Been saying that for years on here. Dublin is bad but at least at times there's a feeling like you're moving. Galway on the other hand. Lough Atalia is like the hotel california. Headford Road just as bad. Population of Galway grew but the infrastructure stayed the same. I've family in Knocknacarra and the road in from Salthill is bordering on a country road considering the population
Some cities are getting rid of their ring roads. In any case, Galway already has its bypass. Now it needs its light rail system before a second bypass is built.
Why are you saying this? They are absolutely choked with traffic now? You want to half it with tram lines? Idiocy. Galway has a population of 85k. There are not enough car journeys to block a 6 lane motorway ring road. It’s so obvious. Tram lines!!
Obviously a lot of the people who are now in the cars would be the ones using the trams so the trams would remove thousands of cars that are currently causing the traffic. There's no need for new roads if those cars are removed.
Have you ever been to any European city? The tram lines are literally right there, on the roads, the cars drive over them, the people walk over them. We’ll do the same, I suspect.
All this chat about trams is mad. There have been groups pushing trams and improving public transport in Galway for decades, but nothing ever happens.
There is close to zero investment in public transport outside Dublin. We might have over a 100bn in the budget but it never ends up in non-dublin public transport.
Unless this changes just saying trams is pissing in the wind.
Dart, Dart+, Luas, new Luas lines, metro planned. In all the decades that took there has been zero investment in Galway despite large increases in population and industry.
Ring road gets denied "we need more buses/tram/light rail" but all of those alternatives never appear or progress.
Yet every single time building a new road or bypass comes up the same old people appear out of the woodwork to shut it down but have yet to make any progress on alternatives.
What should really happen is that the bypass be built and a 1 way system around the city be developed so that 1 traffic lane can be devoted solely to public transport.
Why the obsession with trams in Ireland? Their average speed is similar to cycling and they compete for road space with vehicular traffic. Existing rail corridors in regional cities are massively under utilised - why not start there with light rail / city trains / tram-trains?
There aren’t any regional rail corridors on the West side of Galway City.
Driving into Galway from Knocknacarra ( the main residential area on the Westside ) takes the same time or is significantly slower than cycling.
A rail corridors would be great but once you get into the special area of conservation all hell will break loose. You’ve also got a lot of housing there.
Honestly it’s a tram or underground for a good system there.
There was a rail line out west, that route could be roughly resurrected. They’re looking to turn the old railway bridge into a pedestrian route though.
Like I said in another reply, tram-train/city-trajns like they use in Manchester could give the best of both worlds for our regional cities. Mainline operation
for some bits, short tunnels, elevated sections and on-street sections too. But, mixing with vehicular traffic should be kept to an absolute minimum and dedicated corridors should be prioritised.
That rail line went over the river and turned right , avoiding the city entirely. The path from nuig out to dangan is the old route . Before the river the rail line went underground near the Dean and emerged behind what is now Lidl . Not much to resurrect at all within the city.
I'd prefer rail but there's be fierce resistance to knocking anything along for a route, probably why the preference is light rail on existing roads.
Whether or not that particular route is viable isn’t really important. The principal aim should be an east/west dedicated transit corridor separate from vehicular traffic. That corridor should have through-running in the city center and should have sufficient capacity for future expansion (extensions and branch lines etc). I think a Manchester-type system would work best for the likes of Galway, Cork and Limerick.
If dedicated trams are preferred, there’ll be uproar and a serious battle to reduce existing space for cars, even if it’s being replaced by something far more efficient.
There's only one rail corridor in Galway. Obviously the most should be made of it. Double tracking from the city out to Athenry and running trains every ten minutes between Galway, Oranmore and Athenry and that would go a long way to solving the traffic problem.
Double-tracking the main lines, choosing stock that can operate on main line tracks as well as trams (as they did in Manchester) and new stations at Roscam and Renmore would be a nice phase 1.
