Galway traffic: the solution

xckjoo

Galway is ridiculously resistant to change. Everyone moans about how things are and then gets mad when people suggest changing things.

I think the future of car ownership will change though. Most people only need them for short periods, such as getting to and from work or doing the weekly shop. Car sharing systems like Zipcar will mean that there's no need to spend the money on buying, taxing and insuring a car.

Webbs

"In contrast, I don't understand why you think these have to be mutually exclusive. Most other cities in the world can manage to have good private as well as public transport just fine. Penalising car users is not the way forward, making public transport an attractive option as well is. Cars are not going anywhere. "

I agree that a small place like Galway cant implement exactly the same as for bigger cities but a visionary public transport system would undoubtedly help.
I am a blowin to Ireland and was shocked at the level of antipathy to public transport options. People see public transport as a good thing for others in that it will reduce traffic only so that they can drive on the emptier roads!

The complete end of city car use obviously isn’t currently a practical goal at the moment, but the fact that some think it’s within sight shows just how far many big European cities have come.

Penalising cars though is becoming very much the option for many cities. Apart from the obvious congestion charges of places like London , Stockholm, Singapore

Oslo plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019

Madrid plans to ban cars from 500 acres of its city center by 2020, with urban planners redesigning 24 of the city's busiest streets for walking rather than driving.

Hamburg plans to make walking and biking its dominant mode of transport. Within the next two decades, Hamburg will reduce the number of cars by only allowing pedestrians and bikers to enter certain areas..

xckjoo

Webbs wrote: »

"In contrast, I don't understand why you think these have to be mutually exclusive. Most other cities in the world can manage to have good private as well as public transport just fine. Penalising car users is not the way forward, making public transport an attractive option as well is. Cars are not going anywhere. "

I agree that a small place like Galway cant implement exactly the same as for bigger cities but a visionary public transport system would undoubtedly help.
I am a blowin to Ireland and was shocked at the level of antipathy to public transport options. People see public transport as a good thing for others in that it will reduce traffic only so that they can drive on the emptier roads!

The complete end of city car use obviously isn’t currently a practical goal at the moment, but the fact that some think it’s within sight shows just how far many big European cities have come.

Penalising cars though is becoming very much the option for many cities. Apart from the obvious congestion charges of places like London , Stockholm, Singapore

Oslo plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019

Madrid plans to ban cars from 500 acres of its city center by 2020, with urban planners redesigning 24 of the city's busiest streets for walking rather than driving.

Hamburg plans to make walking and biking its dominant mode of transport. Within the next two decades, Hamburg will reduce the number of cars by only allowing pedestrians and bikers to enter certain areas..

Irish people seem to think of cars as a bit of a status symbol. During the "boom years" you'd often see the number of annual car sales used to show how well the country is doing.

Mrs OBumble

xckjoo wrote: »

I think the future of car ownership will change though. Most people only need them for short periods, such as getting to and from work or doing the weekly shop. Car sharing systems like Zipcar will mean that there's no need to spend the money on buying, taxing and insuring a car.

The future will change, but perhaps not much as you think, and not as quickly as you may hope.

As an urban dweller, I already don't need a car for shopping or for getting to/from work (but then I can only accept jobs at companies that are well-enough located relative to public transport). But I do use rentals for leisure activities - and having to plan these ahead is a big lifestyle restriction for me. I'm not sure that Zipcar etc will be a solution for me, because when I want a car I usually want it for a guaranteed few days to travel to another location, not just a few hours if one is available.

But as long as Irish people retain this idea that it's OK to litter the landscape with rural homes populated by people who aren't making a living by farming the land, there will be people who need cars for daily living. (And as long as our urban design delivers only horrible ghetto-esque little boxes made of ticky-tacky in urban areas, it's going to be a hard-sell to say that urban living is better than rural - this will take a long term change) And again until we have fully operational self-drive cars, I cannot see Zipcar working for the pretend-rural set because they have to get to the pickup place.

xckjoo

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

The future will change, but perhaps not much as you think, and not as quickly as you may hope.

As an urban dweller, I already don't need a car for shopping or for getting to/from work (but then I can only accept jobs at companies that are well-enough located relative to public transport). But I do use rentals for leisure activities - and having to plan these ahead is a big lifestyle restriction for me. I'm not sure that Zipcar etc will be a solution for me, because when I want a car I usually want it for a guaranteed few days to travel to another location, not just a few hours if one is available.

But as long as Irish people retain this idea that it's OK to litter the landscape with rural homes populated by people who aren't making a living by farming the land, there will be people who need cars for daily living. (And as long as our urban design delivers only horrible ghetto-esque little boxes made of ticky-tacky in urban areas, it's going to be a hard-sell to say that urban living is better than rural - this will take a long term change) And again until we have fully operational self-drive cars, I cannot see Zipcar working for the pretend-rural set because they have to get to the pickup place.

