Galway traffic

I think I need to get t-shirts made up because this has to be repeated so many times

There is not any plan, anywhere, by any authority or body, that shows how an immediate rebalancing of road space will be done following the opening of this road. There is no proposal, drawings, design or feasibility study or anything which indicates any such action would take place. No plan for new one-ways to free up space for bus lanes or bike lanes. Nothing, nadda, zip, zero, zilch.

In fact, history shows the exact opposite is true. Once new roads open, they lead to increased car usage thereby making it more and more difficult to reallocate space to alternative, more sustainable modes

Take any town, village or city in the country that had a ring road or bypass built and try illustrate how road space was rebalanced right after the new infrastructure opened. I'll save you the effort, you won't find one.single.solitary example anywhere, in the entire country. It has never, ever happened.

Here's 2 examples from Limerick in the 70's and the 2000's

Naas

Lest we forget

So yeah, saying this road is needed to do x, y or z doesn't really count for much unless you want to show me costs and detailed designs and proposals which have planning approval and are fully funded.

Otherwise its a case "its ok, you can trust us"

Would it surprise you to know that the planning documents state that only 3% of all demand falls into that category.

He responded to you with factual information, not arrogance or hypocrisy

Some recent comments from local TD's

Sinn Fein

Independent

perhaps the most damning comes from Fine Gael TD Ciaran Cannon using the planning applications own information to show how utterly stupid it would be to build this road

Support seems to be draining away

Allow me to present a conundrum for you and see how you would solve it.

The road network in galway city is currently at max capacity and can't accomodate any more private cars. This is with a population of approx 79k

The population of the city is anticipated to grow by 50% over the next 2 decades

How do you move 120,000 people in, around and through the city in an efficient and timely manner without reassigning road space to more efficient modes to encourage modal shift? Keep in mind moving 80k at the moment can't be done in an efficient or timely manner.

Before you answer, consider this, regardless of whether the GCRR is built or not, this question still needs to be solved as the GCRR will only keep 3% of the existing traffic of the existing streets as the other 97% will all come through city streets and roads once it gets off the GCRR.

In addition, take note of the content of the 3 Ciaran Cannon tweets above (see post #6579) when formulating your solution as they will give you an idea of the impact, or lack thereof, of the current plan to address this question.

2 more (non-green) local TD's calling for increases in PT spending and allocations for bus routes from the county into the city

Sinn Fein

Fianna Fail

More on the P&R's, this time looking at the Headford rd where there is no long term plan for the P&R, just an indication that one could go there

11,000 cars per day, NTA propose a P&R with 170 spaces and no bus lane infrastructure

NTA Active Travel and Sustainable Transport Measurement Grant Annual Bulletin (what a mouthful ffs) has just been released.

It goes through how each council have done with their spending of the active travel funding given to them.

Its great because they are all lined up and compared to each other in terms of projects applied for, completed and results.

Its pretty horrific results for the city council to be honest, especially considering how much funding they received

Some headline figures at a national level first

This is amazing to see and its still a long way off the 360mil a year thats available

Galway City Council got 5.57 million, not including the 10+ million allocation for Cross City Link

What was delivered is below, both councils marked

Now to be fair, I know they have projects in the works, like the Cross City Link, and its important to note that the approx 40 meters of bike lane in that project won't show up in the numbers until that project is formally completed.

The Dublin Rd redesign will be more substantial and will be along the lines of SQR in terms of infrastructure for crossings, paths, bike lanes.

And I'll freely acknowledge the great work they've been doing with laneways etc to add more permeability and the likes of Millars lane, all of which won't fall under the categories listed in this report.

Hopefully in time Galway's rollout will reflect the national graph below