M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

Dear Editor,

When I read that the by-pass of Galway was a thing of the past I was happy! Somebody had the backbone to make an unpopular decision and hopefully will stick with it. It's not that I wouldn't like the cars to be off the road through the city. Just the opposite.

I'm a cyclist and the way some people are driving here is downright dangerous for a cyclist. I've been cycling all my life in all parts of the world, but it's definitely the worst here as I've been hit twice this year alone! And that despite wearing a high visibility vest and all kinds of gimmicks. Cycle paths and a bit more concentration on the part of the car drivers in this city would be great, thank you. But that's a by line.

About the by-pass. The rejection to build it is not a sign of being backwards but a sign of being sensible and smart. More roads attract more traffic as every study shows. To want to build more roads is actually very backward thinking, a kind of thinking that has dominated the 70s and 80s and I thought we got past that in the meantime. So whoever decided the end for the by-pass did his/her homework. Well done!

That the by-pass is not coming is a real chance to do something different. That money can and should be used for the light rail or a light tram. Last January I was in Montpellier, France. It is another university city and they have two tram lines. One from north to south, the other from west to east.

Why can't that be done here in Galway? It wouldn't cost that much more than building a road through areas where no roads should be built anyway because of the soft underground which leads to a bumpy road in no time and more money wasted for repairs.

A light tram line from Oughterard to Oranmore and one from Spiddal or Barna to Briar Hill with a few stops in the centre of the city so people can change trams would take A LOT of traffic off the roads. The trams can run every 10 minutes during rush hour and everybody would be happy.

It could be done and it does work if somebody has the guts to finally get on with it. It takes initiative and good will on the side of everybody but it's a chance to show the rest of the country that Galway can be different and progressive. Galway is a great place to live and work, now let it become a place to be proud of when it comes to public transportation.

Yours,

M Hablützel,

Galway.

spacetweek wrote: »

What? Increasing from S2 to S2+Buslanes is a huge increase in capacity. You measure a road by how many people it carries, not vehicles. The possibility for a greatly expanded bus service along the route will increase its people carrying capacity hugely.

Dear Editor,

In response to several recent letters in these columns.The Galway City Outer Bypass has been a hot topic around the city for several years now but when I heard that the road had been rejected by An Bord Pleanala my heart sank. This critical piece of infrastructure that would finally relieve Galway of a good chunk of its traffic issues has been scaled back to a useless 'half bypass' that will drop all its traffic onto one of the city's worst black spots.

No-one will argue that Galway has a traffic problem, but everyone has different opinions about what to do about it. It is clear that Galway, as a city, cannot prosper without solving, or at least alleviating, its congestion issues. People need to work together and a plethora of short sighted bad decisions need to be investigated. A sensible transport plan must be instigated.

Case in Point: The N6/M6 from Dublin will terminate at a roundabout near the Galway Clinic. If the M18 (to Limerick) and M17 (to Tuam) ever get built, you will get traffic from all three destinations crashing to a halt at this roundabout. Traffic madness will result. Lets also not mention the insane routing of the M18 and especially the M17 - it WILL NOT solve the Claregalway issue. However, even Claregalway will pale in comparison to the chaos at the UCHG roundabout and Bishop O' Donnell Road if the 'half-bypass' gets built. Bishop O'Donnell road is massively over capacity. The root cause of this is twofold - lack of decent public transport and the fact that up to 35,000 cars a day travel down a road that effectively serves almost every housing estate west of the Corrib. This was caused by bad city planning, not magic, and the idle exhaust spewed out by waiting cars is more environmentally damaging than the Outer Bypass would be. Cars are at their most polluting when idle, not when travelling freely.

What people need to realise is that roads need to be part of an overall transport strategy, not the easy target to be axed in place of ill conceived public transport plans. People like their cars and will continue to drive them, but do you think everyone actually wants to be stuck at the Terryland roundabout in the evenings? No. I'm sure a lot of those motorists would take public transport if it was a reasonable option. The reasons the buses are underutilised in this city are numerous but can be easily solved. Case in point: Poles in the ground are not good enough in the Galway rain. Bus stops with two-year-out-of-date, incorrect timetables are not even remotely acceptable (Dunaras stop on the 5W service). Waiting 30 minutes for a bus with no idea if/when it will arrive is shameful.

