M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning approved]

I think this bypass will enable me to get from M6 oranmore to the eastern suburbs of the city much faster than it does today and ill fight anyone willing to tell me otherwise.

Indeed the councils’ own modelling suggests the ring road alone will not resolve Galway’s long-term congestion problems and may generate additional traffic over time. Its success depends heavily on whether complementary public transport, active travel and land-use policies are actually delivered alongside it. The 2 are not mutually exclusive.

Regarding the m50 the first section opened around 1990, when Ireland has a population of about 3.5 million, we are at 5.3 million and there are about 3 million vehicles registered now compared to 1 million in 1990. So as populations grow they do inevitably outgrow the infrastructure. Therefore there is a need for further road development in tandem with better public transportation and better planning. I have yet to see human nature defeated so if you think we will lose our relationship with the motor car good luck.

So rather than stick your head in the sand consider how we can sustainably exploit both additional infrastructure and public transportation. Population systems reach a point where a ring road is no longer outside the city as it becomes part of the city. The M50 is an example, its nearly 40 years old, Beijing has 6 motorway orbitals now.

Opponents of the Galway bypass selectively take parts of the planners reports that suit their arguments while choosing to ignore the rest of the commentary to give context and balance. Ryans childish one sided arguments are just more of the same old guff. A major distinction between the council’s view and Ryan’s article is that council planners generally see the bypass as an enabling project rather than a competing project.

His Texan city comparison is rhetorical and emotionally loaded rather than analytical. Galway is not experiencing North American-style low-density suburban sprawl on anything like the same scale. Its congestion problem is heavily shaped by geography: a medieval core, limited river crossings, constrained corridors, and the fact that national and regional traffic funnels through the city.

Ok so some on this forum must not be Galway based so don’t realise just how much progress has been made over the past decade, Galway has already delivered a set of foundational changes to both public transport and active travel, even if the network is still somewhat fragmented. The most important public transport change was the complete redesign of the city bus network in 2021–2022, which introduced higher-frequency core routes and improved cross-city connectivity, replacing older radial patterns that forced many trips through the city centre. Alongside this, there have been incremental improvements such as upgraded bus stops, better accessibility, and early signal priority measures, but full bus-lane corridors are still largely in development rather than fully in place.

On the active travel side, completed work has focused on a mix of safer school environments and partial cycling infrastructure rather than continuous citywide routes. The Safe Routes to School programme has improved crossings, traffic calming, and cycle facilities around schools across the city. In addition, various localised upgrades have been delivered along key roads, particularly in the eastern corridors such as Ballybane, Doughiska, and Renmore approaches. The ew bus lane in Parkmore has opened.

The Bóthar Stiofáin Active Travel Scheme, which has just been completed , has segregated cycle lanes, widened footpaths, raised crossings, and reduced traffic speeds along a key 870-metre route linking residential areas with schools, retail, and employment zones. It is effectively a “missing link” scheme that ties local neighbourhood movement into the wider active travel network and feeds toward future BusConnects corridors.

Galway is now moving into a much more ambitious phase of delivery through the BusConnects programme. The key near-term projects include the Dublin Road Bus and Active Travel Corridor, which will introduce continuous bus priority lanes and segregated cycling infrastructure, and the Cross City Link, which is intended to form a high-frequency bus spine across the city. Additional planned upgrades include major cycle and bus improvements on the Western Distributor Road, Monivea Road, and in employment hubs like Parkmore. Taken together, these projects represent a shift from isolated improvements to a coherent, citywide system where buses and cycling are structurally prioritised on the main corridors.

And all this while the most vital piece of needed infrastructure is still years from completion.

I think saying its supporters and planners expect congestion to get worse is covered in an earlier post where selective culling of reports etc. are perhaps taking things out of context and putting words into their mouths.

