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M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 3,343 ✭✭✭xckjoo


    I'm opposed to it because all the research has shown it won't fix anything and is likely to make things worse. I used to think it was needed but why would I be for something that'll cost millions and do nothing to help? No point in sticking your head in the sand.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,228 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    tharlear wrote: »
    Great point.


    I think one thing I disagree with you on is that Galway will still expand, Look at any side road east of the Corrib and it is full of one off housing. The people in these houses will continue to drive their cars. Industrial expansion will take place between Galway airport to briarhill east/west, and Parkmore and Oranmore north/ south. The point where the original Galway bypass was meant to leave the m6 will be a new junction.

    As you point out the people will vote, with their "feet" cars, and this type of development will led to more one off housing, more cars and more roads, but all on the east side of the river.

    There is a lovely pictogram in an earlier post of cars people and buses. With busses everyone is sitting waiting for the bus that may come and the bus lane is empty, except for those who can afford a taxi.

    Having looked at the quality of bike lanes on Seamus Quirk road, which mixes bikes and pedestrians, sets up bus passenger v cyclist crash point at ever bus stop, its a mess. Alot of work need to be done before you will convince even 20% of the population to cycle.

    Those you appose the bypass need some massage other than we are going to force everyone to cycle, take a bus, or walk. you catch more fly's with honey than vinegar.

    A small city like Galway with such short trip distance should really have 40-50% walking or cycling. As you correctly point cycling provision is poor and needs to be drastically improved. Even the bus connects plan shows that there will be exactly 0 metres of cycle lane in the city centre. Unacceptable really.

    PT trips should be 20-30% and I think bus connects can achieve that. The cross city link can provide sufficiently improved speeds and reliability. Just a shame that walking and cycling got ignored in the process.

    Modelling data shows that a road bypass will not resolve the congestion issue. Conemara to East of Galway and beyond trips are rare and there are few population centres west of Galway City


  • Registered Users Posts: 188 ✭✭fmlarnapairce


    cgcsb wrote: »
    A small city like Galway with such short trip distance should really have 40-50% walking or cycling. As you correctly point cycling provision is poor and needs to be drastically improved. Even the bus connects plan shows that there will be exactly 0 metres of cycle lane in the city centre. Unacceptable really.

    PT trips should be 20-30% and I think bus connects can achieve that. The cross city link can provide sufficiently improved speeds and reliability. Just a shame that walking and cycling got ignored in the process.

    Modelling data shows that a road bypass will not resolve the congestion issue. Conemara to East of Galway and beyond trips are rare and there are few population centres west of Galway City

    Businesses/deliveries/personal travel from Connemara / Moycullen / Clifden etc has to go through terrible traffic to get to the far side of Galway to continue onwards journey to Dublin, Limerick, Cork etc. A ring road, or whatever you want to call it, will make a huge difference to all of us living out this direction. Or all of us living out here and working in Parkmore etc. I do not want to clog up the city centre streets, if there was a suitable park and ride and I wanted to go into the city centre, I would use it. But there is no plan for a P&R that will bring people living rurally in the west of the county out to places of high employment (parkmore etc). I know i am going to get mauled for this view, and I know I do not have the same stats back up that others here seem to have, but I would be happy if this road was built, it would make my families life better, less time in transit.
    In my opinion there are two problems here, issue of traveling from west to east to west without having to go through 50 roundabouts and 20 sets of lights, and the issue with PT in city centre, catering for all of those who live in the city. Both can be addressed, I do not see why you can only have a ring road or only have improved PT, both are needed. Improved PT will never make my or my wifes journey to Parkmore quicker and will never involved less than two buses.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,843 ✭✭✭what_traffic


    In my opinion there are two problems here, issue of traveling from west to east to west without having to go through 50 roundabouts and 20 sets of lights, and the issue with PT in city centre, catering for all of those who live in the city. Both can be addressed, I do not see why you can only have a ring road or only have improved PT, both are needed. Improved PT will never make my or my wifes journey to Parkmore quicker and will never involved less than two buses.

    All named after the 50 tribes of Galway City as well I presume?


