By all means fire away with creating imaginary bogeymen to caricature opposition to this second bypass but the I think you'll find much of the opposition is much more grounded in real local conditions.
In my own case, I'm old enough to remember the last bypass coming on line and it only taking five years for traffic to be back to where it had been and getting even worse. There is no doubt that the same thing will happen again if this road gets built (and it's still far from certain that it will get built). Induced demand is a well understood phenomenon that has been demonstrated in practice all over the world over many decades.
Then you get the ill-informed or merely cynical (I don't know which of those camps you fit into but neither is something to be proud of) who trumpet claims about the new bypass being the key to allowing pedestrianisation, public transport etc. when even the official reports commissioned by Council and TII don't make that claim. The reports prepared by Arup acknowledge that the bypass will result in no decrease in traffic in the city centre and no modal shift from private cars to other means of transport.
If it's built, which won't happen for many years, if at all, all it will do is facilitate further sprawl on the outskirts so that even more people end up sitting in the exact same traffic that we have today.
Be gas if they invested that €600 in decent public transport for Galway - it has to be the most disproportionately gridlocked city despite its small size. A ring road will just create more induced demand for private cars and will be back to gridlock pretty soon.
My main issue isn't the environmental one (cars will become much cleaner in the next few decades). I drive a dirty diesel for long distance trips, clean options aren't affordable yet.
My issue is this is proposed as a solution to solve city traffic congestion but is a populist short term plaster that will ultimately make the traffic problem worse. It will result in a poorer quality of life for those commuting by car from Knocknacarra 4.0 and sitting on a congested road 10 years after it opened.
What we need is heavy investment in a public transport network and focus on moving people around the city rather than vehicles. Imaging what €1billion could achieve.
It's main remaining hurdle is indeed a climate one though and I suspect ABP have passed the buck and approved it in full knowledge it's going to be appealed by some climate action group as it violates the Climate Act. They essentially even say so in the report.
I have serious doubts about the need for this road, but what we do need is a plan for the Galway metropolitan area.
It's the solution that Galway needs right now, with most of manufacturing and jobs located in the east of the city and more housing developments built in the west this is the only way.
In a perfect word I would love Gluas and better cycling infrastracture but that's not going to happen in my lifetime. If a ring road took couple of decades to complete, that runs mainly through empty feilds, imagine the impact of digging and closing roads for Gluas to actually happen.
The main issue with Galway is incompetent planners working for the city and county. There's close to 20,000 people living in Kocknacarra alone and there's no plans to bring manufacturing or office space to this side of town. There are currently around 600 housing units being built around Clybaun/Ballymoneen road with potential for more, yet there's no addequate bus service or even a shop for people to walk to and the existing roads will not handle additional 600 cars every morning and evening.
Conspiracy hat on - maybe Intel wanted it!
But it's a sacrifice that I've never heard anyone claim to be making due to a road not being built. You're literally the only person I've ever heard say such a thing. Of all the reasons in favour of it it's certainly a niche one.
A ring road will encourage more development around the periphery of the city, and within a few years of it being built it will be wedged with traffic at certain on/off ramps due to commuters using it to get to parkmore, or everyone turning off the same exit for NUIG/the hospital.
Once they get off the ring road onto existing city roads it will be same old gridlock as always, just that the tailbacks will spill onto the ring road ruining that for people who want to actually go cross-city instead.
The solution is proper mass-transit within the city bounds - the ring road is not a panacea. The fact that its been approved means that a workable public-transport solution will be kicked down the road for another 20+ years.
A very 1970s solution to traffic management. In excess of €1 billion for an 18Km piece of road only serves to highlight how expensive car centric infrastructure is when this money would go so much further on bus, Gluas (dare I say) and cycling infrastructure. Building this road is insane.
Great news for Galway and for Business in the city and surrounding areas
What the? Look, I was saying that different people make different sacrifices in the cause of negating climate change. Some go as far as not having children. Mine is that in the event of the ring road not being built that I will negate the overcrowding problem in Galway by not putting down roots there.
