M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

Bobeagleburger

I think a bus corridor along existing Quincentennial Bridge will be the green compromise for this project.

Connecting east to west with a dedicated bus route needs to be done anyway. Upgrade or add to existing cycle lanes also.

All three pieces are required.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118380745#Comment_118380745

Not city bus route will ever bypass the city center given the amount of people living and working there.

Aontachtoir

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118380606#Comment_118380606

Monument, the problem with the "cold figures" you supplied above is that they show very little, but you are trying to make them show a lot. This has already been pointed out to you by another poster. They don't show that public transport has "taken a battering", unless you are using some new special meaning for the term. They show that public transport as a percentage modal share for students declined mildly over a 30 year period. They do not show the absolute number of journeys taken by public transport, the amount invested in PT, the overall trends in PT at the society level (ie, usage by that rather large group of Irish people who are not students), or other factors we would need to look at to make a reasonable conclusion. They are certainly not detailed enough to draw conclusions as to why any modal shift has occurred.

You can reject the analogy if you don't like it, that's fine. It's still accurate. Failing to put enough PT on new roads is like failing to put enough staff in a new hospital. In neither case does failure to complete Step 2 mean that Step 1 was the wrong decision (or, as some people seem to be claiming, that completing Step 1 actually prevents Step 2 from taking place).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382641#Comment_118382641

You are dismissing them because they don't show information on a list of topics that you decided yourself

What a bizarre argument

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118380557#Comment_118380557

Yes, indeed I did. Your charts do indeed show percentages ... going back to 1986. My memories of the late 80s and early 90s in Ireland are limited but as I recall if you didn't have a farm or were a civil servant, you either:

1. Had already got the boat to England,
2. Were praying for a Morrison visa and saving for air fare,
3. Were on the dole,
4. Were lucky to have a crappy job that paid sod all.

So yes, alleging that the past in Ireland was some kind of utopia, as you purport to do with your charts showing proportionately fewer car journeys "back in the day", is something I have to call into question. More specifically, as to the increase, I have to ask how much of it you are claiming is down to two factors:

1. The fact that Ireland is no longer a third world backwater
2. Bad/motorist-centric planning or whatever.

The number of lanes the current street-road hybrid through Galway is utterly irrelevant. A good road would be designed to get people from place to place, or at least through a place, as quickly and efficiently as possible. The current N6 has junctions with traffic lights, accesses for houses, housing estates, shopping centres etc every 100 metres or so, and as such functions very poorly as a road. Not to mention that it's not even direct - you have to make right and left turns to take a detour up and down the Headford Road, which whenever I've been stuck in Galway traffic, seems to be where the worst problems are.

That's why I must object to your description of the current route as a "bypass." If you look at a map of Galway for 2 seconds it's clear that the current so-called "bypass" is nothing but a haphazard collection of internal distributors given a common label. And so by virtue of this, is only capable of supporting a small fraction of the capacity or speed that would be provided by a controlled access highway, which could be as little as 2 lanes each way. It would be a different story if Galway had a direct, controlled access road and that were now maxed out to the point where there was a call for more lanes, but that's not what's happening.

Seathrun66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118376977#Comment_118376977

Medical professionals in Ireland are fighting the pandemic very well. They're also well-equipped to pronounce on respiratory issues. I'm happy to forward a pamphlet on what medical school entails.

monument

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118383193#Comment_118383193

Sorry, ring road. Anyway...

Do you remember why I posted the charts? What was I replying to?

Anyway, the current N6 within the city is around 7km long and it has only 4 houses on it -- if you think access to these 4 houses is an issue worth mentioning on this 7km then surely the solution is CPOing a small section of their long garden to make it into a service road so that access can be provided elsewhere. It also has access to just one shopping centre and just one access point to housing estates.

You getting stuck in traffic in a car-dominated city is also not a justification for a new €1 billion motorway.

monument

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118358986#Comment_118358986

Again: The flaw isn't with the law, it's with the inability of the road authorities to properly look at alternatives.

monument

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118382641#Comment_118382641

I said: You were saying that sustainable transport that "didn't improve enough to satisfy" me as if my point was about me when the cold figures show that sustainable transport has taken a battering. Even if you think walking and cycling should be decreasing modal share for some reason, why would only car use increase? Why would public transport also decline even if on a lower level?

I explained why your analogy isn't accurate and you're now saying "oh, no it's not" without explaining why. You then just double down with another with an even worse analogy.

"Failing to put enough PT on new roads is like failing to put enough staff in a new hospital," is maybe the worst analogy I've ever heard. If you think roads are equivalent to hospitals and buses alone are the equivalent to hospital staff... what are cars? MRSA?

Sam Russell

Mod: A few comments deleted as not related.

brianc89

I don't post often here (barely ever in fact), but I read these threads very regularly. As someone who reads these to get latest updates, plans, pictures etc. can I just say I'm absolutely sick to death or your petty arguing.

