Galway's traffic issues

jk23

jk23 wrote: »

All these roundabout works will be in progress all through Christmas most likely, the city will be worse then ever at the busiest time of the year

Given that this will take many months, when is the quiet time?

jk23

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Given that this will take many months, when is the quiet time?

I would say during the summer months when the kids are off.

jk23

ben.schlomo wrote: »

They're not going to be done together and the Menlo one is six months away I think it said in the article above.

OK, I didn't know that, at least they will be spaced out

McGiver

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm sure all the junctions would be grand - it's just the volume of traffic going through them - not everyone can be satisfied.

Sitting in my car in the city on my own yesterday evening on my way back to my urban generated rural one off house I was asking myself what it would take to move me onto a bus - a bus lane all the way in the tuam road with a park and ride somewhere like Loughgeorge would probably do it.

We need a bus connects plan for Galway. A single tram wouldn't be enough. A new road won't solve everything.
Quality bus corridors with regular reliable and faster travel might be enough to tip the balance towards public transport, freeing up road space for others who can't or won't use it.
Sitting in traffic is such a waste of life.

That's exactly what they did in Oxford and other smallish cities to tackle unsustainable traffic.

McGiver

etxp wrote: »

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm sure all the junctions would be grand - it's just the volume of traffic going through them - not everyone can be satisfied.

Sitting in my car in the city on my own yesterday evening on my way back to my urban generated rural one off house I was asking myself what it would take to move me onto a bus - a bus lane all the way in the tuam road with a park and ride somewhere like Loughgeorge would probably do it.

We need a bus connects plan for Galway. A single tram wouldn't be enough. A new road won't solve everything.
Quality bus corridors with regular reliable and faster travel might be enough to tip the balance towards public transport, freeing up road space for others who can't or won't use it.
Sitting in traffic is such a waste of life.

City buses are a disaster also. If I want to get to Parkmore from Lisbaun ind. I need to get two buses (looking at the route map, ive never tried it). This will probably take me the guts of 30/40 minutes to get to work. MY car gets me there in 12/15 minutes. Until stuff like this is sorted, people will continue to use their car and the traffic isn't going to get any better. Cycling isn't an option as I'm too lazy.

Exactly. And if you look at the map of the routes you'll notice very little interconnectedness. Huge issue.

I've had a look at bus routes in a similar city in an unnamed country in Europe (90k population) and they have 28 bus routes interconnected into a network. Now, 28 won't happen here but total 10 routes which are mostly disconnected and all go to Eyre Square won't ever cut it. It needs more routes, more connections and bus lanes to be usable. And P&Rs with a discounted daily ticket to start with.

McGiver

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

etxp wrote: »

City buses are a disaster also. If I want to get to Parkmore from Lisbaun ind. I need to get two buses (looking at the route map, ive never tried it).

Or you could use your legs for an extra five minutes and walk thru Mervue industrial estate to Monivea Rd, where you could catch the 401.

The key word is could. Or couldn't - you never know. And keep watching some bloddy app because timetable doesn't exist, stay in torrential rain with no cover because it didn't occur to NTA/GCC that Galway is one of the rainiest places in Europe.

The unpredictability and inconvenience makes it useless for most commuters I'm afraid.

Ashleigh1986

The only way they can fit bus lanes in galway city is to make a lot of the roads one way .
You could put bus lanes in lough atalia / college road / bohermore / eglinton street etc if you made these roads one way .
Whatever they do .... Things need to change majorly and we can't wait for years for a lot of these plans to be implemented .

Laviski

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

The only way they can fit bus lanes in galway city is to make a lot of the roads one way .
You could put bus lanes in lough atalia / college road / bohermore / eglinton street etc if you made these roads one way .
Whatever they do .... Things need to change majorly and we can't wait for years for a lot of these plans to be implemented .

Bohermore could take a bus lane (there would be a section where it couldn't be done) but it means taking away on street parking, some gardens and moving the cemetery wall further back.

Said bus lane could easily stretch out for the rest of the tuam road, again would impact car spaces, trees, green areas.

in parts could possibly put two bus lanes but sure enough you fit one most of that stretch.