My point is that we should be mindful of the sacrifices we are asking people to make if this doesn’t go ahead.
The cars are already there, no one can afford to buy or rent within an asses roar of town anymore…. It’s only going to get worse … we need this bypass…
Where did I say I wanted to can it? But never mind that deflection attempt and let's get back to your funny procreation stuff. (Insert facepalm here).
Are you saying the thing that drives a lot of ring road opposition rhetoric has nothing to do with the ring road? The idea that we need to go without as part of the drive to decarbonise? If our climate change goals have nothing to do with canning the project, then why do you want to can the project? Is it because Galway is a Local town for Local people or something? What other reason than car removal or depopulation do you have for keeping the bottleneck?
Is there going to be a party for ABP finally finally making a decision on the G50?
'Dafuq' has that got to do with the Galway ring road project. And the irony of you using an article which uses climate change as the reason to question procreation isn't lost, you couldn't make it up.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2019/3/11/18256166/climate-change-having-kids
Yep I'd say there are loads of people saying they're gonna forego procreation due to a ring road not going ahead!! Never heard such malarkey.
Well, we can’t have a “shut the roads” circle-jerk. People have to make tough decisions, I’m sharing mine for people to consider. For every one of me, there’s hundreds more in similar boats, evaluating life and saying “nah” to West Galway, or saying “I’m not going to build, I’ll just buy an apartment” or “We’re not bringing kids into a world like this”. Better to have it out there then pretend it’s all happy clappy everyone’s getting rid of their cars & rewilding Connemara.
Right on cue.
I should be clear. I once wished to make my life in West Galway. More than just a home & family, a manufacturing business. This was dependent on the road proceeding. Thinking long term, I knew that if this development was stopped, Galway would continue to get difficult to live & work with. Not that the ring road would be a panacea, but without it depopulation would be the only way Galway’s problems could be expected to abate. I could not in good conscience raise a family or start a business in a place that needed to depopulate, so I would, and still am, planning long term to emigrate. If the road is built I will look to move back, but not before. And if it is never built, I will never return to live. It is the greenest thing I can do for my home.
He drops in regularly with aggression to say he's leaving for Canada if they don't build the ring road. And if they do agree to build it he was to set up a successful manufacturing plant of some sort in West Galway and bring great prosperity.
Sounds like he's off to Canada regardless. Maybe there are other reasons he hasn't succeeded, but someone else's fault no doubt.
If traffic is the problem, more roads have never been the solution
Ever
Anywhere
Way off.
Endless traffic is the more-roads-when-roads-fill option that is being pursued.
This road isn't going to make homes any more affordable. The opposite decision with a fast tracked focus on public transport as the solution would allow growth around a sustainable network. Expand with the 15 minute communities in mind. Don't build more and more Knocknacarras, impermeable back to back estates with no facilities or jobs within a comfortable walk - designed for the private car commuter.
Galway needs to progress, not go backwards. Disappointing news today but from a brief review of the report it seems destined to be overturned so still hopeful Galway can flourish from a more future-proofed solution.
This escalated quickly! Am i misssing something?
You Son of a b*tch. I’m emigrating because I can’t make my home here. They will be raised abroad, and returning to see their grandparents, my parents, on holiday.
My children should be Galwegians, as countless generations before. But because of sc*m like you, they will be North Americans.
Weird holiday, but ya 13 years might just be about right for a timeline if it even happens
Yup - exactly.
We have been here before. The last Galway City Outer Bypass was originally approved by ABP from the N6/M6 as far as the N59.
Another few years and then there is the cost benefit analysis.
More cars, more traffic in many suburbs queueing to get on and off the ring road (as shown in the reports), more development that's designed for private cars...
Dont forget the inevitable judicial reviews & appeals have to be done with first
It could be another decade before this is all done and dusted
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