Christ in Heaven can they just build this road already and prove people right or wrong and be done with it. Travel around Europe and see how many motorways are built everywhere. Thank God Ireland is not like that. Building this one single road won't change that. Maybe it's wrong decision, but it's a decision. Build it. Move on.

Green Peter

It will happen eventually, the city is expanding weather people like it or not and simply access across the Corrib to the east / west is not sufficient and hasn't been for years. Move on folks

Sam Russell

Mod: This thread is an infrastructure thread, not a political thread. Posts should be on the subject of the construction of the road as granted PP by ABP. The decisions on funding and contract aspects is on topic, but other peripheral matters like public transport is not. Start a new thread on Galway public transport provision if that is of interest. Talk of green-tinged self righteous hypocrites is considered attacking the poster, and will be deleted.

In future political comments will just be deleted. (sanctions might apply)

monument

saabsaab

I wonder if a tunnel or widening existing bridges be an easier and cheaper option?

marno21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118419317#Comment_118419317

If it was it would certainly have been chosen instead of the current plan.

Existing bridge widening would not work without new, free flowing approach roads. The current approach roads are lined with shopping centres, industrial estates etc.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118419337#Comment_118419337

Maybe but I wonder. Some like the big engineering solutions and not look too hard at one way systems using existing roads etc.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118419317#Comment_118419317

Improving road capacity will only serve to increase traffic. This is a known fact ( called "induced demand") and therefore will not work.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118419398#Comment_118419398

And yet.....

“Induced demand” is Andrew Wakefield level of scientific discussion. Neither proven nor disproven, but a political framing of all growth as undesirable because it is the wrong kind of activity growth.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118421586#Comment_118421586

Eh? Love to know how you concluded its not been proven given the volume of studies shown that it has

brianc89

Induced demand studies are focused on widening big roads and building additional roads / motorways. This has been proven, beyond any doubt, to lead to additional demand.

However, the proposed Galway bypass is NOT an additional piece of infrastructure. The city doesn't have a bypass. It is quite literally missing. I live in east county Galway. It is quicker to get to Dublin than west of Galway city. For this reason, I simply don't go there. Getting through Galway city is an absolute shambles. Build the bypass already.

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422213#Comment_118422213

The city does not have a bypass, and it will not. Because the proposed road is a ring road.

The project is the Galway City Ring Road (GCRR). The design of it, is a ring road. It half rings the city and distributes traffic around the city suburbs.

There is not sufficient demand for a bypass unfortunately, majority of traffic is intra-city.

brianc89

Apologies. Didn't mean to refer to it incorrectly.

I accept it would function primarily as a ring road, but would argue it is also a bypass. I don't live or work in Galway city. The only time I am likely to use it is to bypass the city and explore western Galway.

This is something I don't do, as traffic in Galway is an absolute nightmare. This ring road / bypass will open up western Galway to tourism, I would argue.

OpinionN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422328#Comment_118422328

Wait, didn't you just start by saying this road WON'T induce demand? Which is it? I don't have skin in the game, so to speak, but you can't say "it won't induce demand" then follow it up with "I never drive that way now, but I would drive that way if the road was built". That's two opposing arguments???

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422345#Comment_118422345

My understanding of induced demand is that it mostly refers to commuting traffic. For example, widening motorways to ease rush hour traffic. This only leads to more people living outside the city and commuting, which brings traffic back to a standstill.

brianc89

The summer before COVID I travelled from Dublin to Aran Islands on a Friday (6pm ferry). The quickest way for me to get across the city (at start of evening rush hour) was to drive directly into the city and use the quays. This is appalling, in my opinion, and doesn't befit a city that wants, and needs, to grow and serve many needs, including that of workers, shoppers and tourists.

markpb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422213#Comment_118422213

I’m lost about the argument you’re making here. There is no bypass/ring road/ distributor today and they’re planning on building one but you’re suggesting that somehow this new road isn’t a new road? Or that it’s a new road but not an additional road? Or that its not infrastructure.

Also how is it missing? Was it build and got lost? Did they take it in for the rain?

OpinionN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422364#Comment_118422364

Induced demand can relate to anything. It's just a supply/demand phenomenon.

If you make more space for cars and make it easier for people to use their cars, then people will use their cars more. It applies across all sorts of supply/demand scenarios. You can even see it with, for example, cycle infrastructure. When they put in good cycle infrastructure in an area, people usually cycle more. It's pretty interesting because it mostly operates on a subconscious level: people often don't even notice themselves making a choice.

Similarly with this ring road. It will likely result in more car trips, and it can't all just be written off as a byproduct of growth. Many will just be making more trips because it's much easier to do so.

brianc89

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118422402#Comment_118422402

People argue it's not needed based on the theory of induced demand. I'm arguing that this theory is irrelevant here. The GCRR is not equivalent to building an 'additional' motorway or widening an existing motorway. It is a critical piece of missing infrastructure.

"Missing" is also defined as "lacking", so I think I used it correctly.