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N6 - Galway outer bypass: Is it needed?

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  • #32
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Neo-Luddism? Really?

    So London and Stockholm, two cities with well-established road pricing/congestion charging are run by Ned Ludd's ideological descendants?

    You mean two cities that built an underground first and built beltways then for eg their Connemaras and THEN introduced charging much later when the alternative modes were long in place.

    Really! :D:D:D


  • #33
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Remedy the current situation, prevent its occurrence or worsening in future.

    For example, "one-off" land will not disappear with a bypass, and the doomed Irish love affair with "one offs" won't end with a bypass either.

    Have you any proof that the traffic is coming from "one off" housing to back up your assertion?


  • #34
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Neo-Luddism? Really?

    So London and Stockholm, two cities with well-established road pricing/congestion charging are run by Ned Ludd's ideological descendants?

    And cities such as Leiden, Utrecht, Copenhagen and Ghent are all run-down kips, teeming with unemployed people and marred by boarded-up shops?

    Evidence please, that modal shift away from car use is economically detrimental.

    What do all those places have that Galway does not?

    A road that does not run within 800m of the center of town!

    What does Galway have theat these dfo not?

    A road that runs through residential areas from the built in the 50s, 60s & 70s, before it was even considered and some people want to to call it a bypass despite going to within 800m of the designated center of the urban area!


  • #35
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    antoobrien wrote: »
    Do you realise that there are standards that have to be applied in order to provide for cycle lanes & road traffic lanes?



    If there's room for cars and car-parking then there's room for other travel modes.

    Reallocation of road space is key, eg bus-cycle lanes on SQR (however badly they may have been implemented).

    With regard to cycling specifically, the National Cycle Policy Framework, for example, is not against bypasses (and may well promote them).

    The key point is that the GCOB is years away, and waiting for it is not a sustainable option. A second key point, IMO, is that a bypass may not necessarily lead to modal shift on the required scale.


  • #36
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    The key point is that the GCOB is years away, and waiting for it is not a sustainable option. A second key point, IMO, is that a bypass may not necessarily lead to modal shift on the required scale.

    In the meantime we just prevent private traffic from using Newcastle Road so we can put in a cycle lane? You know the corner I'm talking about, there isn't room for a proper footpath on it and there's barely enough room to get a bus through it as things stand.

    You do realise that if we were to put bus lanes on QB that, best case scenario we would need to increase the usage of the bus services in Galway by at least 400% based on commuting figures - that's allowing for a city wide doubling of cyclist and walkers and assuming that they are all using the bridge, just to service the QB traffic. Worst case (no increases) is 1200%.

    A small bit of practicality is required from both sides and the logistics of what you are suggesting does not add up from any direction.

    In the meantime, we can not change the fact that there are many physical choke points where we can not give cycle lanes and footpaths and road lanes, but you jsut want to ignore it.


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  • #37
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    You mean two cities that built an underground first and built beltways then for eg their Connemaras and THEN introduced charging much later when the alternative modes were long in place.

    Really! :D:D:D


    Earlier quote:
    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    the idea that motorists can be systematically squeezed out before the bypass is but a form of neo Luddism.




    Excluding cars from urban areas is not luddism, neo or otherwise.

    The bypass will not be built for years. We can't go on gritting our teeth and waiting for it to appear.

    Methods will have to be found to deal with the situation in the interim, under the banner of Transportation Demand Management or some such.

    That's not luddism, its pragmatism, IMO. Neither is it "extracting blood" or whatever the earlier emotive term was.


  • #38
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    antoobrien wrote: »
    In the meantime we just prevent private traffic from using Newcastle Road so we can put in a cycle lane? You know the corner I'm talking about, there isn't room for a proper footpath on it and there's barely enough room to get a bus through it as things stand.

    You do realise that if we were to put bus lanes on QB that, best case scenario we would need to increase the usage of the bus services in Galway by at least 400% based on commuting figures - that's allowing for a city wide doubling of cyclist and walkers and assuming that they are all using the bridge, just to service the QB traffic. Worst case (no increases) is 1200%.

