M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

dubhthach

Sniipe wrote: »

I think you posted the wrong link... I found this one
https://polldaddy.com/poll/8617926/
It seems Blue(42%) is winning followed by green(28%) at the moment

No I wasn't interested in the poll but the actual map, as it uses the Ordance Survey map it's lot more better then the route maps provided on the N6 site.

dubhthach

For example:

Chris_5339762

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

This project is behind the M20, N7 widening and several competing Dublin transport projects so it will be a long time before substantial money for a project like this is made available.

When Leo was in charge of Transport he said the Galway bypass scored highest in all the cost benefit analysis of any scheme in the country. I think if this got the go-ahead it would be started fare more quickly than we're used to seeing.

Pete_Cavan

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

When Leo was in charge of Transport he said the Galway bypass scored highest in all the cost benefit analysis of any scheme in the country. I think if this got the go-ahead it would be started fare more quickly than we're used to seeing.

Do you have a link for that?

I any case, that scheme is dead so its cba is irrelevant. Whatever scheme is chosen from this process will need a new business case and, regardless of how favourable or not that business case is, funding may have already been committed to other projects before that business case is even prepared. This process seems set up for 20 years of planning and technical reviews and value engineering and whatever else can keep it on the long finger (Irish governments are very good at that) with nothing being done.

Limerick74

dubhthach wrote: »

No I wasn't interested in the poll but the actual map, as it uses the Ordance Survey map it's lot more better then the route maps provided on the N6 site.

The OS map was also from the N6 project web site. They have both types available for download.

2rkehij30qtza5

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

It seems they are looking for a "silver bullet" solution which will solve all the problems with one fowl swoop but not considering the reality that funding for this solution will be difficult to obtain given the huge costs involved. All the road options look like €X00,000,000 projects and it will be a long time before that level of funding becomes available. This project is behind the M20, N7 widening and several competing Dublin transport projects so it will be a long time before substantial money for a project like this is made available..

Funding is available for this project.

antoobrien

what_traffic wrote: »

Yes would be very very cheap. Would get rid of all the car traffic either side of the Salmon Weir Bridge.

That doesn't make it a good idea.

antoobrien

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Do you have a link for that?

From a dail debate

I am happy to reiterate the Government's commitment to the Galway city outer bypass, which has a benefit-to-cost ratio, BCR, of 6:1. Of all of the projects on the books, this one has the highest BCR. It makes a great deal of sense. Anyone who knows Galway knows that this project needs to be progressed once we overcome the planning permission issues.

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

I any case, that scheme is dead so its cba is irrelevant.

The CBA is not irrelevant because the estimated costs of the old project were largely known, the benefits won't have gone down much.

Iwannahurl

ballinadog wrote: »

(A) little or no change
(B) little or no change to the amount of people commuting by car, however they won't now all be in the city on roads not fit to carry them but out on new rd
(C) little or no change however there would be greater potential to make adjustments to the current infrastructure which would aid this modal shift, which there is currently zero potential for at the mo

What's the evidence for "little or no change"?

And why would Galway be any different from, say, Waterford, where car commuting increased 2006-2011 in a post-bypass situation?

Iwannahurl

Some interesting (and amusing) bypass-related quotes in today's Galway Independent.

Cllr Pearce Flannery wrote:

"Galway is a habitat."

Cllr Frank Fahy wrote:

You're destroying communities. There's no use in having bog cotton and butterflies if there's no-one there to protect them."

A variation of the original route, he B]Cllr John Walsh[/B said, would avoid the destruction of the racecourse, the destruction of Menlo Village and the destruction of the state of the art Kingfisher Gym.

Galway City Council Director of Services for Planning & Transportation wrote:

People in Knocknacarra are not going to go out by Moycullen. It [a bypass] has to be close enough to the city to attract people to it.

Emphasis added by me.

Regarding that last quote: attract what people? What has a "bypass" to do with "people in Knocknacarra"?

yer man!

Iwannahurl wrote: »

What's the evidence for "little or no change"?

And why would Galway be any different from, say, Waterford, where car commuting increased 2006-2011 in a post-bypass situation?