  • Registered Users Posts: 188 ✭✭fmlarnapairce


    All named after the 50 tribes of Galway City as well I presume?

    that is what you pull me up on? I'm getting off light


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,843 ✭✭✭what_traffic


    that is what you pull me up on? I'm getting off light

    Presumed it was a typo and you meant to say 5? :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 574 ✭✭✭Aontachtoir


    Businesses/deliveries/personal travel from Connemara / Moycullen / Clifden etc has to go through terrible traffic to get to the far side of Galway to continue onwards journey to Dublin, Limerick, Cork etc. A ring road, or whatever you want to call it, will make a huge difference to all of us living out this direction. Or all of us living out here and working in Parkmore etc. I do not want to clog up the city centre streets, if there was a suitable park and ride and I wanted to go into the city centre, I would use it. But there is no plan for a P&R that will bring people living rurally in the west of the county out to places of high employment (parkmore etc). I know i am going to get mauled for this view, and I know I do not have the same stats back up that others here seem to have, but I would be happy if this road was built, it would make my families life better, less time in transit.
    In my opinion there are two problems here, issue of traveling from west to east to west without having to go through 50 roundabouts and 20 sets of lights, and the issue with PT in city centre, catering for all of those who live in the city. Both can be addressed, I do not see why you can only have a ring road or only have improved PT, both are needed. Improved PT will never make my or my wifes journey to Parkmore quicker and will never involved less than two buses.

    Expecting to be able to drive from your front door to your destination is outdated 20th century thinking. You should be excited to cycle to your nearest bus stop, taking as many buses as necessary to get as close to your destination as you can, and then walking the rest of the way, twice a day, and especially in the winter. ;)

    More seriously though, your comment is bang on the money. It's not an either/or situation, and pretending it is won't help. More PT is needed to facilitate the subset of journeys that can easily be moved to PT, and a better road network is needed to facilitate the separate subset of journeys that can't.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,257 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Expecting to be able to drive from your front door to your destination is outdated 20th century thinking. You should be excited to cycle to your nearest bus stop, taking as many buses as necessary to get as close to your destination as you can, and then walking the rest of the way, twice a day, and especially in the winter. ;)

    More seriously though, your comment is bang on the money. It's not an either/or situation, and pretending it is won't help. More PT is needed to facilitate the subset of journeys that can easily be moved to PT, and a better road network is needed to facilitate the separate subset of journeys that can't.

    The argument is about which journeys are in which group.

    It is like the Covid argument as to which journeys are essential - mine are, but yours are not - it is that simple.

    Remember, the proposed by-pass- renamed the City Ring Road - will not be built within a decade at the earliest - and may be renamed and re-routed several times before it actual gets built.

    However, better public transport can be in place within a year or two, and Covid has shown cycling infrastructure can be in place in months.


  • Registered Users Posts: 574 ✭✭✭Aontachtoir


    The argument is about which journeys are in which group.

    It is like the Covid argument as to which journeys are essential - mine are, but yours are not - it is that simple.

    Remember, the proposed by-pass- renamed the City Ring Road - will not be built within a decade at the earliest - and may be renamed and re-routed several times before it actual gets built.

    However, better public transport can be in place within a year or two, and Covid has shown cycling infrastructure can be in place in months.

    Covid has shown that cycling infrastructure can be put in place easily if there is a sudden economic collapse leading to an incredible fall in traffic. It will be interesting to see what effect those cycle lanes have on cycling numbers and overall traffic as economic activity begins to return to prepandemic levels.

    I don't care what the bypass is called. If it's going to take a decade, we should be pushing full steam ahead right now, and PT can be provided in the meantime. If everyone in Galway has a Damascene conversion in the intervening years and decides that using PT is actually far preferable to driving, problem solved, and the state can opt not to tender the construction contract. If, as I suspect, the people of Galway continue to prefer the comfort and convenience of their cars by a wide margin even if it means sitting in traffic, the PT option will have failed to live up to its promise and the construction contract can be progressed.