While it’s possible for overall traffic demand to adjust over time when new capacity is added, the primary effect in the short to medium term is usually a redistribution: fewer vehicles in the city centre and on key radial routes, and more efficient flow on the new orbital corridor. From this perspective, even if total vehicle kilometres change across the wider region, the key success metric is whether Galway city becomes more liveable and functional by removing through-traffic from constrained urban streets. And this then allows for completion of Bus Connects etc. The geography of Galway is key here, the city is a choke point between the lake and the sea, so everything is forced through the centre. And there is major population growth happening in the western suburbs, along the coast from Barna towards Spiddeal and out towards Moycullen. So the scale of the problem increases annually.

So in summary I don’t believe that the planners and supporters think this won’t make a difference, that would do a great disservice to their intellectual capacity, but there is acknowledgment that as populations grow, and as infrastructure develops, at some point like the M50 today and Beijing’s 6 orbital motorways, demand will exceed capacity. We may need a tunnel then 😀

"Galway has done some things around transport, but they are tiny compared to the snake of the problem, and they've dragged their heels on anything until they got their ring road." I posted a long list of the things that have been done just in the last few years, and not all of the stuff that has been done since the bypass was first proposed. The bus lanes out to the westside, replacing many of the roundabouts with lights and/or redesigned junctions.

Seems to be a lot of well intentioned people on here that really have ZERO clue about what has been happening in Galway, and the scale of the problems yet to be faced, and all of the superb plans in place for the city that are being progressed. Again trite and simplified responses, there is an old saying "decisions should be based on facts", all you seem to have is opinions. I have presented you with long lists of what has been achieved, factual lists, and also facts about what is already in place along this 26 year old route.

On that topic have you looked at the route recently. Almost all of the land to the south of it has been developed or includes protected areas such as Barna woods. Almost every field north of it has a house in it, or is not suited to development the bog lands along the Headford road, or the land is protected e.g. the Menlo area, the SAC etc. Have you been out to Barna village recently, horrible sprawling developments such as Burkeways. So where is this urban sprawl going to occur in 10 years from now because of it, there won’t be an empty field anywhere near it. For the majoirty of non Galway people have a look at Google maps in satellite mode, it will give you the clearest indication of how much has been going on and even that is about 2 years behind the reality.

Have your heard of Ardaun and what is planned for there. The city council already has plans for a major expansion of the city to the East, East of the bypass. Are you aware that the country is in desperate need of housing. Any new major developments should be accompanied by appropriate distributor roads, no problem with that but as long as they are not a developer led mess such as the distributor road to nowhere in Knocknacarra.

The simple fact remains, we need a proper bypass of the city and we need proper public transport. You appear to think that the council etc. have been playing a collective game of chicken, holding back until the bypass is in. That is simply nonsense, they cannot close off any more roads in our already chaotic city until there is a viable alternative in place. Of course car models show increased volume, we have 3x of them since 1990 and 2x the population, what should we include population control measures too.

This is what I mean when I say you are selective in your comments, again standard Ryan stuff for years, the master of one-sided spin and selective commentary. The intelligent people of Ireland saw through it all. If our council and our planners are so incapable, pressing ahead with plans they know are destined to fail, then there should be a tribunal of inquiry to expose the scandal. The reality is that we need both and we need it now or I guess we will spend another 25 years gridlocked in a dying city because our unprofessional and shady planners etc. will refuse to budge, really!

Let’s break it down then:

"it’s an outer orbital that serves only one purpose: create development land to the north of the city." What land to the north of it is available, Arduan (which to more the northeast is already planned), the bogs along the Headford road? If you mean north of Barna well 2 points on that a) lots of land that is not suitable for development (lakes, bogs etc.) and b) the new road from Furbo to Knocknacarra is a 2-lane road, effectively a distributor road.

"Note how much of the city’s traffic never crosses the Corrib.". It is 2012 data and I am not sure how this was collected, but what I see daily are massive tailbacks from Renmore to the Wolfe Tone Bridge, and from the Crescent to the Wolf Tone bridge, massive tail backs from Moycullen right through to both the Quincentennial bridge and the Salmon Weir bridge, and from Shantalla to the Salmon Weir Bridge. And then tailbacks from the Cappagh road to the Quincentennial bridge and from the end of the M6 motorway to the Quincentennial bridge. I assume these are cars that need to cross the river. And if that is represents just the 35% (and I am using your data) than where the heck are the other 65%, hiding in plain sight?"