I'm living in Waterford for work at the minute and that bypass is a god send. Yeah more people use cars now but that's because its so convenient and doesn't really add to any of the congestion in the city as the factories are all on the periphery. I can get from one side of the city to the other in about 10 minutes at any time of day. Going through the city will take at least 20-30 minutes.

spacetweek

The Work figures in that don't really show an increase in driving, just less of every other kind of trip due to the economic crisis. We'd need to look at 2015-2020 data to get a better picture of trends.

L1011

Using Waterford figures - as one of the places worst hit by mass job losses in the country, particularly those in the city which were public transport accesible - is incredibly selective for spurious reasons.

Iwannahurl

spacetweek wrote: »

The Work figures in that don't really show an increase in driving, just less of every other kind of trip due to the economic crisis. We'd need to look at 2015-2020 data to get a better picture of trends.

Are we looking at the same figures?

The table shows modal split, pre and post bypass.

Work trips by car drivers up six percentage points (64% versus 58%).

Car travel to primary, second and third level education also up.

The number of secondary students cycling to school dropped from 46 to 20, in a city with a population of c. 47,000 souls.

On the bright side, in 2011 there were all of 89 students cycling to college, ten more than in 2006.

yer man! wrote: »

I'm living in Waterford for work at the minute and that bypass is a god send. Yeah more people use cars now but that's because its so convenient and doesn't really add to any of the congestion in the city as the factories are all on the periphery. I can get from one side of the city to the other in about 10 minutes at any time of day. Going through the city will take at least 20-30 minutes.

It is you who say it: "more people use cars now".

L1011 wrote: »

Using Waterford figures - as one of the places worst hit by mass job losses in the country, particularly those in the city which were public transport accesible - is incredibly selective for spurious reasons.

Nothing selective about it at all, incredibly or otherwise. Modal share is what it is. As yer man says, "more people use cars now" even though Waterford is "one of the places worst hit by mass job losses".

Fozzie Bear

Kieran Yummy Market wrote: »

The blue route is considered to be much more favourable. Of course all of this could change and the green route could be selected. But my money is FIRMLY 100% on the blue route.

Ya I'd be of the same opinion after going into the Menlo Hotel last night to look it over and talk to some of the engineers there. The green route requires the demolition of 100 odd houses which I was surprised by. I can't see it being a runner for that fact alone with an election coming up in the next 12/18 months. From looking at it last night the blue route looked like the most likely to my eyes.

Having said that I was scoffing at the red route until one of the engineers reckoned it actually made a lot of sense from an engineering point of view despite the fact 120+ houses would go. It would be one of the easiest for connections/junctions etc. He was firmly on the fence though about his favourite route or which was most likely to be selected.

He was also saying he had worked on road and rail projects all over Europe and he and his colleagues had never come across such a difficult and challenging project as this before. There would be normally a pretty obvious preferred/best route to take but not so with Galway.

antoobrien

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Are we looking at the same figures?

The table shows modal split, pre and post bypass.

Work trips by car drivers up six percentage points (64% versus 58%).

According to table CD010 from the 2011 Census, the numbers of people driving to work in Waterford has actually gone down to 1,378 (you are claiming a rise to 11,811). So any % rise is more than likely down to the 2,609 Job losses among Waterford city residents (table CD303).

what_traffic

Fozzie Bear wrote: »

He was also saying he had worked on road and rail projects all over Europe and he and his colleagues had never come across such a difficult and challenging project as this before.

Find this very hard to believe.
Galway is only a city of 75K people. They are just making it difficult for themselves so they can justify the 100's of millions it is going to cost.
European Transport planners in this day and age would not be approaching the problem the way the Irish Road's Engineers are approaching it.

dubhthach

Iwannahurl wrote: »

What's the evidence for "little or no change"?

And why would Galway be any different from, say, Waterford, where car commuting increased 2006-2011 in a post-bypass situation?

The total increase was from 18,793 (car drivers + passengers) to 19,664 which is an increase of 4.63%.

If you look at drivers alone (which should be a good proxy for cars), we see an increase of 2.88% in the presumed number of cars on Waterford streets, given that the population of Waterford city increased by 2.1% during the period if anything the increase over 5 years is fairly negligible in terms of total population. One thing you fail to mention is that the bridge in Waterford is tolled, if anything this would reduce the amount of commuter traffic crossing the Suir here.