    A small bit of practicality is required from both sides and the logistics of what you are suggesting does not add up from any direction.

    In the meantime, we can not change the fact that there are many physical choke points where we can not give cycle lanes and footpaths and road lanes, but you jsut want to ignore it.




    Newcastle Road, where they drive up on the footpaths on a daily basis, including and perhaps especially at school drop-off and pick-up times?


    00-LM-1214.jpg


  • #39
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    I was waiting for one of your collection of "1000s" of photos of cars in Galway to show up.

    Can you please reduce them in size in future, thanks. They ming the formatting in every thread you deploy them in. :(

    I am delighted to hear that we are now on the same modal developmental level as Stockholm all the same. :D


  • #40
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Newcastle Road, where they drive up on the footpaths on a daily basis, including and perhaps especially at school drop-off and pick-up times?


    http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i355/Iwannahurl/00-LM-1214.jpg

    That kind've proves my point IWH - there is not sufficient room to have all three services provided side by side. And yet you do not want to see something that should make a difference.


  • #41
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Evidence please, that modal shift away from car use is economically detrimental.
    That's a bit of a straw man too. Where did Sponge Bob say the above? I don't know about you but I read that the economic activity of Galway would be damaged by not providing the bypass. I saw no generalised point about cars as a mode of transport being made and I certainly saw nothing about Sponge Bob's post that says the principle of encouraging modal shift away from cars would be economically damaging. Most posts about this issue make the point that the bypass is necessary to allow for basic accommodations to be made for cyclists and pedestrians within Galway city centre.

    You're extrapolating something from nothing and it's becoming disruptive to any rational discussion of this issue...


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  • #42
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    antoobrien wrote: »
    That kind've proves my point IWH - there is not sufficient room to have all three services provided side by side. And yet you do not want to see something that should make a difference.




    Only one mode is causing the problem. That's the point.


  • #43
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    To_be_confirmed wrote: »
    That's a bit of a straw man too. Where did Sponge Bob say the above?

    rational discussion of this issue...

    Here:
    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    Nevertheless the idea that motorists can be systematically squeezed out before the bypass is but a form of neo Luddism. It would utterly destroy the economy of the city



    There is no bypass. There won't be a bypass for years to come.

    Speaking of rational discussion, what is the evidence, eg from elsewhere in the EU, that modal shift would be utterly destructive to the city's economy in the interim?


  • #44
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Only one mode is causing the problem. That's the point.

    :pac: Yeah the bus is trapping the car in , while the cyclists are riding at the child waiting to get on the bus, instead of doing what they are supposed to do and cycle around the bus. Simplest thing ban the bus!:P

    And motorists get a bad name for not doing the "right" thing:rolleyes:


  • #45
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    To_be_confirmed wrote: »
    That's a bit of a straw man too.

    You're extrapolating something from nothing and it's becoming disruptive to any rational discussion of this issue...

    Now you know why this discussion is effectively BANNED in the Galway City forum and is kicked over as standard to the Roads forum instead.

    I have melancholic feelings about this subject undergoing a new eruption in C&T which has been spared the serial whataboutery and misuse of the 'straw' word (to date) but one of the Mods expressly wished to discuss it in here.

    The general conclusion in whatever forum this subject kicks off in is that there is no road space in Galway with which to seriously tamper at present and that expensive tinkering with the existing network is just that, expensive tinkering not a solution. :)

    Only ONE poster on all of boards serially and vehemently disagrees with the general conclusion.

    As they have found this thread too we therefore cannot say that the discussion is in any way 'imbalanced' by their absence. :D:D


  • #46
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    antoobrien wrote: »
    Yeah the bus is trapping the car in , while the cyclists are riding at the child waiting to get on the bus, instead of doing what they are supposed to do and cycle around the bus. Simplest thing ban the bus!

    And motorists get a bad name for not doing the "right" thing




    Refusal to see the obvious, as usual.

