M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

Time to move on. Too late too many objections just re-purpose and re-route the existing system.

Utrecht is in a position to remove road capacity. Galway currently is not. Getting to where Utrecht is, should be the goal and reportedly was a goal just a few years ago. The current roads around Galway are not fit for purpose. Its not fit for current capacity, wasn't fit for the capacity 20 years ago. Making sweeping changes and reducing capacity further to accommodate cycle infrastructure and public transport will cripple the city. Building new roads smartly laid out with connection points for public transport would be best, imo.

The passing loop itself is also pretty short sighted, imo. If they want to have frequent commuter trains, it will still cause big delays.

Indeed, we've seen this in Dublin. The number of private cars moving through the city centre has dropped but the number of people moving through the city centre has grown significantly. It's only a drop in capacity if you're looking at it from a point of view of prioritising people travelling in private cars rather than prioritising moving the greatest number of people most efficiently.

Dublin has the M50 and other link roads. It’s crappy for public transport as a capital city goes but it is streets ahead of Galway in roads and public transport infrastructure. I’ve just been to a few European cities over Easter. Some of the rubbish posted on here belongs in the nearest dustbin re no need for the road protect. The cities I was in have so many roads, ring roads, inner ring roads, spaghetti junctions, and tons of public transport and cycling options. As a result the city centres were very car free and a joy to be in. It’s not an either or argument, I would argue we need far more than just the ring road at this stage roads wise, not to mention years of cycle lanes and public transport infrastructure to catch up on, it shouldn't be that hard to manage in a city the size of Galway but it is, and it’s a disgrace. At some point the government and public need to push this through along with many other options. There’ll always be a NIMBY objection to either the road or a public transport option that involved construction,

You realise that the road can't be "pushed through" if it has been deemed illegal (as was the case with the previous bypass proposal), right? That will be decided by the courts (yes courts plural as it will go through several of them before the decision is final, probably all the way to Europe, as was the case previously.

It must give you some sort of comfort pretending that the hold up is some NIMBY who just has to be faced down but that isn't the case. I imagine you and a couple of other posters here as the villain in an episode of Scooby Doo; "and I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those pesky kids NIMBYs". In this case however it's not just the NIMBYs, you are also relying on official Ireland (and EU) forgetting huge amounts of recently enacted legislation and targets.

The usual nonsense in the replies, ranging from population claims (false, Galway's population is increasing rapidly and is protected to increase further while relying on a road built in the 1980’s for a much smaller population) to actually trying to pretend building a much needed ring road is “illegal”. Honestly if the electorate hear that one, they’ll turf everyone elected out and put in some radical who will change all the laws as that’s just a completely ridiculous assertion and no developed country should tolerate such crap. Europe certainly doesn’t based on what I’ve seen. The electorate want the road and more roads, and far more development re cycle tracks and improved public transport, a minority cannot and should not hold them to ransom any longer. The tragic accident on the Headford road is the final straw for me, families trying to squash onto a narrow road to cycle where trucks have to drive as there’s no where else to go. Disgrace. We should be planning forward instead of this ridiculous situation Galway is now in where they’re 40 years behind on their infrastructure development.

I'm not sure whether you are deliberately constructing strawmen, or are completely misunderstanding why this road has not been built yet. Do you realise that it wasn't actually NIMBY's or objectors that stopped this road's latest iteration: ABP made a mistake in approving it and the team withdrew it. It hasn't actually made it to a court yet. You do realise that, right? And that the courts could potentially add years of further delay, just like they did the N28 in Cork.

We're not "all just anti roads": we're on the roads forum FFS! I'm confident most of us (if not all of us) are not NIMBYS either. We're all just saying the same thing over and over:

1. It's not about population or need, or who's in the Dáil
2. The traffic analyses have been published
3. ABP made a mistake in approving the design (I'm being generous)
4. It's currently back for "redesign"

I do apologise if you're not just deliberately creating strawmen, but I really don't see how you could think that some maverick could be elected and just "push the road through", like Monsignor Horan did with Knock. The question at this point is whether the "redesign" will clearly satisfy regulations, or if it will get bogged down in court because of another attempted stroke.