    Edit: I would add that outside the emergency setting of an international pandemic, individual citizens are probably the people who should be deciding whether their journeys can be replaced by PT or not.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,343 ✭✭✭xckjoo


    Expecting to be able to drive from your front door to your destination is outdated 20th century thinking. You should be excited to cycle to your nearest bus stop, taking as many buses as necessary to get as close to your destination as you can, and then walking the rest of the way, twice a day, and especially in the winter. ;)

    More seriously though, your comment is bang on the money. It's not an either/or situation, and pretending it is won't help. More PT is needed to facilitate the subset of journeys that can easily be moved to PT, and a better road network is needed to facilitate the separate subset of journeys that can't.
    If only it was that easy. Building the road would be direct competition for a move to more efficient transport strategies. Efficient referring to the movement of volumes of people from place to place. If the road is built then we'll probably (hopefully?) see an initial improvement in traffic and travel times which will encouraged more car usage and sparse housing developments. Even if there was massive PT development at the same time, it'll be under utilised because people are already invested in their car and home. So that'll atrophy over time since it'll cost more to maintain than it's bringing in and there'll be pressure to "better" spend the money. But at the same time, the new road network will quickly reach capacity with all the new people using it and traffic will be back to current levels in no time. And we're back to square 1 with a lot of wasted money in the meantime.



    Also worth remembering that if you live in the country and don't have alternatives to using the car, then you want as many people as possible in the city moving away from cars as they'll just clog up the roads and will get there first since they don't have as far to go.


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,257 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    Covid has shown that cycling infrastructure can be put in place easily if there is a sudden economic collapse leading to an incredible fall in traffic. It will be interesting to see what effect those cycle lanes have on cycling numbers and overall traffic as economic activity begins to return to prepandemic levels.

    I don't care what the bypass is called. If it's going to take a decade, we should be pushing full steam ahead right now, and PT can be provided in the meantime. If everyone in Galway has a Damascene conversion in the intervening years and decides that using PT is actually far preferable to driving, problem solved, and the state can opt not to tender the construction contract. If, as I suspect, the people of Galway continue to prefer the comfort and convenience of their cars by a wide margin even if it means sitting in traffic, the PT option will have failed to live up to its promise and the construction contract can be progressed.

    It will take at least a decade - there are too many obstacles to overcome. Funding is one of them, environment is another.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,343 ✭✭✭xckjoo


    Edit: I would add that outside the emergency setting of an international pandemic, individual citizens are probably the people who should be deciding whether their journeys can be replaced by PT or not.
    Why? People make selfish decisions, not ones that'll improve things for everyone i.e. "everyone else should take the bus so I can drive places faster"


  • Registered Users Posts: 574 ✭✭✭Aontachtoir


    It will take at least a decade - there are too many obstacles to overcome. Funding is one of them, environment is another.

    Great. If those problems look insurmountable in a few years' time, we can look at solutions then (changing planning laws, changing the government, etc). For now, best to just plough ahead with planning etc so no time is wasted. At this stage it costs very little.
    xckjoo wrote: »
    If only it was that easy. Building the road would be direct competition for a move to more efficient transport strategies.

    This is the sort of thing that is problematic. It is an open acknowledgement that people prefer cars, even when a well-resourced PT system is available, but is coupled with a refusal to sensibly expand capacity to allow for the increase in cars that go with a rapidly expanding population in case it makes people's lives too easy. It's just saying "yes, we know PT is inconvenient and you would rather not use it, so we're going to make your life harder and harder until you give up and just start waiting for the bus." It comes across as negative and controlling.
    xckjoo wrote: »
    Why? People make selfish decisions, not ones that'll improve things for everyone i.e. "everyone else should take the bus so I can drive places faster"

    I would suggest that people are individually better able to make a decision about what works best for their circumstances and preferences. We're not living in China.

    If PT gets me to my destination and back more quickly and conveniently than driving, I will take PT. If it doesn't, I will drive. Your comment above suggests that you know PT likely won't ever get me where I need to go as well as driving can, but I should still have to use PT anyway. That seems a bit much.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭donvito99


    If PT gets me to my destination and back more quickly and conveniently than driving, I will take PT.