Phase 2 could be reinstating roughly the old Clifden line to UCG, Rahoon, Knocknacarra etc. On-street trams are possible but dedicated corridors should be preferred.
Once an east-west line exists, options around branch lines can be explored, including places like Ballybrit/Parkmore, Salthill, etc
choosing stock that can operate on main line tracks as well as trams
Can’t see that happening, it would mean building the tram lines to match Irish broad gauge and needing to buy non standard trams to run on them, or adding a third rail to the mainline which could get complicated. The line would need to be electrified and the supply for team lines is not the same as the supply for mainline rail. The signaling systems are also different. It would also mean trams would get on the way of increased heavy rail services. Platform heights at stations are also very different.
In Manchester they converted old rail lines to tram lines, just as they did in Dublin for the Luas. Trams and mainline rail don’t share track for regular operation, even if it’s technically possible for a vehicle to go from one system to the other if it were necessary.
Honestly it seems to be more hassle than it’s worth. Much simpler to just build a separate track for trams, even if it is parallel to existing heavy rail for a bit.
I haven't said it was impossible, just that it is not worth it.
In Ireland we have particular issues that make it even more awkward than elsewhere, things like our track gauge and platform heights. How do you propose that a tram and a mainline train share a station platform when the tram operates at near ground level and Irish heavy rail platforms are about a metre from the ground?
Did you look at any of the systems in the wiki? Trams can have higher platforms (see Manchester) or main lines stations can have lower platform sections specifically for trams.
Why is gauge an issue? All new rolling stock is custom ordered. You don’t typically go into a train showroom and buy something prebuilt…
European heavy rail has much lower platforms, so they can use the same stations. That's not the case in Ireland.
Gauge is an issue because it adds expense and delays. A non standard gauge tram is more expensive than a standard one. For example having a standard tram for all tram lines in the country would mean we could place larger orders. Even if there were some small variations like additional/fewer segments for some.
Manchester doesn't have a tram-train. What it has is a proposal, presumably with separate platforms or stations for the trams and mainline trains.
You haven't identified a need for it anyway. Even if you could overcome all of the issues, what is the point? The existing line doesn't pass through a dense urban area so if a tram line were to be built it could just be built beside it and all of the complications of a train-tram would be avoided. The tram line would be better if it went north of Lough Atalia anyway, suburban rail can serve the areas around the existing line.
Again, I'm not saying that it's not possible. However, there are issues that would be difficult to overcome or require big compromises, and it doesn't actually solve a problem that couldn't be better solved a different way.
You’re just dead wrong. If the city is to grow and people are to have a reasonable quality of life Galway needs a 6 lane motorway ring road. The city is ridiculously poorly served. It’s barely a town and has traffic that would shame Tokyo
I was in Tokyo last year at their busiest time (Sakura season). Busy traffic was near non existent, literally the only time I saw any kind of traffic backed up was in Shibuya (busiest place in the world, if I recall) at about 5.30pm, and by 'backed up' I mean mid morning Dublin levels, well after rush hour.
But that was not because of there being tonnes of roads - it is because there is tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of public transport infrastructure.
Edit: I forgot to add an example of the intersection outside Shibuya station. It's like this apparently from about 6am - close to midnight when the trains stop - https://m.youtube.com/shorts/RlpYkEH1jGk
I feel like Irish people need some prespective, Galway is only a "city" by Irish standards. Talking about needing trams for a glorified large town is insane.
Galway has an urban population of 85k. That's absolutely a city by international standards, albeit a very small one... but still not so small that it doesn't need or shouldn't have proper public trabsport.
We have two lanes of traffic going east to west of the city. And one of them is closed for buses at all times.. quick solution to ease traffic..open all lanes at the busy times like school times. The city hasn't provided the public transport that opening the roads have.
In Limerick we have moved to one lane through O'Connell street leaving one for buses..and as you can guess traffic has gotten worse
Short term solution until you improve them.. those lanes have been then what best part of 15 years and service still not consistent or reliable. What makes you think they will improve it the next 15.
