M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

Did you look at the numbers?

You could be right yep, that it's too far gone with so much money burned on the "silver bullet" solution that they need to keep going for political reasons.

In their defence, I think the GTS does attempt to do what you're describing in your final paragraph.

And fully agree that Cork shows how not to do it.

I find this post fascinating because I agree with all of your points, yet I am against the building of the current GCRR.

May I ask why you believe it needs to go ahead, in its current form?

Because to me all the current GCRR does is add more ways to get stuck in city gridlocks and wont free up the space for the for better public transport revitalised public realm projects etc that we both agree would be great to be done.

Instead of building the GCRR and then look at other options to me it should be the other way around. Look at where the public transport, footpaths and cycling lane infrastructure can be built first and then look at where the roads need to go to compliment it. As one example I think the western part of the scheme should be done that bypasses Barna, but instead of looping out past Letteragh link in to the Western Distributor Road. And have a Park and Ride west of the WDR that goes to Knocknacarra shopping centre to join with the current bus routes.

The GCRR was originally mooted around 30 years ago - when thinking was car centric. Even 10 years ago I was part of the 'build the bloody ring road' mentality but we now know building a transport solution around private cars is counter productive.

https://bsky.app/profile/farronf.bsky.social/post/3loexfiqoxk2b

Interesting thread analysing the current application with regard to its potential to turbocharge congestion in Galway without any associated (read: Mandatory) works to remove the majority of cars from the city.

I remember Pat McGrath had a similar article 2-3 years ago. Probably could Copy and Paste most of that article here again. Pat be retired by time GCRR gets opened if it ever does.

But above you posted that "90% of people are in favour of it" based off nothing more than your own notions and some weird projection on election results where, unless I'm forgetting something, not a single candidate campaigned on it as a prominent issue. I posted information obtained from people who actually asked people what their issues were with the city, which, while not something I'd plan a city on, is still far more telling than the notions you're pushing as fact. You can be as confident as you want but you're probably wrong. I'd say 99.999999% of people want traffic to improve. Most are open to alternatives to this lame duck.

Not sure what the rest of the stuff about your canvassing experience has to do with anything. Sorry you had a tough time of it but it doesn't reflect my experience or those of other people I know that do it.

Not a great guess. Most people have no idea what the candidates policies are or what they're about. Unless you're canvassing for one of the big incumbents you'll be lucky if they've heard the name.

Ye are projecting big time lads. Most of us want a working system. If we thought this would help then we'd be for it. On a related note, I'd be more in favour of this road if it was part of a larger development plan for housing west of the river. It needs to be part of a plan though or we'll have more of the same with low density sprawl

I was in Headford yesterday and decided to drive to go home to Clare by Galway, calling to a business in Liobaun. Took the incorrect turn off at a roundabout and and went further in than I needed to. What a disaster, Galway traffic currently is. It took me ages to rectify my mistake. A beautiful day, my driving not coinciding with rush hour or school closures but nevertheless a continual laborious crawl. The shop owner that I spoke to when I eventually arrived in Liosbaun said that Galway city is losing customers to Limerick, which I realised, and Athlone which I did not. I don't know how long it will take to develop the proposed ring road, but if they don't get a move on, Galway city will be left behind imo.

Im glad some of these objectors weren't around when the wheel was invented, we'd all be on the shanks mare

It’s pointless “debating” you as you have your mind made up and logic will not permeate your ideology. And “youse”?

Everyone who disagrees with me is a luddite!

BUILD BUILD BUILD High Density housing on the current Brownfield sites/sprawl and commercial sites on the existing footprint of the City.

GCRR will increase car traffic on many NEW routes in the City while decreasing on others. However in time we will be back to square one as induced demand takes hold. The ARUP numbers also show this in the modal share projections.

It's a "running to a standstill" project

I think you might have a subtle mistake here: you're saying "traffic will increase" and that's not necessarily the biggest problem. In a growing city traffic will increase.

The bigger problem is that car-based mode share (of that increased traffic) will grow. So we pour taxpayer money into infrastructure and initiatives to improve sustainability of the mode share, and end up going the opposite direction. Their "do nothing" scenario ends up with a better outcome, based on that metric.

The pushback to that is obviously "we shouldn't care about the sustainability of our mode share", but we really do, from a transport planning perspective. This isn't some kind of "eco" or "green" idea (though it obviously dovetails with eco/green ideas), rather the city's own growth becomes unsustainable. It literally becomes difficult for the city to grow as it tries to maintain an ever-expanding sprawl of low-efficiency infrastructure. Not just roads, but water, wastewater, services, every piece of infrastructure becomes inefficient because the distances between everything are larger because of the increased spacings required for what is a low-density transport mode. TLDR: if you plan transport around cars, you get lower density.

Maybe the issue is the rest of us are trying to debate it on the merits of if it'll improve traffic and commute times in the city. Nobody mentioning the environmental impact except the few people trying to act like it's the only reason people are against it.

It's a sh1te plan. That's why most of us are against it. The numbers in the report back this conclusion up. Can you debate from that point of view?

I am unsure how I missed the turn off to Liosbaun but I did. That was my own mistake. I 'knew' the way and didn't need any map etc.!!!! I accepted that my mistake would result in an inevitable delay. I was in no particular rush that day and could afford the extra time. What fascinated me however, was the traffic crawl that I met on every part of my extended journey. I wondered how locals can tolerate the inordinate amount of time, that they have to spend on very short distances, and felt that this slow traffic must impact on people's decisions on whether to visit Galway City or not. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't!