    07-D-62332.jpg


  • #47
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    There is no bypass. There won't be a bypass for years to come.

    What has that to do with the debate over whether one is required?


  • #48
    lucernarian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,236 ✭✭✭lucernarian


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Here:

    "Nevertheless the idea that motorists can be systematically squeezed out before the bypass is but a form of neo Luddism. It would utterly destroy the economy of the city"
    No he did not!! Please show me where he said "that modal shift away from car use is economically detrimental.". Where did he say that?! If someone is making the point that modal shift cannot happen without the bypass, then how can any claim about the economic impact of the bypass not being built be suddenly turn into a claim about the economic impact of discouraging car use? Please provide evidence of this.

    Beleive it or not, describing the economic damage to Galway in particular if modal change happens before the bypass is built is simply not the same thing as claiming that modal shift away from cars is economically damaging in general!.


  • #49
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Refusal to see the obvious, as usual.

    http://i1089.photobucket.com/albums/i355/Iwannahurl/07-D-62332.jpg

    Not from Galway but a nice counter point:

    cyclestreets9352-size180.jpg

    Can't be safe either can it?


  • #50
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    Now you know why this discussion is effectively BANNED in the Galway City forum and is kicked over as standard to the Roads forum instead.

    I have melancholic feelings about this subject undergoing a new eruption in C&T which has been spared the serial whataboutery and misuse of the 'straw' word (to date) but one of the Mods expressly wished to discuss it in here.

    The general conclusion in whatever forum this subject kicks off in is that there is no road space in Galway with which to seriously tamper at present and that expensive tinkering with the existing network is just that, expensive tinkering not a solution. :)

    Only ONE poster on all of boards serially and vehemently disagrees with the general conclusion.

    As they have found this thread too we therefore cannot say that the discussion is in any way 'imbalanced' by their absence. :D:D



    Mods don't like such discussions in some forums because their RP dashboard lights up and they are hassled as a result.

    The phrase "general conclusion" really just means dominant discourse. The prevailing dogma on some Boards forums is that the GCOB is unquestionably A Good Thing. Scepticism is not welcomed.

    Take a look at some of the vitriol aimed at certain individuals and groups, and who's thanking whom, in the early stages of the GCOB thread here, long before the ECJ ruling put the cat among the self-satisfied pigeons.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055413202

    Sample page: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=66230160


  • #51
    Iwannahurl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,156 ✭✭✭Iwannahurl


    To_be_confirmed wrote: »
    Beleive it or not, describing the economic damage to Galway in particular if modal change happens before the bypass is built is simply not the same thing as claiming that modal shift away from cars is economically damaging in general!.





    What or where is the evidence that modal shift sans bypass would "utterly destroy" the city's economy?

    Any documented examples from anywhere else?


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  • #52
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    antoobrien wrote: »
    Not from Galway but a nice counter point:

    cyclestreets9352-size180.jpg

    Can't be safe either can it?

    Don't think that is safe meself. The lack of enforcement and indeed basic consideration is shocking. :D

    Could they not set a minimum height off the ground in a byelaw????


  • #53
    monument
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,110 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    Mod, general note:

    Please no name calling or snipping -- both abstract and directed at poster.

    Please no talk about moderation here or elsewhere (including replying to this post). My view commuting and transport is a good fit for a debate about not only the road but all modes of transport in the city, the kind of trips being taking, how planning affects transport and commuting, and how conditions for cycling, walking, and bus travel -- and how all of this fits into the question of the bypass.


  • #54
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    If you are consciosly going to bring all that upon yourself Monument :) then make sure you go to the next Boards Beers in Galway where the local mods will feed you beers until you drop and then pick you up and feed you more beers for as long as you can stick Galway. :):)

    Anyway. Galway will be lovely once they figure out how to take the Ambulances and Cars and Trucks and HGVs out of it as much as possible. :D

    In terms of vehicular traffic they have added (net) 2 cross city lanes in 100 years because they pedestrianised Shop Street and rendered O Briens bridge a taxi rank in the main when they built the QB S4 road in the 1980s ( S4 = unseparated dualler). We won't net up the rebuilds of Wolfe Tone brige in the 1800s and 1900s because they want to replace that too.