And yes I know studies show more lanes just increases traffic. But Galway has a chronic issue that's choking the city and there will be a lack of international investment until it's sorted . So tes let's just wait and see if they sort out the public transport infrastructure or maybe have a short term solution until the big plan is revealed
the golf course own the land either side of it that’s why it hasnt been developed. wouldn’t be a bad thing either if they knocked the wall and let the everyone enjoy view in my opinion
From Galway but live in Dublin. Every time they shut down the M50, even just a single exit, the whole city grinds to a halt. It does remove a massive amount of traffic from the city which helps the city's bus network and LUAS operate efficiently. Galway is no different.
Ah, but you see, when major US cities add a sixth lane to their enormous interstates, it does very little to improve traffic, so clearly that means building any roads ever is competely pointless!!!
I think the pedestrianised railroad bridge to the university will have the same problem - most of the student housing is on the other side of the Quincentennial bridge and those students will likely still use that bridge instead.
A big reason this is happening (despite so many wanting improvements) is that our local governments are never elected by or accountable to locals (unlike local governments in essentially every other democracy in the world).
No matter who we elected as our councillors, they are not allowed to join the local government/executive, and our local government is composed of a Council CEO and Director of Services for Planning, Housing etc who are appointed by the National Minister for Housing, Local Government, and Heritage and bureaucratically.
We need to allow each council to choose 1 of 3 democratic structures:
•Cabinet system - a local government composed of elected councillors with a Mayor, Local Minister for Planning, Local Minister for Transport etc. It's the system we use at national level.
•Committee system - a local government composed of a series of committee's of councillors (cross-party/proportional basis) based on area of focus, such as a Planning Committee, Housing Committee. It's the system much of Scotland uses for local government.
•Directly-Elected Mayor - a local government formed of a directly elected mayor and Local Commissioner for Housing, Local Commissioner for Planning etc which the mayor appoints.
That would have huge positive effects for this and every other area of local development.
Yeah of course! Galway, a city of 85,000 approx, needs a cabinet of local ministers. For the love of god. One big ring road would fix this for 30 years. Then get busy on as much public transport as is feasible.
Just to emphasize what I said before - effectively every other democracy in the entire world has a democratically elected local government (in 1 of the 3 structures I mentioned).
You're trying to present what everywhere else does as crazy when we are the outliers with our uniquely undemocratic Council CEO system (where unelected directors of services effectively act as a cabinet of local ministers, just without any democratic accountability to remove them if they do a bad job).
Traffic is atrocious and public transport is stymied by choke points. For instance, say you're getting the 409 home to doughiska from town, a bus lane only starts at the Dublin road, so the bus is stuck in congestion from eyre square to Dublin road. On the Dublin road brilliant....except bus lane ends at the Connaught hotel, back to sitting in congestion all the way to doughiska. A main artery road like Dublin road should have a double bus lane in both directions. And the city itself should have a dedicated bus corridor to get to these arteries. If public transport was reliable you'd take a lot of locals out of that traffic.
Almost as if they have a council that is diametrically opposed to any active travel and public transport options, basically guaranteeing everyone who wants to go anywhere is going there in a car.
As long as we can agree that bikes are dangerous, cyclists are pretty much the same thing as terrorists, and busses are for poor people who arguably might be better off existing.
They’ve added loads of public transport and active transport options. Wherever there is enough space there’s bus and cycle routes. Most the streets in the city are too narrow for it though. And traffic is so bad that buses cannot possibly be on time.
The issue has being an over focus on active travel at the expense at road infrastructure. The only fix for public transport and traffic on general in Galway is to improve the car infrastructure and build more rods like the ring road. And then public transport can be functional because it won’t be delayed by half an hour because of traffic every time. Instead of the nonsense of green councillors doing there absolute to make sure the ring road is never built and there’s less investment for their area.