"60% of all trips along the corridor originate and terminate within the city area, and two thirds of these completely urban trips never cross from one side of the city to the other." Your own numbers are not adding up here but despite that. The section from the Moycullen interchange to the M6 will serve as a distributor also. Traffic from the N59 will be able to use the route to get to Salthill, Knocknacarra etc. This will also reduce the traffic crossing the Quincentennial and heading through the west side etc. They can use the bypass, and exit for Knocknacarra at the N59 junction and head towards Millers Lane etc. That opens the potential for continuous bus lanes from the Cappagh Road to the east of the city, all the way. Traffic destined for the major employment areas at Parkmore, Ballybrit will be able to access these areas by a new junction that facilitates the old N17 Tuam Road and traffic coming from the M6 and all points East and from the west (over the Corrib).

“A new distributor at the edge of the city was what was needed, but it absolutely did not have to be a motorway. Rather, one or two bike+bus+car roads like the Limerick Northern Distributor to add needed capacity” – Limerick has a proper motorway bypass to the South and the East, it allows traffic from the northwest, south and east to fully bypass the city and it also has proper distributor roads, either built or in the process.

The same goes for Waterford, motorway bypass to the north allowing traffic from the northeast, Kilkenny and Cork to bypass, while having a southern ring road also.

Cork is badly in need of a northern ring road to that would link the N28, M8, N20, N22, and the N40. Having a motorway terminate at what was the old Dunkettle roundabout was a testament to bad planning.

"what this road will do is create a string of car-dependent suburbs, and because there is exactly zero in the way of public transport plans that would prevent this from happening" - This road won't open this land up, its already open and being developed. There won’t be any left once this is done. Can you please give me some examples of this land to be opened. And I agree with you planning for any new developments should be contingent on proper public transport, I am in favour of public transport.

"At the cost of this road (including the ridiculously expensive tunnelled section included because nobody had the spine to tell the Racecourse owners no), there was so much more that could have been done in terms of roads in Galway." Sadly, the cost is huge, if it has been done 20 years ago it would have been for a fraction. And I agree the racecourse should have been put in its box, it's dying anyway in terms of attendances etc.

and how is this a civic vanity, we have been mired in insane traffic for years, if fixing that is vanity then fair enough.

N40 was supposed to be a the only bypass that would be needed…)

Game show wrong answer buzz

Who ever said such a thing? There is no way in hell that anyone thought the existing link from Limerick side was sufficient. Not now, not in the 90s

100%!

0% I can actually read and write myself thanks - Moderator please note this

and Dr Robert (who maybe a BOT who knows) this is what an AI post looks like and this is 100% AI generated - just so as you can tell the difference in future. Now if we all start using AI in these forums, it will be the end of them. Less of the personal attacks and more actual facts….

Apparently using an AI post to highlight what one actually looks like is AI slop. Fair enough, and what I wanted to show here is what AI slop actually looks like. So I have deleted the slop. But I want to reiterate that my posts and my posts, and yes I use Google search to check facts etc. But that is that.

excatly and I don't blame you - but that is what AI spew looks like and for the benefit of Dr Robert who seems to think my posts were AI spew too, what I type is what I type. And if people start using AI for these types of forums they will be destroyed. My reponses to your posts were my own and I suppose I am really struggling to understand why the Galway situtaion deserves to be addressed differently to every other city and town etc I referenced. Galway has a chronic traffic problem, anyone who lives here (and yes I am a real person) knows this. The same traffic in the city every day as goes up and down the M50. That is just incredible. And even more so is that places like Castlebar and Westport get dual carriageway connectivity and bypasses. This simply does not add up.

That was posted to highlight what AI slop is, my own posts are not AI slop. And I clearly noted that at the top of the post by the way. How do I report that I am being accused in the wrong?

A road around the city will do exactly zero to help that situation. 

If you coming from Barna to Parkmore in the morning and evening, as an example, it'll do wonders.

Too many doom merchants regarding this road.