M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning approved]

Juran · 09-04-2026 04:08PM

Galway city & suburbs population is 85,000. Grid lock traffic at peak times, heavy traffic from 7am to 8pm trying to cross the city, no current alternative routes, poor public transport links.

Brest (France) city & suburbs is 215,000. Ring roads and trams. No traffic issues.

Nantes (France) city & suburbs plus major airport and mega airbus factory is 950,000. Ring roads and trams. No traffic issues.

Plenty of examples of larger old cities in Europe where ring roads and good public transport within the city works !

I am happy to hear the decision today, but why do I feel its never going to get built in our life time.

KrisW1001 · 09-04-2026 04:44PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124376528#Comment_124376528

Oh, the road will be built. Nothing else will, but the road will definitely go ahead. Trams, buses, cycleways? All that was just a bit of smoke and mirrors to justify building the road… if Galway City Council had really wanted any of that, they could have started building it in the decade that has passed while they were pushing for the road.

Dr Robert · 09-04-2026 04:53PM

Hopefully it's built for 2040

Kermit.de.frog · 09-04-2026 08:39PM

Delighted it has planning. We're turning the corner from the Green reign of terror!

Seth Brundle · 09-04-2026 09:00PM

...the Green reign of terror

🙄

L1011 · 09-04-2026 09:17PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124377417#Comment_124377417

You appear to have significant timeline corruption here.

It was granted planning while the Greens were in Government (December 2021). The courts quashed that (January 2023)

It was resubmitted for planning while the Greens were in Government (October 2023)

veryangryman · 09-04-2026 09:17PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124376631#Comment_124376631

Off ye fk with that. Accept that the city was never getting transport and that the road is a help.

Sorry mods but some of these jokers need calling out

KrisW1001 · 09-04-2026 09:38PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124377545#Comment_124377545

There's a report button if you believe my post is against the forum rules.

I'm not joking, and I'm not against roads - just this one. This road really isn't going to help. Even the city says so. It's a huge waste of money that could have built loads of more modest, but targeted, new roads that would have fixed the problems that actually exist in Galway. But no, Cork, Limerick and even Waterford have "motorways" around them, so Galway must too... and then sure let's dig a tunnel under flat ground because nobody has the spine to tell their buddies in the racecourse to sell up or move. Great use of our taxes there…

Personally I've never got a boner from thinking about dual carriageways, but there's obviously a streak of that, and some kind of inferiority complex, going on in Galway City Council, because this is the most stupid way to spend €600 M+ on roads for the city, let alone on transport

spacetweek · 09-04-2026 10:08PM

I’m glad to hear this has finally been granted planning. I fully agree that it’s not the best way of doing it - the racecourse should’ve been moved or even better put the bypass much further outside the city so that it will pass through open countryside and not through zoned land. In any case if we were actually building a bypass for East Galway to Connemara traffic, this would only be a single carriageway road. The fact that it’s a motorway shows it’s really intended to facilitate city development.

The even bigger challenge will be trying to convert the existing bypass to bus and cycle lanes. I fully expect there will be a lot of pushback on that especially from Galway City Council. Galway is the most car dependent city in the country and its motorists won’t give up road space without a fight.

As for the new infrastructural legislation, this is great news. I think it’s about time we kicked to touch all these spurious legal challenges that prevent anything at all from being built. You know things have gone wrong when sustainable transport itself cannot be built because of environmental reasons. The lunatics are running the madhouse right now. It is totally absurd to litigate against a project because it will emit carbon when building absolutely anything emits carbon.

Climate budgets should be considered on a national scale only, not project by project.

beggars_bush · 09-04-2026 10:10PM

It will just lead to more urban sprawl out along all the roads leading into the edge of the city

the outer city area is a just a mess

CatInABox · 09-04-2026 10:17PM

Just read through the inspectors report there, and it is pretty much as I suspected that it would be: there's a whole load of justifying this project on the basis of the entire GTS, and not actually on the basis of the road alone.

I would guess that someone will bring it to court to have to look at that, as this wasn't a planning application for the GTS, only for a part of it.

https://www.pleanala.ie/en-ie/case/318217

yew_tree · 09-04-2026 10:25PM

Great news but still holding my breath as objections will follow. Some fella from Castlegar giving out on the news today. Maybe the president will launch another objection.

The problem with Galway is decades of poor planning. Winding roads around estates and into dead ends. Then the back country roads with hundreds of one off houses down them…it’s a mess. Something is wrong when it’s easier get around bigger cities.

Build the ring road and then look at light rail.

wrangler · 09-04-2026 10:28PM

No one need worry, the Government and the public service haven't a brain between them capable of building this road

Exiled Rebel · 10-04-2026 09:04AM

Can't wait to see this road be built for the sheer schadenfreude when it comes to pass that traffic turns out to be worse than it currently is.

Comedy gold in the making.

geographica · 10-04-2026 09:50AM

can anyone please point me to a high resolution map of the approved ring road? Can’t seem to find a zoom able map online of any decent legible quality thanks

veryangryman · 10-04-2026 10:54AM

I miss when boardsies here would update the wiki page of proposed junctions etc on the Motorways. Glory days of the noughties. Bring back those nerds.

KrisW1001 · 10-04-2026 11:25AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124377771#Comment_124377771

The inaction from Galway City on any other part of that traffic strategy could open this road to a challenge. It’s all very well saying “and it’ll be okay because we’re building [bus, cycle, etc.]”, but if there’s no evidence of any of those things even in planning, one could argue that the inspector simply accepted the applicant's promises without seeing any evidence that they would be carried out.