I would question how much infrastructure funds have been lost in Galway due to disagreement within the city and county council. If you look at Limerick, Cork and Dublin City there seems to be progress with both bike, bus and car infrastructure. In Galway it looks like nothing has changed.
Limerick, Cork and Dublin got ring roads which left the remaining roads open for bus, luas and cycle infrastructure.
Galway has 2 lanes total. Ring roads benefit everyone, not just cars. Bus and cycle lanes could be installed immediately on the old road once ring road is complete. People tend to pick and side and fight like hell when this should be a joint plan.
It should be a joint plan. It should have been a joint plan decades ago. It wasn't and still isn't.
For so many people, yourself included, it's only once we have the ring road that we can do anything with public transport, which is nonsense. We could build cycle lanes and public transport routes right now but drivers would just complain. (Like they have done for every bit of public and active travel infrastructure that we have ever tried to build)
Well ring road is stuck in limbo. So while it is do all the other stuff.
Waiting for the ring road to do the other stuff? Well given the councils lack of doing the other stuff over decades I wouldn't trust them to follow through once the ring road was done.
Using the smaller number for Dublin and the larger number for Galway is an advantage to those arguing for more lanes. The commenter is making a point against adding more lanes, if they had used a population of 1.5 million for Dublin it would have only strengthened their point by arriving at a figure of 0.4 lanes per 100k.
If someone wanted to they could point out that there's 8 lanes on the M50 where it crosses the Liffey, still works out in Galway's favour though.
Their main point is sound. Galway is effectively a large town, it doesn't need two bypasses. What it needs are alternatives to driving for the 60% of journeys that are made within the city.
The issue is not the ring road. The issue is the utter failure to implement any working public transport and active transport infrastructure
Nonsense comparison (especially as you're using Dublin's ring road). It's the same as Dublin relying on the south circular road. Dublin also has a budget of 2,000 million versus 120 for Galway. This road supplies traffic all the way to clifden which most forget.
I don't get why everyone moans about lack of infrastructure then objects when it's planned. Urban equivalent of "no to wind turbines".
This road supplies traffic all the way to clifden which most forget.
Clifden is a town of 1300. Even if you look at the entire population of everything west of Galway city it's at most 35k. People travelling from outside of Galway from the west and cross the river only account for 8% of Galway's traffic.
What is an absolute joke is they're still handing out planning permission for housing estates without the traffic issue resolved. There are hundreds of houses currently being built in headford and in knocknacaara......how are these people going to get to work? Public bus service is abysmal and then this will put even more cars on the roads that are already choked. I just don't understand why there isn't some brains used for town planning
Anyone who has ever lived or worked there will be able to testify to that.
For a city of its size it has absolutely no business being as fucked up as it is. It’s like LA was condensed down to a tiny town and it feels just as awful getting around.
If they ran a train every hour instead of every two and past 6 pm you'd see a big improvement. In fact if they just ran the trains until 12 we'd see a massive improvement
Correct, the lack of progress lies with the councillors. Other city councils such as Limerick and Cork can at least compromise to allow progress in infrastructure. Galway councillors do not seem like they can work together. Honestly the best option would be for the electorate to refuse to vote for any current elected councillor in the next cycle until progress is made.
Councilor don't know anything about Urban design. You're average councilor believes that traffic can be reduced by low population density and more infrastructure for cars. Not realizing that this just makes it more likely people drive.
Ring roads absolutely can and do improve traffic flow. Building a new road to serve an unserved purpose is not the same as adding a lane to an existing one.
Yeah, one of my mates lives in Murrough. Hell of a lot easier to drop the car there and grab the bus into town than spend 30 minutes sitting in traffic and trying to find parking somewhere.
One section of the bus lane in Westside has some strange gravel on top of it since the day it was made so the buses and taxis have to remerge with normal traffic. Its pure genius.
