M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

You're pretty much demonstrating exactly the problem i highlighted. All your points and questions have been discussed and answered ad nauseum in this thread. You can have a read back through it if you're genuinely interested. Look for things like the percentage of journeys that make the kind of trips you give in your examples. Not much help to general traffic issues in getting someone from Dublin to Clifden faster

The only thing I'll say is it's not true that anything is better than nothing. Nor is it true that that this plan or nothing are our options. It is true that we've had decades of near nothing while everything is pinned on this plan happening. And its also true that their own reports show this solution is likely to worsen things long term. So what's the benefit in building it?

I don't think you're framing it totally accurately. Some posters have advocated for similar bypass routings with fewer junctions (myself included). Others have advocated for similar routings with fewer lanes. Some people have advocated for direct linkage between the proposed road and those schemes which will reduce car dependency and prioritise sustainable development (myself included). Most people have advocated for action on other transport modes in and around the city to one degree or another.

I don't think it's totally accurate to say "I don't see them coming up with any realistic alternatives", because there have been a fairly wide variety of alternatives suggested, between roads-only solutions and multi-modal solutions. OK, you might not feel some are realistic of course.

The Local Authority in question have effectively said "this road first before anything else" which is probably the closest thing to "no realistic alternatives" that I've seen. I think their general attitude, and the behaviour of TII/ABP is more worrying than the deficiencies with the proposed road tbh. There seems to be very little appetite to tackle transport issues in Galway in a meaningful way. It's just kind of: "we need this road, the conversation stops now".

Its a mix of ALL. But NO 3 has historically been a very big problem in Galway City; not the brightest Engineers who are assigned tasks that are beyond them. If all ya have is a hammer then nails is the only thing you are going to be using.
However issue is structural. The same issue's can be seen in all Local Authority's. Our local Government system is dysfunctional when compared with any European Country's model of LA.

I look to Limerick City with interest, can directly elected Mayor John Moran start the change.

Galway to Oughterard 4pm citylink bus today took 1.5 hrs.

What a time to be alive.

That's a shame! I wonder do they have performance reviews like in the private industry, not performing, not delivering out you get?

Also if the M17/18 had been routed through Oranmore and Claregalway would that have helped Galway city traffic? Was that a missed opportunity?

I seriously doubt it, in the good old Irish public sector, once you're in, you're in for life unless you actually kill someone.

You were actually fairly on-the-money with your example of Dublin/Clifden though. Without taking your example origin and destination literally, the "bypass" traffic is a very small % of the total, and that's what people were saying. It's low single digit figures (3% according to the documentation for the proposed road, see page 13 here): https://www.n6galwaycityringroad.ie/sites/default/files/media/N6%20EIAR%20-%20Chapter%206%20Traffic%20Assessment%20and%20Route%20Cross-Section.pdf

Low numbers needing a "bypass" and high numbers needing a distributor are likely a reason more junctions were added. It "boosts" the numbers who use the road but it also changes the function from a bypass to also carrying distributor traffic and that's THE problem. According to the published numbers, the vast majority of needs are apparently internal city-to-city trips. These are journeys for which most people nowadays would conclude that "car is sub-optimal". The GTS lays this out here on page 25 or so:

https://files.galwaycity.ie/uploads/downloads/news_items/Traffic-Transport/GTS/GTS%20Executive%20Summary%20Report%20-%20English.pdf

So…the vast majority of Galway transport current needs are distributor type but the proposal is a bypass type road….which has then been butchered with loads of junctions so it won't function as a bypass.

I hope you can understand now why many of us who aren't "anti road" are against this one. It just looks like a classic case of someone proposing the solution before looking at the problem. Galway needs better city transport and has had an intercity solution proposed.

No the M17/18 change would have very little influence. Claregalway needs a bypass (for 20 years now) for itself as a town, it will have the effect of funnelling more car traffic into Galway City at a faster rate though if its ever built but it's still needed for the town.

