Galway - 61st worst traffic jams in the world

aw

Galway punching above its weight once more!

We get off relatively lightly in Ireland – although tell that to the people of Galway, our most gridlocked city ranking 61st out of 1,064 cities globally. Drivers there spend 43.5 hours a year in traffic.
Dublin drivers spent an average of 31.4 hours per year in congested traffic, followed by Cork at 24.5.
Sligo is next (19.9 hours), then Limerick (16.5 hours), Waterford (15.6 hours), Wexford (14 hours), Carlow (7.8 hours), Dundalk (6.5 hours) and Mullingar (5.5 hours).

Story in The Journal: http://www.thejournal.ie/worlds-most-congested-cities-3377455-May2017/

Data Source: http://inrix.com/scorecard/

Arghus

We wont stop being stopped until we reach the top!

Bind Torture Kill

Build bypass pls.

Mrs OBumble

Arghus wrote: »

We wont stop being stopped until we reach the top!

Build more roads and they'll come ...

Radiant Cool Crazy Nightmare

I have to be in Merlin park for 9am in the morning. Plan on leaving Athlone around 7:15ish, will this allow me enough time? Im not too familiar with the Galway traffic.

TCDStudent1

Radiant Cool Crazy Nightmare wrote: »

I have to be in Merlin park for 9am in the morning. Plan on leaving Athlone around 7:15ish, will this allow me enough time? Im not too familiar with the Galway traffic.

You should make it I'd say.

please helpThank YOU

Galway needs a road network like Limerick.

stampydmonkey

please helpThank YOU wrote: »

Galway needs a road network like Limerick.

Yeah, who needs a bridge over the corrib...we need a tunnel under it

Zzippy

Monorail!

Your Face

Its an outrage Joe.

please helpThank YOU

stampydmonkey wrote: »

Yeah, who needs a bridge over the corrib...we need a tunnel under it

Dublin ,Cork,Limerick all have got tunnels Galway needs one big time.

sammyjo90

please helpThank YOU wrote: »

Dublin ,Cork,Limerick all have got tunnels Galway needs one big time.

and the fckig traffic in jack lynch tunnel is a mare every single day. it makes no difference..you are still moving at a snails pace

Cheshire Cat

No tunnel, please! I hate tunnels, is there such a thing as tunnel claustrophobia?

Diabhal Beag

61st is great and all but what can I, humble motorist commuting 20 miles each day, to have us in the top 10 worst?

Mr_A

As it happens, this morning there was a large tailback on the N6 near Briarhill because of a Garda / customs checkpoint. As I cycled by I counted how many vehicles had more than one occupant. The result was 30 single occupant, 5 with more. There were 3, perhaps 4 commercial vehicles among the single occupant ones.

If we could get those 5 people (I saw no more than 2 adults in any vehicle) into their own cars we'd be a vital step closer to getting to the top of the rankings.

Mrs OBumble

Diabhal Beag wrote: »

61st is great and all but what can I, humble motorist commuting 20 miles each day, to have us in the top 10 worst?

Tell us your route and we can suggest ways to extend it. Worst case you could drive for 10 minutes in the opposite direction before turning around and heading for work.

GekkePrutser

Mr_A wrote: »

As it happens, this morning there was a large tailback on the N6 near Briarhill because of a Garda / customs checkpoint. As I cycled by I counted how many vehicles had more than one occupant. The result was 30 single occupant, 5 with more. There were 3, perhaps 4 commercial vehicles among the single occupant ones.

If we could get those 5 people (I saw no more than 2 adults in any vehicle) into their own cars we'd be a vital step closer to getting to the top of the rankings.

Part of the issue why people aren't carsharing is that the traffic so bad already and public transport not worth mentioning. If I'd pick up a colleague and I have to go into knocknacarra to pick them up for example, I'd be spending a lot of time getting back out of there again. Them taking the bus to me also wouldn't work as it's so unreliable. Just not worth it.

That's not a problem that's specific to galway anyway. Single-occupant commuting is everywhere. Wishful thinking is not going to make this problem go away. Road improvements are.

When I look at my commute, I see a lot of extremely badly planned intersections. For example, look at the seamus quirke road. Only 5 metres after a roundabout going towards the westside you have to merge from 2 into one lane, leading to a huge mess on the roundabout, stalling even people going into directions which are not congested.