Westernview · 10-04-2026 11:33AM

Mixed views on the news. I think it will help movement around the outskirts of the city but all the new, sprawling housing estates built off the new road will increase the overall population and make it worse for anyone going into the city. Without proper public transport and car restrictions Galway City is doomed to suffer gridlock for decades to come.

MBSnr · 10-04-2026 12:58PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124378744#Comment_124378744

Try this
https://galwaycoco.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?layers=ede90e3bb46f48718081993bf92bf2cd

Glenomra · 10-04-2026 01:02PM

as a Clareman contributing, I think that the new road is badly needed but coming a decade too late imo. The slowness in building this road has seen very significant lost opportunity. The Eli Lilly plant, a 2 billion euro investment, etc would have gone to Galway only for the traffic congestion in the city. Limerick tunnel was built 16 years ago and it took a decade before it really began to produce dramatic results in terms of development. It is achieving that now. The planned multi billion regional hospital, the various new Bloodmill Road developments [hospital, hotel, schools, accommodation etc], the student apartments being built to cater for 1,200 students etc are all under construction or planned because of their ease of access to the River Crossing via the tunnel.

beggars_bush · 10-04-2026 07:26PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124379524#Comment_124379524

Should be going under the race course of just straight through it. The place is a waste of green space

And ridiculous that it will be impacting on sports facilities in Dangean

MBSnr · 10-04-2026 11:23PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124381233#Comment_124381233

That map is from 2021 for the original submission that was approved until it was quashed. Fairly sure it hasn't changed.
The map shows the 'corridor extents' which I understand as being the boundary of areas were works will have to take place, even though they may not completely contain new infrastructure - perhaps more for construction access, drainage ponds and CPOs… The old quarry at Menlo Park is entirely red but the ring road only passes through the northern part of it. Could be they plan to use that as the main staging area for the build?

As far as I know they were going under the racecourse by tunnel - well effectively a cut and cover tunnel.

Race course tunnel

Dr Robert · 11-04-2026 12:54AM

Are houses in Dangan getting knocked or is that map accurate?

Agree with the Dangan sports areas, that's definitely a big pity as the facilities there are brilliant.

MBSnr · 11-04-2026 12:41PM

According to reports from 2018 - 90 property/land owners affected with 44 houses required to be demolished.
Imagine if it had been granted back in the early 2000's, avoiding all this madness.
Wonder how that protected Tonabrocky bog cotton, that stopped it back then, is getting on these days?
Doesn't appear there anymore from this survey from 2010.

So that seemingly worked out….

spacetweek · 11-04-2026 01:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124379524#Comment_124379524

That’s a land acquisition map. I haven’t seen in over a decade a map showing the proposed road itself.
Pity about all the destruction in Dangan, but this is what happens to you when you live in a city with bad or non existent planning. The planning application came in from the developer, the city thought about if this would be in the way of the proposed bypass and in the absence of certainty on the route they granted the application. Then a long time later route clarity came about, and they were forced to say “oh sorry your houses are in the way.”
Proper planning for the bypass would mean it would have a rock solid alignment decades ago. No development allowed on the route, no changes in the route when the time comes to build it. Route to be used for biodiversity in the meantime, which in Ireland could be decades.

This €17 million cost in 2008 has come up a few times, and maybe it’s just me but the figure seems totally implausible. You can hardly build a footpath in Ireland for €17 million, how could a full bypass of Galway ever have cost that? Even if it was only planned as a single carriageway with roundabouts, even in 2008 that would’ve been well north of 100 million at least considering they have to pay urban land values for the CPOs. I’d like a second source on that figure.

thomas385 · 11-04-2026 01:13PM

https://www.n6galwaycityringroad.ie/sites/default/files/media/Figure%205.1.01%20to%205.1.15_I1.pdf

This is available from the N6 site (https://www.n6galwaycityringroad.ie/), but it's from 2018 so unsure whether the design has been altered much in the interim.

Cosmo Kramer · 11-04-2026 01:24PM

Planning permission or no planning permission, I'd be surprised if this is built in any of our lifetimes. It's a crazy scheme and it's fairly obvious that it won't fix the issues, and in the long term will make things worse.

Unfortunately the geography of Galway means it's more or less unfixable as a city. The location between the lake and the sea, the inclement weather nine months of the year keeping people in their cars, and the widespread low density urban sprawl.

Certainly the western side of the city is unfixable anyway. Maybe there is scope for properly planned expansion to the east, where there is more space and better transport connectivity. But any further development to the west of the city will only add to the unfixable problems.

MBSnr · 11-04-2026 01:40PM

^^^
Closest thing I've found is this from 2020 - detailed map

Westernview · 11-04-2026 01:57PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124376268#Comment_124376268

Exactly. Build the road first to 'solve the problem' and then we can look at public transport. Rinse and repeat.

Aontachtoir · 11-04-2026 07:33PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124383547#Comment_124383547

Regarding the inclement weather, how do you think people got around before cars were invented? People don’t melt in the rain. Also, is Galway’s weather significantly worse than cold, dark, and damp Scandinavia, where cycling is far more widely adopted in cities?

Galway is obviously fixable, but fixing it requires reducing the amount of space given to private cars, in favour of reliable public transport and safe cycle routes.

M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning approved]

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