It wouldn't just be a matter of making streets one way. On street parking, front gardens, trees would be going too in places. In other places the road may not change but could become bus only - no cars or deliveries, maybe not even taxis.

Mrs OBumble

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It wouldn't just be a matter of making streets one way. On street parking, front gardens, trees would be going too in places. In other places the road may not change but could become bus only - no cars or deliveries, maybe not even taxis.

Where do you think could become no deliveries?

Mrs OBumble

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Where do you think could become no deliveries?

St. Francis St. for example. It is narrow as it is and deliveries could be made via Mary St. or St. Anthony's place.
A bus gate would keep other traffic out.

ben.schlomo

McGiver wrote: »

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

etxp wrote: »

City buses are a disaster also. If I want to get to Parkmore from Lisbaun ind. I need to get two buses (looking at the route map, ive never tried it).

Or you could use your legs for an extra five minutes and walk thru Mervue industrial estate to Monivea Rd, where you could catch the 401.

The key word is could. Or couldn't - you never know. And keep watching some bloddy app because timetable doesn't exist, stay in torrential rain with no cover because it didn't occur to NTA/GCC that Galway is one of the rainiest places in Europe.

The unpredictability and inconvenience makes it useless for most commuters I'm afraid.

All down to car traffic. And as has been pointed out to you before timetables do exist and for a large part are kept to unless it's peak traffic hours where it's impossible. And if you're unable to use a helpful app then thats on you.

McGiver

xckjoo wrote: »

etxp wrote: »

City buses are a disaster also. If I want to get to Parkmore from Lisbaun ind. I need to get two buses (looking at the route map, ive never tried it). This will probably take me the guts of 30/40 minutes to get to work. MY car gets me there in 12/15 minutes. Until stuff like this is sorted, people will continue to use their car and the traffic isn't going to get any better. Cycling isn't an option as I'm too lazy.

Bus takes me about 30mins to and from work, if I walk from Eyre Square home and time getting to the bus stop right. Car is about 10-15 in morning and 40+ in the evening. Bike is a flat 15mins. I take the bus a lot because I can switch off and it's surprisingly quick to get into town. But it wouldn't work if I infirmed in any way as it takes forever to get through the centre of the city and out the other side. I'm on a few bus routes so one of the lucky ones, but the bus is a nice way to commute when it suits.

I'd put bus lanes everywhere, run them often and widespread and give them priority over everything except people walking. Stress levels would plummet and the city would move again.

The current bus routes are good for a commute from a suburb to town and sometimes for a commute which is all on one route.

But a long commute which runs from suburb to the suburb or cross-town just doesn't work, especially if you need to change the bus.

Bus lanes are absolutely needed for major arterial roads. But what is also needed is higher number of a bit shorter routes with interconnections. The longer the route is the more it gets delayed with traffic issues and the more it becomes unreliable and unusable for commuters. Then we also need a few routes avoiding the town completely. At least one radial would be nice but being radial makes it a longer route which is an issue but it could work with dedicated bus lanes. The benefit of radial route is enabling higher variety of journeys due to higher number of connections and that's essential if you want to have a truly functional PT network.

McGiver

ben.schlomo wrote: »

All down to car traffic. And as has been pointed out to you before timetables do exist and for a large part are kept to unless it's peak traffic hours where it's impossible. And if you're unable to use a helpful app then thats on you.

BenSchlomo, well, no. And let me explain.

I'm aware of the traffic being a factor, but it's not entirely down to the traffic.
Buses are late even in very little/no traffic on a not at all busy route with no apparent reason.

My local bus stop is about 12 minutes from the terminus on a route to town and the variation in time can be -2 to +5 minutes in no traffic. That's 7 minutes variance on a 12 minute journey. It's absolutely not fine.