What's evident is the major increase is in people using car to get to third level, this is probably due to combination of increased student body in WIT as well as availability of more parking on campus. The number of drivers going to work by car only increased by 17 in 5 years! The effect of recession is evident in figures for all sections of commuters.

Iwannahurl

dubhthach wrote: »

The effect of recession is evident in figures for all sections of commuters.

The core issue is modal share. Quite clearly the trend was (and probably still is) towards increasing car use -- in a bypassed city (small town really, by EU standards).

The recession didn't stop that trend, and neither did the bypass. In fact I would argue that, recession or not, the bypass contributed to it, for obvious reasons.

what_traffic wrote: »

European Transport planners in this day and age would not be approaching the problem the way the Irish Road's Engineers are approaching it.

Ireland is more like the UK and US.

On RTE 1 News last night Economics Correspondence Sean Whelan claimed, if I recall correctly, that car sales in January were back to pre-recession levels.

In Ireland, second in the EU28 Car Commuting league, that is seen as A Good Thing.

Make no mistake about it, the main pressure for the Galway "bypass" is coming from car commuters, and it's not because they're so totally dying to switch to public transport as soon as a shiny new road opens.

antoobrien

Iwannahurl wrote: »

On RTE 1 News last night Economics Correspondence Sean Whelan claimed, if I recall correctly, that car sales in January were back to pre-recession levels.

In Ireland, second in the EU28 Car Commuting league, that is seen as A Good Thing.

It depends on what way one looks at it. Of course for people of a certain mindset, any increase in car sales is a very very bad thing, however there's a lot more to consider.

The stark fact is that new car sales were at abnormally low levels for the past few years, so any reversion to norms will look massive.

Also it's worth pointing out that the average age of cars is levelling off. This means that cars are being taken out of circulation in favour of newer ones.

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Make no mistake about it, the main pressure for the Galway "bypass" is coming from car commuters, and it's not because they're so totally dying to switch to public transport as soon as a shiny new road opens.

Conspiracy theories is over here

Iwannahurl

antoobrien wrote: »

It depends on what way one looks at it. Of course for people of a certain mindset, any increase in car sales is a very very bad thing, however there's a lot more to consider.

There is indeed.

what_traffic

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Ireland is more like the UK and US.

On RTE 1 News last night Economics Correspondence Sean Whelan claimed, if I recall correctly, that car sales in January were back to pre-recession levels.

In Ireland, second in the EU28 Car Commuting league, that is seen as A Good Thing.

True plus we don't actually manufacture them here either. Huge amounts of money flowing out of the country. Very few job's are created by this spend bar on the retail side.
Any number's available for Limerick City since the Shannon Tunnel was built?

antoobrien

Iwannahurl wrote: »

There is indeed.

Well then the increase in car sales is a very good thing because the newer cars mean lower emissions.

what_traffic

So what is the next stage after the so called public consultation? What is the next timeline?

Iwannahurl

antoobrien wrote: »

Well then the increase in car sales is a very good thing because the newer cars mean lower emissions.

Not really.

The arguments for the bypass now seems to be: (a) the bypass is a good thing because it will not lead to increased car use and may even lead to less car use, (b) even if the bypass leads to increased car use that is a good thing because they will be new cars with lower emissions.

The fallacies are multiplying.

Somehow it reminds me of this little gem that appeared in the Irish Times Weekend magazine on 10th January:

Index -- What's Hot: Cheap petrol. And it's going to get cheaper. Time to plan some big drives.

antoobrien

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Not really.

Wanna post something that is not behind a paywall/registration.

Iwannahurl wrote: »

The arguments for the bypass now seems to be: (a) the bypass is a good thing because it will not lead to increased car use and may even lead to less car use, (b) even if the bypass leads to increased car use that is a good thing because they will be new cars with lower emissions.

The fallacies are multiplying.

It must take some tinfoil hat to read that into what's being posted.

dubhthach

Iwannahurl wrote: »

The core issue is modal share. Quite clearly the trend was (and probably still is) towards increasing car use -- in a bypassed city (small town really, by EU standards).