    So the WHOLE of Connemara got an increase of 2 lanes across Galway City since the days BEFORE there were ANY CARS OR LORRIES at all and I am discounting the Cornamona Bypass and sure we know the Salmon Weir was built mainly to service the Prison-Courthouse traffic anyway and that they want to get the pedestrians off it. :)

    And the WHOLE of Connemara is heartily sick of being funneled through this morass of constricted and still constricting road space for every transport mode maginable...not that I ever brought an Ass and Cart anywhere near Galway in my life may I add.


    Onc can further make the case that the 2 Net New cross city lanes in well over 100 years is cancelled out by the Corpo blocking 'our' canal what let us sail down to the sea from Oughterard in the 1950s and that we lost 2 net lanes there too and only got them back with the QB. :)

    But all we really want to do is not see the middle of Galway City unless we ABSOLUTELY have to and funnily enough most of the population of Galway City feel the exact same way. :D


  • #55
    antoobrien
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,106 ✭✭✭antoobrien


    Lapin wrote: »
    Good points. A few years ago when the traffic lights broke down for a day on the Headford Road, Keith Finnegan on his radio show remarked on smoothly the traffic ran that day and questioned the need for having the lights there at all.

    It summed up the mindset of the motorist in one sentence.

    That did rather neatly undermine the city council's argument to replace all the roundabouts with traffic lights, because it was obvious that the lights here, and those at Liosban/Riverside and Parkmore were causing the major traffic flow problems. Any benefits in traffic flow from the new junctions can be directly attributed to increase numbers of lanes on the junctions, rather than the lights, since we have increased it has increased the junction lane capacity by 50% - 100%.

    If the city council want to provide pedestrian & cyclist access they should ignore those that shout loudest and put in a series of pedestrian bridges at the sites of the major junctions. There are two junctions out of the 14 (former & current) roundabouts that are under consideration for removal where I can think this would be problematic due to space concerns, Cemetary Cross & Moneenagesha Cross.

    The set of pedestrian and cyclist overpasses at the Liverpool St John Moores Campus at Byrum St seems to be effective at providing pedestrian access over busy roads, I can't see a reason why something similar can't be done in Galway for at lest pedestrians at the busiest junctions and places like this crossing at Duness Terryland, which should have been built as a bridge in the first place.


  • #56
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    antoobrien wrote: »
    and places like this crossing at Duness Terryland, which should have been built as a bridge in the first place.

    And where an accident a few hours after Garglegate in the Ardilaun resulted in a death and in a traffic snarlup of historic proportions and with most of the government caught on the 'wrong' side of it, luckily.


  • #57
    yer man!
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,646 ✭✭✭yer man!


    antoobrien wrote: »
    this crossing at Duness Terryland[/URL], which should have been built as a bridge in the first place.

    This was in the original plan years ad years ago but due to lack of money it never got the go-ahead and they never bothered to return to the scheme.


  • #58
    SeanW
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,535 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    The GCOB, even if the ECJ had issued a ruling in its favour, will not be built for years yet.
    True, but I trust we are all clear that this is not a good thing?
    I can't quite believe that I have to post this image yet again to illustrate the basic reality of travel mode versus finite urban road space, but there you go.
    Your theory assumes that if you just take away swathes of room from motorists and impose punishing restrictions on motorists, that will suddenly mean the streets will be swarming with new cyclists and the capacity of the road will go up 20 fold or something.