The lane merging should have been put way further down, this is actually unsafe because when traffic is moving it distracts you from the already busy roundabout, having to be aware of both the roundabout and the upcoming merge at the same time. I've seen a lot of near-misses there. Or it should have been 2 proper lanes all along of course.

beardybrewer

GekkePrutser wrote: »

Part of the issue why people aren't carsharing is that the traffic so bad already and public transport not worth mentioning.

In the San Francisco area rather than have bus lanes only for public transport and taxis they had "car pool" lanes where you had to have at least 2 or sometimes 3 people to use the lane. To enforce it the fines were pretty large, several hundred dollars. On the whole, you didn't see people abuse it much if at all. Also the rule was only active during the busiest times of the day, like maybe 6-10am and 4-7pm Monday thru Friday.

I wish we could try this here as it wouldn't even cost much other than doing up some new signs.

I agree with your other points as well. When you look around Galway there are a lot of roads which increase risk rather than subvert it. Whatever about old parts of the city where you sorta expect a certain amount of this from a bygone era when cars were less common it's especially enraging when new junctions and roads are done wrong and encourage risky behaviour.

joeKel73

beardybrewer wrote: »

I wish we could try this here as it wouldn't even cost much other than doing up some new signs.

What about the cost of enforcement?

please helpThank YOU

Galway City was never designed for heavy traffic and the road networks are not in place to deal with this heavy traffic, Dublin ,Cork,Limerick have the great road networks to deal with this heavy traffic . Galway City needs a bye pass road today not tomorrow.

Wombatman

Why would any business base themselves in Galway knowing this?

Needs to be sorted ASAP. Only so much you can achieve dicking about with junctions and roundabouts and traffic light sequencing.

How long will this take? 15 years? Get the diggers rolling now!

Mearings

"How long will this take? 15 years? Get the diggers rolling now!"

Will Galway be able to hang on to its 61st place in the meantime?

irish_major

Wombatman wrote: »

Why would any business base themselves in Galway knowing this?

Needs to be sorted ASAP. Only so much you can achieve dicking about with junctions and roundabouts and traffic light sequencing.

How long will this take? 15 years? Get the diggers rolling now!

I dont get how people think that helps with anything? 99% of people are not looking to bypass galway so the traffic in the city will remain the same as far as i can see

ronnie3585

irish_major wrote: »

I dont get how people think that helps with anything? 99% of people are not looking to bypass galway so the traffic in the city will remain the same as far as i can see

joeKel73

irish_major wrote: »

I dont get how people think that helps with anything? 99% of people are not looking to bypass galway so the traffic in the city will remain the same as far as i can see

I don't think that much of the traffic is people from out West of the city travelling to out East of the city (or visa versa). But that a ring road will allow is commuters in the city to travel outwards to the ring road, move quickly around the city, then travel in/out from the nearest ring road exit to their destination/work.

irish_major

J o e wrote: »

I don't think that much of the traffic is people from out West of the city travelling to out East of the city (or visa versa). But that a ring road will allow is commuters in the city to travel outwards to the ring road, move quickly around the city, then travel in/out from the nearest ring road exit to their destination/work.

And there will be absolute carnage on these exit roads trying to get onto the bypass!

Mearings

Knocknacarrians wishing to travel to Merlin Park, Garda HQ etc will drive 7km west to Furbo & then it will be a piece of cake so to speak.

what_traffic

irish_major wrote: »

I dont get how people think that helps with anything? 99% of people are not looking to bypass galway so the traffic in the city will remain the same as far as i can see

It is not 99% but the crux of your argument is actually correct. Even the Engineering Consultants responsible for drawing up the current plans have confirmed this. That's why it will be more like a US style Urban Expressway compared against the Motorway/Tunnel model around Limerick City.

?Cee?view

Mearings wrote: »

Knocknacarrians wishing to travel to Merlin Park, Garda HQ etc will drive 7km west to Furbo & then it will be a piece of cake so to speak.

Why, can they not just join near the Knocknacarra Dunnes?

Mearings

?Cee?view wrote: »

Why, can they not just join near the Knocknacarra Dunnes?

"GO WEST, YOUNG MAN, GO WEST"

Mrs OBumble

Mearings wrote: »

Knocknacarrians wishing to travel to Merlin Park, Garda HQ etc will drive 7km west to Furbo & then it will be a piece of cake so to speak.

Yah ... they'll travel on the Expressway 'til it meets the N6, and then they'll come all the way back to Renmore using either the Dublin Rd, or the suburban roads thru Ballybane.

I can see that happening, for shure!



But don't worry - no matter how many roads we build, the car traffic will expand to fill them. It's one of the few road engineering principles that applies everywhere in the whole world.