It's because those two examples are bypass roads. Their design with limited junctions and their context is to remove regional/inter-city traffic out of town centers. The Macroom bypass in the first 30 days after the bypass opened saw general traffic in the town drop ~40% and HGV traffic in the town drop by 60%. (Source: https://www.tii.ie/media/bpko2u03/tii-bypass-impact-evaluations_macroom_july-2024_final.pdf)

That's not the road design for the M6 Galway City Ring Road. It's designed as an urban distributor road. It's purpose to handle (and really encourage) traffic within Galway. This project has lots of junctions that help it support lots of local access and local trips. It's own planning application shows that only 3% of the traffic is trying to bypass Galway. Most traffic is local in nature.

The M6's own planning application and it's business case are at lengths to say it's not a bypass road. It's hard to justify the spend and environmental impacts to build a road that targets the 3% of traffic that is bypass traffic. It's purpose is to be an urban motorway.

M6 is more like the N40 in Cork. It design means it will be heavily congested by local traffic to the point that it loses it's bypass function. The M50 is seeing similar issues in Dublin. Where it's primary purpose of moving strategic traffic (i.e. goods vehicles and inter-city/regional traffic) is being harmed by local traffic.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

Hilariously, if it was actually designed properly as an actual distributor, it might have got over the line!

Ok thanks for the explanation all. I'm far from an expert on this stuff but have an interest.

So Galway needs an urban distributor road. If you added on bus lanes and cycle lanes like the proposed road northside cork city. Is this the option that is needed for Galway?

So 97% of Galway's traffic woes are coming from within the city boundary essentially or traffic destination is within the city? That sounds mad! Was the study correct??

So the who the hell designed all business parks/factories on one side and all housing on the other side of Galway?

GLUAS is needed to connect West to East. The Cork CARC improvement will be huge, different obviosuly to Galway. But I think it is a quick win! Easier to get planning, to get updates to the tracks and build stations on CIE land. It kind of bypasses a lot of NIMBY people.

Lastly a proper coherent well planned bus connects. What does that look like for Galway? Would it help solve traffic?

Same for cycle lanes, any abandoned urban railway line they could develop?

Agree with your point and conclusion but is there really that many (unnecessary) junctions on Bothar na dTreabh or the new proposed road?

I wouldn't really mind the Bothar na dTreabh junctions. It's all built up around that road now and it effectively works as a distributor. I'd just improve the design of that, for instance implementing bus and cycle lanes and providing an orbital bus. I realise that the GTS does not recommend orbitals, proposing radials instead, but it would not be significant effort and could improve efficiency so I think it's worthwhile.

The new proposed road though, from West to East, for what it's worth my suggestion would be:

1. The Bearna West roundabout - Keep
2. Foraí Maola junction (~1km) - Remove
3. Troscaigh junction (~1.6km) - Remove
4. Bearna East junction (~2.8km) - Unsure but I'd prefer to remove
5. Cappagh Road junction (~4.4km) - Unsure but I'd be inclined to upgrade this one to free flow and keep
6. Ballymoneen Road junction (~5.5km) - Remove
7. N59 Letteragh junction (~7.1km) - Keep and protect
8. N84 Headford Road junction (~12.5km) - Remove
9. N83 Tuam Road junction (~14km) - Redesign, Keep and protect. The proposed design here is a mess, they're creating a dedicated new link road to facilitate private landowners using central infrastructure funding. This junction will be heavily distributor in nature and facilitating it via the additional proposed link road seems outrageous to me. Industrial estate traffic should not be routed directly onto an N or M road IMO. Upgrade their existing N83 connectivity and no more. If you look at the design the industrial estate has as much connectivity to the proposed road as the National road does!
10. Coolagh junction, Keep & Protect

In my opinion you can see in the design that there's been a lot of thought put into facilitation of development rather than bypassing the development, if that makes sense.