Public transport in Galway needs a boost – much of our transport planning is based on huge infrastructure which is both expensive and time consuming to deliver. We need some long term vision, but in the short term we need to make improvements in what we have.
If we want to reduce the number of car journeys, for the majority of people, the bus is the next option. Public transport use in Galway city has increased from 3.8 million journeys ten years ago to over 5.3 million journeys now. A minor dip during the pandemic was followed by increased use after. Bus use increased 40% in a period where the population increased by 10%.
So what does this mean for Galway’s future plans. We have been told by those in favour of the Galway City Ring Road (GCRR ) that it is necessary in order to free up space in the city to allow for increased public transport.
The figures in the submission for the GCRR to An Bord Planála claim that the public transport use will increase by 28% by 2039. We have already passed that without a ring road. It is a myth that we need a ring road in order to provide public transport. What we actually need to provide public transport is more busses.
So what should we do next? The National Transport Authority (NTA ) is currently reviewing bus routes for the city. We need more routes and more frequency.
New bus lanes provided by the BusConnects program will be welcome but will take years to be delivered. Right now bus travellers main complaints are about frequency and reliability. A bus lane makes the journey quicker, but the biggest impact to journey time is the time spent waiting at the stop.
We need to put more busses on the existing routes, and create new routes. These changes should not wait for more lanes. Reduced bus fares delivered by the minister for transport in 2022 led to a surge in bus use. Increased frequency and more routes would lead to another surge – and we can do that now. No infrastructure required.
The minister for housing recently blocked city councillors from rezoning for housing in locations that that are car dependent. That means we have to put public transport and bike and walking options in place for anywhere we want to build new homes.
Recent decisions from An Bord Planála also cite lack of transport infrastructure as a reason to refuse planning. We can no longer build houses first, and leave the infrastructure until later.
A case in point is the Ballymoneen Road where one social housing development and one private development were refused because they would have been car dependent.
This is a huge setback to the council’s social housing goals – but we will not solve the housing crisis with bad planning. The decision was based on valid concerns and we have to address those concerns if we are to make a new application to build there.
A long standing need for a bus service for the existing homes had been ignored on that road. This challenge should galvanise the council and the NTA to make sure that the issues with that route are resolved and the residents of Ballymoneen Road upper are provided with a bus service.