In any case, GLUAS isn't the so-called magic solution that many respectable people think it is. It is a gigantic white elephant that must be stopped before a lot of money is wasted. Knocknacarra in particular is extremely low density due to atrocious free-for-all sprawl planning during the Boom, hence the reason that City Direct buses zigzag through all the estates in a long, painful, drawn out route-march.

It just isn’t suitable for a tram line, as the line is too far from sprawled houses. So let's protect the alignment but consign the GLUAS to the shelves for the foreseeable future. The biggest problem with GLUAS is that it's being pedalled as a cure-all solution when there hasn't been the slightest whisper of a joined up, forward thinking integrated transport plan for the whole of Galway. Everyone is ploughing ahead with their own agendas doing their own thing (or lack thereof) and no one is considering how anything might fit together to make it easy for the commuter. Case in point: GLUAS is proposed to be on the other side of Eyre Square to the bus station, resulting in an unnecessary walk in the rain. It should go right outside the bus station, not 300m away. There is also no tourist-friendly proposal for a line in Salthill or to the airport. Let’s also not mention that Bus Eireann has no routes to serve a large chunk of Knocknacarra and that there are only TWO buses per day to Galway Airport.

Here's what should happen in Galway. Firstly, the FULL Outer Bypass should be built and Bishop O' Donnell Road upgraded to dual carriageway. Bus Eireann should not be in control of city services, that should be given to Galway Bus, in the same vein as Dublin Bus. Massive increases in bus frequencies around the city should be next, with installation of more bus lanes where appropriate and the building of bus shelters at every bus-stop city wide with constantly updated, GPS backed, mapping of bus locations and 'NEXT BUS DUE IN xxxx MINUTES' monitors.

Dual track the railway to Athenry, with a new station at Oranmore and a commuter service to the former with P&R facilities at each. Build fully segregated bus P&Rs at strategic locations around the periphery of the city (and bypass) with 10 minute frequency travelling down dedicated, monitored bus lanes to a variety of city stops. Make Eyre Square, Eglinton Street and St Francis Street bus and taxi only zones to stop the current bus vs car-parking battles and properly redevelop the bus and railway stations.

Have peak time suburban shuttle bus services to satellite towns like Moycullen, Tuam and Spiddal. And either integrate the Coach Station and Bus Eireann stations or build a guided, covered walkway, between them. Why do we need the two anyway, it wouldn't happen elsewhere in Europe. In any case, the key is making buses ATTRACTIVE to commuters, not the half baked services that we currently have.

Most of this could be done for a fraction of the cost of the GLUAS, and will be massively more beneficial. What is needed more than anything though, is joined up thinking and integration of services, not the random, unplanned, nonsense that pervades transport and construction policy in this city (and indeed the whole of Ireland) at the moment.

However, NONE OF THIS should be done without adequate roads infrastructure and the Outer Bypass should be the first step in this. Roads aren't the overall solution, but are a key part of the overall picture. Ireland is still playing catch-up in the roads department and let's not mention that the Government originally told us the interurban motorways to Dublin would be finished in 2006. At this stage, the blackspots of Galway, Claregalway, New Ross, Adare, Abbeyleix, Limerick, Gort, Dunkettle and the Cork SRR SHOULD BE SOLVED. We've had an unprecedented economic boom and still no two major cities in Ireland are connected by a motorway. We still have at least a year to wait and now the boom is over.

Galway city should be a tourist mecca and the gateway to thewWest of Ireland. It's an embarrassment at the moment because it's so difficult to get through. By the looks of it, a trip to Cork on a future M18, Limerick Tunnel and M20 will take just over two hours. A trip from Dublin will take two hours. The last five miles to get across Galway will take a further hour.

