M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

New Merlin park hospital plans scrapped.

No Galway ring road 20+ years later from the start of 'planning'.

No new Galway public transport infrastructure since the foundation of the state .. just a few more buses added to the higgldy-piggldy roads which are the same roads my great grandparents travelled on by donkey and cart (western distributor rd and Quinncentinnial bridge from scratch are the only 2 I can name being built in 100+ years).

Its 2026, Galway and the West of Ireland generate a huge amount of corporate tax thanks to our medical device and IT industry, and smaller pharma & finance/insurance companies. Add in the global & EU innovation and research funding plus the significant student fees the 2 big Galway universities recieve from non-EU countries like China, India, US, south america. Add in all the other critical businesses in the Galway area - Ros a Mhil harbour, Marine Insitute Oranmore, biggest University hospital in the west / north-west region and its centre of excellence for cardiac care, Major tourist destination Connemara & Galway city, the biggest Gaeltacht in Irish hosting thousands of students learning Irish in the summer and school breaks .. and I'm probably forgetting loads of other major businesses. But yet, no matter how much Galway contributes to the economy, we seems to have no say in our infrastructure requirments, and we seems to have no voice.

"Not much comes from that direction"

No offence, but you haven't a clue if you are saying that.

It wouldn't surprise me if you didn't even live in Galway.

It's funny that the graph % adds up to 101%

Was there an annoucement that I missed?

I don't think the cycle lane along the prom was the problem, it was the absolute lunacy of making the road one way from Blackrock out to the Barna Road. Whoever came up with that idea obviously hasn't a clue, and should never be allowed to make another suggestion in relation to improving Galway's traffic, which in fairness is probably beyond improving at this stage!!

For a Cork-based perspective, how is the N40 working out on a daily basis? It is a perfect example of a ring road.

JLT completion date was 1999, completing the N40.

KRR needed an upgrade in 2005.

DKI needed an upgrade in 2006 (signalisation).

SRR needed an upgrade (began in 2011)

BRR needed an upgrade in (began in 2011).

The DKI needed an upgrade in (began 2011, finally completed in 2024). The DKI will likely need another upgrade soon to deal with the Dublin-to-Tunnel and Midleton-to-Tunnel rat running shutting down the Little Island West and Tivoli interchanges at peak times.

The N40 is realistically THE reason there's been no upgrades to Northern Distributor or Bypass roads you're mentioning.

A ring road is lot of investment in one single mode of transport on one single route. We think of it like a project with an end date, but if you build a "ring road" you're realistically locking yourself into decades of investment with reasonably unpredictable and undesirable mode share outcomes. Locking yourself into unsustainable development and travel patterns.

I reckon Galway could do with an East-West bypass alright though to allow the N6 to perform full distributor duties. Segregate both functions. I keep saying this on the thread. We need investment for Galway commuters and also for people wanting to bypass Galway. The problem is they keep pushing for a ring road instead.

It's kinda the point though. It should have been a proper bypass but was built too far east. So while it still fulfills the objective of allowing people travel North-South (e.g. Limerick-Sligo) and not go into the city, it doesn't facilitate people living closer to the city bypassing it going in those directions.
The point in relation to this ring road is that it is also not a bypass because we don't have the traffic demand to necessitate a bypass going East-West (that's not my opinion, it's the official findings of the report(s)). Part of the reason the whole proposal is such a weird mess of a thing

The first P&R is going to planning, don't think it will be used as a P&R much based on the planned BusConnects Network for the City. Will be used for parking for the nearby CAR Magnet that is the Galway City Council run Cappagh Park / KnocknaCarra Community Centre though.
https://www.connachttribune.ie/news/concerns-raised-over-proposed-park-and-ride-without-bus-lanes-5595614

I think this is the opposite. In the case of the Salthill cycle path the city management staff were insulted that the Councillors had the cheek propose something themselves rather than just adopting proposals made by the engineers. So the staff torpedoed it through very effective malicious compliance. When it became clear two way traffic could not be maintained on the narrower stretch between Blackrock and the junction with Kingston Road, the Councillors went back to the staff and asked to just run the cycle path from Grattan Road to Black Rock instead. The staff responded that they could not do this because the vote in the Council meeting had been for Grattan Road to the Kingston Road junction. They said the only way to change it would be for the Councillors to schedule another vote, which would set the process back at least 6 months. I heard one Councillor say at the time that he had lost count of the amount of times the Council staff ignored a vote of the Councillors, saying what they had voted for was not feasible, and implementing a watered down version instead. But in this case the staff were adamant it was all or nothing, and no watering down could take place. It was widely understood that this was done to create the public backlash that inevitably ensued, so that the Councillors would be taught a lesson and would have to backtrack on the proposal.

Today's Park & Ride proposal strikes me as the opposite. The Council management wants a carpark in Cappagh Park for users of the park but that would have to be funded from its own operational budget. However, if it positions it as a Park & Ride facility, even if the actual usage is going to be the opposite, then they can bring the NTA on board to fund it.