I'm well able to use the app just that I refuse to, because where I'm from I didn't need it, because there's an actual timetable with explicit times in a 24 hour format and services are on time within 0-3 mins range (if it's 5+ minutes late it's deemed as a delay due to accident, breakdown or similar and typically new service is sent in that case. So from my point of view using an app in a dysfunctional PT system is just a transferring responsibility to the consumer and pathetic - GCC/NTA should manage the service running on time and should display real time info at the bus stop. Also, I don't want to damage my phone by looking at it in rain :P

As you know the NTA geniuses didn't put a shelter on very many bus stops in Galway despite knowing the local climate patterns...

Generally speaking - public transport needs comfort and short commute (shorter than other modes esp car). If this isn't facilitated in any manner PT won't be used by commuters. It's very simple. My bar is set high due to my background but I strongly believe that it should be the case for the everyone regardless. We, the taxpayers, should be really assertive and demand quality services for our taxes and quality work done by our servants we elect into local authorities.

ben.schlomo

McGiver wrote: »

ben.schlomo wrote: »

All down to car traffic. And as has been pointed out to you before timetables do exist and for a large part are kept to unless it's peak traffic hours where it's impossible. And if you're unable to use a helpful app then thats on you.

BenSchlomo, well, no. And let me explain.

I'm aware of the traffic being a factor, but it's not entirely down to the traffic.
Buses are late even in very little/no traffic on a not at all busy route with no apparent reason.

My local bus stop is about 12 minutes from the terminus on a route to town and the variation in time can be -2 to +5 minutes in no traffic. That's 7 minutes variance on a 12 minute journey. It's absolutely not fine.

I'm well able to use the app just that I refuse to, because where I'm from I didn't need it, because there's an actual timetable with explicit times in a 24 hour format and services are on time within 0-3 mins range (if it's 5+ minutes late it's deemed as a delay due to accident, breakdown or similar and typically new service is sent in that case. So from my point of view using an app in a dysfunctional PT system is just a transferring responsibility to the consumer and pathetic - GCC/NTA should manage the service running on time and should display real time info at the bus stop. Also, I don't want to damage my phone by looking at it in rain :P

As you know the NTA geniuses didn't put a shelter on very many bus stops in Galway despite knowing the local climate patterns...

Generally speaking - public transport needs comfort and short commute (shorter than other modes esp car). If this isn't facilitated in any manner PT won't be used by commuters. It's very simple. My bar is set high due to my background but I strongly believe that it should be the case for the everyone regardless. We, the taxpayers, should be really assertive and demand quality services for our taxes and quality work done by our servants we elect into local authorities.

You can't be giving out about buses not showing up or being late and at the same time say you refuse to use an app which will tell you the next time one is due. You can be on your high horse about it all you want but it'll be a wet horse if you're at an uncovered stop.

Of course the services in general should be better, nobody can say different but until such time as there are dedicated bus lanes across the city then this is the best we'll have so use it at its most efficient i.e. the app.

Mrs OBumble

McGiver wrote: »

.Generally speaking - public transport needs comfort and short commute (shorter than other modes esp car).

You are expecting shared transport to be faster than individual transport.

Basically you are setting the bar at an impossible level. knowing full well that it can never deliver, and therefore justifying continuing to use your individual vehicle, despite knowing full well that the individual vehicles are the major cause of traffic congestion.

Also, you clearly haven't got a clue how the public transport system works here.

Local authorities are responsible for building bus lanes and bus shelters - not the NTA.

The NTA approve timetables - although they are by no means expert in local variations, they can and do look at population levels. They have a fair idea of what type of network and frequency a city this size can support.

ChewyLouie

ChewyLouie wrote: »

I think the biggest misuse of roundabouts in Galway is from drivers that know well how to use them, but just want to jump around fellow motorists.

Every day I see motorists moving from the correct lane into the wrong lane to progress through the roundabout quicker (to the detriment of other roundabout users).

The standard daily ****-moves through Terryland are.... :mad:

West-East: Right lane over the bridge, then cut in to the the left slip road... use the left lane and take the outer lane around Kirwan to Bothar na dTreabh, jump into the right lane and fly up Bothar na dTreabh.