    This is why the road, as planned, won't ease congestion. It's a billion year relief car park for rush hour.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,228 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    Businesses/deliveries/personal travel from Connemara / Moycullen / Clifden etc has to go through terrible traffic to get to the far side of Galway to continue onwards journey to Dublin, Limerick, Cork etc.

    And the solution to that is to reduce traffic through a dramatic improvement to public transport along with walking and cycling infrastructure. Those journeys, which are very few, can then continue relatively unhindered on existing roads.

    A ring road, or whatever you want to call it, will make a huge difference to all of us living out this direction. Or all of us living out here and working in Parkmore etc. I do not want to clog up the city centre streets, if there was a suitable park and ride and I wanted to go into the city centre, I would use it. But there is no plan for a P&R that will bring people living rurally in the west of the county out to places of high employment (parkmore etc). I know i am going to get mauled for this view, and I know I do not have the same stats back up that others here seem to have, but I would be happy if this road was built, it would make my families life better, less time in transit.
    In my opinion there are two problems here, issue of traveling from west to east to west without having to go through 50 roundabouts and 20 sets of lights, and the issue with PT in city centre, catering for all of those who live in the city. Both can be addressed, I do not see why you can only have a ring road or only have improved PT, both are needed. Improved PT will never make my or my wifes journey to Parkmore quicker and will never involved less than two buses.

    Quite simply value for money. You're talking about 750 to 1000 million euro for the sake of a handful of journeys. That will have to be weighed against what sustainable transport infrastructure could be bought for the same amount. Also it's not only Galway projects looking for funding.


  • Registered Users Posts: 40 Covidhaveago



    I would suggest that people are individually better able to make a decision about what works best for their circumstances and preferences. We're not living in China.

    Indeed, here in Ireland, people are free to live as they like, unlike China. So if they want to run a 2 car household in an exurb or rural one off on the periphery of a small urban area like Galway, they can do so.

    The problem is, proponents of this way of living also expect the taxpayer to spend the guts of a billion euro on the Galway ring road to facilitate this lifestyle. That's not realistic.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭donvito99


    Ironically, if we were living in China, Galway would have three ring roads on stilts built in the last 6 years.


  • Registered Users Posts: 266 ✭✭beerguts


    This thread is nuts. There are posters on here with a complete anti car agenda. Let's sum up the existing infrastructure for galway West.
    At the moment there is only one suitable road across the corrib (quincentennial Bridge). The other routes require you to go through the city center and are not designed for heavy traffic, so there is only one route. This services the main estates/areas of the city (Knocknaccara, Salthill and Newcastle) plus the villages on the coast and into connemara (Spidéal, Barna, Moycullen, Oughterard and Clifden) an area with a population on par with a lot of counties in its own right. All serviced by a single carriage road that funnels all traffic into the same choke point at Terryland. And you guys have this fantasy that people are going to be persuaded to give up their own transport when they have been encouraged over the last 40 years to build in a dispersed manner both for domestic and business. Give me a break the road is required.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭donvito99


    beerguts wrote: »
    This thread is nuts. There are posters on here with a complete anti car traffic agenda. Let's sum up the existing infrastructure for galway West.
    At the moment there is only one suitable road across the corrib (quincentennial Bridge). The other routes require you to go through the city center and are not designed for heavy traffic, so there is only one route. This services the main estates/areas of the city (Knocknaccara, Salthill and Newcastle) plus the villages on the coast and into connemara (Spidéal, Barna, Moycullen, Oughterard and Clifden) an area with a population on par with a lot of counties in its own right. All serviced by a single carriage road that funnels all traffic into the same choke point at Terryland. And you guys have this fantasy that people are going to be persuaded to give up their own transport when they have been encouraged over the last 40 years to build in a dispersed manner both for domestic and business. Give me a break the road is required.

    FYP.

    Galway is a small city with concentrated areas of employment, education, health services that can be addressed by two trunk, quality public transport routes for peanuts. Journey times by bus v the private car today would be outstanding.