    The only problem is that it's likely to be bunk.
    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    What's insulting, in my opinion, is to tell commuters who travel by modes that contribute nothing to traffic congestion that there is "no room" for them
    But they do - if they require room to be taken from motorists who have little choice but to drive, then increased congestion is a logical certainty.
    and that they should wait for a higher Level of Service until cars have been accommodated, at some unspecified time in the future, with a shiny new road.
    At which time, the cars are off the first road because they never had any reason to be there in the first place, e.g. Dublin-Connemara or Salthill traffic
    As you point out, pedestrians, cyclists and bus users already comprise a higher than average proportion of commuters at present. In which case, they deserve a higher Level of Service now, since by their mode of travel they are by definition not contributing to traffic congestion.
    Again, this is false unless you know for a fact that all the motorists have other choices.
    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Neo-Luddism? Really?

    So London and Stockholm, two cities with well-established road pricing/congestion charging are run by Ned Ludd's ideological descendants?
    London and Stockholm both have ring road bypass (or a partial ring in the latter case) and they both have extensive railway based public transport systems. Suggesting that Galway should follow those two cities with congestion charging and other "great ideas" without actually having the infrastructure of those cities is ... somewhat questionable. I could go further but I'd probably get banned.
    Evidence please, that modal shift away from car use is economically detrimental.
    Well, as you know in around 2005 the government told local authorities nationwide to raise more of their own revenue. So many small/medium towns went from a system of 2hrs free parking in the town centre to paid parking. This caused a shift to out-of-town supermarkets and shopping centres. The solution according to motorist hating boneheads like An Taisce? Force the free parking supermarkets to charge for parking too! Because aparently according to these a-holes, motorists are just giant piggybanks that government tax planners and eco-leftist boneheads can just smash whenever they like because all motorist are loaded with €€€ thousands in spare cash. This is news to me because I'm far from loaded driving a 14 year old car, the vast majority of the running cost of which is already government motor tax (approaching if not exceeding 100% of the cars' NBV), fuel tax, NCT related costs (now annual, YIPEE) VAT, parking charges (when I can't avoid them, which is rare) etc.
    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    You mean two cities that built an underground first and built beltways then for eg their Connemaras and THEN introduced charging much later when the alternative modes were long in place.

    Really! :D:D:D
    /thread
    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    Reallocation of road space is key, eg bus-cycle lanes on SQR (however badly they may have been implemented).
    Here's the thing: I'm not against that per se: in fact I've seen what the recent N5 bypass did for Longford town, one Friday evening the town was, as usual, choked with through traffic including vast quantities of HGVs, then the bypass opened and traffic in the town went down more than 50%. The streets are wide for the most part and could easily accommodate cycle lanes and what have you. As for those street not wide enough, some could be made one way, others (such as Bridge Street) there are abandoned buildings you could knock down to provide off street parking to replace any nearby parking converted to cycle lanes.

    In short, there is room to accomodate everyone.

    I just think that a lot of this stuff, especially what you come out with, is just about screwing motorists for the sake of it, and there is at least some evidence to support that.

    https://u24.gov.ua/
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    Help us in helping Ukraine.



  • #59
    SeanW
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,535 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    00-LM-1214.jpg
    Iwannahurl wrote: »
    07-D-62332.jpg

    I won't even try to excuse the motorists in your pics but it's worth noting that some of this illegal parking occurs because of decisions to build streets too narrow for no reason, e.g. the Essex design of housing estates, which is something I believe you are a big fan of.

    https://u24.gov.ua/
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    Help us in helping Ukraine.



  • #60
    Victor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,742 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Could I ask that the antagonism from the Infrastructure thread be left there?
    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    Can you please reduce them in size in future, thanks. They ming the formatting in every thread you deploy them in. :(
    Photos up to 800 x 800 are generally OK on boards.ie.

    Moderator


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  • #61
    Cookie_Monster
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,623 ✭✭✭✭Cookie_Monster


    monument wrote: »
    Is the Galway outer bypass needed?
    In the current car centric setup of Ireland yes.
    monument wrote: »
    Are there alternatives? ....Be that a different route, or different type of road, or upgrades to current routes, or a different approach or a mix of all these?
    A societal move away from the obsession with car to PT and cycling would easily solve the need for it.


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