East-West: Right lane down Bothar na dTreabh onto the inner lane on Kirwan and ~9pm exit onto Terryland/Dunnes and jump across into the left lane. Continue on the left lane beyond the Dunnes/Gort-na-Coiribe junction and jump into the right lane to get over the bridge.

Also for all the above moves ensure you change lanes quickly and only indicate for the last second of the lane change. Erghaghh. :mad:

I do both of the above moves (except go around the Kirwan in the wrong lane, that one does annoy me), I’m not going to sit for ages in a line of traffic when I can get moving far faster. Also it improves traffic flow rather than sitting making a line longer you are getting through the junction and gone. It’s inefficient for all the traffic to sit in one lane, Irish people have a real issue with operating merging correctly compared to abroad where people will use two lanes and implement correct merging at the top meaning everything moves faster.

McGiver

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

McGiver wrote: »

.Generally speaking - public transport needs comfort and short commute (shorter than other modes esp car).

You are expecting shared transport to be faster than individual transport.

Not necessarily faster but at least in line, otherwise it's pointless. This expectation is completely based on reality on the ground elsewhere in Europe. Folk in a developed country should not have lower expectations than that.

Basically you are setting the bar at an impossible level.

Not at all. On the contrary. The bar is entirely based on reality and my experience. If it's possible elsewhere it must be possible here.

I am repeatedly astonished by your fatalism, denial and insularism - a short trip across Europe visiting several cities and taking time to investigate would help you confirm that I am correct. It is not that difficult.

And my opinion is that high quality bar is necessary to gey things done. The final solution may be worse in the end but if the bar is low nothing gets done. High goals and high pressure is required.

knowing [sic] full well that it can never deliver, and therefore justifying continuing to use your individual vehicle, despite knowing full well that the individual vehicles are the major cause of traffic congestion.

As above. It can and it will. I don't subscribe to fatalism.

Not sure where you got my personal situation information from, but let me get this clear to you. I never owned or driven a car for almost 4 decades, while I could, but didn't need it and actually didn't actively want it. I had literally grown up in public transport, I'm a public transport supporter and advocate. As for commuting, I commuted for more then a decade using only public transport, then about 5 years on a bicycle as well. It is only recently that I bought a car that I never ever wanted to buy or drive! And do you know why? Because the public transport and other services here are in a failed state. I need to get to my work reasonably quickly (and dry!) and I need to be able to bring my children to school and home again quickly and in a dried state.
What a success story of a person who is ideologically opposed to individual transport, having gone years and years of using alternative modes of transport never wanting to drive a car, only ending up driving a car out of necessity.

So kindly leave me out of your blame game, go and target local people who'd never used public transport to commute in their lives. This really isn't fair and isn't helpful.

Also, you clearly haven't got a clue how the public transport system works here.
Local authorities are responsible for building bus lanes and bus shelters - not the NTA.
The NTA approve timetables - although they are by no means expert in local variations, they can and do look at population levels. They have a fair idea of what type of network and frequency a city this size can support.

I never said I know it. Thank you for educating and explaining it to me, but your educating me doesn't make my arguments any less valid. It's all actually quite irrelevant technicality.

Bobeagleburger

A lot of poor drivers aren't able to use roundabouts, and go around in the wrong lane. Totally liable if they are in a crash.

Lights are probably safer. I think on the whole lights have worked well on junctions. Even the most limited driver can understand them.

Laviski

6 wrote: »

A lot of poor drivers aren't able to use roundabouts, and go around in the wrong lane. Totally liable if they are in a crash.

Lights are probably safer. I think on the whole lights have worked well on junctions. Even the most limited driver can understand them.

at that some seem to be colour blind.

DuckSlice

1 hour and 15 minutes to do 115km to Claregalway - 35 minutes from there to work in Parkmore

Fitz*

The Monivea road was backed the whole way back to Bothar na dTreabh this morning, not sure why though.

Ruhanna

etxp wrote: »

1 hour and 15 minutes to do 115km to Claregalway - 35 minutes from there to work in Parkmore

That's one of the reasons for Galway's traffic problem (which is actually a transport planning problem): many thousands of drivers commuting from a very large catchment area.