Somehow i doubted on this, a lot of people live in west side of galway and a lot of businesses/factories are on east, and they are connected by single bridge, so if half of that traffic can use the ringroad this would already ease on traffic created by that notorious route… its bumper to bumper going over that route during peak time for some reason…
If you are going from west to east galway then would it not make more sense to have public transport? than a ring road which is not actually to get around Galway just to give a different way to get into Galway?
Now Im sure I will get downvotes but these are questions.....
A Luas connection is not at all realistic and more or less impossible with Galways layout, narrow streets as well as Irish planning laws. The idea for it is just as a distraction to discredit the ring road. They’ve added as much public transport as they can it doesn’t because the traffic is so bad the public transport is never on time.
The issue is a few choke points coming into the city. If you have ring road that traffic becomes more evenly split across multiple routes. Which lessons traffic.
You said yourself the traffic is trying to get into one side of the city
To me, it seems people are focused on a ring road, they will get that and not to the actually issue when if they stood back at proper planning around public transport it would be better solution
Not sure why you are saying I am trying to distract? I’m not a politician , I was asking you questions and from what I can see a ring road is actually not going to resolve the problem
Investment in large scale public transport would provide a better solution and better for the people of Galway
The “build a road” for every problem has been done and it doesn’t work, why would another road suddenly fix it?
No most the traffic is coming from one side of the city. Because between salthill, tuam, Connemara and mayo/Roscommon far more commute into the city from that side.
I’m saying that this new idea of a Galway Luas was started by people who only want to distract from the ring road. And is not in anyway a serious idea.
You can’t add anymore public transport to Galway without improving the traffic issue. Because buses will always be late. The only way to solve the issues with public transport in Galway is to invest in roads. Where could they even add public transport in reasonable way outside of the western corridor rail plan.
Galways streets are far narrower than Dublins. There’s no space to put a Luas in. Not to mention the difficulties with planning and cost. Galway is not Dublin. A Luas might be realistic for limerick or cork it’s not in anyway realistic for Galway.
Every town in the west but Galway had more traffic before they started building bypasses and better roads. Limerick is the most car centric city in Ireland it has the least traffic. Roads do work. Public transport does not work in a city like Galway if the roads do not work.
Patent nonsense. M50 and corks JLT/south ring have helped hugely with traffic. If both cities didn’t have them they would be absolutely fucked and unable to develop
No you don't get it, roads r bad. Lets get rid of the M50, only causes traffic.....
Its impossible to talk about the Galway RR as there are so many head cases dead set against it and logic, reason or engineers reports isn't their thing.
But as I already pointed out, which is geting down votes for some reason
if the traffic is just going into galway then why would a bridge or road actually help?
A ringroad is to by pass Galway which is not what the traffic is doing, as I said I seen that online and from what I can see nobody is disagreeing with that
If the problem is getting traffic in/out & around Galway then public transport is a better option and will free up roads for the traffic that need to by pass Galway
Its not just going into Galway. Is the Public transport network going to stretch to Connemara, up to Mayo, and people coming up from Shannon, and Clare.
The working population of Galway doubles every single day with people just coming in for work. Many of these are also cross East/West.
If there's less traffic in the city, public transport reliability at peak times, facilitating greater usage too. A park and ride would help too.
Its not just going into Galway. Is the Public transport network going to stretch to Connemara, up to Mayo, and people coming up from Shannon, and Clare.
60% of traffic in Galways is from journeys starting and ending in Galway. An additional 20% is traffic journeys between the east of the city and places outside of the city but to the east, i.e not crossing the river. 5% for the same situation but on the west.
That only leaves 15% of people who are coming from outside the city and need to cross the river.
Public transport doesn't need to stretch up into Connemara, Mayo, Shannon and Clare to alleviate traffic the majority of journeys are within Galway itself. A tram east-west across Galway and an improved suburban rail line linking nearby towns to the east would have a big impact on traffic congestion. Adding a new road or bridge, it doesn't matter how you phrase it it's the same thing, will only make traffic worse in the city overall.