Galway is at a crossroads. Do we languish in traffic chaos or do we actually do something about it.? Building the FULL bypass should be the first step in kick-starting Galway's development again. But let's not forget the depressing fact that if a developer were to propose a large housing estate in the Thonabrucky Bog, the main site of N6 environmental objections by An Bord Pleanala, I bet that local councillors and An Taisce would make a lot less noise than they did about the bypass.

Yours,

The construction of first phase of the long-awaited Galway City Outer Bypass will cause traffic mayhem in the city unless significant measures are introduced. That's according to Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Eamon O Cuiv, who told the Galway Independent this week that areas such as Barna and Moycullen would be used as rat-runs and "clogged up with traffic" when the motorway opens in a few years time.

Construction on the multi-million euro development is set to begin in 2010 but only a segment will go-ahead as the stretch between Gortacleva and An Baile Nua was refused planning on ecological grounds by An Bord Pleanala last December.

The new road will now stop in the Bushy Park area and will pose huge problems as motorists use villages such as Barna and Moycullen to avoid traffic blackspots, according to Mr O Cuiv.

"This part of the bypass will change the traffic configuration patterns in the city dramatically and will cause huge issues unless action is taken now."

"We need to upgrade these roads and proposed relief roads in the Barna and Moycullen areas will have to go ahead. It will be 2012-2014 before this route is completed so time is on our side, but we have to sit down and look at the consequences of this planning decision," he said.

There was widespread shock and outrage when planning for the second section of the bypass was turned down on the grounds that it would have a "significantly adverse effect" on Thonabrucky Bog, which is listed as a priority habitat under the EU Habitats Directive.

However, Minister O Cuiv believes the motorway can still go ahead in its entirety and said that putting forward a new proposal combining the rejected stretch of road with a proposed highway between Barna and Rossaveal would be the most "sensible option".

"When An Bord Pleanala refused the second half of the bypass, they clearly indicated that it could go ahead if we looked at alternatives. There would be similar ecological issues with the Barna to Rossaveal road so I think the best option would be to combine the two in a new proposal."

"There has been a lot of talk about funding not being available for these roads but in the current downturn, you can get very good value for money."

"There have been estimates coming in for a number of projects and they are very competitive. You can get more for less and this is the upside of the downside."

"I would expect tenders for the Gort to Tuam road to be sought in the next couple of weeks and that will go ahead under Public Private Partnership. There will be a lot of capital investment in infrastructure over the next number of years."

Minister O Cuiv said he and several other local TDs would be meeting with both the city and county councils this week to discuss the impact of the GCOB planning decision.

Chris_533976 wrote: »

Heres an article in the Galway Independent. Some of it is completely true, but other parts are silly. There is no way the tenders for a Gort to Tuam PPP are going to be issued within a couple of weeks. Thats bull of the highest order.



http://www.galwayindependent.com/local-news/local-news/bypass-construction-could-cause-mayhem-%11-o-cuiv/

Kieran4003 wrote:

Sent an email to the Nra about a couple things.

Fistly I asked about PPP Schemes. What I find interesting the way one is refered to N17/18. I wonder are they going to toll the Gort - Oranmore road now as well. Just a thought...
"While the final Second Roads PPP Programme is not yet fully finalised, it is likely to comprise four PPP schemes, 2 on the N20, one on the N17/N18 and one on the N11/N25. The exact details will be finalised in 2009"

Also I asked about what they will do from 2010 onwards and intrestingly they say a prioritisation study will be undertaken this year. I wonder what would they consider the main priority...
You also seek information in regards to other road schemes to be constructed during the period 2010 to 2015. As you will be aware the primary focus up to 2010 is on the completion of the motorway network linking Dublin to Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Northern Ireland. The schemes to be progressed in the subsequent period will be determined through a prioritisation focus which will be substantially undertaken in 2009.

Finally no news about the N25 Midleton - Youghal scheme for those of you thats interested...
In respect to the N25 Middleton to Youghal scheme, this project is at the early stages of developments, effectively what is described as the "Constraints Study" stage. I do not anticipate the Route Selection being finalised for some time.