Good points. Everybody seems to wants to buy a giant house with land and a new car every other year. It's also a badge of honour to do as little physical movement as possible. We're a strange people.

Webbs

Wanted to look at commuting into Galway from oranmore to the city. Looked at weekly or monthly Leap card as an option all good. Pricing about affordable, then I realise there are at least 3 BE buses that stop in my town (one intercity and 2 city buses 404, 410) and only one of them is on the leap card!!

What idiot thinks thats a good idea? Its the same damn company and yet I can only get one bus that has an hourly frequency. So I now have to look at an alternative!!
Its such a ridiculous situation, I'd go even further and should be able to buy a card that allows me on all buses from all companies (public and private).
Until options like this are offered then it will be hard to get people to look at alternatives to their car.

Mrs OBumble

Webbs wrote: »

Wanted to look at commuting into Galway from oranmore to the city. Looked at weekly or monthly Leap card as an option all good. Pricing about affordable, then I realise there are at least 3 BE buses that stop in my town (one intercity and 2 city buses 404, 410) and only one of them is on the leap card!!

What idiot thinks thats a good idea? Its the same damn company and yet I can only get one bus that has an hourly frequency. So I now have to look at an alternative!!
Its such a ridiculous situation, I'd go even further and should be able to buy a card that allows me on all buses from all companies (public and private).
Until options like this are offered then it will be hard to get people to look at alternatives to their car.

I'm not even sure if there is leap card pricing for the oranmore to galway clinic leg of the journey.

You can buy weekly or monthly tickets from Bus Eireann, though.

Webbs

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

I'm not even sure if there is leap card pricing for the oranmore to galway clinic leg of the journey.

You can buy weekly or monthly tickets from Bus Eireann, though.

As far as I can tell the 410 is the only one on the Leap which does stop at the Clinic.

Its just madness that there are plenty of buses going from Oranmore to Galway City yet only one is on a card

Mrs OBumble

Webbs wrote: »

As far as I can tell the 410 is the only one on the Leap which does stop at the Clinic.

Its just madness that there are plenty of buses going from Oranmore to Galway City yet only one is on a card

Yes. The leap fare does go to the clinic which is served by the 410. But i don't think it goes any further.

However if you buy multi trip tickets from BE you do get good discounts on them, equivalent to leap discounts I think.

GekkePrutser

Webbs wrote: »

"In contrast, I don't understand why you think these have to be mutually exclusive. Most other cities in the world can manage to have good private as well as public transport just fine. Penalising car users is not the way forward, making public transport an attractive option as well is. Cars are not going anywhere. "

I agree that a small place like Galway cant implement exactly the same as for bigger cities but a visionary public transport system would undoubtedly help.
I am a blowin to Ireland and was shocked at the level of antipathy to public transport options. People see public transport as a good thing for others in that it will reduce traffic only so that they can drive on the emptier roads!

The complete end of city car use obviously isn’t currently a practical goal at the moment, but the fact that some think it’s within sight shows just how far many big European cities have come.

Penalising cars though is becoming very much the option for many cities. Apart from the obvious congestion charges of places like London , Stockholm, Singapore

Oslo plans to permanently ban all cars from its city center by 2019

Madrid plans to ban cars from 500 acres of its city center by 2020, with urban planners redesigning 24 of the city's busiest streets for walking rather than driving.

Hamburg plans to make walking and biking its dominant mode of transport. Within the next two decades, Hamburg will reduce the number of cars by only allowing pedestrians and bikers to enter certain areas..

Of cource all those places actually have functioning public transport systems. Galway's isn't. They're also big cities with a population to warrant good public transport systems. Galway isn't even a tenth of the size of the cities you mention.

In Ireland, even Dublin doesn't have that, most of it is slow buses that crawl around in traffic, and 2 tramlines that aren't even connected. It's hardly functional, whenever I'm there I'm frustrated at the extreme inefficiency. Last time I tried to take the bus from Parnell Square back to the hotel I was staying at in Santry, the next 2 scheduled buses didn't even show up, and when one finally did (after 35 minutes) they didn't let all of us waiting (there were quite a lot of us by then) on because the bus driver deemed his bus too full. Obviously if I'd have to do that trip every day I wouldn't consider putting up with that.

A subway system would have made fast travel feasible without being impacted by traffic. There just seems to be a reluctance to invest in public transport.

So I can understand the antipathy in this country when it comes to public transport. It's driven by the government who refuse to improve it.

If I'd live in a big city with a subway system like Barcelona or Paris, I wouldn't even consider buying a car. I wouldn't know where to leave it anyway