Galway traffic

Deleted User wrote: »

You might want to rethink that. Taking London as an example, the London Underground network carries 1.35 billion passengers every year, according to TfL, while about 2.1 billion bus journeys are taken in the capital. In fact look at any major city in Europe and you will find the same.

London is not an example for a city like Galway, it's rather silly to give examples of megacities when talking about Galway traffic. You must know that it's a red herring. London is a Global Alpha++ city, the only one in Europe. Dublin is Alpha- city and Belfast Gamma+ city just for comparison.

Furthermore, UK as a whole has historically centred its PT strategy around buses (despite its extensive light-rail network up to pre-WW2), which is rather different case than continental Europe. And this is one of the reasons that it largely ended up quite car dependent as a result. UK is the exception to the rule, so not a good role model overall.

But nonetheless, in the European cities, where you claim bus networks are extensive, if you look closely at them, then you can clearly see they are not the core of the PT strategy - generally the underground, tram and/or urban rail are the core part of the strategy and buses are ancillary legacy technology. Without the core rail/tram/underground the cities would choke with pollution & PT would come to a halt. Buses are simply not a solution after a certain point, the throughput is just too low, they are too slow and also they're polluting unless electric. I'd argue buses are good for a provincial town of max 50k people, but once the town becomes a city it needs a better solution as an addition to the buses. This is the reason why several cities in the UK have been trying to catch up to Europe and building light-rail systems.

Have you been to Vienna, Prague, Copenhagen?

Much smaller cities than London and of course in all of them buses are only ancillary. The core/skeleton of the PT is tram, underground and train (Prague & Vienna) or underground and train (Copenhagen).

Now, let's have a look at a more reasonable case worth as a case study applicable for Galway - Linz, Austria, population 200k, the PT map is below. 1, 2, 3, 4, 50 are tram lines, the rest buses.



Firstly, I call a bluff on the Corrib argument as it was an insurmountable river Amazon cutting through Galway City! Linz is split into three parts by two rivers, one of which is rather large (Danube) and despite that the PT including trams serves and integrates all the three zones.

Secondly, you can clearly see that the light-rail is the core of the network doing the long distance high volume North-South and West-East long routes. While buses are doing either radial routes or short "local" routes to server single or neighbouring districts. Also, notice the rather large number of interchanges where several tram & bus routes intersect.

This is how you design PT in a modern city, livable, European city.

There are dozens and dozens case studies from 100-200k cities on the continent where GCC/NTA could be looking at and literally pick and chose and design something similar for here. Sadly, instead they only look at England 30 years ago before they started looking into light-rail and on top copy the old-school English approach badly as well.

The problem in Galway is not lack of funding but lack of vision, ambition and poor governance (in that order).

McGiver wrote: »

Another example of a very solid light-rail project is from Sweden, and certainly a good case study for Galway.

...

They basically build a tram route from the city centre to a new area which they plan to expand to 50k people in next years.

https://youtu.be/5uEYhTfSHO8

Worth noting that Lund is a university town and hosts quite a few hi-tech companies & industries. And it positions itself similarly as Galway.

Ok, so if you were building a tram route from Ardaun to Galway city centre, where would you route it past? Parkmore / Ballybrit / Liosbaun (where residents are likely to work)? Or Roscam / GMIT (where they may study) / the Bons / Wellpark?

what_traffic wrote: »

I'd say NTA have finally shaken down the IDA to contribute a good bit towards transport infrastructure in Parkmore.
https://www.nationaltransport.ie/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Parkmore-Area-Strategic-Transport-Framework.pdf

Not too bad, do we know how many of the "08 PROPOSED PROJECTS - Phase 1" have been completed? These are the short term solutions for 2020/2021.

Overall, largely cosmetic patching as opposed to strategic development in my opinion, but at least they try consolidating the patches into one framework.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

It’s this attitude, in itself, that is the reason *nothing* gets built. It may be minutia to you, but to someone else it’s their home either a place to live or CPOed out of existence.

My question was about fundamental understanding of the city: of the two options, one connects homes with jobs, the other connects them with schools and hospitals. Which does the poster pick?

IMHO, ilt's the homes/jobs connection that gets more people using public transport (students will use it anyway, or will walk/cycle). But some campaigners just don't get that point.

Deleted User wrote: »

It’s this attitude, in itself, that is the reason *nothing* gets built. It may be minutia to you, but to someone else it’s their home either a place to live or CPOed out of existence.

Right, if you think so. I don't agree at all.

All what I see a very many arguments for "why not" whenever anything progressive/different is suggested. "Let's do it" and "if there's a will there's a way" attitude is missing. Instead, discussions are bogged down in details discussing "why not", right at the start. Any serious vision or ambition can't arise from this sort of climate.

I see a lot of, what to me looks like insularism, going on, to be honest. I'd say outside view is badly needed in Galway to broaden horizons, but I can see that it's not really welcome. And this is demonstrated even in this, let's say, moderately more open forum here.

Can only repeat myself that, and it's not only my opinion but an observation of outsiders from several different European nationalities, the issue in this town is - lack of vision, ambition and poor governance. It generally extends to most of Ireland, but it's very deep in Galway (for some reason), and some towns can do better indeed.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Where do you think I come from?

Not that I'm not interested, but is this a quizz or should we better discuss the topic (traffic in Galway) or better the specific points I made about PT, light-rail etc? :rolleyes:

Redkite200 wrote: »

That McDonalds drive thru seemed to be causing a huge amount of it as far as I could see with the queues coming in and out of the retail park.

Wasn't that great on d'other side either, someone plonked their car on the footpath and cycle lane on Seamus Quirke whilst running into McD's :rolleyes:

Deleted User wrote: »

... instead of looking at what people actually want.

Are you saying the people of Galway:
1. Don't want effective non-polluting modern European style light-rail system.
2. But rather want a second class polluting (hello diesel), slow and ineffective bus system instead.

#2 is what you'll likely get in the end with the "Bus Connects" if you're lucky...

donvito99 wrote: »

A proper bus system could well be faster than a tram system, given the same priority and stopping pattern.

A proper bus system can be all electric, with zero tail pipe emissions and as silent as a tram.

A proper bus system can be more effective than a tram system in that it can branch out, covering far more of the city for a tiny fraction of the cost.

I love trams, but electric buses do not require tracks. Overhead lines are infrastructure that can be used too. The city I'm living in now has natural gas buses which are also clean running (vs diesel).

I believe that there is a capacity difference too with Trams having a greater capacity than buses and greater priority in traffic. (Electric) busses should be only be considered temporary while funds are gathered for a proper light rail or metro system.

The tea leaves were read and said:

AND pedestrians were suicidal, I say this as a pedestrian.

Has looking both ways/obeying traffic signals/common road sense left the building?

When are they replacing the rest of the roundabouts?

Joyce roundabout (Bohermore) is an awful cause of congestion - well they all are really