There is an existing route bypassing the city centre. If cars were banned from the city centre as you suggest people would cross east to west much faster and safer by bus or bike than driving on the qb.
Connemara traffic heading to the east of the city was shown to be nearly negligible by the modelling report. A handful of cars.
And vice versa as well. East to West is the same. ARUP's own data shows that as DaCor has highlighted, Galway City is the destination, hence the roads engineers themselves stopped calling the Ring Road scheme a bypass a long long time ago.
The alternative solution people seem to be suggesting is that City folk switch modes (cycling walking and public transport) to accommodate all the non-City car traffic - will work for short term but we need to start seeing a much greater modal shift from the greater area like Oranmore/Bearna/Moycullen/ Claregalway and rurban commuters in the medium/long who are passing through/by these towns going into the City.
That 30 year bypass is not fit for purpose. The city is so much bigger and needs more room to grow. The city is now both sides of that road. Just look at how few bridges there are over the river Corrib - four? 3 of them are 150+ years old.
And I would like to see that that but there is no way it works without an outer road like the one suggested. I can't believe people in Galway being so against capital investment in the place. It has had so little investment in the past 25 years, bar the university, and you have people knocking something like this based on ideology. I always contrast it with Cork, which just seems to have both more political will and also much more ambition.
Did you see the bit on that programme where they talked about the Bus Connects/Bus Lanes? Neither did I. Did you see where they talked about Park n Rides? Neither did I. Did you see where they talked about improving the infrastructure for Galway's actual favourite mode of active travel - walking? Neither did I.
Instead it was all trains and bikes. Typical Green Party sh1te. And not even sensible train stuff like a double-track to Athenry and possibly building more stations along the way using the existing infrastructure. Oh God no - instead it was nonsense West on Track guff.
The only saving graces to the programme was that the Cycle Bus fella came across fairly well and they didn't mention the God-damned GLUAS.
No doubt there's loads more they could have covered, but to be fair, its a 30 min program and there's only so much they can cover.
Would love to see a second stab at it with additional points covered, including what you listed
Jesus this lad is deluded
"The opponents to the ring road offer no alternatives"
What a twat
Indeed it was only a thirty minute programme but they chose to focus on trains and bikes. Which shows their agenda. There may be unused footage where they talked about Buses and walking in Galway. Given the way the programme was edited, I doubt that such footage exists.
They also did not interview any official from Galway City or County Councils. Complete lack of balance. And if officials were asked but declined, that should have been said. It wasn't said, because, I suspect, they weren't asked.
In other words, the programme was agenda-driven one-sided nonsense.
Dont know what he was looking at to see "celebrations",go on to Senator O'Reilleys twitter feed, most of the comments are not too fond of the decision or too kind to the greens.
To answer the GCOC CEO Deery, when given a safe alternative young families took it up in droves
Its just a shame that the alternative required an escort due to dangerous driving
Excellent news, I look forward to seeing what comes of this
Athenry, Loughrea, Headford and Gort are now priorities for upcoming transport studies.
Systra Ltd will carry out some of the studies, which must also align with each Local area plan.
One thing though, the councilor states in the interview that they will come up with options that "everyone is happy with" which has never happened in the history of anywhere so we'll have to wait and see
Someone asked me if I watched it. I said that I'd sooner poke my eyes out with sticks that watch and listen to that shower :-)
Opposition to the ring road isn't a lack of ambition. It's a frustration at the lack of ambition around options that have been shown to work, unlike "one more road" which has been shown over and over to be a short term patch.
Galway traffic is coming up on Primetime after the news on RTE1.
A joint statement released by the councils
link is just a short blurb. Full pdf statement is attached
Fairly balanced coverage of the mess I thought.
Tell us more!
It should be coming up on +1 around now, or it'll be on the player shortly.
Prime time touched on all the big concerns on both sides of the argument. Depressing that the ring road would still be 9 years away if it got approved. Christ how many extra cars will be on the roads by then?
To me I agree with a point above about needing the ring road to remove a lot of cars from the city, a lot just want to cross the bloody river as we've limited bridges. And then the inner city will surely be freed up a bit to stick in extra buses and bike lanes.
But in the next ten or so years, they just need to start putting in bus lanes. And bike lanes. Make it happen.
Looking at the road outside the racecourse why can't they eat into the wide footpath and add a bus lane the full length of the road? Looks like there's room to avoid buses on one side of the road being stuck in traffic leaving the area in the afternoons.
And then the inner city will surely be freed up a bit to stick in extra buses and bike lanes.
Its worth repeating, there is no plans anywhere, by anyone, to reallocate any space once the ring road opens.
If there was such a plan, and it laid out in details how a huge load of space was going to be reallocated and it was scheduled to happen the day the ring road opened and it was set down in law so nobody could pull a fast one, then you'd see a lot of resistance wither away.
As it stands, however, its very much a case of having the cake and eating it i.e. get the ring road and keep as much space for cars in the city as possible
You're so cynical and suspicious.
Get on board with the GTS, you know you want to.
Yup. It seems to be a "lets build this road and then if all the other roads empty we'll think about repurposing them" mindset.
A report on the councils reaction
Annual funding for councils for active travel announced
Galway City Councils allocation
I do note the "Access Controls Audit" that they got funding of 80k for.
I mean, I did that audit for them. They just wrote a few pages of analysis on what I did. I'll definitely be popping in an FOI for details on that 80k spend. My hope is that it relates to the Phase 2 audit but probably not
Galway County Council allocation
As far as I can see 90% of the county councils list is for planning and design purposes only
I thought the City Council's allocation was low, then I see the COUNTY!!
This scheme isn't ambitious though, it will worsen the situation.
Growth is to be made compact according to the national development plan with brownfield sites to accommodate the majority of new development.
And how much is allocated for non-active travel 2023?
Yeah its pretty bad for the county
I recall being in Athenry begging local councilor to get some bike parking put in the center of the town. Nope, couldn't afford to take away parking. Not even one space could be sacrificed.
They've since installed a handful of racks, but not enough and not in enough locations to make use of bikes as a viable option
Its a vocal minority thats behind the objections, a huge majority of residents want the traffic problems solved with a comprehensive plan that includes a by pass/new river crossing,development in Galway has been stifled for ages,theres always an objection to everything(rightly or wrongly).
Galway has been well passed out by Limerick(limerick got their by pass, yet a green TD from there objected to the Galway by pass) and is forging ahead in population/development while Galway stagnates.
🙄 ..
Good news for the majority in the city who want the by pass. 😀
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