M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

If you're approaching it from an engineering a d infrastructure perspective you'll be aware they are cocking it up spectacularly by trying to build the bane of every Irish town and cities existence, a 'distributor/bypass' hybrid (See M50, any irish town that had a 'bypass' built that then had a heap of houses built along it).

You want an example, in Ireland of how it (nearly) should be done?

Naas, it has a North and west distributor road, and then the M7 as the bypass, all it really lacks is a ban on through traffic in the town and improved priority into the centre for bikes and buses to be a genuinely really good Irish case study of what many European cities have, centres with little to no car traffic, distributors for the suburban region (with really good bus priority, cycle lanes feeding in towards the urban area etc).

Galway bypass should be built to suit the AADT of through traffic, with few junctions (if it ends up supporting east/west and west/east commutes along the full length of the road then fine)

But, and it's a repeated failure of not just GCC but every planned bypass in Ireland, they don't incorporate remediation works into the project. All bypass plans should have a mandatory subsection which details the works to improve pt/at on the road it replaces at a minimum and in the case of that old road already not passing through the centre, also plans for how PT and AT will 'hub and spoke' out to the old road

(There must be some legal mechanism by which the road literally can't be opened until the rest is done/underway, i.e. funds legally committed in a way that cant be taken back)

A western city relies on its hinterland to develop and prosper( A rising tide and all that). It needs the ability to expand and handle the infrastructural demands placed on it. Modal shift is a small piece to providing a release valve but its not a solution to the infrastructure demands. It is and has been this way for centuries. We are not not a Chinese megalopolis thankfully.

Ignoring this fact is idealogicaly driven. Add to that Galway is a small city off the rail and port highways of Europe (and geographicaly we won't be) you realise that roads are the tool we have. National or European funding will never be provided by an inept beuracuracy to remove the needs of roads to handle the infrastructure needs of Galway. A Gluas for the loveens to get into town for a coffee after a dip down Salthill so they can feel good about using public transport isn't going to cut it I'm afraid.

Splitting hairs with how roads are categorised is straight out the delay and stifle tactics that people like Eamonn Ryan have used for decades.(you don't need to explain what a stroad is - this project isn't one and won't be unless it's allowed to become one and even it it does, it is the lesser evil of doing nothing Galways development cannot be allowed to be stopped by the sins of the past )

I don't think Naas is a good example of a town that is setup to develop into the future in Kildare, nevermind Ireland. It has huge land banks of undeveloped land near its town centre and huge out of town shopping centres. It's town centre is not in a healthy state