presentations to the Council stating that a QB service was not financially viable, due mainly to traffic jams
TII already issued a bus licence across the QB, but no one has availed.
17:45 - 26:00 https://galwaybayfm.ie/podcasts/citywest/