M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

The bridge will be built eventually, just at a greater cost than what could have been achieved prior to objections and delays, the moycullen bypass is on a small scale but the benefits can be seen by all out west of the city and it's confirmation of how badly a bypass is needed in the city. Galway has suffered at the hands of the greens and they have had their answer in the ballot box. It's time they were taken on in europe as well and put back in their box. I'm all for climate change and sustainability but sitting in lines of traffic because of objections for 30 years has made me question the green agenda. A bypass would free up the city centre for pedestrianisation and public transport options. But it's easier just object to everything and pretend we can keep the Galway of the 1980's when most of these greens blew into college in Galway and formed most of their ideas in Mick Taylors in a haze of weed.

What improvements in public transport, cycling, etc. have come with the Moycullen bypass?

But…the project isn't a bypass. It's a distributor/bypass "ring road". It'll only operate as a bypass for a couple of years before it's clogged again. That's literally what most people are complaining about.

I don't have any problem with a bypass, but Galway councillors are saying that they need this road to facilitate development. What I'm saying is that it's not being built to free up transport, it's being built to "unlock development lands". This is something you should also be pushing against, if you're in favour of a bypass?

They really need to remove a few of the junctions if it's to work as a bypass. But also I believe that if they do this the projected traffic figures won't be high enough to justify the project, so they're in a bit of a bind. And if the project goes ahead in its current form you'll get a dysfunctional road like the N40 or M50, which need ever-increasingly expensive projects to fix the bottlenecks. We should just build a bypass and do it right first time.

I don't have data to hand, and I'm not going digging for it, but maybe I didn't phrase myself very clearly. Taking Oranmore as an example, the bypass there is 30 years old and nothing was done to encourage alternative travel choices within the town after it was built. I don't think that there is any doubt that there is more traffic within Oranmore town today than there was 30 years ago. It's only natural that there would be with the increase in housing in the town since then and nothing done to discourage car traffic within the town or to make other transport options more attractive. But the bypass also certainly increased overall traffic as it made it more viable for people to choose to live in Clarinbridge/Gort/Ennis and work in Galway city. You can argue that the bypass is a good thing, as someone travelling from Limerick to Sligo no longer had to drive through Oranmore, but the other effect was to increase the number travelling by car from south Galway and further into the city, bypassing Oranmore, but then contributing to increased congestion on the Coast Road, the Old Dublin Road, Bothar na dTreabh etc. The one positive here is the opening of Oranmore station (albeit 2 decades after the bypass was built), and the rail connectivity from Gort and Ennis, but if you're living in Bluebell Woods for example there are still no attractive options to get from your house to the station other than by car through the town.

The bypass of Moycullen will work out the same way. I know people who were already commuting from Doon and Oughterard to the east side of the city before the bypass, and they are having a much easier commute since the bypass opened. But painful nature of that commute before the bypass limited the number of people willing to take it on. Now the existence of the bypass is going to encourage more people who work in the east city employment hotspots to live north of Moycullen. Before long the traffic delays will equalise again, just with increased volumes over what was there before. And there's no prospect of rail arriving as partial relief like it did for Oranmore.

The Ring Road, as currently planned will just have the same effect on a much larger scale. Despite the efforts of one lazy poster above to dismiss the objectors as anti-everything dope smoking greens it has been frequently pointed out, in this thread and others that touch on the subject, that if there was a comprehensive transport plan, that incorporated a ring road with corresponding improvements in public transport and active travel provision, then much of the opposition would evaporate.

This is hilarious. On the one hand you want people to "engage on a factual basis". On the other hand you say:

You only have to look at Oranmore or Tuam. Traffic in those towns is just as heavy, if not heavier, than before their bypasses were built.

I can't comment on the situation in Oranmore, but this statement is completely false in relation to Tuam.

When asked to provide facts on which you made this statement, you say:

I don't have data to hand

Doesn't seem like "engaging on a factual basis" to me.

First and foremost the road trough the town is now far more pedestrian and cycle friendly and business is benefiting , but I guess nothing I say will convince you

Think you're misunderstand me here. That all sounds great and a big benefit to the village. But there's no PT improvements coupled with these developments so probably little reduction in the number of people driving to work, etc., which is what we really need. The roads will be filled up again if there isn't this modal change. Only a matter of time. Then we'll have even more cars on the road that need to be accommodated. It's impossible to have everyone driving all the time without traffic issues. Too much space needed for each person (I.e. the size of a car), too many pinch points, too many chances of accidents or breakdowns, etc.

That's what my issue with the M6 is. If it was part of a bigger plan to incentivise a shift to more efficient forms of transport then it would be fine. But it's just more of the same and that doesn't work.

And no I'm not "anti car" before that old troupe gets trotted out. Grew up in the country during the times it went from no cars to two cars per driveway. They're unbeatable for how flexible and versatile they are but they're not without downsides. Sitting in traffic jams while life ticks away being my least favourite

In fairness, the moycullen bypass has been great for moycullen itself, but it remains to be seen whether it will make much difference getting into Galway or over the bridge until the schools and college are back.

Most folk moving out that way are doing so because they can't afford what they want home wise, be it purchase or rental in Galway city.

😂 Ok

We need to just accept that we'll all be either retired/dead before they even start this ring road.

It's not either/or, and we should be moving on with those other solutions immediately. There's no excuse for parking everything with a "this road first before we do anything at all" strategy.

Councillors were more than happy to keep promising that the ring road would happen. It was a Pie in the Sky promise that would get them re-elected without having to do the work on actual broader solutions.

It will happen, it's just a case of when and how much more it will cost as a result of the unnecessary delays. Thank god the objectors and dogooders weren't around when the wheel was invented.

Would building a 600/800 Student Secondary School in Moycullen make a big dent on car traffic reduction on the N59 into Galway City?

I actually think the bypass will answer a huge amount of the problem.

It is actually mental how much the traffic factors into your life every day in Galway. It is a really really poor reflection on the council that it has become thus.

People are properly fed up now, and hopefully this will get rammed through this time.

They do need a dedicated cycling lane from moycullen into town though. They should be equally forceful with the Greenway.