    A proper, limited access bypass is required. The present proposal to have a junction at every housing estate distributor road, business park and national route is an expensive recipe for disaster.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,257 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    beerguts wrote: »
    This thread is nuts. There are posters on here with a complete anti car agenda. Let's sum up the existing infrastructure for galway West.
    At the moment there is only one suitable road across the corrib (quincentennial Bridge). The other routes require you to go through the city center and are not designed for heavy traffic, so there is only one route. This services the main estates/areas of the city (Knocknaccara, Salthill and Newcastle) plus the villages on the coast and into connemara (Spidéal, Barna, Moycullen, Oughterard and Clifden) an area with a population on par with a lot of counties in its own right. All serviced by a single carriage road that funnels all traffic into the same choke point at Terryland. And you guys have this fantasy that people are going to be persuaded to give up their own transport when they have been encouraged over the last 40 years to build in a dispersed manner both for domestic and business. Give me a break the road is required.


    1: No-one was 'encouraged' to build houses in a dispersed manner. It was done in spite of proper planning, These developments were unsustainable, required significant infrastructure, and were built with insufficient water supplies, and inadequate drainage. Now they require significant investment by the State to bring broadband to them so they can watch Netflix, Disney+ and other streaming services rather than Saorview and Freesat.

    2. No PT crosses the QCB which was built in 1988. Why not? Is it not fit for purpose, or is it Galway has no need for PT as they can ask Central Gov for a few more Euros to have another go at solving the traffic problem. They had Bothar ns dTreabh, the M17 and M18, the loads of roundabouts - one for every Tribe, and then decided that they did not work, so removed them again.

    3, The Coolagh roundabout is better as a car park in the morning, so what will improve that - oh, a new motorway might work.

    4. They put the industrial estates on the east side, and the houses on the west side - there is good planning for you, Of course it is OK if the Central Government will fund another attempt at a solution.

    Big IF.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 574 ✭✭✭Aontachtoir


    donvito99 wrote: »
    This is why the road, as planned, won't ease congestion. It's a billion year relief car park for rush hour.

    Is this based on an assumption that there will be no investment in PT in the intervening period? Or that PT will be provided and will fail to relieve traffic?
    Indeed, here in Ireland, people are free to live as they like, unlike China. So if they want to run a 2 car household in an exurb or rural one off on the periphery of a small urban area like Galway, they can do so.

    The problem is, proponents of this way of living also expect the taxpayer to spend the guts of a billion euro on the Galway ring road to facilitate this lifestyle. That's not realistic.

    You mean, if an average Irish taxpayer chooses to live in a typical Irish dwelling and travels by by far the most common mode of transport in Ireland (and anywhere else in the world, for that matter) it is not realistic to expect that the Irish government would plan for this choice, given that rural living and car use have been basic features of Irish society since the state was founded?

    Where on earth did this mentality come from? Do people now also oppose building new hospitals, schools, power plants etc if the currently-available ones cannot meet demand? Or does refusing to expand capacity to meet the entirely predictable needs of a growing population solely apply to transportation?


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭donvito99


    Is this based on an assumption that there will be no investment in PT in the intervening period? Or that PT will be provided and will fail to relieve traffic?

    Public transport never relieves traffic. It just allows you to beat it. This is the nature of traffic the world over. This road just puts it somewhere else and will in fact encourage more of it, far in excess of any natural growth of population of economic activity in the city.
    given that rural living and car use have been basic features of Irish society since the state was founded?

    I don't recall people taking their motor cars from Rossaveal to work in a medical devices plant east of the Corrib in 1922.
    Where on earth did this mentality come from? Do people now also oppose building new hospitals, schools, power plants etc if the currently-available ones cannot meet demand? Or does refusing to expand capacity to meet the entirely predictable needs of a growing population solely apply to transportation?

