‘Ring road won’t solve chronic traffic’
Solidarity’s and People Before Profit’s candidates for Galway West in the General Election have claimed that the proposed €650 million Galway City Ring Road project will not alleviate inner-city traffic congestion.
Conor Burke (Solidarity) said that light rail and a State-run school bus service to tackle the city’s traffic problems.
“Solidarity stand opposed to this project (the ring road), it is a short-term solution at best that will not alleviate the worst aspects of inner-city traffic congestion. It will do nothing to address the environmental problems that we face, in fact it will only add to them.
“Galway is a growing city with our population set to top one hundred thousand in the very near future, leaving aside issues around housing, more people means more cars and more parents bring kids to school, more people traveling to and from work.
“Building more roads in the context of a growing population as opposed to investing in public transport only intensifies the amount of traffic on our roads along with all the associated environmental concerns.
“What we need is a bit of long-term planning and vision as to the kind of society we wish to build, the outer city bypass fails in both of these respects,” said Mr Burke.
He suggested that “radical policies” need to be implemented here, including free public transport.
“Solidarity support the idea of an integrated light rail system for Galway as a key step towards developing a sustainable and long-term solution to Galway’s traffic crisis.
“On top of this we are calling for a State-run school bus service which would go a long way towards alleviating the worst effects of traffic congestion.
“We are also putting forward the idea of making all public transport free at the point of use, alongside the upgrading of bus and rail services to meet the increased demand that this would cause.
“These are kind of radical policies we need to be implementing if we are serious about reducing our carbon emissions while also solving the traffic chaos.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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