A 120 km commute would be Kilbeggan to Galway. Other towns a similar distance away would be Charleville in Cork or Ballina in Mayo.

A small minority of commuters drive that far, presumably, but it indicates what some now regard as normal in this country, ie an expectation of being able to drive a long distance to work, door to door. In such a situation traffic congestion on arrival is regarded as an unwarranted obstacle, whereas in fact it's an inevitable outcome of the way we organise spatial and transport planning in Ireland.

Here we go: "Galway City labour catchment has a population at work more than double the census population of resident workers in Galway City."

https://www.wdc.ie/docs/TraveltoWork_LabourCatchments_WesternRegion2016_GalwayCity.pdf

Ashleigh1986

With property prices in galway city more and more people will be living further away from work .
A one hour commute to the outskirts of galway city will be the norm, especially as the motorway network is good in certain parts of our country.
The problems are when these vehicles get to galway city .
As I've said in plenty of previous posts a must is
Removal of all roundabouts and replaced by CCTV manned properly trained traffic light personnel system.
We are not going to see the benefits until ALL THE ROUNDABOUTS are taken out .

DuckSlice

I only make this commute once a week on a Monday morning, so not really the norm for me. But the traffic gets heavier and heavier as you get to Galway as you would expect.

Removal of roundabouts would have made absolutely no difference to my commute this morning as the holdup was getting through Claregalway and after it. the lights in Claregalway probably aren't timed correctly, and then after the lights people coming out of cregboy junction and McHugh's pub are the issues.

Ashleigh1986

etxp wrote: »

I only make this commute once a week on a Monday morning, so not really the norm for me. But the traffic gets heavier and heavier as you get to Galway as you would expect.

Removal of roundabouts would have made absolutely no difference to my commute this morning as the holdup was getting through Claregalway and after it. the lights in Claregalway probably aren't timed correctly, and then after the lights people coming out of cregboy junction and McHugh's pub are the issues.

No etxp removal of roundabouts in your situation wouldn't have an effect on your commute.
But CCTV operated traffic light system especially during rush hours certainly would .
Traffic lights turning green when there's no vecihcles on that artuary is a joke .
Also pedestrian lights coming I when there's no pedestrians to cross is another galway joke .

WallyGUFC

etxp wrote: »

I only make this commute once a week on a Monday morning, so not really the norm for me. But the traffic gets heavier and heavier as you get to Galway as you would expect.

Removal of roundabouts would have made absolutely no difference to my commute this morning as the holdup was getting through Claregalway and after it. the lights in Claregalway probably aren't timed correctly, and then after the lights people coming out of cregboy junction and McHugh's pub are the issues.

Claregalway still needs a bypass, even though they said the M17/18 would act as the bypass for Claregalway. It obviously hasn't worked. The village and many surrounding backroads are rammed every morning inbound and every evening outbound. Some people aren't taking the chance of trying to get off the motorway at the clinic because of that mess of a roundabout so they'll get off at Oranmore and come down through Claregalway.

grbear

On a side note can anyone tell me why more (any?) Of the pedestrian crossings in Galway don't have visible timers telling you when the little green person will appear? Seems like it shouldn't be that hard to implement and would reduce the amount of people, myself included at times, who just cross the road when there's a gap in traffic.

kippy

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Claregalway still needs a bypass, even though they said the M17/18 would act as the bypass for Claregalway. It obviously hasn't worked. The village and many surrounding backroads are rammed every morning inbound and every evening outbound. Some people aren't taking the chance of trying to get off the motorway at the clinic because of that mess of a roundabout so they'll get off at Oranmore and come down through Claregalway.

Who said that the M17/18 would act as a bypass for Claregalway?

DuckSlice

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Claregalway still needs a bypass, even though they said the M17/18 would act as the bypass for Claregalway. It obviously hasn't worked. The village and many surrounding backroads are rammed every morning inbound and every evening outbound. Some people aren't taking the chance of trying to get off the motorway at the clinic because of that mess of a roundabout so they'll get off at Oranmore and come down through Claregalway.

the M17/M18 made the traffic in Claregalway worse.