    You can take things to the extreme if you want. The point being made is that this road will further weaken Galway as a city, spreading out the population even further when it ought to be concentrated in proximity to where people actually live their lives. Doing this will avoid the extraordinary cost, relative to the population, of massive road projects that encourages more sprawl.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,228 ✭✭✭cgcsb


    beerguts wrote: »
    This services the main estates/areas of the city (Knocknaccara, Salthill and Newcastle) plus the villages on the coast and into connemara (Spidéal, Barna, Moycullen, Oughterard and Clifden) an area with a population on par with a lot of counties in its own right

    Sorry, wha??


  • Registered Users Posts: 574 ✭✭✭Aontachtoir


    donvito99 wrote: »
    Public transport never relieves traffic. It just allows you to beat it. This is the nature of traffic the world over. This road just puts it somewhere else and will in fact encourage more of it, far in excess of any natural growth of population of economic activity in the city.

    But this is like complaining that more people use the healthcare system when better screening services and treatments are provided. If people have better access to any service, of course they're going to use it more. If a hospital A&E is persistently overcrowded and unable to adequately service its target population (even though it could when it was originally built), is the answer to refuse to expand the department, hire more staff, or even build an extra one to help relieve the pressure? Or maybe insist that patients go home and make themselves healthier so they don't need to come to hospital? Of course not. You invest in a multipronged approach, part of which is to invest in public health, and part of which is to expand the infrastructure. In the same way, if the road network cannot adequately service the population using it, it should be expanded until it can, recognising that it will still likely need to be expanded in the future, because growth of cities is as inevitable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
    donvito99 wrote: »
    I don't recall people taking their motor cars from Rossaveal to work in a medical devices plant east of the Corrib in 1922.

    Ah, you've got me there. I forgot they were using the ol' Royal BusConnects back then. ;)
    donvito99 wrote: »
    You can take things to the extreme if you want. The point being made is that this road will further weaken Galway as a city, spreading out the population even further when it ought to be concentrated in proximity to where people actually live their lives. Doing this will avoid the extraordinary cost, relative to the population, of massive road projects that encourages more sprawl.

    You can put it in bold and try to make it as alarming as possible. The fact of the matter is that good infrastructure costs money, and it won't get any cheaper over time. Even if it costs a billion euro, that's still far less than the Children's Hospital, which will surely just induce demand and be too full in a few years' time, right?

    Separately, I don't have the foggiest what you mean by "weakening the city." What does that mean? Cities across Ireland and Europe and the world have massively, massively expanded over the past two centuries. Is London weaker than it was when it was just the City of London? Is Dublin weaker than when it was just the area between the canals? Is Cork weaker than when it was the area around the centre island? Cities grow. That is how they become stronger.

    But look. The solution is simple. Just put in the PT while we're waiting for the road to go through the planning stages. Surely the people of Galway will rejoice and giddily abandon their cars to ride the bus. When the road gets through planning and is no longer necessary, then there's no need to invest in it. Of course, if by that point PT has failed to fix the problem, it is unlikely to ever do so, and more infrastructure will definitely be necessary. But at least we'll know.




  • 2. No PT crosses the QCB which was built in 1988. Why not?

    Answered each time you bring this up, recommend you go back and look at the last few times you posted this and the replies


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 10,194 Mod ✭✭✭✭CatInABox


    The climate action bill passed the Dail today, and with that, the prospects for this road diminish even further, in my opinion. Given that our commitments under the Paris Agreement now have legal force in Ireland, a child that can't read or write could rock up to the high court and get any planning permission for this road overturned.


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,343 ✭✭✭xckjoo


    This is the sort of thing that is problematic. It is an open acknowledgement that people prefer cars, even when a well-resourced PT system is available, but is coupled with a refusal to sensibly expand capacity to allow for the increase in cars that go with a rapidly expanding population in case it makes people's lives too easy. It's just saying "yes, we know PT is inconvenient and you would rather not use it, so we're going to make your life harder and harder until you give up and just start waiting for the bus." It comes across as negative and controlling.



    I would suggest that people are individually better able to make a decision about what works best for their circumstances and preferences. We're not living in China.