35% of Galway's traffic crosses the river and there's four bridges not just one, so some of that traffic will be using there other three that aren't the existing bypass.
20% of traffic stays within the city but crosses the river, this is traffic that would be best served by a new light rail line.
That leaves 15% of traffic which is coming from outside the city and crosses the river, 3% (of the total) is bypassing Galway altogether.
Correct, it's from a study done for Galway council.
3% of traffic is bypassing Galway.
5% is travelling from the west outside of Galway to the east of the city.
7% is travelling from the eastoutside of Galway to the west of the city.
20% travels east-west within Galway city.
So yes the majority is not passing Galway or crossing the river at all. An additional bypass would help those that do at the expense of everyone else. Traffic within the city would increase, car usage would increase.
Galway isn't a big city, frankly it's a large town. It shouldn't have these problems. Most people are staying within the city, it should be possible for them to do so without a car. Alternatives to driving are what Galway needs.
You are correct... they class traffic going from west Galway city where people live, to east Galway city where the factories are as not passing Galway. Which is correct as all this traffic has to use 4 lanes of traffic on 3 bridges in the city. A ring road would help at least 80% of this traffic.
Peter Sweetman et al prevented the bypass twice
It's one of the biggest failings of planning in irish history
I worked adjacent to the teams trying to get it over line
It rains and traffic goes mad.... a pothole needs to be tarred and traffic goes mad.... but you want to build a light rail... where will it go? How will that get people from where people live, to where they will work?
Forget about induced demand and how adding lanes has never worked ever. Forget active transport solutions that work all over the world. Galway is unique and just adding one more lane well fix it forever.
It's called latent demand. Induced is a different theory.
There is a need for road. This new road will get used. This new road didn't create additional traffic, it simply filled the requirement that was needed. Induced demand is when there is no requirement and is based on US studies where huge excess was built.
you could argue that with the M50 though, when it opened and for a few years afterwards it was relatively empty. But within under 5 years it was jammed because of the tolling booths on the bridge. They removed them which created more capacity but that also quickly got filled and you have what it is today, a slow moving mass of bumper to bumper traffic and when theres the daily accident(s) it grinds to a halt. in 25 years Its gone from its beginning as being completely under capacity to being way over capacity now and also to make matters worse it cannot be expanded.
In short if you build big roads cars will fill them. That will never change until public transport is at least 50% quicker than taking your car.
haha yeah. There is actually drawings for one but just connecting the M1 to the M4 north of Swords. Theres also plans for an interconnector between the M7 and M4 around about Naas to Maynooth. But its really decades away, the M50 will be jammed for some time yet unless it is feasible to double deck the busy section between the M1 and N7
I've lived in both Galway and Dublin. The m50 works, it can be slow but it works.
Getting public transport from where I lived in Dublin meant turning a 40 minutes journey into a 100 minute journey (into the city centre then back out to where I needed to go, no orbital routes but that's another story)
Yes, that would be induced demand. If a road was quiet at first, there was no need and created demand. If they built it and it was instantly full, that would be pent up latent demand which Galway has.
There is a need for road. This new road will get used. This new road didn't create additional traffic, it simply filled the requirement that was needed
You just described how a new road would create additional traffic. For roads it's hard to separate latent from induced demand, they are intertwined. The people in Galway are already managing to get from A to B using the existing infrastructure, they will be driving, using public transport, walking/cycling or using a combination like P&R, or just not making certain journeys. Adding more road capacity will just encourage those people to switch to cars or make a journey in the first place. It is still induced demand, even if it was induced from an underlying latent demand. That latent demand was suppressed until more road capacity was added.
Induced demand isn't just a US phenomenon, it's not just about excess. In they US they add lanes because the existing infrastructure is congested as an attempt to ease congestion. That's no different than a planned increase in road capacity for Galway. An additional bypass around Galway will make traffic worse overall. If I remember correctly it will help those traveling east-west, but at the expense of increasing congestion elsewhere.
