Galway has a big congestion problem. It has been going on for decades. You would think in this amount of time plenty of solutions would have been put forward to try and stem this problem and release Galway people from the misery of sitting unnecessarily in traffic for hours. This problem is bad for the economy, bad for the environment, bad for health and wellness and especially bad for children.
Of course, there were suggested solutions. A 6-month pilot for a cycle lane to Salthill was proposed in 2022 and scrapped by councillors at the last minute,[1] a Galway luas has been on the table for years, with the reports to prove it is a viable option only for it to be dismissed as an independent project . Bus Connects, which would make a massive difference to traffic for a relatively cheap price, has been in the planning and development process for years with realistic roll out times yet to be announced. Residents have taken matters into their own hands and established school cycle buses to allow children the experience of cycling to school in relative safety, proving the latent demand was there and hoping physical infrastructure would soon follow. Despite begging the council to protect the fragile bodies of young children and placing the responsibility of the dangerous infrastructure in the hands of the people who design the transport infrastructure, years have passed without infrastructural changes.[2] The Government, NTA and Galway County Council have not had a serious go at fixing this congestion problem without reaching for the most expensive, lazy and counterproductive solution: build another road.
More of the same.
The Galway ring road has planning permission to go ahead. It is the only promised solution which the government seems absolutely determined to force through despite the myriad problems associated with it. We know that this road will result in more traffic, its own modelling points this out and years of research has proven that adding road capacity, anywhere across the world, induces demand and only serves to worsen traffic congestion. We only have to consider that the last ring road built around Galway – which opened in the late 80s – has culminated in the decades of chaos that we see now. It does not take a lot to imagine that in the years after a further ring road is built around the city will continue to sprawl, car use will continue to climb and congestion will not take long to rear its head again.
But what about the climate?
This same project, in 2022, has its planning permission quashed due to failure to account for the States Climate Action Plan. Again its own modelling has stated that the road, during the construction phase and during it use, will result in significant increase in carbon emissions. Without any major revisions the plan went again before An Coimisiún Pleanála but it is this time painted as a piece of infrastructure which will allow more sustainable transport solutions to be developed.
For this project the government has committed at least €1 billion. The idea that this amount of money could be spent on a transport project in order to facilitate another billion-euro project in the form of light rail for a city the size of Galway is fanciful. More seriously the government is not willing to allow consideration of the climate crisis to put a spanner in the works of the ring road. The Critical Infrastructure Bill has passed through the Dáil earlier this month and is currently making it way though the Seanad. This Bill is seeking to undermine the climate action Act by the back door by disapplying section 15 of the climate action Act which ensures planning decisions must take into account climate obligations in the Act.
By refusing to progress any meaningful transit projects which would reduce car use in Galway, removing legislative barriers (designed to protect our environment and climate which we absolutely depend on), and pushing the idea of a ring road as the only solution, blindly ignoring all the research to the contrary, this Government is utterly failing the people of Galway and more broadly the people of Ireland by wasting vast amounts of money.
What a billion could do
Transitioning away from car dominance can require a little imagine as literally no-one living in Ireland currently has any experience of an alternative. Below I offer some alternatives of what could be done with that kind of money:
- Buy a million bicycles to give to the people of Galway
- Everyone in Galway could receive a payment of over 8,000 to use public transport or cycle
- 5000 schools could receive safer routes to school and entrances.[3] Building these to link housing estates and areas of high residence density to schools would be incredibly powerful.
- 182KM of fully segregated protected cycle path
- Built the luas
Alternative ideas including:
- major employers in Galway paying employees to commute by active or public transport
- Paying college and secondary school students to walk or cycle to school in Galway
- Low emissions zones which were so successful in London
- Enforcement of speedlimits / poorly parked cars
- Cycle hubs with cargo bikes in every housing estate
Some of these suggestions are fanciful, some are researched proposals but all of them would be more beneficial for people and climate than another road around the city which will, in a relatively short amount of time, fill up again – all the while destroying important ecosystems, physically dividing communities and paving over homes.
[1] Although much work has been done in the interim to get across the board buy in for a development which will include cycle lanes in Salthill.
[2] Work on the particular route the cycle bus operates on is scheduled to start later this year or early next year however issues has arisen in relation to bus lanes not being included in the design.
[3] Based on the assumption of approx. €200,000. The range of costs is estimated to be between €50,000 and €380,000.