    If PT gets me to my destination and back more quickly and conveniently than driving, I will take PT. If it doesn't, I will drive. Your comment above suggests that you know PT likely won't ever get me where I need to go as well as driving can, but I should still have to use PT anyway. That seems a bit much.
    And I'd like to not have to pay any tax while having the most amazing services possible i.e. just because the individual wants something doesn't mean much, it's the governments job to look out for the greater societal good; which in this case is lower overall commute/travel times for the general population and not just catering to the individual and their desire for convenience.

    There's also a problem of scarcity of resources that you don't seem to acknowledge. There's money, materials and just basic physics. Even if we build roads with x10 the capacity, we'll still have bottlenecks at the places everyone is going to/from.


    But this is like complaining that more people use the healthcare system when better screening services and treatments are provided. If people have better access to any service, of course they're going to use it more. If a hospital A&E is persistently overcrowded and unable to adequately service its target population (even though it could when it was originally built), is the answer to refuse to expand the department, hire more staff, or even build an extra one to help relieve the pressure? Or maybe insist that patients go home and make themselves healthier so they don't need to come to hospital? Of course not. You invest in a multipronged approach, part of which is to invest in public health, and part of which is to expand the infrastructure. In the same way, if the road network cannot adequately service the population using it, it should be expanded until it can, recognising that it will still likely need to be expanded in the future, because growth of cities is as inevitable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.
    For years we've thrown more and more money at the healthcare system and they've hired more and more people, yet we've got longer waiting lists and a creakier healthcare system than ever before. Bit like the way we've thrown more and more money at road building but have more traffic than ever before. Time for a different approach or continue to do the same?

    You can put it in bold and try to make it as alarming as possible. The fact of the matter is that good infrastructure costs money, and it won't get any cheaper over time. Even if it costs a billion euro, that's still far less than the Children's Hospital, which will surely just induce demand and be too full in a few years' time, right?
    This is where I'm starting to doubt if you're serious with these arguments. We're back to the scarcity of resources issue. There's no bottomless pit of money to implement every single approach at once and just hope for the best. Do you continuously buy things (houses, cars, art, etc.) because they'll cost more in the future or do you look at what you can afford and make purchasing decisions based on that? Or are you suggesting that travel infrastructure should take priority over healthcare? Also, please provide some evidence that induced demand is a detriment to the healthcare industry because you're really coming across poorly with these kinds of statements. Induced demand is a proven issue in transport development but I've never come across it in respect to childrens healthcare.


    But look. The solution is simple. Just put in the PT while we're waiting for the road to go through the planning stages. Surely the people of Galway will rejoice and giddily abandon their cars to ride the bus. When the road gets through planning and is no longer necessary, then there's no need to invest in it. Of course, if by that point PT has failed to fix the problem, it is unlikely to ever do so, and more infrastructure will definitely be necessary. But at least we'll know.


    I agree with you here. They should have started the PT investment years ago and then reviewed to see if more roads are needed. It looks like we might be seeing some progress with it now so fingers crossed.



    But you do realise all these planning applications and everything around it are costly don't you? I'd say we're in the hole on this project for millions already.




  • xckjoo wrote: »
    But you do realise all these planning applications and everything around it are costly don't you? I'd say we're in the hole on this project for millions already.

    This is one thing I find fascinating wrt publiclly funded projects. In the private sector, if you are assessing whether to continue with a project the one thing you don't consider is how much you've already spent.

    I have seen projects with a total cost in excess of 100 mil being canned after 20+ million has been spent and thats not the only one.

    The public sector appear opposed to doing this and it often looks like if they spend X amount they have to keep going even if the project is no longer justified.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,379 ✭✭✭KrisW1001


    The private sector invests to raise revenue and/or profit. A write-off of 20 M from cancelling a 100 M project can be justified by an making 30 M more in profits if the remaining 80 M of funding is allocated to a different project.

    Public sector projects are all cost, with (usually) no revenue, so having 20 M poured into the hole is not something that can be easily offset. You either finish the job, or you have to answer for wasting 20 M of funding.

    Private companies also have very short horizons: at best, five to ten years; the government spends on a 20-50 year timescale.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 48 remfan


    Having read the summary of the climate action bill I don't see how this makes it any easier to object, what would the basis of any such objection be on the strength of this?


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