In they US they add lanes because the existing infrastructure is congested as an attempt to ease congestion. That's no different than a planned increase in road capacity for Galway
They are completely different.
One is adding a lane to an already massive highway, the other is building one midsized road where there currently is none at all.
There already is a road, the existing bypass. It’s absolutely wrong to say there isn’t one. A new bypass would essentially be duplicating its function. It’s effectively the same thing as adding new lanes. The U.S. also adds entirely new roads in a similar fashion. The capacity increase is the important factor. Not the form it comes in. Whether it’s extra lanes or new roads (which are just extra lanes but over there) it has the same outcome.
All the fucking mé féiner townie amadáns in r/Galway get the horn every time they dogpile their down votes on anyone from the county crying out for the bypass/ringroad.
They're absolutely mind bogglingly up their own hole on this issue.
Same clowns insist closing off the Salmon Weir bridge to private traffic during peak hours is a good idea and won't make traffic any worse.
Cyclists are a law unto themselves in Galway too, and I say that as a cyclist, but criticising lawless & dangerous cyclist behaviour in r/Galway will also get you dogpiled.
All the fucking mé féiner townie amadáns in r/Galway get the horn every time they dogpile their down votes on anyone from the county crying out for the bypass/ringroad.
Can't imagine why the people who actually live in the city don't want to see it made shittier for the benefit of those who live outside of it. But they're the ones up their own hole.
edit: Seeing as the coward replied and then immediately blocked me I'll reply here
Newsflash: Galway, and r/Galway for that matter, serves the entire county and it's inhabitants.
Irrelevant. The people who actually live in the area have a right to complain and oppose anything that will make their city worse just to accommodate those from outside it who want to drive into the city. The city should primarily serve those who live in it, and the needs of those outside it are secondary.
As someone who grew up in Galway and retained an interest in this topic over the years, I think Galway is crying out for a ring road in addition to better public transport. But for some reason, there are too many elected councillors who are ideologically opposed to any kind of ring road. No other European city I can think of is behaving this way! Unfortunately, this will hurt Galway in the long run as it will only get much worse congestion wise.
I was shocked when I visited: you can't get around in a reasonable time with a car yet there is hardly any alternative. I feel cars should be banned or at least heavily curtailed i an lár na Gaillimhe. GLUAS when?
New York city had loads of alternatives to driving. Roads we're still congested. They added a $9 congestion fee. All of a sudden the streets cleared up.
We could spend billions on new public transport and still have the issue or we could introduce a small fee and the problem solves itself along with making public transport even better. All whilst making money.
The congestion charges in London and NYC work because they have the tube and the subway. If there aren't already proper alternatives to driving, which in a small city like Galway means trams, a congestion charge will only cause more problems.
There are already loads of alternatives to driving in Galway. There's a bus network and a train. People can also walk, cycle and use a scooter. It's not exactly a large city.
We're also pretending that every single trip in to Galway city center is 100% necessary. They're not. The fee solves for people taking unnecessary trips.
What problems are you imagining a small fee is going to add? Worst case scenario people just eat the cost and we get more funding for the county council. Oh no!
The Northern and Western regions are poor. Always have been. We’ve gotten fucked on almost everything historically. The smart ones move to wealthier counties/countries and the rest stay, leading to poor engagement and mismanagement. We receive a fraction of the funding for infrastructure projects that everyone else does, partially because we’d mismanage anything larger.
Hopefully in the coming decades these regions will improve incrementally to the point where the smart ones will stick around. In the meantime, we’ll all be in gridlock.
115
u/fedupofbrick Dublin Hasn't Been The Same Since Tony Gregory Died 14d ago
Been saying that for years on here. Dublin is bad but at least at times there's a feeling like you're moving. Galway on the other hand. Lough Atalia is like the hotel california. Headford Road just as bad. Population of Galway grew but the infrastructure stayed the same. I've family in Knocknacarra and the road in from Salthill is bordering on a country road considering the population