M6 - Galway City Ring Road [planning decision pending]

Finally!!! Now we can get settled in waiting for the inevitable several years of judicial review to pass.

It will be great when this finally gets going.

Disappointing. ABP still stuck in the 80s

Excellent news. Now if only the usual cranks and serial objectors could somehow be stopped from further holding up this absolutely vital piece of infrastructure for Galway. Anyone with an ounce of sense who knows the city knows that without the ring road any notion of creating decent public transport or a properly pedestrianized city core on the existing road network in Galway is doomed to failure. It's a disgrace that Galway is the only city in ROI without any semblance of a bypass / ring road. And it's great that this new road is just one part of a wider and well considered transport strategy. Get it built.

Surprised by the number of posters that think this will happen and that it's still a good idea. There's no way this will get funded and no compelling case for it to go ahead in any case.

Just as well you weren't around when the wheel was invented. Time to move on. Tree huggers always move on.

I don't think anyone has claimed that the Galway Bypass in isolation will solve Galway's traffic problems. It is simply a key part of the solution.

Just for a comparison, the Galway Bypass is expected to cost €600 for 18km of road over €33m per km. The N22 Baile Bhuirne to Macroom Road Project costs €280m in total for 22km T2DC through difficult terrain requiring 18 road bridges (some with large spans), 24 accommodation structures. So €12.7m per km.

The Galway Bypass will cost 2.5 times the cost of a difficult build DC elsewhere. For the same money, we should be getting 50km of DC. I cant see how this will pass Public Spending Code. In truth the benefits will be limited, it will only encourage more car commuting which is at odds with government policy. There are years of legal challenges ahead of this, they'd be better putting €100m into public and active travel now instead of pinning all hopes on a bypass which is still unlikely to happen.

The DPT is a completely different kettle of fish. The question is not cost alone but cost v benefit (hence why I stated what could be delivered instead). The benefits of DPT in terms of removing HGVs from the city centre and facilitating commuter buses, plus toll income, make it worthwhile. They actively discourage cars and there are obviously no intermediate junctions.

The Galway Bypass is not comparable at all and is designed with commuters in mind. It is to mainly allow people living in or around the city drive to other locations in or around the city. I understand the need for another bridge over the Corrib but the project as designed goes way beyond that, adding hugely to the cost for little benefit.

Its the American car culture mindset that says we need more roads, and more roads to bypass those roads.

A sprawl of "highways" and bypasses each going further than the last. Do you really trust Galway City Council not to allow houses and shopping centres be build beside the new ring road? It will all get incredibly built up inside and outside the ring road, until it becomes just another congested traffic artery like the ones we already have.

The solution is not to build more roads, it is to utilise existing roads more efficiently. Galway needs proper public transport (and density) - it does not need another distributor road so the parkmore traffic jam can move to the north rather than the south of the estate.

Nobody denies that congestion is an issue. But the proposed ring road will not reduce that congestion in the long term. You cannot accommodate cities by building more high capacity roads, those days are gone.

Comparison with Dublin Port Tunnel is ridiculous. Its a road that connects the countries biggest port by volume to the motorway network and removed the endless stream of trucks from Dublin City Centre. It saved many lives and lots of emissions. The proposed ring road will increase car usage and will not serve as a strategic link to any port, or any significant trip generator for that matter.

You say Galway isn't going to become a sustainable transport utopia, well its definitely not going to become an America style centreles road based city. And if we were willing to spend a whopping €600mil, Galway could indeed become such a transport utopia. Freiburg would be jealous. €600mil is a lot of bus and cycling infrastructure.

I think you're in denial about more roads simply not solving urban traffic issues as we have seen the world over.