Meanwhile M20 seems to move forward nicely…because they covered their a$$ by doing the design properly.

What do you mean it hasn't made it to court? There were three judicial reviews taken against this to the High Court in 2023. Maybe you mean ABP did not challenge it in court. ABP didn't take into account the very recent climate action plan, which was the foundation of Friend's of the Environment's (aka An Taisce) legal challenge. I think it is safe to say that it was absolutely objectors that stopped the project given that ABP had approved the plans.

Also, isn't it the case that it is not back for redesign but it has been resubmitted to ABP for approval, this time taking into account the Climate Action Plan.

https://connachttribune.ie/ring-road-moves-slowly-through-planning-gears/

While I agree that the plans for public and cycle transport are incredibly poor in the city - though bus connects I guess is one positive thing they are planning - I don't get the passionate negativity towards this project itself. As I have said before, surely this capital transport investment in Galway is to be welcomed given how rarely it happens and that it makes the case for better cycle and public transport even stronger. One example would be that one lane on each side of the road on the N6 starting at the bus lane at the Browne roundabout and following the N6 route all the way to Ballybrit/Parkmore is changed to a bus lane is so obvious it cannot be ignored. Also, it's clearly very approvable given it was approved 4 years ago. There's no reason why, given the political will and taken into account the action plan this time, that it won't be approved again.

Regarding cycling infrastructure in the city centre. That will take real political courage because the roads are so small it can only be cars or bikes/pedestrians, not both. My take is that everything within the old city core should be pedestrianized and include cycle lanes. I drive but the way cars dominate Galway city centre is both ugly and frustrating.

You’ve got the answer right there in your comment: More of Galway needs to be pedestrianised, more bus lanes provided, and access by private cars curtailed. Now, how likely is it that Galway City Council will do this?

What’s worse is that these policies could be pursued without any ring road. Set up Park and Ride at the city edges, and provide an improved bus service within; reduce through-routes for cars, use the space for cycle and pedestrian ways. Traffic evaporation is a real thing: if you give people a safe and reliable alternative to sitting in a traffic jam, they take it. I think that they’re afraid that any transport plan would reduce traffic volumes to the point where the justification for a “motorway-style” ring road no longer stands up. This ring-road is an ego project: Galway wants one because Cork and Limerick have them, nothing else.

A ring road would still be needed for regional and local traffic, and I’ve always said that Galway needs a Ring Road, but not this one. The problem with this design is that it encourages more private car drivers to circle the city before heading into the core along the existing roads that already cannot accommodate the current traffic volumes. Adding extra road capacity on the approaches to a congested area cannot solve congestion in that area, it can only make it worse.

If they got their act together about demand, something like Waterford’s Outer Ring Road, a 2+2 with at-grade roundabout junctions, would be sufficient for those needing to circumnavigate Galway city. For regional traffic, extending R381 on a south-western bypass of Claregalway and then north-westward to meet N84 would take a good bit of pressure off N6.

I agree, I suspect a catch is that they're afraid of undermining the justification for the road. And a second catch is that some councillors have described this road as a development facilitator: they actively want this road to allow the city to sprawl. "Unlocking development land" is the phrase used.

As pointed out previous - this has been the HUGE weakness of this project to date +

I don't think it needs to be as substantial as what you are proposing here of converting ONE LANE of the CURRENT existing N6 within the City Boundary into a HIGH Capacity people moving lane like a bus lane, just converting Browne Roundabout → Quincentenary Bridge which is the N6 section and then the Sean Mulvoy Road to the Moneenageisha Road to join the OLD Dublin Road would be sufficient in my book a bus lane corridor. So only about 1/6 of the current N6 in the City would need this BUS Lane conversion.

FYI Galway City Centre ONLY has 50 meters of cycle lane (under the Lough Atalia Railway Bridge)

Thanks, I stand corrected. So not even a "redesign". In which case we may see court cases challenging the newly-submitted documentation which will again be rubber-stamped-by-ABP.

What a waste of everyone's time! It would almost be easier to just do it right.