M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning approved]

Well i have a vision of you queing for a Gluas thinking that one more line will fix it too. Guess what treeman, there is no silver bullet. Every bit of infra helps

There we go, the mask slips again. Galway people are morons who want lower taxes and free beer on Fridays and don't understand what's good for them. Only me and my tiny echo chamber understand what's best, their wishes are irrelevant

Well none of our elected representatives to the Dail are advocating for massive tax cuts, or are they pushing for free beer on Fridays. However all 5 are in favour of this road being built. It's absolutely the will of the people, as much as people on the anti side try to gaslight us into thinking its not

Your last line is so utterly tiresome at this point, its like something a petulant teenager throws out yet we keep hearing it from a certain few again and again. The idea that traffic will become worse across a far far greater amount of road space is based on the idea of long term induced demand. For there to be induced demand for private car usage, there has to be latent demand.

Where exactly is the latent demand in Galway currently? Everyone is already using their cars. Perhaps in a timeframe spanning two decades, we'll see induced demand from much greater development west of the city. Are we acting like that's a bad thing? More houses in a housing crises, more commercial and employment investment in a very underserved corridor, and connectivity for a populace and area that's been left to rot. That's a far better problem to have than what's currently happening to the west of the city

The key in the immediate years post road completion will be to enact widespread public transport reform to the city center and reduce car centric demand for that area specifically. And if we haven't faith that that will happen, how could you have faith in an overarching GLUAS concept to begin with?

It happening in that order is what the people want however, so its time now to accept their wishes and move on. You've had 25 years to win the argument and you've failed miserably. Pro road sentiment is higher than its ever been

It's not complete nonsense. A lot of people living along luas lines opposed it at the time due to concerns over trade disruption and cost of the project. It was only after it was up and running that it was fully embraced.

I didnt mention the Metro but the support for it probably shows that people in Dublin have since woken up to the fact that public transport is a better solution to solving congestion.

In Galway much of the support for the road is among those wanting to travel around the city. The is a lot of opposition in the city centre as people know full well that with more sprawl that things will likely get worse for them, not better.

Why do you think Galway is unique of all cities, everywhere, in the entire world, and is the only place where building more roads won’t result in more cars making more journeys than would have been made without the extra roads?

The more roads you build, the more people will buy cars and use cars, the worse the traffic will become, and the greater the desperation will get among car-dependent citizens shackled to their cars for “just one more road, that’ll fix the traffic once and for all.”

This is basic, basic stuff, repeated ad nauseam all across the world. Galway is not Narnia, it obeys the same rules of induced demand as Los Angeles, or Dallas, or New Delhi. The current traffic hell Galwegians suffer is undeniable proof.

If that is true, why is there no other plan on the table? The Galway Transport Strategy listed many interventions to improve traffic (mostly based on giving more road space to public transport) which were expected to be delivered long before the ring road.

Why were these other plans not advanced?

There was/is a ring road. Its just that the city outgrew the previous road, so its no longer a ring but bisects the city.

The new ring road will be the same, it will "unlock development" meaning sprawling car dependent housing estates outside the new road, and in 30 years time the same complaints will be made

Adding capacity is a good thing.

Absolutely, so adding capacity should go to the areas with the highest cost-benefit ratio: public transport and active travel. Once those have been completed, add capacity for the private car with the remaining funds.

Never mind the road, I want an airport.

Sh1t aint getting cheaper unfortunately. If i had a time machine and the power id get in built 30 years ago and maybe now one could do the Gluas for the sardines that is the city residents.

Second best time to build is today

Where in Ireland has capex on roads shown to make things worse?

I have about 25 examples of where it's made peoples quality of life better. Interested to know examples of where it has made things worse?

What a shame about Central galway. Sure.

Thousands work in the industrial estates outside the eyre squares and have zero interest in going there outside of stag dos. They will benefit hugely.

Those in the city are paying mental money to live there. Sad for them but their day will come

So when will their day come then?