Given that the bypass is tolled you haven't shown how it's increased car usage in Waterford. Waterford city and environs had an unemployment rate of 12.6% in 2006 but by 2011 it had nearly doubled to 24.6%

One could thus argue that the reason for large decline in walking to work (23.5%) and massive decline in usage of bus to work (35.6%) is due to this spike in unemployment. As a result the share of "car drivers" increased in total (smaller pool) let even then the increase of commuters driving was on order of 0.1% over 5 years, given population increase of 2.1% between the two census this would imply that in real terms driving to work declined (reflective of near doubling of unemployment).

Iwannahurl

antoobrien wrote: »

It must take some tinfoil hat to read that into what's being posted.

Considering the totality of what has been posted on this general subject, the vast majority of which assumes by implication that a "bypass" is the first and perhaps the only solution to Galway's human-made traffic congestion, it would take a brass neck of an exceptional lustre to claim that this proposed new road is intended as anything other than a bonanza for car commuters, aka payback time:

antoobrien wrote: »

In a nutshell motorists through various taxes levies and duties in 2010 paid an extra €4 billion in taxes into the exchequer. that figure as a contributer is second only to income tax receipts (€11.5 . The take from motor tax alone is €950m but the road maintenance (not to be confused with capital improvements, such as building roads or this insanity project), which is paid directly to the councils - not central government or the NRA - is about half that.

Can I have my bypass now please?

Even in the wider context of IROPI, the project sponsors and supporters can't muster the enthusiasm to at least pretend that the "bypass" is more than just a classic supply-side boost for car commuters. The organisers of the "consultation" process didn't even bother to propose anything of substance under the heading of alternative solutions, and senior officials in local government are pretty clear about what they want:

Galway City Council Director of Services for Planning & Transportation wrote:

People in Knocknacarra are not going to go out by Moycullen. It has to be close enough to the city to attract people to it.

Nothing revelatory about that, of course, because it's precisely what "bypass" enthusiasts have been saying for years:

?Cee?view wrote: »

Ever hear of Kingston Road, Bishop O'Donnell Road, Knocknacarra, Barna, Spiddal, Cois Fharraige? All of these need the bypass now.

Iwannahurl

dubhthach wrote: »

Given that the bypass is tolled you haven't shown how it's increased car usage in Waterford. Waterford city and environs had an unemployment rate of 12.6% in 2006 but by 2011 it had nearly doubled to 24.6%

One could thus argue that the reason for large decline in walking to work (23.5%) and massive decline in usage of bus to work (35.6%) is due to this spike in unemployment. As a result the share of "car drivers" increased in total (smaller pool) let even then the increase of commuters driving was on order of 0.1% over 5 years, given population increase of 2.1% between the two census this would imply that in real terms driving to work declined (reflective of near doubling of unemployment).

We seem to be at cross-purposes here. The issue is modal split, which clearly moved towards a greater share for cars in Waterford between 2006 and 2011. There is absolutely no value in labouring the point further.

In any case, the Census stats may well be out of date. That was four years ago, and economic circumstances have changed.

We had another car sales puff piece on RTE's Drivetime this evening, with Brian Lally chatting to happy motorists with money credit available for new vehicles ("that Qashqai is a lovely yoke", sez Brian).

I'm willing to bet that from 2011 to date the trend in Waterford, and in other "bypassed" towns and cities, has not been towards increased modal share for public transport, walking and cycling. I'm open to correction on that, but I'd be surprised if it was otherwise.

The basic point, in the context of this thread, is that Irish "bypasses" are in reality not intended as anything other than supply-side measures for motorists.

dubhthach

Two data points do not make a trend, again you are ignoring the fact that over 5 years that the average number of new car-driver commuters grew by 3.4 drivers per year. The cause of modal shift doesn't appear to be the bypass (which as a Type 1 DC has high capacity) it's due to doubling of unemployment in Waterford, resulting in collapse of number of users commuting via other ways (walking/bus). Given that the current unemployment rate in Waterford in 18% (over 7% higher then national average -- 50% higher then 2006) I can't imagine that walking/bus commuter levels have recovered.

Tbh the only thing I'm seeing is soap-boxing and blatant attempts to derail a thread.